Arrest (A Disarm Novel) (9 page)

ESCAPE

At the end of March, Henry’s probationary period at the police department ended. He was given a formal oral board examination, where they reviewed his performance and offered him a permanent position in the department as a beat cop. He was assigned his own cruiser and would drive around answering calls by himself.

To celebrate, Sondra Jones threw a party for him at a bar called Shooters, inviting every off-duty police officer available. Even a few on duty stopped by to clap Henry on the back and call him a numbnuts, stiff-as-a-board rookie.

“That means he’s good,” Allison, one of the wives, whispered to me. “If they didn’t like him, they wouldn’t be messing with him.”

“I’m glad being a numbnuts is good,” I said, finding the thought of anyone disliking him impossible.

Allison handed me a bright pink margarita and held up her own. “Here’s to you, for surviving so far.”

“Thank you,” I said and took a sip of the drink. I watched Henry from across the room as he talked to a few officers in uniform, and realized that he was now really one of them, part of a family completely separate from me. “Does it get easier?” I asked.

She shook her head. “For some people it does.”

“Any sage advice?”

“Listen to him when he tells you about his day. Keep busy. Learn to be spontaneous. Accept that he may need some solitude,” Allison said as if she’d said it a hundred times before. “And for goodness’ sake, don’t watch any of those stupid cop shows because they will fill your head with shit. You have enough to worry about without adding to it with sensationalist crap.”

I took a large gulp of my drink. “Thank you.” I scanned the crowd, searching for Henry’s dark head, when I found him standing at the bar, talking to a tall blonde. She had her hand on his shoulder, leaning over him and laughing.

Allison followed my gaze and leaned closer. “Oh, and beware of the badge bunny.”

I turned back to her and grinned. “We called them ‘uniform chasers’ in the military.” I glanced back at the blonde, who was quite obviously fawning over my husband, not that I blamed her. Henry was breathtaking on a normal day. Add a badge and uniform and he was practically irresistible.

“So you know that they don’t care that he’s married. They’ll pursue your husband like a hound dog. One time, one of them came to my house. I chased her out of there with a 44mm.” She shook her head and laughed. “And Rick is nowhere near as handsome as Rookie.”

As Allison was talking, the blonde ran her hand down Henry’s back and pinched his ass. Henry immediately took a step back, grabbed her wrist, and said something to her. The woman just flipped her hair over one shoulder and laughed.

I watched for a few more minutes, fascinated with how Henry was dealing with being pursued. Finally, I decided I’d help him out. I finished my drink and placed the glass on a nearby table. “Okay, time for me to pee on my territory,” I told Allison.

She laughed. “Good luck. Kick her ass.”

I walked across the darkened room, doing a quick compare and contrast between Blondie and me. She had amazing legs encased in a miniskirt and the woman had boobs for days. I was not so endowed with my B-cups but I was confident enough with my looks to walk up and wind my arm through Henry’s.

“Ah, here’s my beautiful wife,” Henry said and kissed my cheek.

Blondie’s eyes took careful stock of me, attempting to make me uncomfortable under her scrutiny. I imagined she was gauging how well I was able to keep my husband satisfied. “Nice to meet you,” she said with a fake smile. “Officer Logan and I were just talking about politics in the workplace.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Oh, was that before or after you grabbed his ass?”

She had the audacity to look shocked. “I didn’t!”

And that was about the time the margarita kicked in. “Listen, I was right there,” I said, pointing at the table where Allison and a few other people were sitting and watching. “I saw you grab a handful of a man who’s quite obviously wearing a wedding band.”

Blondie pursed her red lips.

“I don’t say this often because the women I’ve come across have been respectful of marriages, but,” I said, feeling my inner bitch coming out, “if you touch my husband again, I will knock you the fuck out.”

She snickered and looked down her nose at me. “Really? Threatening assault and battery in a room full of cops?” she asked with a sneer. “You’ll be in jail faster than you can blink.”

And suddenly, I was furious. I hated women like her who thought they had free rein to destroy relationships at whim, and I hated what they did to the image of women altogether. Not that I excuse cheating men for their behavior—far from it—but it takes two to tango.

Henry must have sensed my anger because I felt him squeeze my side. “Hey, simmer down,” he whispered in my ear, then said quite loudly, “you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

I fought to control my temper, reminding myself that my actions would reflect poorly on Henry. I stood straighter and consciously relaxed my body, shook out the fists at my sides. “Marriage is hard enough these days,” I told her. “Why don’t you do the right thing and find someone who’s not already attached? Woman to woman, I’m asking you to have some respect.”

I didn’t stick around to see her reaction. I just turned away and walked off, tugging my husband with me. When we’d crossed the room, he grabbed me from behind and kissed the side of my neck. “Thanks for saving me,” he said, rubbing his scruff against my skin. “I wish you were always around to chase off all the badge bunnies.”

“You mean this wasn’t the first time?”

He chuckled. “If you knew how many times this has happened, you’d never let me leave the house again.”

I wasn’t sure if that was just his vanity talking, but I chose to believe he was just kidding. “And what do you do?”

His breath was warm against my ear when he said roughly, “I tell them I’m madly in love with my best friend’s younger sister.”

“And that stops them?”

One side of his mouth curled up. “No, but I think the fact that I talk about you for the next fifteen minutes does.” He pinched my chin and brought my lips up to his.

“This probably won’t help with your street cred,” I whispered against his lips, glancing at the people around us. “Next thing you know, your buddies will be calling you whippednuts.”

He smiled, the skin wrinkling around his eyes. “That’s fine. As long as it helps with my marriage cred.”

—

A little while into the party, when most people were already three or four drinks deep, I found myself standing at the bar with Sondra Jones.

She glanced down at me with a lidded, almost condescending gaze. “Oh, I didn’t see you there,” she said, then barked out a drink order, needing no other tactic than her sheer presence to get the bartender’s attention. When she got her drink, she turned around and leaned against the bar. “So Henry tells me that you’ve been having a hard time dealing with his new career.”

I was already loose from two drinks and couldn’t have contained the rolling of my eyes if I tried. “Of course he did.”

“I’m not the enemy here, Elsie.”

“No, you’re just the woman Henry’s spent way too much time with the past twelve weeks, the person he confided in when he should have been confiding in me.” I didn’t know what in the world possessed me to say it, but there it was. The ball was in her court.

“Whatever drama it is that you have created in your head, let me assure you that it’s not true. I am not attracted to your husband. As you can see,” she said, motioning to the tall black man across the room, “I have a very sexy man of my own. My time with Logan was spent teaching him the ropes, making sure he followed regs, making sure he didn’t do something stupid that could get him killed when he goes solo.”

I swallowed hard as my heart pounded in my ears. “I didn’t say you were interested in him.” More than anything, I was just pissed he’d confided in her at all.

“You didn’t have to. I see how you look at me.”

I bristled. “Believe it or not, I don’t think that every woman is out to get my husband.”

“Well then I apologize, but history and experience is on my side. I’ve been accused far too many times.”

“I’m sorry you’ve gone through that, but I trust my husband.”

“So you threatening to knock that bitch out, that was you trusting your husband?”

“That was me giving some uniform chaser the finger.”

Sondra grinned. “Well then you showed more restraint than I would have.”

I shrugged and looked away.

“Look,” Sondra said, her usually stern demeanor softening. “I get it. You’re his wife and feel like he should be confiding in you, but he’s a cop now, and there are certain things that cops can only talk to one another about. Just be glad he actually talks. Some people keep all that inside. You know what happens to them?”

“They self-destruct.”

She touched her nose.

I knew that better than anyone. “You don’t have to tell me. I’ve seen it happen once and it wasn’t pretty.”

She eyed me for a long while. “Then it’s your job to keep it from happening again.”

—

At the end of the night, as I helped a drunk Henry into bed, he started singing “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton. Clad only in pajama pants slung low over his hips, he grabbed me around the waist and started to sway, crooning the tune against my ear.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, enjoying the play of his muscles against my bare skin as he moved.

“I hope you know I would never cheat on you,” he said, the edges of his words softened by the alcohol.

“Never say never,” I said. “Some men enjoy the attention and fall for it.”

“I’m not ‘some men.’ I’m The Man and the only thing I’ve fallen for is you.”

I chuckled, pressing my body closer to his. “You get so sentimental when you’re drunk,” I teased, but deep down in the recesses of my heart lay a thought, a suppressed fear, that maybe someday, when faced with so many other beautiful women, Henry would find me lacking.

They say that those closest to a person don’t see the subtle changes in their loved one, but that’s not to say they don’t
feel
it. When you really know someone, you feel the delicate ripples that mar the surface of his personality, even if you never see the sinking pebble that caused it.

“It feels like we haven’t had a date in forever,” I said as Henry and I got ready to go out to dinner. I watched as he slipped on a black shoulder holster over his T-shirt and clipped in his gun and two extra magazines. He wore a button-down shirt over it to conceal his weapon from the public.

“Is that really necessary?” I asked, motioning to his getup. “We’re just going to Chili’s.”

Henry nodded. “It seems like overkill but we live in a different time now, a new era where a fucked-up loner can go into a place like a movie theater or a mall and start shooting at random.”

Yes, we definitely live in a different time, when guns are vilified as dangerous even though they’re necessary to keep citizens safe. I guess your point of view depends on which end of the gun you’re facing.

At the restaurant, Henry pulled out a chair for me and took the one against the wall, where he quite intently scanned the room.

“Are you looking for someone in particular?” I asked. When he didn’t answer, I said, “Henry?”

He blinked and looked at me. “What was that?”

“I asked—never mind.” I turned to the menu and smiled when I came across a particular entrée. “Are you going to have the lucky ribs?” I asked with a teasing smile, but my joke went right past him because, once again, he wasn’t paying attention. I sighed and tried to ignore my husband like he was ignoring me.

After we ordered and our drinks arrived, I sipped my iced tea and watched him quietly. His back was rigid, his lips pursed, his eyebrows furrowed, and his eyes everywhere but on me. I wanted to shake him by the shoulders and ask him if he’d even noticed that I’d had my hair trimmed for this occasion.

Me, me, me.
I felt like a selfish jerk, sure, but we hadn’t gone to dinner together in months; didn’t I deserve at least some of his attention?

I set my glass down on the table with a heavy thunk, causing his eyes to flick to me. “What has you so distracted?” I asked.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quickly reaching across the table to take hold of my hand. “It feels like we haven’t gone to dinner in forever, doesn’t it?”

I tried hard to keep my eyes from rolling heavenward; I don’t know if I was successful. “Yep.”

I was thankful when our food arrived. I didn’t know what to do with the sudden awkwardness between us, but stuffing our mouths with steak and potatoes helped fill the silence. Neither one of us, I noticed, ordered the ribs.

After two beers, Henry finally began to relax. The lines on his face eased and, I guessed, he finally decided there were no shady characters in the restaurant with us. “So I answered a call the other day about a noise disturbance at an apartment complex,” he said, leaning back in his seat. “The dog had been barking all night, so the neighbors knocked on the door but nobody answered. Come to find out, the resident, who hadn’t paid his rent for two months, had skipped town. He took everything with him, everything but the couch and the bed.”

“What about the dog?” I asked, glad that he was finally talking.

“Animal control had to take him to the pound,” he said. “Such a shame. He was a beautiful chocolate Lab, looks nearly identical to Sissy, Mr. Parson’s dog in Monterey. Do you remember her?”

I nodded, smiling at the memory of the dog and of our childhood together. Sissy was an indoor dog but once in a great while, she’d escape the confines of her home and run wild through the streets. Henry, Jason, and I had helped Mr. Parson corral the dog on more than one occasion, and had a blast chasing a playful Sissy around the neighborhood.

“Excuse me, are you a cop?” a male voice asked above us.

I groaned inwardly as I twisted around to glare at the young man standing by our table.

Henry gave him a wary look. “Yes.”

The man crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you know an Officer Perez?”

“I do,” Henry replied.

“Well, he pulled my girlfriend over the other day and gave her a ticket.”

Henry looked at him impassively, waiting for whatever it was that was so important. “Well, was she speeding?”

“A little, I guess.”

“Well then I don’t see the problem.”

“I don’t think she deserved it. She was on her way to the hospital. She’s a nurse and they needed her in the ER.”

Henry shrugged. “If she was speeding, then she deserved a ticket.”

“But she was trying to get to the hospital.”

Henry saw that my face had turned red and that I was gripping my fork unreasonably tight, so he said, “Well, I’m sorry but there’s nothing I can do about that. Tell your girlfriend that she can fight the ticket in court, if she thinks she’s innocent. Otherwise, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me finish eating dinner with my wife.”

The guy huffed out his chest but eventually left, dragging his feet back to the table where his embarrassed girlfriend waited.

Henry shook his head, the distracted look back on his face. “Sorry,” he said but our conversation was derailed and we finished dinner in uncomfortable silence.

—

During work one day, I walked into Kari’s cubicle just to while away some time. “I’ve been staring at the screen for so long, I’m pretty sure I’m going cross-eyed,” I said, taking off my eyeglasses and massaging the bridge of my nose.

She leaned back in her chair and sighed, rubbing her eyes. “I’ve got a case of the Mondays too.”

“At least Henry’s got the day shift this week,” I said, leaning against her desk. “Maybe we can actually hang out.”

“Or let things hang out,” Kari said, wagging her eyebrows.

“I swear sometimes I wonder if you’re just a horny teenage boy trapped in a woman’s body,” I said, laughing. I picked up the e-reader that was peeking out of her purse and turned it on. “Let’s see what you’re reading this week.”

“Oh,” Kari said, her eyes lighting up. “I’m in the middle of this novel about a girl who dresses up like a groupie to try to catch her rock star boyfriend cheating. It’s pretty raunchy but funny.”

I looked at the gadget in my hand and read a passage. “This is definitely not the kinky billionaire stuff you’ve been reading.”

“No, I’ve moved on,” she said, taking the e-reader and slipping it into her desk drawer. “It was like a gateway drug to other, more smexy stories.”

I shook my head at her. “If you weren’t such a great designer, I’d tell you to find a job that involves reading all day.”

“Right?” she said, throwing her hands up in the air. “I would be all over that like an alpha male on a woman with a dark past.”

I laughed and put my glasses back on. “You read too much.”

“Not possible.”

—

That night, I decided to take a page from Kari’s book and give Henry a sexy welcome home surprise. I slipped out of my clothes and wore only a tie, a trench coat, and my sexiest black heels. Then I took the computer chair downstairs and set it in the living room so that I could do a spinning reveal as soon as he walked in the front door. I even hooked my phone to the radio and put on a sexy playlist to set the mood, then dimmed the lights. The stage was set for seduction.

I sat in the chair and watched the clock on the wall, sure that he would walk through the door at any moment. But six o’clock rolled by, then six fifteen. By six thirty, I got up and checked my phone and found no messages, nothing that would indicate he was running late.

In my heels, I went to the laundry room and transferred some clothes into the drier, then folded some clothes with my ear trained to the driveway. Nothing.

Afterward, I went upstairs and put away the clothes, keeping an eye out for his car through the window. Still no Henry.

By this time, my toes were starting to pinch in my shoes and my level of desire was starting to wane. I finally called Henry at seven.

“Hello,” he answered, the sound of laughter and talking loud behind him.

“Hey, are you still at work?” I asked to be sure before I jumped to conclusions. Surely my husband wasn’t out partying while I waited for him at home, right?

“No. Perez and I were just at the bar, taking a load off.”

“What bar?”

“The Pub on Broadway.” Then he said, “You weren’t waiting for me, were you?”

I kicked my shoes across the room. “Yes, I was. You told me you were getting off at six.”

He sighed. “I did. But I had a rough day and needed to relax.”

And you couldn’t do that at home?
I wanted to ask. “Fine then, go relax,” I said and hung up.

I slumped onto the computer chair, spinning as I seethed. Here he finally had some time to spend with me and instead he was out with someone he works with. I couldn’t understand it.

Unless it wasn’t Perez’s company that he was really enjoying.

The nasty thought planted itself in my mind and grew. Within minutes it had sprouted into full-grown paranoia. Before I could change my mind, I ran upstairs and changed into a denim mini with frayed edges that I hadn’t worn since college and a red tank top. Then I dug deeper into the closet and found a blond wig I’d once used for a Halloween costume. I tied my hair back and put the wig on, then proceeded to put on a heavy layer of makeup.

It didn’t take long before the reflection in the mirror was nearly unrecognizable.

I gave myself one more look and before I could lose my nerve, I slipped into my heels, grabbed my purse, and was out the door.

—

I’d never been to the Pub before. It was small enough that I spotted Henry, already in his civvies, sitting at the bar as soon as I walked in. For one clear moment, I realized that I was acting like a complete lunatic—I mean, really? Dressing up to spy on your man?—and was about to do an about-face when I saw the guy sitting next to Henry getting to his feet. He gave Henry a pat on the back, threw some money on the counter, and headed my way.

I panicked and sat down on the nearest empty chair. When Perez walked by and out the door, I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

I turned and saw that I’d inadvertently sat with an older man of about fifty, who was wearing a white suit, a white ten-gallon hat, and an off-white smile. “Sorry. I didn’t realize this table was taken,” I said lamely.

He grinned widely. “Oh, you are more than welcome to sit on me, I mean, with me.”

I stifled a laugh and turned in time to see an attractive young woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty stand up from her table of friends, motioning to Henry. They bobbed their heads, giving her the go-ahead to approach him.

“Like hell,” I said and stood up, crossing the room swiftly despite my tall heels, and sitting myself down on the empty stool.

Henry glanced at me then looked back down into his beer, dismissing me as yet another badge bunny.

The bartender stopped in front of me with a questioning look.

I cleared my throat and said in a low, husky voice, “Scotch on the rocks, please.” I don’t know why I said it. I didn’t like the taste of Scotch and it definitely wasn’t something my character would drink. But hell, it was the first thing that came out of my mouth.

“We’ve got two, Glenfiddich twelve and Glenlivet.”

Shit.
I knew next to nothing about Scotch, despite my dad’s appreciation for it. “Which is your favorite?” I asked in the voice again.

“The Fiddich.”

“Then I’ll take that.”

I braved a glance beside me and saw Henry with his head bowed, grinning to himself.

“What’s so funny?” I asked automatically, then immediately wanted to kick myself. I wasn’t here to interact, only to observe.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

I realized then that I was still wearing my wedding ring. I pulled my hands to my lap and quickly took it off, slipping it into a small pocket inside my purse. Still affecting the husky voice, I extended my hand and said, “I’m Lola.”

He shook my hand. “Nice to meet you, Lola,” he said and quickly added, “I’m married, just so you know.”

I took a sip of my Scotch and tried not to cough. “Oh. Tell me about her.”

His blue eyes danced across my face, warming my skin. I didn’t know if he recognized me but the way he looked at me sent tingles down my spine. Even after all this time, he could still melt my panties with just one look. “Her name’s Elsie,” he said. “She’s beautiful and loving and so giving. And a tiny bit crazy.”

“In a good way, I hope.”

He nodded, that smile still dancing lightly along his lips. “Yes, definitely.”

“She sounds like a lucky girl, to have you.”

He turned back to the beer in his hand. “I’m the lucky one,” he said, taking a swig. “I almost lost her once, you know.”

“Really. What happened?” I set my elbows on the bar and leaned close.

“My best friend—her brother—died and then I deployed for six months to the same place where he was killed. I lost my fucking mind after that, and I broke up with her. I broke her heart. I broke mine.”

My heart hurt at the despair still in his voice. It was clear, even after all this time, that it still haunted him. “I’m sure she forgave you.”

He grasped the beer bottle tight. “I sincerely hope so. I did her a favor, breaking up with her when I did.”

I recoiled. “How do you figure?”

“It could have been so much worse. I could have cheated or become violent when things got rough again. I could have held on to her, even if I knew my mind wasn’t right, and I might have really hurt her. We might not be together today. Can’t I at least get some credit for recognizing when I wasn’t right in the head?”

I met his gaze squarely and said, “She’s forgiven you, I’m sure of it.”

“Can I get a written guarantee? Notarized, even?”

I chuckled and tried to take another sip of my amber drink. It was clear, from repeating my words of long ago, that I was busted. Still, it didn’t hurt to keep pretending. “So . . . rough day?”

“Pretty uneventful actually,” he said without hesitation. “Answered a bunch of garbage calls. The highlight of the night was answering a noise disturbance call, then finding a bunch of underage kids drinking.”