by Jenna Rae
She hummed “Jingle Bells” as she placed a second video camera, inches from the bad guy’s, above the fireplace. She covered this by blocking her hand with her body. This might be unnecessary, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She had requested surveillance on the house, but the captain hadn’t approved the request. A patrol was supposed to drive by every couple of hours, but that hadn’t helped, obviously. Del shook off her frustration. Now wasn’t the time.
She picked up and watered the very dry Christmas tree, leaving the broken ornaments on the floor. She fought the urge to right the tables, chairs and lamps, to pick up the gutted couch cushions, to put the slashed pictures back on the walls. She turned lights on in every room she passed, using the back of her gloved hand.
The kitchen was a foul disaster. She cleaned out the fridge, which had obviously been standing open for a while. There was food everywhere—on the floor, on the counters, even spattered on the walls and ceiling. Nothing had been left untouched. Same with the cupboards. Every drawer and cupboard had been emptied. She ignored everything but the perishables and filled and emptied the trash. She stepped around the broken dishes and mugs and glasses. The can she left out on the sidewalk. Garbage day was tomorrow, but they’d get a guy to pull the bags before then. Poor Lola, a crew would be digging through her trash like she was a criminal.
She felt like an intruder as she headed up the stairs, flicking on the lights. Lola was very private. She would hate the thought of anyone wandering through her house, digging through her garbage, nosing around. It’s my job, Del told herself. It’s what I have to do to protect her. Still, she felt guilty. Had he felt guilty? Or had it been a thrill, roaming freely through the house, touching and breaking things?
Upstairs, the bed in the guest room was the worst. The mattress was destroyed, and the bedding was torn into rags. The empty drawers of the dresser had been left upside down on the wreckage of the bed. Two had been broken. Whatever he was looking for, he’d gotten pissed off when he couldn’t find it. Or had he gotten excited, smelling Lola’s perfume, seeing her things? Del felt herself getting angrier and angrier. Who did this asshole think he was? And a moment later came the despairing question: Lola, what the hell are you hiding from me?
People got their houses ransacked because they’d stolen something or because they knew secrets they shouldn’t or because they had something to hide. He’d searched the house when he’d killed the cats. She’d seen that and never followed up on it. How many times had he searched the place that she didn’t know about?
Del’s stomach twisted. Innocent people don’t get ransacked. Not twice. She’s hiding something from me. Del had no right to be angry and knew it. But she was. Deal with it later. Draw her out. Get her to open up. Then, when it’s all over, when she’s safe, I can worry about how I feel about her. About the fact that she’s been lying to me. Her stomach twisted again at that thought, and she fought a second, stronger wave of anger. She’s scared. Whatever she’s done, whatever she’d hiding, it’s because she’s scared. I have to do a better job of making her feel safe, letting her know she can trust me. She rubbed her face, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be playing to the cameras.
It was hard to be casual and vigilant at the same time, but she had to assume that he could be watching. Did he have a live feed? Or would he watch later? Hard to tell, without pulling his cameras out of place and letting him know they’d been found. She continued to place a department camera near each of his, doing so as covertly as possible.
“Doing good,” Phan whispered. Del had almost forgotten he was there.
Lola’s room was virtually untouched. So, obviously, he had time to search it completely when he did the cats. That took some time. I wonder... Sure enough, when she lifted the mattress, the underside was slashed open in a giant X. Should have seen that before, Del told herself. Forensic team should have too. She grimaced.
“Knock if off, Mason,” she muttered inaudibly. “You’re supposed to be her pal, not on the job.”
Phan was right. Del refocused. She opened the windows that flanked the bed, as though the room smelled bad and needed airing out. Which, actually, it did. The stink from the opened fridge had filled the upstairs. He must have been here at least a day or two back—the food would take that long to smell so bad. She turned on the overhead light and both lamps. From the outside, she would be completely visible. And Phan now had a good view of every room in the house.
“Good. I got you. Time to bait the hook, Mason. I got your back.”
She hesitated, then shrugged off her pullover and wore only a wifebeater, no bra. This was the hard part. She and Phan had argued about this, and she’d been forced to accept that he was right. She had to act the part, try to provoke him. But she still felt uncomfortable. You better not say anything, she silently warned Phan. I do have a weapon.
I trust him, she realized. I trust him enough to listen to his ideas and let him watch me. He says he has my back, and I believe him. It was a weird feeling. Good, but weird.
Stretching her spine before the oval mirror above the dresser, she fluffed her hair and gazed at her reflection. She felt like an actor in a play. For an audience of one. In character, she leaned forward and pursed her lips. Lola kept a small basket of makeup on the dresser, and Del casually snagged a lipstick and applied a thick layer of it to her mouth. She leaned forward again and kissed her reflection. Shit, she thought, I look like the world’s worst drag queen.
Ohhh, big boy, she silently pleaded, come and get me. Please, come and get me. I’m a helpless female, all sexy and weak. Plus I’m a nasty old dyke. You straight guys love that, right? Look no bra! I’m ready for a big, strong man to come on in and get me. Come on. Come and get me. Get off your couch and come after me, so I can kick your cowardly, pathetic, bullying, animal-torturing ass.
She powdered her nose, which made her eyes water. Less, maybe? She broke character for a moment, trying to figure out how the whole powder thing was supposed to go. Why hadn’t she anticipated that this might be harder than it looked? Her eyes itched like crazy, and she blinked hard to clear them.
“Shit, Mason, act like a girl.” Phan’s disembodied voice and the strange play-acting made her feel like she was in a dream. She tried the powder again, a lot less this time. “Good.” It sounded like he was trying not to laugh.
She only ever bothered with brownish mascara, and that only because a girlfriend had once bribed her into it with kisses and sweet talk. Del had been surprised at how much more innocent and trustworthy she looked with it on and now incorporated it into her routine whenever she had to be in court. She wished she had some now. It probably would have gone with the rest of the stuff. She sprayed her neck with perfume, getting some in her mouth.
“Mason.” Phan was laughing now, but she heard the tension in his voice. “You are a woman, right? Haven’t you ever had a girlfriend? Do what they do.”
She fluffed her hair again and ran her hands down her body. Come on, asshole, don’t you like tits? Come and get ’em, asshole. Please, please, pretty please? She turned her back to the mirror and looked at herself over her shoulder. Shit, her weapon was nearly visible! She discreetly nudged her holster back down inside her waistband a bit and looked in the mirror again. Her arms were getting flabby. She would have to get back to hitting the weights again when the guy was locked up. She wondered what Lola’s arms looked like—she was always wearing so many damn clothes!
One more thing on Phan’s list, and she could give it up for the night. This whole thing was ridiculous, clearly artificial. She couldn’t imagine anyone thinking she was actually being herself—she felt queer, doing all these girly things.
“Mason—Del, don’t think. Just do it. And, remember, girly and pervy. Whatever flavor of fucked up he likes, you gotta look like it.”
I know, Phan, she mentally responded, we talked about this. She hesitated before opening the top drawer in Lola’s dresser. Again, though she wasn’t doing this lightly b
ut out of what felt like necessity, she felt like the world’s biggest creep. She wasn’t sure any of this was a good idea, all of a sudden. She knew her face was bright red. Her heart was banging around like it was trying to beat her ribs open.
Really, this was a risky operation and they should have been a lot more specific when they’d gotten approval, but she’d been impatient. She’d also worried that Wonderbread would say no. Not to mention how much it would’ve sucked to have half the department watch her girl it up. It was bad enough knowing Phan was watching. She stopped palavering and yanked the drawer open and eyed its contents. Sure enough, there was Lola’s underwear. Del had assumed it would be all cotton briefs and sensible bras and was enchanted to find a rainbow of silk and ribbons and satin, inches from her fingers.
“Oh, Lola,” she groaned, “you lovely little femme!”
“Perfect, Mason, now do it.”
She recalled herself to the moment in a snap. Luckily, she’d been supposed to act all horny.
“Good. Just do it. Now.”
Okay, Phan, she thought, as she did the last thing on his list. She lifted handfuls of Lola’s silky panties and let them rain down between her fingers. Oh, God. Thank you, asshole. I never would have done this if it hadn’t been for you. She tucked one pair into her pocket.
Phan’s voice was quiet. “Good, Mason. He’s gotta be all lathered by now. If he’s close by, he’s on his way.”
But he wasn’t. Del was sure of it. She’d been hyperaware, all through her little performance, every invisible antenna quivering in alertness, and there hadn’t been a single ping. Hopefully he was recording. She blew herself a kiss in the mirror before she grabbed her pullover and closed the windows. She turned off all the lights and set the alarm before she left.
She and Phan assessed the effort as she drove them back to the station, and she was grateful that he didn’t refer to her actions in Lola’s room other than to hand her a paper towel to clean her face off and to tease her about her lack of finesse with makeup.
“Shit, Mason,” he muttered, “Kaylee could have done better, and she’s twelve!”
“You don’t let her wear makeup, do you?”
“Hell, no! But you know how kids are.”
Del nodded and smiled as he related a long story about clever ways Kaylee had found to get around the rules. She resisted the urge to touch Lola’s silky panties. Just knowing they were right there in her pocket felt both creepy and incredibly erotic. She had to work hard to focus on what Phan was saying. He’d finished with the subject of Kaylee and moved on to something job-related. Something about a federal agent?
“Leave it to the Feebs,” Phan muttered, “it’s none of their business if some creep stalks and terrorizes an innocent woman, but if there’s money to be found, they’re all over it.”
“No shit.”
“Name’s Christopher James. Sounded a little overeager, you ask me. I almost wonder if he’s making a play for a promotion.”
“Do we have to meet with him? I doubt he has anything for us.”
“You sure you wanna take that chance?”
Del shrugged. “I guess not.”
“Here’s the thing,” Phan said, “he wants to meet at a coffee shop near the Federal Building, not at his office. I figure he’s trying to scoop his boss, get the credit, move up the ladder. Best way to do that is run his own investigation in the shadows.”
“What an ass.” Del was still distracted but tried to focus.
“That’s what they force them into,” he claimed, “that’s the way they work—you have to always think about how you’re gonna look from the top of the ladder.”
It was, he said, yet another reason to distrust the Feebs. “They can’t just do police work. They have to make it look good politically, too.”
Del shrugged again. As long as he didn’t waste too much of their time or interfere, she didn’t care if he found Beckett’s money or not. And maybe he could help them, whether he planned to or not. “He may know something that can help us. He might be able to help us without even knowing he’s doing it.”
It was Phan’s turn to shrug. “It’s worth a half hour of our time, at the most. After that, we can ditch or stay, depending on what we’re getting.”
“There are some questions I’d like to ask of someone who saw the interviews or read the reports before they were redacted.” Del rubbed her forehead. “It feels like there’s a lot missing.”
“Okay, like what? Is Lola a suspect in Beckett’s death?”
Del stared at him. “You can’t be serious!”
“Do I think Lola offed the old guy? No. But if they do, it’d be good to know it.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She narrowed her eyes. “Have they found the partner? Was he connected to Lola? Could he be the attacker? Maybe he and Lola were supposed to take the cash together, and she didn’t want to share.”
It was Phan’s turn to look shocked. “Del, do you honestly believe Lola’s been playing you?”
“Do I want to? Hell, no. But it could still be true.” Just saying it felt lousy.
“Does James think Beckett is still alive? Does he think Lola is still in contact with him?” Phan asked these questions without looking at her. “Or that she really has the money, but she’s playing dumb?”
“What do you think, Phan?” She swallowed hard. “I want to know what you think.”
He rubbed his chin. “Okay. She seems basically honest. A nice person. But I don’t think she trusts us all the way. You more than me, but I think she might be scared of making you mad, of causing a conflict for you, of getting you in trouble or putting you in danger. I think she’d lie through her teeth to protect someone she loves.”
Del didn’t know how to respond to that. “What if she still loves Beckett—and he’s still alive? Or even if he’s not, but she’s trying to cover for him, anyway? What if she’s lying to protect him?”
“Well, that could be, I guess. But you know her better than I do. What do you think?”
“I think...” She paused, shaking her head. “I think my head is all muddy where she’s concerned. I don’t want to think she’s been playing me all along. Shit, as you know, I have been down that road before.”
Phan eyed her, his expression soft. “We’ve all been there.”
Del didn’t respond to that. “Yeah, well. I’d rather think that, at worst, she might be hiding something because she’s scared and doesn’t trust me. And that she could get killed because she didn’t trust me.”
“Maybe,” Phan offered, “she knows something without knowing it.”
Del frowned. “What do you mean?”
Phan hesitated before answering. “Listen, I don’t want to put my nose in, okay? But you said it, your head’s all muddy. You don’t have the distance to be objective, here. She was married to this guy for a long time. Whether you like it or not, they had a history together. There are secrets between couples—jokes, old grudges, memories, things you don’t even know are important because you’ve known them for twenty years. She may know about an old safe deposit box or a cabin or a family vacation home or an old college buddy’s boat or something. She may not realize it’s important, because she’s a widow who’s just lost her husband, and she’s still getting over that. Whether he was the asshole you think he was or not, he was her husband. They ate dinner together, they slept together, they talked about shit.”
Del grunted and gestured at him to continue.
“She knows more about him than she realizes, and the Feds pushed at her the wrong way. They tried to bully her, right? That’s what I got from the reports. It was the wrong approach. You and I both know she’s the kind that responds to the soft touch. If you worked this right, you could find out every single detail of the guy’s life—how he liked his steak, what kind of shampoo he used, where he hid his porn. She knows all of it, but she hasn’t been tapped right, not yet. Odds are, she could find that money if she really wanted to. And my guess is, very Special Agent
Christopher James knows that. He’ll want a crack at her. If you want to spare her that, you should try to ease her open first.”
Del rubbed her forehead. He was right. She had been looking at this with blinders on. She didn’t want to think about Lola lying side by side with that creepy old man night after night, whispering secrets, kissing good night, all of that shit. And if the Feds were looking at her hard, they might just decide that the stalker was related to the money and put her in protective custody. Lola would fall apart under the strain. They’d start out playing nice with her, but the pressure to produce would mean that they’d end up pushing her hard. They wouldn’t care if it hurt her. Del stared out at the traffic that rushed passed. She had to push Lola or sit back while someone else did.
“I’ll give it a shot.”
He nodded. “Maybe you’ll get something out of her, and we can take it to James tomorrow and get them out of the picture. Or at least give them somewhere to look besides her.”
“Maybe.” Del realized she’d been holding her breath and let it out in a long exhale that left her exhausted. Her shoulders were tight, and her stomach was flipping. She hated that Phan was right. And glad, again, to be working with him. She told him so as they said their goodnights, and he shrugged.
“What the hell kinda partners’ve you had, Mason?”
She frowned at him. “Whaddya mean?”
“Every time I manage not to piss my pants, you give me a gold star.”
She laughed as he walked away.
***
