by J. D. Brick
Then the sounds of a fight: thuds and grunts and snarls, feet slamming on wood. And I just stay there in the bed, Keegan the coward, covering my ears. But I clearly hear Megz. “Hunter didn't kick your fucking dog, Blue, you stupid asshole,” She screams, her voice harsh. “I did! And I'd do it again!”
The fighting sounds stop, and there’s a moment of heavy silence. Then Blue sputters, “Don't touch my dog again, either one of you.” I see him outlined in the door.
When Hunter starts yelling again, it looks like Blue cringes. “You're fucking crazy, soldier boy, you know that? Totally, fucking crazy! You're certifi—”
Blue slams the door so hard it makes the walls shake; it cuts off Hunter’s last, ugly word. Then Blue leans against the door and puts his hands to his face. I scramble out of the bed and raise my arms to put them around his neck. But he holds me away from him. We stand like that for a moment; Blue's fingers cut into my arms. The streetlight shines on his face just enough for me to see glistening tears.
Hunter's door slams, and it is quiet.
Blue swallows hard, then brings my hands together and leans down to kiss my palms. I can’t see anything clearly after that, just the shape of his body through my tears. His voice, when he finally speaks, was measured, controlled, heartbreaking.
“I'm going to sleep in my room tonight, Keegan. Alone.” He lets go of my hands and brushes my lips with the barest of kisses. “I'm sorry.” And he slips out of the room.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mojo
Blue
We’re sitting in cheap, vinyl chairs in a dreary, ice-cold hallway at the Hickory Flat Police Department, and I can barely keep my eyes open. A mostly sleepless night is catching up to me. I spent hours just lying in my bed, replaying in my stupid head the whole Blue-kinda-sorta-comes-clean-to-Keegan catastrophe that unfolded upstairs.
Why did I decide right then, at the end of one hell of a day, to plunge into a confession of the biggest secret of my life? Beats the fuck out of me. And then I’d only done a half-ass job of it and topped it off with a complete fucking flip-out over the dog. I wanted to fall asleep holding Keegan that night as much as I’d ever wanted anything. But I didn’t dare. I didn't know how I might wake up. Another appearance from my howling, flashback-flooded self might scare her off for good.
Keegan has to be wishing she’d never met me. Yet here I am, sitting next to her outside the office of Detective Frank Lugner, staring at the name plate on his office door and wondering why the hell he’s making us wait so long to see him. I fell Keegan shiver beside me just before she wriggles her hand inside mine; just that small gesture from her almost makes me break down and sob.
“Your hand is so cold.” I clasp both my hands around hers. “I don’t know why they’ve got the A/C blasting in here. It’s, like, 50 degrees outside, at the most.”
She’s wearing this soft pink sweater made of that expensive stuff that chicks really like, and her jeans clung to her body so perfectly it makes me ache, and not just in a horndog way.
When Keegan texted me that afternoon, asking if I’d come with her to see Lugner, I’d been almost pathetically eager to be with her. I skulked around in my room, pretending to be asleep, until she left the house this morning. I couldn’t bring myself to face her. I was scared of what I might see in her eyes: wariness, rejection, fear.
And when I finally crept out of my room not long before noon, I had a cabinet-slamming contest in the kitchen with a grim-faced Hunter. We didn’t say a word to each other. No sign, mercifully, of the dog-kicking blonde named Megz.
I put my arm around Keegan, there in the police department, and pull her close. Is it just my imagination that she hesitates for a fraction of a second before leaning against me? I’d basically spent all night moderating a crazy-ass argument between the two sides of myself: Blue the calm, rational realist and Blue the hot-blooded hunka burning love with an unfortunate case of PTSD. No point in denying it any longer.
Cool Blue made the decision about half a dozen times to break it off with Keegan. She needs someone more stable than me, more everything than me. But then, over and over, Blue the Hunka Hero talked me (us) out of that decision. Keegan and I have something truly special. I can’t give it up. She needs me as much as I need her. I’m sure of it. And I am so close to getting my shit together.
Keegan smiles tentatively at me. “So, how'd the sponsor visit go this morning?” I ask.
She shrugs. “It went okay, I guess. You could tell they were concerned; they kept looking around the newsroom at all those terrible words. It was so awkward. But I got through it. We have some great stories coming up this week and next, so it helped to talk about that.” She swiped a hand across her forehead. “I don't know, Blue, I can't help feeling this stalker thing is hurting the paper, hurting the j-school. And it’s because of me.”
I’ve just opened my mouth to tell her everything’s going to be okay when Lugner’s door opened with a swoosh. His belly comes into view first, followed by short, polyestered legs and the slack, pissy face of a middle-aged man who has soured on life. Keegan and I stand up at the same time, and Lugner looks me over, then turns to address Keegan.
“Sorry to keep you waiting so long.Who’s your friend? I understood you'd be coming alone. We have a lot to talk about.”
“Um. . .this is Blue Danube. He’s my. . .” She seems to teeter between word choices: soul mate, lover, lunatic. All of the above. I stick my hand out to the detective.
“I’m Keegan’s roommate.” He takes my hand, reluctantly, and lets it drop after a couple of limp shakes. Then he frowns. “I thought your roommate was a girl. Megan, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah, I didn’t tell you. Megan was my roommate, but I moved out of the dorm a couple of weeks ago after the guy made some really awful threats and made it clear he knew exactly where I lived.”
Lugner shakes his head like he disapproves, and Keegan’s tone turns slightly apologetic. “I . . . I got freaked out, and so I moved into a house just off campus. Blue is one of my new roommates. I didn’t want to drive my car down here today because it’s still got all this horrible stuff painted all over it. The police—your guys—just came this morning and took pictures of it. So I asked Blue to bring me.”
“Besides,” Keegan touches my arm, and I pretty much dissolve into putty inside, “I want Blue here with me.”
The detective’s eyes slide over to me. “Blue Danube?” No mistaking the mockery in his voice. “Is that a stage name or something?”
“Or something.” I stare him down. Two minutes after meeting the guy, I am surprised at how much I already dislike him.
He ushers us into his office, which has your standard-issue, small town police department décor: cheap, L-shaped desk and metal file cabinets, an older desktop computer and printer, and surprisingly few personal items. There’s one framed picture on the tallest file cabinet of a much younger and slimmer Lugner with his arm around a teenage boy, both of them wearing the same distant, wishy-washy smile.
We sit in another set of uncomfortable chairs while the detective settles with a sigh into the desk in front of us and grabs a Kleenex to mop his sweating forehead. His shirt is stretched so tight across his stomach I half expect buttons to come flying in my direction at any moment. He pulls a file folder from an overstuffed wire rack on the desk. Seriously, you’re still working from paper files? What is this, 1990?
“Well, it seems our stalker has moved from text messages to vandalism and trespassing,” he mutters, flipping through pages in the file. “Hmmm…”
Another Kleenex swipe across his face. Even in the ridiculously chilled air, Lugner seems to be drowning in sweat. He slips on a pair of reading glasses and peers at several printed pages. “Do you know of any reason that he would escalate things now, Keegan?” He looks at her over his glasses.
Maybe because he can, you ass-clown, because no one’s doing much of anything to stop him.
My jaw has started to hurt lately; I’m clen
ching it too much. But this is not the time to stop.
“Uh. . .no, I don't. I. . .”
“So what exactly is the Hickory Flat PD doing about this?” Even to my ears, my tone sounds obnoxious, but I don’t care. Keegan flinches beside me. I didn’t mean to cut her off, but I can’t sit there silently another minute. Lugner’s eyes, squinting into a ray of dust-dotted sunlight coming through the window blinds, glare at me. “Keegan could be in real danger. It doesn’t seem like this is being taken as seriously as it should be.”
“We're doing everything we can do right now, Mr. Danube, especially given our limited resources.” He uses exactly the cold, condescending tone I expected. “I am quite certain this is someone Keegan has stirred up with her . . . .activities.”
“What activities?” Keegan asks, her voice sharp. She’s sitting up straight now in the chair. She is, finally, getting mad. “You mean doing my job as editor of the paper?”
Lugner pulls his glasses off and takes a deep, exasperated breath. “I am just trying to give my professional opinion, Keegan. I think this has to do with the things you write in your newspaper, or maybe your. . .um. . . notoriety from that blog thing you were doing. There are a lot of people who will zero in on someone putting themselves out there as much as you do, especially given your family connections. You've made yourself a target.”
Blood is pounding in my ears, and my vision narrows for a moment so that all I can see is the spit built up in one corner of Lugner’s mouth. The guy enrages and repulses me, but I’m not completely sure why.
“That sounds an awful lot like blaming the victim,” I say.
Lugner turns red, and his double chin wiggles back and forth as he places both hands flat on the desk. “That’s not at all what I am doing, and I think, Mr. Danube, that you should. . .”
Keegan’s phone starts dinga-linging in her purse with the old-fashioned ringtone I’ve teased her about. Lugner’s mouth snaps shut. He sits there glaring. Keegan pulls the phone out and turns it over. I glimpse the word Virginia on the screen before she pushes the power button and sticks it back in her purse.
“That’s the third time she’s called today,” Keegan mutters, glancing over at me. Her voicemail tone pinged just then. “I guess I’d better call her back soon.”
Lugner slides pages back into Keegan’s file and stuffs the file in among the others on his desk. His mouth is a thin line on his sagging face. He is obviously dismissing us. But I’m not done yet.
“I want to know exactly what you're doing to find this guy,” I say. Keegan leaned forward. I felt her eyes on the side of my face. “It seems like nothing is being done. And how are you going to protect Keegan? Exactly, how?”
When I was in the service, I relied on what I thought of as the “skin crawl test.” It never let me down. If someone made my skin crawl—like a thousand ants all over my scalp—I knew that person couldn’t be trusted. When Lugner shifts his gaze to me, and I catch the flash of pure venom that lights up his eyes, my head practically erupts with the creepy crawlies. Even though that makes no sense at all.
“Blue. . .” Keegan shifts uncomfortably in her chair.
“We're doing a lot, actually," Lugner interrupts. “We're waiting on phone records. We're pouring through campus surveillance footage. We've just about pinpointed the IP address that the emails came from. We've questioned Keegan's ex-boyfriend, Tyler Adams. I caught hell for daring to question Pastor Adams' son. We even gave him a lie detector test, which he passed.”
“He's not my ex-boy. . .” Keegan starts, but Lugner cuts her off again. “I also questioned Jason Parker, the school paper's managing editor. He comes from one of the founding families of this town, and I caught hell over questioning him too, but I did it.” He shoots me a grim look. “And I can tell you, he’s not the guy. He offered to take the lie detector test, and he passed with flying colors.”
“Oh.” Keegan’s surprise is obvious.
“Wait a minute,” I say, “why would you question the managing editor?”
“Because he was Keegan's main competitor for the editor job, and he would take over if she resigned, if she left town.”
“What?” I turn to stare at Keegan. “Why didn't you tell me that? About Jason?”
“I don’t know, I didn't think about it. He was very gracious when I beat him out for the job, and he totally supports me. He's a nice guy.” I can't help snorting. Keegan narrows her eyes at me. “His grandma was the first female editor of the paper. Jason told me he was happy if it couldn't be him that it went to another groundbreaking female.”
Another snort from me. I shift my glance to Lugner. “So could Jason Parker be pretending to be some nut job who's mad about Keegan's politics or whatever? He sets my alarm bells off. Has he been investigated? I mean really checked into?”
Lugner stands, abruptly. “Maybe you should come back another time, Keegan, when you can come alone.” He crosses his arms, and I slowly rise to my feet. We stand there glaring at each other. Finally, Keegan stands as well.
“Well, what do we do now?” Keegan asks the detective. “I mean, we have to find this guy and make him stop.”
“We’re working on that right now. Why don't you just let us do our jobs?”
Because you’re not doing your job, you fat fuck.
Lugner comes around the desk and puts his hand on Keegan’s shoulder, which makes my skin crawl so bad I can barely contain myself. “There are things I can’t share with you yet, Keegan,” he says, “but I can tell you we are making real progress, and this should all be over soon. I'll try to arrange for an officer to keep watch at your house. But if you feel like you're in danger, maybe it would be better, for your own safety, if you consider leaving town. It might be best so that we can guarantee your safety. How about you just take a semester off? I’m sure your grandmother could put you to work at the Capitol for a few months.”
Keegan looks stunned. Lugner pats her back, then steps over to open the door. Keegan walks out ahead of me. As I come even with Lugner, still standing with his hand on the door, I look him right in the eyes. My You’re Not Fooling Me look. As a teenager, I used to give that look to Bill a lot.
“Danube. . .” Lugner’s rubbing his chin. “Any relation to Bill Danube of Bootstrap Enterprises?”
“He was my father.”
And then I see the alteration that always happens in people like Lugner when they find out who I am. Or who they think I am, anyway. The subtle shift in body language. The change in facial expression. They go from condescending or judgmental or just plain indifferent to envious, fawning, intensely, creepily interested. It’s always about the money.
“Well, well. . .you two make quite a powerful pair, don’t you?” No missing the acid in his tone. He’s one of the jealous, resentful type. “Didn't your father go down in a plane crash a while back?”
“Yes, five years ago.”
“My condolences.” He murmurs it in such a perfunctory way that it is clear he doesn't mean it. “I guess that makes you the heir apparent, huh? What're you doing at Ikana, just horsing around while other people work for you?”
We are out in the hallway now, and Keegan and I turn as one to glare at Lugner as he leans against the door frame. I have enough sense not to cold-cock him. Assaulting a police officer would have really screwed up my life, and it sure won’t help Keegan. But my insides tighten and start this lava-slow boil that I know I need to get under control. The sonofabitch is trying to piss me off.
“I don't have any involvement with Bootstrap.” I say evenly. “I'm completely on my own.”
“Uh huh.” No mistaking the sarcasm. I curl a fist behind my back.
“I’m really surprised,” Lugner goes on, still sarcastic, but looking at Keegan now, “that I haven’t heard from the great Virginia Cooke about this whole stalker issue.”
“I haven’t told my grandmother about it.” Keegan sticks her hands in the sleeves of her pink sweatery thing. Cashmere. The word has just come to me.
“I don’t need her to be involved,” Keegan says coolly, firmly. “And neither one of our families has anything to do with this matter, Detective. So you don't need to bring them up again. I’ll expect to hear from you soon.”
She turns and strides down the hall. She’s getting her mojo back or maybe claiming it for the first time. Either way, I’m proud of her. I grin at Lugner. He flushes angrily, then closes his door without another word.
The elevator seems to take forever to make it to the third floor; we decide to take the stairs. As soon as the heavy stairway door slams shut behind us, Keegan leans against the wall, puts her hand on her chest and closes her eyes. “I probably shouldn’t have spoken to him like that.” She takes a deep breath. “But he made me so mad. His tone of voice there at the end, when he was talking about our families was so, so. . .”
“. . .much like an asshole?” I finish her sentence. “Keegan, you did great in there. Don't second-guess yourself. You shouldn't have to put up with being treated like that. And there's something not right about that guy. I can feel it.”
I put my hands on the wall on either side of her and kiss her, lightly at first, then more passionately. I’m getting turned on, just pressing against her like this in the empty stairwell. “Hey, you ever wanted to do it on a flight of stairs?” I nudge my knee between her legs. “Now's your chance, baby.”
She puts her arms around my neck. “I’m pretty sure doing it in the police department would be a bad idea.”
“Aw, come on.” I push my forehead against hers. She’s chewing her lower lip. I know her well enough now to know that means something’s bothering her. “What is it?”
“Blue.” She drags my name out into two or three syllables. “About Jason.”
I start to speak, but she puts her fingers on my mouth, shushing me. “I know you have this thing about him. But the thing is. . .” She kisses me softly. “The thing is that it makes me look bad, you know? Since Jason and I competed against each other, if it gets out that I’m making accusations against him with no proof, it just doesn’t look good. So I need you to stop. Lugner said he passed a lie detector test.”
