Hurt (11 page)

“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” Megan said with a little snort. “If all you have is a vague description and no name, it’s going to be tough to get a judge to sign off on what amounts to a fishing expedition through veterans’ medical records.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“So, V.A. I take it, then, the suspect has a line of duty injury or condition of some sort?”

“Yeah,” Nicole said nodding. “The pawn shop where we recovered some of the property described him as having missing fingers and a prosthetic leg.”

Megan sat back in the chair and pursed her lips as she thought.

“Likely. Of course, just as likely he was in a car accident or something like that. I’ll tell you what, let me put some calls in to a friend of mine at the newspaper. If your guy is local, then the military may have sent out a press release when he was injured. Let me see what I can dig up.”

“That would be great,” Jamie said. She pushed off the wall and wiped her hands on her black pants. “Well, I won’t take up any more of your time. I better go round up Samuels.”

Megan sat up in the chair and held a hand up to Jamie.

“Hey, before you go…”

“Mm-hmm?”

“Why don’t you close the door first?”

Jamie raised one eyebrow questioningly, but did what the blonde woman had asked. She leaned against the shut door and crossed her arms.

“What’s up?”

“Well,” Megan said, clearing her throat. “I just wanted to see how you were doing. I heard about…you know.”

Oh, good Lord
, Jamie thought.

“I suppose there’s just no such thing as a private life around here, is there? Do I even want to know what you’ve heard?”

Megan grinned and shook her head.

“You should have learned by now. Men are worse than little old women when it comes to gossiping.”

“Damn Samuels,” Jamie muttered with a shake her head.

“Don’t blame Samuels,” Megan said. “The story I heard was short on details, so I don’t think it came from him, at least not directly.”

“Still…”

“Do you feel like talking about it?”

She eyed the attorney, who was leaned back in her chair, absently twirling the black pen between two fingers as she spoke. Jamie briefly thought about just walking out, but then decided that Megan was as close as she was going to get to an understanding, if not sympathetic, ear outside of Samuels.

What the hell.

“Would you like all the down and dirty details, or just the ten second version?” she finally asked, shifting against the door.

“You can hit the high points,” Megan answered. “Do you want to sit down?” She motioned to a chair sitting beside the desk.

“No, I’m fine,” Jamie said. “In a nutshell? I fucked up.”

“Well, maybe you can be a little more detailed than that, detective,” Megan quipped.

Jamie pushed her hair back with one hand and then stared at the filing cabinet before she answered. “I decided to sell my house and move in with Nicole.”

“Well, it’s about damn time,” Megan interjected. “What? Did Nicole get cold feet or something?”

“No, nothing like that. I was going to make it a surprise—stupid now, I know—and was showing the house to a girlfriend from high school. Nicole thought I was going to be at the station working and walked in on us while we were in the bedroom.”

“Hmm.”

Jamie turned to look at her.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Was this a girlfriend from high school, or a
girlfriend
from high school?”

“No,” Jamie scowled. “Not like that. Just a friend.”

“So then what happened?” Megan dropped the pen and pushed her glasses up on her nose as she watched Jamie answer. Jamie got the feeling that the other woman was gauging whether or not she was being truthful in her responses.

“She freaked, cussed me out, and drove off pissed.” Jamie gave a wry grin. “I should probably add that I had spilled water on my clothes and was in the middle of changing when Nicole walked in.”

“Oh goddamn, Jamie.”

“And Sundae had just—”

“Wait,” Megan interrupted. “Your friend’s name is
Sundae
?”

“Don’t start on the name, for God’s sake,” Jamie growled.

“All right, then, Sundae had just what?” Megan folded both hands behind her head, but didn’t change her expression.

“Sundae had just told me that she and her husband found out they’re pregnant,” Jamie continued. “I was happy for her and gave her a hug. She was actually a little wet too and changing her shirt at the time.”

Megan held out the palm of one hand and closed her eyes.

“God.” She sighed. Megan sat up in the chair and stared at Jamie. “So let me get this straight. After telling Nicole you would be at work, she caught you and an old girlfriend in the bedroom of your house in a naked embrace?”

“I don’t know that I would go so far as to call it naked exactly...or an embrace, for that matter,” Jamie responded, shuffling one foot. “Okay, we were mostly naked, but it was just a hug.”

“Jesus, Jamie. You’re lucky she didn’t take you both out right then and there. Especially after what went down with her last girlfriend.”

Jamie arched an eyebrow at that last comment.

“You know about her last girlfriend?”

Megan rolled her eyes.

“Please. Chattanooga’s a big city, but there’s not that many of us that word doesn’t get around. You don’t have to hang out at ‘Lesbians ‘R Us’ to know who’s been sleeping with whom.”

“I guess you’re right,” Jamie said. “Although I have to admit, I didn’t realize the lesbian grapevine made its way into the closet.” As soon as she said the words, Jamie regretted them. From the look that flashed over Megan’s face, she knew that she’d struck a nerve.

Fuck
, Jamie thought.

She knew Megan was gay, had ever since stopping by a fourth of July pool party that last summer she had worked patrol. Jamie wasn’t sure which of them had been more surprised when she’d spotted the new Assistant District Attorney by the pool house making out with a woman that Jamie herself had dated for a short time. She hadn’t been so much surprised to see Megan kissing Zoe Ralston, because, hell, for all her other many faults the woman was hot. Rather it was the fact that Jamie knew Megan’s father was a pastor at one of the larger, more conservative Baptist churches in the area. They’d had an awkward meeting a few days later in the courthouse ladies room, during which Jamie had assured a visibly worried Megan that she was not in the habit of outing people. After that, she and Megan developed a camaraderie of sorts. Not quite friends—Megan Riley didn’t let people get that close—but the next best thing.

“Christ, Megan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that like it came out.”

Megan waved her off.

“No, it’s okay. It’s my choice to…well, I wouldn’t say be in the closet. My closet door is open, but I just haven’t turned on the light yet. We still live in the South and I have a very public job. I need my juries deciding cases based on their merit and not on their interpretation of what it says in Leviticus.” Megan flashed Jamie a wry smile. “Besides, I’m not quite ready to break my daddy’s heart just yet.”

“I know. I’m sorry. That was still a really shitty thing for me say. I’m just not thinking straight right now.” After days of not sleeping and worrying over the mess with Nicole, Jamie felt exhausted, but that still was no excuse for what she had said.

“Don’t worry about it, really,” Megan assured her.

Jamie rubbed her eyes and then pushed off the door with one foot. She crossed the room and then slid down in the chair beside Megan’s desk. She propped an elbow on one arm of the chair and leaned her head into her hand.

“Anyway, like I said, I fucked up with Nicole.”

“So, what are you doing about it?”

“I finally got her on the phone long enough—well, Samuels got her on the phone, she’s blocked my number—to agree to lunch tomorrow. I’m going to lay it all out for her and hope for the best.”

“Hmm.” Jamie glanced over at Megan. The blonde attorney continued, “I’m just thinking that for a conversation of that magnitude you want to do more than just hope for the best. It’s no different than taking a case to court, detective. You need to prepare.”

“What’s to prepare? I’m just going to tell her what happened.”

Megan pushed her glasses up on her nose.

“Because that’s worked so well for you so far? If that’s all it took, you could have left her a voicemail.”

“She’s not taking my calls, remember,” Jamie murmured.

“Exactly. So hoping that she’s going to sit across a table from you, look into those baby blue eyes of yours and instantly forgive all is wishful thinking.”

There was knock at the door and then Natalie Porter cracked it open, interrupting the conversation.

“Megan? I hate to barge in, but we just got word from Judge Miller’s clerk. He’s moving the ten o’clock bond hearing up to nine-thirty.”

“Thanks Natalie,” Megan said as her assistant smiled and closed the door.

Jamie stood from the chair and stretched.

“Well,” she said. “I better let you get to it.”

“Just think about what I said,” Megan answered.

“I will.” Jamie turned and stepped toward the door. She stopped halfway there and turned back toward Megan. “Will you go to dinner with me tonight?”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t give me that look. I didn’t mean like that,” Jamie laughed. “You’re right, I do need to prepare. I think it would help to have someone to bounce what I’m going to say off of just to make sure I don’t go into this thing with Nicole sounding like an idiot. I don’t know that I’m going to get a second chance to make it right. You can pick the restaurant.” Jamie pushed away an errant strand of hair. “But if you don’t feel comfortable doing it, I understand.”

For a moment, Jamie thought she was going to say no, but then Megan gave a small nod.

“All right. But no Mexican. I’m going to my parents’ house for Christmas dinner. That alone will be more than enough indigestion for one week.”

Chapter Fifteen

Nicole closed the heavy oak door shut and turned the key in the lock. Out of habit, she tried the door and then, satisfied it was secure, turned and headed to her green Honda parked in the driveway of the two story brick house. There had been a good turnout at the open house and Nicole was more than a little tired. She’d already called in a take-out order at a nearby barbeque restaurant and was ready to call it a day and head back to her own home to settle in for the evening.

She backed the Honda out of the driveway, pausing to check for traffic before pulling out onto the street. It was an older neighborhood with most of the residents coming from even older money, but, even so, it had a fair amount of cars that traveled through due to its proximity to nearby shopping centers and restaurants. Nicole didn’t expect the two story brick to be on the market for very long. Houses in this neighborhood typically sold quickly simply because there was such low turnover amongst its residents.

Nicole gave a bitter smile as she tried to remember the last house that she’d had listed in the neighborhood and then realized it had been
that
one. The house that had gotten broken into the day after Nicole had held its open house. The one that had led to her meeting Jamie.

She blew out a breath and felt her stomach turn as she thought about the lunch she had planned with Jamie tomorrow. Nicole wondered if she shouldn’t have let Julie come after all. As much as she had told her protesting friend that she could more than handle the meeting, now that she was less than twenty-four hours out, Nicole wasn’t so sure. She wanted to believe what Jamie had said in her voicemail, but at the same time…

Nicole tightened her grip on the steering wheel as she came to a red light. God, she loved Jamie, but she couldn’t ignore what she’d seen. Jamie, dressed only in her underwear, standing there with her arms wrapped around the blonde. It just hit too close to home, was just too much like what she’d gone through with Carol. Still, in the year plus that they had been together, this was the longest stretch she had gone without talking to Jamie. More than a little part of her was aching to hear Jamie’s husky voice.

She jumped as a horn blew from behind her and Nicole realized the light had turned green. She threw an apologetic hand up and then accelerated, trying unsuccessfully to keep her thoughts off Jamie and in the present.

****

“I’ll have a large hazelnut latte, and do you have any of those banana nut muffins today?”

Nicole looked up from her laptop at the sound of the familiar voice. A quick glance to the counter at the front of the coffee shop had her sliding down in the hard metal chair. Nicole bent down close to her laptop, even though she knew there was no way the seventeen inch screen was going to hide her from the tall red-headed police officer ordering breakfast ten feet away.

It’d been weeks since Nicole had met the police officer and the woman looked even more amazing now than she had that day. As she peered over the screen at the officer—Officer Tate, if she remembered correctly—she realized that her hair was more of a copper color than a true red. It just barely touched her shoulders and bounced ever so slightly as she pointed to a particularly large muffin in the display cabinet. It hadn’t registered to Nicole during their brief meeting at her real estate office three weeks ago to discuss a break-in at one of Nicole’s listings on the north end of Chattanooga, but, watching her now, Nicole’s eyes were drawn to the generous swell of the officer’s breasts as she leaned forward toward the display counter.

Nicole realized that she was staring and quickly dropped her eyes back to the laptop.

She was a little embarrassed to see the police officer. Nicole had thought she had read the signs correctly during their earlier encounter and had given the attractive woman a business card with Nicole’s personal cell number written on the back ‘in case she had any more questions’. But, after days and then weeks without hearing from her, Nicole assumed that either she had misjudged the officer or the woman was just not interested.