Chapter THIRTY
I awoke a little after eight the next morning, a Thursday. We had not gotten home from the hospital until almost four a.m. Chief Bill Lester had stayed in the ER to make sure that J.D. was okay, and then drove us home. He and I talked J.D. into staying at my cottage for the night, or what was left of it. I have three bedrooms, each with a private bath. I had the one overlooking the bay and one was Jock’s room, where he left what he called his island clothes when he went home to Houston. The third bedroom was my guest room, and that is where J.D. had crashed.
I didn’t want her unprotected during the night, and I wasn’t sure she might not need some help with her bandages. She had reluctantly agreed to stay, but said she would be going home first thing in the morning. She had to work. Bill told her that if she showed up at the office, he would arrest her. “Take a few days,” he said. “This is the third time in four days somebody’s tried to kill you.”
“I can handle this, Chief,” she said.
“I know you can, J.D., but not with your side split open. You heal a bit and then get back and take over the case. We need you.”
I hadn’t slept well for the three hours I lay in the bed. I was worried about J.D. and the fact that somebody was trying to kill her. But I was also puzzled by her reactions the previous evening. She had never kissed me on the lips before, and I didn’t know if we had passed some threshold, or if it was just the circumstances.
I was sitting on the patio sipping coffee and watching the birds when the sliding glass door to the living room opened. “Matt? Can you help me with this bandage?”
She was barefoot, wearing the same pants she’d had on the night before and a green shirt from a set of scrubs that had been given to her at the hospital to replace her bloodied and ripped blouse.
I followed her into her bedroom and sat on the bed next to the package of bandages and tape one of the nurses had given her as we left the hospital. She raised her shirt and I pulled the tape off as gently as I could. The cut had not been stitched, but was held together by a number of small butterfly bandages. The laceration wasn’t too big, about three inches in length. Her skin had a reddish-orange hue left over from the antiseptic poured over it by the hospital doctor. I rubbed some antibacterial salve from the package onto the puckered skin of the cut. “That’s going to start scabbing over soon,” I said. “How bad is the pain this morning?”
“Mostly gone. I did feel it when I rolled over on that side during the night, but otherwise, I think it’s okay.”
“You’ve got to check in with the doctor tomorrow. Why don’t you stay here until then and let me play nurse?”
She smiled. “Pour me a cup of coffee, and let’s talk about it.”
I finished bandaging the wound, and she followed me to the kitchen. I poured coffee into a mug that had the Army Special Forces logo on it and we sat on the patio. “Jock sleeping in?” she asked.
“No. He was up early. Said he was going to Starbucks and then to spend some time with Gene Alexander. We’re supposed to meet him for lunch at the Old Salty Dog.”
She was quiet, sipping her coffee, and looking at the bay. “Matt,” she said finally, “we need to talk about last night.”
“I know. We’ve got to find the people who’re trying to kill you. Maybe the one from last night will tell us something.”
“I’m not talking about that.”
I let out a breath. “I know.”
“You don’t want to hash this out?”
“I very much do, J.D., but I don’t want whatever we have to blow up in our faces.”
“Neither do I.”
“We talked about this once before, that night at Mar Vista, back in the summer.”
“I know.”
“And you’ve never brought it up again. Like what we said to each other was a mistake.”
“You’ve never mentioned it either.”
“I know. I’m scared of you.”
She laughed. “Right.”
“Maybe I’m just afraid of my feelings.”
“And that’s exactly why we have to talk.”
“You first,” I said.
“Chicken. Okay. Here it is. Last night I was scared out of my wits. I’d been stabbed by a maniac in a dark parking lot at midnight. It was the third time in four days that somebody tried to kill me. Jill was there, trying to help hold me together. It wasn’t working. Adrenalin was pumping and God knows what other hormones were taking over my system. I was about to break down in front of all those cops and paramedics. Real detectives just don’t do that. The word would be out that I was just some silly female. And I didn’t care. Screw ’em all. I had almost died and I didn’t think I could spend another day with the fear that put in my gut.
“Then I saw you coming through that door, and it was like some kind of calm came over me. It was really weird, but I knew that you’d take care of me. I don’t mean like protecting me from the bad guys. It was just that I knew you cared about me, not the detective, just plain old me, warts and all.”
“You have warts?”
She smiled. “I’m serious, Matt. My girlfriend Deanna and I had talked about you over dinner. She thinks I’m crazy not to just grab you and hold on for dear life. See where it takes me.”
“Deanna? Your buddy from Miami? That’s who you had dinner with?”
“Yes. Who did you think I was meeting?”
“I was afraid it was some man.”
She laughed, that big laugh that turns me into jelly every time I hear it, the one that makes me want to spend the rest of my life telling her funny stories, trying to jimmy just one more burst of laughter out of her.
“I didn’t think it was that funny,” I said.
“Ah,” she said, “I think I like a little jealousy in you.”
“It’s an ugly emotion,” I said, laughing, despite myself.
“It’s sweet.”
“So Deanna thinks I’m a catch.”
“Well, she didn’t actually say that.”
“But you think I am.”
“I do.”
“So, what are we going to do about it?”
“You scare me, Matt.”
“Why?”
“Your instinct is to always protect me. That will eventually smother me. If I let myself fall in love with you, I’ll end up becoming just an appendage of Matt Royal.”
I leaned forward and took her hand, looking her in the face. “J.D., I do try to protect you, but it’s not like you think. I’m not hovering over you thinking that the girl needs me. I would expect you to protect me, too. We’re a team, and team members look after one another.”
“But you want to be the team leader.”
“No. It’s like Jock and me. I’d do whatever is in my power to do, anything, if he needed it. That includes dying. And I know he feels the same way. Neither one of us leads, but we’ve taken care of each other since we were twelve.”
“And you want to take care of me.”
“It’s not like that. Look, when I was in the army, I was part of a team of twelve men, all trained to be the best soldiers in the world. I protected each of them and each of them protected me and each other. That’s what a team does, covers for each other. It’s a joint effort. That’s the way I see us.”
“I don’t know, Matt. I’ve been on my own for a long time.”
“You were married once.”
“For about three months. That sure didn’t work out very well.”
“I won’t ever hit you.”
She laughed. “That jackass only did it once and I beat him to a pulp and left.”
I grinned. “That’s a pretty good reason for me to never hit you. Why did you marry a guy like that?”
“I was young and stupid. I didn’t see the bad side of him until after the wedding. And it all started off with him trying to control me.”
“I’m not that man.”
She smiled. “I know you’re not. I know the kind of man you are, but I’m still gun-shy.”
“You kissed me last night. What was that?”
“That was me feeling a great need for you and being very glad that you were there.”
My phone rang. I ignored it. It kept ringing. “You better answer that,” said J.D.
“Not now.” But I picked it up and looked at the caller ID. “It’s Bill Lester,” I said.
“Answer it. We’ll talk later.”
“Matt,” the chief said, “I’m just turning onto Broadway. I need to talk to you and J.D.”
“Coffee’s on. See you in a minute.” I closed the phone, looked at J.D. “Bill wants to talk to us. Must be important.”
“I’m not exactly dressed for company,” she said.
“I’ll take you home for some more clothes later, but you’re staying here for the next couple of days.”
“Is that an order?” Her voice had tightened.
“It’s a request,” I said. “I need you close. For my sake.”
She smiled. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? I’ll stick around.”