Double Dog Dare

by E J Cochrane

  “You’re really going to make this hard on me.”

  “No harder than you made things for me.”

  “Fair enough.” Nadia’s understanding words were at odds with her pained expression, and damn it, Maddie felt guilty for hurting her feelings.

  “Just tell me, Nadia. What did you want to talk about?”

  “Us.” Nadia gazed at Maddie, her eyes deep, wide, imploring pools of brown, and Maddie shifted uncomfortably.

  “There’s an us to talk about?” Maddie’s voice felt thick in her throat.

  “There could be,” Nadia said and reached for her hand. “If you give me another chance.”

  “And why would I do that?” she asked, ignoring the parts of her body that shouted, “Why wouldn’t you?”

  Maddie looked at their entwined fingers, the way their hands seemed to fit together, and she honestly didn’t know what to do. Considering her past successes with women, any relationship she could have had with Nadia likely would have fizzled out by now. She would have let work assume prominence in her life, or she would have begun to find one of Nadia’s currently endearing traits grating in record time or, more likely, Nadia would have realized she could do better. So what sense did it make to enter into a relationship that was destined to fail just to face the heartbreak she’d only recently overcome?

  “Because I’m sorry.” Nadia crashed in on her thoughts.

  “You’re sorry?”

  “I shouldn’t have walked away.” Maddie tended to agree but managed to keep quiet. “But I was ashamed of what I’d done and afraid that that could hurt you more than it already had. So, I left.” Nadia sank onto her love seat, dropping her head into her hands, and Maddie followed her.

  “You hurt me to avoid hurting me? You know that makes no sense, right?”

  “I do now. And I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” she asked a perplexed-looking Nadia.

  “Why?” she parroted Maddie. “Why am I sorry, or why do I want there to be an us?”

  “Start with the second one.” She had really been wondering why now and what was the point of pursuing a relationship that had already failed once, but it wasn’t like she didn’t want to know what potential Nadia saw in them.

  “You mean aside from the obvious facts that you’re beautiful and intelligent and funny, and you love animals as much as I do and…” Nadia bit her lower lip and one eyebrow quirked up as her gaze swept the length of Maddie’s body, “…other areas of compatibility?”

  “Yes.” Maddie heard the quiver in her own voice. “Aside from those incredibly compelling points, why are you interested in a second chance?”

  “Because,” Nadia cleared her throat and looked sheepishly at her. “I missed you, and I realized I don’t want to be without you.”

  “You were fine with that two and a half months ago when you walked away after I almost died.”

  Okay, that was an exaggeration. Certainly, her life had been in peril before Goliath lunged at her assailant. As it was, the worst of her injuries had been a broken arm, some severe burns and (thanks to Nadia) a broken heart.

  And why was Maddie putting up such a fight anyway?

  “I wasn’t fine with it. I hated it. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and as it turns out, it was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.”

  “Considering what I know about your past, that’s saying a lot.”

  Nadia blushed and looked away, and Maddie regretted opening her big mouth.

  “I needed to figure some things out, like how I ended up making such bad decisions in the past and just how terrible a person I am for caring less about Howard’s death than if you would ever forgive me for helping him lie. But the only thing I figured out is that I’m better with you than without you. And the thought of never being with you again, that I voluntarily gave up one of the best things that has ever happened to me—I had to at least try to fix what I broke. I know it’s a lot to ask, but Maddie, I haven’t stopped thinking about you and regretting how things ended since I walked out your door.”

  Out of misguided self-preservation, Maddie had been watching Nadia’s mouth as she spoke. She had thought eye contact would be too intense, make her too weak and willing to do anything Nadia asked of her. But staring at her soft lips, watching the movements of her mouth had been anything but Maddie’s saving grace. Even though she still had reservations, she found herself swept up in Nadia’s gravitational pull. She felt herself falling, and she couldn’t have said whether she or Nadia initiated the kiss, but once it started, she was done for.

  The kiss itself wasn’t gentle. Nadia took hungry possession of her, and her hands were in Nadia’s hair, pulling her closer. In a move so swift she wasn’t aware of it until it was over, Nadia’s hands swept the length of Maddie’s torso, lightly brushing her small breasts on their path to her waist, before pulling her onto her lap. Nadia raked her fingers across Maddie’s thighs and then moved higher, dipping under the hem of Maddie’s shirt and teasing the sensitive skin of her abdomen.

  She inhaled sharply, breaking the kiss but not their intense eye contact. Nadia favored her with one of her lopsided smiles.

  “Can I take that as a yes?”

  For an answer, Maddie moved in for another searing kiss. This time she allowed her hands to roam freely over Nadia’s voluptuous body, savoring every curve. She bit Nadia’s lower lip and pulled away from her to revel in the smoldering look in her eyes. She would probably regret this—no good had ever come from her acting impulsively, but damn, this felt good. That kiss alone would be worth the probable future heartache.

  “It’s a yes to this,” she said and shifted farther back on Nadia’s lap. “But not to whatever you’re burning in there.”

  “I forgot about dinner!” After disentangling herself from Maddie, she ran to the kitchen to salvage their meal. Maddie followed the trail of curses and the scent of burning chicken to find a crestfallen Nadia scraping at a blackened mass on the stove. “I think it’s a goner.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around tonight,” Maddie said as she brushed past a grinning Nadia on her way to save their stomachs.

  Chapter Eleven

  Maddie’s uncharacteristic bliss—a direct result of her reconciliation (and subsequent late night) with Nadia—lasted almost forty-five minutes into her Tuesday morning before guilt over neglecting her commitment to Leigh took over. Not that she didn’t try to hang on to her almost euphoric grogginess, but her exhaustion made her more susceptible to the shifting tides of her emotions. And even though her battle to retain her atypically cheery disposition was a losing one, in this case, she wouldn’t trade her easily shifting mood for a good night’s sleep. Finally giving in to the remorse-fueled trends of her thinking, she focused on the weird saga of Leigh, Terry, and Lindsey.

  The trouble was she didn’t know exactly how to proceed. It wasn’t like she was a trained professional, and unlike the last time she’d pretended to be a detective, in this instance she didn’t know (or care about) the victim or have an in with the possible suspects. If not for Leigh, Maddie would be delightfully unaware of the life and death of Terry Kovacs, and she could spend all of her free time and energy thinking mushy thoughts about Nadia while simultaneously avoiding discussion of her with her friends and family.

  But she’d made a promise to her friend (and her grandmother) and couldn’t back out now, not even if Leigh turned out to be a hindrance to the very investigation she’d initiated. More troubling than Leigh’s unhelpfulness was the threat of her becoming a liability, either through her erratic emotions or through her drunkenness. Even though she could provide access to some of Terry’s acquaintances, going through Leigh meant including Leigh, a circumstance Maddie hoped to avoid. She couldn’t trust her friend to stay levelheaded enough not to alienate everyone they spoke with. And there was an alarming number of potential suspects.

  The complicated romantic entanglements alone gave her too many threads to unravel: Lindsey had been marri
ed to Ray before moving on to Leigh and then Terry. Meanwhile, Terry had been with Kat before unleashing her on the general lesbian populace, and though she seemed to have her sights on Leigh, that apparently hadn’t slowed her prowling, if the previous night’s behavior was any indication. Maddie needed a spreadsheet to keep the relationships in this love tetrahedron straight.

  And thanks to slightly more complete information about the victim and a renewed Internet search, she had even more to go on. Not only had she found the exact date of Terry’s death to supplant Leigh’s hazy memory of events, but she’d also stumbled upon an exceptionally treacly (even for an obituary) death notice. Not that she didn’t understand the mawkishness that surrounded death—particularly an unexpected loss—or that she begrudged anyone her grief, but it seemed a bit much to proclaim in a half-page tribute (complete with unflattering photo substantiating Leigh’s “hatchet-face” commentary) that, “the light of the world had been extinguished too soon,” and, “no one’s life would ever be the same” now that Terry was gone.

  Setting aside her own visceral response to such an off-putting outpouring of sentimentality, Maddie decided to run through the impressive list of mourners catalogued in a sixty-five-column-inch obituary that must have cost more than a down payment on a luxury vehicle. Though she couldn’t be sure anyone listed in the bereavement opus harbored animosity for the victim, those closest to Terry seemed like a good place to start. If nothing else, she could eliminate a large swath of the populace by crossing each of those names off her list of suspects. And if she got lucky, one or more of them might point her in the direction of anyone who disliked Terry. Anyone other than Leigh.

  What she soon discovered was the creative force behind the obituary had been optimistic with her expression of the world’s all-consuming grief at the loss of Terry Kovacs. While no one she spoke to (under the not entirely believable guise of being a sociology grad student writing her dissertation on sudden death and bereavement) seemed to care enough either way about the deceased to kill her, more of them than not held no warmth or regard for the victim. It seemed “the light of the world” had not truly gone out.

  What she did learn was Leigh’s unfavorable view of Terry had been more accurate than she would have guessed given the circumstances, and the more tenuous the connection to the deceased, the more willing the subject was to discuss the victim’s flaws and speculate about the exact nature of her demise—and the degree to which she “got what she deserved.” In addition to the expected conjecture about Terry’s ex (as well a startling theory about suicide), she heard from the victim’s third cousin that a long-standing feud with Terry’s neighbor Esther Snodgrass had culminated in murder. Meanwhile, an aunt hypothesized that a coworker wanted revenge after being passed up for a promotion. Still another distant relative suggested Lindsey’s kids had been behind the murder. Surprisingly few people mentioned Leigh, but considering that in two hours of calling, she’d made her way through less than a quarter of the names listed, Maddie opted not to feel hopeful about any developments.

  With a few more minutes to spare before she had to head to her first appointment of the day, she scanned the list of names again, wondering if she’d ever get through them all. It occurred to her that one name was noticeably absent from the world’s longest death notice—Kat Russell, Terry’s (and Leigh’s) moodily possessive ex, and a great place to pick up her investigation after work.

  She didn’t expect Kat to talk to her happily, if at all. Given her surly response at the bar, Maddie wondered if Kat would talk to her unless forced to. But Maddie suspected that, once she’d talked to Terry’s ex, she would have a better idea of how to proceed. If anyone would know who hated Terry enough to want her dead, it would be the woman she had been romantically involved with. Or at least that’s what Maddie thought should be the case. She knew she could lure her in with the promise of seeing Leigh, but she didn’t want Leigh to be a distraction, either through Kat’s continued pursuit of Leigh, or through Leigh’s hostile contributions to the conversation. Nevertheless, Maddie didn’t see how else she would get to talk to Kat. Unless…

  “This is probably the worst idea I’ve ever had,” she said to herself as she dialed Dottie’s number again.

  Not surprisingly, she got no answer, but rather than leave another message, she decided she was done waiting for her friend to get back to her. By the time the afternoon was over, she would know what was going on with Dottie, and the next phase of her investigation would be underway.

  “May I help you?”

  Maddie jumped a little when she looked up to see a bespectacled, graying brunette carrying a clipboard, wearing a sweater set and staring at her expectantly. She hadn’t heard the woman’s approach in response to her knock and assumed she was some sort of ninja librarian.

  “I’m here to see Dot—um, Gwendolyn Hunter.” Somehow she doubted this woman had the liberty to call Dottie by her nickname.

  The woman’s only response was to consult her clipboard before subjecting Maddie to her dispassionate and unflinching scrutiny.

  Maddie didn’t think she could be more confused than she felt in that moment. Taking a step back, she reassured herself that she hadn’t sauntered up to a look-alike house, but barring her entry into an alternate universe, she stood on Howard’s (technically her) front porch. Still, she had no idea who the woman staring her down might be, and she didn’t know how to ask without sounding rude. However, the longer the woman stared at her, the less she cared about being rude.

  “Do you have an appointment?” the woman finally asked. She had switched her attention to the clipboard in her hands but briefly glanced at Maddie over the tops of her glasses.

  “I’ve never needed one before.”

  The woman’s stern expression didn’t budge. Maddie didn’t even see her blinking and began to wonder if Dottie had acquired a robot.

  “No, I don’t have an appointment.”

  The poster girl for organized efficiency tsked her disapproval then pointed to a plain but functional rocking chair just outside the front door. “Have a seat there. I’ll see if Ms. Hunter has a minute in her busy schedule to meet with—are you the plumber or the electrician?”

  “I’m the best friend.”

  Sweater Set took a sweeping glance of Maddie, no doubt cataloguing the disheveled hair, Little Guys hoodie, well-worn jeans and sensible, comfortable shoes.

  “Hmm.” She nodded almost imperceptibly before gliding swiftly away.

  Maddie had no idea if the clipboard queen intended to alert Dottie to her presence, but other than crossing her fingers and hoping for the best, she’d run out of options. Maddie parked herself in the appointed chair and wondered how she had allowed herself to be banished from her own property. It wasn’t like she’d been a fixture around the place lately. It still creeped her out a little to be in the space where Howard had been murdered, but she was the owner of record. She thought that should entitle her entry of the building. Apparently Dottie’s librarian for hire didn’t see things the same way.

  She considered texting Dottie (again) to gain access to the house, but she had no reason to believe Dottie would answer this text when so many others had been ignored. She was ready to give up on polite docility and barge in when she saw her grandmother heading up the walkway with a container of cookies in hand.

  “Granny? What are you doing here?”

  Granny looked dumbfounded but recovered quickly. “I’m delivering cookies. What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Since when do you deliver cookies to Dottie?”

  “I’m welcoming her to the neighborhood, child, which is more than I can say for her landlord.”

  “Her landlord has been barred from the premises,” she shot back.

  “Maybe you should have sprung for a potted plant.”

  “I’ll try that next time,” she muttered as Granny thrust the tub of cookies into her hands and headed back down the walkway. A perplexing note on the lid read, “Extra ener
gy for the crew.”

  “I have to run. Make sure Dottie gets those.” Granny scurried away like she’d suddenly remembered she left her oven on.

  “You’re not staying?” Maddie called after her, but Granny was already halfway down the block. Her grandmother was acting strangely, but before she could even begin to hazard a guess, the front door flew open and Dottie appeared.

  “I wasn’t expecting you, petite proprietor. You should have told me you were coming.”

  She found it odd that the queen of dropping in unannounced suddenly had an issue with unexpected visits but let it pass. “I tried to tell you. Check your phone.”

  Dottie raised an elegant eyebrow but didn’t budge from her place in the doorway. Either she had caught her at an inopportune moment, or Dottie was hiding something. She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out either way.

  “Oh, Carlisle oversees that, ducks. She must have been waiting for a less hectic time before passing along your message.”

  “Messages. Plural,” she corrected, but Dottie breezed past her remark.

  “She’s a real tiger about my schedule. And so efficient and organized.”

  “Yeah, I picked up on that.”

  “I wish I’d found a Carlisle years ago.”

  “Why is she here?” Maddie asked what she felt was an obvious question, but Dottie didn’t always acknowledge the obvious.

  “She’s my assistant.”

  “Assistant for what?” She felt more confused than when Carlisle had confronted her earlier.

  “For my endeavors,” Dottie huffed and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Of course.” Though she remained clueless about these so-called endeavors, she knew she had to step carefully or risk incurring Dottie’s wrath. “Your endeavors. How could I forget?”

  Properly placated, Dottie dropped her arms. Maddie craned her neck to see past her, but Dottie shifted to block her view.

  “What brings you to the homestead, cupcake?”

  “I need your help.”