Chapter 25
25
“Y ou two don’t lose any time, huh?” said Clooney when David opened the door.
He was still shirtless. I was wearing his T-shirt over my underwear, and Clooney noticed it right away. I mean, I guess you didn’t have to be the most sagacious detective to realize neither of us was completely clad.
“I wish. This is really not what it looks like. It could be, but it isn’t. By the end, we were sort of having an argument,” I said, more to myself than for Clooney’s sake.
“Yeah, I could hear you from the landing. These walls are thin.”
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, officer?” David gracefully intervened. “We really need to go back to our argument.”
“One thing is clear, you two are funny. Possible murderers and, at the latest, you’re clearly hiding something . But funny nonetheless,” Clooney said with a chuckle.
“We strive for entertainment,” I said, acidly.
“You two wouldn’t by any chance know something about a car in the garage owned by Dashing Henry?”
“George just told us something about a car being found at the garage, yes.” I was opting for the deflection technique until it was no longer possible.
“It’s been broken into. Anything you may know about that?”
I crossed my arms. “George also told us about it. Still not sure how he’s always two steps ahead of you.”
“Funny, again,” Clooney said, but I knew this time he wasn’t actually thinking that. “You wouldn’t happen to see or know who broke into the car, right?”
“Does it look like we could have seen anything in this condition?” I gestured to my and David’s states of disrobement.
Clooney was having none of it. “Answer my question, please.”
“Is this turning into another interrogation, Detective?” I said. Once deflection was no longer possible, you never lied. You did something better. “Because we can continue this conversation, but we’ll have to wait for our lawyer.”
“I see how you’re playing this.” His smile didn’t meet his eyes. “You know this doesn’t look good for you both, right? It’s almost as if you’re hiding something, again .”
“On the contrary. But I’m a lawyer’s daughter and I do what my dad has always told me to do: I call him when I feel something is not quite right.” That sentence rang so true right then.
“Your dad, I mean your lawyer, called to let us now that you were prepared to make a statement in case we decided to consider Mr. Ramos’s reporting of the deceased in relation to the murder investigation,” Clooney said, and it was almost as if he knew or intuited that David didn’t know about Henry’s attempt with me. I was glad I’d already told him.
“And I’m prepared to do it. Tell me when and where, and I’ll be there—with my lawyer,” I said. “Or I can make him come now if you want.”
“That won’t be necessary at the moment, but you two keep reachable,” he told us.
“We will,” David said. With that, we bid our goodbyes to the cop and closed the door.
I was going to say something the moment Clooney was no longer in sight, but David brought his index finger to my mouth and his other index finger to his in what was probably the sexiest way of telling someone to shut up.
He looked through the peephole and, once he made sure Clooney was in the elevator and out of earshot, he took his finger from my lips. I missed his touch instantly.
“You really want to talk to the cops about Henry? About what he did to you?” David started.
“I want them to know you didn’t have any reason to kill Henry because he’d sued you for libel, and the charge had no foundation.”
“Brenda would vouch for me. She’s one of my first on-the-record sources. There’s no need for you to get involved.”
“I want to get involved. I’ve not been involved for way too much time,” I said. “You know reading that article sent me straight to your place that night six months ago with only one idea in mind, right?”
“I had an inkling that had something to do with it.” He smiled. “The thing is, I was barely able to publish it.”
I felt guilty once again. “I know, because no one wanted to talk to you.”
“Finding sources was hard, but that’s always the case with a story like this,” David said, putting me a little bit at ease. “But one of the LA Misconducts producers tried everything in his power to prevent me from getting the story out. I think he’s the one who ultimately managed to get me fired. Even after the article was published, he maintained it was total fabrication and that Henry was a model citizen and a victim.”
“What producer?” I suddenly realized. “Do you remember his name? Could that be Archie Eisenberg?”
“It could, I guess.” David’s brow furrowed in thought. “Name sounds familiar. But I’m not sure, to be honest. I’m usually good with names when I’m working on a story but forget them the moment it gets published.”
“He may have gotten you fired, and you don’t remember his name?” I’ve never understood David’s ability to be cool with everything and everyone. But not holding a grudge against the person who cost him his job was even more inexplicable to me.
“I don’t believe in holding on to negativity,” he said.
“I don’t think you realize how boho, Californian, tree-hugger that sounds!”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked, a knowing smirk on his face.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what happened before,” I told him then. I needed to come completely clean with him.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t trust that I wouldn’t put you before my work,” he said. “That wouldn’t happen. You know, right?”
“I do now.”
We stared at each other for so long. I felt butterflies flutter in my stomach and had the feeling of being a silly twenty-something-year-old flirting with her best friend again.
“This is new,” I said, referring to the blue-inked tattoo on the left side of his torso. Of course, I’d seen the body art depicting a bird of paradise flower before, but I never was able to inquire about it because of our self-imposed silence pact.
“I got it when you left me,” he said, eyes still fixed on mine, electricity crackling in the air between us.
“I didn’t leave you. We decided to part ways,” I said, stubborn as always.
He shook his head slightly. “We’ll agree to disagree.”
“In any case”—I dismissed a squabble that wasn’t going to be settled easily—“I like it.” I went to trace the lines of his tattoo, but I knew exactly what that would trigger. And we had a lot on our fucking plates.
So, against my best and most hedonist feelings, I extricated my fingers.
“There’s something else we need to talk about,” I said.
His eyes widened. “Tell me nothing else happened to you.”
“No, no, no,” I appeased him. “It’s something else about the case.”
“The case?” he said, one of his eyebrows arching in amusement.
“You know, this murder we’re trying to solve to clear your name and so you can write an article or two about it and win a Pulitzer or something.”
“That’s what we’ve been doing these past two days? Trying to get me a Pulitzer?” he said, chuckling.
“We’ve also attempted to get the cops off your back,” I said. “And we’ve been using this whole thing as an excuse to flirt like crazy and spend time together.”
He grinned triumphantly. “So you’re admitting it,” he said, relief plain in his voice.
“Of course, I’m admitting it. The only reason we’re not fucking over that chair or in the shower right now is because we’re in even more shit than you realize.”
“You’re going to need to back that up with some serious facts because it sounded like a paltry excuse.”
“Seriously, since when do I find excuses not to fuck you? Come,” I said and grabbed his hand, walking us toward the bed. I crouched and showed him my most recent preoccupation underneath the bedframe. “See for yourself.”