“And we don’t know about Adrienne. Thanks to her I’ve woken up next to a strange guy now and again, but they might have gotten together to, I dunno, herd ducks or whatever. I never … not with them. With anyone.” I ventured a glance into his face. “I’m aware how weird it must sound even as I’m saying it.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes. “Thank God.”
“Yeah, it’s okay. You’re right to be weirded out and repul—what?”
“It’s fine with me.”
“Why?”
He laughed at how suspicious I sounded, scooted his chair closer, and hugged me. “Because I’m a perv? You’re right to be wary; it sounds like a pervy reaction, doesn’t it? Look, it’s fine with me that Shiro’s got experience and you don’t. It’s better than fine. It’s actually pretty great, and not just for me. Okay, for me. She’ll know what she wants, which—trust me—is so fucking hot for a guy.”
“It is?” Maybe I should be writing this stuff down.
“And I’m enough of an ego-driven dick to be proud to hopefully someday be your first, and glad to know that it won’t hurt you. And I like ducks. If Adrienne wants to herd ducks and then go to sleep, that’d be great, too.”
I snorted laughter and hugged him back. “I don’t know when I’ll be ready.”
He kissed me twice, below both eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be here. Check your phone. We’ve got a date a hundred years from now.”
chapter sixty
I was quite surprised to find myself still at the Barnes and Noble when a peek at the wall clock showed over two hours had passed. I was no longer at one of the small café tables on the lower level; I was in one of the large plushy couches the store kept upstairs for browsers. The store was indecently comfortable, with clever management: couches, plush chairs, beverages and snacks, and thousands of books. Genius.
Dr. Gallo was sitting beside me, intent on a Frank Miller graphic novel, one hand resting on my knee. “Oh,” I said, surprised.
He closed the book, holding his place with his thumb, and brushed his lips softly over mine. “Hey, Shiro. Welcome back.”
“Oh ho.”
“Yeah.”
“Cadence blabbed.”
“And thank goodness. I didn’t think Sag suited any of you.”
I giggled; I could not help it. “George can be a diabolical genius at times.” I looked down and added shyly, “I am glad she told you. I am glad you’re still here.”
“Yeah, but not for much longer.” He stretched, yawned theatrically, and draped an arm over my shoulders. I poked him in the ribs and grinned at the flinch. “Let’s do something.”
“Something else, you mean? It’s been hours and we are still here.”
“Has it?” He glanced at his own watch. “Holy shit. Feels like we’ve been here about twenty minutes.”
I smiled at that; I couldn’t help it.
“God, you’ve got a gorgeous smile.”
“So I’m told,” I lied. No one had ever said such a thing to me. To Cadence, yes.
“Can we get out of here?” He stretched again. “Argh, no wonder I’m stiff.”
“And do what? Where?”
He eyed me with healthy male appreciation.
“Not just yet,” I said.
“Of course,” he said with convincing dignity. “It’s just I’ve never had a girlfriend with the body of an Olympic athlete before, and as I gazed at your physical perfection I was making a mental note to keep lots of health food on hand to encourage you to visit my home whenever you wish.”
“That was excellent. A wonderful recovery.”
“I’m pretty smart. I hardly ever had to cheat in med school,” he bragged, grinning when I giggled. “It’s a Sunday in a sizeable metro area and we’re not hungry and I sense you’re not a bowler. It’s freezing out but I’m not about to let you out of my sight now that you’ve broken up with a multimillionaire to be with someone you barely know.”
Multimillionaire? Cadence had been chatty. “That’s all right. I barely knew him.”
He blinked at that, then shrugged. “That leaves us with no choice but the movies.”
“No choice if you pass over the Mall of America, the Guthrie, the Walker Art Center, the American Swedish Institute, the Depot Skating Rink—”
“Right, so. No choice but the movies.”
“A thousand choices but the movies.”
My lanky badass put his hands together in prayer. “Pleeeeease? I love the movies, and the new Sandra Bullock opened the day before yesterday but I was helping you guys find a killer so I couldn’t go.”
“Those were the plans you postponed? Not
(thank God)
Game of Thrones fanfic?” I admired Mr. Martin’s world-building, but the characters left me cold. Cadence felt the opposite, and slept in a Winter Is Coming T-shirt. Probably because Spring Is Coming does not sound at all ominous.
“I love the movies,” he repeated in a most fervent tone. “I love everything about them. Figuring out what to see. Picking the night and the show. The drive over. The crappy food and overpriced pop. The previews where you see the movies you’ve just got to see the day they come out. And then the movie starts and you get to watch it, and then rave or bitch about the movie on the way home with someone nice, and start the countdown to the movies you need to see because of the previews you saw a couple of hours ago.”
“I have faced down killers,” I commented, “and been less terrified than I am at this moment.”
“Please can we go? You can buy the wildly overpriced popcorn,” he wheedled.
“How can I refuse such a generous offer?” It was a legitimate question. The man had correctly diagnosed George and me on short acquaintance, confirmed his diagnosis, and not run shrieking from the building. A movie was small price to pay. “But this had better be one of Ms. Bullock’s comedies. I loathe her serious turns. They are nearly as painful to sit through as Robin Williams’s.”
“You’ll laugh,” he promised, grabbing his leather jacket and catching my hand in his. He began gently tugging me toward the door. “I promise.”
“That is not the same thing! I warn you,” I warned him, “if the words ‘tender’ or ‘coming of age’ or ‘tour de force performance’ are anywhere on the movie poster, I shall be wroth.”
“Can you be wroth with Whoppers?”
“Oh yes!”
chapter sixty-one
Monday afternoon I walked into Michaela’s office (the one without the knives or the food processor powerful enough to make a steel-wool smoothie) and announced, “I’m ready to listen to your apology.”
She looked up and glared. “You don’t return my calls anymore, Jones? You stroll in after lunch? This might be a fake FBI office, but it’s still an office, I’m still your supervisor, and you’ll still behave like an employee unless you want to know what it feels like when I put my foot up your ass.”
“Okay, gross. And inappropriate.”
“Mmmm.” She rubbed her eyes, which, I realized, were bloodshot. “Correct. I shall overlook your flippancy and you will overlook my vexed retort.”
“Have you been swimming?” It wasn’t just her eyes. She looked exhausted, but she was back in one of her gorgeous, understated designer suits (in power periwinkle) and, of course, the de rigueur sneakers. “Like, constantly?”
“Do I look like I’ve got time to go for a leisurely paddle in the nearest chlorine patch, Jones? I’ve got work to do. Perhaps you’ve heard of it: work. The thing people do so their bosses don’t boot them into the unemployment line.”
“Back off. We caught Zimmerman.”
“Ah. Yes.” She pulled off her reading glasses—when had she gotten those?—and glared. “About that. You may have been selfish enough to decide that finding you’d been deceived warranted taking risks with your personal safety, but that is pure selfishness I shall not tol—”
“Why do you have all that extra work?” I asked, desperate to change the subject and
cover my blunder. The one thing I shouldn’t have brought up! Argh! “Are you still trying to find funding?”
“Of course not. You must know.”
“If you’d said that to me five days ago, I’d have believed you. I don’t ‘must know’ anything about you or BOFFO anymore.”
“Mmmm. Well. Sometime this morning, someone had a courier drop off a check for five million dollars, payable to BOFFO, cut from a business checking account for Aunt Jane Enterprises, Inc.”
Good thing I’d taken the chair across from her, or I would have fallen on my ass. Even though I’d dumped Aunt Jane—or Aunt Jane had dumped me—he knew I loved working here and felt bad because he’d been dumped—or because he’d dumped me—and he’s staying in Minnesota with his sister and they both came up with a way to keep me out of motels and Aunt Jane came up with a way to help Michaela and it was just—just—
“This has given me breathing room,” Michaela told me, ignoring my confused gape (or she was so used to it she no longer saw it). “I suppose it was my cue to protest ‘No, no, I cannot let you do this; my pride compels me to find a way to make this work with no outside help’ but ha! Never. BOFFO’s continued existence is far more important than my pride.”
“So you’re staying in business?”
“As long as I can. Five million is wonderful, but it’s also finite. Breathing room, as I said. I shall look into various investment options and come up with every way I can to stretch it. Meanwhile, though I understand why you would leave us, I…” She rubbed her eyes again. “I would deeply regret … I would not wish … I would worry and … damn it.” She snatched at a Kleenex and blew her nose, then wiped her eyes. “Hay fever,” she added with a glare hot enough to singe my face.
“Yep,” I agreed. Sure. Hay fever. “I hear it’s really bad this Christmas. Like hay fever tends to be. At Christmastime.”
“Of course it’s your decision,” she said, calming. “You know my wishes in this.” She smiled. “And a year ago that would have been enough to ensure you remained with us. But lately I see you’ve been pleasing yourself, and that’s inconvenient for me. But nice to see all the same.”
I didn’t say anything and she bent back to her paperwork. Someone who cared, someone who wasn’t a real mom but looked out for some people like a mom, would be glad to see a child grow up, no matter how much a pain in the ass it was for them personally.
“I’ve also used the time to make arrangements for Lori Dahl’s children.”
“Whose?”
“Prostitute number three, courtesy of my scarily brilliant and very dangerous son.”
“Oh.” Color me guilty; I’d been so caught up in my own woes I hadn’t bothered to find out the poor woman’s name. Then: “She had children?”
“Of course.” Michaela had several forms spread out on her desk: trusts, checking account statements, a copy of Aunt Jane’s check, some forms from Fidelity,
(for all your fake FBI agency retirement needs!)
a few forms from Minnesota Social Services. “They’ll live with their maternal grandmother up in Chaska, but I’m setting up trusts for them, and they’ve been assigned a courtroom advocate to keep an eye on their affairs until they come of age.”
“But she was hooking.”
“Yes.”
“If she had kids, how could she do that?” I knew I was naive, but I had a hard time understanding how Michaela could be so matter-of-fact about it. I wasn’t judging Ms. Dahl, but I was confused. In my mind, motherhood and apple pie went together better than motherhood and prostitution.
Michaela must have read my confusion, because she put down her pen and pinned me with her green glare. “It was how she knew she could make money quickly and more-or-less reliably. Mothers will do all sorts of illegal, dangerous, stupid, asinine, risky, foolish, idiotic, death-defying, insane, rash, ill-advised, reckless, imprudent stunts for love of their children.”
I tried not to quail. “Okay.”
“Speaking of asinine and risky and idiotic, explain to me again the logic behind just the two of you running off to arrest Ian Zimmerman.”
“It was George’s idea,” I whined.
“Pinkman!” she bawled. “Get your amoral butt in here!” She looked around her cluttered desktop for a moment. “This office needs more knives. When your doltish partner joins us, you can both explain why you risked your unworthy necks going after a proven killer. And ‘Golly, finding out BOFFO wasn’t real shook our confidence so we felt we had something to prove’ will result in me having both of you shot.”
There was a timid rap at the door and George peeked in, then crept to the chair opposite me, looking everywhere but Michaela’s face. (So my boobs, my butt, my boobs, Michaela’s paperwork, my boobs.)
“Do you dolts have any idea how inconvenient it would be if you were seriously hurt or stabbed or otherwise mangled? The paperwork alone is mind-boggling.” She cut George off as his mouth opened. “Even though we are not a government agency, you are still my employees and there is still an obscene amount of paperwork involved! Now, you start with, ‘Jeepers, Michaela, we sure as heckfire didn’t give one thought to how much trouble you’d have concentrating on the Fidelity online trading accounts because you were worried about us’ and you can finish with ‘Because God watches over children and dumbasses, we lived to tell the tale but won’t be so stupidly foolish again and if we are, we encourage you to knife us in our throats in our sleep.’”
Later, a shaken George and I recovered at Cinnabon, sucking down two buns with extra frosting apiece and lots of milk. We discussed our impressions of the thirty minutes that flew by like thirty hours.
“Mostly I felt intimidated,” I volunteered, unaware of the frosting on my nose that George was too shaken or cruel to bring to my attention. “But also really looked-after. Patrick gave her five mil, but that didn’t stop her from yelling at me for … for however long we were trapped in there.”
“It was a really long time,” George said, rocking back and forth in a sort of seated fetal position.
“For all she knows, Patrick and I are still dating, but she didn’t act like she had to be nice in the hopes of getting more out of him later. That’s what sticks out in my mind.” The incredible wonderful thing that stuck out in my mind was that the money didn’t matter to her more than my safety. Shiro might be on the right track. Maybe I’d start collecting mother figures.
“For me, it’s the terror,” George said, shaking like a junkie needing a fix. Which we sort of were, what with the pastry and sugar and butter jones. “It’s all about the terror. And the extreme arousal. I’m pretty sure she wants me.”
“George…”
“No, hear me out.”
chapter sixty-two
This is nuts. Seriously stupidly nuts. Also: slutty.
It had finally started to snow again, and I shivered while I stood outside Max Gallo’s apartment and beat on the door with the flat of my hand.
He jerked the door open, then grabbed me, hauled me inside, and slammed the door. “What? What?”
“What—what?” I blinked up at him, snow melting and dripping in my eyes. “I wanted to see you.”
He blew out a breath. “Whew! You showed up out of nowhere like Wonder Woman and started knocking my door down. I figured a pack of serial killers or shrinks was after you at the least.”
“No. Sorry to scare you.”
He was taking my coat, clucking over my snow-splashed hair and clothes, and gently pushing me into the living room. “Hey, you can scare me whenever you want. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. Don’t worry, you’ll find I’m a boyfriend who loves the pop-in. Or at least I’m not threatened by it. Are you all right?”
I had stopped walking with him, frozen stock-still and staring. I knew his home address, of course, and BOFFO’s version of MapQuest practically drove the car for you, chatting with you about the weather and fixing you a cup of cocoa and reminding you to put on your gloves because it was only twen
ty-nine degrees and snowing.
So I knew he had an apartment in a run-down building in the North Loop, the warehouse district, whose streets ran parallel to the river a few blocks from downtown. And the outside matched my expectations: a three-story dark red brick warehouse, built in the early twentieth century, sort of looming over the street, which was well-lit and clean, given the recent ooh-it’s-so-trendy-to-live-in-a-warehouse-loft trend. But still: warehouse!
I had stopped short because my only thought had been to go to Max, so I’d parked and trotted across the street and through the door and beat on the door and practically ran in and had only now realized I was standing in his luxurious living room with twenty-foot-high ceilings, enormous windows, and a chandelier.
“Oh, that,” he said, following my slack-jawed gaze. “It came with the building. I dunno, I keep wanting to get rid of it and then I remember I like shiny things.”
“You’re rich!”
“I am?” He gazed around at the hardwood floors, the living room that was at least thirty feet by thirty feet, the cream-colored walls, the plum-colored leather couches and glass-topped tables, the oxen-sized fireplace, as if seeing it with fresh eyes. “Yeah, kinda.”
“‘Kinda’?”
“What, you didn’t know? I never told you where I live, but here you are. I assumed you pulled my financials when you thought I might be a suspect in JBJ.”
“I was sure you were poor!”
“Not anymore.”
“What happened?”
“Nope.”
“What?”
He shook his head so hard, his hair flew about his face like black feathers until it settled back. “Not tellin’.”