"You might notice that I haven't advised you of your legal rights," said Mitch.
"We had this discussion, already," said Kris.
"How about you trust me to tell you when you're getting in too deep," suggested Mitch.
"I'd be insane to do that," said Kris. "You're a cop!"
"I'm an honest cop," said Mitch. "That's the difference." He took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. "All I can say is that I'll try not to put you in a bind."
Kris thought about that. Could he trust this man? It would be good to get that memory off his chest.
"I'll think about it," he said. "That's all I can say for now."
"Sounds fair," said Mitch. "Now, let me ask you about something else."
"What?" asked Kris.
"What is it that Jessica doesn't want you to talk about?"
"Jessica?"
"The other day. She wanted to make sure you wouldn't tell anybody what you saw."
"Oh, that," said Kris. "I told her I wouldn't tell anyone. You were there. You should remember that."
"Of course I remember it," said Mitch. "But I want to know anyway."
"I can't tell you that," said Kris. "I promised."
"She didn't break the law or anything ... did she?"
"Of course not. It was just a stupid party." Kris was suddenly disgusted with himself for divulging that little fact.
"A party ... " Mitch leaned forward. "A party you were invited to?"
"No, I was just watching Ambrose, while they had this party," said Kris. "Why do you want me to break a promise?"
"I don't want you to break a promise," said Mitch. "I'm just naturally curious, that's all. And now you don't have to break your promise. I know exactly what party you're talking about."
"Oh you do, do you?" said Kris, sounding skeptical.
"Yup. It has to be the one Alice Zucker was at over at Lou Anne's place."
"How do you know that?" asked Kris. "Not that I'm saying she was there. I don't know anyone named Alice Zucker."
"Of course not, but I heard Phil, her husband, talking about something she bought at that party. He said it was the best fifty bucks he ever spent. I got the impression she got something slinky to wear in the bedroom."
"Do you spy on everybody?" Kris' voice rose.
"Not so much," said Mitch, grinning. "I just listen. People talk and you can pick up a lot of information if they talk loud enough." He took another bite and spoke again after swallowing. "So it was a lingerie party?"
"You already know it was," said Kris.
"And how is it that you ended up getting to see something?"
"You don't give up, do you?" suggested Kris.
"As long as you don't tell me whatever it is that Jessica is so worked up about, you haven't broken your promise, now have you? But that doesn't mean you can't talk about the rest of it."
"Damn I hope you never come after me for real," sighed Kris. "You're like a bulldog."
"Arf, arf," said Mitch. "What was it? G-strings and bras with holes in them, maybe?"
"Of course not," said Kris. "It covered everything." He slapped a hand over his mouth.
"Well then why is she so determined to keep it a secret?" asked Mitch.
"I'm not saying another word," said Kris, uncovering his mouth. "I remembered some other things about Australia. You want to hear about that?"
"Sure," said Mitch easily. He leaned back. "Australia sounds interesting."
If Kris thought that Lou Anne hadn't noticed Mitch grilling him, he was mistaken. When he got to her house that night, she met him dressed in a black T shirt with a grinning white skull on the front. He almost choked as he realized that the burning balls that represented the eyes were positioned precisely over her obviously braless nipples, which made those burning balls jut out from the grisly face. Black vinyl pants covered her legs and she was wearing Doc Martins that had a leopard print on them. She looked thoroughly dangerous.
"Hi," she said, her voice so cheerful that he couldn't rationalize it as coming from a woman who looked like she was some biker's mol. "So, what was Mitch trying to get out of you this morning?"
"Why does everybody have to ask me questions I don't want to answer?" he moaned.
"I'm not just anybody," she said archly. "I'm the woman who saved your life. You owe me."
"Just shoot me and get it over with, then," he sighed. "It would be easier than trying to juggle all these questions.
"What's to juggle?" she said brightly. "We have no secrets. You just tell me what he wanted to know and I'll tell you how much trouble he's in."
"Why would he be in trouble?" asked Kris.
"Because I told him to leave you alone," said Lou Anne.
"He has to do his job," said Kris.
"He looked
much
too interested in what you were talking about for it to be anything to do with his job," said Lou Anne. "Was he asking questions about me?"
"Why would he do that?" asked Kris weakly.
"Was he?" There was a hint of danger in her voice now.
"In a roundabout way, I suppose," said Kris. "He heard about the party the other night and he wanted to know about it."
"That?" She sounded surprised. "Why would he care about that?"
"Because Jessica reminded me not to tell anybody what I saw. She did it right there in front of him," Kris sighed.
"She is so witless sometimes," said Lou Anne. "So, did you tell him?" Now there was something in her voice that he couldn't quite identify, but it didn't sound friendly.
"Of course not," he said. "I promised Jess that I wouldn't."
"Good boy," she said, reaching out to stroke his chin with two fingers. "There's hope for you yet."
"He says you like me." It just came out. It might have had something to do with those fingers stroking his chin.
"Oh really?" Now she sounded ... interested. Kris took a few seconds to catalog those differing sounds in her voice. They'd make for good dialog comments in his book.
"Um ... yeah. He said something like that you must like me, because you haven't beaten me up ... or something like that."
She laughed, which he wasn't prepared for. She looked happy about that, for some reason.
"Let's just say I haven't found any reason not to like you," she said. "Now, where's the story? I want to catch up. Ambrose is asleep, you can check on him while I read."
He handed her the flash drive. It didn't take long to look in on the little boy, who was sleeping soundly, and she had just found where the new work started when he returned to the living room. The TV was on, so he sat down to watch it.
He was distracted by the noises she made while she read. Some of them sounded like bits of some melody, from some song he couldn't identify. There was one that was composed of five notes. She repeated them at odd moments, for no apparent reason. Then there were sighs and high pitched single notes that, in a novel, he would have called "squeaks," though only because he couldn't think of any other way to characterize them. She ignored him completely while she read. Then she leaned back.
"I like what you've done with Lady Tinsley," she said.
"I was afraid you'd think that was too forceful," he responded.
"He didn't rape her," said Lou Anne. "He just overcame her resistance. I can understand that. If the right man sucked on my nipples long enough, I'd give up too. And she kissed him back, which suggests her resistance was gone. And he didn't have to drag her to his cabin. I think it's very well done. It makes me wiggly."
"Really!" He sounded astonished.
She turned to look at him. "Sometimes a woman likes a forceful man," she said. "If it's the right man," she added.
"Really!" He sounded like he still didn't believe her.
She looked at him through the hair that fell over one eye. "Why do you think I didn't beat you up when you smacked my ass?"
"Really!" he gasped, clearly shocked.
"Every woman wants a little caveman in her life sometimes. It has to be the right time and the right caveman, but yes ... really."
"Wow."
"Now, write some more. Are you really going to have him despoil Lady Tinsley's daughter? He should be a good guy part of the time, you know."
"Well, that was the idea of making her submit in front of the crew. Her daughter was watching and he knows that. I kind of figured the daughter might ... um ... be interested in some caveman action too."
"Not if it's not the right man," said Lou Anne. "You know, you could complete Lady Tinsley's submission by having her offer herself to him, if he'll spare her daughter."
"He already ravished her," pointed out Kris.
"Yes and with just a little rewriting you can have her respond so vigorously that it excites him, too. He can want a woman more than once, can't he?"
"Of course. He
always
wants a woman more than once. Remember, he's trying to return them to safety all pregnant and stuff."
"And that's another thing," said Lou Anne. "Why does he have to get
every
woman pregnant? Why can't he be more like a regular man and only go after one or two of them?"
"You don't know much about regular men, do you," said Kris, grinning.
"What do you mean?"
"All regular men want to fertilize as many women as possible. It's in our genes."
"No it's not!" she objected.
"Darwin thought so," he said. "So did Freud. They're both pretty smart men."
"The operative word there is 'men'," she snorted. "A pretty smart man is still likely to be on the stupid side."
"Okay, I get it. You don't want him to be quite such an alley cat."
"Well, let's just say that when he gets to the woman you model after me, he's going to have to work for it," said Lou Anne.
"After you?"
"Sure, you said you were going to make one of these women like me."
The flashback was so vivid that Kris staggered. His right shoulder hit the wall, which kept him from falling down completely. There was Lola - he saw her now, knew what she looked like. She was telling him how the woman in his book would be modeled on her, and that it would be a best seller. That much was crystal clear, as were her surroundings in the vision. But he still didn't know where she was or what her last name was. She was blonde, in a strident overdone kind of way that suggested the color of her hair came from a bottle rather than nature. He sensed she was his girlfriend, even though he didn't
feel
like she was his girlfriend.
"Kris!"
Lou Anne's voice banished the vision and his eyes cleared to see her face close to his.
"I'm okay," he said. "I just remembered something."
"You look like you saw a ghost! I was afraid you were having a stroke or something!"
"No, I'm okay. I have a girlfriend."
"You do?" Somehow, she didn't sound happy about that and, somehow, that made him feel good.
"Well, I saw this woman in my mind. Her name is Lola. I know I've kissed her. She wanted to be in my book, too. But that's all I remember. She was ... acting ... like my girlfriend."
"Wow," said Lou Anne. "What was she doing in the memory?"
"She was saying something about how the woman in my book would be modeled on her, and that it would be a best seller. It was kind of like what you were saying. I think that's what brought the memory back."
"You remembered that you kissed her?"
"That was another time. I didn't tell you about that. All I remembered then were her lips and I sensed her name, but that was all."
"What were you doing when you remembered that?" she asked.
"I was looking at your lips," he said, before he could mediate the comment.
"Really!" She sounded pleased. "But you didn't kiss me."
"That's funny," said Kris. "That's one of the things Mitch wanted to know." She raised an eyebrow. "If I had kissed you, I mean."
"Mitch Connel asked you if you'd ever kissed me?" Her voice went up an octave. She didn't sound at all happy now.
"Um ... yes," he said weakly. "He wanted to know what the book was about, so I told him, and I said you were kind of helping me write it ... that you were kind of my muse, you know? And he said you liked me and wanted to know if I'd kissed you yet."
"And what did you tell him?" Her voice was low, almost inaudible.