Макс Коллинз - No One Will Hear You

“Gonna be much longer?”

The bottom right of her computer screen told her it was just shy of midnight. Suddenly she realized her back ached, her eyes were sore, a dull headache was going, and here stood her cute chemist, in whose arms she could curl up...

... when she got her work done.

“A while,” she said at last. “You shouldn’t wait.”

He came around the desk, gave her a quick, awkward hug, then a little kiss.

“Get a room,” said a voice from the doorway.

Anderson jerked away and Jenny backed up in her chair.

Carmen Garcia came in, laughing gently, looking typically professional in a silk pale blue blouse and navy skirt.

“Good Lord,” she said, “but are you two jumpy.”

An embarrassed Anderson was heading for the door. “Night, Carmen. Jenny. See y’all in the morning.”

The California sun had baked most of Anderson’s southern drawl out, but it still turned up now and then. Usually that made Jenny smile. Right now she was giving Carmen a dirty look.

Carmen caught it, and called after Chris, “Hey! Don’t go away mad! Chris...”

From the hall, he gave them both his shy grin. “No, really, girls, I should go. Jenny here’s got work to do.”

And he was vapor.

Carmen made an “jeesh” face and said to Jen, “I’m sorry, honey. Spoiled things, huh? Boy, is he touchy.”

“It’s the paparazzi thing,” Jenny said. “They’ve made us both gun-shy.”

“I’ve been pretty lucky, I suppose,” Carmen said.

Jenny’s guest sat on the edge of the desk, crossing and exposing her enviably shapely legs. Jenny decided maybe she did need a visitor’s chair at that.

Carmen was saying, “I was getting some of that tabloid attention, right after we got back from Kansas.”

Jenny had noticed that any reference Carmen made to a madman holding her hostage was always simply coded “Kansas.” After the hell Carmen had gone through, Jenny wondered, could the woman really be as together as she seemed?

“Something I can do for you?” Jenny asked.

That came out colder than she meant it to.

“I was stopping by to say hi. Nothing about work. There is something I want to... but if you’re busy, it can wait...”

Jenny glanced at the dead trail on her monitor and decided it could keep. “Actually, a break from this would be nice. What’s up?”

Desk-perched Carmen leaned in confidentially. “This is kinda personal, and hardly worth chasing that cute boyfriend of yours away, but...”

“But?”

“But I just wanted to know... how did you know Chris was... the one?”

“The one what?”

“The one! Prince Charming, Mr. Right... don’t pretend you don’t get what I’m talking about.”

“Well... I don’t know that Chris is ‘Mr. Right.’ If there is such a thing.”

“So then, what? He’s Mr. Right Now?”

“No. I just really like him.”

“He’s cute. He’s shy. Nice buns. I get all that. But what else attracted you?”

“Chemistry.”

“That — special connection, you mean?”

“No. Chemistry. He’s a chemist. I like people who have a scientific bent.”

Carmen just looked at her.

“Why are you asking me this, Carmen? I mean, you know this is the last thing I’m an expert on.”

“I just frankly... envy what you and Chris have. And, with Vince, I mean I like Vince...”

Jenny said, “I like Vince too. He seemed really nice at lunch.”

“He’s very nice,” Carmen said. “It’s just... it’s been so long since I’ve been in a relationship. Anyway, a relationship that worked...”

“Relationships are hard,” Jenny said.

She didn’t mean her and Chris, really. More, her and every other human in the world.

Carmen was studying her, as if Jenny were an interesting but bewildering lab specimen. “Even hounded by the media, you and Chris seem to do fine. How do you pull that off?”

“Well, he makes me feel... comfortable.”

“That’s the way I feel with Vince,” Carmen said, looking off wistfully. “Comfortable. But I don’t know if there’s the right... chemistry. And I don’t mean in the test-tube way.”

How, Jenny wondered, had this confident career woman managed to reduce herself to a teenage girl with boy trouble?

“What is this really about, Carmen?”

Carmen drew in a breath, let it out, then leaned close again and whispered: “Did you two start doing it, you know, right away?”

“It?” Jenny asked.

“Stop! Sex , you high-IQ airhead. How long before you two jumped into bed?”

Jenny laughed. “Oh, we haven’t had sex.”

Carmen’s eyes popped. “But... but you guys have been together for like... what... six months?” “Eight.”

“And you haven’t... done the deed?”

“If by deed, you mean had sexual intercourse, that would be no.”

“Well... why not?”

“We aren’t rushing it.”

“Eight months. Not rushing it.”

”Yes. What about you and Vince?”

Carmen didn’t answer. Her face took on a melancholy cast.

“You okay?” Jenny asked.

“Well, I was kind of worried,” Carmen said, and laughed just a little, “but now that I hear you and Chris haven’t been intimate... You see, I guess because of Kansas, well, Vince has been very... gentlemanly.”

“That’s good, right? He respects you?”

“It’s sweet. It’s just that sometimes I feel like he’s afraid to touch me. Like I might... break.”

“You went through a lot, Carmen. Everybody knows that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. It was on TV.”

Jenny had to smile. Shake her head. “So of all the people in the world, how was it you came to choose me for relationship advice?”

That made Carmen smile, too. Even laugh.

“Shows you how messed up I am,” she said.

Carmen reached over, squeezed Jenny’s hand, climbed off the desk, and went out.

Jenny thought about switching off her computer.

Then got back to work.

Maybe Don Juan could afford to rest, but she couldn’t.

The PA whispered, “Five, four, three...” and, at “... one,” touched Harrow’s sleeve and the host stepped past the edge of the curtain.

Bright lights burned as he strode out into the studio, the applause like friendly fire as he approached his mark.

He couldn’t see the audience well. Just movement, colors, faces lost in the blur. These occasional live broadcasts were perhaps the most surreal aspect of the Crime Seen experience.

“For there to be a war on crime,” Harrow said, beginning with his famous catchphrase, “we must all be warriors... Ladies and gentlemen, good evening.”

Another round of applause preceded Harrow’s seemingly off-the-cuff but wholly scripted preamble.

“This is another of our rare live broadcasts,” Harrow said. A typical sweeps week stunt, actually. “You may be surprised that UBC would allow me on the air live again, after last year...”

A knowing laugh rippled across the audience. And even Harrow had a wry smile. But the subtext was not at all comical: that memorable moment in broadcasting history when J.C. Harrow went on the air live to call out the killer of his family.

How he wished tonight he could do the same thing with Don Juan — the maniac who had targeted Crime Seen itself to fuel his own sick fame-seeking.

But Harrow had promised Anna Amari otherwise.

And what he did instead — as the teleprompters instructed — was start the show with a piece on Billy Shears, including the video footage from the Star Struck and the forensic artist’s victim sketch.