Crazy for You (16 page)

Labeck moved around to the front of the table, leaned over, and set his hands on my back.

“Mmmmmm,” I murmured. Why had I never realized
that
part of my body could actually be orgasmic?

He kneaded, he thumbed, he palmed. He made large butterfly circles and small, stroking goldfish movements. He gently chopped with the sides of his hands. He walked his fingers up and down my vertebrae. He rubbed more ointment on his hands. The stuff smelled like Christmas trees and lavender.

I moaned.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No. Don’t stop.”

There was a catch in his breathing, and he did stop for a few seconds, breathed hard, and seemed to struggle to get himself under control. “You should be careful what you say,” Labeck said in a hoarse voice. “There’s a limit to my self-restraint.” He knuckled my spine, he did a fanning-out motion he called a windshield wiper, he massaged my neck. Then his hands moved lower, kneading, stroking, sliding under the top of my underpants.

“I didn’t sprain my ass,” I said.

“Who’s the doctor here? I’ll decide what needs massaging.” But his hands did return to the north of the border zone.

“You have tight muscles,” Labeck said.

But they were all coming unbound under his skillful hands. I could feel them loosening, one by one, surrendering to his touch.

“That’s heavenly,” I muttered.

Then I felt guilty. Ben was the fugitive here; Ben was the one who ought to be resting. And I should be leaving, going home to my bed and my bag of frozen peas. But I couldn’t make my body obey my brain. I was so relaxed, drowsy, drifting … I felt him kiss the top of my head.

“Mazie,” he murmured, “you will never comprehend the torture I just endured.”

Or maybe I just dreamed he said it.

I slipped down into true sleep, feeling as warm and secure as when I’d been a kid in my own bedroom, knowing that the people I loved were looking out for me.

I awoke hours later. The lights were off, but the room was illuminated by a night-light. A blanket-sized heating pad was spread over my back. I twisted around, looking for Labeck, which of course was a mistake; I waited for the pang of pain. Astonishingly, it didn’t come. Labeck lay nearby, sleeping on the other massage table, softly snoring.

When I awoke again, it was morning. Labeck was shaved, showered, and had his hair slicked down, a state that would endure about thirty seconds before it sprang back into its usual snarled chaos.

“How’s Sleeping Beauty?” he asked.

I sat up, pulling my sweater down, Labeck’s eyes following with avid interest. “She has to go to the bathroom. Right. Now.”

He helped me down off the table. Not a twinge. I looked up at him, marveling.

“How did you do it?”

He waggled his fingers, smiling. “Magic. There’s a bathroom through that doorway, and the shower is right next to it. I kept the stall warm for you. Want me to be your scrub boy?”

“I can manage on my own, Mr. Magic.” This man had me in his power and he knew it. All he had to do was raise a single eyebrow and I would fling away my inhibitions and set to work demonstrating exactly how an exam table ought to be used.

The water heater must have had a “lava” setting, because water needled out of the shower like hot medicine. I turned my back to let the spray burn off any demons that might still be lingering in the nerve pathways. Blissfully clean and fresh, I dried off.

Then climbed back into yesterday’s grungy top and jeans.

Labeck noticed this when I emerged. “Walk of shame, babe,” he said, grinning.

“What time is it?”

“Almost six.” He handed me a cup of coffee. “From the Café au Vendomatique.”

“I have to run home, change, and go to work.”

He studied me over the top of his cup. “You told me Rhonda fired you. Where are you working?”

I got very busy, putting on my coat and gloves. “Hottie Latte,” I mumbled.

Ben’s coffee went down the wrong way and he coughed until his eyes watered. His voice came out raw and squeaky. “You’re working at the place with the
naked waitresses
?”

“They are not naked.”

“Pretty damn near.”

“Oh, so now you’re an expert. How often have you been there?”

He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Once or twice. All right, busted—I like looking at women in skimpy outfits. I just don’t want other guys looking at
you
in a skimpy outfit.”

“Maybe you’d like me to wear a burka?” Last night’s lovey-doveyness was rapidly dissolving as Labeck’s compulsion to run my life resurfaced. He scowled. “Couldn’t you just work at a Starbucks?”

“I applied at a Starbucks. There were ninety-one applicants for a minimum wage job. I’m making good money at Hottie Latte. And I earn every penny, because it’s hard work.”

“And because you’re dressed like a—”

“Like what?” I snapped. “Like a stripper? For your information, I’m more covered up than if I were wearing a bikini at the beach.”

“But you’re not at the beach. You’re wearing sexy nighties that make guys think about—well, about beds. And the things you do in beds.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Our customers respect us. No one has ever grabbed my ass or tried to stick a dollar bill inside my—”

“Inside your
thong
? Oh, Christ. You’re wearing a
thong
?” Somehow Labeck managed to make “thong” sound like live sex shows featuring dogs and donkeys.

“I am not wearing a thong! But I’ll wear one if I feel like it! You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t wear. You lost that right when you went storming off to Montana without me.”

“It was for a job, not a vacation. And not going was
your
choice, Mazie. You chose that stupid mystery-shopping job over me, which turned out to be a disaster.” He lobbed his coffee cup into the trash. “You’re a walking, talking disaster magnet.”

“And you’re a self-centered, conceited, control freak!”

I found my purse and hitched it over my shoulder. “You know, you almost had me with the postcards. All that garbage about how much you missed me. You made me think you’d changed, Ben. But you haven’t. You only want me if you can somehow turn me into this—this cross between Hairdresser Barbie and Martha Stewart.”

“That’s crap.”

“That’s why you’re dating Aspen, isn’t it? Little Miss Perfect. I’ll bet she never has run-ins with sign-wielding wackos or psycho arsonists.”

“You see what I’m talking about here?” Labeck was yelling, flinging his arms out and stomping around the room. “I didn’t ask you to go around grilling Professor Plums or whatever the hell other crazies you find under rocks. It’s dangerous, and you’re going to get hurt.”

“Stop telling me what to do. You remind me of my older brothers.”

“You remind me of a train wreck.”

We stood there glaring at each other. Then I took a deep breath and said, “I’m pretty sure I hate you right now, Ben Labeck, but you’re still my responsibility and I’m not turning my back on you. You can have my car if you want, or I can come back here after work and bring you—”

“I’m not some big baby who’s been dumped on your doorstep. Anyway, I won’t be here later.”

“Where will you be?”

“I don’t know yet. But I wouldn’t tell you if I did know.”

“Because you don’t trust me?” My voice rose and cracked.

“It’s not a matter of trust. Look, I’ll find a way to get in touch with you. In the meantime, I don’t want you going down in spooky basements, looking in closets for the strangler, or pulling any other scatterbrained stunts.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me not to run with scissors and to look both ways before crossing the street?”

“Mazie, you make me want to bang my head against a wall.” He jammed his hands in his pockets, scowling at me. “At least be cautious. Because I don’t want what happened to Rhonda happening to you.”

I waved it off. Strangler, schmangler.

“And Vince Trumbull knows you helped me last night. He’s going to come after you.”

“I’m ready for him.” I marched toward the door. “I guess this is goodbye, then.”

“Wait—what are you planning to do?”

“I’m going out to buy a thong.”

Chapter Nineteen

When your mother calls, it doesn’t matter if you’re having a root canal, having your tax return audited, or having sex—you still have to talk to your mother. There are no exceptions to this rule.

—Maguire’s Maxims

Lieutenant Vincent Trumbull did not look happy as he slammed through Hottie Latte’s door, stalked across the room, and thumped my cellphone down on the sscounter.

“Cute, Mazie. Real cute,” he snarled.

I stared at him with wide, innocent eyes. I was a far cry from last night’s boat-jumping, police-evading badass. I was wearing lipstick, makeup, and a baby-pink sweater and skirt lent to me by Heidi. Giselle had done my hair so it fell in soft waves, and Juju had sprayed me with a fragrance that smelled like sugar roses on a wedding cake. I could have auditioned for the Sandy part in
Grease
. Just looking at me would make you feel like you’d guzzled a bucket of corn syrup.

“You found my phone!” I squealed, reaching to pick it up. “I’ve been looking all over for it.”

Trumbull smacked a large, square hand over the phone like a bear guarding a log full of ants. He glared at me. “Don’t give me that crap. You know damn well where you left that phone.”

Customers set down their coffees and stared uneasily at the lieutenant. One of our regulars, a delivery-truck driver named Hank, who was nearly the same size as his truck, slowly rose to his feet and started moving toward us, but Heidi frantically motioned him to sit down.

Trumbull leaned in at me until we were nearly nose to nose. The fumes from his hair spray made my eyes water. “You and your lowlife boyfriend stuck this thing on a bus, wasting my department’s time and manpower while they chased it all over town.”

I made my eyes go even wider. “You had people hunting for my phone? Gee, I
didn’t even report it missing. That’s amazing police work—I mean, your tax dollars at work!”

“Cut the bull crap!” Trumbull was shouting now, his big conk of hair flopping into his eyes. We both knew I was lying, but he couldn’t admit in public that he’d authorized an illegal listening device. “I know damn well you met Ben Labeck last night. The two of you fled from police officers, resisting lawful commands to halt. You aided and abetted a fugitive, you obstructed justice, and you—you did whatever the hell else I say you did.”

I shook my head. “Must have been someone else. I broke up with Labeck six weeks ago.”

“You think I’m blind? I saw you on that water taxi. You weren’t twenty feet away.”

My phone rang.

Everyone stared at it.

Trumbull picked it up and handed it to me, smirking. “Go on, answer it.”

“Hello?” My heart started beating wildly. What if it was Labeck? What if Trumbull’s team was triangulating him at this very second?

“Mazie?”

“Mom?”
Automatically, I tugged my skirt hem down.

“Of course it’s me. Or have you forgotten what my voice sounds like?”

“I know it’s you, Mom, I just—”

“You sound funny. Do you have a cold?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“You’re taking those special vitamins I bought for you, aren’t you? You know you get anemic in the winter.”

“I’m—Mom—this is kind of a bad time.”

“You don’t call me for two weeks, then you tell me it’s a bad time?”

Years of yelling at my brothers had given my mother a loud, clear voice that was perfectly audible to every person in the restaurant.

“Sorry, Mom. I’ve been busy.”

She sniffed. “I understand. Everything else is more important than your parents.”

“Mo-om. That’s not it, I just—”

“Where
are
you? What’s that noise in the background?”

I hunched over the counter, turning my back, trying for privacy. “I’m at work. I’ve got a new job. In a coffee shop.”

“A Starbucks?”

“Sort of.”

“What happened with your old job? You didn’t get fired, did you?”

“Umm … How’s Dad?”

“Your father is fine.” She sighed. It was her why-did-God-give-me-ungrateful-children sigh. “All right, the reason I’m calling. You
are
planning to be at your brother’s for Thanksgiving next week, aren’t you?”

“Aww, Mom, you know I don’t—”

Trumbull reached around me and hit the End button.

“Hey—she wasn’t done yet!” Juju yelled.

“I don’t have time to stand around listening to her jabber with some broad,” Trumbull snapped.

“Don’t call my mother a broad!” I forgot I was supposed to be a harmless twit, and was ready to rip Trumbull’s comb-over out of his scalp, greasy clump by greasy clump.

“What kind of guy don’t let a girl talk to her own mother?” This from a guy in a hard hat and orange safety vest.

“A guy what his own mother didn’t raise too good,” another man chimed in.

Trumbull looked like he wanted to stun-gun every customer in the place. He grabbed my arm. “You’re coming to the station with me. I’m putting you in an identity parade.”

“Am I under arrest?” I asked.

Trumbull gave a humorless chuckle. “Soon, Maguire, real goddamn soon.”

“She don’t have to do nothing unless you got a arrest warrant,” yelled Hank the delivery guy. “I saw it on
Law and Order
.”

“You got to read a person their rights if you’re arresting them.” This from Ray, who ran the optometrist shop next door.

Other customers chimed in.

“She gets to have a lawyer.”

“Don’t say nothing, Mazie!”

“Yeah, you got the right to remain silent.”

“Sue the bastards for false arrest.”

“Police brutality.”

“Get out your phones, you guys—we’re filming this!”

The café was in an uproar. Any second now, chairs were going to fly. Trumbull, his neck red as a turkey wattle, looked like he wanted to call for backup, but he was on City of Milwaukee turf here, not Brookwood, and was starting to realize that he shouldn’t have braced me in front of so many witnesses.