Green Tea (14 page)

“Not home.”

“Then where?”

“Just not home. They say that a crazy person is most crazy just before they’re going to be dealt with. Think of all the women that get killed just when they’re leaving their abusers. We aren’t going to put you in the middle of it. You’re not going to be their bait.”

“What are we going to do, drive in circles all night?”

“Nope. We’re going to go stay at a hotel.”

“That will look great. Check in with no luggage.”

“A hotel that would even notice if we had luggage is out of our price range. We’ll find a place, I’ll check in, you can stay in the car, and then we’ll go to our room.”

“I didn’t bring anything with me.”

“You can sleep nude. You used to do that all the time.”

“I know. It’s just been creepy with Jerkface running around. I’m always on alert. I figure if I have to run out with a tank and shorts on, no one will notice, but if I run out of the house nude, people are going to point and laugh and hurt my feelings.”

“I was beginning to think it was me.”

“Are you kidding? Why didn’t you say something?”

“What was I supposed to say? Cara, why aren’t you naked?”

“That would have been a good start. We should be able to say anything to each other.”

“That kind of stuff only happens in the movies Cara. There is no such thing as unconditional love, or being able to say anything, or happily ever after.”

“Wow, you sound just like me.”

“Good. How about this place? Does this look okay? I don’t think Jerkface would look for my car since we almost always go in your car, since you have to drive.”

“Am I really that bad?”

“No one said it was a bad thing Cara.”

“Okay, I’m just having a little nervous breakdown here. Sorry. This place looks great. I appreciate it. I’ll wait in the car while you check in.”

“I’ll only be a couple of minutes. Honk the horn if you need me.”

I grabbed my phone and dialed.

“Hey, what happened?”

“I got a call from Carmine. Teagan, they’re going to make arrests, plural, tonight. Carmine called to tell me that I should be careful, that other law enforcement might tip off Jerkface, and he might do something stupid.”

“Who else are they arresting?”

“I was so whacked out I didn’t even ask, and now I feel stupid calling Steph to ask. You gotta admit that’s a pretty damn basic question to miss. Could you call and ask her?”

“Sure, I’ll do that while you call Mom and tell her what’s going on, and then the two of you can decide if we should call anyone else.”

“Okay.”

“Are you sure you want to stay at your apartment? You guys could stay at my place, I’m over at Jessie’s.”

“AJ heard about the arrests and he brought us to a hotel.”

“Good. I won’t worry as much. Call Mom, I’ll get back to you as soon as I have anything from Steph.”

“Thanks.”

I dialed Mom and got her on the line just as AJ got back to the car. He showed me the room key, and we headed toward the back of the place.

AJ listened while I told Mom everything I knew. She was very reassuring, but said she would call and tell everybody, just in case. Better safe than sorry. She seemed to calm down a bunch when I told her that AJ and I were not going home, but staying in a random hotel.

When we got to the back of the building, I was done with my conversation, wished my mom a good night, and disconnected just as AJ opened my door.

“We’re in room 1212. I know that’s your lucky number.”

“We could use a little luck.”

“As soon as we go up and check the room, I’m going to come back and move the car.”

“Don’t you want to be able to see it from our window?”

“If he’s going to find my car, I’d rather it be far away from our room, and if someone else is going to mess with my car, it’s insured. Besides, if anyone sets off the alarm, the alarm will call me on my cell phone.”

“You’re kidding. I didn’t know that. How come I never knew that?”

“I never use that setting, but I will tonight.”

Teagan called back and said she couldn’t get ahold of Steph. She did get to talk to her soon-to-be-husband, who said she was off with some law enforcement and that she’d told him if she didn’t come home tonight, not to worry. She said if she heard anything, she’d call, but she really didn’t expect to hear anything tonight.

I texted Carmine to let him know that I was not going home tonight, just in case he stopped by there.

AJ and I were exhausted.

Sleeping naked is almost as good as other stuff you do naked.

Morning came early. I’d remembered to set the alarm on my phone, a small miracle, and it was just loud enough to annoy me. Perfect.

AJ took his shower first,
then
went off in search of the appropriate junk food breakfast while I took mine.

It’s weird to take a shower and put the same clothes back on.

I’m just sayin’.

Teagan called before AJ got back.

“It doesn’t seem right that we were in on all of this from the very beginning, and then when they decide they’re going to arrest the guy, you go and hide in a hotel. We should have been there.”

“I have no desire to be there. Besides, they should have him in custody by now. Did Steph ever call you back?”

“Nope, which is pretty rude, considering.”

“She probably had better things on her mind, Teagan.”

“If it weren’t for us, she’d have never had anything to do with all this in the first place.”

“Yeah, cause I’m sure for her, doing all this pro bono work is just what she dreams about. She’s babysitting our interests and helping us in ways we don’t even know about, when she could be working on real cases and making money.”

“Well, obviously this is a real case if they’re arresting people.”

“True. Teagan, tell you what, when I hear anything I’ll call you. If you hear anything call me. Until then, not a lot we can do.”

“Fine, but you know what, if Steph doesn’t call pretty soon, I think you should call Rory and see if he’s heard anything. He’s down at the station all the time, he’s a cop, and he’s our brother. He’ll be able to sniff out the poop.”

“What a great turn of phrase for my morning. I’m not going to call Rory and neither are you. The last thing he needs is getting involved in whatever this is. This isn’t going to turn out well for Rory no matter what.”

“This isn’t going to hurt Rory.”

“Teagan, if Jerkface turns out to be a serial murderer and he was working alone, then Rory’s two sisters are the ones that found a dirty cop. A dirty cop that supposedly the cops didn’t know anything about. Come on now, the cops are going to look like idiots and there’s going to be a huge trial with all kinds of media coverage and investigations and all of their screw-ups are going to be out there for the world to see.”

“It isn’t Rory’s fault that some cop went nuts.”

“I know that, and you know that, but we don’t know how the cops are going to react. And what if another cop is involved?”

“Yeah, right. One serial murderer cop is a stretch. Two? I don’t think so.”

“They would almost have to be working together. Cops have a sixth sense, they just know stuff.”

“And you say that I watch too much TV.”

“Doesn’t matter, we’ll know all about it soon enough.”

“I swear to God Cara, if you don’t call me the second you know whatever it is they tell you, I’m gonna throw you off the boat when we go to Alaska.”

“AJ’s at the door, I gotta go. I’ll call you the minute I know anything.”

I disconnected as I was fumbling with the maid lock.

AJ presented me with the perfect breakfast. An ice cold Pepsi and a triple pack of Hostess Cinnamon Sweet Rolls from the gas station convenience store.

He does love me.

I snarffed my breakfast, as junk food is made for snarffing.

We got to the apartment just as my ex-spy Special Forces neighbor was leaving for work. I gave him a quick update. He said he would stop by tonight for the latest.

AJ changed his clothes,
then
sat on the couch waiting for me to get ready to leave. He refused to leave me alone, even though I tried to assure him that the arrests were to take place before sunrise, and the sun was well in the sky.

He said until Steph or Carmine called giving us the all clear, I would not be out of his sight.

I’ve got things to do. I have a life to live. This isn’t going to work for me.

I may have been muttering that as I went in to change my clothes. I wanted to take another shower; I know that sounds weird, but putting your underwear back on, even inside out, makes another shower pretty much necessary.

Instead, I settled for clean underwear. I pulled on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, some tennis shoes, and slapped my hair back in an elongated ponytail. You know those combs that have the little plastic zig zag dealy connecting them, I know they probably went out of style when I was in 4
^th
grade, but I still use them. They make my hair look longer and fuller. They still sell them, so I can’t be the only one using them.

I slathered some tinted moisturizer on my face, spritzed on some Light Blue, and called myself done.

When I got back out to the living room, AJ had the news on. He informed me that there was nothing about the arrests on the news, and since it would be a cop arrested, they would definitely have it all on the news. Something must have gone wrong.

I admit it; he was starting to make me nervous.

We grabbed all our stuff, I remembered to grab my phone charger out of my car,
it
wouldn’t do to get stuck without a working phone at this point in my life. We headed off to the studio.

Probably a good thing that AJ was driving, because in the amount of time it took us to get to Old Town, with virtually no traffic, I got calls from Teagan, my mom, Jovana, Liam, Teagan again, and just as we got to the public parking lot, Steph.

“How did it go? Is he in jail?”

“It got complicated.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we have to talk.”

“We are talking.”

“We need to talk face to face. At my office. Can you do that?”

“When we talked yesterday we arranged to meet at nine this morning. That time slot is still available but I’d really rather meet in a place that’s a little less official. Can we meet at the diner?”

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about all of this in public, but I’ll be happy to come to the studio if you would be more comfortable.”

“I really appreciate it.”

“Cara, Teagan has been calling non-stop. Do you have any objection to inviting her to the meeting?”