On Deadline & Under Fire

by Amanda M. Lee

  “Oh, geez. You’re so full of crap.” Eliot kept one arm firmly around my waist so I couldn’t escape as he turned me to face him. I was furious when I thought I found a small opening, but he anticipated my move and pinned me hard against his chest before I could run for the hills … or at least the second floor, which also needed to be dusted. “Tell me what you’re doing.”

  “I’m considering where I can punch you without causing long-lasting damage,” I sputtered. “I’m thinking of aiming for your nuts, although that might backfire on me later tonight if I really do want to play perverted games.”

  Eliot warily shifted to cover his private parts. I was known to kick guys in the nuts – usually murderers and certain politicians who annoyed me – but I wasn’t discerning when I felt I was being bullied. We both knew that.

  “You’re not doing anything of the sort,” he said finally, his expression unreadable as he stared into my eyes. “I want to know why you’re dusting.”

  “This is a stupid thing to argue about,” I supplied, changing tactics. “Why are we fighting when we could be taking the feather duster into the bedroom?”

  Eliot’s eyes momentarily gleamed and then he regained control of himself. “Why are you dusting?”

  “Because your mother will be here tomorrow and if she’s anything like my mother she’ll complain about how dirty the house is,” I blurted out, immediately hating myself for telling the truth. I was so much better than that. I should’ve come up with a viable lie that kept my prized “I’m the devil” reputation intact.

  Eliot opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out. My cheeks burned under his weighted scrutiny and suddenly I wished I was anywhere but here. He was going to laugh at me. I just knew it.

  Instead of laughing, Eliot was calm when he found his voice. He carefully lessened his hold on me. “My mother doesn’t care about how clean the house is.”

  I didn’t run away, even though that was my first instinct when I felt his grip diminish. I remained on his lap and stared at the purple feathers. They appeared to be mocking me. “All mothers care about a clean house. I think it’s something in their genetic code.”

  “I think you’re making that up.” Eliot plucked the duster from my hand and stared at it. “Is that why you’ve been acting so odd?”

  I balked. “I haven’t been acting odd.”

  “You have. Yesterday you cleaned out the refrigerator. I thought it was strange, but I believed you when you said you needed to make room for more beer. That was probably a mistake on my part.”

  That was definitely a mistake. If I needed to make more room for beer I’d simply place it on top of rotting food. Out of sight, out of mind … until the smell comes to get you. Eliot usually steps in at that point. “Well, I happen to like beer.”

  “Right. And when you actually picked up your own underwear from the bathroom floor before letting it pile up for seven days – that was about my mother coming, too, wasn’t it?”

  “I happen to like washing underwear.”

  “Right.”

  “I do.”

  “You don’t like doing anything but causing grown politicians and cops to cry,” Eliot countered. “You absolutely hate doing housework.”

  “That’s a vicious lie. Since we moved into the new house, I happen to love doing housework.”

  “Oh, well, then I guess you want me to cancel the maids because of your newfound joy of housecleaning,” Eliot challenged, causing me to squirm. “You love cleaning so much it would be a shame to pay others to take away your joy.”

  “Let’s not be hasty.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Eliot grabbed my chin and forced me to make eye contact with him. “Are you afraid of meeting my mother?”

  That was an insulting question. “I’m not afraid of anything. Just two weeks ago I took apart an entire election and I wasn’t afraid for a single second.”

  “Even though you should’ve been terrified in that scenario,” Eliot muttered, shaking his head. “I’m often terrified for you in situations like that.”

  “See. I don’t need to be afraid because you’ve got it covered. That’s why this relationship works.”

  “This relationship works because we tell each other the truth and don’t try to change each other,” Eliot countered, rubbing his thumb over my cheek as he made a dismissive sound in the back of his throat. “Of course, that was before I announced my mother was coming and you started lying about being a domestic goddess.”

  “Hey … I’m all different types of goddesses.”

  “You are.”

  “I don’t see what the problem is.”

  “The problem is that you’ve been twisting yourself into knots since I told you that my mother intended to visit,” Eliot noted. “It’s not supposed to be a bad thing. It’s supposed to be a good thing.”

  “Did I say it wasn’t a good thing?”

  “No, but you’ve been acting odd. You like to dress up as a Jedi Knight and have lightsaber battles while making ‘pew, pew’ sounds and hopping around like a general idiot, so that’s saying something.”

  “You said you loved my battle reenactments.”

  “I do.” Eliot chuckled as he smoothed my hair. “You don’t need to work yourself up about this. She’s just a mother.”

  That was an absolutely ridiculous statement. “You’ve met my mother, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she just a mother?”

  “Your mother is … unique,” Eliot replied. “My mother is a normal mother.”

  “You’re not normal, so there’s no way that your mother can be normal,” I argued.

  “I think that’s possibly the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “I didn’t say you were good abnormal.”

  “Duly noted.” Eliot smirked as he kissed the tip of my nose. “My mother will be fine. I promise she won’t give you grief. That’s not how she does things.”

  In truth, I never gave much thought to Eliot’s mother. I knew that he left home and moved to Michigan after his military stint. He seemed to want distance between his family and himself – which I totally got because my family was the cause of every migraine I’d ever had – and he never mentioned the people he’d left behind.

  Then, out of nowhere, he announced his mother was going to visit and I was left grappling with a new reality … and it was one I didn’t like. “You say your mother won’t be the source of upheaval, but I have trouble believing that.”

  “You’re only saying that because you grew up with a mother who thrived on causing trouble.”

  “Fair enough.” He had a point. “She’s still a mother. Mothers can’t stop themselves from doing terrible things to their offspring. In this case, I think she’s going to spread the wealth because she hasn’t seen you in a long time.”

  “We haven’t seen each other in person in a few years,” Eliot acknowledged. “We talk on the phone. Everything will be fine. I promise.”

  I wanted to believe him. “Well … okay.” I stood and reached for the feather duster. “I’ll put that away.”

  “No.” Eliot snatched it back. “I’m keeping it for later tonight.”

  I didn’t want to laugh. That would only encourage him, after all, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Fine. I’m up for whatever game you have planned … but later. I have errands to run this afternoon.”

  “That’s right. You took the day off.” Eliot furrowed his brow as he slowly got to his feet. “I thought it was weird that you took an extra day off before your vacation. Did you do that so you could clean the house all day? You usually have to be dragged off the job kicking and screaming … and cursing and slapping.”

  “I took the day off because I need a break from work.”

  “I always think you need a break from work because you’re so intense,” Eliot agreed. “But that’s not why you took today off.”

  “Do you really want to start a second fight so soon after we wrapped up the
last one?”

  “That was hardly a fight. You didn’t even threaten to set my boxers on fire.”

  “Good point.” I forced a smile. “Don’t you have work?”

  “I do.” Eliot leaned closer and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of my mouth before collecting his shoes from the floor and slipping them on. “I don’t want you to mistake this for capitulation. That’s not what this is. I know you’re up to something. I can feel it. I simply have to get to work. I have a lot to finish today if I expect to be able to take time off while my mother is here.”

  “That is a horrible thing to say about the woman you supposedly love. I am not up to anything.”

  “Yes, well, we’ll talk about this when I get home from work.” Eliot collected his keys from the coffee table and strolled toward the front door. “This is nowhere near done.”

  I rolled my eyes at his back. “I look forward to further discussion.”

  “I saw that.”

  “What?”

  “The eye rolling.”

  “You did not because I didn’t roll my eyes.” This time I stuck my tongue out at his back. “You’re imagining things.”

  “I saw that, too.” Eliot smirked as he opened the door, the expression lasting only a second until he saw the two individuals waiting on the other side of the threshold.

  My best friend Carly, who was well into her first pregnancy, and my cousin Lexie stood there with expectant gazes. They appeared surprised to find Eliot opening the door.

  “I thought you had to work today,” Lexie offered by way of greeting.

  “I’m leaving now.” Eliot cast me a suspicious look. “What are Lexie and Carly doing here?”

  “It’s a girls’ day,” I lied, refusing to panic. “We’re doing girl things.”

  “Yes, like braiding each other’s hair and doing makeovers,” Carly said smoothly.

  “And painting toenails,” Lexie added.

  “I’m not falling for that, but I don’t have time. We’ll talk about whatever you have planned with these two later, Avery. You can add it to our list of serious discussions.”

  “I look forward to that as well,” I called out.

  “Good. Have a pillow fight in my honor while I’m gone.”

  I groaned. “Girls do not have pillow fights when hanging out. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “Stop ruining my fantasies.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I waited until I heard his truck door slam before speaking to my female guests. “So … we have a lot to do. Are you ready to have some fun?”

  Now it was Carly’s turn to roll her eyes. “I’ve got this handled. Trust me. You should get out of the way. You’ll be a hindrance otherwise.”

  I wanted to argue because it was my house she wanted free rein over, but I wasn’t the type to argue when the alternative meant I could get out of physical labor. “Great. I’ll leave the house to you and run errands. I think that’s a solid plan.”

  “Somehow I knew you would.”

  2 Two

  Even though I was nervous about Carly’s plans for my house – I’d spent hours decorating with an eye toward intergalactic space travel and foot treks to Mount Doom – I knew it was better to get out of her way than put up a fight. When it came to bamboozling people into thinking she was normal when she was really crazy, Carly was a master.

  I left Lexie to do the heavy lifting because she was good at following directions, and headed out with a list of things to buy. If Eliot’s mother was going to be staying with us, we probably needed groceries. I was fairly certain that Maggie Kane wasn’t the type of woman who could live on Star Wars Spaghetti-Os and chicken noodle soup. She would probably expect real food. I also needed to pick up a few things for around the house, like new sheets for the guest bedroom and toiletries for the upstairs bathroom.

  Yeah, I’d fallen a bit behind when it came to decorating the house. I really only cared about the basement, which Eliot let me go nuts with, and then lost all interest in making the rest of the house look welcoming. I mean … if your house looks like you want people to stay then you can’t act outraged when they actually do. I prefer hiding from people unless I’m grilling them for information for a news article, so making the guestrooms comfortable seemed a sorry waste of time.

  Eliot’s announcement that his mother was coming for a visit knocked me for a loop. I was set in my ways and didn’t like change. I had no choice this time, though. I had to do what was right for him because … well, simply because. He always did what he thought was right for me and it seemed it was my turn to return the favor.

  That didn’t mean I was looking forward to a mother invasion. The entire notion left me feeling uneasy.

  I stopped at Pottery Barn first to pick up the bedding. On a whim, I bought a set of glasses for the kitchen that actually matched because they caught my attention as I was passing the shelf. Everything Eliot and I owned was a hodgepodge of pieces that didn’t fit together. I figured at least if we had glasses we wouldn’t look so helplessly out of our depth.

  After the glasses, I found myself looking at matching dishes … and then flatware … and then pots and pans. Before I knew it, I had two carts filled with items and a huge charge on my credit card. After loading that stuff into the hatchback of my car, I headed for the nearest grocery store. I stocked up on everything, including fancy cupcakes that I figured I could put on a plate and pretend I’d baked, and some special tea that Eliot said his mother preferred.

  By the time I loaded up two-hundred bucks’ worth of groceries, I had no room in my car for anything but me and knew it was time to head home. I’d been running errands so long I figured Carly had probably redecorated my entire house – maybe even had the orange brick replaced with a color she preferred – and I should probably check the damage. All thoughts of dealing with my wacky friend and her need to organize vanished when I saw the plume of smoke.

  “Huh.” I leaned against the car and stared at the darkening sky. It was a sunny day, no showers in the forecast, yet the sun was quickly being obliterated thanks to the growing smoke. No house fire could generate that much smoke, which meant I was looking at something completely different.

  I had the week off. I was supposed to be running errands and then getting the house in order for Eliot’s mother’s visit. I shouldn’t have been worrying about a fire that I was positive my editor would send someone else to cover. That didn’t stop me from climbing into my car and driving toward the plume. There was no harm in just checking it out. At least that’s what I told myself.

  It wasn’t hard to follow the smoke to its origin. When I arrived, I found a huge apartment building on fire. It was one of those high rises that climb at least twenty floors, and the top two or three levels looked to be completely engulfed.

  I was on autopilot as I parked in the back of the lot, making sure my car was nowhere near any hydrants as I grabbed one of the reporter's notebooks I kept in the glove compartment before exiting the vehicle and pocketing my keys.

  I heard approaching sirens. The fire department and other emergency personnel were clearly on their way. The fire was so out of control I doubted they could save the top quarter of the building, and I knew enough about fires to understand that the bottom floors would be deluged by water. Everything inside would be destroyed.

  “How many people live here?” I asked, moving next to a woman who was watching the fire from a nearby lawn.

  “What? Oh, I don’t know.” She shook her dark head. “I live over there.” She pointed toward a group of townhouses across the way. “I didn’t even know this was happening until I smelled smoke. I thought I’d left something on the stove, but when I looked out the window I saw this.”

  “What’s the name of this place?”

  The woman eyed with interest the notebook I held. “Are you with the newspaper?”

  I nodded. “The Monitor.”

  “Oh, that’s a good paper.” The woman beamed. “I’m Gina Dobbins. I’ve been a res
ident of this neighborhood for twenty years.”

  I had to bite back a smile I was so amused. There are three types of people who show at accident and fire scenes. The first are those who don’t want to talk and simply watch, perhaps getting a little thrill from the destruction that they don’t want to make public. The second are those who will reluctantly talk but won’t put their name on the record. The third simply want their name in the newspaper and they don’t care how it happens. Gina Dobbins clearly fell into the third category, which was lucky for me because I wasn’t supposed to be working.

  “That’s good.” I jotted down the information and smiled. “What can you tell me about this building?”

  “Well, it’s something of an eyesore.”

  “An eyesore?” I knit my eyebrows and stared. It looked like a normal apartment complex. Sure, it was on fire and was about to turn into one heck of an eyesore. Before that, I figured it looked pretty normal. “How is it an eyesore?”

  “Well, look at it.” Gina curled her lip. “It’s full of unsavory people.”

  Hmm. That was interesting. Sure, there was every chance that Gina was simply a snob, but I sensed there was also a story buried in her reaction. “I guess I don’t understand. What can you tell me about the building?”

  “Well, I guess it was built back in the seventies. There’s a plaque that states that on the far side of the building.

  “It was supposed to be a very cool place to live when it was first built,” Gina explained, rubbing her hands together as she warmed to her story. “I guess for something like ten years it was a status symbol to live here.”

  I wasn’t the sort of person who believed status was derived from where one lived, but I nodded to indicate I was still listening.

  “Over the years, the neighborhood changed,” Gina continued. “This wasn’t the hot new place to live any longer and those who wanted to be trendy headed farther north.”

  “Right. I’m familiar with the phenomenon.”