I Think I Love You

by Stephanie Bond

  The man was starting to squirm. “You ain’t gonna shoot me, are you?”

  She eyed him. “Not unless this thing jams on me in a pinch.”

  He held up one hand. “Nah, it’s sweet. Just came in yesterday. Not even on the books yet.”

  Justine returned the gun to the case and zipped it. “Good. Nice doing business with you.”

  “Hey, lady.”

  She stopped at the door and looked back.

  He held up her watch. “This is a righteous piece. Is it a family heirloom?”

  Justine hesitated, then decided what did it matter if one greasy guy in the world knew the truth? “No. I stole it when I was a teenager.” She smiled to herself but didn’t stick around for his reaction.

  After locking herself in her car, she removed the weapon and placed it on the seat within reaching distance. Her jacket came off and provided adequate coverage. Anger had replaced her fear—nutty Lisa Crane wasn’t going to take another undefended shot at her. She had a life to live, even if no one else thought much of what she’d done with it so far.

  Despite her response to Lando, his observation about her penchant for married men rankled her. As if to say that she had some deep-seated motivation for pursuing men who were unavailable. She scoffed—married lovers were the best gig going. Romantic getaways, expensive gifts, great sex, and she didn’t even have to share her closet. She always knew where she stood with married men, what to expect. It was the women who bought into that “‘til death do us part” crap who were fooling themselves. Men were faithful only until something better—or different—came along.

  Take Dean Haviland, for instance.

  She smoked three cigarettes on the drive home and avoided the news, until she pulled into her gated neighborhood. Two local television vans flanked her driveway, and a knot of people had gathered in the road in front of her two-story white-brick home. She shoved on sunglasses and parted the group with the nose of her car, then reached up to her visor console to touch the button for her garage door opener… except it was gone.

  Her gaze flew up to the sunroof that stood open about three inches—fresh air had seemed like a good idea on the way back to the office after meeting Randall. She hadn’t imagined that Lisa Crane would see the opening as an invitation to sprawl on top of her car and snatch the garage door opener.

  A knock on her window startled her so badly, her hand was halfway to the concealed gun before she realized it was a reporter. She slammed the car into reverse and backed onto the street, scattering onlookers. As she exited the upper-class neighborhood, she called the police department and asked for Lando. After an eternity, the phone clicked.

  “Lando here.”

  “This is Justine Metcalf. I just arrived home and realized my garage door opener is missing from my car.”

  “You think Lisa Crane took it?”

  “Yes. We have gated security to keep out cars, but she could walk into the neighborhood and get into my house with the garage door opener—I don’t lock the door leading in from the garage.”

  “What about that state-of-the-art security system?”

  She sighed. “I didn’t set it this morning.”

  “Ah. Walker and I’ll come to check out the house. Will you be there?”

  “No, I’m going to a hotel. Then I think I’ll head to my parents’ for a few days.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Monroeville, North Carolina.” She gave him her cell phone number and directions to override the garage door opener.

  “I’ll let you know what we find.”

  She disconnected the call with shaking hands, then drove away from her neighborhood, east toward the coast. Dusk was falling; tiny bugs collected on her windshield. The decision to visit her folks had been spontaneous, but somehow it felt right. A few do-nothing days to hide out and make her parents happy at the same time—Cissy was always badgering her about coming to visit. Alone. She’d drive down tomorrow and surprise them, like a good daughter. Get some sun. Fresh air. Besides, Lisa Crane would never find her in Monroeville.

  The day’s events descended on her and she relived the humiliating incident in the staff meeting in excruciating detail. For years they’d be talking around the watercooler about Justine Metcalf, Miss Unshakable, lifting her skirt at gunpoint. She ground her teeth at the thought of people laughing at her behind her back—she simply had to return to Cocoon and redeem herself, redeem her reputation. Helplessness and rage took hold of her—damn Lisa Crane for destroying her life.

  As her anger escalated, so did the need for release. Her throat constricted and her mouth watered for the bitter taste for which she’d acquired an affinity. She wiped her stinging eyes and tried to concentrate on the road. First things first—find a grocery store. A few minutes later, she pulled into a parking lot and gathered herself enough to go in.

  “May I help you?” a smocked young woman asked.

  “Spices?”

  “Aisle Seven.”

  “And tea?”

  “Aisle Eight.”

  She found the tea first and selected bags for a lemon variety. By the time she reached the spice aisle, she was sweating profusely. She scanned the racks and experienced a rush of relief at the plentiful supply of nutmeg—as if sometime since her last purchase, everyone else in the country had discovered her secret. The store carried her favorite brand and, thinking ahead to her trip to North Carolina, she selected two tins.

  To cast off any suspicion at the checkout counter, she selected a box of sugar cubes and, while she waited in the express line, a pack of gum. The checker gave her a curious glance, but Justine realized that she probably looked like hell and wondered if there was a chance that her picture was being shown on television by now. She averted her glance, paid with cash, then drove until she came to a hotel that looked safe.

  It was nearly eight, and darkness had overcome Shively. The hotel sign announced a vacancy but no valet parking, so she parked the car herself. A light blinked on in the gauge panel—low fuel. She smacked the steering wheel. If a damn cow could have four stomachs, why couldn’t luxury cars have four gas tanks? She seemed to forever ride on empty.

  The triviality was the final straw, bringing tears to her eyes. She gave in to the tears for a full minute, gulping air and making humiliating little noises. Then she dabbed her eyes, blew her nose, and shoved the gun into her purse. At least she’d have enough toiletries and makeup to get by, she thought as she walked around to the trunk to retrieve her gym bag.

  The night breeze whipped around her, delivering the sultry city scent of cooling asphalt and restaurant exhaust. She swept a hank of wayward hair behind her ear and the movement sent a pain through her gouged arm. She winced, suddenly beset by the seriousness, the isolation, of her predicament Shively wasn’t a big city, but she’d never felt as completely alone as she did at this moment, standing in a half-empty parking lot, listening to the wind whistling through her half-empty life. And she still wasn’t wearing underwear.

  Just as she aimed the keyless remote at the trunk, a horrific thought hit her. What if Lisa Crane was lying inside the trunk, poised with her gun, just waiting for Justine to open the lid? It was just the kind of thing the woman might do. Justine looked all around the deserted parking lot, then pulled the revolver from her purse. With heart thrashing in her chest, she aimed the remote with her left hand, the revolver with her right, and took a deep breath.

  With the press of a button, the trunk sprang open, and just as she feared, its contents came alive. Justine squeezed the trigger.

  The reverb stole her hearing, but she felt her lungs pinch with her gasp. Two seconds later she realized that she’d put one hell of a hole in her fluttering dry-cleaning bag and the suit underneath.

  “Dammit,” she muttered. “Two suits ruined in one day.”

  Too late, she realized she might have put a hole in her gas tank, too. But closer inspection showed the bullet had embedded in one of the bags of rock salt that she, like many Penn
sylvanians, stocked for icy traveling emergencies. What a mess. She shoved the gun into her purse, hid her wounded suit, and yanked out her gym bag just as a side door opened and a security guard came running out.

  “What was that?”

  “Sorry,” she said, slamming the trunk lid. “My car backfired—watery gas does it every time.”

  He bought the story, even carried her gym bag into the hotel lobby. She asked for a nonsmoking room and paid cash in advance to avoid the risk of name recognition, but the desk clerk was too absorbed in the story of fugitive Lisa Crane playing on the television behind the counter to notice anything going on right in front of her.

  The room was unremarkable but smelled clean. She fastened every locking device on the door, then stepped under the shower-head and scrubbed her face and body. From the gym bag she pulled clean underwear—at last—and a T-shirt.

  Her cell phone bleeped. The tiny screen revealed that the call had originated from the police department. “Hello?”

  “Lando here. We checked out the house and the surrounding area, but we didn’t find anything. If you want me to set the alarm, I need your code.”

  She gave it to him.

  “Did you get settled?”

  “Yes.”

  “Listen, I want to apologize for what I said earlier—who you spend time with is none of my business.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, good night then. We’ll be in touch.”

  She disconnected the call and stared at the phone for a few seconds, wondering if she should call Regina. At times like these, she missed her sisters most—too bad that Mica had turned out to be such a traitor, and Regina, such a prude. Oh, Regina meant well, but she took ownership of everything wrong in the lives of people around her and tried to mend them. And right now, a lecture from her little sister didn’t rank high on her list. She set down the phone and gave her hair a light combing, then filled a coffee mug with the hottest water the bathroom tap would serve up.

  In the bedroom, she lowered lights and mounded pillows. Into the lemon tea went a carefully measured amount of nutmeg according to her mental chart, and a single sugar cube. While she stirred, she estimated that the home-brewed hallucinogen would flood her system within twenty minutes since her stomach was virtually empty.

  Students, hippies, and prisoners had been getting high on nutmeg for years because it was cheap and accessible. As a teenager, she’d simply liked the idea of being able to zone out right under her parents’ noses on something from the kitchen pantry.

  Justine drank the mug of bitter tea without stopping, then reclined on the pillows. She typically used this time to help funnel her impending trip. Tonight, she fell back on a favorite—killing Dean Haviland, if for no reason other than to deny her spoiled little sister something for once in her charmed life. Lisa Crane’s words came back to her.

  A person can’t just go through life destroying relationships and get away with it.

  Unless you were Mica.

  Chapter 6

  DON’T underestimate the extent to which men underestimate women.

  Mica flipped through the pages in a beauty magazine and was instantly bored. She knew some of the divas in the ads and no one looked that good in person except Molly Sims.

  She tossed the magazine aside, feeling itchy and leaky and miserable after being lubed and poked and prodded in one test after another. The doctor had counted her moles, for God’s sake. Mica stood and approached the receptionist. “Dr. Forsythe wanted to see me before I left, but I can’t stay much longer.”

  The woman turned to a nurse, who checked something on the computer. “Your lab results just came in a few minutes ago. Dr. Forsythe should be calling you back soon. Can I get you a snack? A piece of fruit, maybe?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “You really should have something to eat, Ms. Metcalf.”

  Mica squinted at the nurse’s earnest expression. “Okay.”

  A red apple materialized, and she returned to the chair she’d abandoned feeling bribed. She rubbed the apple on her jeans leg, then took a bite, mostly to stay awake. Being kept waiting was not a good sign. The doctor assured her they were conducting standard tests to get a handle on her general health, but she suspected a lecture awaited her. In truth, though, she was ready to get her strength back and to feel good again.

  In addition to the malaise that pulled at her muscles, disappointment wallowed in her stomach at the fact that after all these years, she’d finally gotten up the nerve to call Justine, only to be informed that the Cocoon office had closed early. She’d called directory assistance for Justine’s home number, but it was unlisted. She could always get the information from Regina, but she really didn’t want to get her involved—or to get Regina’s hopes up, for that matter, that a reconciliation was in the works. Poor Regina took everything to heart. Granted, it was sad that she and her sisters hadn’t shared the milestones in one another’s lives like they’d always assumed they would… although admittedly, Justine’s marriage milestone hadn’t quite turned out as everyone had imagined.

  The night before the wedding, Mica had resigned herself to the idea of her sister marrying the man whom she loved. After all, Justine had seen him first, had staked her claim, and Dean publicly acknowledged Justine as his girl. Only Mica knew that Dean had taken her virginity when she was seventeen while Justine worked nights doing cosmetology at Williams’s Funeral Home. Only Mica knew that he continued to seek her out whenever Justine was occupied. Only Mica knew that she loved her sister’s fiancé to utter distraction. After the wedding rehearsal, she’d happened upon Dean and he’d admitted that he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with Justine in Monroeville. Mica had already made plans to go to LA to break into modeling and, she hoped, acting. He said LA sounded good to him.

  They’d left a note and departed before dawn, and Mica did harbor guilt over not breaking the news to Justine face-to-face. But Justine had a fiery temper and neither Mica nor Dean wanted a scene. She justified her actions by telling herself that she’d saved Justine the inevitable heartbreak of discovering years down the road that her husband didn’t love her. She had imagined that, like every other time they’d disagreed, Justine would eventually come around and they’d be friends again. Twelve years later, she was beginning to realize it was up to her to extend an olive branch. Maybe she could make Justine understand that she and Dean hadn’t meant to hurt her, that they truly loved each other.

  Tomorrow, she resolved with a sigh. Tomorrow when she felt better she’d take the first step toward repairing her relationship with Justine, and she’d work things out with Dean—maybe he could watch her shoots from a screening room. Mica smiled, happier than she’d been in a long while. Everett was right: she just needed some downtime, a little vacation.

  Back east? She pursed her mouth and tried the idea on for size. Go see her folks first, then her sisters. Maybe she and Regina could meet and visit Justine together. Yes… it could work. Soon they’d be laughing like old times.

  She laid her head back and cheerfully munched the apple. Her gaze strayed to a chubby baby on the front of a parenting magazine. She smiled and reached for the issue, overcome by curiosity for an alien world. She’d always wanted a baby, but Dean—

  Mica stopped and put her hand on her stomach.

  Could it be? Headaches, nausea, fatigue… could she be pregnant? Her mind raced as fast as her heart as she tried to think back to her last cycle… a swim party at their house… two months ago? Yes! She covered her mouth and laughed into her hand. Other patients glanced up from their magazines.

  Omigod, she was going to have a baby. A little person. Wouldn’t Dean be surprised? And her mother? And her sisters—oh, Justine would melt like ice cream when Mica put her niece or nephew in her arms.

  “Ms. Metcalf?”

  She looked up to see the nurse standing in the doorway.

  “Dr. Forsythe will see you now.”

  With a burst of energy, Mica sp
rang up and followed the nurse to the doctor’s office. She was grinning when she sat down in front of Dr. Forsythe’s desk.

  “You look chipper,” Dr. Sandra Forsythe observed with a little smile. She nodded for the nurse to close the door as she left.

  “That’s because I just figured out why I’ve been feeling so draggy lately.”

  “Oh? And you’re happy about it?”

  Mica laughed. “Of course. I can’t wait to tell Dean—he’s my boyfriend. He’ll be so pleased!”

  Dr. Forsythe pulled off her glasses and clasped her hands in front of her. “Ms. Metcalf, I believe you’re confused.”

  “Confused? I’m pregnant, aren’t I?”

  The doctor pressed her lips together. “No, you’re not pregnant.”

  Mica blinked back burgeoning tears. “Are you sure? I haven’t had a period, and I’ve been nauseous, and I go to the bathroom every fifteen minutes.”

  “And it burns when you urinate?”

  Mica shrugged. “Sometimes. But I’m prone to urinary tract infections.”

  Dr. Forsythe sighed. “May I call you Mica?”

  She nodded.

  “Mica, for starters, your cycle is intermittent because you’re malnourished. I’m putting you on a well-balanced diet.”

  “A diet?”

  “The kind where you eat regularly and take in healthy fluids. You need oils and fats in your diet. Stay away from alcohol, and cut back on your caffeine.”

  “But I—”

  “Mica, if you don’t start eating correctly, your health will continue to deteriorate and your hair will continue to fall out.”

  She averted her gaze. She hadn’t mentioned the hair loss; was it that noticeable?

  “You’re also anemic, and your bone density test shows that your bones are more brittle than is normal for your age.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The anemia is contributing to your fatigue, and the fact that your bones are brittle means that they will fracture and break more easily than they should.” Dr. Forsythe raised an eyebrow. “Which makes living with an abusive boyfriend even more dangerous.”