07 Uncorked - Chrissy McMullen Mystery (2 page)

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Rivera. You're maybe not as sick as you think you are.” I rustled the drapes vigorously, as if I were peering outside. “Hmm, it looks like the good doctor is driving a different car tonight.”

“Damn it, McMullen, it’s probably not even him. Close the fucking drapes.” In the background I could hear his chair complain noisily, as if he’d just sprung from its seat. I sneered, knowing he wasn’t spying on me at all. Lying bastard.

“You must stop judging people by your own standards,” I said. “My man has four or five vehicles. I never know which one he’ll choose to pick me up in. This one’s an SUV.

An Escalade, I think.” I wouldn’t know an Escalade from an escalator, but my Irish was up.

“Fuck it, McMullen, is there really a vehicle parked outside your house?”

“I know you thought I would languish here alone after you cheated on me with every bimbo from her to the Potomac, Rivera, but as it turns out—

”

“Give me the make, model and color?”

I laughed. “I understand that you’re jealous, but you can’t put every guy in jail that shows a passing interest in—”

“Which direction is it facing?”

“Good-bye, Lieutenant. He’s getting out. I have to go. He probably…” I paused, then caught my breath as if surprised.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“He looks even taller than usual tonight.”

“Are you still standing at the damn window?”

“His face is kind of shadowed from this vantage point, but I’m…” I let my voice falter a little. “I’m sure it’s him.”

“Give me a physical description!” he barked, but I laughed. It wasn’t all together forced. I’m ashamed to say that I was having a hell of a good time at his expense.

“What?” I asked, voice Marilyn-Monroe soft.

“What does he look like?”

“Who?”

“The man approaching your house!”

“You want a physical description of my boyfriend? That’s not very healthy, Rivera.

Even for a—”

“Are you sure it’s him?”

“Of course it’s him. I’m sure it’s… I do wish my security light was still working.” I won't burden you with the string of obscenities that followed that little lie. Suffice it to say they were fairly inventive. I stifled a laugh.

“Give me his height, hair color and any scars or other distinguishing—”

“He’s tall and handsome and…Oh!” I said with a little gasp.

“What? What is it? Talk to me, Chrissy.”

“Another guy’s getting out.”

“There are two of them?”

“He’s tall, too.”

“Lock your doors!”

“What?”

“Lock your fucking doors. Then call me from your cell phone. I’ll be there in thirteen minutes. Don’t let anyone in. Not even me. And for God’s sake put some clothes on before—”

I could no longer resist. Laughter bubbled up like venom. His words stopped in mid sentence. I could practically hear his mind buzzing. I’d bet my PhD that none of his thoughts were pleasant.

“McMullen?”

I barely managed to stop laughing long enough to answer. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

“If there are no murdering gangbangers parked in front of your house, I’m going to kill you myself.”

“Isn’t that frowned on?” I asked. “Even in L.A.?”

“I’m sure the judge will understand my predicament if he’s met you. Lock your fucking doors.”

“They are locked!” I snapped. “You think I’m an idiot?” He snorted. “Check them!”

“I don’t have to take your orders anymore.”

Now his snort was more like a guffaw. “As if you ever did a reasonable thing in your entire life! If I had a nickel for every time you took some dumb-ass risk, I’d be up to my eyeballs in—”

“I don’t take dumb-ass risks.”

“Yeah?” The single word was sharp with emotion. “How about the time you confided in Hawkins?”

I stifled a wince. Dr. David Hawkins had been a trusted colleague. Memories washed over me in fresh waves of panic. I glanced at my La-Z-Boy, remembering him sitting there, uninvited. That had been just minutes before the good doctor tried to kill me with a fillet knife.

“Check the door, Chrissy,” he ordered again.

“No,” I said, heart pounding and the entirety of my attention focused on that damn lock. But my tiny foyer was too dark to allow me to see if it was secured. Stiff legged, I pattered silently to it on bare feet.

And at that second, it burst open.

Chapter 2

A gentleman, he is but a wolf that is patient, si?

—Rosita Rivera, whose former husband was a politician and a gentleman
I screamed and lunged backward, ready to run like hell. But I had so little space, and the intruder was already leaping toward me.

I stumbled sideways and grabbed the nearest thing I could find. A framed picture came away in my hand. I swung with every ounce of terror I possessed. The attacker ducked. My impromptu weapon whistled over his head. He lunged at me. I dropped the picture and turned to run, but he dragged me down. I fell to my knees, him on top.

I screamed bloody murder. He smothered me with his hand. I bit. He swore. I struggled, almost got away and was dragged back to the floor. But I wouldn’t go down without a fight. Squirming onto my back, I brought my knee up with all the force I could muster. It slammed against his crotch with satisfying momentum. He grunted and froze.

For a moment he was poised above me, then he toppled sideways, falling onto the linoleum like a beached mackerel. I scrambled to my feet. In a heartbeat I was racing toward safety, but he croaked something guttural and terrifying.

I almost made it to the back door before I realized he’d spoken my name. I grabbed the spinning desk fan for protection and pivoted toward him.

“Holy shit, McMullen!” The bastard’s voice was harsh with pain. He lay in a fetal position on the floor, hands tucked between his legs, eyes scrunched shut. “How many times do I have to tell you to set your damn security alarm?” I backed away a few steps. My hands were just steady enough to flip on the lights.

A well-built, dark-haired man lay writhing in my hallway, but not in a sexy way.

More in a dear-God-you’ve-just-crushed-my-nuts sort of way.

I canted my head at him, sucked in a breath and said, “Rivera?” His name escaped like a question, but I knew it was him. Telling me he was outside my house so that I’d believe he was miles away, then yanking open my door and scaring the bejeezus out of me was just the kind of thing he had done on numerous occasions. But I wasn’t quite ready to relinquish the fan. “Is that you?”

“Of course it’s fucking…” He sucked in a careful breath, calmed his voice. “Of course it’s me.” A muscle jumped in his cheek. He’d once called it his Chrissy tick. “Who the hell did you think it was?”

“Well…” I tried a sardonic laugh. It sounded a little asthmatic. Adrenaline was mixing dangerously with a dozen other hormones in my overexcited system, and my hands hurt from gripping the fan with such ferocious intensity. “Certainly not you. You said you were watching my house.”

Turning his head with painful carefulness, he rolled dark, questioning eyes up at me.

“I assumed you were lying!” I shrieked.

“Are you totally nuts?”

“Me? I’m not the one who habitually attacks me in dark allies or—”

“I’m just trying to make sure you’re prepared.”

“Prepared! Are you—”

“Stop!” shouted a voice, and suddenly another man lunged through the doorway. I jerked toward him, still in battle mode, fan lifted high. But my neighbor, Mr. Al Sadr, was carrying a baseball bat in both hands and failed to notice me. “Do not move or I shall—” he began, then came to a screeching halt and stared at the body on my floor in blinking uncertainty. “Lieutenant Rivera?”

“Fuck.” His response was more a groan than a spoken work.

“What has happened here?” Mr. Al Sadr’s face was a meld of concern and curiosity not entirely unknown to me. I first became familiar with that particular expression when, as a four-year-old, I decided to become a professional golfer and hit my brother’s left eye dead on with a nine iron.

“I didn’t know it was him,” I said.

“Miss Mc—” Al Sadr said and turned toward me, but in that instant his eyes popped wide and his bat dropped to the floor with a metallic clatter.

“What?” I raised my own weapon in instinctual defense and jerked back against the wall. “What is it?”

“Holy shit!” Rivera muttered. He almost sounded more tired than wounded.

I jerked my gaze to him. “What?”

“Get some fucking clothes on,” he hissed, and in that moment I once again realized my state of undress.

I felt my face heat all the way to my scalp.

“Christina!” called a heavily accented voice from outside. “Christina McMullen, is all well?” A second later Ramla Al Sadr, too, burst through the open door, holding a can of pepper spray and looked ready to do battle.

At that juncture I rather hoped I would die, simply pass away and move onto the hereafter.

“Christina…” She blinked at me, big eyes dark and round beneath her brightly colored hijab. We have a history. Some of it’s good. Most of it’s weird. “What has happened here? Are you well? Why are you without the clothing?” My weapon was beginning to droop toward the floor. “I didn’t know it was him,” I said again, but my tone had lost its sterling edge and sounded a little defensive.

She turned toward the supposed villain, who remained on the floor, knees clamped together. Her eyes grew wide again. “Lieutenant Rivera?”

“Hello, Mrs. Al Sadr.” His words sounded a little more normal but still had a good deal of that am-I-dead-yet tone to it.

“Christina, what have you done to him?” she asked and rushed forward. She'd liked Rivera ever since he’d been instrumental in saving her sister from an abusive husband, but I’d been instrumental, too, and I never elicited the kind of adoring glances he did.

“I didn’t know it was him,” I repeated.

“There is another whose testicles you wished to crush?” she asked, glancing up at me as if I was the bad guy.

“No. Well, yes, but—”

“Good God, McMullen, will you put on some clothes?” Rivera hissed again.

I glanced down, glanced at Al Sadr, glanced at his wife.

“Excuse me,” I said, and setting the still-spinning fan carefully back in its allotted position, I slunk along the wall toward my bedroom.

By the time I had dressed and worked up enough nerve to reenter my own kitchen, Rivera was sitting alone at the table. He looked up, eyes dark and malevolent over the chipped coffee mug that housed my favorite maxim: Mornings are for masochists.

“I didn’t know it was you,” I said.

He exhaled something that sounded like a chuckle. “I guess things could have been worse, then.”

I swallowed, cleared my throat, tried to do the same with the guilt. “Ramla made you coffee?”

“Tea,” he said. “She couldn’t find any coffee.”

I nodded. That was probably because I didn’t keep any in the house. I didn’t believe in wasting my daily allotment of caffeine on such an inferior form. It’s chocolate or die for me. “How are you feeling?”

“My balls were just rammed up my esophagus,” he said. His Chrissy muscle twitched again. “How do you think I feel?”

His tone made me a little testy. I mean, seriously, the man had just broken into my house and scared the hell out of me. “Like an ass?” He stared at me a second, then snorted and took a sip of tea. He didn’t like tea. The thought improved my mood a little.

“Remind me not to worry about you anymore,” he said.

“You don’t worry about me,” I countered, and remembered to hate him. It was easier when he wasn’t curled up on my linoleum like a dying salamander. “We’re not seeing each other anymore. Remember?”

His eyes were as shadowed as midnight dreams. “That’s right,” he said, but there was something in his tone that threatened to suck me in, to roll me under. Fortunately, at that precise moment, I remembered with unexpected clarity that my current boyfriend, one Dr. Marcus Jefferson Carlton, had an IQ of 141. He was a published author, an accomplished yogi, and a dynamite chess player. Unfortunately, he was also incommunicado while he was traveling in another country with no one to keep him company but Sam, his trusty publicist.

“What are you doing here anyway?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Hoping this tea will put out the fire in my balls.”

“I really did think you were someone else.”

“Yeah? You always greet your new beau with a knee to the gonads?” I gave him a snotty smile and preened my tone to match. “Not at all. Dr. Carlton is a perfect gentleman.”

“Is he?”

“Yes.”

He chuckled a little. “Well, I guess opposites really do attract then, don’t they?”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

He caught my eye again. “You swung at me like I had Spalding tattooed on my forehead, McMullen. Sometimes perfect gentlemen take offense to that.”

“Well, perfect gentlemen don’t come crashing into a woman’s house like a crazed gorilla.”

“I never claimed to be a gentleman,” he said, and something about his tone made me remember the first full night we’d been together. Part of it had been spent at the very table at which we currently sat. Part of it had been spent on that very table. Holy crap, I thought, and wiped away the memory with a sweaty imaginary hand.

“Well…” I got my snotty tone back with some difficulty. He was looking all lean and masculine. I can’t be trusted with lean or masculine. “It’s late. I’m sure you have to get to work tomorrow,” I said, and turned away with resolute good intentions.

“I’m taking the day off.”

I practically stumbled over my own feet as I turned back toward him. “You? The dark detective?”

His scowl deepened. “I’ve taken time off before.”

“I must have been busy that hour.”

“You still pissed because I didn’t have more time to screw you?” For a second I almost considered remaining above such adolescent banter, but the moment passed like a bullet from a semi automatic. “I’m pissed because you had time to screw everyone…” I stopped myself. I didn’t really know if he had slept with everyone or not. But it didn’t matter anymore. I was perfectly happy with my current guy. He was intelligent, intuitive and well read. That was so much better than irritating, insane and, well—