Unzipped (32 page)

He laughed. “Insanity, as you well know, is highly subjective,” he said, and raised the knife.

I was frozen in terror. “Please,” I said, but I saw in his eyes that I was wasting my breath. He was going to kill me . . . without remorse.

I leapt for the doorway, but he was already after me. I felt something skim my back and screamed. He laughed. The sound echoed in my brain. I dashed around the
La-Z-Boy, panting and trembling.

He halted on the far side, blade held toward me.

I was only a few feet from the door, and I had the advantage of youth. He was only slightly farther away and had the advantage of insanity.

“I know what you’re thinking, Chrissy,” he said. “Indeed, I know every thought that goes through your head. You’re weighing your chances. But you can’t win. You know that. I must win. For if I fail, I will lose everything, and I’ve worked too hard to let that happen. I’m sorry. Truly,” he said and sprang around the chair.

I jerked away, but he was already changing direction. I tried to adjust, to spurt toward the door, but my skirt tangled around my legs and I fell. He was on me in a second. I rolled onto my back, but he was atop me. The knife slashed toward me. I kicked out of pure instinct, striking out in wild terror. He stumbled to the side. I scrambled to my hands and feet, but he was right behind me. I could feel him there, breathing on me, grasping for me. I grappled forward. My fingers brushed something. Pain slashed across my arm. I screamed, closed my fingers, and twisted toward him. The fan struck his head. The noise echoed sickeningly in the room. He staggered backward. Blood was dripping down his forehead. He touched it with his free hand, then stumbled toward me.

“Chrissy,” he managed through gritted teeth, and I hit him again.

He dropped to his knees just as two doors burst open.

“LAPD!” Rivera shouted.

“Stop it! Just stop it!” Elaine was crying, and I thought, though I wasn’t quite sure, that she was threatening David with a nailfile. But I was never quite sure because just about then I passed out.

29

Maybe there’s no such thing as happily ever after. Maybe okay for now’s the best you get.

—Mr. Howard Lepinski,
after three months of therapy

I
RESTED THE NEXT couple of days. Elaine called my mother. Told her everything was peachy and that she definitely didn’t have to come down even though I’d had a bit of a mishap. Meanwhile, she stayed with me every minute of the day, fetching ice cream, cleaning my toilet, and making me realize I’d enjoy having a full-time slave. But all good things must come to an end and when Solberg dropped by to pick her up, I knew the fairy tale was over.

I stood on my little stoop as she gave me a careful hug, but even before she’d driven off, Rivera arrived. He parked illegally across the street and got out, all lean lines and terse movements.

He was carrying a bag that said Chin Yung and a six-pack of Pabst, but I refused to get excited, since my last gift had been short on roses and long on spines.

“Guess what I brought you,” he said when he was close enough. His eyes were all dark and solemn and made me wonder if he’d been worried about me, if he fantasized about the night we almost did it in the vestibule and if he regretted caring that I’d been drunker than sin.

“A porcupine?” I guessed.

He gave me a look.

I nodded a little nervously toward my front yard where the cactus was looking staunch and formidable behind a trio of rocks I’d given it for company.

He surveyed the wreckage of my yard. “No way roses were going to survive here.”

“I could grow roses if I wanted to.”

He grunted. “I light candles for the cactus every night.”

“Sentimentality,” I said. “The multifaceted Lieutenant Reebler.”

We stared at each other. There was a colorful swelling on my forehead and a scrape on my jaw, but he didn’t seem to be looking at that. My hormones cranked up another notch.

“You going to ask me?” he asked.

I stared at him a couple more seconds and sighed. “Okay. Why were you watching my house?”

His eyes were dark and brooding. And damned if dark and brooding isn’t sexy. He glanced across the street as though he could see into my neighbors’ living rooms, could detect crimes through the airways.

“Invite me to come in,” he said, “I’ll tell you.”

“Tell me here.” I guess I was still mad at him about the rejection, despite the fact that I knew it was for the best . . . and that he’d possibly saved my life.

“I’ll share the porcupine,” he said, lifting the bag, and then I caught the whiff of egg foo young. I’m not cheap but I can be bought.

I shoved the door open and followed him inside.

He was wearing jeans. The snug kind. I steadied my breathing and went to fetch dinnerware. Had he not been there, the boxes might never have exited the bag before the contents were consumed, but I’m a classy broad when I have company, multicolored bruises
et al.

Either he had secretly gone through my cupboards or he was good at guessing where to find glasses. He set the beer on the table, but memories of my last encounter with alcohol convinced me to pour myself a glass of milk. A minute later, the tantalizing aroma of Chinese cuisine was teasing my olfactory system.

I refrained from inhaling the box, took a few ladylike bites, and said, “Well?”

“Originally I thought you were banging Bomstad and had probably killed him. God knows everyone else wanted him dead.”

I thought about that for a moment as I masticated. “Originally?”

“Yeah.”

“How long is originally?”

He shrugged, still eating.

“How long—”

“Till I saw you in your pajamas.”

Had he been attracted to me even then? I wondered, heart palpitating. Had he found me so irresistible he refused to believe I could possibly be guilty?

“I figured anyone with so little pride in her appearance couldn’t have been screwing the Bomb.”

I might have kicked him out then, had I not been afraid he’d be vengeful enough to take the entrées. “I have pride in my appearance,” I said instead.

“You wore a donkey shirt.”

“That was not a donkey shirt. That was Eeyore.”

He stared at me blankly for several seconds.“Uh-huh. Anyway, once I learned you were connected with Hawkins I needed to keep you around.”

“Why?”

“I’d been looking at the good doctor for a long time.”

I stared at him, but couldn’t quite stop myself from eating. It was going to take a while to get over hospital food. “Shall I assume you thought he might be guilty and neglected to warn me, or that your sexual fantasies run contrary to the norm?”

“He was a link,” he said. “Between Stephanie Meyers and Bomstad. But I couldn’t clinch it.”

“So you used me as bait.”

He snorted. “Bait!” He was scooping up fried rice as he glared at me. “I all but handcuffed you to your kitchen sink to keep you out of the way.”

Was I wrong to find that image erotic?

“You wouldn’t back the hell off,” he added.

“You could have told me David was a suspect.”

“And let you botch my whole mission?” he asked, and poured himself a beer. “You were dangerous enough the way things were.”

“I was not dangerous.”

“You just about got yourself killed.” He lifted his gaze to mine. Darker than hell. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Twice.”

“You could have told me someone had tampered with my brakes. At least then I wouldn’t have thought you were trying to kill me.”

His eyes almost smiled. “You couldn’t have really believed that.”

“What was I supposed to think? You obviously had feelings for Meyers. You hated Bomstad. They had a thing.” I shrugged.

His lips twitched. “What about Hawkins’s wife? How’d you tie her in?”

Was he laughing at me? I don’t like to be laughed at. “You hated David, too.”

“So you deduced that I killed his wife? No wonder you jumped me in your hallway, seeing’s how highly you thought of me.”

I fiddled with my noodles. “I did not jump you,” I muttered. The following silence was painful. “Exactly.”

He laughed.

“Well forgive me for not guessing that L.A.’s most respected psychologist was a murderer.”

He gave me a somber nod in concession, though I suspected he still felt like laughing. Damn him. “As it turns out, Hawkins wasn’t the one who messed with your brakes.”

“What?”

“It was his fiancée.”

“I knew it!” I couldn’t have been happier. Not even if he’d brought dessert.

“Her name’s Mary Ellen Ensign. From Elkhorn, Alabama.”

“You’re shittin’ me!”

His lips quirked up a half-inch. “Sometimes I wonder who
you
really are.”

I ignored that. Obviously I was the classy Christina McMullen, Ph.D. “So what are you saying? She was a nobody from nowhere, met David, and decided to make herself into his dream girl?”

“It was a little more complex than that. She was boinking Bomstad . . . and a half a dozen other guys by the sound of it. The Bomb told her about David. She says she was immediately attracted to him and didn’t suspect anything out of character. Personally, I think she found out about his escapades and decided she could blackmail him for all he was worth. But once she met him her plan expanded. I don’t think she expected him to off Bomstad, but she sure didn’t want you messing up her plans. Thus, the brakes. And the attack at the bar.”

“She sent that goon to . . . to . . .”

“She swears she just wanted to scare you. Warn you to mind your own business.”

I chewed, ruminating. “So she was the one in Bomstad’s house.”

He took another bite and nodded. “Seems the Bomb had some video of her and him together.”

“He filmed them in bed?”

“Unthinkable, isn’t it?”

“And others?”

“Uh-huh.”

He waited, watching me, and the truth dawned like fireworks in my head.

“That’s his diary! The videotapes.”

“It was recorded into the middle of an Oscar-winning little flick called
Cum and Get It.
Took two days to find it even after talking to Ensign. I never thought I’d get tired of porn.” He ate some more noodles and glanced at me. “Maybe I should have let you in his house after all. Could have saved me some time.”

I gave him a look, pushed my plate aside, and chose a fortune cookie. “Your loss.”

His eyes were all sultry again. “Almost,” he said, and suddenly my fingers weren’t working very well.

“Well . . .” I focused on breathing for a minute. “I’m glad it’s all over.” I managed to break open the cookie and read the little message. Generally, I think they should be called “random nonsense cookies,” but this one made sense.

“What’s it say?”

I cleared my throat. “Says I’ll embark on an intriguing new adventure.”

He raised a brow. “Really?”

I could feel my insides heat up. “I think it means my career,” I said. “I’m considering a change.”

“Yeah?”

“Forensics,” I said.

“Intriguing,” he said. “But career changes can be tricky, and I think you have enough problems already.”

“Problems? Like what?”

“Celibacy,” he said and caught my fingers in his. “I think we should take care of that little celibacy problem before you worry about anything else.”

“It’s not a problem,” I said, but my tongue felt swollen. “It’s a choice.”

“Really? I thought it was more like a sentence.”

“Maybe for you.” I considered bolting, but he still held my hand, and I remembered how his chest had looked. “For me it’s . . .” He skimmed his fingertips over my knuckles. I swallowed hard. He raised his gaze to mine. “An intelligent decision.”

“So the other night when you tore the buttons off my shirt—”

I cleared my throat. “I may have been a bit tipsy.”

“Yeah?” He skimmed his fingernails up my forearm. I shivered down to my bone marrow. “Is that the reason for the milk?”

“Osteoporosis,” I said. “It’s a serious problem.”

He leaned in. My toes curled. “Not as big as celibacy.”

“I told you,” I breathed, “it’s not a problem, it’s—”

But in that instant he kissed me, and for a while there were no problems at all. And maybe that’s as good as it gets.

About the Author

Lois Greiman is the award-winning author of over fifteen novels, including romantic comedy, historical romance, and mystery. She lives in Minnesota with her family and an ever-increasing number of horses.

You may write to her at Lois Greiman, PO Box 16, Rogers, MN 55374 or visit her online at
www.loisgreiman.com
.

Don’t miss Lois Greiman’s
next sassy mystery starring
cocktail-waitress-turned-shrink
Christina McMullen.

U
nplugged

Lois Greiman

Available in March 2006
from Dell Books

Read on for an exclusive sneak peek— and look for your copy at your
favorite bookseller.

U
nplugged