by Sibel Hodge
After a long soak in a hot bath with some lavender aromatherapy oils, I wanted to go to bed and sleep for a hundred years, but when I emerged from the steamy bathroom, Brad was still sitting on the sofa in the living room, stroking Marmalade behind the ears.
‘What are you still doing here?’ I felt my face flush and pulled my bathrobe tighter around me, painfully aware that I was naked underneath. I could do without a repeat performance of the nipple incident, thank you very much.
Brad’s face had a guarded expression on it, and I knew it meant trouble. ‘I’ve got a confession to make.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’
‘Come on, Brad. Just spit it out. I’m tired.’
‘The good news is that Romeo called your mobile when you were in the bath, so at least you know he’s still alive.’
‘And what’s the bad news?’ I frowned.
‘He lost his temper a bit when I said you were in the bath.’
‘Great! Why did you answer it? Now he probably thinks something’s going on between us,’ I said through gritted teeth.
I pointed toward the door and Brad sighed. He stood up and moved toward the door, and I gave him a little push to encourage him. As I did, my bathrobe fell open. I looked down with a horrified gasp and quickly closed it again, wrapping both arms around my body in case it decided to spontaneously pop open again.
‘Don’t cover up on my account.’ He winked, and then left me standing there, hot and bothered.
I tried to call Romeo back, but either he was ignoring me, or he couldn’t pick up. ‘Damn it.’ I threw the phone on the sofa and went to bed.
****
I had a feeling of impending doom in the depths of my stomach when I woke up the next day. I couldn’t shake it off on the drive to Heather’s apartment. In fact, it got worse when I arrived at her building and discovered her car wasn’t there. Rain pelted the windscreen through the gloomy sky, and I hesitated for a while, psyching myself up. If there was no answer, I would have to break into her apartment, and I didn’t know what I might find. I liked to think I was a kick-ass, hot-shit investigator, but deep down I knew that sometimes I had a brilliant knack for screwing things up.
Heather lived in a run-down apartment complex that was in bad need of renovation. It seemed a world away from her flashy, expensive clothes and car. I wondered about that as I took the lift to the fifth floor, dressed in my navy boiler suit with ‘Mr. Fix It Maintenance’ written on the front, carrying my matching navy toolbox. There was no excuse for a lack of color co-ordination, even if you happened to be dressed in very unflattering clothes.
I walked down the corridor, found her apartment, and knocked. In the apartment next door, I could hear a couple arguing in what I thought was Japanese. The smell of fried food emanated from the walls.
I waited a few minutes and knocked again, then pressed my ear against the door. I didn’t hear a thing coming from inside, so I pulled out Brad’s open sesame tool and picked the lock. I slipped inside and stood there, waiting a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim apartment.
‘Hello?’ I called. The sound echoed around the small apartment.
No answer. I slipped inside and turned on the lights.
I figured Heather pulled in a good salary, but it looked like she didn’t spend a penny of it on her home. The entrance hall had three doors leading off it, all of which were closed. I opened the first one and found myself in a bedroom. A saggy mattress and threadbare white sheets covered an old double bed, and a battered MDF nightstand lived a solitary existence with no other little furniture friends to keep it company. A well-worn fitted closet with a cracked mirror on the front took up one side of the wall.
I rummaged around in the nightstand drawer and found a yellow sticky note with the words Carlos Bagliero scrawled in messy handwriting. Now I was getting somewhere. I rifled through the wardrobe and found the Fandango bag of my dreams in amongst a pile of about fifty. In one of my more shallow moments, I debated whether or not to sneak it down my boiler suit. Tempting though it was, I’d have a huge guilt trip if I did, and karma was a bitch. I dribbled a bit, lusting after it, and closed the door.
Next up was the bathroom. It was pretty basic – cheap towels, cheap toiletries. I retreated into the hall and found the kitchen.
An ashtray sat on the kitchen table, overflowing with cigarette butts. Next to it was a plate of half-eaten chicken salad on a chipped plate, and a glass of clear liquid. I picked up the glass, studying the lipstick. Dracula red, the same as on the butts. Not a good sign. I sniffed the glass and wrinkled up my nose at the hairspray aroma of neat vodka. Obviously, something had disturbed Heather’s meal. But what?
I walked on through to the living room. An ancient stereo system sat on top of a wooden rickety table. They were underneath an open window, which was blowing a draft through the room. The other windows were closed, the tatty black-out blinds drawn. I heard a weird sound through the open window, and stuck my head out, looking down to the car park.
Great, just what I needed. The bushy-haired mob goon stood by the entrance to the apartments. Obviously the muscle of the two, he was around six feet tall, with a square jaw, and he looked to be solid-pack muscle. I think he’d overdone it on the steroids. Whatever I needed to do in here, I needed to do it fast.
I hurriedly searched Heather’s computer desk. Where was her laptop? Wherever it was, that place was not here. I did find a USB flash drive, though. Woo-hoo! I had no sooner pocketed it than I heard a loud explosion. A bolt of lightning lit up the room and shards of glass flew everywhere.
I dove to the floor, catching the edge of the wooden table with my shoulder. The table jerked backwards, and the stereo unit wobbled a bit and then fell out of the window.
I heard a thud followed by a groan.
Leaping up from the floor, I dusted off the pieces of glass, trying to figure out what had happened. I realized the light was out, and guessed the light bulb had exploded. I moved to the window and peered out.
Mr. Steroid Goon lay sprawled on the pavement below, out cold, with the stereo pretty much buried in his head. I guessed he’d have a rather large headache when he woke up and might want revenge. Since I didn’t like the sight of my own blood very much, I decided to not stick around for that to happen.
I ran out of the apartment, swung my ass down the fire exit stairs, and ended up in the car park.
I’d just floored the Lemon up the main road when Romeo called my mobile.
‘Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days,’ I said, the phone cupped beneath my chin.
‘And here I thought you’d been too busy with Brad to even think about me.’
A tense silence ensued as I tried to think of what to say. I drove over a bump and dropped the phone. ‘Damn.’ I grappled around in the foot well with one hand on the steering wheel until I found the phone. ‘Sorry, dropped the phone.’
‘How convenient.’
I sighed. ‘Nothing’s going on with Brad. He’s just my boss.’ At least I thought nothing was going on. ‘Don’t you trust me?’ Although to tell the truth, I didn’t know if I trusted me.
Silence. And then: ‘Of course I trust you. I just don’t trust Brad. It’s no secret that he’s still in love with you.’
I couldn’t stop the astonished laugh that sprung from my lips. Brad? In love with me? No. I shook my head, and it occurred to me that I should probably steer this conversation in another direction. ‘I don’t think so, Romeo, but it doesn’t matter if he is. Where are you?’
‘I’m at your apartment,’ he said.
‘Are you naked again?’
He let out a smooth chuckle. ‘No, but I could be.’
‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
13
When I reached my apartment, I rushed into Romeo’s arms, partly because I’d really missed him, and partly because I felt bad for having naughty thoughts about Brad.
He buried his lips in my hair, hugging me tight. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘Me too.’ I smiled up at him.
‘So what’s been happening?’ He led me to the sofa and pulled me onto his lap.
‘Where do I start?’ I filled him in on the Cohens’ chop shop, the mob goons, and a few snippets about the Fandango case. Until I’d found out which police officer was investigating his disappearance, I didn’t want to give too much information away.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d been in an accident?’ He pulled me close. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I couldn’t get hold of you, remember?’ I rested my head on his shoulder. ‘Anyway, I’m fine now. Hacker did some kind of freaky voodoo stuff on me.’
‘Don’t go poking around with the Cohens too much.’
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t tell you. Just take my word for it.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘Do what?’ He feigned confusion.
‘You can’t tell me not to do something, and then not tell me why.’
‘The Cohens are nasty. I don’t want you going near them without any backup. Just promise me you won’t poke around.’
‘OK, I promise,’ I said, knowing I’d do the exact opposite. ‘So, who’s working on the Fandango case?’
He hesitated and shot me a wary look. ‘Janice is.’
My eyes narrowed involuntarily. ‘Great!’ Still, at least if she was working that case, she wouldn’t be working with Romeo on his case.
He pulled back, gazing into my eyes as he delivered the punch. ‘She’s helping out on my case, too.’
Not so great, then. I did some mental deep breathing.
‘She’s not that bad, Amber.’
I jumped up and paced the room. ‘She is. You just can’t see it. She doesn’t show you that side of her. Janice has been trying to get her hands on you for years. She’s a sneaky little–’
‘You can’t keep blaming her for getting you kicked off the force. You did shoot her.’
I threw my hands up in the air. ‘It was an accident! Anyone would think that I aimed that gun at her on purpose and shot her.’
He leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘Well, why won’t you tell anyone what happened, if it was an accident?’
I stopped pacing and sat down, staring at my feet for a while as I decided whether or not to tell him. After a while, I sucked in a sharp breath and spoke. ‘We were at the shooting range, and she told me she’d slept with you.’
‘What?’ His forehead wrinkled up, a confused, incredulous look on his face.
‘Janice told me that she was going to get you away from me and get me kicked off the force if it was the last thing she did. She told me how she was the one who’d stopped me from getting promoted all these years. All this time, she’d been blaming the other promotion board members for my lack of advancement up the career ladder, and it was actually her. Oh, she was ecstatic about what she’d done, hysterical almost. Then she walked out in front of my shooting booth to retrieve her target, which is totally against protocol, by the way, and I kind of flipped. I didn’t mean to shoot her, I just meant to scare her a teensy bit. Who knew I was such a good shot? That’s when I popped her one in the ass.’
He ran a hand over his closely cropped hair and sighed. It was a couple minutes before he spoke. ‘So why didn’t you tell me this at the time?’
‘Because technically, it was my fault.’
‘Yes, but technically, she broke the protocol. The way she tells it, you just shot her when she was walking away from her shooting booth back to the weapons check area, for absolutely no reason. That’s not what happened, apparently.’
‘And Romeo, who would have believed me? There were no witnesses.’ I ran a hand through my own hair. ‘And besides, she’s a detective chief inspector, and I was just a detective sergeant. It would have been her word against mine. God, I’ve been over and over that day in my head a thousand times in the last six months, and I still hate myself for that moment of weakness. And the worst part is that I’m supposed to be an investigator, but I missed all the signs staring me in the face. All the times she made excuses to keep me confined to desk duties, so she could keep me out of the field and get closer to you. All the snide, bitchy comments she made, which I’d heard about through the police station grapevine and dismissed without a second thought. Everything was connected to this sick vendetta she’s got against me.’
He frowned. ‘She obviously had this whole scheme of hers planned for a long time then, Amber. And something else – don’t ever doubt yourself as an investigator. You’re the best one I know. So, what are you going to do about it?’
I let out an angry snort. ‘Well, it’s too late to do anything now. There isn’t anything I can do about it.’
Romeo shrugged. ‘Maybe there is a way. This Fandango case is pretty high profile. If you can solve it before Janice does, maybe the Chief Constable will offer you your job back.’
I looked up sharply.
‘I didn’t sleep with her.’ He locked his gaze firmly on me.
‘I know. I worked it out later on that the time she said she was with you, you were actually with me. But it wasn’t mostly about you. It was mostly about me, and what Janice had been trying to do to me. That’s the reason I had a momentary insanity attack, not because I thought she’d slept with you, but because she wanted to destroy me.’
He held his arm out and I quickly tucked myself up underneath it. We sat snuggled on the couch for a few minutes, each lost in our own thoughts. Mine involved doing something nasty and painful to Janice Skipper.
Finally, he spoke. ‘Do you want me to cheer you up?’ he asked with that wicked little smile I couldn’t resist.
‘What did you have in mind?’
‘I’ll do the nasty thing you like.’
I didn’t need to be asked twice.
A very satisfying forty-five minutes later, we lay in bed. I traced a finger up and down the defined muscles of stomach, thinking how perfectly gorgeous he was, and how easy it would be to just move in with him and live happily ever after.
But would we? That was the million dollar question, and I didn’t have the answer. Most of the time I thought that ‘happily ever after’ was just a myth spread around by diamond jewelers and wedding dress shops. OK, so my parents were a good example of a couple who’d stayed together for years, but that was probably because they hardly ever saw each other. And I had inherited their crazy genes, which didn’t seem like a good omen.
‘Did you hear about Fandango’s wife?’ Romeo turned his head on the pillow and looked at me.
My finger stopped mid-stroke and I sat up. ‘What wife?’
‘The one he married nineteen and a half years ago.’
‘Tia said he didn’t have a wife.’
‘Who’s Tia?’
‘His daughter. Maybe’
‘I didn’t hear anything about a daughter.’
‘Snap. I didn’t hear anything about a wife.’
‘What’s the maybe-daughter like?’ He twisted around, propping himself up on his elbow.
‘Quirky, but she actually seems very sweet. What’s the story with the wife?’
‘From what I heard, Fandango moved to the UK years ago out of nowhere, and married someone named Samantha James pretty much as soon as he arrived. They stayed together for six months and then separated, but they never got divorced.’
‘Six months?’ I shook my head. ‘I just can’t get my head around the fact that Fandango didn’t exist until nineteen and a half years ago.’
‘He’s hiding something.’
I didn’t tell him those were the exact words Brad had spoken.
‘Or maybe hiding from something, like a wife that isn’t quite an ex. But Fandango is a famous fashion designer. OK, so he’s quite private, and there’s not much information about him in the press, but even so, anyone who cares to, knows who he is. Only an idiot would try to hide in pu
blic,’ I mused.
‘I’m guessing that with a fortune worth millions and the Fandango fashion empire, he’s not an idiot.’
‘Exactly, that’s why it seems weird. And now his assistant has gone missing, too.’
‘I hate to say this, but word on the street is that Fandango is dead. From what you’re saying, it looks like his assistant is probably dead, too.’
‘That’s the way it seems. And if he isn’t dead, where the hell is he? Maybe the wife can shed a bit of light on something because I seem to be getting nowhere. Have you got an address for her?’ I asked.
He rolled out of bed, strode naked to his jeans, and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket with an address written on it. ‘Here. And don’t tell anyone you got this from me. I’m under strict instructions from Janice not to tell you anything.’
I smiled. ‘Thanks very much. I’ll pay you in kind if you want.’
His grin lit up his face. ‘Now you’re talking.’
We did the nasty thing again, and then shared a shower. While I really wanted to snuggle in bed with Romeo all day, order take-out, lounge around, and forget about everything, I had work to do. I half-heartedly pulled on my clothes, bade Romeo a reluctant goodbye, and headed for the office. It wasn’t until I was in my car and on the road that I realized I still didn’t know where Romeo was headed. He had very skillfully distracted me from finding out, too, and I had an uneasy feeling that I wouldn’t like the answer.
****
I waved a pizza box under Hacker’s nose when I entered the office. My coffee table had been replaced by a full-sized office desk, complete with file holders, drawers, laptop, and even a pen holder. I found a packet of pens in the drawer with a red ribbon tied around them and a bow on top, along with other stationary paraphernalia. I took it as a good sign that Brad wanted me to stick with the job. In a way it was pretty flattering, but did he want me around because he thought I was a good investigator, or for some other non-work-related, completely sexual reason? And if it was the latter, I wasn’t even sure that I felt annoyed about that possibility. I shook my head to clear it of random – and quite dangerous – sexual thoughts about Brad before I had a hot flush.
