CUTTING ROOM -THE- (37 page)

Explaining away why she might have left, though, didn't ease the intense pain of missing her. If his struggling conscience were given the opportunity at a do-over, he knew the outcome would still be the same: he would pull the trigger with no hesitation, because that was the only way he could save her.

So here he was, flying to LA, racing against the clock to find her and tell her that her worst fears had been realized. That, despite his repeated assurances that he would never let anyone hurt her ever again, she was no longer safe. Because the boogeyman from her nightmares was back out on the streets.

Dominick looked at his watch and then turned back to the window as the plane began its final descent into the city of angels. He just hoped he made it to her before she read about it in the paper.

Or worse.

Before William Rupert Bantling got to deliver the news to her himself.

Live and in person.

‘Come on, Manny, pick up,' Daria said quietly into her cell.

Potted ten-foot tall palm trees, uplit in funky purple and blue hues, were scattered about the contemporary lobby of the Hilton Bonnet Creek near Walt Disney World. She sat next to one in the lobby's piano bar, staring at an army of ant engineers that had surrounded a buried half-eaten ice-cream some kid had stuck in the dirt. If she could read ant minds, she was pretty sure they were trying to figure out how best to excavate the cone and carry it off. Even if they did manage to cart away something that was ten thousand times their weight, she wondered where it was they would go — it was a lipped planter and a two-foot drop.

‘You can't hate me; it's not right,' she continued softly. ‘I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I need to talk to you, Manny. I need to talk this out. We need to talk this out. I made a mistake, I know, but I thought it was the right thing when I let Vance make that deal. That's no excuse, I realize that, but I … I'm sorry. I shouldn't have hid it from you. I want—'

A machine-generated voice broke in. ‘You have fifteen seconds of recording time left.'

Damn.
She hated voicemail. ‘You can't avoid me forever. We're still working this case, you know,' she said before being cut off once again.

‘Goodbye.'

She hung up and took a long sip of her cosmo. The bar was packed with people, most of whom were either laughing or smiling or engaged with their partner in heavy conversation. It was crazy for a Sunday night. Loser Night, her roommate in college used to call Sundays. And that was exactly what she felt like — a Loser out on Loser Night. She reached into the palm planter and pushed the ice-cream cone on its side. The excavation issue was resolved. Now the ant army just had to move the damn thing.

‘Come on, come on,' she said softly. ‘Don't be lazy. Don't give up. You can do it. Move that rubber tree plant.'

She dialed Manny again.

‘You've reached Detective Manny Alvarez. Please leave a message.'
Beeeeep.

‘Just so you know, Vance never told me that the story was breaking today,' she started. ‘You're probably pissed, but I didn't get a heads-up either.'

The Corrections fuck-up had indeed made the
Herald
this morning, and Vance Collier had not bothered to call her and tell her it was coming. Or that it was out, for that matter. She hadn't heard from him all day. By the afternoon, after every damn news outlet in the world had digested the news, every damn news outlet in the world was now talking about Cupid's escape, and Vance was right — the word ‘cover-up' was being liberally tossed around. Thankfully, she was in the land of everything Mickey Mouse, where bad news didn't seem to reach. Of course, if the Lunders case should be named as the investigation Bantling was assisting law enforcement with and her name should come out as the one who had brokered Cupid a deal, then tomorrow would most definitely suck. Monday morning was the beginning of the SMART conference and, unlike the happy, news-free tourists, everyone attending would be watching CNN and would also know exactly who to point at across a crowded room when Piers Morgan announced her name in association with Bantling's escape. Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Daria DeBianchi was one of the listed speakers. But that was tomorrow. Right now all they were saying on the news was that Bantling was on the lam and no one had any idea where he was.

‘Listen, I'm not giving up,' she continued into the phone. She closed her eyes. ‘On us. I'm not giving up on us. I know you're getting my messages and so I'm gonna keep leaving them. I'm sorry. Again with the sorries. I'm trying to fix this, Manny, I am. But I … I can't. I made a damn mistake. Can't you just pick up the phone? I miss you. Please call me back and we can talk. I really miss you.' She sighed. ‘I hate voicemail. Isn't that funny? Me? I now hate leaving messages. Because you don't want to pick up is why I hate it. We make a good team, Manny, we do. I know you think that, too. I'm at this conference, see, and it's a hotel and I thought of the first time we were ever together. That first night—'

‘You have fifteen seconds of recording time left.'

Shit …
‘I thought of that first time we slept together, the first night we were together and, and …' She stumbled, and then full-out tripped over her thoughts and the proclamation just shot out: ‘I … I love you. There, I said it. Whew. Now you have to forgive me. You have to, right? Please, baby—'

‘Goodbye.'

Damn.
She put her head in her hands. Then it hit her and she sat up straight and looked around.

Had she just freaking said that? Did she just say, ‘I love you'? Did she leave
that
on a voicemail?

She had to stop drinking. Of course she needed another drink or maybe ten to forget that she'd said ‘I love you' for the very first time on a voicemail to a man who wanted nothing to do with her and who had never told her he loved her.
Jesus … How desperate was she?
They had only gotten as far as the ‘I like you a lot' stage when she had screwed things up with Bantling. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Now she was drunk-calling him, begging for forgiveness and slobbering like a stalker that she
loved
him? She downed what was left of her third cosmo. It didn't seem like the night could get much worse, but damnit, she was sure as hell gonna push it …

The phone beeped in her hand. A new incoming message.

It was from Manny. He couldn't possibly have listened to her last message yet, although she wasn't quite sure if that was good or bad. And if he had, his big fingers took forever to text back. She held her breath and clicked it open.

Daria bit her lip, hoping the pain would stop the tears. All over the hotel were colleagues in law enforcement, here for the SMART conference. She had to give a speech in the morning on Florida's sexual predator registration and notification requirements to some chiefs and task force members. It was hard enough to be respected in law enforcement as a woman, and she was still sober enough to know that what she wanted was for those colleagues to remember her when they left this conference as the authority on sexual predator and offender law, not as the blubbering drunk from the lobby bar. Or worse — the blubbering drunk from the hotel bar who was responsible for letting the most notorious serial killer in US history walk out of jail and disappear without a trace. It was time to head upstairs to a bubble bath and room service and a good long cry.

The waitress walked up. ‘You okay, honey?' she asked with a frown.

‘I think I have something in my contact,' Daria said, reaching for a cocktail napkin. ‘My eyes are driving me nuts. Allergies.'

‘Oh. Yeah. My boyfriend has terrible allergies. I feel for you,' she said, as she placed a cosmopolitan down on the table in front of her.

‘I didn't order another one,' Daria replied with her hand up. ‘In fact, I was about to ask you for the check.'

‘Oh, no, honey. This is from the gentleman at the bar. And trust me, you don't want to go up to your room just yet. At least not by yourself. He's cute.' She flipped her hair over her shoulder and looked back at the bar.

Daria took a long time to blink before she followed the waitress's gaze, hoping it would be Manny. Like a slow-motion scene from a movie, from
Sleepless in Seattle
or
Jerry McGuire
or something. That he would be standing there in one of the new suits they'd picked out together, raising a glass to her. He would have listened to her voicemail and he would mouth, ‘I love you, too, Counselor,' across the room. Then he would come over and they'd talk and he'd forgive her and they would go upstairs and make love till the morning and everything would be okay. Just like in the movies.

But Manny was not there. Instead, a nice-looking dark-haired guy in a cobalt striped dress shirt, white pants, and loafers smiled at her and raised his beer. He looked to be in his early thirties. He had a tourist tan, raccoon eyes and the hint of a sunburned chest, but the color he'd gotten from probably playing golf in the sun made his teeth dazzlingly white, which was fine. He had a nice smile.

‘He had me check before to see if you were wearing a ring,' the waitress, whose name-tag read
AZALEA
said. ‘That's real cute. You don't see that, girl. Take it from a cocktail waitress — guys either don't care if you're engaged or married, or it actually turns them on, because it's a conquest and men like to be hunters. It's the caveman thing. And as a bonus, if you're committed to someone else then you won't come around asking them for a commitment. So this guy is nice, I'm thinking.'

Daria stared at her. Thanks to the three cosmos, it was taking a little longer than usual to process information.

‘Oh look, he's coming over,' said the cocktail waitress named after a shrub. She giggled.

Before Daria could protest, Azalea picked up the empty drink glass and left. Ten seconds later, the tourist was standing in front of her.

‘Hi there,' he said.

‘Hi,' she replied. The silence that followed was definitely awkward.

She looked down at her phone. No new messages. No voicemail. Nothing. Enough time had passed. He was at the phone, obviously, 'cause he'd sent her that BS text. Enough time had passed since she'd left that last all-embarrassing, all-important voicemail, which meant he'd obviously gotten
that
. And obviously it did not affect him. He was never going to forgive her. She needed to deal with it, was all.

The tourist looked down at the potted palm, pushing aside a couple of the fronds. The ant army had not only moved the cone, they had gotten it all the way across the dirt and were now trying to get it over the lipped side somehow. ‘That explains it,' he said with a laugh. ‘I was watching you from back there and I couldn't figure out what you were doing with this palm tree. I thought maybe you were talking to it, which is fine. I've done that on occasion after a couple of drinks. But you seemed pretty upset. I thought maybe it was talking back to you.'

She rolled the cocktail napkin in her palm. ‘No, I don't talk to plants — just insects. Only kidding. I was on the phone. A business call.'

‘Are you alone?'

‘Yes. Just me and my friend the palm tree.'

He laughed. ‘Do you mind if I join you two?'

She looked down at the phone again before answering. Nothing.
Fuck Manny.
She'd put her heart out there like a damn fool, drunk or not. No reaction to her telling him she loved him was worse than a bad one. It meant he didn't care. At all. Not even enough to call her and tell her she was a fool to say what she'd said. Or argue with her that she didn't mean it. Or tell her that he didn't feel the same way. What it meant was he didn't care enough to make the damn call. She meant nothing to him — just a casual, opportunistic office fuck who'd pissed him off enough for him to call it quits a little earlier than he normally would have. That's what she was — a conquest. Nothing more.

‘Why not?' she answered. She gestured to the lounge chair across from her and took a long sip of her fresh cosmo. Fuck all the colleagues she was trying to look so perfect for. Half of them were probably looped themselves. She'd never met a cop who couldn't close the damn bar. Tonight she was gonna have fun. She'd show Manny what he was missing. ‘Thanks for the drink.'

‘The pleasure's mine,' he said with a smile as he sat down. He really did have a nice smile. She glanced down at his left hand. No ring. And no ring tan-line. That didn't necessarily mean anything, but since he had bothered to check hers, there was a chance that the waitress was right — he wasn't a jerk. That maybe he was a nice guy. She didn't need a prince right now, but she couldn't stomach an asshole. Not tonight.

She wiped the tear that had started to fall and looked over at the potted palm. The ice-cream cone was gone. She looked at the floor. It was nowhere to be seen.

She turned off her phone and slipped it in her purse.
Fuck that.
Bully for the ants and the hidden message of hope in that dumb childhood song that was now repeating in her head, but she was out of the business of trying. And she didn't want to read any more BS texts from him that were gonna upset her.
No mas
Manny Alvarez
.

‘My name is Daria,' she replied. ‘Let me ask you — are you here with the SMART convention?'

He shook his head. ‘The what?' he asked quizzically.

Good. No more cops. No probation officers. No judges. No prosecutors. No lawyers. No criminals. She tried to think of her original list — what she once thought would make her happy at the end of the day. A financier would be nice. A rich guy who could whisk her away on a private plane at a moment's notice. Maybe that was asking a bit much. Maybe a doctor or a fireman. Or a golfer. ‘So you're not a cop? Or a probation officer?'