Chapter 10

Monday, December 19

I woke up before six, and as I lay there under the pink tulle feeling the gaze of thirty-five Barbies and an oversize midway rabbit, I swore I’d be back in my own bed that night.

Michael and Sierra weren’t up, so I tiptoed into the kitchen and managed to make coffee without creating too much of a racket. Mug in hand, I headed outside and up the stairs to my apartment. Everything looked just as bad as it had the night before, but in a strange way, that was a relief. When somebody invades your space, it’s hard to banish the thought that they might come back. Even so, I would never sleep in that horror of a guest room again. My neck was sore from the bouncy pillow, and no burglar could ever be as scary as that hideous buck-toothed bunny.

By the time I had cleared a swath down the middle of the room and put my sofa and bed back together, it was nearly eight o’clock. I still had time to shower and get to work by nine, which would be only half an hour late. I better call Chris, though, I thought, if only to tell him to pick up his own latte.

My cell phone, I suddenly remembered, was in my backpack, which was still on the sofa in the vicarage. I hadn’t given it a thought since the afternoon before.

I could hear Michael and Sierra talking in the kitchen as I crossed the living room and retrieved my backpack and laptop bag. It sounded like a continuation of the conversation I’d accidentally overheard yesterday, so I decided to creep away quietly. This time I made it back out the door without attracting their notice.

Back in my apartment, I fished out my cell phone. Six messages! Damn! I’d set the thing on silent while I was at Starbucks and had forgotten to turn the ringer back on.

The first two messages were hang-ups. The next one was from David Nussbaum.

“Copper! Are you okay? Give me a call!”

The one after that was from David, too.

“Copper! Please call me!”

The fifth message was from Chris Farr.

“Copper, I’m sorry to hear about your apartment. If you need some time this morning, it’s fine. If you can make it in by eleven, I think we can get everything covered.”

The sixth call was David again.

“Copper! Where are you? Call me!”

I called David on his cell phone.

“About time!” he said, his mouth full of something. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “How did you know?”

David laughed. “I keep forgetting what a newbie you are. Haven’t you ever heard of police scanners?”

“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid. “You have one at home?”

“Yup.”

“And Chris Farr does, too?”

“No. I called him.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Tell me what happened.”

I told him, declined his repeated offers of help, and hung up. Then I called Chris to let him know I’d be in by eleven. Finally, I started putting my kitchen back together, which mostly meant filling my trash can with broken glass. If I accomplished nothing else today, I told myself, I’d at least buy a new coffeemaker. With coffee and clean sheets, I’d be as happy as Goldilocks.

But first I had to get through a day’s work. When I got to The Light, I went into the lunchroom to get a cup of coffee, and Ed Bramlett was there. That was no surprise. The only time Ed wasn’t in the lunchroom was when he was out on the “smokers’ patio.” I couldn’t understand how he stayed employed. He never seemed to do any work, and when he walked over to tease me, I smelled alcohol on his breath. I had to take a drug test in order to work at The Light, but that old bastard carried a flask in his back pocket. It clanked every time he sat down on a hard chair.

“Welcome to Las Vegas, blondie,” he said, way too loud. He slapped me on the back way too hard, and I almost dropped my coffee cup. “Getting your place tossed makes you a bona fide local. Is it true they didn’t take anything?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m not sure.”

“Good thing you weren’t there,” he said, “or there’d be a headline about a kidnapping on the front page this morning: POLICE PROBE BLONDE SNATCH.”

I was too stunned by his vulgarity even to blush. I just took my coffee and left. Back in my cube I debated whether to file a complaint about sexual harassment. I didn’t want to. I hadn’t been working at the paper very long, and the last thing I wanted was to get labeled a troublemaker or a whiner or the chick who couldn’t take a little joking around. And also, Chris Farr was a very nice boss. I didn’t want to make his life difficult.

I decided to wait until next time. I was too busy to mess around with a bunch of paperwork just then, anyway. Christmas was less than a week away, and I still hadn’t done much shopping. Add in the stuff I needed to buy to make my apartment livable again, and Ed Bramlett’s comeuppance would just have to wait. Anyway, I didn’t really mind eating lunch in my cubicle, and I could bring my own coffee from Starbucks. If I steered clear of the lunchroom entirely—problem solved.

Once I’d made all my calendar calls, Chris asked me to rewrite some of the copy for production shows. I decided to start with Hombre because it was one of the few shows I’d actually seen. Hombre is put on by a troupe of meaty hunks from Argentina who are supposed to attract the “girls’ night out” crowd. I was halfway finished writing a bunch of hyperbolic superlatives about buffed-up male strippers when David Nussbaum appeared at my desk.

“Tell me about it,” he said.

“About what?” I said.

“You know,” he said.

“So do you. My apartment got ransacked. End of story.”

“Nothing’s missing?”

“Not that I’ve determined so far. They just broke stuff.”

“Copper, doesn’t that bother you?”

“That they broke stuff? Sure it bothers me.”

“That they didn’t take anything.”

“Obviously I don’t have anything worth stealing.”

David pushed a stack of papers aside and perched a thigh on the edge of my desk.

“Think, Copper. What do you have that somebody wants?”

“Look, David. I have work to do.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Why do you care?” I asked.

“I do care. I’m worried. Where are you staying tonight?”

“My place. My brother had the locks changed.”

“Copper—” He paused and looked at me. “Copper, can’t you stay somewhere else for a few nights?”

“I stayed in my brother’s house last night. I’m not doing that anymore. The room is—uncomfortable.”

“You want to stay with me?”

I stared at him. Up to then we’d only been work buddies. I’d never even been to his house, although I knew it was somewhere on the south side of town.

“What are you suggesting, exactly?”

“Oh, come on. I’ve got a dedicated guest room. It’s yours if you want it. And I hope you do.”

“Well—” I looked at him again. There was no denying he was worried. It was actually kind of sweet. “Okay,” I said.

“Really?” David asked. “You mean it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Are you sure you do?”

But David was already scribbling something in a spiral notebook. When he was done, he ripped out the page and handed it to me.

“Directions,” he said. “When do you want to come over?”

“I could bring dinner if you like,” I said. “I could get subs at Capriotti’s or something.”

So it was set. I was bringing sandwiches and showing up around seven with my toothbrush. David Nussbaum and I were having a slumber party.

:: :: ::

I couldn’t believe it, but I had actually gotten all my calls made and blurb-writing done, and it was only four o’clock. I had arrived so late that I thought for sure I’d be slaving away until at least six, but I guess that just showed how inefficient I usually was. I was embarrassed to admit it, but the thought of going over to David’s house—and spending the night—had gotten me, well, kind of super motivated. I wished I always felt that way. If I always got all my work done in four hours, I could spend the rest of the day working on projects that might turn me into a real journalist.

I was really curious about David. I’d never seen him on his own turf, or even off duty. I was dying to see what his house was like. 782 Palm Treasure Drive. I printed out an Internet map to go along with David’s directions. He lived in Green Valley, which was on the other side of town from where I lived. Sierra had dragged me down there a few weeks earlier to see a cactus garden decorated with a couple million strings of Christmas lights, but otherwise it was new territory for me.

:: :: ::

David’s guest room had no pink tulle, no Barbies, and—thank you, Jesus—no big ugly rabbit. That didn’t mean it wasn’t weird, though. It was weird because it wasn’t really a guest room. It was his wife’s office.

Yes! David had a wife! Not an ex-wife, either. Though she didn’t live there anymore, they were still married. There was even a wedding picture hanging in a little alcove—a shrine!—next to the front door. I couldn’t help noticing it when I walked in.

David saw me checking it out, but he didn’t say anything except, “Here’s the guest room. The bathroom’s the next door on the right.”

We walked into the “guest room” together, and David started unfolding a sofa bed. I might have helped, but I was too busy eying the straw hat sitting on the desk. It had three red flowers on the brim, and right next to it was a sewing machine.

“You sew?” I asked.

“No.”

“Are you married?”

“Sort of.”

Fortunately, I had brought a six-pack along with the sandwiches, and by the time I’d sucked down two and David had sucked down three, he was a little more forthcoming.

“I’m not really married anymore, Copper,” he said.

“There’s nothing gray about being married, David,” I said. “Either you are or you aren’t. No fudge room.”

“She moved back to New York. We’ll get a divorce.”

“It’s in process?”

“No, but—”

“You’re married, dude.”

“Well, yes, if you’re going to get technical about it.”

“It’s not ‘getting technical.’ It’s the bald truth.” I pulled the last beer out of the carton. “You want this?”

“Sure, unless you do.”

I did, but I twisted off the cap and gave it to David anyway. Two beers really ought to be my limit, especially on a weeknight.

“So why did somebody toss your apartment?”

“Nice try, David,” I said. “But first you have to tell me about her.”

“We met in high school but never really hooked up. We met up again after college. She wanted to get married.”

“You didn’t?”

“Not as much as she did, but yeah. I did.”

“What happened?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I’m just glad we hadn’t gotten around to having kids before the magma burst forth.”

“Is she Jewish?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, is she?”

“Yeah.”

“Your parents approved?”

“They loved her. They’re still baffled, but they don’t understand any relationship that isn’t ‘happily ever after.’ They met in eighth grade, and they’re still madly in love.”

It sounded like my parents. They met in college, and even after nearly four decades, they still patted each other’s bottoms and held hands when they watched a movie.

“Do you have anything else to drink?” I asked. I was thinking of maybe a Coke, but David rummaged in the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of wine.

“Cold Chianti,” he said. “Okay? Or I’ve got some vodka around here somewhere.”

I should have said no to the Chianti. The more I drank, the more I wanted to tell David that I suspected Richard McKimber was the burglar who had trashed my apartment. I’d been thinking about it all day, and that was the only explanation that made sense. Richard had figured out that I’d stolen Victoria’s camera and recorder. Somehow he’d broken in, even though he had only one working arm. Somehow he’d found out where I lived. That was the part I found scariest, and every sip of wine was making it worse.

I looked at David, who was making inroads on his own glass of Chianti. He was a friend. He had lots more experience with stuff like this than I did. He was even worried about me.

But I still couldn’t bring myself to tell him about my theories. Gotta be tough, I kept telling myself. Gotta be independent and capable. This is my project and my story, and it’s going to take more than a little break-in to scare me into giving it up. Yeah! Copper Black, fearless Girl Reporter. That’s me.

“What are you thinking about, Copper?”

“Oh!” I said, jarred from my private pep talk. “Nothing.”

“You know, it might be a good idea if you stayed here a few more nights.”

“I don’t know,” I said, but actually I was glad he was offering.

“Just do it. I’ve got the space, and—”

“It’d only be until Friday. I’ve got hotel reservations after that. I’ve got—someone coming for Christmas.”

David looked at me, and I know I was blushing. He smiled.

“Copper, are you married?”