Jennifer Crusie - GETTING RID OF BRADLEY

Zack ignored him. “Lucy, do you have a safe anyplace in the house? Any place where you keep your valuables? No?” Zack sighed and tapped his fingers on the desk. “Listen. We’re going to have to come over tomorrow and search your place. Yeah, sometime tomorrow. Now, listen to me. Stay in that house and don’t answer the door tonight. And stay away from the doors and windows. Those lace curtains are a joke. When the lights are on, anybody can see in. Why? Because I said so. What do you mean, who do I think I am? I’m the guy who saved your life today. Yes, I did, damn it. What?” He listened to her again, frowning. “I told you, you did not beat me up. Thank you. Now stay inside that house. Good night.”

He hung up and glared at the phone. “I don’t know why I worry about that woman. She could argue any attacker to death.”

“I thought you were never going to worry about anybody,” Anthony said, trying to suppress his grin. “I thought responsibility meant death. And what’s with you calling her ‘Lucy’? The two of you are on a first-name basis already? What’s going on?”

“She has a dog that does a dog joke.” Zack rolled his eyes in disgust. “It’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen. She’s all alone in that big house with three of the most un-vicious dogs that ever barked. She was married to a rat, and now somebody’s taking potshots at her. Somebody has to look out for her.”

Anthony began to laugh. “Zack, she split your lip and gave you what the doctor calls a minor concussion. He said you should be home in bed. You’re talking about a woman who beat you up in an alley.”

“She did not…”

“All right, all right. So what’s the plan? To search the house tomorrow?” Anthony shook his head. “I hate to tell you this, but we’ve still got paperwork from Jerry this morning to finish. I can put it off for a little while, but not the whole morning. Isn’t there some way we can short-circuit this search thing?”

“Yeah,” Zack said. “We can go to interview Bradley Porter first and see if we can get him to spill everything he knows. Lucy told me he’s a branch manager of a bank out in Gamble Hills. Nobody knows where he’s staying right now, but he’ll be at work tomorrow. We can start with him first.” He stared at the ceiling again. “Actually, I’m really looking forward to meeting him.”

Anthony narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“I want to see what a rat like that looks like. You wouldn’t believe what a sweetheart Lucy is.”

“A sweetheart?” Anthony grinned. “She beat you up.”

“She did not…” Zack closed his eyes and gave up. “Forget it. I’m sore. My head hurts. I need a hot bath and a beer. I cannot argue with you anymore. You win. She beat me up.”

“When you can’t fight, we’re definitely finished for the day.” Anthony stood. “Want some help getting down to your car, old man?”

“Drop dead,” Zack said, and got up carefully, trying not to groan from his bruises.

Before Lucy went up to bed, she found the phone table on its side and the receiver thrown off its hook.

“Did you do this?” she said to Einstein as she righted the table, and he immediately turned and walked away. “Most nights I wouldn’t care,” she said to his swaying rear end. “But tonight I thought maybe I might actually get another call from him.”

Einstein turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder.

“Right,” Lucy said. “That is pathetic.”

Then she put the phone back on the table and went up to bed.

LUCY GOT UP TO RUN at eight on Friday morning, but she stopped at the front door.

She wasn’t supposed to go out. Every muscle in her body wanted to run, but she wasn’t supposed to go out.

Zack Warren had forbidden it.

“I don’t believe this,” she told the dogs. “He just says ‘Stay put,’ and I stay put. And today was supposed to be the first day of the rest of my independence. If I had any backbone at all…”

On the other hand, he said he was coming by to search the house. She had to be home for that. It was her civic duty. Sort of.

Also, she didn’t want to miss seeing him again.

She sighed and started to run up the stairs. Two steep flights. About a thousand trips up and down should do it.

But just for today. Tomorrow, she was going out to run like a rational human being, no matter what Zack Warren said.

“HE TOOK TWO WEEKS OFF?” Zack glared at the immaculate matron behind the mahogany manager’s desk at Gamble Hills First National. She wore her dark hair styled like a helmet, and she glared back at him militarily through horn-rimmed glasses.

Zack scowled at her. “How can a bank manager take two weeks off?”

“He was getting a divorce.” She jerked on the cuffs of her navy polyester suit jacket for emphasis. “He was very disturbed about it. The past two weeks, he couldn’t concentrate at all. Mr. Porter was always very efficient, so it wasn’t like him. Not at all. We all understood that he needed a little time off.”

“We appreciate your help, Mrs. Elmore,” Anthony said, trying to reduce the fallout from Zack’s scowl. He was rewarded with a slight smile and a nod. “We have just a few more questions and we’ll go. We know how busy you must be with Mr. Porter gone. Now, his last day was yesterday?”

“Day before yesterday.” Mrs. Elmore lowered her voice. “Yesterday was the Divorce.”

“Ah.” Anthony smiled at her in sympathy. “This must make a lot of extra work for you.”

The woman smoothed her jacket and smiled complacently. “I don’t mind. It’s the least I can do for the poor man.”

“The poor man?” Zack said, thinking of Lucy.

Mrs. Elmore glared at him.

“Zack, why don’t you go over there and interview somebody?” Anthony jerked his thumb toward the tellers.

“Fine.” As Zack wandered off, he could hear Anthony saying, “That’s terrible. Mr. Porter must have been very upset for the past couple of weeks. Did he say anything…”

“Hi.”

Zack turned around to see a very young, very blonde teller smiling at him.

“Can I help you with anything?” Her smile deepened.

“Full service banking?” Zack said and grinned.

“Well, we try to please,” she said, dimpling at him. “I’m Deborah.”

“So tell me, Deborah.” Zack leaned on the ledge across from her and smiled into her eyes. “What’s it like to work for Mr. Porter?”

“It’s boring,” Deborah said. “And I don’t talk about my employers.”

Zack showed her his badge. “I’m one of the good guys, Deborah. Tell me about Mr. Porter.”

“You don’t look like a good guy.” She smiled at him again.

“Mr. Porter, Deborah. Concentrate. Other than boring, what was he?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. He came in, worked hard, and went home.”

“Ever make a pass at you?”

Deborah chortled. “Mr. Porter? Not a chance. He was so crazy about his wife, he didn’t even know there were other women on earth.”

Zack stopped smiling. “But he just got divorced.”

“Oh, that was her idea.” Deborah looked around and dropped her voice. “Long overdue, if you ask me. I mean, he would have bored me to death. I met her at the Christmas party. She was really nice. Quiet, but nice. Mr. Porter showed her off like she was something he owned, but he was crazy about her. You could see it. I mean, Evan Hatch just asked her to dance, and he was furious about it. He hasn’t spoken to Evan since.”

“Evan Hatch?”

Deborah jerked her head to her right and Zack stepped back to look at the teller two windows down. He was about five foot four, a hundred and twenty pounds, and bald.

Zack frowned at Deborah. “Porter was jealous of him?”