Cold Blooded Lover

by Eliza Lentzski

  “Thanks, doc.”

  I knocked lightly on the closed door before tentatively cracking open the door. I stayed in the hallway. “Everybody decent?” I called out.

  I heard only a grunt, but I took the chance and walked inside. Stanley followed close on my heels.

  “Catching up on a little reality TV?” I asked, keeping my tone light.

  Mrs. LeVitre turned off the television and tossed the remote farther down the bed. “Nothing better to do,” she huffed. “All the magazines are from last year and my cell phone’s dead and I don’t have a charger.”

  Stanley cleared his throat. “Mrs. LeVitre, did you get Botox recently?”

  Mrs. LeVitre narrowed her eyes at my partner. He seemed to shrink in response. “Who are you?”

  “This is Stanley Harris. He works with me,” I explained.

  “Don’t they have sensitivity training at police school?” she accosted. “As if it’s not bad enough that I’m sick in the hospital; now you’re accusing me of getting work done? Way to kick a girl when she’s down.”

  “So you’ve never had Botox?” I asked for clarification. Stanley’s question had been blunt, but I knew what he was trying to ascertain—where had the botulism come from?

  “No!” she snapped. “Just because I’m married to a plastic surgeon doesn’t mean I take advantage of the Friends and Family discount.”

  Victoria LeVitre startled me when she grabbed onto my arm. Her fingers wrapped tightly around my wrist and her manicured nails dug into my skin. “He’s trying to kill me, Detective—just like he did Tracey.”

  + + +

  We left Mrs. LeVitre at the hospital for continued observation and returned to the office to share the news with Sarah and Captain Forrester, if he was even around. I should have been excited. This was the big break that the case had needed, but instead, I was only annoyed and sad that I still hadn’t heard back from Julia.

  I paused in the doorway of the central office when I spotted Sarah sitting at one of the desks. “The gang’s all here.”

  “Stanley called to tell me about the botulism,” Sarah grinned. “Pay up, Detective.”

  “You’re really sick, Conrad,” I complained.

  “Don’t back out now.”

  “Oh, you’ll get what’s coming to you,” I assured her.

  Stanley was too distracted by the buzz and whir of the fax machine to take notice of our cryptic exchange. He hovered near the fax machine, waiting for the toxicology results. As soon as the pages finished printing, he snatched the printout from the fax machine.

  “Geez, eager much?” Sarah teased.

  Stanley ignored the jest. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he frowned. His eyes scanned up and down the sheet. “It’s not the same.”

  “It’s not Botox?” I asked.

  “It is, but it’s different. Botulinum neurotoxin is caused by bacteria called clostridium botulinum. There are different variations of the toxin—A through G with types A, B, and E being most common. The test the hospital conducted is new—designed by French doctors—it’s incredibly fast, but it only identifies type A. Tracey Green was poisoned by type F. It’s very rare—only about one percent of reported cases.”

  Sarah looked perplexed. “How do you know all of this stuff, Stanley?”

  He dropped his head. “I live alone.”

  “Maybe people used a different kind of Botox now than they did a decade ago?” I guessed.

  “Maybe,” he concurred. “But the FDA only approved it for cosmetic surgery in 2002. I can’t imagine it’s changed that much.”

  “Who else would know about this kind of stuff?” I asked.

  “Dr. LeVitre,” Sarah unhelpfully noted.

  “Another cosmetic surgeon, I suppose,” Stanley added. “I’ll make some calls.”

  While Stanley looked up phone numbers at his computer, I sat at my desk and stared at the office clock. The time was totally wrong; it had stopped at some point.

  “I never told Mrs. LeVitre how Tracey Green died,” I thought aloud. “Did you?”

  Sarah shook his head. “I’ve never spoken to her.”

  “Stanley—had you ever spoken to Mrs. LeVitre before today?”

  “Nope,” he confirmed before returning to his phone call.

  I tapped my fingers against my lower lip. “Besides us, who else knows how Tracey Green died?”

  “Her parents,” Sarah noted.

  I shook my head. “I was careful to tell them she’d been poisoned, not what kind of poison. I thought it would have been too much for them to process.”

  “The honey lady,” Stanley reminded me.

  “That’s right.”

  “Honey lady?” Sarah repeated.

  “Diana Plantz. She was friends with Tracey Green. She thought she’d accidently killed her with bad honey.” I shook my head as I considered. “I can’t imagine Diana Plantz and Mrs. LeVitre talking about this. They apparently don’t think much of each other.”

  “Would Captain Forrester have had any contact with her?” Sarah proposed.

  “I doubt he knows those kinds of specifics,” I remarked. “He’s still been calling her Jane Doe.”

  “What are you thinking, Cassidy?” Sarah pressed.

  I leaned back in my office chair. “I’m not sure. But Mrs. LeVitre knows more than she’s been letting on.”

  + + +

  I didn’t knock on the door for my second visit of the day.

  Mrs. LeVitre smiled with my entry. “Back so soon, Detective? Where’s your rude little friend?”

  “Mrs. LeVitre—.”

  “Victoria,” she corrected me. “I think we’re probably on a first-name basis by now.”

  I ignored her request. “Mrs. LeVitre. Your tests came back with trace amounts of Botox in your blood. But it’s not the same kind of chemical that the coroner found in Tracey Green.”

  “So Stephen changed products in the past eight years,” she dismissed. “What does that matter? I’m still in this hospital bed,” she practically growled.

  “Maybe,” I concurred. “But more importantly, I never told you how Tracey Green died.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “You said to me at our last meeting that your husband was trying to kill you, just like he did to Tracey. But I’ve never told you how Tracey died.”

  Her eyelashes rapidly fluttered. “I-I’m sure you must have. All this time we’ve been working together, you must have said something.”

  “I can guarantee you that I said nothing like that, Mrs. LeVitre. There’s no way you would have known there was Botox in Tracey’s blood at the time of her death. The only way you would have known that is if you were somehow involved.”

  Mrs. LeVitre sat up straighter in her hospital bed. She didn’t move with the same physical pain as I’d witnessed the day before. The anti-toxin must have worked quickly or she’d been putting on a show for me before.

  “Are you suggesting, Detective, that I purposely poisoned myself to frame my husband for my ex-girlfriend’s murder?”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Is that a confession?”

  “This conversation is over,” she said tightly.

  I couldn’t help my grin, even though I knew it was unprofessional. I shuffled backwards as I headed for the exit. “You’ve got my number. Let me know when your lawyer lets you talk again,” I said with a slight salute.

  I walked into the hospital hallway with a noticeable bounce in my step. Victoria LeVitre may not have killed Tracey Green herself, but she at least knew who did.

  + + +

  It was after hours, but Julia’s black Mercedes was in the parking lot of the public defender’s office. The front office door was locked, but the few lights that were still on illuminated the features of Alice, the office assistant. I knocked on the glass door and it rattled on its metal hinges.

  Alice gave me a quick wave and hopped up from her reception desk to unfasten the deadbolt.

  “Hi, Cassidy.” She met me with a bro
ad smile. “Julia’s working from home today.”

  “I know she’s here, Alice. Her car’s in the parking lot.”

  Caught in the lie, the pretty office aid’s cheeks flushed. “Ahm.”

  I couldn’t imagine that my private, guarded girlfriend had told Alice the details of our fight. But she knew enough to pass along a practiced lie.

  “I need to see her, Alice. Please,” I implored.

  She hesitated for a moment longer before taking a step backwards. “If she asks, you overpowered me.”

  I flashed the girl a quick smile of thanks as I rushed by her. “You got it.”

  For as quickly as I had barged into the office building, I now hesitated before Julia’s partially closed office door. She didn’t want to see me. She’d told me only the previous morning that she’d needed time. But I was feeling empowered from my interactions with Victoria LeVitre, and the first person I had wanted to talk to about it was Julia. Not to pick her brain about the case—I simply missed her.

  I took a breath. There would be no middle ground. This could be a colossal mistake or a massively payoff.

  I knocked to announce my entry before walking in.

  Julia sat at her desk, surrounded by her usual environment of thick law tomes and case files. She looked up from the memos in front of her and peered at me over the top of her reading glasses.

  “Cassidy,” she sighed.

  I held up my hand, hoping to cut her off before she could turn me away. “I know you asked for time, but I don’t want to be away from you another minute. I missed you all day.”

  Her bottom lip quivered. “I missed you, too. But that doesn’t change the fact that—.”

  “I don’t know what I have to say or do to convince you, but I’m not going anywhere. My brain,” I tapped my skull, “—this … thing it does, that sucks, yeah. But I’ve got too much good in my life to want it to end. I’ve got you, Julia. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And if we’re being perfectly honest, without my PTSD, you and I would have never met. If I had never had PTSD, I never would have left MPD last spring.

  I never would have had a going away party with my friends. I never would have spilled two drinks on a mysterious, attractive stranger. I never would have moved to the tiny town of Embarrass, Minnesota where I’d fall hopelessly in love with her.” I sucked in a breath to let my brain catch up with my runaway tongue. “Let’s not see this thing as an obstacle or a handicap. Let’s see it as the thing that brought us together. What do you think?”

  Julia wet her dark, stained lips. “Hopelessly in love, huh?”

  “Well I’m glad you heard at least some of that,” I laughed.

  Julia rose from her desk. She wore her traditional uniform of pencil skirt and tucked in Oxford shirt, unbuttoned to the third button, but there was something nearly disheveled about her appearance as if she hadn’t had the patience or desire to aggressively iron her clothes that day.

  Julia crossed the room. She’d discarded her stiletto heels some time earlier and stood in nyloned feet. With me in my motorcycle boots, I practically towered over her.

  Her arm brushed past me to the door through which I’d just entered. I felt the gust of air at my back and heard the metal latch as the door shut, this time with me in the room, and not in my face.

  Insisting hands tugged at the bottom of my shirt and pulled the tails out of my pants.

  “Julia,” I began my protest. Sex wouldn’t fix this; we needed to talk.

  “Don’t. Don’t speak,” she commanded as she loosened my belt. “Alice will hear.” My badge dislodged from the leather strap and fell soundlessly to the floor.

  Her actions were rough and jerky, pulling my leather belt free from my pants and then unfastening the overly complicated button and metal latch at the top of my dress pants. My knees buckled when she slammed the zipper down.

  Her fingers worked on the buttons of my dress shirt until the front was completely open. She moved next to the bobby pins and elastic band that held my hair back. Still-damp tendrils fell loose around my face and my nostrils filled with the scent of my shampoo.

  Her fingers moved gently, lovingly, through my hair, and I sighed as her fingertips massaged my scalp. The tender action halted, however, when her grip tightened and pulled my hair near its roots. She fisted the hair on either side of my head and held me still while she stood on tiptoe to kiss me. The embrace was aggressive and rough, nearly biting my lips with an urgency that reminded me of our first few times together.

  She left my hair and pushed me toward her desk. I stumbled a few feet backwards until my backside met the edge of her workstation. Julia still said nothing. She stalked across the room to stand before me once again.

  Her hands roughly cupped my breasts over my bra. Unlike her own lingerie, my cotton undergarments were practical and utilitarian. She tugged down on the cups until my breasts spilled free from their confines.

  She dipped her head and her raven black hair cascaded over her face like an inky waterfall. Her lips sought out my breasts, and I sucked in a sharp breath when she bit down on my sensitive nipples. She rotated her mouth between my breasts, releasing each one with a noisy pop. I gripped the edges of her desk for stability. I was powerless to do much else.

  She abandoned my breasts, but only to shove her hand down the front of my pants. She bypassed my underwear completely and must have been pleased to find me shaved, wet, and ready for her fingers. She slipped over my clit to seek out my entrance and curled two fingers inside. The heel of her palm mashed against my clit with each aggressive thrust.

  Her free hand once again sought out my messy curls. She held me in place by biting hard on the side of my neck while her fingers pierced my sex. My breasts, shiny with her saliva, were flushed and swollen.

  “Promise me,” she said, speaking for only the second time since she’d shut the door. “Promise me you’ll be stronger than the rest of them. You fight it. We fight it together.”

  It took me a moment to decipher what she was referring to. Whatever her fingers were doing inside my pants made me temporarily forget about my PTSD and the similarities between her brother and myself.

  “Promise me, Cassidy.”

  As if to punctuate her demand, she corkscrewed her fingers inside of me. I let out a squeak, but I couldn’t form words. My mouth fell silently open, and I nodded in agreement to whatever she said. Whatever she wanted was fine by me.

  Her fingers left my underwear, leaving me empty and unsatisfied. I couldn’t help myself. I rubbed myself against her solid upper thigh. My emotional stability had been on an erratic roller coaster over the past few days. I needed this.

  My pants zipper rubbed me through my underwear. It dug deliciously against my swollen clit. I felt the tightening first in my gut and then the waves pulsed from my core.

  “Oh, fuck,” I whimpered. “Oh fuck me, Julia.”

  I signaled my release with a barely contained cry. I tried to temper my noises knowing that Julia’s assistant sat in the front lobby. Hell, for all I knew, she could have been standing just beyond the closed office door with her ear pressed against our only barrier.

  I buried my face into her shoulder. My breath came in heavy bursts, and my skin felt flushed from endorphins and embarrassment.

  “I’m sorry,” I breathed. “I-I got impatient.”

  Her lipstick-smudged mouth formed a knowing smirk. “So I noticed.”

  I jerked my thumb towards the closed office door. “Do you, uh, do you think Alice heard all that?”

  Julia hummed. “Undoubtedly.”

  I rearranged my bra and began the task of putting my clothes back together, first fastening my pants and then buttoning up my shirt.

  “I hope it’s okay I dropped by.” I was suddenly unsure of myself.

  “I didn’t exactly make you leave,” she pointed out.

  I tucked my dress shirt into my pants. “I really wanted to respect your wishes. I wanted to give you time and space and all
that, but there was a big break in the Tracey Green case, and I was really excited, and you were the first person I wanted to tell about it.”

  Julia ran a soft hand the length of my cheek. “You’re very sweet,” she approved. “Now tell me, what happened with work?”

  “Victoria LeVitre slipped up. She somehow knew that Tracey Green had been poisoned with Botox, even though no one on my team told her. She got tangled up in her own lies, and we caught her.”

  Julia’s warm smile rewarded my efforts. “That’s wonderful, darling.”

  “I’ll have to talk to the Assistant D.A. about getting a warrant,” I thought aloud. “I probably could have arrested her right there in the hospital on probable cause, but I was totally unprepared. I didn’t even have cuffs on me.”

  Julia’s eyebrow arched in thought. “Do you have them with you now?”

  I licked lips that had suddenly gone dry. “Damn it.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It was a beautiful day, or maybe it only seemed that way because the most amazing woman I’d ever met was holding my hand as we walked along St. Paul’s cobbled streets. I hadn’t wanted to get out of bed. Forget work and being an adult and responsibilities, this was where I lived now. I didn’t want to detach myself from Julia’s side, but eventually my stomach growled, a reminder that one cannot subsist on orgasms and cuddles alone.

  Julia stopped in front of a popular brunch spot known for its bottomless mimosas and outside patio. “Do you want me to check on the wait?”

  “Sure,” I agreed.

  She started to walk towards the hostess stand, but I refused to release her hand.

  Her painted mouth quirked when she reached the end of the human tether. “You’ll need to let go, dear.”

  I gave her arm a strong tug to bring her back to me, like dance partners on the ballroom floor. Her free hand wrapped around the back of my neck and her fingers twirled around the short blonde curls that refused to be pulled into a ponytail.