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Lawrence closes the shop for me once I arrive at his studio. It’s the sign of a true best friend when they’ll turn away potential customers to listen to you vent about your jail visit.
We have lots of time to analyze my few minutes with Ryan, because L just got a new brand of dye in and I’m the guinea pig for some of the brighter pigments. Whether it’s my bright hair as a billboard or just the clientele he’s attracting now, he’s doing more and more complicated dye jobs. He loves it, and he’s good at it.
When I finish telling Lawrence about Ryan’s cryptic message and Rideout’s strange sendoff, we’re at the wash sink. I’m having a hard time staying upset, because L’s fingers are working magic with their scalp massage. If I could bottle this, I’d pour it on every night before bed.
I open one eye to find Lawrence’s brow wrinkled in concern. “I told you I thought she had other plans.”
“Yeah but breaking someone out of jail? Even you have to agree that’s absolutely batshit. She has no reason. Why would she risk either of them in that way?”
Grudgingly L nods, then stares off into the middle distance while warm water sluices over my temples. It’s a good three minutes of him thinking and running his hands through my hair, and he looks so pensive I don’t interrupt.
Finally, L turns off the sink, and a fluffy towel replaces his hands. “The thing that worries me most is Detective Rideout.”
“I agree.” So much.
“But we won’t know what that’s all about until we know, I guess.”
“Yeah, that bothers me too. I could ask Matteo if he said anything to him. Like encouraged him to be nice.”
We head to the chair, and L hands me a sheet of paper. “If you don’t mind, can we also talk about the grand opening event? I have the construction crew there this week, working on the stage and bar. I thought maybe you could look at our list and see if there’s anything I should ask them to build before they leave.”
“Sure,” but I’m momentarily stunned when L pulls off the towel. “L, this is gorgeous.”
Gem-purple hair replaces my fading red-turned-salmon color, and it’s deep and vibrant.
“I want to tone the tips a little, and give a bit of a frosted ombre look,” he says, running his fingers through my short locks before a satisfied smile replaces the scowl. “But I’m pretty happy with this.”
And I am too. The deep purple may currently accentuate the dark circles under my eyes from my late-night shenanigans but that’s nothing that concealer can’t cover. Otherwise, the purple brings out the blue in my eyes, and makes my skin look elegantly pale. I was made for deep purple hair. “Absolutely love it.”
While he works on my tips, I read through his list of tasks left for the grand opening. It’s a lot.
“You have a meeting today with the city?”
“I have to meet with them so I can get approved as a Christmas Kid donation site.”
“And you have a radio interview tomorrow? You didn’t tell me.”
“It’s only going to be ten minutes to record an ad and then talk a little about our event during the morning news hour. Not a big deal. Now, item 23 is what I need your help with.”
“You’re dressing as Mrs. Claus?”
“That’s the basis of the look, but I need your genius to glam it up a bit.”
“Are we talking naughty elf, or Mean Girls?”
“I was hoping for something more original.”
“Hm.” I ponder a moment. “Okay, I’ll at least go source the fabric. I’ll try to sketch some concepts for you tonight.”
“Perfect.”
The back door opens with a rather loud squeak, but when I try to turn my head to see who has joined us, L uses his hands to straighten my head forcefully. “It’s just my sugar daddy,” he says with a secret happy smile at me in the mirror. “Christmas has come early; he comes bearing gifts.”
“Hi, Whalon!” I call without moving my body. “I’m being held captive by a beautiful person, but I’m okay with it.”
“Noted,” he says in his rich tenor.
“He’s funny and smart,” I sigh wistfully. “How did you get so lucky?”
“Twenty years of really hard work, pining, and paying my dues on Match.com?”
“Fair enough. I didn’t even do that last part, my mother signed me up. Under her e-mail so she could vet my dates.”
L gives a shimmy-shudder. “Glad your luck has turned around.”
A warm feeling spreads in my chest before bottoming out like a wounded blue ice dragon crashing into a frozen lake. “Yeah, Matteo is pretty great.” Except that I wasn’t being pretty great to him. I’d been skulking about for weeks now.
With a flourish of my cape and an isolated shower of tiny blonde and purple hairs, L announces, “There.”
I’m taken on a short ride to face the back of the studio and in the tiny mirror held up by L, I see the masterpiece that is my hair. A sleek pixie cut that teases into a slight faux hawk at the front, a deep purple at the roots with silvery purple tips, frosted and glittering perfection . . . I look like a damn hot Tinkerbell.
“You’ve outdone yourself,” I gasp.
With all the bearing of a game show host, L winks. “But wait there’s more.”
“More?” I stupidly glance at the floor where the remnants of my salmon hair lay.
“Not more hair, more out here,” Lawrence says, twirling the cape over his head like a bullfighter and doing quite an impressive Spanish two-step to the back office.
“Olé,” I mutter as I climb out of the chair. Surprises are one of my least favorite things in life. Unless they involve puppies or artichoke dip.
“Are there puppies back here?” I ask, rounding the corner to find Whalon eyeing me in confusion.
“No, and no baked dip either,” L shoots back. He’s slinging a car key around his finger.
Damn, does my BFF know me or what? I eye the key. “Are we . . . going for a drive? Is that the surprise?”
“Yep.”
The key sails through the air and like the magical superhero athlete I’ve trained hard to become, I miss completely and the key slides under the hand sink just outside the bathroom door. I search for it, and emerge moments later, brushing black grease off the shiny key. “You guys sure are being weird,” I say, trying to hand the key back to L.
His smirk deepens and he refuses to take it.
“Oh! Do I get to drive?” Now that’s a prospect that interests me. “Oh! Wait! Are we going out to the desert and you’re going to let me drive your car as fast as I want? You know I’ve always wanted to—” I catch Whalon’s slightly alarmed face and stop. Apparently not.
“Why don’t we just step outside,” L says, opening the metal door at the back of the office space.
“Okay . . .” I drag the last sound out once it’s clear they intend for me to go first. “I do not volunteer as tribute, and you can’t make me.”
But it’s not L’s black Challenger that greets me, it’s a different vehicle. How many does Whalon own? One for every day of the week? Though I admit this sparkly purple car isn’t one I’d have thought he’d drive. Maybe it’s his “going out on a limb and helping with a superhero team” car, reserved for very specific driving holidays.
“What do you think?” This from Whalon, huddled in the doorway with Lawrence like a couple of schoolboys.
“About . . . ?”
“The car,” he says, and they both laugh.
And then my brain catches up to the current moment. Lawrence had said Whalon came bearing gifts. I gasp, and turn—looking anew at the purple sedan in front of me.
“No.”
“Yes,” Lawrence says, clapping. “Happy early birthday. And Christmas. And New Year’s. For like, the next twenty years.”
The car is for me. Someone got me a car as a gift. Not someone. Lawrence.
I stare in awe at the sleek sedan.
“It’s a 2015 Chevy SS,” Whalon offers. “Low miles, custom pearlescent purple paint job. The girl selling it was dying to get it off the lot because of the color, and we just . . . it looks so much like you we couldn’t help ourselves.”
“You shouldn’t have,” I say. But I’m already running my hands down the shiny top and over the side mirror. Only it’s kind of hard to see the car all of a sudden. I sniffle alarmingly, and wipe at my eyes. “Thank you.”
I turn to them both and launch myself into a hug, sandwich style. “But you really shouldn’t have.” I pull back, now alarmed at the fact that my best friend bought me a car. “L, you are opening a new salon, a new venue, throwing a huge charity event . . . you absolutely cannot get me this. I refuse. I can’t accept a gift like this.”
“Hey now, don’t steal my joy. I’m happy to help you out. Plus,” Lawrence holds up a hand then digs in his blazer pocket, “I knew you’d have kittens about us buying this. In the event that you freaked out, I printed out a copy of the bill of sale and indicated the portion of the purchase that would be considered the gift listed before . . . and the amount you may pay back as a zero-interest loan whenever you please, if it helps you.”
“It does. I will pay you back.” I turn and look at the car, hope taking flight in my chest. A new—well, new to me—car. A purple car that perfectly matches my . . . my hands fly to my hair. “It matches my hair,” I say.
It’s enough of a yes for L, and he and Whalon give me one last squeeze. I breathe in the stinging scent of dye, and I swear that’s why I’m teary again.
“Thank you.”
“See? A good surprise.”
“The only way this could have been better is if that car is filled with corgi puppies.”
“Fresh out at the store.”
I give them both a squeeze again. “Then it’s the perfect surprise, and I don’t deserve friends like you. Now gimme that key.”
****
AN HOUR LATER, I’M cozied up on Matteo’s couch—his not very comfortable couch but I am making do by sitting on a throw pillow—staring off into space and making notes about possible storylines in my journal, when he comes home. Trog gives a little whuff and hops down just before the door swings open.
“I didn’t hear your car pull in,” I say, stretching my hands up. Which isn’t saying much since his car makes almost zero noise at any time. “It’s the perfect spy car.”
“James Bond ordered two last year,” Matteo jokes back, juggling an armful of papers and folders. He sets them on the table and I watch as his suit coat is removed to reveal the signature Matteo work shirt—pushed up at the forearms.
I can’t help myself; I get up off the couch and go wrap myself around the deliciousness that is my boyfriend in a rumpled button-down.
“Hello, honey, welcome home,” I joke. “My apron has gone missing, but I brought home takeout.”
Matteo relaxes into my hug. “That sounds perfect, thank you. You changed your hair.”
“I did.”
“I love it.” After a good squeeze, and a pat on my butt, Matteo peers around the living room.
Feeling like Stan Shunpike, I peer around behind him. “Whatchyou lookin’ at?” I ask in a terrible British accent. “Are we practicing constant vigilance?”
Matteo throws me a look. “No, I was looking to see who was here.”
“Who was here? Oh!” I hop up and down, clapping my hands like I’m five. “It’s mine! That’s my new car!”
Matteo blinks. “What?”
“Well, it’s not new. And I sort of feel awful that Lawrence went to all the trouble, but also . . . now that I’m out here so much . . .”
Matteo laughs and loosens his tie. “Okay, I’m sensing a story, why don’t I go set this stuff down, and you start warming up dinner. We’ll meet back here in two minutes and you can tell me how that purple machine came to be yours.”
“We have to name her,” I call to his back as he heads for the bedroom, “so start thinking of names!” I’m already considering She-Ra as my number one option, though Quinn—after Harley Quinn—might also fit the bill.
In short order, I’m dumping Chinese food into bowls and microwaving them. This is me at my most domestic bliss—30 seconds to the house smelling amazing? Yes please. Matteo joins me again, and I tell him all about my visit at Lawrence’s.
“Well, if you like the car, I like the car,” he says as he hugs me before we sit.
“You don’t like it?” I ask, stomach sinking.
“It’s very . . . purple.”
“That’s why I like it,” I say, my tone conveying my offense. “And so is my hair.”
“It’s a car meant to be owned by the incredibly vibrant woman I love. It’s perfect,” Matteo amends. “And your hair is . . . well, I never pictured that I’d love purple hair on anyone, but here we are.”
“Here we are,” I agree with a smile, contentment back in my belly. His hands are starting to get very friendly. “And if we don’t eat now, I think our dinner is going to get cold a second time.”
“I don’t mind if you don’t,” he says, bending to kiss my neck.
My stomach gives a growl of protest and we both laugh. “Noted,” he says, pulling away. I feel colder without him pressed up against me, but this girl needs to eat.
“I saw Ryan today,” I offer as we dig in.
“Kevin said he saw you today,” Matteo says as he slides into his seat. “Detective Rideout,” he clarifies at my raised eyebrow.
“Ah. Yeah. Saw him there too.” I shove a bite of lo mein into my mouth and chew.
“Did he . . . say . . . anything?”
“Rideout? No, I don’t think so.” Matteo loves Kevin so I do not offer my thoughts about how strangely he was acting. Though, with some alarm, I note the blotch at Matteo’s throat which indicates he’s either turned on or upset. I’m hoping this isn’t a bromance-turned-romance so I just clear my throat. “Why? What’s up?”
“No, nothing. How was Ryan?”
Sidestepping the weird cryptic message, I reply, “Oh you know. Ryan. In jail. It was seriously depressing,” I say setting my fork down with a sigh.
We sit in strained silence for a long stretch, which is really strange for us. Easy banter is our thing.
“How was your day?” I try after the silence stretches into the uncomfortable length, the only sound being Matteo’s chopsticks on the plate.
“Pretty much the same ol’, same ol’ this week.”
“No, wait a minute. Rideout said the other day you were indisposed and that it was important.” No wonder Matteo had been acting weird. I lean forward, food forgotten. “What is going on?” I gasp. “It is your promotion? Is it not going through?”
Matteo closes his eyes and I swear I see him swearing under his breath. “Nothing I can talk about. Not really.”
Dread lurches in the region of my stomach like a zombie. “Wait, is this serious?”
“Yeah.” He passes a hand over his hair and down his five o’clock shadow.
This is the first realization that I have that Matteo won’t be able to speak to me freely, and I hate it. “Does it have to do with the Golden Arrow case?”
“Yes,” he agrees.
An uncomfortably prickly silence grows between us before Matteo says in a rush, “I have been under investigation by Internal Affairs. I was informed by my supervisor of the ongoing investigation into the theft of evidence related to the Golden Arrow case. I had to give a sworn statement and I was found not guilty,” he says with a sigh when he catches sight of my eyebrows buried in my hairline, “and I really can’t say anything more. Please don’t ask me.” His eyes plead with mine, but there’s something else there. A wall that wasn’t there moments before.
“You were under investigation and you never told me?”
“I couldn’t. I didn’t even know for most of it.”
“But I’m a consultant on the case,” I say.
There’s that silence again. “Actually—”
I stand up from the table. “What now? What, am I not good enough? I was cleared of all charges. I answered all of Rideout’s questions.” I have to be careful here, because I refuse to lie to Matteo outright. “You know I didn’t help Ryan with any of the Golden Arrow stuff, right?”
I swear Matteo’s eyes narrow as if he’s contemplating throwing the lasso of truth around me.
“I didn’t,” I insist. The truth. I didn’t. I am only now currently acting as the Golden Arrow. “And you were being investigated for stealing evidence?”
“I didn’t steal anything. Evidence from the drug busts went missing. Often this happens when police take them and sell them on the market. It’s routine to investigate every detective who handled the evidence.”
“Well, did they figure out who did it?”
Matteo cuts his head to the side. “No. The assumption is that one of the Golden Arrow’s associates stole the items.”
Damn.
“For what purpose?” Why on Earth would Ryan—or Lelani—steal evidence?
He hesitates, and the sinking feeling in my gut gets stronger. I’m Magneto, trying to lift Thor’s hammer. “MG, you don’t know anything about this do you?”
“No. I don’t.” My voice comes out clipped and chilly. “I told you I didn’t.” Rideout’s questioning about the drugs in Ryan’s room makes a lot more sense now though.
He nods, but his eyes are on me. “It’s just . . . well, the news . . . there was a development today and you’ve been put forward as a person of interest again. In a new case.”
A new case.
I blink “Wh—what?”
“You’re not a suspect. Well, we don’t have enough to establish a warrant . . .” he trails off and I can hear the yet that hangs heavy in the air. “But this last bust there were some really interesting items left at the crime scene.”
The damn feather boa.
“I heard about it on NPR.” Ice is my middle name. No, my first name.
His jaw flexes. “Yeah, they had a damn reporter at the scene. It should have been confidential information. I don’t know who leaked it to the press.” His eyes cut to mine, and all pretense has been dropped. “You have to admit the similarity to your new—your unpublished—comic is, well, frankly it’s hard to ignore.”
“I. Did. Not. Put. It. There.” I accentuate every word with a pointed finger on the table. I hope it detracts from the fact that my hands are shaking badly. I’m skirting the fact that I was there and I tied that person up, but I did not leave a feather boa. Matteo is right though . . . it’s more than coincidence. Someone is trying to make it look like I did it, and that person has firsthand knowledge of my comics. “Matteo, I swear to you, I’m being framed.”
That list is extremely short, and no one on that list would do something like that to me. Myself, Lawrence, Matteo, and—I gasp.
“Rideout.” Hadn’t he said he was going to look for any reason to lock me up? Maybe he didn’t find one so he invented one. But how?
Matteo’s eyebrows go up. “Detective Rideout what?”
“He did this.”
Then it’s clear as a bell in my head. Rideout handing me back the book that Matteo took to the office. His little smirk when he said, “nice drawings.”
“Kevin is not the Golden Arrow. There’s no way—”
“No. He’s framing me. Matteo, he’s one of the only people who has seen these drawings. He handed them back to me at the office, and said he’d looked at them. And—” I bite down just in time to stop myself from admitting I’d seen his car that night, one of the first on the scene. “I assume he was at the crime scene?”
Matteo looks vaguely confused now. “Yes, but that’s his job.”
“He’s hated me from the very beginning. He told me he’d look for any reason to put me in jail.” My pulse is pounding now with the certainty of it. “And since he can’t find anything, he’s creating a reason for it.” I’ve never been so certain about it. Rideout’s mocking salute, his glib jibe of “see you soon.” He knew, he knew, I’d be questioned.
I will Matteo to believe me. Matteo always comes through for me, believes me when no one else will. And yet, my knight and my champion topples off his horse like the Knight of Flowers. He frowns, then shakes his head. “MG, that is . . . that is far-fetched. Kevin is an officer of the law, and would never—”
I blow out a breath, not even caring I’m being rude. “You don’t think there’s the slightest possibility that Rideout could be manipulating things to make me look guilty? To get me off the case?” I almost claim to get me out of your life so he can have you all to himself, but manage to stop myself.
Matteo’s face is stony now. “No, I don’t think it’s possible.”
“Then we are at an impasse,” I say on a choked hysterical sob. And we have to sit here tonight while Matteo takes Rideout’s side on this. I look around the room from my mostly uneaten dinner to the couch where Trog is watching us, ears pricked, to the front door where just outside I catch the gleam of my car parked in the drive. My car, my chariot, and my escape. Thank the old gods and the new.
“What are you doing?”
I don’t even realize I’m shoving stuff into my purse until Matteo asks. But by then, I’m already halfway to the bedroom. “Leaving.” Apparently. My body is acting on its own accord and right now fight didn’t work out well for me so I’m going with flight.
Thank Thor I’ve left my half-packed suitcase shoved under the bed, finally my penchant for procrastination comes through. I grab my journals, books, and toothbrush and shove them in, zipping it with a vim and vigor usually reserved for the morning one leaves for a beach vacation. I don’t care what I’ve forgotten, I just want to get out.
Matteo is standing in the door of the bedroom when I pull up the handle on the suitcase and pick up Trog’s leash.
“MG, can we talk about this?”
I laugh, sounding a little unhinged. “Didn’t we just?”
“I hardly think that counts as talking—”
“Okay fine,” I say my mood switching to pure rage, “let’s talk. Are you going to listen to me? Believe me? Consider that I could be right?”
He shifts. “Yes of course.” But even I can tell it’s a placation measure. He’s already decided how this is.
“You’ve already said there’s no possibility of what I think being true, so I highly doubt that conversation is going to get us anywhere.”
He’s silent. I slip on my shoes, then straighten.
“Please don’t go,” he says, and this one pulls at my heart strings, because I hear the honesty there. It guts me.
“You don’t believe me,” I say. The pitter pat of tears falling onto my suitcase is loud in the quiet between us. Goddamn it, I hate crying and this makes three times today. “You believe . . . well, I don’t know what you believe. Do you really think I’m out there, incriminating myself like that?”
He presses his lips together and it’s all I need for my answer that he even has to think about it. “Excuse me,” I say, marching toward the door. He moves aside just in time, and I clip the leash to Trog’s collar.
“Be reasonable. I mean that you’ve lied in the past about what you’re doing, and—”
“And I was cleared by the judicial process,” I argue back. “Is that not good enough for you?” I stand up, aware that I’m walking the line of gaslighting. I am not proud in this moment. But I need Matteo on my side. He needs to believe me that while, yes, I’ve been doing some things that are technically illegal, that’s not the part that worries me. He needs to believe me that it’s taken a sinister turn and now I truly believe that his partner has it out for me. I walk right up to him, toe to toe. “Matteo, I promise you I did not leave that feather boa. Someone is framing me. If you want to believe Rideout over me, fine. But I’m not going to stay here while it happens.”
I wait for him to do something, anything. “So, you think it was me?”
“I simply think it’s possible,” he says. “I want to trust you, but I also have to trust myself. Let’s talk through his, don’t go. The weather is—”
But I’m already rolling my suitcase out of the house, carrying my unhappy dog in my messenger bag like Baby Yoda, through the rain to my waiting getaway car. Looks like dreams really do come true.