Shame on Him (8 page)

I end the call and throw my cell phone down on my desk a little too forcefully.

“You know, in this instance, it’s okay to call him an asshole,” Kennedy tells me as she walks over and drops a file on my desk.

“I can’t call Doug that. He means well, I guess.”

Paige walks through the door with a tray of coffees in her hand. “Who means well?”

Kennedy pulls a cup off of her tray. “Doug. He just called to talk about the wedding.”

Paige rolls her eyes and sets the tray down on my desk. “Screw him. He’s an asshole.”

“See? I told you.” Kennedy smiles. “Come on, say it. ‘Doug is an asshole.’”

Grabbing my own cup of coffee, I open the lid and blow on it. “Doug is not an . . .
asshole.
He’s happy. He’s getting married. I can’t be angry at him for that.”

“The fuck you can’t!” Kennedy argues. “He married you when he knew all along he was gay. Asshole. You caught him screwing a man in your living room. Asshole. He still invited you to his wedding. HUGE asshole.”

I take a sip of my coffee. “Can we talk about something else, please? I don’t want to think about this wedding until absolutely necessary.”

Kennedy perches her hip on the edge of my desk. “Fine. Let’s talk about your vocabulary. Say ‘fuck.’”

I stare at her in irritation.

“Come on, I know straight-laced Lorelei is just dying to break out of her shell and scream some obscenities. How are you going to work side by side with Dallas Osborne and not call him a fuckhead at least once?” Kennedy asks.

I told the girls all about the plan I hatched in court the other day. They thought it was brilliant, but Kennedy has been trying to prepare me the last few days by turning me into a gutter mouth.

“If I think a situation warrants it, I will swear. I don’t need to practice,” I tell her.

Kennedy shrugs. “Hey, I’m just looking out for you. I don’t want you to lose your shit one of these days and yell something embarrassing like, ‘You’re a shitdamn hell fuck!’”

Ignoring her, I look at Paige. “Did you send that e-mail to Dallas?”

She smiles and takes a seat at her desk across from me. “Oh, I sure did. And I blacked out half of the information like you suggested and told him if he wanted the rest of it, he’d need to contact you.”

I asked Paige to scan the e-mails we found in Richard Covington’s home and send them to Dallas. Minus a few pertinent details like who they were from and when they were sent.

“I also blacked out every fourth word just to mess with him,” Paige says with a laugh.

“He’s going to be pissed,” Kennedy says with a smile.

My cell phone starts to ring and, looking at the display, I see that it’s Dallas.

“Well, speak of the devil. That was fast.”

Clearing my throat, I answer the phone in my best professional voice. “Lorelei Warner, how may I help you?”

“Where’s the rest of the information in these e-mails?” Dallas asks without preamble.

“Good morning to you too, Mr. Osborne. What e-mails are you referring to?” I ask pleasantly.

Paige and Kennedy cover their mouths to contain their laughter.

“Cut the crap. I get it. This is my punishment for your getting me out of that ticket. Fine. I’ll leave you alone so you can play detective. I won’t say another word about your lack of skills. Just give me the rest of the information in those e-mails.”

I pick up a pen and tap it against my desk. While the idea of his leaving me alone actually has some merit, that’s not what this is all about. I want him to eat his words. I
can
do this job.

“You avoided thirty days in jail and didn’t lose your license because of me,” I remind him.

“Yeah, well, I still had to pay a two-thousand-dollar fine,” he complains.

I grind my teeth. “It was supposed to be four thousand dollars. I’m going to need a little more than just your turning the other cheek while I ‘play detective.’”

I hear him growl into the phone. “Fine. What do you want?”

Kennedy starts waving her hands in the air frantically.

“Could you hold, please?” I press my palm against the mouthpiece and hold the phone away from me.

“What?” I hiss at her.

“Tell him he’s an asshole and you deserve some fucking respect!” Kennedy shouts.

Shaking my head at her, I pull my hand away from the mouthpiece and press the phone back against my ear.

“Sorry about that. Where was I? Oh, yes. Well, I’ve decided that you and I will start working together to solve this case and when I find out who did it, you can just give me your fee from the police department,” I inform him.

He barks out a laugh. “When hell freezes over.”

I smile to myself. “Bundle up. We’ll get together this weekend to go over the rest of the information in those e-mails. Have a nice day!”

Ending the call without letting him say another word, I sit there for a few minutes and stare at my phone.

“I still think you should have called him an asshole, but you did good,” Kennedy tells me.

“So, when are you going to meet up with him? Do I get to dress you again?” Paige asks excitedly.

“I have dinner at my parents’ house on Friday night, so it will have to be after that,” I remind them.

Everyone is silent for a few minutes. They know this is the weekend I planned on telling them about my job here and how I wasn’t sure if being a lawyer was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

“Well, then, I think you should definitely let Paige dress you,” Kennedy informs me.

Paige jumps up from her chair and practically bounces over to us. “We can find something totally hot and badass for Lorelei and we can get your outfits for your romantic engagement weekend with Griffin while we’re at it!”

Kennedy groans. “Do I really still have to buy new clothes for this?”

I gather my things. “Remember how you said you’d owe me one for being Dallas’s lawyer? You’ll go shopping with Paige and me and not say one single word. We get to dress you any way we see fit and you can’t complain.”

“Ooooh, you’ll be like our own personal Barbie,” Paige tells her with a laugh.

“You did NOT just say that to me.”

As we walk out of the office, I ignore Paige and Kennedy as they bicker back and forth. A few hours of shopping might be just what I need to get my mind off of the coming weekend. I’m going to drop a huge bomb on my parents and then try to work with Dallas. Both events could be equally explosive.

CHAPTER 10

M
y parents live in Hamilton County. It’s about an hour-and-a-half drive from my home so I have plenty of time to think about what I’m going to say to them. And plenty of time to rethink the outfit Paige made me buy on our shopping trip.

As I pull up the drive to their palatial brick home, I take a deep breath before getting out of my car. I seriously consider getting back inside and driving to the nearest Neiman Marcus to buy a suit. It’s not that I’m dressed unpleasantly; it’s just that I’m not dressed for dinner with my parents. My mother will undoubtedly have on a dress and pearls and my father will be wearing one of his usual black suits.

Staring down at myself, I know that what I’m wearing is perfectly fine: a pair of black leggings with brown, knee-high slouch boots, a tan-and-black-striped long-sleeved shirt, and a black infinity scarf. As soon as Paige picked out this outfit I knew I had to have it. It may seem like everyday wear for some, but it’s not something I have ever worn and I love it. My parents will definitely hate it.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I think about all of the reasons I want to be a private investigator. I think about how happy it makes me and how overjoyed I am that for the first time in my life, I look forward to waking up in the morning, knowing I’m going to do something exciting. I play these points on a continuous loop in my head as I walk toward the front door.

The rumbling of a car engine in the drive gives me pause. I turn to see a familiar black Mustang pull up behind my car and dread pools in my stomach.

I watch in horror as Dallas gets out of the car and saunters over to me. Even in my moment of despair I don’t miss the way he takes me in from head to toe. I have an unnatural urge to touch my wavy hair, which Paige carefully sprayed into place, to make sure it still looks good.

“Well, don’t you clean up nice,” he says with a lopsided smile.

“What are you doing here?” I respond, whipping my head around to the front door to make sure my parents aren’t standing there. If I’m lucky, they didn’t hear the reverberation of his muffler coming up the drive and have no idea I’m here yet.

“I’m sorry; I thought you said we would be working together now,” he tells me casually as he slides his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I swung by your place so we could have ourselves a little meeting, and when I saw you pulling out, I figured I’d follow you. I’m guessing you just failed to mention to me that you’d be meeting with Miles Harper tonight.”

Oh, my God, this is not happening right now. Of all the times for him to be pompous and cocky . . .

“I can see by the shocked expression on your face that you didn’t think I’d find out about Miles. Nice work blacking out his name on the e-mails, by the way, but I was able to figure out that information all on my own.”

Maybe if I jump in my car right now, I can just tell my parents I had a flat tire and won’t be able to make it to dinner.

“I didn’t feel like wasting my time looking up his address. Figured you could handle that for me and I could just follow you.” Dallas whistles appreciatively as he looks at the front of my parents’ home. “No wonder you’re a lawyer. Must be a pretty nice paycheck.”

Perfect. And now he thinks the only reason I’m a lawyer is because it pays well. Won’t he be surprised when he finds out I was bred for this job and further manipulated into it with years of guilt?

Wait, what am I saying? He’s not going to find that out because he needs to leave right now. I need to get him away from here before they see him.

“This isn’t Miles Harper’s home; it’s where my parents live! I’m here for dinner with them, not going behind your back to meet with Miles,” I tell him, throwing my arms up in irritation.

I leave out the part about how I was fully planning on finding Miles after dinner. I’m too livid at his audacity right now to deal with semantics.

“Lorelei, what on earth are you doing standing out in the driveway? Mrs. Cooper has already set out the first course.”

I freeze at the sound of my mother’s voice.

“I wish you would have told me you were bringing a guest,” she complains.

I watch her turn in the entryway, rushing back into the house, and know she’s left to complain to my father about having to set an extra place, even if she hasn’t set a table herself my entire life.

“Well, honey, what’s for dinner?” Dallas says with a smile as he brushes past me and heads into the house.

“So, Mr. Osborne, how did you meet Lorelei?”

I pause with my fork halfway to my mouth and try not to let the apprehension I’m feeling show. This is not how I wanted this evening to go. I was supposed to have a nice, quiet evening with my parents and then sit them down after dinner and calmly tell them my dreams for the future have changed.

Now, I’m stuck sitting across the table from Dallas.

“Well, sir, we work—”

My fork clatters onto the plate and I quickly interrupt him. “Actually, Dad, it’s nothing too exciting. We met at the courthouse.”

Dallas looks at me questioningly and I try to tell him with my eyes to please keep quiet and not ruin things for me.

“Lorelei, elbows off the table, please,” my father reprimands.

I do as he asks and squeeze my hands together in my lap.

“So, you’re an attorney then?” my father continues.

I watch as he stares at the tattoos on Dallas’s arms peeking out from the edge of his T-shirt. It’s obvious my father is judging him and it raises my hackles.

“Uh, no. I’m not an attorney. I own my own private investigation firm, and lately I’ve been working as a part-time detective with the South Bend police department,” Dallas informs him.

He pushes his sleeves up higher on his arms and then crosses his arms in front of him. It’s almost like he’s daring my father to ask him about the tattoos.