Hurt (9 page)

“I’ve only got half a box, but we can make a run to the store later,” Julie said, following Nicole into the living room.

Nicole sat on the floral patterned couch, placed the glasses on the glass-top coffee table, and then pulled her feet up under her.

“Hopefully, it won’t come to that,” Nicole muttered as she closed her eyes and let her throbbing head fall back on the couch cushion.

“So you don’t have any idea who the bitch was?” Julie called from the kitchen.

“Nope,” Nicole answered. “Never seen her before. Jamie said last night that she had run into an old friend from high school, but I don’t know.” Nicole raised her head up as Julie arrived at the couch, bottle of wine in tow.

“So you think old high school flame? Could make sense. But, then again, Jamie is a cop.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Male or female, they’re all whore dogs.”

Nicole laughed as she took the glass of wine that Julie was offering. One of Julie’s many failed relationships had been with a police officer from one of the small towns that dotted the Georgia/Tennessee border, just a few miles south of Chattanooga.

“Julie, just because you had one bad experience—”

“Oh, like Jamie didn’t just prove me right today? Believe it, Nicole.”

Nicole said nothing in response, instead just sat on the couch and sipped at the wine. She thought again of the look on Jamie’s face when Nicole walked in the bedroom, seeing her almost completely naked, arms around the blonde woman. Nicole felt her eyes start to mist up again.

“Damn it. You have got to stop crying over her, Nicole. You’re going to make yourself sick and she’s not worth it. Look at you—you’re gorgeous, you could have anyone you wanted. If Jamie can’t see how lucky she is to have you, then it’s her loss.”

Nicole sat the wine glass down on the table and rubbed her eyes.

“I don’t know, Julie. Maybe I shouldn’t have just run off like that. She said she could explain.”

“Seriously?” Julie snorted. “I know you’re smarter than that.”

“God, I just…I just don’t know what to do.” Nicole shook her head, trying to push away the headache that had been threatening ever since she left Jamie’s house.

“What you need to do is drink up,” Julie said as she handed Nicole the wine glass. “And we need your phone. Where is it?”

“In my purse,” Nicole said, taking another sip of wine. “But I turned it off. Jamie just kept calling and calling.”

“Of course she did. They
always
do. You didn’t answer it, did you?”

“No. Actually, I went in and blocked her number to keep her from calling anymore. I just need time to think.”

“Well, good,” Julie said and reached behind her, retrieving her own cell phone from the corner of an end table. “We can just use mine.”

Nicole frowned.

“Use yours for what Julie? What are you doing?”

“Going on Facebook,” Julie said as she swiped at her phone furiously.

“Jamie’s not on Facebook, you know that. The sheriff’s department frowns on it.”

“I’m not looking for Jamie on Facebook,” Julie said, staring at the phone.

“Then who are you looking for?”

“We need to find you somebody.”

“What are talking about?”

“So, are you totally committed to this lesbian thing, or are you open to men?”

“What?
Lesbian thing
? No, I’m not open to men.”

“Okay,” Julie said, pursing her lips. “Although I do know this one guy who kinda looks like a woman…”

“Julie, have you lost your mind?”

Nicole was beginning to wonder if Julie had had too much wine, but then saw that the other woman hadn’t touched her own glass yet. Julie looked up at Nicole from the phone and grinned.

“No, I have not. Look, what you need to do is fuck somebody and send her the pictures.”

“Oh goddamn Julie, I’m not going to go have sex with some random person just to get back at Jamie.” Nicole closed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair, wondering when the whole world had gone crazy.

“Well, I would say key her car, but that old Explorer she drives is a piece of shit anyway.”

“Seriously?” Nicole looked up and saw Julie smiling at her. “Are you just fucking with me?”

Julie sighed and slid over on the couch, putting her arm around Nicole.

“Look,” she said seriously. “You’ve gotten through a lot worse than this. Your mom. That bitch Carol. You will get through this. I don’t know, maybe there is a good explanation for what you saw today, but what I don’t want you to do is pretend you didn’t see it and go jump right back into her arms. You deserve to be treated like a princess and if Jamie’s not the one to do it, then you’ll find someone else who will.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Stay here tonight. I’ll make up the couch for you to sleep on. The rest we can figure out later.”

Nicole leaned her head on Julie’s shoulder and sighed. She blinked as she felt tears begin to sting at her eyes again.

“Damn it Julie, I really do love her.”

“I know you do, sugar.”

Chapter Twelve

Jamie leaned back in her office chair, absently picking at the frayed plastic on the chair’s one working arm as she stared at the open case file on her computer screen. She thought about putting in an order for a replacement for some time, but honestly had gotten used to the lumbar in this chair, so was willing to put up with the inconvenience of no arm rest for a while longer.

She yawned and rubbed her eyes with one hand. Her head hurt and she generally felt like shit. After the scene at the house, Sundae had offered to chase Nicole down and explain to her herself what had been going on, but Jamie had told her she was sure that Nicole would understand as soon as Jamie herself talked to her.
Yeah right
, Jamie thought bitterly.

Hell, maybe if she’d been able to find and actually talk to Nicole she’d have come to her senses, but she’d blocked Jamie’s number and then disappeared off the face of the earth. Jamie had spent all day Saturday and most of Sunday trying unsuccessfully to get in touch with Nicole everyway she knew. Jamie knew that at some point it could be considered harassment, and she wouldn’t put it past Julie—whose house she was fairly certain Nicole had fled to—to call and report her to the powers that be at the sheriff’s department if she kept trying, so she had finally stopped.

Instead, knowing that she had to work the next day and couldn’t drown her sorrows in beer and Johnny Cash, Jamie had eaten the pint and a half of ice cream that she had found in the freezer, cried until her eyes hurt, and then passed out while watching television on the couch. She’d woken up sometime in the middle of the night, replaying the scene with Nicole in her head. Jamie had finally said to hell with it and headed on in to the station.

Noticing the noise level in the squad room was picking up, Jamie glanced at her watch and sighed as she saw the time. Samuels would be rolling in at any minute and she honestly didn’t feel like listening to any of his smart-ass remarks. Deciding to make a coffee run and delay the inevitable, Jamie rose from her desk and headed out of the squad room.

She made it as far as the front door.

“Goddamn, you look like shit.”

Jamie glared at Samuels as she walked past, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge his comment. She shivered and ran her hands over her arms as she walked to her Explorer, hoping she had a jacket thrown in the back of the vehicle somewhere. It hadn’t been that cold when she’d left the house at five o’clock, or maybe she just hadn’t noticed if it was. She opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat and had just put the key in the ignition when the passenger door opened and Samuels hopped in.

“Can I help you?” Jamie asked sharply, cocking her head at him.

Her partner shrugged.

“You could tell me what the hell is wrong with you, for starters.”

Jamie eyed him for a moment and then, shaking her head, turned and looked straight ahead. “I’m going to get some coffee,” she said with a sigh.

“Then let’s go,” he answered, reaching for and then buckling the seatbelt.

For a brief moment Jamie considered getting out of the car and walking the two blocks to the coffee shop, but decided it was just too damn cold. Swearing under her breath, she turned the key in the ignition and headed out of the parking lot. She drove in silence, keeping her eyes trained ahead as she traveled the short distance to the coffee shop she liked to frequent, more for its selection than its proximity to the station.

Turning into the parking lot, she pulled into a spot at the front and switched off the ignition. She sat there for a moment, chewing her bottom lip as she stared at the back of one hand as it continued to grip the steering wheel.

“So, who started it? You or her?”

Jamie glanced over at Samuels in the seat beside her.

“Started what?”

“You know what. The fight.”

“What makes you think we had a fight?” Jamie asked, surprised by the defensive tone in her voice.

“Three ex-wives, twice that many ex-girlfriends, and a daughter. Believe me, I know that look on a woman’s face.”

Jamie gave a defeated sigh and shook her head.

“I don’t know Samuels. I guess I did.”

“You want to elaborate on that a little or just make me sit here and guess?”

“It was just a misunderstanding. Nicole walked in the room and saw me hugging an old friend of mine.” As Samuels raised his eyebrows as if to say ‘and’, Jamie continued. “And, I happened to have my shirt off at the time.”

“Jesus Christ,” Samuels said, barking out a laugh.

“And my pants, come to think of it.”

“And you
think
you’re the one who started it?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like?”

“We were walking around the house and I was going to show my friend how the shower head in the bathroom worked and I got water all over me. So I took off my clothes to put on something dry. I was in the middle of that when my friend told me she was pregnant and I gave her a hug. You know, an ‘I’m happy for you’ hug. Nicole walked in and saw it, assumed the worst and stormed out.”

“You in your skivvies hugging up on some young girl. Yeah, what a bitch that Nicole is.”

Jamie gave Samuels a bitter glare and then traded stares with him for a few more seconds.

“And?” he said after a moment.

“And what? You can imagine her reaction. I just told you what happened.”

Samuels flicked his tongue on his bottom teeth and shook his head.

“Nope. You’d make a terrible poker player, Tate. There’s more that you’re not telling me.”

Jamie opened her mouth to tell him he was wrong, but closed it. There wasn’t any point in not telling him the whole story.

“I kind of lied to her. I told Nicole that I had to go to the station and instead met Sundae at my—”

“Her name is Sundae? What the hell kind of a name is Sundae?” Samuels interrupted. “Is she a goddamn stripper?”

“No, she’s not a goddamn stripper. That’s just her name,” Jamie barked back. “Anyway…I told Nicole I had to go to the station, but instead I was meeting Sundae at my house to show it to her. She and her husband are moving back to Chattanooga and are looking for a place.”

“I fucking told you,” Samuels said, throwing his hands in the air. “What did I say? Huh? What did I say? But you didn’t listen, and then Nicole came by the house when you weren’t supposed to be there and found you practically naked making out with some girl.”

“I wasn’t practically naked,” Jamie said.

“No shirt, no pants is practically naked. Christ, Tate, any one of my ex-wives would have cut my balls off if they’d walked in on me like that. It’s no wonder Nicole’s mad.”

Jamie put her hands over her eyes, groaned and let her head fall onto the steering wheel.

“God.”

“God is right. You need to come clean and tell her what happened and what you were up to.”

Jamie raised her head to glare at Samuels.

“Gee, what a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?” she snapped. “She won’t take my calls. She’s blocked my damn number from calling her. I sent her some text messages, but I don’t know if those got through or not.” Jamie shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Samuels ran a quick hand over his head and then folded his arms before settling back in the seat.

“Well, lucky for you I have lots of experience in the ‘pissing women off’ department.” He motioned toward the coffee shop. “Go on in and get your stinking-ass drink. I’ll start thinking on the best way to approach our little situation.”

“Our little situation?” Jamie said, arching one eyebrow.

“Yes ‘our little situation’. Christ knows my life is going to be a living hell until you two get this worked out.”

Jamie decided against arguing with him on that point, opened the door to the Explorer and stepped out. She half-closed the door and then stopped, leaning back in to look at Samuels.

“You want anything while I’m in there?”

“Do they sell real coffee? You know what, no. I’m good. Just hurry up and so we can get back to the station and get some police work done today.”

Chapter Thirteen

Nicole stood outside Golden Meadows Retirement Village and peered at the handwritten sign hanging over the small keypad just to the right of the front door. Because of the fair amount of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients in residence, Golden Meadows kept an electronic key lock on the door with a code that changed daily. Today’s code was a diabolical mixture of sloppily written sixes and zeroes.

She gave a little sigh of relief as—on her fourth attempt—the lock gave a little ping and released. Pushing the door open, Nicole smiled at the small group of residents who had gathered to watch her struggling with the lock through the large windows on either side of the door. She shut the door behind her, making sure to hear the click of the lock before she made her way through the large, open lobby and toward the side hallway that led to Nana’s room.