Undercover In High Heels

into-rush-hour-traffic kind of leap.

Again I couldn’t help wondering if it was me or the case he was really interested in. What would happen when this was all over? When Isabel was behind bars and the Magnolia Lane killer was doing time in San Quentin? Would Ramirez still be Mr. Attentive, or was it back to canceling dinner plans and running out on me at the mere chirp of a pager?

I wasn’t certain. But since Horny Chick had had her fun, Neurotic Chick was back, and she decided the only way to know for sure was to call his bluff.

“Okay, ” I heard myself say. “I’ll move in.”

His face broke into a wide grin and he leaned in for a kiss.

“But”-I stopped him, carefully watching his reaction over the rim of my coffee cup-“don’t you think I should have my own key?”

Ramirez paused. “Key?”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded, bobbing my bed-head up and down. “A key to your place. My own key. You know, since I’ll be living here and all. That way I can come and go anytime I want.”

“I, uh, don’t have a spare copy, ” he hedged.

“No problem. I’ll make myself one.”

I saw him bite the inside of his cheek, his eyes narrowing at me.

I gave him my best wide-eyed-innocent stare.

We sat like that for an agonizing two seconds, until finally he stood and said, “Don’t worry about it. Just leave the front door open.”

Ahnt. Wrong answer, pal.

“But-” I was about to protest.

Only I didn’t get the chance, as Ramirez’s pager came alive on his belt. He looked down, a frown settling between his brows as he read the number.

“Work, ” he said, slipping his cell out of his back pocket.

I sucked on my lower lip, staring into my now-tepid cup of coffee, and tried to stave off the panic at the fact that my little game of chicken was backfiring miserably.

There was no way I could move in with Ramirez. I was so not ready for him to see the unbuffed, unpolished, drooling-on-her-pillow-at 3-A.M. Maddie who woke up with bed-head to rival Don King’s. And I seriously was not ready to have him see the parade of beauty products it took to keep up appearances. What would he say the first time he saw me putting on my pore-cleansing acne mask? Or antiwrinkle night cream? There were some things a man just should not know about a woman until after he’s married (i.e., legally required to love her despite her jumbo-size box of tampons sitting where his issues of Sports Illustrated used to be).

I had just about worked myself into a state of hysteria the likes of which I hadn’t experienced since the Black Friday sale at Macy’s last Thanksgiving, when Ramirez hung up the phone and turned to me.

The frown between his brows had worked itself into an all-out scowl.

“I have to go, ” he mumbled, standing up and throwing on his leather jacket. “Now.”

Uh-oh. I didn’t like that tone.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, unconsciously clutching my coffee cup tighter. “What’s going on?”

Ramirez didn’t answer, instead shoving a ring of keys into his pocket and slipping on his holster.

“What? What is it?”

He turned to face me, his Bad Cop look already firmly in place.

“Please?” I asked, really starting to worry now. “You know I’ll find out eventually anyway.”

I’d like to think it was the please that softened him, but more likely it was the fact that he knew I was right. “It was my captain.” He paused, rubbing one hand over his eyes and suddenly looking very tired. “They’ve found another body.”

Chapter 13

I blinked, my mind going blank as I white-knuckled the coffee cup to keep from spilling it all over Ramirez’s sheets.

“Whose body?” I asked.

But it was too late. Ramirez was already out the door. I sprang up from the bed, wrapping the sheet around my middle as I trailed after him into the living room.

“Wait! Whose body?”

Ramirez was at the front door, shoving his wallet in his back pocket. “Look, just stay out of this, okay, Maddie? You’ve already got some psycho pissed off at you. Just stay here and I’ll be back later.”

“Jackson Wyoming Ramirez, don’t you dare walk out that door!”

Ramirez paused, hand hovering over the doorknob, and raised one eyebrow at me.

“Um, please?”

He shook his head at me, and I could swear the corner of Bad Cop’s lips quivered ever so slightly. “Look, I don’t know whose body yet. They just said they found a woman in the Central Park section of the lot. She was strangled, just like Veronika.”

I shivered, suddenly cold beneath my thin makeshift toga. “I’m going with you.” I dropped the sheet and grabbed my discarded sundress, cake stains and all, from the living room floor.

“No!” In one quick movement, Ramirez was across the room, grabbing one end of the dress in a tug-of-war. “No way. You are staying here.”

I tugged back. “Like hell I am.”

“Maddie, I’m warning you…”

“Let go of my dress!”

“Not until you promise to stay put.”

“You’re going to stretch it.”

“Then let go.”

“No, you let go!”

“No, you-”

But he didn’t get to finish that thought as the horrible sound of ripping fabric filled the air and I went flying backward, landing on my bare tush on his hardwood floor. I looked down. I had half a cake-stained sundress in my hands.

“You ripped my dress!” I moaned. “This was a discontinued Betsey Johnson summer-collection baby-doll dress! It’s irreplaceable. And now I have nothing to wear!”

For half a second Ramirez looked like he might have been sorry. But as he stared down at me, that wicked grin stole across his face again.

“Well, I guess you’re staying here then.”

That was it; he was dead meat.

I lunged for him, but thanks to his quick copreflexes, he was out the door before I could even peel myself off the floor.

“I am so not moving in with you!” I yelled to the closed door. But I was pretty sure he didn’t hear me over the sound of his SUV screeching out of the drive.

Great. Now what?

I pulled the sheet back around my middle and plopped down on the sofa. I stuck one fingernail in my mouth as my mind twisted over just whose body Ramirez was racing to view. Could it be Mia’s? Had the killer really been after her this whole time? Or maybe it was another victim of the killer baby-daddy. Maybe Veronika hadn’t been the only one he was fooling around with. Or maybe it was someone who had seen him offing Veronika. A witness? Maybe it was completely unrelated to anything. A copycat?

I grabbed Ramirez’s space-shuttle remote and tried to turn on the news. But since my technical skills ended at being able to program my Mr. Coffee, all I could get was a giant screen full of snow and static. I gave up, instead