Cries in the Night (12 page)

“Hey, at least you have paper towels. I usually use the napkins that come in the fast food bag,” he told her.

He was, in fact, the first male guest in her home, and although it should have made her uncomfortable, his casual acceptance of her amenities … or lack of … kept it from being awkward. They dug into the pizza with gusto, not talking until only one piece remained.

Rusty looked at it, then at Julie. “The last piece is yours.”

She leaned back in her chair. “No, take it. I’m stuffed.”

He didn’t hesitate and picked it up. “I’m impressed. You ate your share. I like a woman who knows how to eat.”

“Eating is one thing I do well,” she said with a smile, “that is, when I have time.” She stood up and went to the refrigerator. “Want another beer?”

“Do you have to ask?” Rusty finished off the piece of pizza and wiped his lips on the paper towel. She opened two more bottles, handed one to him and returned to her chair with hers. They each took a drink.

She could feel his gaze on her and she looked up.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” he said thoughtfully, “but I could have sworn you had brown eyes.”

Julie immediately ducked her head, hiding her naturally blue eyes from his view.
Damn.
She’d forgotten that she wasn’t wearing her brown contact lens. Her mind raced for a plausible explanation. She looked up again, but avoided his direct gaze.

“I prefer brown eyes, so I usually wear brown contacts. I just woke up about an hour before you got here, so I haven’t put them in.”

“Are you near or far-sighted?”

“Uh … neither, actually. I wear them just because I like the way they look.”

He didn’t appear to believe her explanation, but he didn’t challenge it. Instead, he changed the subject back to one they had studiously been avoiding.

“So, how did you talk Joe into it?”

“I didn’t think I had.” She ran her fingers through her hair, flipping the long black strands over her shoulder. “When we ended the conversation, he didn’t give any indication that he had changed his mind. I was afraid he would …” her voice trailed off.

“It’s weird, but I kind of understand the whole Stockholm Syndrome thing after this. I had no idea whether or not he was going to trigger those bombs at any minute,” Rusty told her. “Even though I really thought he was going to kill us, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. No job, no insurance, no wife, about to lose his house. Everything he had worked for … gone. Poor guy. The more time I spent in that room, surrounded by all that stuff that was obviously exactly the same as it had been the day his wife left him …”

“His wife didn’t leave him,” Julie interrupted sharply.

“Yeah, she did. She ran off with a firefighter,” Rusty insisted.

Julie shook her head. “No, she didn’t. She was killed by a firefighter, well, sort of. She died in a collision with a fire truck. She was either distracted or fell
asleep after a night shift at the hospital where she worked as a nurse. She ran a red light and probably never knew what hit her. I was with him when he was notified.”

Rusty leaned back in the chair. His forehead creased in bewilderment. “I don’t understand. Why would he tell us she had run off?”

Julie sighed. “I thought he was past all that.”

“You knew he was delusional?”

“I knew he was having difficulty accepting that she was gone forever. He was in therapy for several years. The last time I talked with … before yesterday, of course … he was talking about redecorating the house and donating a lot of Amy’s things to the Salvation Army.”

“I thought the place looked like a memorial. It seemed odd that he hadn’t put away any of her photos,” Rusty commented. “But why would he rather think she had left him than that she had died? Isn’t that more of a betrayal?”

“I’m not a psychologist, but I think it was that he just couldn’t accept that she was dead and never coming back. Somehow, in his mind, he could still believe she might walk through the front door and everything would go back to normal if he made himself think she had run away.”

“That’s fucked up,” Rusty muttered.

“Aren’t we all?” she challenged.

Rusty was silent for several minutes as he digested that information. “I can’t imagine loving someone that much,” he finally spoke, his voice soft and almost wistful.

“Neither can I,” Julie agreed. “Every day I see what happens when people love too much. It takes away their logic and their self-respect. They let themselves be beaten, cheated on and even killed.”

Rusty shifted his gaze focused on her. “Wow, I’ve finally met someone who’s even more cynical about love than I am.”

“Show me a man and woman who are truly in love and don’t want to hurt or cheat or control each other, and I’ll show you a fiction novel or a Reese Witherspoon movie. It just isn’t real life.”

“My sentiments exactly.” Rusty lifted his half-empty beer bottle and she raised hers and they clicked them together in a toast.

“So what’s in the paper bag?” she asked, nodding toward the brown sack on the counter.

Rusty stood and retrieved it. “I almost forgot. I don’t know about you, but whenever I eat Italian food, I like dessert.” He pulled out two Styrofoam boxes and handed her one. “Pino’s cheesecake is the best.”

Julie got a couple of forks out of a drawer and handed him one. “I love cheesecake. I’ve never eaten at Pino’s, but I heard it was good. The pizza was delicious.” She opened her container and admired the generous slice of cheesecake topped by cherries in a thick sauce. Without further hesitation, she cut off a piece with her fork and took a bite. The thick, creamy filling melted on her tongue and the crunchy graham cracker crust was light and buttery. “Ummm, this is amazing. Is that crushed pecans in the crust?”

“Beats me,” Rusty said, his mouth full. “I just know that I like it.”

“I thought all firefighters were great cooks.”

“I know my way around a grill, and I make the best barbecue sauce in the world. Other than that, I eat whatever shows up on my plate at the station or I grab some takeout,” he admitted. “I didn’t notice much in your refrigerator. What’s your excuse?”

“Time and, well, I guess, motivation. It seems so pointless to spend an hour cooking a meal for one person. I get home late, and it’s just easier to take out a Stouffer’s or a Marie Calendar’s meal. They’re tasty and quick.”

He gave her another long, measuring look. “You’re young, you’re attractive, you’re intelligent … so why is there no Mr. Julie?”

“I don’t need a man,” she responded a little defensively.

“Maybe not. But aren’t they good for … something else?” One corner of his mouth lifted in a teasing grin.

“Nothing I can’t do for myself.”

He laughed out loud. “God, you’re a female me.”

She couldn’t resist smiling. “From the rumors I’ve heard about you, that might be an insult.”

“They’re probably all true. It’s good to meet people’s expectations. It saves me a lot of conversation on dates.”

“Yeah, and it probably saves you a lot of second dates.”

He nodded without any sign of remorse.

A loud knock startled both of them.

“Sounds like they finally gave up on you going outside,” Rusty commented.

Julie felt a flutter of panic in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t want to talk to them.”

“Maybe a quick wave and a ‘
No Comment’
would satisfy them.”

She shook her head emphatically. “No, I can’t … uh, I don’t want to be on the news. I didn’t do anything. They have no reason to bother me.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied her thoughtfully. “Then ignore them. I’m sure you can get the PR department to issue an official statement on Monday. Maybe by then, they’ll be distracted by a new story.”

She glanced at the front door, imagining that the person outside was waiting impatiently. Surely, they would give up and move on to something else if she didn’t offer them anything to make into a story.

“How did you get in here without them following you?” she asked him, suddenly curious how he had managed to make it through the gauntlet.

“I parked a couple blocks down, ducked my head and just walked up the driveway. They thought I was the pizza guy.”

One eyebrow arched accusingly as she said, “So now they think I’m involved with a pizza boy because you’ve been here way longer than a normal delivery.”

“Maybe you’re a good tipper.”

“You’re ruining my reputation.” But her complaint was softened with a reluctant twinkle in her blue eyes.

“Yeah, well, that’s
my
reputation.”

She stood and started cleaning up. Instead of hanging back, he, too, got up and joined her, throwing away the trash and recycling their bottles. When the kitchen was back to normal, she wiped her hands on a towel. “Hey, thanks for the pizza. That was a nice thing for you to do.”

“I’ll admit that it wasn’t all altruistic,” he admitted. “I really wanted to talk about … well, everything. I’m sure they’ll run me through psych next week, but I knew I could be totally honest with you. You were there. I saw you outside with my mom … and I wanted to thank you. You’re really good at your job.”

She shrugged off his compliments. “It helps just to have someone there, standing next to you when you’re going through something traumatic. I didn’t want her to be alone.”

“Thanks for that. And for listening to me. I just can’t figure out why he thought this would fix anything.” He shook his head, baffled by Joe’s story as much as by the man’s twisted solution to his grief.

Julie hung the towel on a rack so it would dry. Her expression was bitter as she shrugged. “Yeah, well, it’s just another way that love can kill you.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

As Rusty predicted, the news crews were gone the next morning, thanks to a bi-polar Santa who had gone berserk at Cherry Creek Mall. Apparently, an old, wrinkled naked man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing only black boots and a red cap was more newsworthy than a woman making a phone call to a kidnapper. Julie made a mental note to send Santa a thank you note. He had given her an early Christmas present.

It was Sunday and she was on call. She thought she would have a few hours respite before the end of the first round of football games, but the first call came in just after 3 p.m. Julie jotted down the address on a blank form, pulled on her coat and a stocking cap and hurried outside after pressing the garage door opener. A light snow was falling and as soon as the cat stuck his nose out the door, he turned and ran back inside before she shut the door.

“I don’t blame you, Cat,” she muttered as she locked the door, then ran to the garage and got into her car. It would be a good day to snuggle under a blanket on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate and the Sunday edition of
The Denver Post
. Maybe it was time to let someone else take the weekend calls.

The City of Denver was relatively compact, completely surrounded by other cities so it had no room for growth. However, even though it was limited in expansion potential, it was the most populated city in the state of Colorado and shared a footprint with Denver County. On weekends unless there was a home game for one of the local sports teams, getting almost anywhere in the city didn’t take but a few minutes. Julie arrived at a small, well-kept bungalow several blocks from the gold-domed Capitol building and parked. There was only one police cruiser on scene, so because she had arrived so quickly, she assumed this was not a very complicated situation which meant there were no deaths or serious injuries.

She locked her car and tucked the keys into the pocket of her slacks. Sam met her at the door and stepped outside to briefly fill her in.

“It’s not a typical domestic,” he told her in a low voice. “Just wanted to give you a heads up.”

Julie frowned. She still didn’t know what to expect.

As he held the door open for her, Sam added, “I’m glad you’re here. She scares the shit out of me.”

The living room was cluttered, but nothing appeared to be broken or destroyed from a physical fight. A middle-aged man whose slight frame couldn’t have been carrying more than 140 pounds sat on one end of the couch, leaning forward with his elbows braced on his knees and his face buried in his hands. On the other end of the couch a woman who outweighed her husband at least double bristled with an angry electricity that filled the air with tension.

As Julie entered the room, the woman jumped to her feet. “Get out of my house! All of you,” she demanded.

“Please sit down,” Sam told her politely, but firmly.

She continued forward. “
I
didn’t call you.” She waved toward her husband. “
He
didn’t call you. There’s no problem here.”

“Ma’am, we received a call from your neighbors because they were concerned. We could hear you from the street when we drove up. Now, have a seat so we can get to the bottom of this.”

Sam was six feet tall, but the woman towered over him … and she wasn’t backing down. His hand moved to the can of pepper spray on his utility belt. “Ma’am, sit down.” This time, it was clearly a command.