Cold Blooded Lover

by Eliza Lentzski

  “Oh God, baby,” I choked out, still clenching at her head. “Your fingers…yes, yes,” I moaned.

  Julia traced the tip of her tongue along the inside of my thighs as her fingers continued to lazily thrust in and out of my ever-tightening sex. When she sank her teeth into my inner thigh, I cried out in surprise and pain. It wasn’t the first time she’d bitten me—

  marked me, she like to claim—but I hadn’t been expecting it. I jerked my leg, but Julia only held on more tightly. There would be a purple bruise there later, but we were past bikini season.

  She continued to rapidly thrust her two digits hard into my eager sex. The combination of her teeth in my thigh and her fingers repeatedly penetrating me pushed me closer to orgasm. The pain and the pleasure collided, clouding my senses.

  My open throated sob of sexual release wasn’t too far behind. I held onto whatever I could—the back of her head, the balled up sheets I’d tugged free, the massive headboard—as my body tensed. She’d gradually worked me up, little by little, and I’d known I wouldn’t be able to last very long.

  Julia lay on my body with her head between my breasts. I listened to her heavy breathing and the thumping of my own heart in my chest.

  “We should move in together.”

  Her words took me by surprise. I lifted my head from the pillow, but said nothing.

  “What I mean is—it seems like the sensible thing to do,” she started again. “You’re spending money on an apartment you barely live in, and there’s the extra utilities and Internet and cable bills, too.”

  I hummed, amused by her attempt to be logically romantic. “The sensible thing, huh?”

  She looked at me with her lower lip trapped between her upper and lower teeth, looking unsure of herself and more vulnerable than I could remember. It was a far cry from the woman who’d only recently unraveled me with just her fingers and tongue.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I think I love you.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I slid a cardboard lid onto the archival box and proceeded to wrap red tape around the middle of the box. Stanley used the bright red as a signal that an arrest had been made in relation to the case. It wasn’t a total fabrication: an arrest had been made, but it wasn’t for the murder of Tracey Green.

  The case was retired now—put on the bench until someone came forward with new information substantial enough to re-open the case. We’d invested hundreds of hours to advance the case where the original homicide team had fallen short, yet it felt far from a victory, far from a tidy case closed.

  In the Marines we completed missions. We did not quit until a directive had been accomplished. This middling area nearly made my skin crawl, but I supposed this was my new normal.

  “Hey, Cassidy?”

  I couldn’t see him, but Stanley’s voice echoed through the warehouse.

  “Yeah?” I called back.

  “There’s someone here to see you.”

  “Who?”

  I couldn’t imagine who’d be visiting me at the evidence warehouse or who even knew I was there.

  Stanley appeared in the storage aisle. “Something Desjardin.” He shoved his hands into his khaki pants pockets. “Sorry. I’m terrible with names. I just remember the part about a French garden.”

  For the first time since Victoria LeVitre had gone to jail, a genuine smile reached my face.

  I left the case files behind and quickly strode towards the front entrance. My long stride stuttered when I reached the warehouse door. There was a Desjardin standing there, but the wrong one. It was Julia’s father.

  William Desjardin was a serious-looking man in a grey, tailored suit. His gaze scanned the warehouse interior. He looked out of place in the storage facility; his natural environment was a courthouse or a law library.

  I self-consciously ran my hand over the top of my head to smooth down any lumps or flyaways that might have worked their way free from my ponytail.

  “Mr. Desjardin,” I tersely greeted. “Is this police business or something else?”

  “Something else.”

  I nodded grimly. I had suspected as much.

  “What can I help you with?” I offered.

  “What are your intentions with my daughter?”

  I hadn’t expected that.

  “Wh-what?” I stuttered.

  He raised both hands. “Save us both the embarrassment of acting coy about it. I might not be mayor anymore, but that doesn’t mean I’m not without resources or contacts. I know the two of you are dating, Ms. Miller.”

  “It’s Detective Miller.”

  I had a flash of déjà vu, only we weren’t sitting in William Desjardin’s mayoral office in Embarrass, Minnesota. We were on my turf this time around, and I wasn’t a newbie on the force trying to suck up to my boss, who also happened to be my girlfriend’s estranged father.

  “I’m sorry if I come across as aggressive, Detective Miller,” he disassembled. “But I miss my daughter, and I’m hoping you can help.”

  I couldn’t hide my surprise. “I don’t know what you think I can do.” Or would be willing to do for you, I silently added.

  “I’d like you to talk to her on my behalf. I’m a changed man. The trial—actually, both trials—has given me much needed perspective. I became too cavalier with my ambition for more money and power. And now I’ve lost my daughter because of it.”

  I didn’t have any words for him, but he had plenty for me.

  “Are you close with your parents?”

  “Not really.” My candid answer surprised me. I generally played my cards close to the vest.

  “But I bet you’d like to have a better relationship with them.”

  He didn’t wait for my answer. “The familial bond between parent and child is the most basic and necessary of our connections as humans. I’m not getting any younger, Detective. My greatest wish is to reconcile with my daughter.”

  I still didn’t know what to say. I was reeling from his unexpected appearance, but also because he knew about Julia and me. I couldn’t imagine Grace Kelly having said something to him. Perhaps I needed to give David Addams a call.

  “You’ll talk to her for me, won’t you?” he tried to persuade.

  Despite my better judgment, I bit my lip and nodded.

  “Goddamn it.” I cursed myself out when William Desjardin left the building.

  Why the hell had I promised that man anything?

  I could talk to Julia. I could tell her he’d paid me a visit and what he’d asked of me. But there was no way in hell I was going to be his ally. I was all for second chances, but even I had my limits.

  Stanley reappeared, silent as a shadow. “Sorry about that. I should have told him you weren’t available.”

  “It’s okay. He just wasn’t the Desjardin I wanted to see.” I released an exhausted sigh. “What else do we need to do out here today?”

  “Not much. After we close a case I usually identify the next one to thaw out, but we can do that another time.”

  “How do you do it, Stanley? How do you keep going when all of this seems so futile?”

  “What do Ted Kaczynski, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Gacy have in common?”

  It sounded like the opening of an unfunny joke. “Besides being certifiably crazy white men?”

  “They were all cold cases that no one thought would ever get solved.”

  I curled my lip. “It’s a little grandiose to compare what we do to catching serial killers, don’t you think?”

  “She’s got a name now.”

  “Who?”

  “Jane Doe—Tracey Green. Before you started working here, she was just another anonymous victim. Now she’s got a name and an identity.”

  “She’s got a name, sure. But we still don’t know what happened to her.”

  “I know. But we won’t give up on her.” He waved his arms, gesturing to the hundreds upon hundreds of unsolved mysteries that surrounded us. “We’re not going to gi
ve up on any of them.”

  My mouth twisted in a wry smile. “You’re an awfully good cheerleader, Stanley.”

  His features remained serious. “I’m no cheerleader. But I was in high school band. I played the oboe.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

  + + +

  I stopped by the liquor store and picked up a six-pack on my way back to my apartment. I had a long night ahead of me of cleaning and packing, and St. Pauli’s Girl always eased the pain brought on by chores. After Julia had proposed we move in together, the move itself had been slow, one box at a time. We both worked full-time—Julia had longer days than even me—and when we were off together, the last thing I wanted to do was clean or pack up my things.

  The one bonus was I didn’t have much furniture besides my flat-screen TV. Its location in her apartment had been the topic of a passionate debate. Julia refused to allow a TV in the bedroom despite my insistence that not even my favorite sports team could distract me from her. In the end we decided to sell her smaller TV and put mine above the mantle in the living room.

  When I reached my apartment floor, I paused in the hallway. The apartment door was wide open. I set the six-pack of beer on the ground to free up my hands and removed my sidearm from its holster. I kept my steps careful and light as I walked through the threshold. The hardwood floors in my apartment were notoriously squeaky, but I knew just where to walk, like picking my way through an active minefield.

  I slowly crept down the hallway with my back against the wall. The sharp scent of bleach wafted down the front hallway. I froze and my heart caught in my throat when I heard a noise coming from the direction of the kitchen. It sounded like the rattling of glass and metal. Had I caught someone mid-robbery?

  I silently turned the corner with my gun raised.

  A dark-haired woman stood in my kitchen. With her back turned to me, she hadn’t noticed my entrance. She had her hands inside the microwave that had come with the apartment. She rattled a yellow scrubbing sponge around its insides.

  “This is why you clean as soon as you make a mess,” she grumbled through grit teeth.

  “Julia,” I breathed. “Fuck.” I lowered my gun and exhaled. “I thought someone had broken in.”

  She turned to face me. She wore a blue bandana to keep the hair out of her eyes and yellow rubber gloves to protect her hands. A stained t-shirt and linen shorts completed the outfit. “A robber would be sorely disappointed by this haul.”

  I waved my hands in frustration. My heart continued to wildly thump in my chest. “Why was the front door wide open? I could have hurt you!”

  She settled her hands on her hips. “I was getting high from cleaning fumes.”

  I looked around my apartment, equal parts startled and surprised to find it empty, except for the furniture that it had come with. “Wait. Did I get robbed?”

  Julia used her forearm to brush the hair out of her eyes. “No. I got tired of living in limbo, so I hired movers for you. And before you start complaining about me spending money on you, if we’re going to be living together you’d better get used to it because I plan on spoiling you whenever I get the chance.”

  She rested her hands on her hips and stared at me, as if challenging me to defy her. “Well?” she finally demanded when it was clear I wasn’t going to respond, let alone put up a fight.

  I shook my head, my mouth in a permanent grin. I loved this woman from her blue bandana to her painted toes. “I’ve got nothing, babe.”

  “There’s paper towel in the bathroom and glass cleaner under the sink,” she instructed me. “You’d better get to work because I intend on getting back the entirety of your security deposit.”

  She turned her attention back to the microwave, but I paused her scouring. “I love you, Julia.”

  “And I you. Now go clean the bathroom,” she insisted. “I don’t want to be here all night.”

  I worried my lower lip. “I had a visitor at work today.”

  “Oh, really?” Julia sounded distracted.

  “It was your father.”

  The cleaning sponge stopped moving. “Excuse me. What?”

  “Your dad came to visit me.”

  “Why the hell would he do that?” My ears perked up at her words; Julia very rarely swore.

  “Because he wanted me to convince you to talk to him again.”

  Her eyebrows knit together. “Why would he think—.”

  “He knows we’re dating. Hell if I know how that got out, but he knows, and he seems to think I hold some persuasive sway over you.” I chuckled at the absurdity of the statement.

  Rather than laughing with me, Julia had grown quiet and contemplative.

  “Are you considering it?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t—I’ll come back to it later.” She shook her head hard as if to shake the thoughts from her mind. “What’s the latest with your evidence tamperer?”

  The change of subject was less than subtle, but I kept my observation to myself.

  “Nothing new. Once she gets cleared by the hospital, she’ll go to prison. Since she confessed, everything will move fairly quickly. And unless she issues a second confession, chances are we’ll never know who killed Tracey Green.”

  “What does your gut tell you?”

  “I still don’t know,” I admitted. “The husband is too obvious a choice. Maybe she killed herself.”

  “Suicide by Botox?” Julia considered with a frown.

  “Accidental,” I clarified. “She could have purposely made herself sick, but overdosed or didn’t get treatment in time.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “It’s as logical an excuse as any. Mrs. LeVitre herself said that Tracey was a bit of a con artist. Diana Plantz suggested the same thing, too. Maybe this was her final con. She gets ahold of the Botox and injects herself with it to frame her girlfriend’s husband for attempted murder. He goes to jail, Mrs. LeVitre would get the money, and the two women live happily ever after.”

  “That’s quite the theory,” Julia remarked.

  “Have a better one?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll leave the detective work to you, darling. My training is to clean up the mess after the crime has been committed, not try to make sense of it.”

  “I just wish I knew who drove the rental car.” It was still the one, big missing piece to the case that would probably haunt my dreams.

  “Maybe it was the wife all along,” Julia supposed. “Maybe they conspired to frame her husband, but Mrs. LeVitre abandoned the plan when Tracey died in the hospital.”

  “Now who’s got a case of the Maybe’s?” I teased.

  “You must be contagious,” she smiled. “I’m almost finished cleaning in here. Once you finish the bathroom, you should go through your cabinets and drawers and make sure the movers didn’t overlook something.”

  I took a step in her direction, but she held up her yellow rubber gloves-hands to stop me. “Nuh uh,” she denied. “No trying to distract me. We’re finishing cleaning this apartment tonight.”

  My lower lip popped out. “Can’t it wait?” I pouted. “Just a little longer?”

  Her hands seized my hips and she nipped my bottom lip with her teeth, hard enough to make me feel it, but not so hard to draw blood.

  “Get to cleaning, Miss Miller.”

  Despite Julia’s word that movers had come, my bedroom didn’t look all that different since most of the furniture had come with the apartment. I had no art, no framed pictures of friends or family, no knick-knacks to speak of. The bare mattress and empty closet were the only real indicators that I’d been moved out. The only thing it appeared the movers had left behind was the dream catcher above the bed.

  I removed the decorative web from the nail in the wall. I didn’t consider myself particularly superstitious. There had been guys in my unit who did all kinds of wacky things before we headed out on a directive. Davonte Thomas had a lucky bar of soap. Michael Polanski spoke to a photogra
ph of his grandma. Even Pensacola had his lucky charm—a pair of game dice he’d swapped from a board game. I hadn’t gone flashback-free since Julia had bought me the dream catcher, but they had significantly tapered off.

  I turned at the sound of Julia’s voice: “We can hang that above the bed if you want.”

  She’d ditched the yellow cleaning gloves.

  I held the dream catcher in my hands. “It doesn’t match your things.”

  Julia shook her head. “You’re not a houseguest, Cassidy. My name might be on rental agreement, but I want you to feel like it’s your space, too.”

  “I think you’re my dream catcher,” I replied.

  It seemed like a flippant response, but I was serious. Julia might have saved me from being a statistic.

  She smiled. “Do you want pizza tonight? We could time it to be delivered around the same time we get home.”

  Home—there was that word again.

  “What happened to wanting to watch what you eat?” I asked.

  Julia shrugged. “I think we can cheat tonight.”

  “If you insist,” I laughed.

  “There’s just the bathroom left, and then we can go,” she said. “Unless … unless you’re having second thoughts.”

  “No, I’m not. Are you?” I worried.

  “I just paid for men to box up your things so I could speed things up. So, no—I’m not having second thoughts.”

  I grinned. “I’m going to remind you of that whenever you yell at me for not picking up after myself.”

  Julia stepped close and pressed her body against mine. She smelled faintly of bleach and her perfume. “Don’t take too long wrapping up in here.”

  “I’m almost done,” I promised.

  I watched my girlfriend saunter out of the room, beautiful even in a dirty t-shirt. I mentally shook myself. I still had a job to do before I could close this chapter of my life and move forward with her.

  I finished opening all the drawers in my clothes bureau to double check I wasn’t leaving anything behind. I’d nearly cleared all the drawers before finding something the movers had overlooked. It was the microphone pin Geoff Reilly’s mom had gifted me in the basement of her home. I set the small, pewter pin on the mattress next to the dream catcher so I wouldn’t forget it.