4 Shot Off The Presses (21 page)

“You go on girl,” the guy drawled, clearly pandering. His southern accent sounded real, even though he was clearly turning on the southern charm just for my benefit.

I smiled, despite myself. I turned to climb into the limo but was momentarily distracted by the sound of fireworks and a sharp breeze that moved past my left cheek when I tried to duck down.

I pulled back in surprise. “Is someone lighting off fireworks?”

I turned to the guys behind me and was shocked to see that they’d all hit the ground behind the limo. The wall where they had just been standing, though, had a big hole in the middle of it that I could swear hadn’t been there a few minutes before.

“What’s going on?” I started to straighten up but the blond guy had crawled over to me and was dragging me back down on the ground next to him.

“They’re shooting at us girl! Get your fool head down.”

The Ferndale cops were on the scene in less than five minutes. My level of intoxication had gone from a hundred to zero – okay, twenty – in that same amount of time. While, in general, I disdain police officers on moral ground – they’re usually jerks to me – I had to admit that the Ferndale cops were a different breed.

“Ma’am, you should really sit down. You’ve had a shock.”

I glanced at the young police officer, who had insisted we go back inside of Pompeii for questioning, curiously.

“I’m fine.”

“You were shot at,” the officer corrected me. “You could have died. If you need to vomit, I’ll understand.”

I glanced around the bar, which had emptied out pretty quickly once the police had shown up. “I’m fine. I’ll just keep drinking water. I don’t think vomit will be an issue.”

A different police officer, one who had a few more years on him, picked his way through the crowd and across the bar – which the cleaning staff were busily trying to scour – and headed towards me.

“I’m Detective Mohan,” the officer introduced himself. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I really didn’t see,” I said honestly. “I was getting in the car when I thought I heard fireworks. I felt something kind of fly by my face and then the next thing I know the guys behind us were yelling about being shot at.”

“There’s a slug in the wall,” the officer said carefully. “What we’re trying to ascertain is if you were the one being shot at or if they were?”

“It was probably me,” I admitted.

“Why do you say that?”

I rolled my tongue in my mouth as I pondered the question. In the end, I told the detective everything – well, mostly everything. There was no sense of lying, I realized. My ties to the freeway shooter story were going to be pretty easy to dig up. When I was done, I waited for Detective Mohan’s response. To his credit, he handled things a lot better than most of the cops I knew would have.

“You think this was the freeway shooter?”

“Who else?” I shrugged.

“Maybe the shooter was aiming for the men that were behind you? There are still people that dislike the gay lifestyle.” I could tell Detective Mohan was trying to feel me out – to see if I was a kook or something.

“If this had happened in Macomb County, I might buy that,” I said. “This is Ferndale, though. It’s very gay friendly.”

“And what were you doing at a gay bar?”

“Bachelorette party,” I replied simply.

Detective Mohan nodded, like what I had just told him was normal. Maybe, for Ferndale, it was. “That would mean someone followed you here from Macomb County?”

“It’s not like it’s that far,” I said.

“No but, if you’re right, you would have been a specific target and not someone just randomly gay bashing.”

I considered the statement. “Which one is worse?”

Detective Mohan just shook his head. “I have no idea.”

I took a swig from the bottle of water on the table next to me and glanced around the room as Detective Mohan talked to another officer a few feet away. Carly was trying to calm her mother and Harriet down because both were near hysterics. Lexie was staying close to the far wall, eyeing the cops that passed her distrustfully. Even though I was fairly sure she wasn’t holding tonight, I don’t think she was going to look at law enforcement with anything but suspicion any time soon.

“Is she in here? Where is she?”

I swung around when I recognized the voice. Jake was here. He must have been notified as soon as it happened for him to get here so quickly. It had only been about forty-five minutes. Jake strode into the room like he owned it, authority swirling around him, despite the fact that he was in simple jeans and a sweatshirt. His eyes scanned the room with a hard purpose, only softening when he saw me sitting at the table alone. He moved towards me swiftly, Derrick close on his heels.

“Are you alright?”

I didn’t answer him right away. The third figure that had walked into the room with Derrick and Jake was something of a surprise to me. Eliot.

“I’m fine,” I said.

Eliot was by my side in seconds, his hands on my arm – gripping my elbow tightly. “Were you hit?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I didn’t even realize what was happening until it was over.”

“Someone took a shot at you and you didn’t notice?” Derrick’s face was pale. If I didn’t know better, I would think he had been worried. “Where’s Lexie?”

I gestured towards the far wall and watched Derrick move towards his little sister. They had a torturous relationship, but Derrick loved Lexie  – almost as much as he wanted to throttle her most days.

“Exactly what happened?” Jake asked Detective Mohan. He listened as Mohan recounted what he knew and then turned to me angrily. “I thought you were going to be careful?”

“It was a bachelorette party,” I argued. “We went in a limo. How was I supposed to know that someone would follow me?”

“Because you’re you,” Jake shot back.

Eliot was being largely silent, but I could feel the anger radiating off of him. I squeezed his hand reassuringly and then turned on Jake. “You act like this is my fault?”

“Whose fault is it?” Jake challenged.

“We don’t know that they were aiming at me,” I said.

“We don’t know they weren’t,” Eliot said quietly. “Odds are, you were the target.”

“What odds? It could have been someone randomly gay bashing.” I knew I was grasping at straws, but I didn’t like the look of helplessness that was washing over Eliot’s face. If he’d been intent on babysitting before, this was going to send him over the edge. And I’d been having such a good day before this.

“Do you believe that? Really?” Eliot’s voice was calm, but I could tell he was straddling a precipice here. What he really wanted to do was sling me over his shoulder and lock me in his apartment until this was all over with.

“There were a group of men standing right behind her,” Detective Mohan said. I could tell he was trying to help me.

“How close was the bullet to her?” Jake asked Mohan pointedly.

Mohan looked uncomfortable under Jake’s scrutiny, so I answered for him. “Not close at all.”

Mohan raised his eyebrows at my flagrant lie. Eliot didn’t miss the gesture. “How close was the bullet to her?”

“She felt it breeze by her cheek,” Mohan replied, averting his apologetic green eyes from my accusatory blue.

Eliot’s grip tightened on my arm. “You felt it breeze by your cheek?”

“It was probably just the wind.”

Jake shot me a disappointed look. “You must be tired. That was one of your weaker lies.”

“I’m probably still drunk,” I retorted. “Give a few more minutes to sober up and I’ll come up with something better.”

Derrick was back and he’d brought Lexie with him. “I’m sending Lexie back with Carly and everyone else.”

Jake nodded in agreement. “Make her stay the night at Carly’s house. Don’t send her back to Avery’s place.”

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“Because someone might try again at your house,” Jake said honestly.

Lexie’s face was white and she didn’t put up an argument when Derrick led her back to Carly. After a brief conversation, Carly glanced at me and then left with Lexie. I knew she had questions, but she was smart enough not to ask them now.

Once they were gone, Derrick turned to Jake. “So what do we do with Avery?”

“I think we should put her in a safe house,” Jake said, never turning to me as he spoke.

“That’s not going to happen,” I scoffed.

Eliot glanced down at me. “If we all think that’s the best way to do this, then that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

“If all three of you think that’s the best thing for me then that’s what’s going to happen? I don’t think so.”

Jake ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Do you want to die?”

“I’m not convinced I was the target.” That was a lie, but there was no way I was going to go and sit in some safe house for God knows how long.

“Don’t be a pain,” Derrick ordered. “This is serious.”

“You think I don’t know this is serious?” I practically exploded. Jake and Eliot looked taken aback by my sudden fury. “I know this is serious. I also know I have a job to do and I’m not going to let you three – no matter how noble you think your intentions are – dictate how I live my life!”

“We’re trying to protect you,” Derrick countered. “Have you taken that into consideration?”

“Have you considered that, if someone really wants to hurt me, that they might hurt someone else if they can’t find me?”

“Oh, so now you’re doing this for the greater good?” Derrick shot back incredulously. “You’re unbelievable. You’ve been like this since you were a kid. You’re going to get your way, no matter what you have to do to get it. This is just like the time that you told grandpa that you saw news reports about a rabid yeti because you didn’t want to go camping.”

“You can’t prove that there’s not a yeti out there,” I muttered. “And I was five. Pick a more recent example.”

“Okay, how about the time that you were late for school because you were smoking pot with that town loser Johnny Frank and you told the principal that someone mugged you on your way to school and stole your book bag?”

“That could have happened, too.”

“And yet you didn’t want to file a police report because you believed in giving people second chances?”

I hated that Derrick knew all of my embarrassing secrets. I really hated that he announced them to everyone whenever the whim hit.

“Yes, fine, you got me,” I rambled angrily. “I tell lies when I don’t want to do something.”

“It’s a crime to tell a lie to a cop,” Derrick said cagily.

“Well then, lock me up officer,” I replied snidely, holding my wrists out in front of me. “Slap on the cuffs.”

Derrick looked like he was about to do just that.

“Just remember, I know a few things about you, too,” I seethed. “And not just about how you used to wear dresses in college.”

“That was a fraternity prank!”

“Then why did you do it in high school, too?”

“I didn’t do it in high school!” Derrick was enraged now. “You just told people that because you thought it was funny.”

“You did, too, do it in high school. I have pictures. You were wearing that purple dress I had to make for home
ec.”

“That doesn’t count,” Derrick replied. “You had two hours to make that dress and my mom made me model it. It’s not my fault that you made it so small that no one else could fit into it. I sat in that thing for two hours while you purposely poked me with needles every chance you got.”

I smirked. That was a funny memory. “I’ll put that picture up on the internet,” I threatened him.

Jake decided to step in. “You don’t have any pictures of me in a dress,” he reminded me. “You can’t threaten me.”

“I know your secrets, too,” I warned him. “I was there the night you got arrested for peeing on the big fish downtown.”

“That story is public,” Jake said. “What else have you got?”

Crap. He was right. “I know that you used to practice kissing on a stuffed frog,” I said triumphantly.

Jake’s cheeks reddened, while Eliot regarded him curiously. “You kissed a frog?”

“I was twelve,” Jake answered. “She told me that everyone practiced kissing on stuffed animals – and I believed her.”

Eliot shook his head, smiling despite the surreal nature of the situation. “You were really a mean kid, weren’t you?”

“Mean? He was just an easy mark.”

Jake blew out a sigh. “Fine. I’m not going to make you go to a safe house, but you’re going to have to agree to some rules.”

Uh-oh. “What rules?”

“You’re not to go anywhere alone.” I opened my mouth to protest but Jake shut me down. “No exceptions. I’ll throw you in jail. I will. Whether the charges stick or not.”

“Then I’ll write a story about wrongful imprisonment,” I shot back.

“I don’t care,” Jake said. “Go ahead. At least you’ll be alive.”

I turned to Eliot for support, but one look at him told me he agreed with Jake. “Fine,” I grumbled.

Jake turned to Eliot. “You’ll take her to your place for tonight?”

Eliot nodded. “I’ll take her to and from work, too.”

“What about while I’m actually at work,” I asked sarcastically. “Who is going to chauffer me around town then?”

“I’ll talk to Marvin,” Derrick interjected. “He’s not much, but he drives like a madman. No one will be able to get a clean shot at her if he’s behind the wheel.”

“I’m not driving around with Marvin,” I protested. “He’s more dangerous than a sniper.”

“Then you’ll stay at the office,” Jake said forcefully. “I’ll call Fish and clear that with him – and he’ll agree with me. You know he will.”

“Which one of you is going to go to the bathroom with me?”

It was meant as a rhetorical question, but all three men shuddered when I uttered it. Well, at least I won that point.