by Liliana Hart
“It’s possible, but there’s no record the alarm system was shut down or reactivated, so it makes their stories more plausible.”
“Anyone else stand out?”
“There’s any number of people in her former industry she could’ve pissed off over the years. And some of them have mafia ties. There are rumors of blackmail, but nothing solid at this point. Everyone’s keeping pretty tight-lipped. What it comes down to is that Rosemarie’s prints are on the murder weapon and no one else’s. All the investigating team can do is follow the facts and do it by the book.”
“I thought you were in charge.”
“I’m not impartial. They handed it over to Jacoby.”
Something nudged at my subconscious but considering I could barely remember my name I didn’t try too hard to bring it to the surface.
“It’s just as well anyway because my plate’s full with the case I caught last night. It was a bad one.” He stretched and then pulled at the tangled covers. “Speaking of, I need to get back to work. How did we end up on the floor?”
“The Lord works in mysterious way.”
“I did see the white light toward the end there.”
I snickered and untangled myself from his hold. “Watch out for the glass. I don’t want to spend the morning picking shards out of your ass.”
“That lamp was an heirloom. Belonged to my great grandmother.”
“Oh, geez. I’m sorry.” I had visions of trying to glue the shards back together in hopes of saving a piece of Nick’s family history, but more than likely I’d end up gluing my hands together.
“Don’t be sorry. My great grandmother makes my mother look like Betty Crocker.”
“Wow. You have a hell of a family.”
“I like to pretend I was adopted.”
“Sometimes I like to pretend that too. Especially after the time I went to a hot yoga with my mother. There are some mother daughter moments that should never be shared.”
Nick used the sheet to scoop up all the broken glass and rolled it up in a ball. He was the typical male when it came to housekeeping, which wasn’t surprising since he had a cleaning lady come in three days a week and do it all for him.
I winced as he left the balled up sheet in the corner and made a mental note to take the whole thing out to the dumpster. That’s all we needed was for Rhonda to pick it up while she was cleaning and cut her hands off.
I still wasn’t quite used to having a cleaning lady. It felt weird for someone else to handle my underwear, much less washing our sex sheets or removing a pair of handcuffs Nick had accidentally left attached to the headboard. I’d seen Rhonda three days a week for the last couple of months and I still wasn’t able to make eye contact.
“I’m going to get in the shower. I’ll pay you a hundred dollars if you can get Rosemarie out of the house before I come downstairs.”
“You paid me five hundred when you needed me to meet your mother.”
“Rosemarie isn’t in the same league as my mother.”
“That’s the truth.” I pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt from the drawer and pulled my hair back in a ponytail. I normally liked to shower with Nick in the mornings, but it looked like he was going solo today. “But don’t keep thinking you can keep throwing money at me to do your dirty work. You’ve still got rich boy mentality that money will solve all your problems.”
“Sweetheart, it certainly makes them easier.”
It was kind of hard to argue with that.
Chapter Seven
An hour later I’d showered and changed into black yoga pants, a purple sports bra, and a black hooded athletic shirt. I chose my purple Nike Cross Trainers because I’ve always felt that if a person is going to sweat then they should match while doing it.
I put on my black baseball hat and stared at myself in the mirror. I gave my reflection a couple of determined looks and flexed my muscles once before grabbing my shoulder bag and heading downstairs. I was going to kick ass today. I’d ace the written part of the P.I. exams and I’d score in the top percentile of the class during the physical exams.
My agreement with Kate was that I’d place near the top in all portions of the tests to get my license. I’d placed first in my conceal to carry class. Not a problem since my dad had raised both Phoebe and me to be comfortable around guns. I outshot most of the cops on the force. The written exams would be a piece of cake. I was a history major for cripes sake. I knew how to study, and if I read it my brain would remember it forever.
I decided what I needed was a pep talk. The only person who could hold me back was myself.
“You got this, Addison. You’re going to shred the records on the one-mile run. And you’re going to do it without throwing up.” My stomach felt a little queasy at the thought of going straight from the run to the push-ups. “And you’re going to make those push-ups your bitch!”
I growled just for good measure and moved my feet like a boxer, giving a practice left jab or two as I made my way to the car. “And then you’re going to do some chin-ups and you’re not going to cry because it feels like your arms are falling off.”
I revved the engine and threw the SUV in reverse, plugging in my iPod as I sped down the driveway. I punched up some Metallica and blasted it as loud as my eardrums could stand. By the time I got to the end of the driveway I remembered that I was old and loud music hurt my ears now, so I turned it down to a respectable volume and scrolled down my playlist until I found Kings of Leon.
My stomach was still roiling with nerves, but I pushed ahead through my pep talk. I needed all the help I could get.
“And then it’s the sit-ups.” My voice turned into a whine toward the end so I cleared my throat and tried saying it again with a little more confidence. Sit-ups were the bane of my existence.
I took a deep breath and did something I hadn’t done in a long while. Not since my fiancé had left me at the altar. I’d been a little angry at God for the past year, and my recollection of how to pray was a little rusty.
“Dear Lord,” I said, biting my bottom lip. “I know I’ve been absent lately. If you want to know the truth I’m a little pissed at you.” I winced and scrunched up my nose. “Sorry. Not pissed. You can’t say pissed to God. I’m just saying I’ve had kind of a rough year, though things have evened out here towards the end. I’ve kind of got a job and I’m having good sex. Sorry again. You probably don’t care about the sex thing. Though thanks for that. I’m pretty sure Nick has ruined me for all other men.”
I lost my train of thought for a few seconds, the vivid details of how I’d spent my morning flooding my brain, and then I snapped back into focus once I remembered my goal.
“Good grief, you’ve got me daydreaming and off the subject. What I’m trying to say is that I need a favor, God. I freaking hate sit-ups. Am I allowed to say freaking?” I handled the wheel with one hand and dug around in my purse for some gum. All this talking was making my mouth dry.
“Listen, I don’t know what it is about them, but I’ve got some kind of mental hang-up. Mostly because it feels like my intestines are being rearranged and I almost always have to pee about halfway through. Also, they’re just hard, Lord. In what kind of world do we live in where sit-ups are a natural part of life?”
My stomach was doing major flips now as I turned onto Montgomery and headed toward the police academy where the testing was taking place. “It’s not like I’m going to go to the supermarket and everyone there is doing sit-ups to fight for the last roll of toilet paper.”
A crash of thunder came from nowhere and I jumped in my seat. The skies opened and a mix of sleet and rain pelted my windshield. The weathermen liked to call it thundersleet. I liked to call it as close to snow as the south ever got.
The dreary grayness of the morning was depressing, and I took this as a sign that a.) I’d been talking too long and God wanted me to wrap it up, b.) I really wasn’t supposed to say freaking or c.) He was angry and I was wasting His time.
“What I’m asking is for a little help. I need this job with Kate. So if you could see fit to make my abs a little more spectacular than usual and get me to the end in record time then I would appreciate it. Oh, and also please let Rosemarie not be a murderer. Amen.”
A parking spot opened up right in the front row and I took that as a sign that God was taking my request under consideration. My stomach still felt queasy, but I was hopeful things would go in my favor.
Chapter Eight
By noon I’d realized maybe God was just as pissed at me as I was with him. There’d been a perfectly reasonable explanation for the roiling in my stomach. I had cramps like a motherfucker, and if one more person told me how pale I was I was going to stab them in the throat with my #2 pencil. No wonder my moods had been so volatile.
It had taken me about an hour and a half of the allotted four hours to take the written exam, so I laid my head down on the desk and took a nap, intermittently mewling like a cat, as the cramps got stronger.
I knew I was in trouble when we broke for lunch. I could barely stand without doubling over, and I knew there was no way I could do the physical fitness portion of the test unless there was a miracle. I had an hour and a half for either my uterus to fall out so I could throw it off a bridge or for drugs to kick in. The problem was I didn’t have any drugs with me. And they’d made me check in my gun at security, so that option was out too.
I had plenty of time to make a quick stop. I didn’t care about lunch. I’d probably throw it up anyway. What I needed was some heavy-duty painkiller.
I sped through the streets of Savannah with purpose. The sleet had let up some, but was still a soaking drizzle, and the entire city looked to be covered with gloom and dreariness. Or it could’ve just been the cramps talking. I dialed Phoebe just before I got to her street.
“I’m about to pull into your driveway. I need drugs,” I said when she answered with a “Yo” into the phone.
“Cramps?”
“Fuckin’ A.”
“Doctor Phoebe will fix you right up. I’ve got the good stuff.”
Those were the best words I’d heard all day. Well, maybe the second best words. Nick had whispered some pretty good ones while he was busy knocking my internal organs loose.
Phoebe was waiting at the screen door for me when I pulled in the driveway with a glass of wine and a four white pills. I’d never been so glad to see Tylenol in my life. I eyed the wine closely, the responsible side of my subconscious whispering that drinking alcohol before a grueling physical fitness exam was probably a bad idea.
The other side of my subconscious looked a lot like Ryan Gosling. And Ryan could talk me into almost anything. Right now he was looking into my soul with his beautiful blue eyes and saying, “Hey girl. Take the wine. Drink it. You know how much I love you when you drink. And I know how much you love me when you drink too.”
“Hello,” Phoebe said. “Earth to Addison.”
I took the wine and the pills and knocked them straight back. “Sorry, I was talking to Ryan Gosling.”
“Sometimes I talk to Channing Tatum. He always gives me excellent advice?”
“Really? Because he seems like a bit of a loose cannon.”
“He’s much more responsible now that he’s become a dad. I hardly ever end up naked in awkward situations anymore. You want something to eat to soak up the wine?”
“Might as well. But I’ll have to take it to go. And probably I shouldn’t eat anything that’s going to make me throw up.”
“A good rule to live by in general,” Phoebe said, shaking her head. “Sucks you have cramps on test day. I used to use that excuse for real back in high school.”
“I remember.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re the only person I’ve ever known who gets her period 143 days a year.”
“That’s the best thing about having men for teachers. They don’t keep track and they don’t want to talk about it. A girl having her period can get away with murder.”
“I’ll make sure to pass that along to Rosemarie if they throw the book at her.” I took the sandwich Phoebe made me and thanked her again for the painkillers. I was already able to walk upright and it no longer felt like ice picks were being stabbed into my back.
By the time I made it back to the police academy I had so much energy my scalp was sizzling with the electrical force of it. I called Phoebe after I’d checked in and waited for the others to get ready to start the mile run.
“What the hell did you give me?” I hissed into the phone. “I only wanted some Tylenol.”
“And that’s what I gave you. Along with a Xanax. You sounded a little high strung when you called and I figured you just needed to chill out.”
“You can’t just give people drugs without warning them first.”
“If I’d told you then you wouldn’t have taken it. Look how much better you feel now.”
“You know meds always have the opposite effect on me. Me taking a Xanax is like taking Speed. Jesus, Phoebes.”
“Oh, I’d forgotten that was you that had that problem. I kept thinking it was Aunt Scarlet.”
“Grrr,” I growled into the phone and smacked myself in the forehead. The guy next to me gave me a funny look and moved over to whisper to another guy, so I gave them both my best PMS look.
Leave it to Phoebe to pull one of her stunts and then casually blow it off. I hung up, knowing it was a futile battle to argue with her. She’d never acknowledge that she did anything wrong. To her it had been the right thing and that’s all she cared about. I loved my sister, but she was the most selfish person I’d ever met in my life. And her entire life people had been making excuses for her because that’s what “creative” people did.
I tossed my phone into my bag and stretched a little. I was feeling pretty good. And if I ignored the fact that my hands were jittery and my feet couldn’t stand still I could almost forget I wanted to murder Phoebe.
*
Three hours later I was drenched with sweat and my arms and legs felt like noodles. But I’d finished. And I hadn’t vomited once. I’d never admit to Phoebe that the drugs had gotten me through. There was no need to encourage her to continue to be a reprobate. But I’d gone from one exercise station to the next, my body revved and the adrenaline high pushing me past my normal tolerance. I guess I should be grateful they weren’t testing for doping, or I’d have been in a hell of a fix.
The medicinal high was wearing off very quickly, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I crashed hard. I shuffled to the front of the building and barely had the strength to hold my purse on my shoulder. It took me three tries to take my gun from the security checkpoint and drop it in my bag. All I wanted in life was a big glass of wine and Nick’s Whirlpool tub.
What I didn’t expect was Savage to be waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. I had a split second to decide whether to turn around and run back inside or meet him at the bottom. By the grin he gave me I was guessing he knew exactly the battle I was struggling with.
“Long time no see, stranger,” he said.
The spit in my mouth dried up and I’d never been so glad to get my period in my whole life. Except that time when I thought I might be pregnant. I’d been pretty glad to get my period then too.
“You could say that.” It looked like running back inside was out of the question. I’d opened my big dumb mouth and now I was stuck.
Savage leaned against the door of his truck and I casually looked him over. He looked good. Really good. And the lady driving past must have thought so too because she swerved and almost hit a park bench when she caught sight of him.
He wore jeans and black boots and a black shirt that showed every ridged muscle in his abdomen. His black leather jacket hid his gun and a black ski cap was pulled over his hair. He sure as hell didn’t look like law enforcement of any kind, much less FBI. He never quite managed to dress to regulation—Savage didn’t like rules.
His skin was the color of copper and his cheekbones flat
and high, showing his Native American heritage. If the Rock and Pocahontas had had a love child, it would’ve looked like Savage. He was a renegade, sexy as hell, and the kind of man mothers warned their daughters about. Which meant he was just about irresistible. But somehow I’d managed. I’m such a dumbass sometimes.
“You’re looking a little worse for the wear, babe.”
I shot him the finger and he chuckled. “You’re lucky I’m too weak to pick up my gun or I’d shoot out your tires.”
“If you did that I couldn’t take you to get celebratory ice cream.”
I perked up at that. Now that the physical fitness exam from hell was over I could eat as much ice cream as I wanted. Not that I’d been curbing my appetite for it much before the exam, but I’d at least thought about it.
“What are we celebrating?”
“Your new job. You came out number 4 overall. Good job, babe. I knew you’d conquer those sit-ups eventually.”
I clamped my mouth shut and didn’t tell him the only reason I’d done so well was because Phoebe drugged me. I didn’t know what the status of their relationship was, and honestly I didn’t want to know. But I also didn’t want to cause them any problems.
When Savage had said it had been a long time he hadn’t been kidding. The last time I’d seen him was the week after I’d moved in with Nick. Savage had kept his word and continued to help me train and get into shape, but I couldn’t look at him without thinking about what might be happening with Phoebe, and me living with Nick made things a little awkward. Or probably it was just me. I had the ability to make almost any situation awkward.
“Are you sure? Results aren’t supposed to be delivered until Friday.”
He arched a brow and then opened the passenger side door of his truck and waited for me to get in. “Of course I’m sure. I’ve got connections. And they all owe me favors.”
“That’s handy.”
I made my way down the stairs, trying not to wince as my hamstrings tightened up. Savage’s truck was on and the heater was running, and when I finally managed to hoist myself up into the seat I let out a very unladylike groan. My phone rang as soon as Savage took his place behind the wheel and I wondered if Nick had some sort of sixth sense when it came to Savage.
