"Almost all?"
"Gretchen isn't talking. She got a lawyer and clammed up."
"You arrested Gretchen!" Heads turned in the neighboring beds at the sound of my shriek. You'd have thought the nation would have sprung for a private room given that I helped take down drug smugglers and murderers, but apparently, not. I somehow drifted past the point where Maddox said a woman had been arrested. I blamed it on the painkillers as I sank back on the pillows.
"Yes, I said that already. We picked her up this morning after Roxanne told us about her. She said you told her about her connection to Hoag."
"Why arrest her?" I asked, ignoring the “Young people, now” complaints from the broken hip in bed six.
"She was part of the whole thing. She helped move the drugs off base."
"No, she wasn't," I protested, sitting up again. My arm throbbed and Maddox helped me lie back. He even plumped the pillows for me this time. "Okay, she was, but not because she was in on it. That creep Sergeant Hoag got her to help him. As far as she knew, she was helping her secret boyfriend out. I don’t know what she thought but I'm sure she didn't know drugs were involved or that he might have killed Jillian."
Maddox nodded. "We kind of came to the same conclusion."
"So she won't be prosecuted?"
"So long as she agrees to be a witness, we won't prosecute. We have bigger fish. The money laundering angle is only just starting to make sense. We’ll be on this case for weeks. Zabriskie has got prior for this sort of thing."
"Good, I guess, for Gretchen."
"What can you tell me about Roxanne?"
I rolled my eyes. "I knew this wasn't a social call."
"I brought grapes!"
I glanced at the table. There was indeed a small bunch of grapes.
"Best I could do," Maddox continued. "I would have gotten you a balloon, but they only had 'Congratulations! It's a boy!' left."
Yeah, well, that wouldn't be happening any time soon.
“So?” he prompted.
Where to begin? "Roxanne," I started, "is Nathaniel Tate's girlfriend." I filled him in on what she told me about Jillian getting mixed up in the drug smuggling, and how she’d stolen the heroin and money as a sample, as well as her ensuing fears. "She didn't know who to turn to," I continued as Maddox leaned in. "They had her running around helping them because if she didn't, they told her they would hurt her parents. I don't know if Kevin or Somper or Ritchie or Hoag meant to kill Jillian, or which one of them did. Maybe they panicked. They had to get the drugs out and there was no way to do it without someone in Jillian's office to approve the manifests, and she wanted out. Jillian kept the drugs and money as insurance, evidence if anything happened to her." Some of that was guess work, but Maddox nodded along, like he already knew all this.
"They knew the heroin was missing and wanted it back," said Maddox. "Our boy, Ritchie told us that."
"Neither of the Connors were part of the smuggling voluntarily. Roxanne already lost her sister; she didn't want to lose her boyfriend too. I think the gang panicked when they grabbed her. I figure they paid someone to stab Tate."
"They paid off another inmate. A real vicious guy," confirmed Maddox. "He's offering testimony for a plea deal. He’ll get it too."
"What happens to Tate now?" I asked.
"He was released this morning. We considering charging him for obstruction of justice and withholding information in relation to a crime, but he'll be worth more as a witness."
"Yeah?"
Maddox nodded. He told me, "Once he knew it was over and Roxanne was safe, he didn't stop talking. He told us how he found Jillian and also saw her murderer. You want to take a guess?"
"No."
"Hoag. Tate saw him leaving Jillian's office right before he found her. Hoag turned around, walked straight back in and threatened him as he was checking to see if she was still alive. Tate did the only thing he could do. He grabbed the murder weapon, a baseball bat that was in the lost property box, and hid it before Hoag could get to it. We found it under the floorboards of his closet. Not very original, but the fingerprints on it were."
"I'm glad you got him."
"Me too. You know all this already, right?"
"Yeah, I knew most of that stuff about Tate. Not that he had the weapon, but I figured he might have known. I didn’t know it was Hoag, but I figured it was one of the four."
Maddox leaned in, resting his chin on his interlaced fists. "When were you planning on sharing your information with me?"
"Um, now?" A movement caught my eye and I glanced up, noticing Maddox did the same. Detective Blake hovered in the doorway. She wore a neat, black skirt suit and a nice, green blouse. Her hair was smoothly pulled into a ponytail. She raised a hand and nodded towards us.
"Listen, I have to head back,” said Maddox. “There are some juicy interviews scheduled for this afternoon."
"Wouldn't want you to miss that."
Maddox rose. He looked down at me for a moment, but I couldn't decipher his expression. "I'll check in with you soon," he said. His tone was warm and he kissed me on the cheek. Then, he said, "Solomon supplied most of your case notes, but let me know when you get a chance to finish the rest."
Work. I should have guessed. Was that really all it came down to?
He added in a low voice, "We still have some talking to do. I love you, Lexi. I really do."
My heart gave a little leap, but all I could was nod and bite my lip. He was right about the talking. We did need to do that, but right now, my arm ached and I felt sore and a little dizzy. On the plus side, it was probably best if it were soon, while I was relatively incapacitated. Just in case.
As I watched Maddox walk away, I realized he hadn't told me a thing about Solomon. From his silence, I could assume that Solomon was fine, so where was he?
~
"I can't believe Solomon rescued you again." Lily raised her hands to her heart and sighed. We were sitting in my living room, my soon to be ex-living room. We both had our feet on the coffee table, something I never normally allowed. But I was in pain and she was pregnant. It seemed reasonable to slack. "How many times is that now?" she asked.
"Twice." Well, Maddox technically saved me the first time I went up against an armed man, but it was Solomon who saved both our asses ultimately, so Solomon scored that one. The second time, I found myself facing the wrong end of a barrel, and Maddox saved me then. And this time, it was Solomon who came for me. I was having a hard time deciding if this was becoming a habit.
"Next time, I'm going to save myself," I decided. I thought about the moment Solomon pulled me into his arms, the gentleness of his touch... and the moment I woke up to find Maddox, ashen-faced, at my bedside. Both of them were looking out for me. There was one thing that couldn't be decided though.
Who was going to save me from myself?
"That's not romantic!" protested Lily.
"Neither are nutcases with guns. I could have peed myself!"
"Yeah. That would have been awkward for the romantic rescue." Lily peered down at her mug. "I'm sorry I'm making you drink this."
I wrinkled my nose at the watery liquid in my mug. It smelled the way I imagined evil to smell. "Is it because I did something bad?"
"Uh, yeah! The baby and your arm have nothing to do with it. It's all about you tripping off to abandoned warehouses in the middle of the night and nearly getting yourself killed." Lily sipped, gagged, sipped again, and pulled a face. "It's herbal."
"If you keep being mean to me, I won't let you have a cookie."
She looked up sharply. "You have cookies?"
"You have a mind like a sieve. You forgot all about my trauma the moment I mentioned cookies."
"Did not!"
I inclined my head towards the door. "They're in the kitchen."
Lily rolled off the couch and padded into the kitchen, returning a moment later, a plate of cookies in her hand. They were the last from the box Maddox had sent from the gourmet bakery, and their aroma got my mou
th watering all over again. Rumors that I once walked into the bakery’s plate glass window in my eagerness to get to the cookies were completely unsubstantiated. "Has Solomon been by yet?" she wanted to know as she sat down.
"No."
"Called?" She raised a hopeful eyebrow.
I scowled. "No."
"Huh." Lily nibbled a chocolate chip cookie and didn't say anything.
I glanced over at the bouquet on my desk and pointed at it. "The agency sent flowers."
“That’s what they call flowers?”
We both looked at the butt-ugly cactus, a small purple flower sprouting like an old lady’s hat on top of a long stem of lethal looking needles. I had to assume they were implying I was tough, yet feminine. Frankly, it was hard to tell.
“Apparently.”
"Did they all sign it?"
"Yep."
"Doesn't count," Lily decided.
It really didn't count. It didn't count at all. I expected to see Solomon at the hospital. Several times, I heard footsteps, looked up and was disappointed. And I wasn't entirely sure why. Did I want him to come for me? Did I expect something more? Or, did what we had die when Solomon, Maddox, and everyone else swooped in on the warehouse?
Did we even have anything at all?
The whole episode left me feeling confused. I didn't know what to think. I hadn't even gotten a phone call from him. He didn't drop by, and God, everyone else did. The whole day since my parents brought me home this morning was a steady stream of people trooping through my apartment, bearing flowers, plants, chocolate, and cards. I'd never felt more loved and appreciated. It was almost better than getting shot, though my mother made me promise not to get hurt again. So I crossed my fingers behind my back and promised.
Now they were all gone. Well, Jord was downstairs cooking in Lily's—their—kitchen and Lily was killing time with me in between extracting gossip about my dismal love life. If only it could be operated on, fixed, and held together by plaster until it healed, like my arm. Unfortunately, all I had was a big problem. Even worse, I'd done nothing to resolve it, so part of the blame rested with me.
"What do you want, Lexi?" Lily asked, pushing the herbal concoction away and taking mine too. I hoped she poured it down the sink. It needed unblocking. "What do you want from Solomon?"
"Honestly?" I stared at my feet, wondering why I hadn't just called him. Maybe it was nerves, maybe it was the fear of rejection. Maybe I just wanted him to reach out to me. "I don't know."
"And Maddox?"
"I wish I'd never seen him that night." I'd been wishing that a lot. It colored everything. Changed everything. The shock of seeing him and Detective Blake pushed me into taking the job, putting me close to Solomon. But I couldn't blame that. It didn't force me to share a bed with him. It didn't make me kiss him… and more. I made those decisions. It was on me to live with them.
"Do you believe him? Do you believe Maddox told you the truth about that night?"
"Yeah," I decided. "I think I do."
"No, Lexi. Not just think. You either need to believe it or not. There's no halfway house when it comes to trust."
I sighed and bit into my cookie. "I need to think about it some more."
"Want me to bring you some dinner? Jord is surprisingly good at cooking."
"Who knew?" I patted her knee. Yawned. "Maybe later. I'm going to take a painkiller and nap for a while."
"Call me if you need anything?"
"You bet."
Lily got me settled, fussing over me like a mother hen, until Jord called up again, his voice booming up the stairs. I shooed her out, but not before she gave me a gentle squeeze and kissed me on the forehead.
Twisting my body so I could sprawl over the sofa, I got straight down to the thinking. Lying in a hospital bed the past two days, getting my arm reset and cast in plaster again, gave me plenty of time to lie on my back and contemplate my position. Not the positions that involved me literally lying on my back, but the constant whirl in my mind about the two men in my life.
Back at home, the situation didn't seem a lot clearer. The guilt that maybe what I'd done with Solomon was wrong, or even worse, that he saw it as little more than a one-night-stand, weighed on me. Not knowing what I wanted gave me a headache; not knowing how to deal with it involved Lily, the world's answer to a spoken conscience.
If I could go back three weeks in time, the answer would have been obvious. I was falling in love with Maddox, a big, heavy, head-over-heels love. Solomon, I admired and respected, occasionally lusted after, because he was hot and I had a pulse. On paper, Maddox was perfect for me. He seemed to like and respect me. As a cop, he understood my job and, being from a long line of cops, I understood his. I knew the long hours, the dangers, the dedication, the single-minded determination to put the bad guys where they belonged. I'd seen the obsession play out time and again with my own family. My family liked him. My mother had her fingers crossed that he was The One. My dad liked him, and it wasn't even begrudgingly, and my brothers respected him as a man and a cop. And he was delicious. Downright outstanding in the looks department, enthusiastic in the bed department, and completely intact in the upstairs region.
But all that changed in a few minutes.
Now, what I felt for him was marred with confusion, and in no small part by the six-foot-tall complication that was John Solomon.
Maddox still loved me.
As for Solomon, I wasn't sure what either of us felt. I wasn't sure if I wanted him as a big part of my life, or if it had been a couple of weeks of madness where we got a little too carried away with our roles. I wasn't sure what he wanted from me, nor was I sure what I could offer. I knew that the wedding ring still sat in the top drawer of my dresser. I told myself it was too pretty to throw away. It wasn't a total lie.
A little, sensible, part of me was worried about my job, right up until today, when the cactus flower arrived. A florist's handwriting said they wished me well and would see me in the office next week. Each of their names was printed on the card. Nice and utterly impersonal, Solomon's name holding no more meaning than Fletcher’s or Delgado’s or Flaherty’s or Lucas’. Part of me wondered how I would feel about walking into the office next week, my arm in a sling, knowing that things had changed irreversibly between Solomon and me, that we crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed. Would we continue our easy-going working relationship? Would he be cold and detached? Was I just a notch on his bedpost? A conquest that he wanted, had, and could move on from without a second thought? And if not, why didn't he say anything to the contrary?
One thing I did suspect while in my reverie, but didn't ask, was did he know that Maddox would be at the restaurant that night? Did he know I would see him as I scanned for the mark? That it would look like he was with another woman? It did strike me as odd then that Solomon was too busy to cover his own lead and sent me instead. Could he have known I would break things off with Maddox? And that I would go away with him?
I wasn't sure I ever wanted to know the answers. I hoped I was wrong.
I really hoped I was wrong on that one, because otherwise, the duplicity would be crushing.
Maddox didn't send flowers. He sent cookies, which made me smile, and he signed the card. His second visit to the hospital was short and sweet. He told me how the case was progressing and didn’t press the point of what happened between Solomon and me, but I had the uncomfortable feeling that it would come up one day. Any day would be too soon.
Lily said it wasn't a betrayal, that I wasn't a cheat. I had broken up with Maddox first, and I felt I had a good reason to do that, at the time. I didn't run straight to Solomon... exactly.
She did ask me if I thought what happened was a mistake, and I said there wasn't any answer to that, because a yes would denigrate what I felt for Solomon in those few days, and a no would confuse me too much. Instead, I said that what happened, happened and I couldn't change it and she agreed that was a smart way of looking at it. Seeing as I was smart, she
also said I could be godmother to Jord's and her baby, which was pretty much the best gift ever.
I picked up my new cell phone from the coffee table and toyed with it, switching it off and on, scrolling through my phone list, my thumb hovering over the name. Finally, I jabbed “call” and held the phone to my ear, my heart thumping.
"Hi," he said, his voice warm. "I hoped you would call."
"I just got back from the hospital today."
"How's the arm?"
"Sore. My insurance didn't cover a bionic replacement, so I guess I'm keeping it."
"I think I prefer the Lexi Original. You're fine just the way you are, you know. I wouldn't have you any other way."
My heart swelled. Now those are words every woman wants to hear. "Want to come over?"
The front entry buzzed and I looked up, wondering who was at my door. I eased my legs off the couch and rocked to my feet, my bandaged arm bumping against my chest as I made for the entry phone in the hallway. Could it be...?
"I'm right outside," he said, confirming it as a smile broke on my lips, "and I'd love to come over. We need to talk."
About the author
Author and journalist Camilla Chafer writes for newspapers, magazines and websites throughout the world. Along with the Lexi Graves Mysteries, she is the author of the Stella Mayweather urban fantasy series as well as author/ editor of several non-fiction books. She lives in London, UK.
Visit Camilla online at www.camillachafer.com to sign up to her newsletter, find out more about her, plus news on upcoming books and fun stuff including book group guides, playlists, deleted scenes and giveaways.
You can also find Camilla on Twitter @camillawrites and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CamillaChafer.
Other books:
Lexi Graves Mysteries:
Armed & Fabulous
Who Glares Wins
Command Indecision
Stella Mayweather Series (Urban Fantasy)
Illicit Magic
Unruly Magic
Devious Magic
Magic Rising
Table of Contents
Command Indecision (Lexi Graves Mysteries) Page 24
