“I guess you had a few before you came over, didn’t you?”
“No. I told you, I don’t drink, but I had some of that fruit punch in your kitchen, when you were outside on the phone. Just what was in that stuff anyhow, besides pineapple juice?”
“The punch. Hoo boy.” John leaned against the doorframe. “Pineapple and orange juice, banana puree, peach nectar, and vodka. Lots and lots of vodka.”
“Vodka?’
“Two and a half bottles. And let me just clear this up. I know you’ve got to be wondering because I’d be wondering what the hell happened if I woke up someplace strange. You slept alone.”
Willa was strangely disappointed to hear that, more disappointed than she should have been. So much for being back on the horse. Her laugh came out as a croak. “Well, that’s … good to know. So did I … did I undress myself while doing a rendition of ‘Money for Nothing’ on your coffee table?” She could see herself doing a very ‘80s hop-kick-turn while screeching ‘I want my, I want my emteevee!
Sniff-sniff-sniff, John laughed softly. “Your boots and stockings are over there on the chair. I guess you took them off when you decided to have a nap in the powder room.”
She dropped the covers and sat up straight. “I passed out in the powder room?”
He smiled and looked down at his tie, brushing off a bit of fuzz she didn’t see. “Yes, ma’am. I mean, yes, your majesty. I brought you up here when I found you.”
“You’re very nice to put up with me. Very nice.”
“Yes,” he kept grinning and examined his shirt cuffs, “you know me. I’m a gentleman, a real-live white knight.”
“And this morning I’m the court jester.”
He sniff-sniffed again. “Go back to bed. Stay as long as you like. I’ll be in Albuquerque all day, so it’s not like I’ll be using it. How about later tonight I drop by your place with pizza or something?”
With an absent nod, Willa turned away from him and swung her legs over the edge of the mattress, the side farthest from him. Coffee sloshed over her hand. She noticed her boobs were nearly hanging out of the neckline of her dress. The sheer lavender bra she wore underneath did nothing to hide the flesh on display. Sheesh. No wonder he’s grinning and picking imaginary fluff from his clothes.
She pulled the front of her dress together.
“Did you know you snore?” he asked from the doorway, more than a trace of humor in his voice.
”I do a few things when I drink, which is why I don’t.” What was the last ‘80s power hit I sang when I was drunk? ‘Walking on Sunshine’ or ‘Everybody Have Fun Tonight’? Willa looked at a trail of amber liquid on her hand. “Wang Chung,” she mumbled to herself and dried the wetness with her dress.
“Sorry?”
“Nothing.” She had a big gulp of lukewarm coffee and glanced at an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock that sat on the nightstand. It was 8:02. “Is that really the time?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Wonderful. She had less than twenty minutes to shower, change, and get to the police station for the meeting with Jackie Grafton.
“I’m going to kill him,” Willa muttered as she stood. Pain traveled along the back of her neck and radiated upwards to the top of her head, adding a backbeat to the bongo tempo already playing. After a ripple of nausea passed, she snatched her boots and tights from the chair where John had put them. “I’m really sorry to have been such a pain in the ass. Thanks for your hospitality.” She glanced out into the hallway and wished she hadn’t. A single glimpse of the hot pink armchair out there seared the pathway to her retinas. The violent color exploded as she blinked. She stuffed one bare foot into a boot, hunching over, cursing her sexual disappointment, cursing Dominic and his underhanded hangover revenge.
John felt his mouth go slack. The fabric of her wrap-around dress parted as she put on her boot. While he might have looked away when her breasts had been out there, this time, his eyes ran from her toe to the inside line of her right thigh.
Mary, Mother of God. She had short legs—short, compact, muscular, ‘cheerleader ‘ legs.
And he suddenly he felt like he had in high school, when the cheer squad or the dance team did their routines at the Los Alamos Hilltoppers football and basketball games. His body reacted with the same alien-taking-over-his-brain rush of hormonal lust and an involuntarily spike in blood pressure, as well as an instant spike of iron in his pants.
Queenie hopped toward him, jerking on another boot, breasts bouncing. He was sixteen, watching breasts sway like pom-poms. He was sixteen, listening to Avril Lavigne chant about being his girlfriend. He was sixteen, thinking about sacking the cheerleader on the field.
He’d never played football or basketball. Hockey, cross country and baseball had been his sports of choice and, although they weren’t games that featured cheerleaders, he knew all about taking chances and making the most of opportunities when they were presented. That’s what stealing home was all about.
And he couldn’t seem to move his thoughts away from the prospect of making it to a base, of scoring a goal, or crossing the finish line, or… Jesus, all he’d have to do was take a couple of steps and reach out. It was like walking on a foul ball or getting a free shot.
Trouble was, she wasn’t a cheerleader or a ball and he wasn’t sixteen. His mind still functioned enough to know that, still part of him wanted to turn this into a contact sport, while the other part of him knew taking Queenie down on the braided rug underfoot was plain bad manners.
But life was all about taking chances and making the most of opportunities and he couldn’t let her leave now. Not yet. Not like this. Not without even…
He made himself relax, breathing in and out slowly, clearing his head, allowing his brain a moment to think. “You don’t have to rush off,” he said waving his hands, effectively and casually cutting off the path to her exit. “What kind of host would I be if I didn’t offer you breakfast?”
“Breakfast?” She gave one last tug to her boot and put her foot down. Then she was close enough to touch. She glanced past his arm into the hallway and winced, hair a mess, face creased, words softly scented by ground Arabica when she exhaled. “It’s okay. You don’t have to go on being so sweet about this. You’ve done more than enough for what’s a rather awkward situation.”
John shifted from the door jamb and moved a little closer to her to smooth down a chicken-feather tuft sticking up on her head. “I’d say it’s more backward than awkward.”
“Backward?”
“Yeah. It’s the first time I’ve had a woman in my bed before I’ve even kissed her, but of course in another second you might think this is a little more forward than backward.” John slid his fingers into a snow bank of unruly hair. His mouth sank down on hers and there was nothing awkward about it. He tasted Starbucks’ Breakfast Blend and something elusive, something addictive, something that instantly drove him mad. What started out as a soft kiss, a subtle glow of candlepower, kicked over into a few thousand brightly burning halogen lamps.
He went deeper, kissing her longer than he’d intended, the sudden radiant heat and delicious insanity, overtaking him. A small murmur vibrated in her throat when he pulled her closer. She pressed against him, her hand twisted around his tie and it tightened around his neck, strangling him ever so sweetly as her lips parted. He felt her burn with him and breathing didn’t seem to matter so much.
It had been a little too long since he’d kissed a woman, and it was possible this was just a manifestation of all that time alone—or a lack of sufficient oxygen to his brain—yet a current had passed between them out in the wind-whipped snow yesterday. He’d expected some kind of pleasurable effect, but not one that overloaded his senses. His tie got a little tighter as she dragged on it. His pants got a little tighter too. Heartbeat to heartbeat they began to generate power that was a mere hint of the energy that still lay untapped. Then her palms flattened against his chest and she shoved away, the silk of his tie slithered
from her grasp with an audible whisper.
John drank in a gulp of air, loosening the fabric cutting into his neck while Queenie looked up at him, shaking, swallowing, white-faced.
“The coffee was a bad idea,” she said, her voice airy, lips moving in a way that reminded John of Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch.
Except Marilyn didn’t throw up all over her co-star after she kissed him.
8
“Aw, boom ting, Agent Heston, I am so feelin’ you!”
The building housing the Los Alamos police department and detention center was a new construction. The lingering odor of recent paint, young plastic and cement intensified in the brightness of the overhead fluorescent lights. Willa squinted up at Agent Adams and wished she hadn’t. The overhead supernova blasted through her eyes to the back of her head and down her spine. “You’re so … what?”
“Yes, Agent Adams,” Agent Mitchell said through clenched teeth, “you’re what?”
Adams grimaced. “Excuse me, ma’am. I mean your strategy is brilliant. It’s exceptional. You maintain cover. The subject will not be intimidated during questioning. The toothpaste,” his index finger extended, “is an inspired touch.”
All eyes were suddenly on her breasts.
Willa swallowed the ‘son of a bitch’ on her tongue and surveyed the white, amoeba-like shape of toothpaste across the bust of her mis-buttoned blouse—the un-ironed one she’d yanked out of her suitcase and put on after a three-minute shower. Tiny pearl buttonheads poked through the wrong holes, skewing the front of the pale blue fabric. She’d swiped on antiperspirant, but the armpits of the shirt were dark and damp because she’d dragged the garment on before she’d toweled off. Another drip of toothpaste marred the black wool of her skirt. However, her shoes matched, her stockings were run-free, and her dirty hair was pulled into a ponytail that looked neat-ish despite the wisps too short to be secured.
Head down, Willa cursed Dominic, mouthing a hearty string of words women weren’t ‘supposed’ to say. She was a mess. She’d made a mess, a sloppy, drippy, stinking mess and…
Adams’ hip hop urban slang suddenly registered in a different way. A little gem of a fact dawned on her then, and she shoved away the image of corduroy, muck-spattered suede boots. All thoughts of where she’d been, what she’d done twenty-six minutes ago stopped because of Agent Adams’ misconception of her so-called brilliance.
She stopped the fingers that wanted to rub off the chalky white smear on her skirt. This queasy, head-pounding, I-can’t-dress-myself hangover could be used to her advantage.
Five of them, Mitchell, Adams, the Los Alamos Police Captain, and Officer Binney, a uniformed officer, stood inside a small interrogation room. Captain De Silva shook his head as he took in the state of her dress. “I’m happy to cooperate, fully, but I’m not happy about this.” He turned, seeking out the individual who looked most professional, most FBI-like. Agent Mitchell’s ink-blue suit fit the profile. “It just isn’t done,” De Silva said.
“I think it’s a bangin’ idea.” Agent Adams brushed little bits of white from the shoulder of his single-button black blazer. He wore a black tie, white shirt, and black cap-toed shoes. A pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses poked out of the jacket’s top front pocket. All Adams needed to complete his Men in Black government-agent outfit was a neuralyzer. ”And she looks the part, totes,” he said and glanced at a throat-clearing Agent Mitchell. “I mean, totally, she totally looks the part.”
“No, no. Not her…” De Silva glanced at Willa as she sat, toed off her shoes, and began to pull off her stockings, “…appearance, what you’re proposing. It isn’t procedure.” De Silva frowned. His wiry, salt-and-pepper eyebrows poked forward into hairy little horns above his black eyes. “This isn’t procedure, is it, Officer Binney?”
Binney, one of the three members of the Los Alamos Police force who had been assigned to the FBI’s investigation, kept her brown hair in a tidy French braid and her thumbs tucked in on either side of her belt buckle. There was a manila folder under one arm. Eyebrows drawing together, she watched Willa set her shoes and nylons on the table. “No, sir, it is not.”
“I’ll cooperate fully,” De Silva said, “but this isn’t how we do things. We’d never place a suspect in the drunk tank before a transfer or an interrogation, and we conduct those interrogations and interviews in one of these rooms.” He stabbed his index finger at a door for emphasis.
“You and your staff know procedure, Captain, but how many suspects are aware of the processes involved, especially suspects with no priors?” Agent Mitchell pulled a set of handcuffs from his pocket.
“I don’t like it, but, like I said, I’ll cooperate.”
One of the new fluorescent lights overhead flickered as Willa rose. Shards of hot pain jabbed deep into her eye sockets. “Captain,” she rubbed the bridge of her nose, “it’s unorthodox, but twenty minutes is all I need.”
“What about her lawyer? We just want to avoid lawsuits. We’ve already got one going. The county does not need another. What do I say to her lawyer?”
The light above flickered again. Willa ground the heels of both hands into her eyelids for a moment to clear away the barbecuing sensation. “You do things by the book, and so do we. This is not an interrogation. I’m only going to talk to her, get a feel for her headspace, her life, find out what she’s been up to these last few years.”
Captain De Silva rubbed his forehead and nodded. “Fine.”
“Has she had any other visitors, besides the public defender and lawyer?” she asked, smudging the mascara she’d hastily applied fifteen minutes previously.
Officer Binney flipped through the file she’d been holding. “Just the boyfriend, JS Carl. Twice.”
Willa turned to Agent Mitchell. “Okay,” she said.
He moved forward, cuffs ready.
“Hang on.” She took off her watch and handed it to Adams. “Twenty minutes. Be here with coffee. Please. Large. Black. And a cup of ice. Please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you.” She turned back to Agent Mitchell and held her hands out, palms up. “Go ahead.”
With a slight smirk, Mitchell snapped handcuffs around her wrists. “Too tight?” he said quietly.
“No,” she said, mirroring his little grin as she leaned towards him, “but I’d really appreciate it if you could rustle up some aspirin to go with,” she straightened, raising her voice, “the coffee Agent Adams is going to have here in twenty minutes.” She turned to De Silva. “I’m ready when you and your staff are.”
Captain De Silva exhaled. “Officer Binney, once Sandoval’s cleared the hall, take Agent Heston down to the tank.”
The observation window in the cell looked out to the control room. Jacqueline Grafton watched the policewoman, the one with the French braid, the one who was too pretty to be a cop, lead a barefoot, sniffling, old woman into the drunk tank.
The white-haired old lady wore a black, expensive-looking tailored skirt and blue blouse. The disheveled woman had an obvious dress sense for someone with a small frame, but if awards were handed out for prison style, Jacqueline Grafton knew she’d be the winner. She rocked prison convict fashion. Bright, prison orange with white stripes was something only a redhead could wear and make look good.
Officer Binney—that was French braid cop’s name—removed the old girl’s handcuffs. Jackie had been pacing a lazy circuit around the cell, but she paused and stood aside so her new cellmate could sink onto the seat.
The lady leaned back against the cool green wall, planted her palms over her eyes, and groaned. She flinched when Officer Binney closed the cell’s heavy door.
Jackie resumed pacing. She finally understood why people were allowed to smoke when they were incarcerated. It gave them something else to do besides walk in circles. Unfortunately, she’d never been a cigarette smoker. Her rubber-soled shoes chirped as she changed direction. “You don’t smoke, do you, sweetie?” she said to the woman on the far side of
the cell.
“No. I don’t smoke.” With a whimper, the older woman dropped her hands. Her chin came up. Pale hair slipped away from her mascara-smeared eyes.
Jackie did a double-take and stared at the old lady who wasn’t really an old lady at all. “I’ll be damned.” Her shoes squeaked one last time as she stopped beside the window made of unbreakable glass. “Oh, wow. Oh. Wow!”
When Willa looked up, the glare of twin fluorescent suns overhead burned little holes through the back of her skull. It felt even hotter than it had in the hallway. She let her gaze shift from painful blue-white to agonizing orange. The Jackie she remembered had been a super-chatty, super-friendly, super-party girl who didn’t seem to possess an ‘off’ switch, and she’d been built like a female villain in a superhero comic book—busty, curvaceous, and irresistible to mortal men.
Not much had changed.
The day-glo colors of the inmate garb complimented Jackie’s skin tone and auburn hair. The woman’s current ‘up-do’ reminded Willa of Pebbles Flintstone, but it suited Jackie. In fact, despite being incarcerated, Jackie looked damned good. It seemed unfair a woman should look so good in jail, in baggy striped clothing, in a shocking shade that only ever suited citrus fruit or traffic cones.
Willa grimaced and pinched the space between her eyes. “Wow what?” she said, pinching harder. “Wow I don’t smoke?”
Jackie started to laugh. “What? Oh. No. Not wow that you don’t smoke? I mean, if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a desperate smoker going all wiggy for a smoke because I never understood why people smoke at all? You know, it stinks, but the wow part? This is way unbelievable? Way unbelievable.” She chuckled. “Of all the people I ever thought would be arrested? You never made the list?”
Aside from still being a chatterbox, Willa noted Jackie also maintained the curious, teenage-girl-like speech pattern of rising inflection. Three-quarters of what she uttered had a singsong quality and came out sounding like a question. She stared back at Jackie the same way Jackie had stared at her.
For Your Eyes Only Page 12
