Divorced, Desperate and Dead (Divorced and Desperate Book 5) (34 page)

“Shit, don’t beat yourself up,” Turner said. “You were off of work because he shot you.”

Cary recalled the apology he’d gotten from the kid. “If he lives, we have to get him a deal.”

“It shouldn’t be that hard. You got the recording where he called you at the station,” Jason Dodd said.

Cary heard Turner talking, and he looked back to see him on the phone. Talking to Reese, no doubt. Immediately, he remembered how worried Chloe had sounded.

He realized how good it would feel to go home to her. To lose himself in her arms. Too make love to her as slowly as she’d made love to him.

Of course, it wasn’t going to be anytime soon. CSI would be here for several more hours, and then they had reports to fill out. He wanted to go by and see J.D., too.

He pulled out his phone. “I need to make a call.”

• • •

Chloe had parked in front of Sheri’s apartment building, but still sat behind the wheel, trying to control the emotional chaos dancing on her heart.

Cary Stevens had a girlfriend. And it wasn’t her.

At least she’d stopped crying. She was done with tears. Moving on. Pulling up her big girl panties and stiffening her backbone.

Taking a deep breath, she started to get out when her phone rang.

She looked at her cell, breath held, praying it was him saying he was okay. Praying it wasn’t him because she didn’t know what to say.

His number lit up her tiny screen and her heart took another blow.

Swallowing a lump down her throat, she answered the call.

“Yes?”
Don’t scream and yell at him. Don’t bitch or whine. You told him no promises.

“Hey,” he said.

One word, and already her eyes stung with tears. But nope, she was done crying.

“How many pages have you done?” he asked.

Could he hear her breath shuddering? Hear her heart breaking? “You okay?” she managed to ask.

“Thanks to you.”

“What?” She reached for the steering wheel and tightened her fist around it.

“I wore a vest.”

“Were you shot?” She bit down on her lip.

“Just bruised, thanks to the vest.”

She inhaled. “I’m glad.”

“Me too.”

The silence lingered and awkwardness snuck in. “J.D. was shot,” he said, and she heard the heaviness in his tone, and it only added to the heaviness in her own heart.

“Is he—?”

“He was alive when they took him in. I’ll probably go by the hospital and check on him before I come home. I hate this.”

“I’m sorry,” she said and she meant it.

“Yeah. I wanted . . . hold on a second, someone needs me.”

She could hear him talking to someone.

“I’m back, but I need to go. I’m going to be tied up here for quite a while.”

“It’s okay. I’m. . .”
I’m not at your place anymore.
 How did she explain this? The man had just been shot. “I uh . . .”

“I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll see you. Miss you.” The line went dead.

She swallowed another lump down her throat. She was gonna miss him too.

Wiping her tears, she admitted feeling relief that he was okay. But then all that pain twisted and turned in her gut and she felt it again. Anger. Fury.

He’d lied to her. She was a frog’s hair away from falling in love with him.

She felt the dampness on her cheeks. So okay, she wasn’t finished crying after all. Mentally, she reached down and tried to find the elastic on the big girl panties that were obviously hanging around her ankles.

Chapter Thirty-seven

“Everything okay?” Turner asked, walking over.

“Yeah,” he said. He’d been going to tell Chloe about shooting the kid, but it hadn’t felt right.

“Was that Chloe?” Turner asked.

“Yeah.”

“Is she worried?”

He nodded and slipped his phone into his pocket.

“It takes them a while to work around the whole cop thing,” Turner said. “I swear Reese was a basket case the first few weeks. It gets easier. Or I should say, they stop freaking out so much.”

“Yeah.” Cary remembered Chloe saying she was beginning to see the downside of dating a cop.

“You know, sometimes I put myself in her shoes and I realize if she was a cop chasing after lowlifes, I don’t know if I could take it.”

“Yeah,” Cary answered.

Turner looked at him. “You really okay?”

“Sure,” he said, knowing he would be, but he wasn’t at this moment. He could still see that kid with his bullet in him being wheeled away. But he wasn’t ready to talk about it. At least not with Turner. But tonight he knew he’d talk to Chloe about it. How had she gotten so close?

The answer came echoing back. She’d completely gotten under his skin. In his head. In his heart.

The realization should have scared him shitless. It didn’t.

“It was a good shot,” Turner said, somehow knowing what was on Cary’s mind. “Don’t even second guess it. He had a bullet with my name on it if you hadn’t gotten him . . .”

“I know,” Cary said.

“Still hurts like hell though, doesn’t it?” Turner asked.

“It does,” Cary admitted.

“Come on. Let’s get this wrapped up so we can go home and let our women make us feel better.”

“That sounds good,” Cary said. “Real good.”

• • •

“Oh, crap! What’s wrong?”

Leave it to Sheri to not beat around the bush. And Chloe had even spent the last thirty minutes drying her eyes and practicing a fake smile.

She should have known. She was never good at faking it.

“I . . . I screwed up.” She set Cupcake’s carrier at her feet.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I trusted him.”

“Ouch. That doesn’t sound good.”

“It isn’t.” She hiccupped and her eyes started producing tears. More tears. Wasn’t there a limit to how much one person could cry? She must be dehydrated by now.

“Oh no. You’re crying. This must be bad. You hardly ever cry. What happened?”

“Cary has a girlfriend.”

“And that would be you, right?”

Chloe didn’t have to answer.

“Oh, damn!” Sheri took a deep breath. “Okay, how do you want to do this? I know a Hell’s Angel who said he teaches people lessons for a small fee. We can run over him. Make him some arsenic cookies. Options. I love options.”

“How much?” Chloe asked.

“How much what?”

“How much is it to have the Hell’s Angel guy teach someone a lesson?”

Sheri’s eyes grew round. “I wasn’t serious. I was being empathetically sarcastic. This guy’s a cop. I’ve seen that show ‘Orange is the New Black.’ I wouldn’t do well in prison. That said, I’d help you key his car. Or . . . I knew one girl who hid a ten-pound fish in her ex’s spare tire. I don’t think we’d have to do too much time for that.”

“No. I don’t want to teach Cary a lesson. Me,” Chloe said and batted at her tears. “I’m the one who needs to be taught a lesson. I knew going in that he was temporary. I knew he was the love-’em-and-leave type. I just didn’t think he was the love-’em-and-love-another-one-until-caught type.”

“I hate that type,” Sheri said.

“Me too.” Then she shook her head. “I’m lying. I don’t hate him. I almost fell in love with him. Or maybe I did fall in love with him.” She covered her face with her palms. “Oh, damn. I’m in love with him,” she muttered through her fingers.

“No. No. Let’s look at this differently. You had great sex with him and now you’re done with him. You’re ready to go find someone else, someone who’s not a cheater, to have great sex with.”

“I don’t want to be done with him. I don’t want to have sex with anyone else. I want . . . just what I told him I didn’t want. I want promises.”

“Oh, baby. Come in, I’ll pour you some pickle juice.”

Chloe reached for the cat carrier and then looked at her. “Pickle juice?”

“It’s the strongest thing I’ve got. I haven’t been to the liquor store in weeks.”

“Then put it on the rocks,” Chloe said

Ten minutes later, they had the litter box set up and Cupcake and Taco were running around the house like best buds. Sheri and Chloe were huddled up on Sheri’s red leather sofa.

And they each had a glass of pickle juice.

“You still really drink this stuff?” Chloe asked, staring at the glass.

“Hey, we both used to love it.”

“We were eight,” Chloe said.

“Yeah, and those were the good times, weren’t they?”

Chloe dropped back on the sofa.

“So, what happened?” Sheri asked.

Chloe downed a sip of pickle juice. She had to wait for her mouth to stop puckering to answer. “A woman without her panties happened. She showed up at his door.”

Sheri stared at her over the rim of her glass. “Okay, but how did you know she wasn’t wearing panties?”

“Because she was dangling them on her finger and saying, ‘Hurry, open the door, I’m not wearing any panties.’”

Sheri’s eyes grew wide. “Wow. What did Johnny Depp do?”

“He wasn’t there,” Chloe said.

“I mean Cary Stevens.”

“I know who you meant. He wasn’t there either.”

“Then what did he say when you confronted him?”

“I haven’t.”

“What?”

“He called and he’d been shot again.”

“Shit!” Sheri said.

“I know,” Chloe said. “He was wearing a vest, but he sounded . . . upset and I was going to tell him, but . . . I didn’t think it was the right time and then he had to go and . . .”

“You haven’t told him yet?”

“No.”

“So you haven’t let him explain?”

“What’s to explain?”

Sheri put her drink on the coffee table and waved her hands in the air.  “Let’s reboot. You’re saying this woman showed up and you just assumed she was the girlfriend?”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “She had her panties on her finger, whispering sweet nothings, and wearing a come-and-get-me-big-boy look. I think my assumptions are not too far off the beaten path. She even said she’d told him she was coming over.”

“Why would he tell her to come over when you were there?”

“I wasn’t supposed to be there. I told him I was leaving but then he got called off to work the case and. . .” She put a hand over her heart when it hurt, really physically hurt. “I was nothing more than a notch on his belt.”

“Maybe . . . I mean, she could have been an old girlfriend, or just a wannabe who was horny and needed a roll in the hay.”

Blinking, Chloe felt another round of tears threatening to fall. “He lied to me, Sheri. I asked him if he was seeing anyone. He just lied.”

“Okay. I see what you’re saying. And I know it’s not good, but—”

“But what?” Chloe’s tears started flowing at flood hazard rates. She couldn’t blink fast enough. “There are no buts! He lied. I don’t want lies! I don’t want guys hiding things—killing themselves without me even knowing they were on antidepressants. I don’t want to be hurt again. I can’t take it anymore!”

“Oh, lordie.” Sheri folded her hands in her lap. “I’m gonna say something, but don’t get mad. I think what you’re feeling is not just about this guy, but about Jerry.”

Chloe scrubbed the tears off her face. “No, it’s not about him. It’s not even about Cary Stevens. It’s about me. Me!” She hiccupped and patted her chest so hard it echoed. “It’s about me loving someone with everything I have. It’s about me feeling as if I would do anything in the world for that person. It’s about me discovering that this person’s not feeling half of what I feel. About this person letting me down when I’d do anything in the world to make them happy.”

She inhaled deeply, her breath shuttering. “What’s wrong with me, Sheri? Why can’t I find anyone to love me as much as I love them?”

Sheri, tears in her eyes, reached over and squeezed Chloe’s hand. “Okay, I don’t think pickle juice is cutting it. We’re gonna need some wine, Godiva, and Blue Bell ice cream. You want to go with me, or wait here?”

They got their purses and Chloe was about to walk out when all of a sudden she realized what a terrible friend she was. She swung around and faced Sheri.

“I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did this.”

“Did what?” Sheri asked.

“This!” She held her hands out. “I come here and fall apart. Cried on your shoulder, as if you don’t have any problems. You’ve got the whole Kevin issue and I’m being a selfish twit. Forgive me. And just kick my butt if I do it again.”

Sheri shook her head. “Please. You’re not a twit. And my problems aren’t . . .” She paused as if searching for words. “Here’s the thing. The fact that I’m not falling apart tells me a lot.” Sheri smiled, not a happy smile, but a sad one. “You want to know something that’s crazy? I’m a little envious of you.”

“For what?” Chloe asked, befuddled.

“I’d feel better about myself if I was devastated.  I should be devastated. Kevin and I have been together three years. Engaged for two. I should be an emotional wreck, and yet all I feel is . . . kind of relieved. And God help me, but there’s a part of me that worries that I might not have ever been in love with him. Yes, I loved him, but I don’t think I ever felt like you feel. Is there something wrong with me that I don’t love like that?”

Chloe hugged her. “Okay, we’re both screwed up bitches.”

When she pulled back, Sheri offered her another sad smile. “As long as I’m not the only screwed up bitch, I’m okay with it.”

“You’re not,” Chloe said and smiled.

Sheri laughed. “There’s only one question now.”

“What?” Chloe asked, and brushed another tear from her face.

“Cabernet or Merlot?”

“Cab,” Chloe said, and then flinched when she heard her phone beep with an incoming text.

“You might as well check,” Sheri said. “It’ll drive you crazy.”

She pulled her phone from her pocket and saw the message. It was from Cary. And it brought more tears to her eyes.

It’s going to be several hours. Sorry. Miss you.

Chloe held up the phone for Sheri to read.

Sheri frowned. “Does he think you’re at his house?”

Chloe nodded.

“Just call him and tell him what happened. Get it over with.”

“But . . . he’s at work.”

“Yeah, but he’s eventually going to go back to his place and realize you aren’t there.”