by G. G. Andrew
“Just sit down.” She put her hands on Kim’s shoulders and guided her to sit on the couch. “Explain. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“Really?”
“Mostly.” She ran her fingers through her hair and tugged. “Okay, I’m a little freaked out.” She exhaled, feeling some of the tension release from her body. She felt so much more comfortable here, with the person who knew her better than anyone else. Not to mention Jamie, who’d broken the law so many times and in so many places around the world she didn’t need to feel like a bad person around him.
“God,” Laurel breathed. “Did they take anything? Do you know who did it? Did you call the cops? I hope you called the cops.”
“No, no, and no,” Kim said. “But guess who Mom sicked on me?”
Laurel’s face crumpled in awareness. “Oh, no.”
“Yup.”
“Doesn’t she realize Scott Culpepper has a thing for you?”
“Had,” she said by habit, but then she remembered how he looked an hour ago. She shook her head. “I mean, probably. She probably thought it would work to her advantage. She’s crafty like that.” She folded her legs up, resting her forearms on her knees and leaning her head back. “He went with me to the apartment this morning to check things out.”
Laurel crashed onto the couch sideways, facing her. “Maybe this is good. He’s a cop, and the rest of the force in New Haven isn’t exactly…”
“Eager to help me? Would think I’m getting what I deserve after all the stuff I’ve stolen through the years?”
“Mm,” Laurel said, obviously not disagreeing. “Did he find any clues?”
“Not really.” Kim paused, dreading saying the next part. “There was a note. It said, Give it up bitch—”
Laurel inhaled sharply.
“Put the thing you took in your mailbox. Except I’m not sure what it is,” she finished. “So that’s a problem.”
Laurel said, “Oh God, you can’t stay there.”
“I know.” Her self-preservation instincts at least went that deep.
“You should stay here.” Laurel’s eyes looked over the back of the couch at Jamie, who stood with his arms folded, his brow furrowed as he stared at the floor. “Right?”
“Right,” he said distractedly. “You have any old boyfriends who could’ve done this?”
“Hutch,” Laurel broke in. “He was such an ass. Do you have something of his? I wouldn’t put it past him…”
Kim thought of her five o’clock-shadowed, pot-dealing ex and shook her head. “I don’t think so. This isn’t really his style.” Coming up to her and gruffly demanding she hand over a thing—that was more Hutch’s style. Unless he didn’t want her to know it was him for some reason. “And I’m cool at Mom’s.”
Laurel raised an eyebrow.
“Well, maybe not cool,” Kim admitted. “But I’ll probably survive in the short term. We haven’t had a fight in”—she checked the time on her cell—“almost two hours.”
“You haven’t seen her in two hours, have you?” Laurel asked.
Kim grinned.
“What about Ian?” Laurel considered. “Although his place is probably full of potato chips and porn mags.”
“I was thinking video games and cheese curls. Six and one half dozen, I guess.” She dropped her legs to the floor. Catching her sister’s glance, she added, “I’ll be fine, Laurel.”
Wordlessly, Laurel grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in for a tight squeeze. “You can come over here,” she whispered. “Any time. Middle of the night, whatever. Just be careful.”
Stepping away, Kim repeated, “I’ll be fine.” She wanted that hug, but she didn’t want to dwell in it either, or she’d start crying like she almost had at the apartment. She had to get up and go to work and live her life.
“Right,” Jamie interjected. “Because no one breaks into big homes in good neighborhoods like your parents’.” Kim rolled her eyes, but felt a rush of warmth at his protectiveness.
“I’ll be fine,” Kim repeated as she met his gaze. She nodded to Laurel. “And keep telling her that, because she’s going to be freaking out the rest of the day.” She stood up. “I’ve got to go to work, so you guys can continue doing your creepy sex things.”
Laurel blushed as Jamie grinned and asked, “It’s creepy sex things now, is it?”
“It’s always creepy when it’s your sister.” She opened the front door. “I like your mouse, by the way.”
Chapter Six
Scott
Scott was still thinking about Kim Xavier when he pulled into the station for his shift.
Something didn’t sit right with him. Not about her break-in, and not about Kim herself.
He’d been at a lot of crime scenes, and perps who broke into houses usually took something. They didn’t just ransack a place and leave. He knew, with a tightening in his gut, that this wasn’t an ordinary criminal, no down-on-his-luck kid who needed money for drugs. The person who’d done this was deliberate. They were desperate, probably angry. But they also seemed controlled, calculating. And Kim didn’t know what it was they were looking for.
Or did she?
As Scott gripped the steering wheel, watching people move in and out of the precinct, he had to admit that not only had he not figured out Kim Xavier, he hadn’t stopped trying. A cop for seven years, he had a pretty good read on people. Their motivations, what made them tick, sometimes what they were thinking. Often what they’d do next. With her, he had no damn idea.
At first, it’d been that unpredictability that drew him in. He’d spied her on the New Haven Green, a curvy brunette with bright red lips and a mischievous twinkle in her eye, and he couldn’t resist talking to her. Even though he’d been on the job, even though he’d succeeded at staying away from any devil-may-care women for the past four years, since Alexa left.
He’d seen many pretty women since he’d moved to Connecticut, but she was hot in a way that attracted him like metal to a magnet. A way that made him need to know what unexpected thing she’d say with those lips, and then what she’d say after that. That made him dream about what else those lips could do.
Once he discovered that she was a Xavier, the daughter of well-to-do and well-respected lawyers, he’d been surprised and even more intrigued. Where had that streak of wildness come from?
He almost deserved to find out she had a criminal record. You couldn’t eat a lot of candy without getting cavities. You didn’t get with wild women without getting scratched. It should’ve felt like a relief. Now he had a reason to keep away from her.
But it hadn’t kept him from wanting her.
Scott exhaled hard and smacked the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. He wanted to catch the guy who’d left that note for her, and it wasn’t just about getting her away from his neighborhood. The thought of someone threatening her like that made every muscle in his body tense.
When he found the guy, he’d have to resist slamming him against the nearest brick wall. The least he could do was throw him behind bars so he couldn’t threaten her again.
He opened his car door and walked into the station.
Jimmy was at his desk with a steaming mug of coffee and a thick stack of paperwork, the bags under his eyes too big to fit in any overhead compartment.
He nodded to Scott and exhaled. “These forms, man.”
Scott made his way to the coffeepot. “You look like hell.”
“I feel like hell.”
“Late night?”
“Late breakup.”
Scott put the coffeepot down and faced him, surprised. “Ruby?”
Jimmy ran a slightly trembling hand through his brown hair. “It’s over, man.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, not sure I am. She got kind of mean at the end.” He chuckled harshly. “Pretty sure she’s going to go back to her old boyfriend. Whatever. He can have her.”
“You don’t need her. You’ll find someon
e else.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Jimmy scrubbed his face. “Let’s talk about something else. What’s new with you?”
Recognizing his fellow officer’s need to move on, at least at work, Scott picked up the pot again and poured a cup of hot brew. “Not much. Lily’s really into playing this princess game—” Scott stopped as he glanced over his shoulder and caught the glazed look come into Jimmy’s eyes. A vision of Kim popped into his head again, for the zillionth time. This is what he’d wanted to talk to Jimmy and the other officers about anyway, not small talk. He cleared his throat. “Hey, did anyone ever catch that guy, the one who kept leaving that woman the notes on her car?”
“Now that guy was a piece of work.” Jimmy shook his head. “Naw, we never figured out who did it, and eventually he stopped I guess. Maybe found a different hobby.”
“Hmm.” That’s where Scott had recognized the handwriting, on a case from last fall where a Yale graduate student had reported threatening notes being left on her car. He remembered one that said, You think you are smart but your a dumb bitch. The woman hadn’t been able to figure out who was behind it, and neither had the detective assigned to the case, Carter Morales. Without more to go on, an arrest couldn’t be made. At least the asshole had moved on, though as Scott recalled the handwriting, he wondered whether that was true, or if he’d simply found a new target. He made a mental note to check the evidence as soon as he could to compare the penmanship of the two.
For some reason, he wasn’t ready to share this with Jimmy, so he changed the subject. “Have you heard anything weird going on in the west side of the city, off Elm?”
“Not as far as I know. Why?”
“No reason, just a rumor I heard.” Scott added some creamer from the mini-fridge and stirred it in, his back to the officer. “Anybody report an increase in robberies the past couple of days?”
“Nothing more than the usual.” Jimmy’s chair squeaked as he straightened up in it. “Well…”
Scott turned around, the red stir stick still in his mug. “Yeah?”
“The thing last night on Willow was a break-in,” Jimmy said, watching him. “Ada took the call.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Didn’t catch whoever did it, though.”
“What’d they steal?” Scott asked.
“The guy’s wallet, his PlayStation. He was pretty pissed.”
A few cops came in, joking and laughing. After nodding their greetings, Scott sat down at the cubicle next to his friend. He’d only known Jimmy since the fall, but he was an okay guy and a good cop. Scott needed a second opinion on this.
“A friend of mine had a break-in last night,” he said in a low voice so the others wouldn’t hear.
Jimmy’s eyebrows raised. “Off Elm?” he guessed.
“Yeah.”
“What’d they take?”
“That’s the weird thing. They didn’t take anything. Just left a note, saying they were after something.”
“So your friend must know who did it,” Jimmy said. “That’s not a robbery, that’s a threat. Who was the responding officer?”
Scott swallowed, already regretting admitting the next part. “She—my friend—didn’t want the cops involved. She’s had some stuff going on that’s made her wary about law enforcement.”
Jimmy’s eyebrows went higher.
“I’m helping her out,” Scott rushed to add. “She doesn’t know who did it. I’m asking around, trying to see if there are any suspects. This friend wants her privacy.” He took a sip of coffee and nearly burned his tongue. “And she’s not staying there, of course. She probably wouldn’t anyway, but I advised her not to.”
“This ‘friend’ wouldn’t happen to be Kim Xavier, would it?”
Scott’s grip around his warm coffee mug tightened. The other officers had known he’d met Kim when he was fresh on the New Haven force, and they had guessed from his behavior that he’d been attracted to her. Which had made half the guys and some of the women on the force particularly gleeful when they revealed that they knew Kim too, on account of her being caught red-handed stealing so many times. They’d all had a good laugh, and still did from time to time, recounting how Scott had taken a false tip from her regarding the whereabouts of her sister and the graffiti artist she was dating, whom the force had been trying to apprehend at the time.
Scott nodded to Jimmy and lowered his voice even more. “Yeah,” he admitted. “She’s in some kind of trouble, so I’m just checking it out for her. Because, you know, her parents are my neighbors and all.”
Jimmy chuckled. “I’ll bet she’s in trouble. A girl like that, always taking what’s not hers. She probably pissed off the wrong person.”
Jimmy’s tone had gone from depressed over his breakup to downright amused, and Scott regretted even bringing it up.
“You know what some of us used to call her down here?” Jimmy continued, starting to laugh.
Scott knew, he’d heard it before, but as he glared at the checkered tile at his feet, he knew he was about to hear it again.
“Lollipop,” Jimmy said with a chortle. “Because of how sticky her fingers are, and also that red lipstick she’s always wearing.” He whistled low. “That girl’s got problems, but damn if some of us don’t mind it when Little Red Lollipop comes around.”
Scott set his coffee cup down on the desk with a hard thud. Despite knowing it was true—that Kim Xavier seemed to have sticky hands and also that she was probably the hottest criminal ever to enter New Haven PD—his body tensed at the way Jimmy talked about her, like she was a public commodity. A lollipop.
“Okay,” Scott said, turning to face Jimmy. “That’s enough.”
Jimmy calmed his laughter into a smug grin. “Sorry, man. But you probably shouldn’t hang around her much, lest you start sticking to trouble too.” He tried to wipe the grin off his face, like he didn’t think Scott was totally pathetic right at that moment. “Get her to file a police report. Have another officer respond.”
“I know.” Scott sighed.
His phone rang then, and for half a second he wondered if it was Kim, and his heart stuttered with fear and excitement—equal parts Was she in trouble? and What is she going to say to me?
He looked at the cell. It was Bette.
“Hey,” he answered. “Everything okay?”
“No,” Bette said. “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news.”
Chapter Seven
Kim
When Kim parked at Hot Haven Coffee, she could see the line from the parking lot.
“Guess it’ll be good to stay busy,” she muttered. She jumped out of the car and made her way towards the entrance, especially since Viktor, who had the shift before her, was slumping out the door already. A man of few words, the Russian Yale grad student Boyd had hired two months ago was nothing if not punctual, especially with leaving. Based on his personality alone, Kim suspected he was a hit man for some mob.
“Hey, Viktor.”
Viktor looked down at her morosely through a fringe of overgrown dishwater-blond hair. “Hello.”
He kept walking, and Kim resisted adding a cheery, “Good talk!” because Viktor never seemed to appreciate her sense of humor.
Inside the shop, the air was tinged with mocha, and her boss Boyd was filling orders rapid-fire, his favorite speed.
“I’m here,” Kim called over the whir of the steamer. She stashed her purse in the back room, then grabbed a green apron to tie around the waist of her slacks and black shirt. She was glad for the distraction of work. The rest of her life—not to mention her worldly possessions—was currently more clusterfucked than she’d prefer to think about.
“Grab me a croissant,” Boyd called as she passed by the pastries on her way to see what skinny latte of the week she could whip up for the middle-aged woman standing at the front of the line.
“Butter or chocolate chip?”
Boyd sneered. “Butter.”
“Just asking.”
“There a
re some things in this world that just shouldn’t cross,” Boyd philosophized as he pumped a few shots of caramel syrup into a cup. “Croissants and chocolate are two of them.”
Kim flashed a grin at the four people waiting in line. “I hope none of you are going to order a chocolate chip croissant. Or else you’re going to get some kind of croissant purity lecture.”
The woman smiled as Boyd scoffed and danced around her. A couple inches taller than her, her dark-haired boss was short for a man, but he had the energy of three baristas.
“What’s next?” she asked Boyd as she grabbed a cup.
“Lemonade iced tea, flat white, and…” He spun and pointed a finger at the third man in line, a young guy with a hat who was tapping on his phone.
“Small black coffee,” the guy said without looking up.
“Ah.” Boyd flashed her a grin. “Small black coffee.”
“I’m on those.” Kim filled a plastic cup with ice and grabbed a pitcher. “You know you could just not stock chocolate croissants. Then you wouldn’t be so horrified when someone orders one.”
“What’s the fun in owning a coffee shop,” Boyd said as he rung up the woman, “if you can’t judge the customers for their orders?”
“True.”
Boyd had gone to Yale, like many of the customers at the coffee shop, but he’d come from more modest means than most of them. Around the edges of getting his economics degree, he’d pinched pennies, made some smart short-term investments, and called in a few favors to start Hot Haven a year after graduation. He was quick and efficient, and he’d given Kim a chance last year, even though he was aware of her police record. She was grateful, even if the smell of coffee beans permeated all her clothing.
“So how’s it going?” Boyd asked as the last customer in line left, allowing them a brief lull to wipe down counters and restock cups. He said it casually, but Kim knew it was less an invitation to a relaxed conversation than Boyd wanting to keep abreast of his employees.
“Fine,” Kim said. “Well, someone broke into my place last night.”