I hesitate on the last step and eye the door, warily.

It isn’t that I’m afraid, mind you. I am just rather… leery.

C.D. De Lorenzo has absolutely no reason to like me, trust me, or even tolerate my presence on her porch.

I mentally review the rather hurried and nervous briefing Jinny gave me, fretting because she couldn’t accompany me, debating on whether or not to call in with some excuse and get out of her shift to go with me.

“No,” I’d told her firmly. “I don’t want you drug into it and there being some conflict between you and her over it. You work together. And I don’t want you rearranging shit with your division to baby sit me. I can handle it.”

Now on the last step I’m feeling rather iffy about that last part.

Driven. Ambitious. A workaholic and dedicated to the Division. Hard core law enforcement. Married once, recently divorced (Ye Olde Gossip Mill indicates ex- hubby had numerous affairs and pled the ol’ “You were never home! You didn’t make time for me!” bullshit line), no children because her work is her life and her baby. Focused and impassioned and frequently described with temperature references the exact opposite of those used in reference to me… words like cool, cold and icy. Huge stickler for the rules; and this is the part that’s worrying me.

Investigators who are gung ho law enforcement and consider the job their life do not take kindly to fellow officers who have recently done jail time, reportedly for being under the influence and in possession of illegal substances. Women who have dedicated themselves to the field of enforcing the law do not particularly like those who have taken the same oaths and signed the same pledges but see gray rather than black and curved dashes where they believe there should be straight, unwavering lines.

Translation: Investigator De Lorenzo will be somewhat less than thrilled to learn she’s been inadvertently sucked into my drama by an outlaw cyber punk and a commissioned police officer who associate in, as S’Phear calls it, The Blue Nowhere.

She’d been real clear about not liking me during our brief introduction at the Division, understandable because I had been called in to check out one of her own.

She has even more reason to dislike me now that said Division is media fodder courtesy of yours truly.

I’d be better with more sleep and rest under my belt, better with a few more days between me and jail time. But I’ve wasted four days already and S’Phear wouldn’t be sending me a computer if he did not have things planned he needs me in on so…

“Suck it up,” I tell myself forcefully and out loud and take the last three steps to the door in a rush.

I’ve got my hand lifted to knock when the door is flung open.

I’d think it was a mere accident of timing except she doesn’t look surprised and gazes at me silently before crossing her arms and leaning against the door jamb, behind the screen and glass storm door, waiting.

I go dizzy as the blood rushes to my head with embarrassment at the realization she’s been standing on the other side peering out the (Amazon level) window at me and I take a single faltering step backwards. I’d talked to myself even. Fuck.

I jump a little when she speaks.

“If you’re going to pass out, fall forward. That’s a twelve year old Ulster Gem Hybrid Tea Rose behind you. A bitch to grow.”

I bet. Judging by the thorns I can view from several feet above it, I’d say it’s a bitch period.

I put my feet apart and blink and clear my throat guardedly.

“I’m~~”

“I know who you are.”

Okay. Her voice is low and serene and there’s a rather sleepy sounding growl to it.

“Feel free to clue me in on why you’re here though,” she adds calmly and I blink a couple of times and then dig the email delivery notice from Dell out of my jeans and extend it. When she doesn’t open the door, but merely gazes at me nonplussed, I silently flip it open and hold it so she can read it through the upper glass half.

She’s silent as she reads, eyes flitting rapidly across the lines before they flick upwards to my face where she studies me mutely before lifting one brow in question and waits.

“It should be delivered today. I thought I should be here since I didn’t think you’d sign for it. Since you weren’t expecting it.”

The second brow joins the first.

“Did it ever occur to you I might not want your signature on a delivery receipt for a package to my house?”

Um, no. Of course my thinking is still not up to par yet. And that’s one of those straight black lines where I would see a wavy and undefined dotted gray version.

She’s gazing at me with a sort of vague chilly detachment and disinterest and I sort through a half dozen variations of plea and demand trying to drum one up I think she’ll go for, but draw a blank.

“Look,” I sigh, “I’m tired. Actually, I’m fucking whipped and all I want to do is sit here on your porch and wait for my package. You can go back in and shut the door~~”

“And my home address will still be on the delivery receipt for your package.”

Her voice is so calm and composed she sounds half asleep but there’s a dangerous little glint of blue in the half mast eyes.

“It may not even be addressed to me, I don’t know. It may be addressed to you.”

“In which case it would be my package. “

I jam a hand up through my hair in frustration before I remember my head is bruised and tender and wince, looking down the street as if the UPS truck is going to lumber around the corner any moment. Maybe I can move the Passat down the street and then run to the truck when it arrives and do some sort of quick claiming of the package before it’s even actually off loaded. It’s not like she’ll sprint out and try to beat me to it to check the name on the address and get a glimpse of the packing slip for some investigative reason.

Right?

I turn warily when I hear the click of the storm door being unlocked and try to return the icy blue stare without blinking; two or three seconds of that and I’m not worried about maintaining a bad ass stare so much as I am about my neck freezing up. She’s got to be around six feet in her socks and to add insult to injury she’s not one of those timidly tall women who hunch their shoulders and neck apologetically and wear the lowest heeled shoes possible. De Lorenzo’s fearlessly added three inches to her height and towers a good seven inches above me and I’m in my boots. She’s wearing her shoulder holster complete with a very serious Glock 21 .45 auto and in true Ice Maiden fashion, a turtle neck, in pale wintry blue. She’s got the cop thing going on too where she takes the one-more- than-necessary step into my space, treating me to a little nonverbal intimidation.

Fortunately, I’ve read all the intimidation handbooks too and plant my feet apart, refusing to give up an inch, looking up (and up and up) as unsmiling and stony faced as she is.

There’s twenty seconds or so of silence while we glare at one another~~ Then I’m startled to see one corner of her mouth turn upwards in what might be the prelude to a smile. At the same time the door creaks a little as she opens it wider, then waves a languid hand to gesture me inside.

“It came at the crack of fucking dawn,” she tells me.

“It’s here? Already?” I sound like a rather breathless Minnie Mouse as I instinctively and totally unnecessarily duck to go beneath her arm and clear my throat in annoyance.

“Yeah. I tried to call Jinny but she didn’t answer. And I wasn’t real sure this was something I wanted McCafferty in on; what looks to be a Dell computer delivered to you at my house.”

There’s a note of mild irritation in her voice and I glance at her and launch into a rather prepared speech I’ve thought up for this occasion on the way over in Weaver’s vehicle. De Lorenzo lifts a hand immediately and shakes her head indicating non-interest and I blink once or twice trying to switch mental gears. Coffee. I should have had more coffee. She’s way more alert and awake than I am. Of course she doesn’t have to lean back from the waist to maintain eye contact either. It’s making me a little dizzy.

I clear my throat and mentally stretch my five feet six inches to their maximum vertical limit.

“So… where is it?”

“Not so fast,” she says congenially and waves a hand at an armchair. It’s overstuffed yet crisp in a pale creamy floral pattern; unless the chair was delivered a half hour previous to my arrival, De Lorenzo is pet-less as well as childless. I cast a surreptitious glance over the room as I lower myself but there’s no box in sight.

There is, however, that day’s Chronicle laid out on the gleaming and well polished coffee table situated precisely between the creamy floral sofa and the chair I am apprehensively perched on the edge of. It is opened of course to the story, edges neatly folded, crease retained and exact.

The words “anal” and “obsessive” pop into my head and I glance up and find myself being coolly observed from an elevation I can only reach standing on the second rung of a ladder.

Fuck it, I think and snatch the paper up. How bad can it be?

Across from me there’s the whisper of material as De Lorenzo sinks smoothly onto the sofa after a brief pause and a rather pointed clearing of the throat.

“Bad,” she says calmly, unintentionally echoing Weaver’s exact words in reference to the same thing and I do a mental hand whack to my forehead about my unfortunate habit of speaking aloud before my eyes are lured to the words “deranged” and “unconscionable” in Chandler’s quote and “regrettable” and “unfortunate” in McCafferty’s.

I don’t even try to stifle my agonized reaction.

“Fuck…” I hiss and hear the sofa cushions echo the sound as De Lorenzo shifts eight feet of legs to a more comfortable position and releases what sounds like a peeved sigh.

I’d look up to gauge her reaction except I am riveted now to the photograph; it’s standard black and white and rather large and displays me maybe fifteen seconds after my elbow made contact with Massey’s skull. I’m face down with what looks like a battalion of plain clothes and uniforms behind me, guns leveled. Someone’s already bent over me and my arms are behind my back which is arched slightly due to the knee at it’s base and my face is tilted up and visible and the expression on it…

I groan out loud and grimace, looking up at De Lorenzo and shaking my head.

“I Was a Teenage Maniac,” I intone in grave 1940’s movie voice-over mode.

“Yeah,” she says succinctly. “Exactly. Can you blame me for hesitating in getting pulled into your shit here?”

I shake my head and toss the paper back onto the coffee table, then sigh and scoot downwards in the chair, stretching my legs out and gaze at my toes.

“Nope.”

“Care to explain to me how I got pulled into your shit given that until today we’ve exchanged less than twenty words?”

I pluck at the denim in the general area of my knees and sink lower into the armchair, sighing.

Fucking S’Phear. Why couldn’t he send it to Legaspi or McCafferty or Ramirez even? Why drag yet another person into this mess and why this one?

“Cosmic joke?” I try and she quirks one eye brow at me, definitely not amused.

“A really bad cosmic joke?”

She blinks once, very slowly then clears her throat and leans back, crossing one knee over the other and threading her fingers together over the cap of it, gazing at me solemnly.

“The flippant and sarcastic comments might amuse Exstead and keep Ramirez at arm’s length but having been married for several years I’m immune. So let’s just skip that part and get straight to where you tell me what’s going on here and how I got dragged into it.”

I can feel my eyes doing the reflexive where-do-I-start-and-how-much-do-I-lie flicker and dance to the up and right on the wall over her shoulder and then remember that of course she is a cop and she really didn’t do anything to deserve getting tugged into this and I sigh hard and force my gaze to hers.

“Before I tell you, could you assure me you won’t take the information and use it to attempt to open a separate investigation into someone?”

The blonde head tilts slightly to one side and she blinks. “Is this someone you?”

“No.”

“Is this a member of my Division?”

“No. This is an outside someone who has been helping me.”

She snorts briefly.

“Well, good to know you’ve had help to screw this up.”

I eye her for a moment, unblinking and then shove myself to my feet with a nod.

“Gotcha. I’d just like to collect my package now and I will be out of your hair, Investigator.”

I think the look she’s giving me is cool amusement. One hand is lifted so that her forefinger runs up the side of one cheekbone and the elbow is casually propped on the back of her sofa before she drops it and quirks a brow at me.

“Sit back down, Sergeant. “

I shake my head and make a sound which is something between a grunt and a laugh as I swing a leg over the ottoman and take a few strides into the small hallway there and glance into a pine floored kitchen area.

Nada.

Ditto for the room on the right which contains a highly polished dining table I’m slightly surprised to see piled high with folders and envelopes and stacks of rather untidy papers. I might have to revise my initial assessment of an anal neat freak.

But definitely not the part about her being one Ice Maiden pain in the ass; I spin back around and literally bounce off her. My forehead ricochets off her sternum so hard I think the ribbed material probably got embedded between my eyebrows and I can feel the frown crashing them downwards as fast and furiously as the blush that’s beating up into my cheeks.

So of course I glare at her and plant both hands on my hips in fury.

“What do I have to do to get my package, De Lorenzo? You want to arm wrestle for it or maybe draw down on one another? Fastest gun wins? What?”

There’s no mistake this time that she’s amused. The grin lights up her entire face.

“Although I’m tempted to answer ‘all of the above’ I think I’ll settle for a mere polite answer to my question, Mighty Mouse. Especially since you don’t appear to be armed.”

Mighty Mouse?

She doesn’t even stay to see if it pissed me off enough to throw a punch; I’m presented with her back as she casually turns and saunters into the kitchen, leaving me spluttering at seven feet of empty air before I stomp after her.

“And you can stick the temper tantrum into storage with the sarcasm,” she says without turning to look at me the moment my boots clomp onto the pine. “I’m immune to that as well. Beer? Or wine?” She’s standing poised at the open refrigerator door, brows lifted, waiting, dimpling slightly in amusement at my consternation.

“Beer.”

“Ah. I figured you for a beer person.” She twists the cap off before handing it to me, smiling slightly.

I take the brown bottle and think I’m prepared to be angry again but she’s not looking so what‘s the point?

“And you’re wine. White wine.” I say and she slides blue eyes to meet mine and waggles a finger at me as she turns to withdraw a bottle from a black wrought iron rack attached to the bottom side of pale pine cabinets.

“Touché. Although my ex-husband would probably cringe to hear you refer to this as a mere ‘white wine’.” She rummages in a drawer briefly for a corkscrew and with her back to me pronounces carefully, “Corvo Duca Di Salaparuta Bianco.”

“Gesundheit,” I say as the wine gurgles out and she turns, lifting the glass a little in a toast and then leans back against the counter’s edge, perusing me over the top of it.

“So… there’s an unknown person who has been ‘helping’ you, although that’s a scary thought in and of itself, and who has sent you a package at my address. Are we anywhere near to being on the same page?”

I gulp icy Dark Heineken appreciatively and nod.

“And you would like me to reassure you that I won’t open any investigation into this person. Which of course leads me to assume an investigation would be something I might possibly be interested in pursuing.”

I could try to argue or protest but fuck it. She’s either in or out and she’s got the fucking computer either way and damn her, she’s bigger than me.

“That about covers it,” I say.

She nods and takes another small sip, then twirls the glass slightly and gazes into the depths of it in bemusement.

“We bought this particular bottle two years ago while in Italy. We were pretending to be rediscovering one another on a second honeymoon.” She pauses briefly before adding, “He was actually more intent on discovering a few Italian waitresses for the first time.” She snorts slightly. “First time for them, of course.”

For one second the automatic ‘I’m sorry’ dangles itself on the tip of my tongue but I swallow it back.

She’s not asking for sympathy.

And she doesn’t look unhappy.

I look up after another swallow of beer and find I’m being avidly perused with eyes which from even this distance are electric blue and sharp. She leans back and gazes at me, crossing her arms over her waist and echoing the body language with her feet as she casually rocks one ankle over the other and sways slightly in thought.

“You have my word that I won’t pursue any investigation into whoever is helping you if I have yours on two things.”

I can feel the ‘oh shit’ look as it spreads across my face but I take a deep breath and shrug slightly, waiting.

“First that you’re delving into all this with the intention of clearing Jinny of any wrong doing because you know beyond any doubt that she is.”

“Absolutely,” I say rather loudly and more emphatically than intended and feel the heat rising into my face as I struggle to meet the look I’m being given.

I feel a momentary sense of bewildered elation as I watch her silently analyze what the combination of my enthusiasm and the blush mean and the blue eyes dip to half mast slightly as she digests the piece of information I’ve unwittingly handed over.

“Okay,” she says, finally, nodding to herself. “That’s good. I like that.”

I wait for a moment and then shrug again, asking, “And?”

There’s a moment of silence as she apparently absorbs further internal information while studying me candidly and I struggle to not look away even as the blood rushing to my head meets the Heineken drifting to my brain and combine to make me light headed and more than slightly flustered at the non- verbal turn the conversation has taken.

“And?” I prod her, voice breaking slightly and she blinks and graces me with a dazzling, heart-stopping grin before lifting the glass slightly and winking at me over the top of it.

“And next time I get to bust Massey’s nuts.”


END OF FORTY-SIX