by Jenna Rae
“I’m glad they found each other. They seem happy.”
“Yeah.” Del seemed tired suddenly, and Lola realized that she had been detaining her for several minutes and felt guilty.
“Thanks for the ride. And for not minding all my questions.”
“No problem. G’night.”
Standing at her door and waving goodnight, Lola wondered what it would feel like if Del grabbed her hand the way Tess had grabbed Lin’s. She pushed away the thought. Del had never been anything but polite to her. She certainly wasn’t making an effort to romance her. Besides, Lola knew she needed to learn to stand on her own two feet. She hung up her coat, glad that she’d chosen something warm. Her hands and legs were freezing after the short ride on the bike. Didn’t Del get cold, riding around exposed to the air like that?
Hounded by the mewling kitties, she checked their food and water bowls. They followed her around as she checked the doors and windows and then went upstairs. She tried to imagine fixing the plumbing or putting on a roof. If anything went wrong in the house, she’d have to call someone to fix it. She looked over at the bathroom window where the curtain hung at a slight angle. She’d struggled just to put up curtains, and she hadn’t even been able to do that right! She looked back at her reflection and tried to assure herself that it didn’t matter.
“Useless, stupid, silly cow,” Orrin said. She saw movement in the mirror and thought for a second he was behind her. She whirled around, choking on fear, but there was no one there. She went back through the house, checking all of the doors and windows again, opening the closets and peering under the beds. There was no one. She was imagining things. Oh, great, she thought. Now I’m crazy, too. Super. But it was normal to get spooked sometimes, wasn’t it? People got spooked in movies all the time.
“Yes, Lolly,” Orrin said. “Right before the monster kills them.”
She sniffed, refusing to acknowledge his comment. But she did rush through her ablutions, wishing she were already safely under the covers. One of the kitties jumped up on the sink and got a paw wet, yowling in dismay at this indignity. As usual, the kitties’ silly antics distracted her from the megrims and made her smile. She scolded Buttons and squeezed her. Queenie would never put up with being hugged like that, but Buttons just waited passively for her to let go.
“Oh, you’re a silly girl.” She buried her face in the cat’s soft fur, surprised by how attached she’d become to the two little Dumpster refugees. They were strays, just like her. She looked in the mirror. Adonis had done what he could, and he’d definitely improved her appearance, but she was still an overweight, middle-aged, plain nobody with nothing to offer. And no amount of mooning would change the fact that Del was completely out of her league.
She decided it was time to try to meet someone, someone who wasn’t Del. Someone she found attractive, but not so much that she’d lose her head. Someone not out of her league. She tried to imagine who that woman would be, but her mind kept picturing tall blonde women with short hair and strong-looking arms and long, muscular-looking legs and shy smiles and noisy, exciting, scary motorcycles.
“Stop it!”
Enough. No more daydreaming about Del. It was time to meet someone new and at least make a friend. She’d never really had one, and she needed to do that before she even considered finding a girlfriend.
She’d been thinking about looking online but had dithered. Well, she told herself, just do it. No neighbors, no police (she’d guessed at Del’s profession the first day), and no one from the book club. Also, no one so physically imposing. She felt helpless next to Del, and she didn’t like it. But she found herself remembering the feel of Del’s broad back and didn’t even realize she was smiling as she stooped to pet the clamoring kitties and climb into bed.
The fun of the evening and her daydreams about the future occupied her mind as she lay trying to fall asleep. But the memory of Lin’s anger, and her own panic, intruded and kept her awake for a long time. Then her bad dreams came back for the first time in a long time, and they broke her sleep over and over. She woke with a scream a few hours before dawn, covered in sweat and tangled in blankets. She looked around the room, unsure if the nightmare had awakened her or if someone was in the room.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was not alone. She was suddenly certain that someone was watching her. She turned on the light and looked. She checked the closet and bathroom and under the bed, feeling childish but doing it anyway. She couldn’t let it go until she’d checked the whole house and even the garage. The feeling of being watched intensified as she searched, but there was no one. She forced herself to lie down and not to go check every room again. You’re being paranoid, she scolded herself. It was over an hour before she dropped back into sleep.
By the time she woke up in the morning, she’d forgotten why the light was on and was busy assuring the kitties that yes, they would get breakfast, and yes, she would give them fresh water, and yes, they were the best kitties ever.
Chapter Five
Del spent Thanksgiving and the next day alone, wallowing in memories of last year. Janet had insisted they barbecue a turkey, and she threw a screaming tantrum when it was almost raw after five hours on the grill. It turned out, they realized belatedly, that the turkey should be thawed first. Del slapped her forehead and made a face. Janet’s pique evaporated, and she burst into a big belly laugh that made Del smile even now, remembering. They put the turkey in the oven, and it wasn’t done until nearly midnight. They waited up and ate turkey with their hands and drank beer and watched sappy old movies. Del couldn’t believe it had all been a lie. That it was all gone now.
Del watched the Macy’s parade and the Cowboys play football and old movies. She wore a Dallas sweatshirt in tribute to her daddy and bought a bag of booze in tribute to both him and Momma. She nursed a bottle of tequila on Thursday and another on Friday.
Two solid days of drinking hollowed out her skull and replaced her brain with a shattered drum line by Saturday morning.
“Oh, Lord, help me,” she moaned, lying on the bathroom floor, her hot face pressed into the cool tile floor. “Sweet baby Jesus, I wanna die.” She blinked, and she could hear the clicks.
“Never again! Make this stop, and I’ll never drink again in my life.”
And then the doorbell rang.
“Go away!” Del tried to yell, but her throat was too scratchy. Groaning, she struggled to her feet as the doorbell sang out again. She wall crawled her way down the hall, pulled her favorite old .38 from the drawer in the entry table, and looked through the peephole. She relaxed and eased the door open to find Marco peering at her with wide eyes.
“What?” Her voice was a raspy whisper. She had the urge to finger comb her hair but couldn’t make her hand go that far north. She put the .38 back in the drawer, blocking his view of this with her body—Marco looked upset but not scared.
“Oh, honey!” Marco took in her disheveled clothes and bloodshot eyes. “Sorry, Del, I didn’t know you were, uh, sick,” he finished delicately. He appeared to be trying not to inhale. She must reek of alcohol and sweat and self-pity.
She shook her head, trying to think of a way to deny feeling like crap and unable to do so.
“Do you need anything, Del? Anything at all? Aspirin?”
Del softened. Marco wasn’t the only person who reached out to her after the Janet fiasco. But he was the only one who ignored her curses and pouting silences and stubbornness. He brought her food and wine and offered compassion and friendship and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Why he bothered, she couldn’t imagine. She wasn’t easy to get along with, from what she’d been told, but Marco seemed to just accept her as she was. He sympathized with Del, drank with her, and pronounced Janet a “lying, worthless, bitch of a whore,” which made Del laugh. She smiled, remembering, and knew she couldn’t turn him away.
She gestured at him to come in, wondering at the dizziness this motion caused. If it were anyone else, she thought, and
let it go. He was watching her now, and she realized she’d drifted off for a moment. She caught his eye and made a face that should have made him smile but didn’t. Her internal antennae perked up. Something was wrong.
“I’m fine. What’s up? How was Thanksgiving?” She knew he’d spent the day with his in-laws, who still had trouble accepting that he and Phil were married.
Marco shook his head. “You know how it was, Del.”
“Yeah,” she said. “But tell me anyway.”
“No, it doesn’t matter.” He waved the subject away. “I need to talk to you.” He eased past her and led the way to the kitchen.
This was going to be bad. Anything that trumped his nasty in-laws had to be serious.
While Marco made coffee and found some bread to toast, Del landed roughly on a chair. She watched him, trying not to get dizzy as he made his way around the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” She was growing more worried than hung over by the second. Marco was focused on the toast, the butter and jam, the coffee and napkins. Whatever he wanted to talk about, it was serious enough to make him fuss over the foodstuffs and choose his words carefully.
“So,” he began after several moments of silence, setting coffee and toast in front of her and settling down opposite her with his own cup. “You know Lola?”
Del nodded. She took a delicate sip of the hot coffee, hoping her stomach wouldn’t send it right back. It would burn like hell all the way up if it did. It was better to focus on that than on the careful way Marco was bringing up Lola. Something bad had happened.
I knew it. I knew there was something wrong there. Adrenaline hummed through her, lighting up her whole body, and she struggled to maintain a cool demeanor. A memory danced around that cool and tried to ignite her: Lola perched on the balls of her feet, ready to flee. She breathed slowly and tried to stay calm. Another memory: Lola, worried that she might fly across the coffee shop and throttle Lin. Her face had been gray, ragged with fear. Del’s stomach did a slow, painful flip.
“Del, you look terrible, and I’m sorry to bug you, but I don’t know what to do. I think she needs help.”
Del watched him. His hand shook when he raised the cup to his mouth. His hair was uncombed. He wore a T-shirt and sweatpants. Phil might walk around like that on a Saturday, but not Marco. She had maybe still been a little drunk when she woke up, but she was sober now. A crazy ex, maybe? This was something she’d wondered about the first time she’d spoken with Lola. One of her daddy’s favorite sayings came to her—“Baby, sometimes it well and truly sucks to be right.”
Her stomach hurt, but not from the coffee. She set down her cup with a quiet snick and nodded at Marco to continue.
“I know you don’t like to advertise the fact that you’re a cop, I mean, a police officer,” he said, pushing his hair back. He hesitated, shrugged.
“Okay. It’s okay.” She waited. He would talk when he was ready. He picked up his coffee, watching her over the rim of his cup. He was clearly asking her to put on the badge.
Del inhaled slowly, clearing her head. If I look tense, he won’t be able to talk to me. She nodded and pasted a calm, welcoming look on her face.
“Marco, I want you to tell me exactly what’s going on.” Even she caught the note of authority in her tone.
Marco took a deep breath. Good, his expression said, you can take charge and decide what to do. He wrapped his hands around his cup as though they were cold. His eyes were wide, remembering. “Okay. So last night we were walking home after dinner—Delfina’s, of course.” He paused and waited for Del’s nod. He had complained more than once about Phil’s attachment to the local eatery.
She gave the nod and waited. He’d get there faster if she stayed out of the way.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to tell this. Uh, we were almost home, and Phil pointed at Lola’s house, and I saw this guy. He was huge. Really scary looking. He was, like, grabbing at Lola, trying to pull her up the stairs, I think. We didn’t know what to do! Phil ran over there and started yelling at the guy, and the guy let go and ran, and I called 911. She looked so scared! Oh, my God, Del, I’ve never seen anything like that. I didn’t know what to do!”
His eyes searched Del’s.
“You did the right thing,” she murmured. People always seemed to need reassurance that calling for help had been the right thing, even when it was obvious. She surveyed and was glad of the calm in her voice, her face. She was doing a good job of keeping her feelings under wraps. But it wasn’t without effort. She felt like she was on fire.
She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to picture Lola being hurt. She didn’t want to think about what might have happened, what it meant. She didn’t want to stay cool on the outside and pretend she had no feelings about this, but it was necessary. She crinkled her eyes at Marco.
“Which way did he run?”
“West.” Marco pointed. “By the time we got there, she was standing up, and she had a black eye, and there was blood all over her face. Her shirt was soaked in blood, and it was so weird! She was trying to act like nothing happened. I told her I called the cops, and she was totally shocked. A cop finally came—at least twenty minutes later—and left in like five minutes. He acted like we were wasting his time, and she was trying to pretend it was no big deal. But she was shaking, Del, and her eyes were just—” Del watched him search for a word and then give up and shake his head. “I don’t know. She looked really, really scared. Now she’s not answering her phone or the door, and I’m worried. What if he came back and killed her? What if he’s in there with her?”
Del’s mind slowed down, picking apart the information. This is not your sweet new friend that this happened to, she tried to convince herself. This is just some woman, and you need to be cool.
“Did she know him?”
Marco shook his head. “She said no.”
“You believe her?”
“Oh!” He chewed his lower lip. “Yes,” he said, his voice firm, “I believe her.”
“Okay.” Though it was much more likely, Del knew, that Lola was lying. She fought a sudden, irrational anger at Lola, then at herself. If she’d done a better job of winning Lola’s trust, maybe she’d have confided in Del and been safer because of it. It’s not her fault, she reminded herself. Or mine. It’s the bad guy’s fault.
“What’d he look like?”
Marco squinted in concentration. “Tall, at least six feet. White. Really bad hair, black, stringy. Down to his shoulders. Huge glasses, the big, black kind. Like from the sixties? But he wasn’t old, maybe in his thirties or forties. I’m not sure. Phil got a better look, but he doesn’t remember anything but the bad hair. I didn’t really notice anything but the hair and the glasses.”
“Okay. Anything else you remember?”
He put his head in his hands. “God, Del, I don’t know. Lola should be able to tell you more. She didn’t say much, but she was pretty shaken up. She might have said more if the cop hadn’t been such a fucking prick. Oh, sorry, Del.”
“That’s okay. Listen, you guys did great. Phil kept the guy from maybe really hurting her, and you called 911. You did exactly what you should have done.”
“We didn’t chase him. We just watched him run away. I didn’t want Phil to get hurt.” Shame darkened his expression.
“You needed to stay with Lola, make sure she was okay. Chasing him could have made it worse. What if he’d had a weapon? It doesn’t help anything to get yourselves killed. Listen, I’m telling you, you guys did the right thing.”
Del held Marco’s gaze long enough to see him relax in relief. She had perfected this dialogue with so many witnesses and victims that it felt strange to do it with a friend. It was easier following the script of the job. It helped keep her emotions under control.
She promised Marco that she’d check on Lola and was relieved to see him go. She held herself in check until she made it upstairs. She wanted to rush right over there, but she needed to get more cont
rol first. She ducked into the shower, not waiting for it to warm up. The cold water was a good distraction. If Lola was alive, Del would need to keep a cool head, and she took the time to brush her teeth, making sure she could maintain a steady voice and neutral face.
She pulled on jeans, boots, and a pullover, as she would have on a workday. She grabbed her keys, her pocket notebook and her cell phone. It wasn’t until she was halfway down the stairs that she realized she’d strapped on her duty weapon. Well, she decided, that was probably a good idea.
She downed a couple of aspirin and a handful of antacids. She assessed Marco’s account of the incident. He’d been shaken, but he’d seemed credible and clear. He hadn’t seemed to exaggerate or minimize anything, and he hadn’t tried to editorialize about the victim or the attacker.
While it was possible that some stranger off the street had accosted Lola, it was unlikely. Most of the time, when people got beat up, it was by someone they knew. And with women, it was usually someone they were or had been sleeping with, or someone who wanted to sleep with them. She took a deep breath and pushed away her disgust and frustration and the fact that she would love to live in a world where she didn’t spend half her time looking at battered women. And why, for the love of Pete, did Lola have to be one of them?
Chapter Six
