Out for Blond

by V. J. Chambers

  And then Stella was still.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “I can’t believe I was such an idiot,” said Brigit, staring down at Stella’s motionless body, which was between us. We were both on our feet, ready to stop Stella if she made a move. “I should never have gotten in her car with her.”

  “Yeah, how did that happen?” I said, pointing the knife at Stella’s body. I wasn’t going to stab her with it or anything. It was reflexive, a defensive gesture.

  “Well, when I told her that Jagger was claiming he’d never borrowed the car, that he’d alibied up, she got really insistent that he was lying, and she said she could prove it to me. We just had to go on a drive. I asked her why she couldn’t just explain to me how she knew he was lying, and she said I had to see it. So, I got in the car with her, and then she drove us out here. We walked all the way out to this clearing, and the next thing I know, there’s a big, bright pain at the back of my head. And when I wake up, my stomach’s bloody and you’re here.”

  “Geez,” I said. “She’s really crazy.”

  “I should have seen that.”

  “No, I should have seen that.”

  “Oh, come on, Ivy, you can’t still be thinking that it’s a bad idea for me to be your partner.”

  “I can definitely be thinking that. You almost got killed.”

  “Well, so did you.”

  “I’m used to it.”

  “Ivy—”

  But she never finished that thought, because we were interrupted by Pike and about ten uniforms swarming out of the woods.

  I beamed at him. “You came!”

  He hurried over. “Soon as I could. I got that call from your friend Eden, and she said you had proof that Gunner wasn’t the killer and you were going after the real perp. I wanted to curse you out. What are you thinking, Ivy? You can’t just go rushing off half-cocked—”

  “Brigit was in danger,” I said.

  “All the more reason to wait for some help,” he said. “You could have been hurt or—what are you holding, anyway?”

  I held up the knife. “This? Oh, I think it’s the murder weapon.”

  “Holding it without gloves?” he said. “Really? It’s like your brain has been transplanted with a bimbo or something.”

  I shrugged. “I am a blonde.”

  Pike narrowed his eyes, not finding that funny. He looked over his shoulder and called, “Williams! Come bag this, please?”

  Williams, one of the uniforms, trotted over to take the knife from me and put it in an evidence bag.

  Below us, Stella started to stir. She blinked several times.

  “So, this is the murderer?” said Pike.

  “Stella Garrison,” I said. “She confessed it all.”

  “You were lying,” Stella said through clenched teeth. “I knew you were just making up that shit about the police understanding everything.”

  “Yes, you’re very smart,” I said.

  Pike yanked Stella to her feet and began cuffing her.

  “Not smart enough, though,” I said. “If you were smarter, you wouldn’t have ever done something like this.”

  She glared at me.

  Pike passed her off to one of the uniforms, who began to escort her away, through the woods.

  “I thought you told me that there were two killers,” said Pike. “You went on and on about it in my office that day.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “Adeline Rollins helped out. She’ll probably cut a deal and testify against her friend, though. They aren’t on the best of terms anymore.”

  “Well,” he said, raising his eyebrows, “looks like you’ve just wrapped this up in a big red bow for me, haven’t you?”

  I grinned. “You’re welcome.”

  He chuckled. “Nice job, Stern.”

  “Why, thank you.” I put my arm around Brigit. “And don’t forget my partner, here.”

  Brigit’s eyes got big. “Seriously?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And now, we’ve got to get to the hospital, because God knows what was on that knife she cut us with.”

  Brigit made a face. “Hospital? Seriously, it’s not even that deep.”

  “Infections are no joke,” I said. I turned to Pike. “We’re still on for later, right?”

  “Later?” he said. “Oh, right. Yes. We should definitely talk.”

  “Great,” I said. Brigit and I started back into the woods. I turned and threw over my shoulder, “Make sure you search Stella’s car too, by the way. There should be a necklace in the back seat that belonged to Tess Carver.”

  * * *

  Brigit and I were bandaged up and disinfected. They told Brigit that with proper care, the symbol that had been cut into her stomach shouldn’t scar, because it wasn’t too deep.

  Afterward, Brigit wanted to go out for a celebratory beer, but I told her that I couldn’t make it because I had a prior engagement with Pike.

  Her eyes lit up. “Oh, right. What’s up with that, anyway? You guys used to be a couple, right?”

  “Oh, man, Brigit, that is an incredibly long and convoluted story. Let’s leave the past in the past, okay? The important thing is that something might be happening between us now.”

  “Really?”

  I shrugged, grinning.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look that happy about something that wasn’t related to a murder case,” said Brigit.

  I just kept grinning. So far, it had been a pretty good day. Sure, there was the part where we both almost died, but other than that, I was feeling good about everything. We’d solved the murder, and I’d managed to do what my clients wanted—I’d cleared Gunner Bray’s name. Not only that, but I’d actually had sex with Pike, and it had been the most amazing sex of my life. Now, we were going to go out tonight, like a normal couple, and the future was wide open. Everyone was a winner today. Well, everyone except the actual murderers.

  I took even more care getting ready to meet Pike that night. I even put on makeup, which I figured wouldn’t be too weird under the circumstances. I put on one of my most girly outfits, something blue and soft that clung to my figure and even showed a hint of cleavage. It was a far cry from my typical no-nonsense look. I felt good too, like I was free in a way that I hadn’t been in a long time.

  The truth was that there had been so much badness between Pike and me concerning sex. When we’d been together before, I’d talked to him about it, and he’d explained that he’d just never been interested in sex. He knew that he was strange, that he wasn’t normal. I wasn’t normal either, because I wanted sex so badly and so often. But it had seemed too much like a cruel joke that we’d find each other and fall in love. We identified with each other, because neither of us was normal, but our needs were diametrically opposed.

  I knew that it had been a terrible ache for Miles. It had hurt him, because he hadn’t understood what was wrong with him. Most men wanted sex all the time—were obsessed with it. But for Miles, it had never appealed to him. It had even repulsed him. So the fact that we had achieved what we had was big. It was so important. It meant that everything was changing, and that there was hope for both of us.

  Because if Miles could overcome something so huge, if he could change this fundamental flaw within himself, then maybe I had a chance of changing too. Maybe together we could be better people—both of us. Maybe we could really be, well, happy.

  We met up after Miles got off work. I thought maybe we’d go out to a restaurant or something, but Miles said it would be fine if we talked at his place. I figured we’d order food in or something. I’d bring up dinner later. Miles didn’t always think about things like food. He wasn’t focused on the physical much. That was why this sex thing had been so hard.

  When I arrived, he had changed out of his work clothes into a pair of ratty jeans and a t-shirt. His feet were bare. He looked over my ensemble, from my makeup to my pretty blue shirt, and he swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

  I didn’t care that he wasn’
t dressed up. I wanted to look nice for him, that was all. I needed to reassure him—

  “Shit, Stern, I thought you felt it too,” he said.

  I cocked my head to one side. “I did feel it. Being with you last night was the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt. I feel it now. I feel different.”

  He looked at his feet.

  Was he going to let me into his house? I was still standing in the doorway.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “Can I come in?” I said.

  He moved out of the way.

  I walked in, and I moved down the hallway, expecting him to follow me.

  But he stayed by the door. He shut it, and he just stood next to it.

  So I turned. I was maybe five feet away from him, but the distance seemed huge suddenly. He wasn’t looking at me, and I felt a sharp stab in the pit of my stomach. “Miles?” I whispered.

  “I hated it,” he told the floor.

  “What?” I said. It didn’t compute. It had been beautiful, what we’d shared. Lyrical, like a poem. Sure, it had been a little awkward, but that was only because we needed practice. I couldn’t believe…

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “I’m sure that you’re very, er, proficient at what you do, and the mechanics of it seemed to work okay. It wasn’t that we didn’t do it properly, I don’t think. It’s just—”

  “Stop,” I said, my throat dry. All my happiness from earlier, all that hope and promise, it was draining away, it was leaving me.

  He raised his gaze to meet mine. “It makes me feel strangled being that close to someone else. It was like I couldn’t breathe. And all… all the sweat. I thought I’d never get clean.”

  A sob was forming in my throat, and it was going to come out, one way or the other, but I didn’t want him to hear it. I didn’t want him to see it.

  I started to shake.

  “I just don’t think it’s for me, Stern. I’ve been doing fine without it for my entire life, and I’m sorry, but—”

  “Stop.” My voice was rusty metal clanking in the wind.

  “Ivy, I’m sorry.” He looked down at his feet again.

  I lurched forward. That sob was coming. I couldn’t stop it. The only thing I could do was get away from him, get out before it burst out over everything, and I broke down. I took off at a run, and I tore past him, scrabbling to get the door open, to push myself out of his house, away from him.

  I rushed into the night, staggering, fighting that sob, fighting to keep it in.

  But the minute I slammed his door behind me, it came out.

  I rushed to my car in tears.

  Hope?

  Me?

  Wasn’t in the cards.

  Poor Ivy. Ah, the endless angst of living in a noir world.

  What’s that? More angst?

  Find information on the next book in the Blond Noir series here.

  Or, stick around Keene College and find out who killed Cori Donovan, the drug dealer. Check out:

  Frenzy

  a new adult romantic thriller

  Sex. Drugs. Murder.

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