A bitch probably wouldn’t accept his apology. She stared at him and saw sincerity. She also saw something else, something familiar. Worry and stress.
“I understand.” So okay, she didn’t have the bitch thing down yet.
“Thank you.” He continued to stare. “I didn’t know about your mom’s death.”
The ever-present grief hiccupped in her chest. She glanced out the window. “Did Tanya tell you?” She watched the flag flip in the wind.
“No. Last night after I saw the picture of the bracelet, I was trying to find you. You’d given Officer Anderson your mother’s address.”
She looked at him. “I did?”
“Yeah, you listed it under closest relative.”
“Habit,” she said. “I must not have been thinking.”
“You were upset. It’s understandable,” he offered.
She nodded.
“Anyway, my partner and I went to your mom’s looking for you.”
Cali nodded, assuming her mom’s neighbors had filled him in. She continued to stare out the window, not wanting to succumb to tears. It had been almost a week now since she buried her. Shouldn’t she be over the crying stuff? Stan thought she should be. But oh yeah, Stan was a first class jerk, and probably, a jewelry thief.
“Stan Humphrey was there. He broke in.”
Cali swung around to face him. “At my mom’s place?”
“Yeah.” He ran his hand over the steering wheel.
“Did you catch him?”
He shook his head. “He got away.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Please tell me he didn’t ransack her place like he did my apartment.”
“It’s not as bad, but he did toss a few things around.”
“Did he steal anything?” She felt her bottom lip tremble, and that hiccup of grief grew to a large lump of throbbing pain.
He shrugged. “Not knowing what your mother had, I can’t say. I’m sorry. But I thought after we find the bracelet, we could go to your mother’s place and check.”
She slumped back into the seat, feeling her backbone lose its starch. The lump of pain moved up from her heart to her throat. Her head still throbbed and tears formed in her eyes.
His gaze, filled with sympathy, met hers. “You okay?”
“Am I okay?” All the emotion she’d felt this last week bubbled to the surface. “My mother dies, my boyfriend turns into a gun-toting jewelry thief, and my apartment gets ransacked. I’m kicked out of my own apartment, Sara’s mother gets cancer.” She was ranting, but she couldn’t stop. “And my mom’s lawyer tells me how lucky I am because my mother died and left me some money. Lucky. Who knew?”
She let out a deep breath and told herself to calm down, but she wasn’t listening, venting felt too good, so she started again. “I get assaulted again by the gun-toting jewelry thief, and learn he broke into my mom’s house. I’m stuck dealing with a sometimes rude, sometimes nice gun-toting cop. Oh, let’s not forget that I’m having crazy dreams where my mother talks about lesbians. Does it sound like I’m okay?”
The moment her last words came out of her mouth, she realized what she’d said. “Sorry.” Emotion rose in her throat. “You didn’t really need to hear all that.”
“Lesbians?” he asked.
“Sorry,” she muttered. Suddenly, she needed to get away—to be alone. To gather her wits, if she had any left. Frankly, nothing made sense. Not the dreams. Not her thinking about his penis. Not her having dated a criminal or having stolen evidence in her trash can at home. She fumbled with the door handle and nearly fell out of the SUV.
She marched toward her car. She got within a foot of her Honda, when she realized she’d left her purse and keys in his SUV. Suddenly, the sound of glass being crunched beneath her pink pumps filled her ear. She looked up at her car, which was now minus a window. Tears filled her eyes. Somebody had broken into her car. How much more could she take? She pressed her hand to her lips, to hold in her sobs, but she couldn’t stop the tears.
“Hey.” His hand brushed over her back, then he pulled her against him, a wall of warm muscle. He felt solid, an anchor, a lifeboat. Someone to hold her. And he smelled so good.
A bitch would have been able to pull away. A bitch wouldn’t have needed to be held. She wasn’t a bitch. She was a Charmin-faced girl. She buried her baby face on his shoulder, a very nice shoulder, and continued to cry.
Chapter Twelve
She didn’t know exactly when it happened. Perhaps, after he convinced her that she didn’t have to feel bad about her mental breakdown. Maybe after he called a glass company to come fix her broken window. Or it could have been when he stopped off at the gas station and bought her a diet soda and a bottle of aspirin. But at some point in the last thirty minutes, she’d decided that Detective Lowell might not be a dickhead. Not even a little dickhead.