Jennifer Crusie Bundle (18 page)

“Of course, I wasn't kidnapped,” Lucy said and Zack said, “There's no ‘of course' about it, damn it.”

Falk shook his head and turned to go. “I already called off the search,” he said on his way out. “Come on, Junior.”

Matthews scowled at him but went.

Anthony turned back to Lucy. “We're all going to go now. Glad to see you safe, Lucy. Don't ever do that again. Zack, we'll try that search tomorrow.”

He kissed Lucy on the cheek and walked out the door, visibly relieved.

“We need to talk,” Zack snarled, and Lucy threw her purse on the table and went into the kitchen.

I
CAN'T BELIEVE THIS
,
Lucy thought as she banged the soup pot on the stove.
I get my hair done, and he calls out the army. Honestly.

She flipped the burner on under the pot and turned to see Zack standing in the doorway, scowling at her.

“I was careful,” she said, tossing her potholders onto the counter. “I called a cab. I made sure I wasn't followed. I didn't go anyplace I'd ever been before. I left a note. I was careful.”

Zack jabbed a finger at her. “I told you not to leave. You gave the patrol car the slip on purpose. I was worried. Worried, hell. I was frantic.”

“Zack, I can't spend the rest of my life in this house because you worry,” Lucy said, but she felt awful. He was looking at her like she'd come back from the dead, and there was a muscle twitching along his jaw. “I know you think this is serious. But you can't keep me locked in this house forever…”

He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “It's not forever, Luce. Just until I figure this out.”

“Well, what if you don't?” Lucy folded her arms, determined to stand her ground. “Whether you like it or not, I'm going back to school on Monday. Are you going to frisk all my seniors? Pat down the custodians?”

“I'll figure it out.” Zack rubbed his hand across the back of his head. “I will figure this out. I just can't get hold of this one, for some reason. It just doesn't make sense. My instincts just aren't kicking in.”

“I can't live my life waiting for permission from your instincts.” Lucy turned and lifted the lid on the soup pot to stir it.

“No, but you can stop taking such dumb chances,” Zack flared. “You went out today for no good reason….”

“I went out for an excellent reason.” Lucy slapped the lid down hard on the pot and turned to face him. “I'm an independent woman, and I wanted to go out. And my hair was driving me crazy.”

“You went out because of your hair?” Zack's voice rose again, incredulous. “That's what this is all about? Your damn hair?”

“Listen, if you'd been walking around under my hair, you'd have broken, too,” Lucy snapped. “You don't know what it was like. I mean, everybody who saw me just stopped, amazed…”

“It wasn't that bad, once you got used to it,” Zack said, taken aback by her fervor.

“Oh, that's a real testimonial, Zack. That makes me feel so much better….”

“Will you take it easy?”

“Take it easy?” Lucy gritted her teeth, her anger fueled by her guilt at making him worry. “Take it easy? You know how awful it was. How many times when you were in bed with me last night did you look at me and think, ‘God, she has awful hair'?”

“Never,” Zack said flatly. “Not once. Are you kidding?”

“No, I'm not kidding.” Lucy's anger surged. “Don't you care what I look like? What is this? Once the lights are out, I'm just like any of your other women? We're all alike in the dark, is that it?”

“Lucy,” Zack said through clenched teeth. “Shut up.” He took a deep breath. “You are absolutely unlike any woman I have ever met, thank God, and I don't care what color your hair is, and if you ever scare me again like you did today, I will walk out of your life forever because I can't take that kind of fear.” He shook his head and turned away from her to stare into the dining room. “You were right about us getting married. Dumb idea. I'm not ready for it.”

“Well, that's what I thought,” Lucy said, but she felt herself go empty inside.

Zack turned back to face her. “I knew it would be like this. I told Tony it would be like this. You start caring for people, and your instincts go. Hell, your brains go. I don't mind being scared for myself. I'm scared for myself all the time. That's just part of being a cop.” He took a deep breath. “But the way I felt about you today…no. I was so damn scared I couldn't think. I am never…
never
going to feel like that about anybody ever again.”

They both stood still for a moment, silenced by the emotion between them, and then Lucy turned back to the stove, unable to cope with the pain in his eyes.

“I'm sorry. But I think you're overreacting.” She picked up the lid again and began to stir the soup. “You and Anthony both told me that this man is only trying to scare me out of the house. Nobody thinks I'm in danger anymore. Not even you.”

“I'm overreacting.”

“Yes.”

“Fine.” He turned and left the room, and fifteen minutes later he came down with his bag packed.

Lucy felt her breath go when she saw him, but she made herself sound calm. “Leaving?”

“This isn't going to work, Lucy,” he said. “I'm too emotional about this to be doing you any good. And you're probably right. I probably overreacted. If you want somebody here with you for a while, I'll call Matthews.”

Lucy swallowed. “Junior.”

“I don't think he likes being called Junior.” Zack seemed dimmed, as if a current had been switched off inside him. “You want me to call him?”

“No.” Lucy drew a deep breath. “Thank you for staying with me.”

“Oh, the pleasure was mine.” Zack smiled tightly. “I've already called a patrol car to watch this place. A different one. The first guy is still pretty upset with you. And Tony will call you tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Lucy said, and he nodded and was gone.

L
UCY WALKED INTO THE
living room and sank down on the love seat. “What happened?” she asked Einstein when he padded over. “He wanted to marry me this morning, and now he's gone?” The ache in her chest swelled into her throat, and she bit her lip to keep from crying. “Boy, this has been a bad month. Good thing I'm independent now.”

The lump in her throat grew until she thought she'd choke, and she concentrated on not crying.

After all, nobody had died.

It was just the emptiness inside her that made her feel like somebody had.

“W
HAT THE HELL ARE YOU
doing here?” Anthony asked Zack when he came in the squad room.

Zack sank heavily into his chair. “Lucy doesn't need a bodyguard. We all know nobody's trying to kill her. There's a patrol car out in front. She's okay.”

Anthony narrowed his eyes. “We knew all this yesterday. You stayed last night.”

“Well, that was a mistake.” Zack began to sort the mound of paperwork on his desk.

“But, Lucy—”

Zack looked up. “Forget it. You tried. It didn't work out.”

Anthony looked as innocent as he possibly could. “I didn't…”

“Forget it.”

Anthony shrugged. “All right. It's probably just as well. We got an interesting conversation between Lucy and her sister on the phone tap.”

“Not interested,” Zack said.

“Okay,” Anthony said, “how about this? Mrs. Dover called again.”

Zack felt himself freeze and kicked himself for it. “Maybe she's just lonely.”

“I'm starting to wonder myself.” Anthony leaned back in his chair, watching Zack. “She saw prowlers again last night and this afternoon. She's starting to see them everywhere.”

Zack squelched the beat of fear he felt. “She's a crazy old lady with nobody to talk to except cops.”

Anthony was still watching him closely. “We still haven't found what's in Lucy's house.”

“Fine,” Zack flared. “You go over and move in with her. I'm not going back there.”

“She looked beautiful today,” Anthony said. “I like her hair red.”

“Shut up, Tony.”

“Maybe I will drop by later, to check on her, make sure she's all right.”

Zack swiveled his chair away, cranked a report form into the typewriter, and began to pound on the keys.

“Maybe I'll have dinner with her.”

Zack hit the return carriage with enough force to send it across the room.

“Just a thought,” Anthony said and went back to his own report.

L
ATE THAT EVENING
, Lucy went into the bathroom and startled herself pleasurably in the mirror with her new red hair. Then she took a long, hot bath and thought about Zack.

He'd rocked her earlier with that marriage thing. Zack, of all people, planning commitment. It was like Madonna becoming a nun. Interesting but not likely to last. Especially since he seemed to be basing his decision on sex and food. He hadn't even told her he loved her. Not that she expected it. Although something along those lines usually turned up in a marriage proposal.

And then he'd walked out. Because she'd scared him.

Well, he scared her, too. He scared her because she felt so lost without him. And so lonely. It was as if the world was Technicolor with Zack and black-and-white without him. She felt colder and paler and smaller without him, shriveling without his warmth.

Well, all that was immaterial now. He was gone. It was over.

She climbed out of the tub and wrapped herself in her big terry-cloth robe and headed for the bedroom. Inside the door, she flipped on the light and walked toward the bed, only to stop about a yard from it.

It didn't look right.

She frowned at it, trying to figure out what was wrong. Nothing. Her bed, her quilt, her embroidered pillows. She put her hands on her hips and studied it again.

Maybe the problem was that Zack wasn't in it. Maybe this was an honest-to-God instinct kicking in.

Or maybe not.

She was still debating the problem when Heisenberg came trotting in and launched himself at the bed. Without thinking, Lucy swung out her arm and knocked him away before he could land on the quilt, and Heisenberg hit the floor and yipped and cowered away from her.

“I'm sorry, baby.” Lucy scooped him up even as he shied away again. “I'm so sorry. I don't know…” She caressed him as she looked back over her shoulder at the bed. “No. I don't know what this is, but we're talking to Zack.”

The relief she felt was so overwhelming that she almost ran for the phone.

Z
ack's doubts had begun the moment he'd walked out Lucy's door, and Anthony hadn't helped any at all with his needling. He knew he'd had a good reason for walking. His feelings for Lucy were screwing up his life. But she was also the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he was growing increasingly more miserable without her every moment. He'd been dumb. So had she. They were both dumb, but they'd never have any dumb children now because he'd walked out instead of staying to fight.

Or talk.

He'd been at his apartment for several hours, staring at four empty walls and a moth-eaten couch, wondering why he'd never fixed the place up better and kicking himself for leaving a place that was perfect, when the phone rang. If it was Anthony trying to make him feel guilty again, he was going to pay.

Zack picked up the phone and snarled, “What?” into it. “There's something wrong with my bed,” Lucy said.

“Lucy?”

“There's something wrong with my bed. I know it's stupid, but I'm scared.”

Zack sat down on the couch, his heart hammering. “What's wrong? What happened?”

“I don't know. I was going to bed but it just didn't seem right. And then Heisenberg tried to jump on it, and I hit him.”

Zack's hand tightened on the receiver. “You hit a dog?”

“I know. I feel terrible. My hand just shot out…. I don't know.”

“Instinct,” Zack said. “You stay away from that bed. I'll be right over.”

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
, Lucy followed Zack up the stairs, still clutching Heisenberg. The relief she'd felt on seeing him had been overwhelming, and for the first time she really began to doubt that there was something wrong in the bedroom. Maybe she'd just done this to get back upstairs with him.

Would she hit a dog to get great sex?

Of course not.

Not if she was in her right mind.

Maybe Zack had made her insane.

If anybody could do it, he could.

Zack stopped at the bedroom door, and Lucy almost bumped into him. “Stand here in the doorway,” he said. “Now what's wrong?”

She peered in through the doorway and looked around the room. “Nothing. I'm sorry. There's nothing.”

Zack shook his head. “No. If you hit Heisenberg, there's something. Take your time. What is it?”

Lucy surveyed the room again. Nothing. It was exactly as she'd left it. “I'm sorry. There's nothing.” Then her eyes went back to the bed, and she frowned.

“What?” Zack said. “It's the bed, isn't it?”

“I don't know.” She shrugged. “It looks the same. It's just…” She stopped and then she shook her head. “Forget it.”

Zack turned to the phone on the hall landing table. “I'm calling the bomb squad.”

“No!” Lucy stepped between him and the phone. “Riverbend P.D. already thinks I'm a flake. You are not calling the bomb squad because I've got a funny feeling about my bed.”

Zack jabbed a finger at her. “Hey, don't knock funny feelings. They've saved my life more times than…”

“Yours, not mine,” Lucy said.

“Yours once,” Zack reminded her. “But okay. We'll compromise.”

“You? Compromise? I don't believe it.”

“Get a safety pin and a ball of string. And put the dogs in the kitchen.” Zack stepped cautiously into the bedroom. “You sure you don't know what bothers you in here?”

“Zack, get out of there,” Lucy said with an edge of panic in her voice.

He looked back, interested. “That's a good healthy instinct you've got there, lady. Go get the stuff.”

T
EN MINUTES LATER
, the dogs were shut in the kitchen, and the end of the string was safety-pinned to a corner of Lucy's quilt.

“Everything okay downstairs?” Zack asked Lucy when he met her outside her bedroom.

“Yes. Except I hope you didn't tell Anthony to call. Einstein knocked over the phone again. That's the second time tonight.”

“Forget the phone.” Zack took a deep breath. “Here's the deal. Chances are, if it's a bomb, it needs some kind of pressure to set it off. Like you getting into bed, for example. So, if we pull the quilt off, we should be able to see if there's anything wrong with bedding underneath. That quilt is so lumpy they could hide damn near anything under there, but the sheets are flat. If there is something there, we call the bomb squad. You with me?”

Lucy nodded. “I'm going to feel really stupid when there's nothing under that quilt.”

“You'd feel even stupider if you got into bed and there was.” Zack went cold at the thought. “Thank you for calling me.”

“Thank you for coming over,” Lucy said. “I'm scared.”

“Good. Stay scared.” Zack looked at the bed again and then closed the door part way as a shield. “Stay behind me.”

When she moved back, he pulled firmly on the quilt and yanked it off the bed.

The bed blew up before the quilt hit the floor.

Dust whooshed out the partly opened door, and Lucy sat down on the floor, her legs suddenly giving out from under her.

“So much for the it-won't-explode-without-pressure theory.” Zack slammed the door. “Call 911. Where's your fire extinguisher?”

The phone rang.

“The closet.” Lucy pointed at the next door and then ran to call the fire department.

T
HE PHONE RANG AGAIN
as she got downstairs, and she grabbed it to tell whoever it was to get off the line so she could call for help.

“Get out of the house,” a voice rasped on the other end. “There's a bomb.”

“What?” she whispered.

“Get out of the house now. There's a bomb. It's going to go off. Get out.”

“It already did.” Lucy's voice returned with her anger. “You creep, it already did. Who are you?”

But the caller had already hung up.

Lucy yelled for Zack as she dialed 911.

T
HE FIRE DEPARTMENT
left when all the random embers in the bed were dead. The bomb squad left after a detailed search of the house for other explosives, making several pointed remarks to Zack about amateurs messing with things they didn't understand. Most of them stopped to say goodbye to Lucy on their way out, having met her when her car had exploded. It was almost a party.

And Anthony came by to see the mess for himself.

“Well, this is interesting,” he said, looking at the wreckage of Lucy's bed, and Zack said, “More than you think. Lucy got a phone call warning her about the bomb. After it went off.”

Anthony leaned in the doorway, considering. “He was cutting it awfully fine. The bomb went at around eleven-thirty. A lot of people are in bed by eleven-thirty.” He looked at Zack. “He could have killed her.”

Zack leaned on the doorframe opposite him and shook his head. “That was Einstein's fault. He knocked the phone off the hook. The guy had probably been calling in a cold sweat for hours.”

“What are you talking about?” Lucy said.

“This is the same deal as the car bomb,” Zack said to her. “Nobody's trying to kill you. The bomb squad said this one was more like a big firecracker. A big firecracker with a hair trigger, but still. It wasn't meant to hurt you. There's no point in warning you if he wanted to kill you.”

Lucy's jaw dropped. “But I could have died!” she said finally. “I almost got into that bed! I don't care if it was a firecracker. Firecrackers kill people. That was a real explosion in my bed!”

“Well, if there was a fake one, his plan wouldn't work,” Anthony pointed out. “He's still trying to scare you out of the house, Luce. The first bomb should have been enough. Remember? We tried to get you to go to a hotel, but you wouldn't go.”

“So he had to really scare you out this time,” Zack said. “Only the son of a bitch almost killed you. I really hate Bradley. He's dumb and he's dangerous.”

“You think Bradley's doing this?” Lucy shook her head. “No. He knows if he just calls and asks, I'll give him his stuff back. Everything he owns that he left here is in those three boxes. And he can get in any time he asks. Bradley is not doing this.”

“It's not in those boxes,” Anthony said. “I've been through them. Zack's been through them.”

“Wait a minute,” Lucy said, ignoring him. “This really makes no sense. He had to get in here to plant the bomb, right?”

“Right,” Zack said. “Which door did you leave unlocked this afternoon?”

“None of them,” Lucy said, outraged. “But that's not the point. If he broke in here to plant the bomb, why didn't he just take what he wanted then?”

“Because he doesn't know where it is,” Zack said. “It's lost somewhere in here.”

“Oh, come on,” Lucy said. “We've been searching this place for days. What could we have missed?”

“I know what I'd like to find,” Anthony said.

“The safe-deposit box key,” Zack said, nodding, and turned back to Lucy. “If the bonds are in a box, and the key is here, John Bradley can't leave town. He's shot Bianca, the Bergmans are on their way, looking for blood…”

“Actually, they're here,” Anthony said.

“…and he can't get out of town until he gets those bonds.”

Lucy frowned at him. “What safe-deposit box? We didn't have a safe-deposit box.”

“We deduced a safe-deposit box,” Zack said. “Just like in the movies.”

“The only thing that John Bradley wants to do is get out of town,” Anthony told her. “And the only thing that would stop him would be if he didn't have the bonds.”

“And the only reason he wouldn't have them would be if somebody stole them, or he gave them to somebody for safekeeping,” Zack said.

“Bradley,” Lucy said. “He'd never steal, but the safe-deposit box sounds like him. He's very careful.”

“But he doesn't have a box at Gamble Hills,” Anthony said. “Now if we had a key, we could find the bank, and get a warrant, and open the box….”

“Bradley doesn't have a key chain,” Lucy said. “He said it spoiled the line of his suit when he put a chain with a lot of keys on it in his pocket. He uses key fobs, one for each key. And then he keeps them in different pockets. He's very organized.”

Anthony looked at Zack. “He lost the key. Here. Someplace here.”

“Listen,” Zack said. “Trust me. I've looked. I took up the couch cushions, I…”

“His chair,” Lucy said.

“What?”

“His chair. If he sat in his chair, the key could have fallen out of his back pocket and into the chair. It slopes. The back of the seat is lower than the front. Every time I sit in it, my knees are up high and I have to lean forward.”

“I remember,” Zack said. “The first time I was here. You were sitting in it, all folded up.” He started for the stairs. “Come on. It's in the basement.”

T
HE CHAIR WAS EVEN MORE
forlorn-looking than Lucy remembered. Falling through the stair rail hadn't done a thing for it.

Zack started by pulling the seat cushion off and handing it to Lucy, who poked and prodded at it. “There's no seam or anything here that's open.” She tossed it down. “It's just a cushion.”

Zack and Anthony had the chair upside down by then.

“Nothing,” Anthony said.

“The hell with this.” Zack took out his pocketknife and slashed the burlap fabric covering the chair bottom. They both peered inside it.

“Nothing,” Anthony said.

“Turn it right side up again.” Lucy knelt down in front of it when it was upright again. “When you sit in this chair, you tilt back, so anything that falls out of a pocket would go into the crease between the back cushion and the seat cushion.”

“I already checked,” Zack said. “I shoved my fingers clear to the back.”

Lucy shook her head. “But every time somebody sits down in this thing, it jerks forward and then flops back. Anything that fell in the crease two weeks ago could be anywhere in this chair by now. Give me your knife.”

Zack handed it over. Lucy moved around to the back of the chair, slashed at the upholstery, and peeled it up. She pulled out the foam and the wadding and exposed the coils at the bottom of the back.

“If it's anywhere, it'll be here.” She crouched until her chin was almost on the ground, peering into the coils, and then reached her hand inside.

“Lucy,” Zack said. “I really did…”

His voice trailed off as Lucy pulled out a small key with a square black head, stamped with a number.