Trouble Comes Knocking (Entangled Embrace) (4 page)

I gave Detective Reyes his coffee and a chance to say his piece.

“Would you sit?” he asked, shifting slightly in his chair.

I wanted to remain standing but knew it wouldn’t help hurry him along, so I sat, uncomfortably, at the edge of a chair. Ready to bolt. “Go ahead.”

He took a breath and inched forward in his chair to match my position. Definitely reading me. “I understand why you’d want to quit,” he started again. “I can’t blame you.”

Good cop.

“But a man died. Our department analyst started going over the information you gave us and saw that you were right. If everything else you said is true, about your memory, about being able to observe and retain the information—”

“Because I’d lie about something as crazy as that?” I hadn’t meant to interrupt him, but it always frustrated me so much when people questioned me. Especially when it mattered. This time it mattered.

He couldn’t mask the irritation on his face. “I believe you, Lucy. But you have to understand, what you say is pretty radical. It isn’t as if you’ve been saving up information for months, you’re giving me information you gathered over a three-day span. As it is it took our guys working through the night to come up with the data you supplied. And only because you already gave them what to look for.”

Okay, so very good cop.

“Could you hold off on quitting? Maybe stick it out for a bit, see what else you might pick up? Let me know anything suspicious?”

“You want me to play Sherlock at HGR.”

“I want you to do what you do anyway, but let me know what you find.”

“You want me to plug myself in a dangerous situation. One where someone already died.”

“No.”

I waited.

He leaned back, no longer matching me. “Yes. You’re in a position to help us solve this, probably much quicker than we’d be able to on our own. Mr. Winters’s murder and the missing data may not be related at all; it could be you stumbled upon a completely separate problem. But if they are involved, we could sure use your help.” He reached forward and touched my arm.

Heat flooded my cheeks, and I looked away from his dark brown eyes. I thought about my aunt. About how it was my turn to take care of her. “Will you compensate me?”

“We could pay you as a consultant.”

“And what about when this is over and HGR finds out I’ve been spying on them?”

He stood and swallowed the rest of his coffee. “I can’t promise anything, Lucy. You want to quit anyway, you said as much. This is a chance for you to get paid doubly for doing what you do anyway.”

“Can I think about it?”

He rinsed his cup and walked toward the front door. “I can give you until Monday. We have other leads we need to follow, but to be honest, the information you already gave is the strongest, and we need to have an answer soon.”

I shut the door behind him. Leaning against it, a smile spread across my face.
How exciting
. A chance to finally have my brain work
for
me. Like he said, the two might not be connected at all, but if they were I’d be a part of something big. Important. I’d be Rudolph on that first snowy sleigh ride.

I knew before I heard his car drive away that the answer would be yes. Still, was this me selling out? I thought about my parents, how disappointed my dad would be to find out I was working for the police. Suddenly my yes didn’t seem so assured.

My parents and I lived in a seventies-style, split-level house eleven miles up a mountain. We moved there after my third birthday and did everything off the grid, or as much as possible. My dad welded metal sculptures and sold them to galleries for cash, or traded them for supplies. We paid for our rented house, which included all the utilities, in cash, which I only knew because of the many late-night lectures my father gave about the dangers of living under society’s thumb.

I grew up believing my mother had been a fine arts professor in Fort Worth before my family moved to rural Arkansas. She taught me from home. Gave me dreams, hopes, books—tons of books. I had a simple, good life, and I didn’t know a life separate from that existed. I’d go with my dad to pick up supplies a few times a month and would do my best to not be too curious about the other kids I saw.

I knew they wondered about me, too, but not knowing our ways were
so
different helped a lot. These other kids acted rude with their gawking. I felt no self-consciousness for being unordinary. I had no idea why it mattered so much to them.

Moving to Fort Worth at sixteen made me feel like a foreigner: all the traffic, the constant chatter, people rushing everywhere, and no one taking time to just enjoy a moment. I’d yet to fully recover.

When I woke up from my nap, I found a note from Aunt Dolores on the kitchen counter telling me to eat the soup when it cooled and to rest while I could. I scooped a cupful and had just sat down to read a book when someone knocked on the door. John.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, peeved he thought I would want to see him after he left me to fend for myself. Between John and Eli it felt as if the douche Olympics had come to town and my house was their sports arena.

He held out my purse in a peace-offering gesture. “I went through it, not snooping, but I needed your address.”

I didn’t say a word.

“Last night was crazy, right?”

“Totally.”

“Never been through something like that before.”

“Not this year, at least,” I said, still standing at the doorway, no intention of asking him in.

“So…” he started, purse still dangling between us.

“So?”

“I had a good time before all that.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Right up until you left me at a crime scene, and I had to walk three miles home in the rain.” I took the purse and dropped it onto the hallway table.

His face fell. “Why’d you walk home? I called a taxi for you.”

“What taxi?”

“Ben was supposed to come get you when the taxi showed up. I ran home because I forgot my badge.”

Feeling guilty for having wished his balls would shrivel and fall off, I motioned him in. “You should have found me and told me yourself. Ben never said anything. All I was told was that you went home.”

He stopped me in the hallway and pressed his hands against either side of my face. “Lucy, I’m sorry. I would never intentionally do that to you.”

My anger melted into a pool of gooey, girly feelings. The kind I usually mock my best friend, Ana, for. “Would you like some soup?”

Dee came home to find us tucked into each other watching
Some Like it Hot
on the movie channel. She smiled as she walked into the room, and I sucked in my cheeks anticipating what she might say.

I’d had one serious relationship. One heart-breaking, tear-my-world-apart relationship, which left me so swollen with hurt that I chopped off my once-long hair and changed my entire look from Little Bo Peep to GI Jane. It was because of what I went through with Bobby and the way it ended that my aunt still told me from time to time that if I were a lesbian, it was okay. I’m not. Unfortunately, I hadn’t dated much since then and certainly hadn’t brought another man home, which hadn’t exactly dispelled her thinking.

“So,” she started in a slightly singsong voice. “This must be your boyfriend?”

I groaned and shook my head at John as if to say,
I never told her that
. “Aunt Dolores, this is John Poole. One of the guys I work with. John, this is my aunt Dolores.”

He stood. “So nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“Oh, don’t you ‘ma’am’ me. My mother was ‘ma’am.’ You can call me Dee.”

I died inside. Why do older people say things like that? Of course her mother was ma’am, but so was she. Obviously! But the heat that blazed a trail across my cheeks did not stop her.

“John, Lucy ain’t told me much about you. Do you come from a good family? Money?”

“Oh my God.”

He flushed and cleared his throat. “I’m from a normal family, I mean…” He turned to me, as if for help.

“John has to get going, Aunt Dolores.”

“She’s right. Lucy, we’ll talk on Monday.” He took my phone and tapped in his number. “Give me a call when you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks,” I said, holding back my groan. Not saying we’d have had sex today, but between a murder last night and Dee killing the mood today, I didn’t think I’d ever experienced so much coitus interruptus before in my life.

“Ma’am, Dolores, Dee, it was nice meeting you. Y’all have a good day.” He practically ran to the door, and as I heard it shut I shoved a pillow over my face.

“Aunt Dolores!”

“What?”

“You don’t ask people if they come from money!”

“What? I shouldn’t look out for my only niece? What if he’s some guy who thinks you got money and he wants to get his hands on it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t have money!”

“He don’t know that.”

I screamed into the pillow again before getting up and walking away.

Chapter Three

The interrogation room grew colder so Officer Len stepped outside to turn up the thermostat. When he returned, he brought me a lemon-lime soda and a bag of potato chips.

“Thanks.” I appreciated the gesture after an extremely hard day.

“So let me get this straight,” he continued. “You agreed to work for Officer Reyes as a consultant at that point…”

“Yes.”

“…but you didn’t ask for paperwork or to talk to the captain or anything like that?”

“I didn’t think I had to. I knew I’d be working at my own job and reporting back to Eli anything out of the ordinary. Basically, as he explained it, I’d be getting paid for doing exactly what my brain does to begin with.”

By Saturday my cough cleared and I’d returned to mostly normal, which meant nothing would keep me from returning to work Monday. For the first time in my life I was happy to go to work, and I actually felt excited to use my ability. I was a sleuth right out of a novel and dressed accordingly in my brown corduroy skirt, cream-colored tights, and a fall glam cardigan. It was about as girly as I’d looked in a long time, and, of course, Aunt Dolores thought it was for John. Okay, maybe I dressed up a little for him, but I’d never tell her that.

“I’m just saying, it ain’t bad that you’re dressing up for a boy.”

I gulped down my coffee, rubbed my eyes, and tried to reason with her. “For one thing, even if he was more than a friend, he’d like me how I am, not dressed as someone I’m not. For another, I wouldn’t try to dress up to impress anyone. That’s not honest.”

“Honest, schmonest. We try to impress people every day. Clothing is the least of the costumes we wear to hide our true selves from the people around us.”

She was right. We all wear masks, and I’d grown up knowing that. My parents hid so much from me that even at twenty-two I still didn’t know them. Thinking about them for even a moment made me ache for more time together.

The day they disappeared I’d been doing something I wasn’t supposed to. I’d trekked three miles to the river and swam by myself. Sure, they’d told me not to go on my own—there were bears and moccasins and all sorts of dangerous things that could kill and no one would know. Still, I had to pull a Houdini.

All because of a boy. Clint. The grandson of one of the only neighbors my parents talked to. And the only person close to my age whom I actually knew. We were able to hang out a little, and I found him fascinating. He didn’t read as much as me, but he knew so much more about the world. We had exactly zilch in common.

We did kiss, though. My first kiss.

It had been wet and unpracticed. I closed my eyes when it started because that’s what I’d seen in movies, but kept them closed as we continued because if I opened them I would have giggled at how weird it all felt.

His hands laid awkwardly on my waist at first, then he moved to my ass. I’d wanted to be kissed, not have my ass squeezed like a ripe tomato. After a few more minutes I couldn’t take it; I ran away. All the way to the river. I jumped in to cool off, not caring if I got in trouble for swimming alone. I’d rather face the unknown dangers of the river than the scariness of being with a handsy boy for the first time.

That’s when I saw him. The dead guy.

At first he looked hurt, so I went over to help. “Sir, are you okay?” I pushed on him, but his body only bobbed like an apple in a bowl of water. My stomach clenched, and I threw up.

It took a moment for it to fully register that he was dead. I scrambled to the side of the river, then couldn’t do anything but stand there and scream.

I’d screamed so long and loud that the people who found me thought I’d somehow known the guy. The police were called, and an ambulance for me because of my state of complete shock.

From what I understand, the police went to my house and told my parents what happened and where to find me. They never made it to the hospital.

My parents disappeared because of me.

At HGR everyone talked in hushed voices about Mr. Winters. Some of them not as hush. A girl who’d never talked to me before, even though she worked two chairs down, whispered loudly as I tried to get logged in.

“Did you hear?”

“Yeah,” I told her, tucking my purse into a drawer. “Sad. He was a nice guy.”

“You
knew
him? I’ve been here three years and never met him.”

I smiled thinly, not sure I wanted to talk about this with her. “Strange.”

“I’m Natalie Cole, like Nat King Cole almost.” Her vintage-style dress masked some of her plumpness but did nothing to hide her diminutive frame. Natalie had thick, black, bobbed hair and light green eyes. If her ears had been pointy, she would have reminded me of an elf.

I introduced myself. “I’m Lucy Carver.”

Her eyes brightened. “Hey, if we’d gone to high school together, we might have sat next to each other, you know Carver, Cole?”

I laughed. “I suppose.”

“I went to Lincoln Heights, you?”

“Cromwell Academy.” Or at least that’s where I went after coming to live with Dee. I went there with Ana. Thinking about her again reminded me of how much I needed her.

“Oh.” Her face fell a little. I’m sure Natalie would have loved to have found a class chum. Still, I doubted we would have been in the same grade, anyway. She looked at least a few years older than me. “So you said you knew him?”

Since I was supposed to be investigating this, I figured why not start here? “Yeah, I met him last Wednesday. So weird. He seemed like a nice guy. I can’t imagine why anyone would have wanted to hurt him. Then again, isn’t that the same thing they say about the serial killer who lives next door?”

Natalie shook her head. She reached back into her cubical and grabbed her phone. “Listen, I got a tweet from Stan up in HR, who said Danny in receiving told Sue from accounting that there might have been an investigation going on about Mr. Winters, but they’re still going to have a memorial for him on Saturday. Do you want to go?”

“No, probably not.” I figured it was only right. I mean, I needed to investigate the guy, but this was a memorial for his family and the people who actually knew him. I didn’t want to be some strange gawker who showed up because of how he’d died.

“Me, neither,” she said, blasting me with a bright white smile that would have made Shirley Temple look like a grump. “It would be weird, right?”

I smiled right back. She wasn’t bad; perhaps we could be friends.

I talked to Natalie a little more off and on that day, and by that evening it felt like we’d known each other forever. Or at least like I knew everything about Natalie there was to know. We’d graduated high school the same year, but she was two years older. She’d started school late and then been held back a year when she was thirteen due to excessive absences. We were both stood up for prom, both received our driver’s licenses late. The best part about Natalie was she did most of the talking. For once in my life I didn’t have to tell her anything about my past or my weird beginnings. She didn’t seem to care.

As long as someone listened, Natalie could happily go on forever. Which is how we ended up at Tango Tacos that night.

The place had a trendy twentysomething vibe, but an eclectic crowd. It boasted of SOL food—Sustainable. Organic. Local.—which, of course, brought everyone from ageing hippies to hat-wearing hipsters along with a wide variety of people who lived within walking distance. It helped that the restaurant had also been featured on a Food Network show, had truly tasty dining, and a live band every night of the week.

“So you’ve been dating Clive off and on for how long?”

“Mmm. Two years.” She swallowed a bite of fish taco and without much prompting wiped the sauce from her mouth. At least she knew the universal signal.

I thought about John. That cute dimple, those oh-so-kissable lips. We hadn’t talked much during the day and he’d wanted to hang tonight, but I liked Natalie and it wasn’t as if I had an overabundance of friends.

Besides, distance and the heart and all that.

“Two years is a long time,” I said, taking a slow drink of my margarita. It was a lot stronger than I was used to but delicious with pieces of blackberries mixed in. “Why no ring on it?”

“He said he’s not ready. You know how guys are. Always have a plan, always have somethin’ else they’re goin’ for, I don’t know. He said it’ll be soon, but he needs to get things worked out first.”

“Things like what?”

Her laugh came out somewhat nervously as she played with her straw and took a keen interest in the table at our right. “Who knows?”

She’d told me Clive worked in Central Processing, which was another reason I’d wanted to go to dinner after work. It was my next stop in the investigation and the only lead I’d actually gotten from Mr. Winters, so to have an “in” in the department would make things all the easier.

The only problem was I had no way to know whether Clive was in on whatever was going on. I couldn’t take a chance letting him know I might be on to him; it might stop things entirely, or worse, put me in danger. It didn’t seem likely anyone knew about the details of my meeting with Mr. Winters, but I couldn’t know for sure.

Over sopapillas I decided to finally pop the question. “So about Clive. I know you love him, but have you always?”

“Oh sure,” she said, honey drizzling from her sopped-up piece of bread. “He’s a real sweetheart. We work together, but I actually met him through a friend.”

“Who?”

“Diana. She used to work for us. She left about a month before you came on board, even worked at your station, actually. Strange, left a note one night when her shift ended saying she wouldn’t be back. No ‘I quit,’ no exit interview, no goin’ away party, or anything.” Natalie paused to take a bite, catching a drop of honey moments before it dripped onto her chest. “Anyway, she introduced Clive and me at her annual Halloween party one year, and we’ve been Twinkies ever since.”

“Twinkies, huh? That’s cool. So you went to her party every year?”

Natalie finished her meal and tossed her garbage in the trash on our way out the door. “Naw. I’d never gone before. Never wanted to. She’d been so insistent, and boy am I glad.” She smiled widely. “Imagine, someday I’ll get to be Mrs. Clive Brewster.”

I’d yet to meet Clive and certainly couldn’t judge him before I checked him out; still, I had a sinking feeling. A party she’d never been to with a coworker she didn’t spend much time with, and she happens to meet her soul mate who doesn’t want to settle down until things are “done.” Plus, the now-absent Diana worked my job only a month before me. The dinner had been wonderful but left me with so many more questions than answers.

I agreed to meet Detective Reyes for coffee the next morning before work. At seven o’clock I walked into the Jumping Bean, a small coffeehouse off Magnolia in the Hospital District, and ordered a latte and a muffin. Then I sat at a table in the back and took a few minutes to go over what I’d discovered yesterday…approximately zilch.

I’d decided the night before that if Diana and Clive were involved, they’d excluded Natalie from their plot. She didn’t seem the type. She’d told me about the orphans she’d been helping in Nigeria. How she’d received an e-mail requesting her assistance and just couldn’t turn it down. I thought about cluing her in on what those e-mails really were, but she seemed so happy and I didn’t want to take that away from her. Much too sweet and trusting. Which is probably why they’d picked her. For what, I still hadn’t figured out, but the whole story of how they’d met came across a little hinky.

Detective Reyes showed up at seven fifteen on the dot dressed in navy slacks and a white shirt, wearing a bold blue tie. He dressed as impeccably as he had every other time I’d seen him, and an odd twinge scraped at my belly as he ordered his coffee and flirted with the barista, a girl around my age with blond hair and freckles. I frowned as I watched them linger a few moments too long.

“Good morning,” I said in the most civil tone I could muster when he finally came to sit down.

“You look like you didn’t sleep well.”

“I slept fine.”

“Huh.”

I took a sip of my pumpkin spiced latte and forced a smile.
Didn’t sleep well, my ass.
The man came to talk shop and instead gets all flirty with the barista? It made no sense why I felt so territorial, but I did. “So anything new with the investigation, Detective?”

“You can call me Eli.”

“Not going for professional today, eh?”

He smiled casually and leaned back in his chair. “We’re colleagues, in a way. Feels a little strange having you call me detective.”

Colleagues. I liked the sound of that. Despite all possible reasoning, he appeared to be accepting me, brain craziness and all.

“I mean, we’re not actually colleagues, but I’d still like you to call me Eli. Do you mind, Lucy?” He leaned in when he said the last part and placed his hand on mine.

I pulled back my hand as if it burned. Was he flirting with me, too? I couldn’t figure it out. He’d acted so gruff when I first met him, then so argumentative at the house. This is the thing I hated about my ability. It worked great for things I didn’t need to know, but when it came to simple human language, like whether a guy was flirting with me or not, I was clueless.

In Eli’s case I decided it best to cut to the chase.

“Since we are colleagues, you should know I’m in a relationship.”

“Okay.”

“Sort of. John. The security guard.”

Eli flashed an I’m-way-better-than-that-guy kind of smile. “You mean the scrawny kid at the reception desk?”

My hackles rose at his obvious insult. “He’s a nice guy. And he’s not scrawny. He’s slender. I’m slender. You’re just big. And your shoulders are too wide.”

His laughter sounded nothing less than smug. “Whatever floats your boat, Lucy. The kid looks like a stiff wind would knock him over.”