my ears. The clicking of an empty chamber.
“Shit!” Althea screamed. She was out of bullets.
I jumped up and made a run for the elevator. Only I didn’t get far. My feet crunched on the shattered glass of the front doors as I felt myself being jerked backwards by my hair.
I spun around, trying to remember anything from that Tae Bo class Dana dragged me to last year. Lunge, spin, punch? Or was it spin, punch, lunge? Crap. If only I’d been paying more attention to the moves and less to the teacher’s sculpted buns. Instead, I flailed with kicks, screams, and slaps. I was fighting so girly, but I didn’t care.
Althea easily wrestled me to the ground. Man, she was strong for a woman. Under all those dowdy clothes she’d been hiding a body builder’s physique.
I sunk my nails into her skin, digging until I heard her scream. But she didn’t stop. Her hands circled around my throat and I began to see stars. I grasped around on the floor wildly for anything to smack her with. The room started to go fuzzy, all I could see were Althea’s eyes, crazed and intent on me. Her glasses must have been knocked off somewhere along the way. Her bushy eyebrows drew together, her lips curled back in a creepy smile that belonged in a Wes Craven movie. I felt like crying that my last vision would be of unplucked eyebrows and frizzy hair. It just wasn’t fair.
And then my hands came up against something. The fallen stiletto. I reached my fingers out as far as they would stretch, wrapping my hand around the shoe. The room was fading from my vision, my lungs gasping for air as I wiggled beneath Althea’s bulk. I channeled all the strength I had left into my arm as I swung Dana’s hooker footware in the direction of Althea’s neck.
I heard a scream. In all honesty, I think it might have been mine. As the hands left my throat I blinked, sucking in welcomed breaths of air. I looked down. Althea had fallen off of me. The side of her neck was covered in gooey red, Karo syrup. The stiletto heel was sticking out at an odd angle and Althea’s eyes looked kind of glazed over, her mouth making gurgling sounds.
This time I’m sure the scream came from me.
I was still screaming when Ramirez burst through the shattered front doors, a handful of uniformed officers right behind him. One of them started doing some mouth to mouth on Althea and yelling for a paramedic. They came, attaching tubes and masks to her prone form, while one cop after another arrived, talking loudly into their radios. It was all so surreal and I couldn’t tear my gaze from the pool of red forming around Althea’s body.
At some point I stopped screaming and realized Ramirez was holding me. Close. Tight. His arms wrapped around me. He whispered into my hair.
“Are you okay?”
I gulped. Was I?
“I, I think she shot me. Is she…” I trailed off, willing myself to take a deep breath before I screamed again.
“No. She’s alive. For now.” Ramirez pulled away, inspecting my left arm where the fire had dulled into an aching pain like a bikini wax that wouldn’t stop. “It looks like a flesh wound,” he said, carefully pulling my torn shirt away. He flagged a paramedic down from the group huddled around Althea, who confirmed Ramirez’s diagnosis. He said I needed stitches and Ramirez packed me into his SUV and took me to the emergency room.
Three hours later my arm looked like it belonged to Frankenstein and my neck was the same color as the Purple People Eater. I knew that I’d be wearing turtlenecks for the next few days, but at least it matched my eye. Ramirez drove me to the police station where I gave a statement in triplicate amidst barely concealed laughter as I relayed how I’d popped Althea’s saline implant. By the time we were finished, the adrenalin high of the attack had worn off and left me crashing into a new low. The only thing holding me up was Ramirez, who hadn’t left my side the whole night.
The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon when Ramirez finally drove me back to my studio. As he parked in the drive and shut off the engine, I voiced a thought that had been nagging at the back of my mind ever since I saw Althea wielding Richard’s gun.
“If Althea was the one who took the twenty million, where did Jasmine get the money for all the Botox and Prada?”
Ramirez cocked his head, as if he didn’t quite get the Prada reference, but answered anyway. “They’re still processing Jasmine’s computer, but from what they’ve found so far, someone that went by the username of SexyJas was working at a cyber sex chatting site.”
Mental forehead slap. LiveLovelyLadies dot com.
“She was having cyber sex at work?”
“The way the site works is men log on and pay $3.99 a minute to chat with these women over the internet. The technologically evolved 900 number.”
I rolled my eyes, doubting evolution had much to do with it.
“Apparently,” Ramirez went on, “SexyJas had logged over a thousand hours in the last few months.”
I mentally did the math. $3.99 times a thousand equaled… a whole lotta Prada. I made a mental note to become more computer savvy.
“So”, Ramirez said, turning in his seat to face me. “You’ve had quite a night.” He brushed the back of his hand along my cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind my ears.
“Go ahead,” he said softly. “Say it.”
“Huh?”
He smiled. “I know you’re dying to say, ‘I told you so.’”
I couldn’t help it. I smiled back. “I told you so.”
He grinned until that dimple flashed in his cheek. And then he leaned over the console and kissed me. Softly, gently. His lips moving over mine as if he was afraid he might break me. And the way I felt, he just might. I melted right there into his leather seats.
He pulled away and I think I kind of fell toward him.
“Do you want me to come up?” he asked. His eyes as dark and dangerous as the panther tattooed on his arm.
Yes, yes, yes! I took a deep breath. “No.” My God, was I as crazy as Althea? What did I mean ‘no’?
The disappointment was clear in his eyes this time. “Right. It’s been a long night. I’m sure you’re tired.”
Right. Tired. What I was, was confused. I’d finally found the answers to Greenway’s murder, but I realized with a sinking feeling, they didn’t provide me with any answers about my own mixed up life.
Ramirez walked me to my door. Then kissed me gently on the top of my head. His eyes held mine and there was no mistaking the thoughts running though his mind. I felt my resolve weaken. “Rain check,” he whispered. Then got back into his SUV and left.
I stood on my darkened porch watching him. Okay, so here’s the thing: More than anything I wanted Ramirez to come up. I admit, I was seriously in lust with the man. He did things to my body with one look that I didn’t even think were possible.
But then there was Richard. I had kind of told him I was on his side. And even though we were both sort of ambiguous about what that meant, I’m pretty sure it didn’t include me sleeping with sexy cops. Until I decided what to do about Mr. White-Collar Criminal and my inability to get a clear result out of a pregnancy test, I somehow didn’t feel right letting Ramirez spend the night. Especially after the up close and personal look I’d gotten tonight at how crazy infidelity can make people.
As my libido and my better judgment mentally duked it out I unlocked the door to my studio.
Then let out a little yelp.
Sitting on my futon in the midst of my scattered possessions was Richard.
“How did you get here?” I asked blinking rapidly.
Richard stood up. He was once again dressed in his trademark slacks and button down shirt. He’d shaven since I last saw him and his hair was gelled back into Ken doll position again. Actually, he looked good. Really good. Like the familiar Richard I’d fallen for in the first place.
“You gave me a key,” he answered.
I shook my head. “No. I mean, aren’t you in jail? Oh God. Did you break out?”
Richard smiled. “No I didn’t break out. The DA dropped the murder charges after they arrested Althea and I made bail.”
