by Lori L. Lake
Dez and Jaylynn scrambled away from the center of the room. Breathless and wheezing, they sat against the wall near the door by which they’d entered. Dez ran her hand over the back of her neck, feeling grit under her palm. That was close, she thought, too damn close. She heaved a sigh and rubbed her eyes to clear the dirt from them. She drew her legs up and put her elbows on her knees, letting her hands relax out in front of her. “What happened to our runner?”
A voice sounded from across the room. “I’m still here. I’m not moving until I know the floor’s safe.”
In a menacing voice Dez said, “Don’t move a muscle. The whole floor is unsafe. It could fall in at any minute. I will instruct you when it’s safe.” Dez shook with silent laughter.
Jaylynn elbowed her and hissed, “I don’t think it’s very professional of you to laugh when I almost got my ass crushed.”
“I’m not laughing at you. It’s that idiot. He had all this time to split, and he’s sitting over there waiting for help.” She giggled helplessly, relief flooding through her.
“It is kind of funny,” Jaylynn said grudgingly.
“Are you hurt?”
“Not that I can tell. I landed on my butt, plenty of padding there.”
“Oh, yeah, your butt is so huge, right.” She craned her head to the side to find Jaylynn looking up at her, her hazel eyes serious and penetrating. A jolt of electricity hit her in the stomach. Dez looked away, glad of the dim light, and wondered why Jaylynn kept having this effect on her. Get a grip, she thought as she cleared her throat and tried to steady her breathing.
The quality of the light shining through the windows changed from a steady yellow glimmer to periodic red flashes. Backup had arrived. In seconds footsteps beat their way up the stairs. Dez stood and opened the stairway door. “Fourth floor, guys,” she hollered. “Come on up!” To Jaylynn she said, “Here comes the cavalry.”
Jaylynn rose and attempted to brush off some of the dust and crud adorning her uniform.
“Don’t bother.” Dez stifled a sneeze. “We’re both too filthy to worry about it.”
The backup cops, three of them, blasted around the corner and came huffing up the last set of stairs.
Dez said, “It’s Reilly and Savage here, guys. Be careful. The floor up here isn’t safe. Hey, Harnish,” she said as the first officer’s face became recognizable. “How ya doing?”
“No, the question is: how are you doing?”
“A little worse for wear, but otherwise okay.”
“You look like you fell into a bowl of dirty flour.”
“Yeah, well, at least we’ve got our suspect cornered.”
The five officers stood inside the doorway and Dez called out, “All right, buddy, you plan on giving us any trouble?”
“No, ma’am.”
Dez and the other officers shone their flashlights in his direction. She said, “Stand up and face me. Now put your hands on your head. Wait! Pick up the purse and bring it with you, but keep your hands up. Good. Move to your right and ease your way along the wall until you reach the corner, then walk this way. Just hug the wall and you’ll be okay.”
In a deep authoritative voice Harnish said, “We’ve got enough fire power here to blow you away, so don’t even think of trying anything tricky.”
“No, sir,” the man said in a resigned voice as he shuffled along the wall toward them.
Though her breathing had steadied, Jaylynn’s heart was still beating wildly. That was close, too close. I wonder how far I’d have fallen? She swatted at her pants legs again, raising dust that made her cough.
The runner materialized in front of the phalanx of officers.
“Savage, it’s your collar,” Dez said. “You cuff him, pat him down. Oh, and read him his rights.”
After they stowed the runner in the car and backup departed, Dez opened the vehicle door. Jaylynn stood on the sidewalk, uncertain.
One leg in the cruiser, Dez stared over the top of the car. “What? What’s wrong?”
“My hat. I lost it.”
“So what? I’ll give you another one.”
In a voice too quiet for Dez to hear across the car, Jaylynn said, “And my weapon.”
“What? I didn’t hear that—”
Jaylynn frowned and shook her head. She hated to admit losing her gun. She knew that was rule number one: never lose your weapon under any circumstances. “I’ll be right back.”
“You don’t want to go back in—oh, damn.” Dez leaned in and told the suspect to stay put, knowing full well he couldn’t get out of the locked back seat of the squad car. She slammed the driver’s door and stomped over to the warehouse door. Out came the flashlight again, and she went back up the flights of stairs to the third floor, through the doorway and around the corner into the main cavern. She found Jaylynn standing in the shadows against the wall. In the middle of the floor, the pile of planks that had fallen from above were strewn haphazardly, the wood broken and twisted. A gaping hole let a faint light shine down from above.
“Jaylynn?”
She didn’t move.
Dez moved over into the shadows next to Jaylynn. “What’s the matter?
Jaylynn met her gaze. “That’s a good sixteen or eighteen feet.”
“Yeah? So what?”
“I might have survived the fall, but maybe not. I might have been impaled on something. I could have broken my back, my neck.” She clutched her partner’s biceps. “If you hadn’t—”
“Don’t go there.” Dez took hold of both of Jaylynn’s forearms and squeezed gently. “Don’t think about that. Let’s find your hat and get the hell out of here before this floor falls in.”
“That’s twice now.” Jaylynn’s voice quivered.
“Geez, Jay! Cut it out. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is to me.”
“Look.” She bent down, her hand on Jaylynn’s shoulder, and moved in close so she could clearly into her eyes. “Partners watch each other’s back. You’d have done the same for me.”
“As if I could have pulled you out of that.”
“You’d be surprised at what you can do if you have to. Ever hear the one about the woman lifting the Volkswagen off some kid who was trapped?”
“Now you’re probably going to tell me that was you.”
Dez gave a muffled laugh. “No, you lunatic.” She slipped an arm around Jaylynn’s shoulders and steered her over toward the heap of oversized pick-up sticks. “You got about thirty seconds. Find your hat and let’s get outta here.”
“I don’t care about the hat. I want my gun.”
“Oh.” Dez rolled her eyes and sighed. “That’s different. When did you drop it—right at first or after you fell?”
“After I fell.”
Dez moved to the jumble of boards and started shifting them away. “It’ll be just our luck—it’ll be at the very bottom in the middle. Yuck. This is so filthy.”
“Here, let me help.”
“Be careful. There’s nails and splinters—shit!”
“What?” Jaylynn asked with alarm in her voice. She stood up and moved toward Dez.
“Never mind. I’m fine. That’s one of those splinters I was warning you about. I’ll get it out later.”
Together they shifted through the wood until they found the black nine-millimeter covered in dust.
“Guess that’ll need an especially good cleaning.” Jaylynn stood, holstered her gun, and turned to leave. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something round several feet away from the pile. She went over and picked up her hat and swatted at it to dust it off. “Hey, what do you know—at least this isn’t as dirty.”
“Too bad. Then it won’t match the rest of your uniform,” Dez said as she led the way to the stairwell.
Tim picked up Jaylynn after her shift ended and they came home to the well-lit house. As they went up the back walk, Jaylynn heard the tinkle of the piano keys and both of them stopped on the back porch and listened. Sara hadn’t played the piano
for months, and Jaylynn didn’t want to interrupt. They stood, wordlessly, and listened to the waves and crescendos of a moody classical piece she thought was Mozart.
They stayed on the porch for several minutes until they were both shaking from the cold. When she finally nodded her head, Tim put the key in the lock. He flicked the kitchen light on and off and hollered out. The music stopped abruptly and Sara appeared in the doorway.
“Hi, guys.” Sara smiled, her large brown eyes shining.
“Nice tunes.” Jaylynn shucked off her coat and mittens to hang them on the hook inside the door. Tim draped his coat over the top of hers and rubbed his hands together, blowing on them to warm up.
“Um hmm,” Sara said. “You guys look good and cold. Time for some hot tea, huh?”
Tim said, “I think we should go straight for the brandy, for medicinal purposes, of course.”
Jaylynn laughed, and the three bustled around the kitchen getting tea bags and mugs and hot water.
As they all settled at the wooden kitchen table Sara said, “Jay, you never told us what happened to those kids in the car wreck.”
Jaylynn set down the sugar bowl with less grace than she should have, wiggling the table and causing her tea to slosh over the side of her over-full mug. She rose and got a rag from the sink. “The two kids in the front seat—they died. I guess they were dead when we got there. Dez and I went to see the other girl we rescued, and she’s a mess.” She sat back in her chair and mopped up the spilled tea. She remembered the anguish in the face of the girl’s mother, a nondescript woman who looked no older than Dez. Jaylynn had hardly been able to contain her own tears when she saw the frightened faces of the two little brothers and a sister in the waiting room. “I called the hospital again today and she’s out of intensive care, but she’ll be hospitalized a while.”
Tim held up the brandy bottle. “You want a shot of this, Jay-o?”
She shook her head. “Nah. I’ll just have bad dreams.”
“From a tiny shot of brandy?”
She nodded. “Lately I’ve had some weird nightmares—they’re out in full force.”
In a soft voice Sara said, “Tell me about it—me, too.”
Jaylynn sprang on the opening. “It’s still troubling you a lot, isn’t it?”
Sara nodded and took a sip from her tea. “It’s okay when you guys are here, but when you’re not, well, I guess I have The Man In The Closet syndrome.”
Jaylynn raised an eyebrow and waited, and Sara went on. “It’s like I never feel safe because they’re always bound to be hiding somewhere I didn’t look. Even with the doors locked and the windows all shut, it’s still scary.” She shivered, then wrapped her hands around her mug. “Sometimes I wish I owned a gun like you do, Jay.”
“Aw, Sara, a gun isn’t the answer. And don’t forget, I can’t bring mine home yet, not until I’m off probation anyway. It’s sitting in my locker at work right now.” She covered Sara’s forearm with her hand. “Have you had any luck with that technique I told you about?”
“Not really. The only thing that seems to work is not sleeping.”
“Sara, that’s not good. Just come sleep with one of us.”
Tim nodded and closed the top of the brandy. He rose and took it over to the cupboard to put it away. “You can always crawl into my bed.” He grinned devilishly. “And Bill can rest assured you won’t be ravished by the likes of me.”
Both women laughed, then Sara’s face turned serious. “I made an appointment at the college counseling center. I’m going to see someone. I know I have to deal with this.”
“Good for you,” Jaylynn said. She took Sara’s hand and gave it a big squeeze. “You just have to keep talking about it. We’re here to listen. Over time it’ll get better.”
“I hope so,” Sara replied.
The next day Jaylynn gathered up her courage again. She and Dez were patrolling the western sector in a residential area and nothing was happening; a dull day for both weather and criminal activity. The sky overhead was battleship gray, and the wind out of the north cut through her every time she left the car.
“How about Sunday night after shift?”
Dez knew exactly what she meant and was hoping the topic wouldn’t come up again. “I don’t think I could watch that particular video right now.” She didn’t elaborate.
“How about Shadowlands or The Evening Star?”
“Do you know what those are about?”
“No.”
“Maybe we could go with something a little lighter.”
Jaylynn sprang at her chance. “There are scads there I haven’t seen. Pick any of them, whichever you like. You got any you haven’t seen yet?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“We could rent something. Tell you what, I’ll skip bringing the box of hankies and bring the video instead—something not too heavy at all. How’s that?”
“All right,” Dez said in a low, resigned voice. How could she tell Jaylynn no when she sounded so happy and hopeful? She frowned. Now I suppose I have to be perky and cheerful when she’s there.
But she wasn’t perky or cheerful on Sunday night. Jaylynn showed up with an older video, gushing about how Debra Winger was one of her all-time favorite actresses. She’d rented Black Widow. Dez lied and said she hadn’t seen the movie, when in fact she’d watched it in the theater and liked it immensely. But did Jaylynn know about the lesbian undertones in the film? Geez, she’s young, Dez thought. Maybe she won’t even have a clue. Maybe the subtext will pass her by.
Dez nuked two packages of Orville Redenbacher popcorn and poured them into a big bowl, and they settled onto the couch to watch the show. Scooting near the middle of the sofa, Jaylynn slipped off her shoes and curled up close to the popcorn bowl. Dez slouched down, stretching her long legs out onto the coffee table and crossing them at the ankles. She crossed her arms, too.
Jaylynn had also seen Black Widow, and she’d picked it on purpose hoping she could get some sort of reaction out of Dez. Is she or isn’t she? The guys at the station treated her with respect to her face, but did she know they made comments about her sexuality behind her back? It seemed everyone assumed Dez was gay—just as they assumed Jaylynn was straight. Wouldn’t it be an ironic about-face if it were the other way around? But no, Jaylynn was pretty sure about Dez. She kept experiencing that connection, something about the way Dez looked at her. They hadn’t talked about it yet, but she was sure Dez had to feel it, too.
An hour into the movie Jaylynn glanced over at Dez to find her fast asleep. She looked so tired that Jaylynn sat quietly and watched the remainder of the show alone. So much for gauging her reaction. After the movie ended, Dez gave no indication of wakening, so Jaylynn picked up the remote and flipped to an oldies station to watch an ancient black and white movie, The Thin Man Returns.
When the show ended at eleven o’clock, Jaylynn decided to call it a night. She used the remote to lower the sound and rose to leave. She took the popcorn bowl into the kitchen and collected up Tim’s car keys, but couldn’t resist going back into the living room. Dez slept with a scowl on her face, chin tight to her chest, arms and legs crossed, folded up into herself. Jaylynn crept across the floor and brushed a tendril of hair away from Dez’s forehead, then leaned over and touched the lightest of kisses there. Dez didn’t stir.
Dez awoke with a start when she heard Jaylynn let herself out. The clock on the VCR read 11:05. Oh, crap. I slept for two hours? Geez! She rubbed her forehead. Was Jaylynn kissing me a dream? Live or Memorex? She wasn’t sure. Probably wishful thinking. Wishful thinking? She took a deep breath and tried to put Jaylynn’s smiling face out of her mind. She got up and undressed, dropped her clothes on the valet chair next to the bed and crawled under the comforter. But she didn’t sleep well for the rest of the night after all, and her dreams were frightening. What she remembered when she awoke was fire and blood, gleaming fangs and pain, and screaming—sometimes her own, sometimes not.
Jaylynn went
home to a house aglow with light from every window. How nice, she thought. Sara’s still up. She unlocked the front door and called out, “It’s me,” so Sara would hear her loud and clear. The first thing that assailed her senses was the smell of cinnamon. She dropped her backpack by the front door and hustled down the hall to the kitchen.
Sara was putting a sheet of cookies in the oven. “Hiya, Jay,” she said over her shoulder. She shut the oven door and turned to face her friend. “Uh oh. You’re glowing again.”
Jaylynn blushed and put her hands in her jeans pockets. She leaned against the kitchen counter.
Sara said, “You’re blushing, too, my friend. Any salient details to share with your best bud?”
“Nah, nothing like that.” Jaylynn walked over to the kitchen table and dropped into a chair. “Whatcha making? Smells great.”
“Snickerdoodles.”
Jaylynn’s glance swept the room. “Well? Where are they? They smell so great—you couldn’t have already eaten a whole batch!”
“Of course not. I made one to make sure the dough was right.”
“You are the only person I know who would do that. I’d just go ahead and ruin twelve or fifteen cookies.” Jaylynn leaned back in the chair with a smile on her face. “So where is it?”
Sara pushed her brown hair behind her ear. “I guess you could say I did eat the whole first batch, even though it was only one cookie. You’ll have to wait about twelve more minutes.” She put her elbows on the table and rested her face in her hands. “So, tell me what happened tonight with Desirable Dez.”
Jaylynn blushed. “Really, truly—nothing. Nada. Zip.”
Sara’s face took on a sly look. “Ah, but you’re wishing.”
“Well, yeah. Guess I have to admit that.”
“What is it about her? The couple times I’ve had a glimpse of her, she’s so—so—gee, how do I explain it?”
“Fascinating?”
“Actually, the word I think I had in mind would be cranky.”
