SIXTEEN

As soon as I saw the former detective, I stood up from my chair. It wasn’t that she instilled fear in me—quite the opposite. That was the thing about Officer Nasty. She was quite the opposite of me, my life, and everything I stood for.

Where I dressed in sweet vintage outfits that coordinated with daisy pins and colorful sneakers, Nasty dressed in tight jeans, revealing tank tops, and stiletto heels. My blonde hair was usually secured away from my face in a neat ponytail or ribbon. My bangs, and a lifelong addiction to SPF 50, made me look younger than the age on my driver’s license. But Nasty had golden skin and copper streaks through her long dark tousled hair. Even when she’d been on the force and dressed in uniform, she looked like she’d just rolled out of bed.

Some days she had. And did I mention? Some days, that bed had been Tex’s.

These days she ran Big Bro Security, a somewhat opportunistic company which exploited local crimes to generate business. Thankfully, I saw her before she saw me. It was her shadow who blew the whistle on my fade-into-the-background routine.

“Madison?” Erin said. “This is unbelievable! It’s a sign. This whole trip has been one sign after another. I’m totally going to get this part.”

Nasty whipped around and her hair flew out like the mane of a show horse. “Madison Night? What are you doing here?” She waved her hand in front of her face. “And what’s that smell?”

“I’m waiting for Captain Allen,” I said. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized how many different interpretations there could be, especially from her. I smiled inside, knowing I wouldn’t mind if she got the wrong idea.

“Um, Ms. Night? I think maybe that’s why Captain Allen wanted you to wait in”—he pointed down the hallway—“the other room.”

Nasty smiled. “He wanted you in Interrogation Room Two? That’s rich.”

Erin was delighted by the turn of events. She held her hands out in front of her, making mirror Ls with her index fingers and thumbs like a director framing a movie scene. “I’m just going to stand here and watch you two catch up. Pretend I’m not here. Donna, what were you saying about Madison?”

Nasty turned on Erin. Her fists balled up, and I think Officer Garcia feared for a moment Nasty might have to be restrained. “Need I remind you of our confidentiality agreement?” Nasty said to her. “If you want my help with this, you are to listen and take notes, but anything I tell you is not—I repeat, not—to be shared, or this entire arrangement is null and void.”

Erin looked taken aback for a fraction of a second and then snapped out of it and returned to her effervescent self. “Madison, this is great. I’ve been shadowing Donna for the day, and I asked her if she’d show me the police department.”

Nasty looked at Garcia. “Captain Allen knew we were coming. He’s not here?”

“He had an unexpected emergency,” Garcia said.

“Homicide?”

“Skunk.” He jutted his chin out toward me. “Her dog got sprayed.”

The Life Scan machine made a beeping noise, and Garcia left the three of us in the lobby and crossed the room to check it out. I watched until his back blocked the machine. While I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, there was the troubling matter of the frame-up that Tex had mentioned earlier, and I found myself wondering how far someone would go to cover their tracks while making me appear guilty.

Nasty turned to me. “I don’t want to know what you do for Tex to get him to take care of your skunked dog. I guess this means you’re not dating Hudson anymore?”

“Hudson and I are just fine,” I said. “He’s in California, and I’m here.”

“I know. I talked to him this morning. Funny, he didn’t mention you.”

It felt like someone had used a vacuum to suck the air out of the room. Hudson hadn’t mentioned anything about Nasty, either. I put my hand on the chair where I’d been sitting and bent my leg to rest my knee on the worn wood. It felt like a position of weakness, so I pulled my leg back off the chair and stood on both feet, resulting only in making me look fidgety.

The only reason for Nasty to say that was to get a reaction. That was the way she was. And I wasn’t going to take the bait. But as soon as I had Rocky, as soon as I was away from the police station, I was calling Hudson to find out what was going on.

“I would ask how you’ve been, but I heard about the pajama factory on the news earlier today. You sure cause a lot of trouble.”

“If you saw the news, you’d know I was the one who found the victim. I was escorted by a police officer on the property that I’d recently inherited, so unless you’d like to contribute something I don’t already know, then I think we can agree I’m the more knowledgeable one in this conversation.”

At that moment, Garcia turned around and smiled at us. “You’re in the clear, Ms. Night,” he said.

“You were Live Scanned?” Nasty asked. A slow smile crept across her face. “That changes things, doesn’t it?” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and took a deep breath, which succeeded in making her breasts a little more prominent than they’d been seconds before. “Officer Garcia, I’m investigating the death of the attorney who was found today and sure would appreciate some cooperation with the department where I used to work.”

The front door opened. Rocky raced in and ran straight to me. Tex came in next. He held a brown paper grocery bag. He caught the tail end of Nasty’s request. “Not on my watch,” he said.

The funny thing about relationships is that people don’t ever really seem to move on completely. Tex and Nasty—that was history. There’d even been a time after they’d broken up when she and I had joined forces to help prove he was innocent of a series of abductions being committed around Dallas. But put the three of us in a room together, and we were right back where we’d started, in that competitive territory when we first established who we were and whether or not we’d trust each other. And Erin Haney stood off to the side taking it all in. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out she’d wired herself with a body cam so she could study us later for her audition.

I didn’t have the energy to battle this round, so I sat back down in the worn wooden chair and ruffled Rocky’s fur. He smelled faintly of vinegar and tomatoes, an odd combination. The skunk scent was gone, though, a fact I was sure we’d all agree was an improvement.

Nasty dropped her flirtatious act around Tex. I’d never known how serious their relationship had been aside from the fact that, for a short period, they’d shared an address. I didn’t know if that had come about because of convenience or romance. For all I knew, one of them could have been having their own place bombed for termites. Yet it troubled me that it had happened at all, and it troubled me that I even cared.

“What’s up, Nast?” Tex asked. He set the paper bag on the table and looked past her at Erin and then back to her.

“I’m giving this woman a tour of Dallas,” Nasty said.

“I’m an actress,” Erin said. “I’m hoping to audition for the part of Donna Nast in the movie they’re making about Hudson James. I hired Donna—the real Donna—so I could get into character. You know, see what life was like for her when she was investigating the case.”

Tex’s face said everything I’d thought when I heard the news. His brows dropped over his eyes, hooding them like an angry emoji. He stared at Erin for a few beats, and then back at Nasty. He shifted his weight slightly, with his feet shoulder-width apart and his thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his jeans. It was the first time I’d noticed that he’d changed his clothes since taking Rocky with him. His suit had probably been ruined.

“This is a police department, not an acting studio,” he said.

“Five minutes,” Nasty said. “Give me five minutes to show her around the precinct. For old times’ sake.”

Ugh.

I’d already seen enough unpleasant things today and didn’t want to add this one to the mix. It was after dinner, I was starving, and I wanted little more than to hear a comforting voice. “I’m going to make a phone call,” I announced to the room. “I trust it’s okay with everybody if I step out front for privacy?”

I was met with everything from pity (Erin) to fear (Garcia). Tex nodded once. Rocky and I went out the front doors. The outside air helped diffuse the lingering smell of Pepe Le Pew. I called Hudson.

“Hey Lady,” he answered in his soothing drawl. “Your day get any better?”

“I’d have to say the answer to that is no. Did you talk to Officer Nast today?”

“Yes. The screenwriters had a couple of questions about her that I couldn’t answer. I called her to see if she was okay with me giving them her contact info. Is that why you’re upset?”

“No. I should have known it was something like that. It’s this thing with Alice’s estate. Remember I told you how she left me a sealed letter?”

“Sure,” he said. Unlike our earlier call, tonight the sound quality was clear. I closed my eyes and imagined we were in the same room.

“She left me a letter, but it turns out she didn’t write it. I mean, she wrote me the letter, but somebody else rewrote it and added a second page that wasn’t from her, but I thought it was, so I followed the instructions and went to a storage unit I thought she opened in my name and found a gun.”

“Whoa, calm down.” He paused. “Alice left you a gun?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean somebody wanted it to look like Alice left me a gun, but she didn’t. There was a storage unit opened in my name, and the gun was in it, but Alice didn’t do it.” I stopped to consider what I knew. “At least I don’t think she did.”

“You need to call Tex Allen.”

“I already did. But now two people are dead, and maybe my gun committed the crimes, and I’m at the police station getting fingerprinted.”

“Shhh. It’s all going to be okay.”

“Is it? Is it all going to be okay? Did you hear me? I was fingerprinted. My fingers are covered with ink, and then they were scanned into a database.”

“Tex knows you didn’t shoot anybody.”

“That’s not the point.” I looked up at the sky and collected myself. One emotional breakdown per day was already more than my daily quota. “Everything is changing,” I said. “It feels like the ground keeps shifting under my feet.”

“That’s life, honey. If things didn’t shift and change, we’d never grow.”

“But sometimes I feel like I just want everything to be normal.”

“What’s normal?”

I opened my eyes. “I don’t know. You and me together in the same state?” He was quiet, so I continued. “I don’t know how to do this,” I said. “You’re out there, and I’m here. And I feel like I’m lost. And you’re talking to Hollywood about your story, which is fine. It’s good. But it’s also my story, and you never asked how I felt about that.”

“Actually, I did. You told me to get closure.”

He was right. It had been a year ago, right about when we’d become romantically involved. At the time, I’d so clearly seen how important it was for Hudson to be able to move on from the circumstances in his past. I felt selfish for even caring, but I also knew if I bottled this up, I’d be resentful.

He spoke again, this time more quietly. “Do you want me to walk away from this?”

“I won’t ask you to do that.”

“I know you won’t. That’s one of the things that makes you special. Except I’m starting to wonder what keeps you from asking me.”

I stared out at the row of police cars parked in front of the precinct. A metal fence enclosed the lot. The gate pulled aside to let vehicles in and out. A red VW bug drove past, giving me one tiny detail to focus on while I sorted my thoughts. “Doesn’t it scare you? That somebody is going to take a piece of your life and make it into something commercial?”

“Madison, just because somebody uses what happened to tell a different story doesn’t change anything. They can do what they want. Life goes on.”

“But you’re so calm about that. How can you be so calm?”

“It doesn’t change anything. My life is still my life.”

“You don’t feel like you’re losing something?”

“Can’t say I do. It’s fiction, Madison. Whatever they do, it’s only an illusion. And in a way, watching them spin my life into a movie plot has given me a perspective I never had. I spent twenty years in Dallas, living a life I could respect, trying to avoid the subject. It feels good to have it out in the open.”

“I know you’re right. I’m sorry to keep calling you and being so emotionally needy.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll survive,” I said. “But do me a favor? If they write a romance between you and Officer Nasty, give me fair warning before we go see the movie.”

He chuckled. Despite ending the call on an upbeat note, I felt unsettled. Something I’d said felt off, like I knew something I didn’t know I knew. I shook my head quickly to ward off the thoughts, the way Rocky shakes his body after a bath, and headed back inside the precinct. My call to Hudson had been intended to make me forget the reason I was at a police station, but it had done the opposite. By repeating the facts to him, I knew Tex was misinterpreting whatever he’d learned during that phone call at Alice’s house. And then the piece of information I’d forgotten clicked.

I went back inside the police station. Nasty stood by the Live Scan machine showing Erin how it worked. Tex was ten feet away, by the front desk, with his arms crossed over his chest. Garcia was seated behind the desk typing up a report. The brown bag was gone from the table.

“Captain Allen, can I talk to you?” I asked. I glanced at the two women. They were absorbed in their conversation. “It’s about earlier today.”

“Not now,” he said in an offhand manner.

“But it’s important. It’s about your investigation.”

“Not now,” he said again. This time I was the object of his glare.

Fine. I’d already figured out the one fact that had been bothering me, and if Tex weren’t willing to listen, then I’d have to get his attention another way.

I approached Officer Garcia. “How long did you tell me it takes for your Live Scan machine to come back with a hit?”

“Fastest we’ve ever seen is eleven minutes,” he said. “Average is about an hour.”

I turned to Tex. “Captain Allen, I bet Erin would love to see a demonstration of how the fingerprint machine works. Why don’t you show her?” I smiled sweetly. “Consider it a public service demonstration.”

Tex stared at me like he knew I was up to something but couldn’t figure out what. A few seconds later he looked at Garcia. “Take my prints,” he said.

“Yours?” I asked, fighting to keep the surprise from sounding phony.

“I have no reason to scan either of these women,” he said.

“Oh, come on, Captain, I’m sure you have a consent form around here somewhere.”

“What are you up to, Madison?” Nasty asked.

“Me? I just thought Erin would like a demonstration of the equipment the Lakewood Police Department uses every day.”

“Oh, I would!” Erin said.

Garcia switched on the computer and the machine. Tex set his hand below the green light, and the beam slowly scanned in his prints. We all watched them appear on the LCD screen that was mounted on the wall. When both sets of fingertips had been scanned, Garcia proceeded with the finger rolls. Somewhere during the process, Tex shifted from his annoyance over my suggestion to an apparent ease in being able to teach the pretty actress about the equipment.

After the whole process was done, he explained what happened next. “The prints are uploaded into a central database. They’re checked against any other prints: unidentified prints that were lifted from crime scenes and those of known criminals.”

And then the printer turned on behind Garcia’s desk, and a sheet of paper spit out. A red light went on the LCD screen, and a beep sounded.

“What’s it doing?” Erin asked.

“Yes, what’s happening?” I asked. “It didn’t do all that for me.”

“That’s because your prints didn’t get a hit,” Garcia said. He picked up the report that had printed and scanned the document. “Captain? You might want to see this.”

Tex snatched the piece of paper out of Officer Garcia’s hand. He glared at the paper, and then at me.

“I tried to tell you, Captain, but you didn’t want to listen,” I said. “You asked me to cooperate by voluntarily having my prints scanned in so you could rule out a match on the weapon used to kill John Sweet. Remember?” I gave him my most endearing smile. “But you should also remember I never touched that gun. You did.”