Bad To The Bone (25 page)

"I have one more day off. I can cover your
ass until then."

I thought about it. The smell of the orange
groves, the midnight blue of the sky, the sharp pinpricks of stars
all made me feel dangerously reckless. A flash of freedom surged
through me. No one knew where I was. I had just escaped danger, if
not death. I could do whatever I wanted and no one would ever
know.

And there were surely worse things in life
than sitting across a dinner table, staring at Bill Butler.

"How close do you plan to cover my ass?" I
asked.

"As closely as you'd like."

"Buy me dinner first?"

"Deal." His smile was incredibly effective.
My mind jumped straight to dessert and beyond in a flash. Perhaps
the waitress would give us a doggie bag of whipped cream and
honey?

Still, I hesitated. This moment had been a
long time in coming. Some things are worth waiting for, and some
things are only worth the wait. I hoped Bill fell into the first
category.

"How do we know that guy isn't parked
somewhere hoping for a second shot at us?" I asked, nodding toward
the deserted road.

"Guys," he said. "There were two of
them."

I knew then who they were. I just didn't
know what they were.

"Same guys who were watching your
ex-husband's house?" Bill suggested.

"Bobby told you that, too?"

He nodded. "Like I said, he thinks you're in
over your head."

"Is that why you're here?"

"Maybe." His smile grew wider. "Maybe not.
It's mighty damn cold up there in Raleigh."

"And you think it's going to be a lot hotter
down here?"

"I'm hoping it will."

"What do you think?" I asked. "Do you think
I'm in over my head?"

"Definitely."

He leaned in the door and kissed me, his
mouth hard against mine. I've got nothing against those kinds of
surprises. I kissed him back. God bless gunfire and its aftermath.
Cordite is a true aphrodisiac.

"You want to know what I really think?" he
said when we surfaced for air. "I think we should make the most of
being out in the middle of nowhere, alone together. Ex-wives and
ex-husbands be damned."

We drove straight to the restaurant next
door to his hotel. I'm a girl who likes to plan ahead. Bill
followed at a distance in his Corvette and proclaimed that I was
tail-free when we arrived at our destination. Whoever the two men
were, they had called it a night.

We had a drink in the bar area first,
surrounded by the excited hum of businessmen on the prowl and the
artificial laughter of young girls on the make. My bar stool had an
upholstered back and the drink in front of me was enormous. Life
wasn't going to get any better.

I'd ordered a gin-and-tonic, but all I could
taste was the gin. It burned a line down my throat and into my gut,
releasing a surge of relaxation that invaded my bloodstream in
warm, overlapping waves. It promised the kind of liquid abandon
that man invented alcohol for.

Bill was drinking bourbon and we were both
really into our drinks, in a rare "who gives a shit if the rest of
the world attends AA, go ahead and call us slushes, because we are
really needing this" sort of way.

In other words, I was getting drunk as a
skunk. That would teach me to skip meals. "I'm going to eat half a
cow," I decided, raising my drink in salute.

"Save the other half for me." Bill raised
his glass in return. "I feel better already, Casey. You're a great
tonic, you know that? You're always so full of life. No moping
around for you."

"Oh, hell," I admitted. "I mope. I just mope
in private. It's so much more satisfyingly pitiful that way."

He laughed, then stared at the bottom of his
drink. "It's taken us a long time to get here," he said.

"I know," I agreed. "We sure can be
assholes."

"At least we have something in common."

By the time we were done laughing, our table
was ready. We talked business as we waited for dinner, true cop
foreplay: discuss the case, drop an innuendo and retreat, take a
drink and talk more shop. It made me giddy to be wallowing in my
favorite passions all at once—sex, alcohol and crime.

"Are you going to tell your friend on the
St. Pete force about the guys following me?" I asked. "They could
be the dealers they're looking for."

Bill shook his head. "They could be, but
then I'd be stuck at the station looking at photos for hours.
They'd ask about my encounter with them. Right now those two guys
don't know who the hell took potshots at them. I'd like to keep it
that way. I've got better things to do."

Our eyes locked and we smiled at each other,
alcohol making us brave. The waitress interrupted us right in the
middle of our unspoken fantasy. Instead of strangling her on the
spot, like I wanted to, I ordered another round.

"You're trying to get me drunk," Bill
accused me.

"It's not like we have to drive home. So
long as we can stagger next door, we're safe."

"In that case, I need to get drunk," he
agreed, not missing a beat.

"Jeff is in real trouble," I told him after
our fresh drinks arrived. "Those guys are watching his house to see
if he shows up. I can feel it. He may be telling the truth when he
says some girl burned him for his stash and money. Maybe those guys
thought I was her?"

"You think they're hoping you'll lead them
to Jeff?"

I nodded. "What a jerk. He must owe them a
lot of money." I shook my head. "I don't know why I ever married
that guy."

"You see," Bill pointed out as our food
arrived, "you're proof of my theory. Love is an impermanent state
of mind."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning we'd all be better off just
admitting it was temporary lust and leaving it at that."

"To temporary lust," I said, raising my
glass in toast. "May it at least last until morning."

"Oh, it'll last," he promised. "It will
last."

"What if those two guys you shot at are cops
after all?" I asked over a slab of prime rib that was as big as my
late Aunt Edna's ass. I was shoveling in red meat like a stevedore.
There was no point in pretending to be demure. I hoped to
demonstrate the advantages of adequate protein in the hours
ahead.

Bill shook his head. "I can check for you,
but those guys weren't cops."

I sighed.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Every time I think I've left my old life
behind, some part of it sneaks up behind me and bites me in the
ass. Do you ever feel that way?"

"All the time. Remind me to show you the
bite marks later."

Four drinks and two hours later, we were
negotiating the third floor hallway of his hotel, holding each
other up like a pair of Irish drunks on St. Patrick's Day. The
carpet kept undulating beneath my feet and I was trying to stand
upright by grabbing at those convenient knobs that line hotel
hallways. Unfortunately, the walls were starting to spin. It was
like being trapped in a Sonny and Cher anti-drug movie. Soon
psychedelic flowers would sprout from Bill's head, his eyes would
turn into spinning stars and my hands would morph into hooves.

"Watch it," Bill said, rescuing me as I
grabbed the wrong doorknob and nearly fell into some stranger's
room. I flopped backward, knocking us both against the opposite
wall. "Emergency measures are in order," he declared.

He hoisted me up over his shoulder in a
classic fireman's lift just as an old couple stepped out of the
elevator in front of us. They stared as Bill staggered by. Blood
rushed to my head and I tried to figure out why a pair of
upside-down codgers were levitating in my field of vision.

"Just married," Bill explained as he fumbled
with his keys. I started to laugh. The old couple tittered
along.

"How sweet," the woman said. "And at your
age. Such a blessing."

"My age?" I called back
indignantly as Bill tried to hustle me inside, but a wiggling
170-pound burden can slow a man down. "Wait until you see who
carries who out the
door in the morning,"
I yelled drunkenly. "I'll show you who's old."

Bill plopped me down on the bed then fell
face down beside me. “I may take you up on that offer,” he said,
breathing hard. “If I can. I’m not convinced I’m even going to
survive this experience.”

“You might not,” I conceded as I rolled him
over and started to unbutton his shirt. “But what a way to
go.” 

I woke the next morning feeling ridiculously
satisfied. Either I was still drunk or hormonal overload had washed
the liquor from my system. I felt like I could run a marathon. Or
climb a mountain. But I couldn't find my clothes, so I opted for
Bill instead. He proved to be a hard man to wake up. It took us
another hour to even think about breakfast. By then, he was a
shadow of his former self and I was ready to take on the world. Ah,
the advantages of being a woman.

"What?" I asked indignantly, since Bill was
lying with his head buried in his pillow and laughing like a
demented man.

"I feel like I've been in a train wreck," he
said, his words muffled.

"Of course you do," I told him. "Why do you
think they call me Casey Jones?" I pulled on his right arm, trying
to drag him out from under the sheets. "Come on, we have miles to
go before we sleep."

"Sleep?" he mumbled. "What's sleep?"

"The thing you do after breakfast, lunch and
dinner. I'm starving. Let's go. Chop, chop. Put some clothes on,
Buckwheat."

"How can you be so disgustingly cheerful?"
he asked. "I can hardly move."

"Good," I said. "Remember that the next time
you ask some skinny hundred-pound bimbo out on a date instead of a
real woman."

"You're cruel, Casey." He hit the floor with
a thud. "You're going to have to make good on your promise to carry
me across the threshold."

"I'll carry you all the way to Devil's
Fork."

"Devil's Fork?" he asked, struggling to a
sitting position. "What's that?"

"It's a little crossroads a couple hours
from here. I was on my way there last night until we were
interrupted. We're going out there this morning." I climbed into
his lap, facing him, then kissed him solidly on the mouth. "I'm
going to introduce you to my grandfather. So try not to look so
pleased with yourself."

"We're going to do what?" he asked
weakly.

"Visit my grandfather. He's always wanted to
give me a shotgun wedding."

"You're kidding, right?" he asked.

"Only about the wedding."

We stopped by my motel room so I could
change into clean clothes before heading out of Tampa. It had been
destroyed. The contents of my suitcase were scattered across the
floor. My cosmetics bag had been emptied on the bathroom counter
with every jar opened. Drawers hung out of the dresser and all the
bed sheets had been ripped from the mattress before being tossed to
the floor in a heap. Even the bedside table lay on its side, and
the rug had been pried from beneath the baseboard in one spot where
it lumped up.

"Jesus, Casey," Bill said. "Who are you
staying with? Johnny Depp?"

"Now we know where our friends were last
night while we were having dinner." I picked up my cosmetics bag,
anger rising in me. "Creeps. I had some brand new MAC stuff. It's
hard to find in North Carolina. I hope they rot in hell."

I looked around the room, searching for my
clothes. A pile of T-shirts and jeans had been dumped on the closet
floor. My underwear was scattered across the rug like a trail of
bread crumbs for some pervert. "At least my panties didn't have
holes in them," I offered.

"Let's hope they stay that way," Bill said
with a worried frown. "Those guys are armed and I don't like
leaving you to deal with this alone."

I looked up. "You really have to go?"

"I only have two days off. I'm sorry. My
plane leaves tonight. I don't have a good feeling about this. Let
me make a few calls while you change."

"Calls to who?"

"Backup." He stopped my protests with a
warning look. "Don't argue, Casey. I'll find someone we both can
trust."

Okay, fine. I could shake unwanted backup as
easily as I could shake a tail. Well, better, hopefully. Let Bill
fantasize about coming to my rescue if it made him feel more manly.
Once he was gone, he wouldn't be able to keep track of what I
did.

I stood in the hot shower, letting the spray
of water soothe my pleasantly aching muscles. I entertained myself
by devising ways I would torture Jeff when this was all over. It
had been almost fifteen years since we were together and here I
was, once again caught in the middle of one of his drug fiascos.
The only thing I could do was contain the trouble.

Then it hit me—containing the trouble meant
that I had to assume, wherever I went, that I was being followed.
By the time I dressed, I had reached a decision.

"We're not going," I said, sitting down on
the bed and toweling my hair dry.

"Not going where?" Bill asked. He'd just
hung up the phone with a guilty look and I wondered who he had
called.

“To see my grandfather. I can't take the
chance."

He was quiet for a moment. "You're sure?" he
asked.

"I'm sure. I can't lead those men to him. I
can't take the chance, no matter how small. I'd die if anything
happened to him because of me."

Bill opened and closed his mouth a couple of
times without making a sound, groping in the way that guys do when
they're trying to figure out how to be supportive but haven't a
clue what to say. "Well," he finally said carefully. "How do you
feel about it?"

I laughed. "Jesus, Bill, you sound like
you're in marriage counseling."

"I was, believe me. Not that it did any
good." He sat down next to me on the bed. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure." I was disappointed, but it was
the decision to see my grandfather that was important. I felt
released. I would go see him, and I would do it soon. But not until
I knew it was safe.