Hurt (14 page)

Giving you a headache
, Jamie thought as she walked across the room to the fire place. Reaching on top of the mantle, she disconnected a white iPod from its docking station and then turned it off.

“Was that Johnny Cash? Damn that sounded depressing.”

Jamie turned from the fireplace to see that Megan had somehow located a trash bag and was systematically walking through the living room picking up and throwing away empty soda cans, beer bottles and food containers.

“Yes, it was Johnny Cash. And it’s supposed to be depressing. It was one of the last songs he recorded before June passed away. She was the love of his life. Did you know he was gone just a few months later? I think his heart died with her.”

“Jesus,” Megan muttered as she snatched the iPod from Jamie’ hand. “Go sit back down on the couch. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

Jamie opened her mouth to protest, but then closed it and trudged over to the couch where she had been sleeping and flopped down.

“Why are you here?” she asked, laying her head back against the black leather cushion.

“When you weren’t answering my phone calls, I stopped by the station to tell you that I heard back from my friend at the newspaper on your home invasion case, and Samuels told me that you’d called in sick two days in a row. I was worried that something like…” Megan motioned around the room with one hand. “…this was going on, so I had Samuels give me your address. Tell me you haven’t been wallowing in self-pity for the past two days, detective.”

“I haven’t,” Jamie answered, staring up at the ceiling. “I was off three days at Christmas, so it’s been more like five. Or maybe six.”

“Are you kidding me? Lord knows you smell like it, though. You reek of alcohol. How much have you had to drink?”

“Not enough,” Jamie muttered, raising her head to see Megan pick up a half-empty beer bottle with two fingers and toss it into the trash bag. “Hey, I wasn’t through with that.”

“You most definitely were.” Megan propped a hand on one hip and narrowed her eyes at Jamie. “As a matter of fact, you’re through with all of this. You’re going to go get cleaned up—preferably take a shower, because you stink—put some clean clothes on, and help me straighten this pig sty up.”

“The hell you say.” Jamie stood from the couch and instantly wished she hadn’t as the room began to spin around. She held one hand out in the air to steady herself and then glared at Megan. “The only thing that’s going to happen around here is you getting the hell out of my house. The simple fact that you’re here means that Nicole is going to come barging in the front door at any second and accuse me of sleeping with you. As a matter of fact…” Jamie stepped away from the couch, and looked at Megan. “Do you have a phone with you?”

“Of course, why?” Megan asked, pointing to her purse sitting on the kitchen counter.

“Because she’s blocked my number,” Jamie said in a half-slur. She crossed the room, quickly pulled the phone out of Megan’s purse and then moved to stand in front of the bay window. “Why wait for Nicole? I’m just gonna call her and tell her myself.” She closed one eye as she swiped the screen on the cell phone and began to punch in Nicole’s number.

“Oh goddamn. Jamie, give me that phone.” Megan dropped the trash bag and rushed over to Jamie, reaching to pry the phone from her hand.

“No,” Jamie said, pulling away from Megan. “Cut it out. It’s ringing.”

“Jamie, give me the phone.”

Jamie ignored Megan and twisted around, keeping the phone out of the small woman’s reach. She licked her lips and then cleared her throat.

“Voicemail is picking up,” she advised.

“Jamie…” Megan said threateningly.

“Hey Nicole it’s me. I just wanted to let you know that Megan is over at the house.”

“Goddamn it, Jamie. If you don’t give me that phone, I’m going to climb up on that table and knock you in the head.”

“She’s cleaning up my mess right now,” Jamie continued, ignoring Megan. “So, if you want to go ahead and head on over, that would be grea—ouch, damn it. Megan! What the fuck was that?” Jamie dropped the phone as a sharp object struck her on the side of the head.

“My shoe,” Megan answered, collecting the black high-heel from the floor and slipping it back onto her foot. She picked up the cell phone lying beside it and slid it into the back pocket of her slacks. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

“Have you lost yours?” Jamie rubbed the area just over her ear, fairly certain she could feel a knot beginning to rise.

“It’s your own fault for being so freakishly tall. Now go sit your ass down on the couch and sober up.” Megan pointed sternly to the couch, refusing to move until Jamie finally walked back to it. Jamie sat down and crossed her arms, tossing daggers in Megan’s direction as the small woman picked back up the trash bag and continued cleaning up the living room.

“You don’t have to do that,” Jamie said sullenly.

“Obviously you’re not going to. I’ve seen frat houses that weren’t this bad.”

“Why are you here?” Jamie asked, repeating her earlier question.

“Like I said earlier.” Megan looked at Jamie and shook her head. “I feel partially responsible for what happened the other day at the restaurant. Between thinking of that and trying to avoid Craig, the associate pastor that my parents invited to dinner to ‘try and get to know me better’, I had a pretty shitty Christmas myself.”

“I’m sorry,” Jamie mumbled.

“Well, it’s not your fault. Not all of it, anyway.” Megan picked up the pizza box from the floor and shoved it into the bag. “I’ve decided to help you try to get Nicole back.”

“Oh?” Jamie said smirking. “And how are you going to do that?”

Megan shrugged.

“I haven’t gotten that far into the planning yet. But step one is definitely cleaning this place—and you—up.” She stepped to the coffee table and began to pick up around it.

“Hey!” Jamie barked. “Don’t touch that. It’s not trash.”

“Well, whatever it is, it needs to be cleaned up,” Megan snapped back, glancing sideways at her.

Jamie looked at the items scattered across the coffee table and felt her eyes start to sting. She bit her bottom lip and then placed her hands over her face.

“It’s Nicole,” she sobbed.

“Christ, are you crying?” Megan said. Jamie didn’t respond and after a second felt Megan sit down beside her on the couch. “Jamie?”

Jamie looked up at Megan and wiped at her eyes.

“I’m sorry. It’s just…nothing. I’m sorry, I’ve had too much to drink. I’m a mess.”

“No, you’re…well, maybe you are. Let’s get all this put up and then you can get cleaned up and we’ll get you something to eat that didn’t come out of a take-out box. You’ll feel better.”

“Okay,” Jamie sniffed and wiped away another tear. “There’s a box that all that goes in. It should be around here somewhere.”

“It’s on the floor beside the couch,” Megan said, picking up the orange Nike shoebox. “Good God, you wear a size ten?”

“Really?”

“I’m sorry. Here.” Megan opened the box and sat it on the couch between them. “What is all this anyway?”

“It’s Nicole,” Jamie said quietly as she reached to the coffee table.

“You said that already. What does that mean?”

Jamie sighed and shrugged.

“It’s Nicole. It’s…well…” Jamie picked up a bright red greeting card with a heart on its cover and held it up. “This is the card that Nicole gave me at Valentine’s Day.” She dropped the card into the shoebox and then picked up a cork. “This is from the bottle of blackberry wine that Nicole and I picked up last Christmas on the way up to the Smoky Mountains. We spent a week there.”  Jamie placed the cork into the box and wiped away another tear as she thought about that first night in the cabin, snuggled up with Nicole in front of the fireplace, sipping wine out of plastic cups.

“Seriously?” Megan asked incredulously.

“I know, it’s stupid.”

“No, it’s sweet.” Megan looked at Jamie and grinned. “It’s a lot sweeter than I ever thought you would be, detective.” Megan cocked her head and looked thoughtful for a moment. “So, how much do you have here?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how much do you have? Just bits and pieces of things, or…?”

Jamie shook her head.

“No, it’s everything.” She picked up a business card and handed it to Megan. “That’s from the first time we met. She gave me her number.” Jamie reached down and picked up a small, white ticket stub. “And this one…this is from a movie we went to last year.”

“
Frozen
?” Megan asked, taking the ticket stub from her hand.

Jamie shrugged and grinned.

“Nicole has a weird thing for Disney movies.”

“So have you saved every single stub and receipt from every date you’ve ever had?”

“No,” Jamie answered, shaking her head. “Just the high points, the important ones. First time we met, first Valentine’s Day. You know.”

Megan arched an eyebrow.

“And
Frozen
? What was that? Seems pretty random.”

Jamie snatched the ticket stub back from Megan and stared at it wistfully.

“No, not random.” She smiled back at Megan. “This was the night that I knew.”

“I’m not following,” Megan said, shaking her head. “Knew what?”

“Sitting next to Nicole in the movie theater while she sang along with some silly song from the movie—not the one that’s played all the time, one of the other ones that has something about stuffing chocolate in your face—I knew. I knew that I was totally and completely in love with her.” Jamie sniffed and wiped one eye with the back of her hand, then let the ticket stub fall into the shoebox. “Not that any of this matters now.”

“Are you kidding me?” Megan asked. “This is all perfect.” She stood from the couch and put one hand on her hip and motioned to Jamie with the other. “You go and get cleaned up. I know exactly what we’re going to do.”

“You do, huh?” Jamie asked, rising from the couch with a groan. She rubbed the side of her head. “And what is that?”

“Nope. First you go change out of those stinking clothes.”

“All right,” Jamie said. “If it will stop your damned nagging.” She sidestepped Megan as the blonde woman began to carefully move the items from the coffee table to the shoebox and headed back toward the bedroom. Jamie was half-way down the hallway when she heard Megan’s voice call out from the living room.

“And for God’s sake, take a shower.”

Chapter Nineteen

“And how many square feet did you say this was?”

“This room is seven hundred, give or take. The whole house is just under twenty-seven hundred.”

“Hmm. The kitchen was gorgeous, I will have to say, but I don’t know that I like this living room. I mean, it’s a nice size, but those dark brown walls are dreadful.”

“Now, Maggie, remember what we talked about a few days ago. Don’t get hung up on things that can be easily changed with a coat of paint,” Gina Southerland drawled to her client from the doorway of the three bedroom Craftsman-style home. Her client, a middle-aged woman whose jet black hair was drawn back into the most severe looking bun that Nicole had ever seen, walked around the room with her arms crossed and nodded.

“I suppose you’re right,” the woman said. “And it’s three bedrooms you said?”

Nicole nodded as she followed Gina into the living room.

“It is. One of the bedrooms is being used as an office right now, but it’s three bedrooms.”

“What about bathrooms?”

Nicole stepped to a small door just off the hallway and opened it. She motioned for Maggie to take a look inside.

“This is the half-bath,” Nicole explained. “Upstairs are two full baths, with one of those an ensuite off the master.”

Gina and her client walked over to the bathroom and peered inside. It was a good sized room in Nicole’s opinion, larger than most half baths in houses she’d seen recently.

“Hmm,” Maggie said, “I do like that pedestal sink. The tile on the floor is nice, but those walls…just too yellow.”

“Now Maggie…” Gina began again.

“I know, I know,” the woman said, throwing a hand up in the air. “It’s just hard to get past that color.”

“I’m sure that the owner would be more than willing to throw in an allowance for interior paint,” Nicole said, exchanging glances with Gina. She had warned Nicole when she called to set up the showing a few days ago that this was one of pickier clients she’d had in a while and had already shown the woman more than two dozen homes. At each listing they’d been to Maggie had become fixated on some small, almost trivial detail and then quickly marked the house off her list.

“See, Maggie. Quick fix and not something that you would be out of pocket for,” Gina said.

“Hmm,” the other woman said, not sounding impressed. “I suppose.”

“Would you like to see the upstairs?” Nicole asked and then frowned as she heard her cell phone begin to ring. She didn’t bother to check it, but thought that if it was Jamie trying to call her again…

“Nicole, why don’t you go answer that? I can take Maggie upstairs to look at the bedrooms,” Gina told her.

“Are you sure?” Nicole said. “I’m sure that it’s nothing important.”

Gina shook her head.

“No, go ahead. I’d like to talk to Maggie about what we’ve seen so far.”

“Of course,” Nicole said, motioning up the stairs. “Take your time. I’ll just be in the kitchen.” Nicole headed to the kitchen, grimacing as she heard Maggie ask Gina if she thought the walls along the stairway were too white.

Once in the kitchen, Nicole pulled out her phone and glanced at the missed call, happy to see that the number belonged to Julie and not Jamie. After that bizarre drunk-dial of a voicemail she’d received from Jamie the other day, Nicole was considering changing her number altogether. Nicole dialed Julie’s number and then leaned against the gray marble countertop.

“Hey Nicole,” Julie answered, picking up on the second ring. “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time earlier. I remembered right after I called that you said you had some showings today.”