by Norah Wilson
~*~
She looked so thoroughly disheartened, way beyond what a flat tire should cause. “Relax, Princess.” He pushed away from the pillar. “I’ll change your tire, have you on your way in five minutes.”
“Don’t bother,” she clipped. “I’ll call CAA.”
“Hey, I can handle this. Besides, with any luck, I’ll get dirt or grease all over me and won’t have to go back in there.” He indicated stately Old Government House with a nod of his head.
“Thanks for the offer, but I don’t have room in my trunk for four spares.”
“Four?” He blinked at her. “They can’t all be flat.”
“They can if they’ve been slashed.”
Quigg shot a look at the valet, who nodded a confirmation, then retreated back to his station.
He gripped her elbow. “What’s going on, Suzannah?”
Calmly, she removed her arm from his grip. “Nothing that’s not par for the course, Detective.”
“Jesus, your tires are slashed and you don’t even bat an eyelash?”
She opened her ridiculously tiny beaded purse and pulled out an even tinier cell phone. Seconds later, she was talking to the CAA dispatcher. Cripes, she had the auto association on her speed dial? He listened as she gave her situation and her location.
“Wanna explain what’s going on here?” he asked as she tucked the phone away again.
She shrugged, an elegant lift of the shoulder. “Just the cost of doing a little criminal Legal Aid in this town.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? And why wasn’t your first call to the cops, especially if this isn’t the first time it’s happened?”
“The police.” She laughed, a surprisingly grating sound that lacked real amusement. “Yeah, that’d work.”
Quigg sucked a breath in through his teeth. “You think cops did this?”
She arched a delicate eyebrow. “Congratulations, Detective. I’ll bet you graduated top of your class.”
“No.”
“No? Gosh, with those deductive powers, I’d have –”
He stepped closer. “No, it wasn’t a cop who did this.”
Her bosom lifted on a long inhalation, but she didn’t huff out an impatient sigh as he half expected.
“Look, I’ve been around the block a few times, Detective. I know I haven’t endeared myself to you guys. I also know you stick together –”
“But not like this –”
“Hey, I understand. Really. The blue wall. You’re charged with enforcing what amounts to a pretty puritanical code, one that abhors improprieties like drunkenness or lewdness. So you avoid those social situations where you might make a hypocrite of yourself. Then, before you know it, your social sphere includes nothing but other cops.”
“Can I just say –”
“It’s okay. I totally get it. You put that uniform on, that badge, and it isolates you from your friends, from your community, even from the legal system. Which sets up the us/them solidarity thing. So when a guy gets a rough ride from me on the stand, of course the rest of you are going to empathize pretty strongly with him.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phelps, for that lesson on police sub-culture. But read my lips—it wasn’t one of us slashed your tires.”
Judging from the exasperated noise she made, the patience she was trying so hard to project had finally reached its limits. “Are you seriously going to stand there and tell me you think every cop on your force is above this kind of dirty trick? That they wouldn’t slash a tire or two to get their point across?”
“How could I? I don’t even know some of the guys, except to nod at them. But I think it’s more likely this was done by your dead-flower delivery man.”
“What did you say?” Her tone was suddenly sharp.
“I said, this is more likely the handiwork of your FTD psycho, and I’m damn sure he’s not a cop.”
She didn’t move, but Quigg felt her withdrawal as surely as if she’d physically stepped back. It was as though she’d pulled her very aura back, drawing it close so it wouldn’t brush his.
Whoops. Guess he should have broken the news that he knew about the dead floral offering a little more tactfully.
“You have been following me.” She intoned the words as though she still couldn’t quite believe it.
“Hey, it’s not what you think –”
“Spying on me!” She was looking at him now as though he were some kind of particularly disgusting insect.
“You have to call the cops, Suzannah.”
Her mouth tightened. “Forget it.”
She turned on her very elegant, very high heel and started toward her car, her strides long and brisk. Quigg hurried to catch up. She stopped and whirled so quickly, he had to throw on the brakes to avoid colliding with her.
“One more thing, Detective. You stay the hell away from me or I’ll have your ass in court before your head stops spinning.”
He almost smiled at that. “Thought you weren’t going to call the police?”
“Just stay away from me.”
She started off again. Again, he followed, this time at a more discreet distance. He didn’t feel like smiling anymore.
“Suzannah, listen, you have to call this in. There’s some whack-job out there trying to ... hell, I don’t know. At the very least, he’s trying to scare you.”
She’d reached her car and was fishing in her purse again for the keys. Unconscious habit. The Beemer wasn’t going anywhere, not sitting as it was with all four rims biting into flattened tires. Realizing the futility of her search, she turned on him.
“You are the whack-job, Detective. You’re the one who’s been sneaking around, following me, watching me –” Her words stumbled to a stop. “The flowers ... oh, Lord, was it you? You were there that day, weren’t you? You were the one watching me, in the courtroom.”
The blaze of light spilling from the mansion’s huge windows didn’t reach this far down the driveway, so he couldn’t read her expression, but he didn’t need the visual clues. He could hear the fear-tinged fury in her voice.
“Yes, it was me.”
She took a step backward, pressing herself into the car’s fender.
He swore, shoving a hand through his hair.
“In the courtroom, dammit. It was me in the courtroom. But I sure as hell didn’t put that abomination in your car. I’m telling you, it wasn’t a cop did that. And what’s more, I think you know it.”
He heard her draw a hissing breath. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Red roses? Dead ones? Slashed tires? That kind of rage strikes me as pretty personal, the kind of thing a spurned lover might do.”
“No.”
“Listen, you probably think you’re doing the right thing by staying quiet, but it’ll come back to bite you, Suzannah. I’m sure he says he loves you, but I’m telling you, men like this –”
She made a frustrated groan. “I don’t believe it! You think I know this fruitcake?” Her voice rose on the question. “You think I’m protecting him?”
“Why else would you sit on something like this? It’s obviously not the first time it’s happened. You didn’t even crack the wrapping paper on that posy because you knew exactly what was inside it.”
“Omigod, you picked it out of the dumpster, didn’t you?”
“Dammit, you looked scared when I approached you in the parking lot that day. I kinda got the idea it was something in the car made you squirrely, something you didn’t especially want me to see.”
“Of course. And you followed me in the hopes of getting some dirt on me, something to de-fang the tiger.” She thumped her purse down on the hood of the car and leaned back against the Beemer’s paint job. A shaft of yellow light from the building struck her face. “You are a piece of work, Detective.”
He could have set her straight on why he’d followed her, why he’d been there at the courthouse in the first place.
He could also offer his jugular for the slashing,
but he wasn’t about to do that, either.
“You’re evading the question. If this isn’t a domestic deal, why haven’t you reported it? In my professional opinion, that little floral tribute carries a menacing message. And don’t tell me it was a cop. A slashed tire maybe, but not this.”
“Detective, this has been a fact of life for me since I started practice. Someone slashes a tire here, keys my paint job there, places hang-up calls from a number with blocked caller ID.” She shifted so her face was lost in shadows again. “And flowers turn up. Sometimes they’re dead roses, sometimes they’re beautiful live roses.”
He swore, fluently. “Okay, okay, you thought it was us. It isn’t. Let’s go report it. Right now.”
“No.”
“No? I’m telling you it wasn’t cops.”
“Okay, I believe you.”
“Then let’s go.”
“I’m not going to report anything, John.”
He was John again, not Detective. That much penetrated his exasperation. “Why the hell not?”
“This is low-level harassment. I haven’t had a single direct threat. No one’s actually approached me, contacted me or menaced me. There’s no way I’m going to go running to you guys, crying about something the investigator will figure I brought down on myself.”
“That’s crazy.”
A big flatbed geared down on Woodstock Road, slowing to turn into the driveway. Her hook had arrived.
“Crazy?” She lifted her chin another fraction. “Crazy would be making a complaint. I have to work inside this system, John. I don’t need you guys to like me, but I do need you to respect me.”
“Like we wouldn’t respect you if you reported this psycho?” Damn, that’s exactly what she thought. “You think this is brinkmanship? You can’t let us see you blink?”
“Look, if you must know, I did report it, the first time it happened. Suffice to say, after that experience, I don’t think I’ll be doing it again soon. Especially when I can easily afford to replace a few tires.”
“But –”
“But nothing.” Her voice hardened. “I spend my days poking holes in your cases until they bleed daylight. There’s no way I’m going to go to you guys again with something like this. I don’t need some fresh-faced young constable telling me I’m overwrought or that I have a persecution complex. And I sure don’t need to be reminded that you’re busy taking care of the real victims my clients leave behind.” She pushed away from the car’s fender and raised a hand to flag down the tow truck driver. “Thank you for your concern, Detective, but I can take it from here.”
Damn her stubbornness.
Despite his clear dismissal, for the next five minutes, Quigg stood back and fumed while the disabled vehicle was loaded on the back of the flatbed. As the driver checked the security of his load, Suzannah turned her attention back to him.
“You’re still here.”
He gritted his teeth. “You’ll need a drive home.”
“Thanks, but the tow guy says he’ll give me a lift.”
Stubborn wasn’t the word. His lips thinned. “That so? In that case, guess I’ll stick around for the show.”
That eyebrow again, arching in elegant inquiry.
“Show?”
“Yeah, the show. If you’re planning to climb way up into that rig wearing that dress, this is something I gotta see.”
She lifted her chin. “A cab, then.”
His irritation escaped. “Dammit, Suzannah, why can’t you accept my help? Someone slashed your tires tonight. That’s not something you do with nail clippers or a straightened paperclip. That’s something you do with a knife. And for all you know, your slash-happy friend could be watching right now, ready to follow you home.”
As though unable to resist the impulse, she scanned the parking lot, her eyes searching the parked cars, the shadowed shrubbery, the pools of darkness beyond the street lights on Woodstock Road. When she turned back to him, her expression betrayed a tinge of fear, and considerably more than a tinge of anger.
“Scare tactics, Detective?”
“You should be scared. You should be sitting in a squad car right now giving your story to a uniform. But since you aren’t, the least I can do is make sure you get home safe.”
Still she hesitated. What was he doing here, trying to help a hard-headed woman who clearly didn’t want his help?
“Hell, Suzannah, I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He’d been half joking, but her expression told him he’d hit the nail on the head. She really thought she’d somehow lose face if she sought police help. He bit back his impatience.
“Cross my heart,” he said. “I won’t breathe a word.”
“That’s what all the boys say,” she murmured, but he could see she was considering it. “Okay,” she announced after a few seconds’ pause. “You can drive me home. I’ll just go tell the tow truck driver.”
You can drive me home, in that perfect diction, with that cool-as-a-cucumber, crazy-making tone of hers, as though she were bestowing some frigging prize on him. She turned to dispatch the driver, and Quigg resisted the urge to grind his teeth again.
Man, you shoulda just left this one alone.
