Human Hieroglyphix - Dex & Leila (30 page)

I shot him the 'Leila Death Ray' but again he was impervious and just kept smiling. 

I kept my mouth shut.

"Not willing to tell, huh?  Okay, guess it's up to me."  And I watched as he turned back to our friends on the other side of the table.  "Our very upright and straight-laced professor here told me she was going to be 'tossing dogs' if Edie ever tried to make her share."

Which, of course, had Jake practically falling out the booth from laughter.

Caitlin looked a bit confused but was still smiling.

"Okay, so I know now that I was supposed to say 'throw dogs' to keep up my street cred, but when you tried to call me selfish later, what happened then, huh?" I countered.

"Yeah, you got me, babe.  I was teasing her about her becoming selfish since she didn't seem to want any more than two in our bed.  She brought up someone that has asked her out and said now that she thought about it, it might be alright."  Dex raised his hands in surrender.  "I had to call Uncle, Dude."

Jake nodded his understanding even as his shoulders gave evidence to his still unrestrained glee, as Cait looked to him, her man, for info.

So I just had to get it in, just had to say it.

"And what were my final words to that conversation, honey?  Do you remember?" I asked trying to look as innocent as possible. 

Dex leaned down and gave me a nose slide.

"And this is the God's honest truth, too." Dex explained to our friends, before exclaiming, "Boo-yah" and doing the karate chop movement.

All four of us were laughing our asses off and it took a
long
time for that laughter to stop.

*.*.*.*.*

He was standing next to the bike with Jake, while Cait and Leila were leaning against Jake's Kia.

"Your woman's got a wicked sense of humor, man." Jake said with a chin lift.

"Yeah, she does, but what she told you two in there was pretty cleaned up compared to what Edie was actually saying when I came in."

"It's a bitch, bro, when your past comes up tryin' to fuck with your present."

"You got that right," Dex said with a nod.

"Had some of that shit happen at the beginnin' with Cait.  Sucked.  But it was some of the shit I did all on my own that almost did us in."

"Yeah, I've done that myself.  I think she thought I led the pack when it came to acting like a dick."

"So, you two okay now?"

"Think we've got it sorted."

"Glad for you, bro."

"Me, too."

*.*.*.*.*

I was just finishing my make up when Dex brought me my coffee in a travel mug. We had decided to stay at my place after our time with Cait and Jake.

"What's your day look like?" Dex asked.

"Just need to finish packing my office and get my assessment from Dr. Weatherby and then I'm done for the summer."

"What do you usually do when school's over?"

I stopped and looked at his reflection in the mirror.  What did I do in the summer when I wasn't teaching?

"This is going to sound really weird, but outside of reading some books for fun and doing research on whatever paper I was writing, I don't remember.  I usually go to my mom's in Ohio around the 4th for a couple of weeks but outside of that I don't remember anything."

It was true.  My summers in the past were so boring that I couldn't bring them to mind.

I watched as Dex moved behind me and wrapped an arm around my waist.

"Want to go with me to Sturgis in August?" He asked my reflection in the mirror.

"Sure, if you're sure I won't be a distraction," I said as I began sweeping mascara on my eyelashes.

He was quiet as he watched my reflection.

"Do you make the mouth movement because your gunking up your eyelashes or is it the other way around?"

I stopped and just looked at him.

"Just sayin'." He was smiling so I knew he was trying to ruffle my feathers.

Mouth movement, indeed, I thought watching him walk back into the bedroom.

That is until I switched to the other eye and caught a glimpse of my mouth in the mirror.  He was right, I held my mouth in a little 'O' shape when I put on my mascara.

Good to know.

Dex walked me out to the garage and gave me a kiss to last me the few hours we'd be apart.  I got in the car and hit the button for the garage door and saw, as the garage door ascended, him grab the hose on the side of the house preparing to wash his motorcycle.  I gave him a cheery wave as I backed slowly down the drive.

"Babe!  Wait!" I heard him yell and stopped.

"Pull back in the driveway, Leila," he instructed, so I did.  He was standing on the driver side of the car, his eyes roaming.

"Shut the car off, and get out, okay?"  His voice told me that he was not happy about whatever he saw on the car.

I did exactly what he said and saw that my Acura had been keyed.

But whoever had done it wasn't content with just random scratches. 

No, they had been much more inventive and had decorated my car with the top four common slang terms for women you don't like. 

Slut, bitch, skank and whore. 

And all four words adorned both the driver and passengers side, with extra emphasis on the hood and included the 'C' word, as in texting, C U Next Tuesday.

After making a quick circle around my car, Dex pulled his phone out of his back pocket.  'Police' he mouthed at me, as he connected with them and stated the situation.

"Said they could have someone out within an half hour," he said when he finished the call and made his way back to me, rubbing my back.

"How'd they get in, Dex?  It had to have been done last night but you saw me unlock the deadbolt on the door to the garage when I went to get in my car."

We both looked back at the garage still open with its door rolled up.

"Leila, look at that.  There're footprints in the dust on the floor for the passenger side."

He was right. 

At this hour of the morning, the sun was hitting my garage at just the right angle enabling us to see the footprints on the side of the garage that we didn't use.  On the rare occasion when we drove my car, we always pulled it out of the garage first, then one of us got in on the passenger side.

Dex used his camera to take a couple of pictures of both the footprints and my car with the etched words while we waited for Grantham P.D. to show. 

I glanced around the neighborhood as I waited in the driveway.  The only movement I could see was Mrs. G peeking between her mini-blinds.

Officer Matthews showed up with his partner, Officer Reid and they took our statements.  Since Matthews was the one that came out when Dex had the break in and destruction done to his Jeep, he did a little bit more questioning and walking around making notes, especially when Dex pointed out the footprints.

"We've got a call in to Detective Pierson because there's definitely a connection here but he's trained to put all the threads together," he said, studiously avoiding the arm Dex had wrapped around my waist.

"Will I be able to drive my car?  I have to get to the University."

"Ah, sorry, no, Dr. McCarthy.  At least not right now.  Detective Pierson may have to do finger prints on your vehicle, so it's best if you just left it here."

"Let me call Jake, babe, and see if he can hook you up with a rental.  And if that doesn't work I'll take you on my bike and call Gabe to see if he can cover me for a couple of hours."

I hadn't really been that worried when I saw the words etched into my car. 

But the talk of bringing in a detective and linking Dex's car damage to mine, I found that I was more than kind of shaken.

I think Dex could see that I was starting to move from concern to worried to oh my freaking
God
.

 He came back and looped an arm around me as he finished his conversation with Jake.

"Says that he'll have Trails bring the Mustang out within the hour, so I think we're more than covered, princess.  And you're gonna love the 'Stang, it is a sah-weet ride."  He said with a squeeze.

"Although," I heard him say in a soft voice with his mouth next to my ear, "if you
really
need to take your mind off the car, we can always see if Matthews has a break soon..."

I couldn't help but laugh at that. 

I was pretty sure that Dex thought two was enough to play and was only giving me grief to lighten my mood.

"What time's your meeting, Elle?"

"At two, but I was hoping to have my office cleared by then so that I could be completely done after my assessment."

"How much stuff do you still need to move?  You think we'll need to borrow Benny's truck?"

And we tried to come up with a work-around as we waited in the driveway for the delivery of the rental and for Detective Pierson. 

We were hoping that Trails would be able to take my car directly back to Skeet's but I didn't know how Trails, a huge mountain of a man with a pony tail and ZZ Top beard, would feel driving a car that had been deeply etched with the words slut, bitch, skank and whore. 

I could figure that more than a few men would feel their manhood had taken a hit and for others it wouldn't even be a blip on their radar.

As luck would have it, Trails and the detective showed up at the same time and after the two of them had made a circle around the car, we all went into my kitchen.  I put another pot of coffee on as Dex sat with them at the dining room table.

As I sat down, I saw Trails' gaze move around the rooms.

"I remember when old man Simpson had this house.  You've done it up real nice, Leila," Trails rumbled and gave me a small smile almost hidden by the amount of hair on his face.

I smiled back.  It's true that I'd had to do a lot of work to bring the house up to twenty first century standards, but I'd tried really hard to keep the arts and crafts architecture in mind when I did the renovations.

"Just a few questions, Dr. McCarthy, so we can try and find who might behind this," Detective Pierson said.

"Sure, but please call me Leila."

I saw Dex get up to handle the coffee and turned my eyes back to the Detective Pierson.

"So, as I understand it, your car was in the garage with the overhead door down and secured and the door that leads to it from inside the house had the deadbolt engaged from late afternoon until you got in it around nine this morning.  Is that correct?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"Do you know of anyone with any reason to carve those words into your car?"

"No one comes to mind, sir."

Jake was distributing the coffee in my mismatched collector mugs and even brought over the sugar and creamer with spoons, letting each of us doctor our own.

"What about you, Dex.  Anybody with a grudge against you, or against the two of you?"

I saw Dex shake his head as he reached for my hand.  I hadn't realized that I was shaking until I felt it in his grip.

"No, I can't think of anyone," he said.

"Well, you two have sure pissed
somebody
off," Trails growled.  "Either that or they don't like seein' a Jeep and an Acura on the road."  His words broke up some of the tension in the room and I began to settle myself.

Detective only had a few more questions and Dex had explained about the footprints before the detective asked him to email him the pictures from Dex's cellphone. 

We all filed outside and Trails and the detective had a few words off to the side before Trails came back to me to trade car keys.

"Says that I can take it to back to Skeet's and he'll have somebody come down and look for fingerprints."

"You gonna be okay riding in a car with pussy comments on it?"  Dex asked as he slipped an arm around me with a grin after transferring the unfolded boxes from my car to the cherry red Mustang.

"I'd
love
to have somebody say somethin'," Trails replied.  "I'm in the mood to throw down and I'd love to have some punk, muthafucka give me an excuse."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Detective Pierson mumbled as he moved away from our group and went back to the garage.

We watched as Trails left in my car.

"I can stick around, Elle, until he's finished." Dex said pointing his chin to the detective.  "Benny says that traffic in the shop is slow this morning so you can go ahead and take off, do what you need to do before your meeting.

Is it me or is my fella the most amazing man?

Chapter Twenty Eight

I was able to finishing packing everything up in my office and made ready to be loaded into Benny's van tomorrow morning.  Glancing at the time reflected on my cellphone, I grabbed my purse, locked my office door and made my way to Dr. Weatherby's office.