Jennifer Crusie - GETTING RID OF BRADLEY

“She’s not answering.” Zack let it ring a few more times before he slammed the phone down. “If she’s out running again, I’m going to kill her. Let’s go.”

“She wouldn’t be that dumb,” Anthony began and then stopped when he realized the alternative. “Then again, she might,” he said, and they both ran for the elevator.

THREE HOURS LATER, Lucy paid off her cab and climbed the steps to her house. Just as she was fishing for her key in her purse, a young patrolman came to the door and looked her up and down, smiling in appreciation.

“Can I help you?” he said.

“Yes,” Lucy said. “We’ve met. Your name is Matthews, but Zack calls you Junior, and this is my house. Let me in. What is this, anyway?”

Matthews stepped back immediately to let her in. “Boy, are we glad to see you. We were about ready to drag the river.”

An older patrolman was on the phone, but he stopped and squinted when he saw Lucy. “Didn’t you use to be blond?”

“Don’t remind me,” Lucy said. “Do I know you?”

“Forget it. We’re done. She’s here,” the older man said into the phone and hung up. “I’m Falk. You sent us after Warren a couple days ago, remember?”

“Oh.” Lucy winced. “I’m sorry about that. What’s going on here?”

Falk grinned. “ Warren couldn’t find you. It upset him. So we only got most of the force looking for your body.”

“Oh, no,” Lucy wailed. “I left a note. Why doesn’t he read notes?”

“Go get Warren,” Falk said to Matthews. “Let’s put him out of his misery.”

ZACK WHISTLED TO BRING the dogs in and headed through the kitchen to the living room, trying not to think the worst. She could be anywhere. Except with Tina, who was making plans to have Riverbend dismantled brick by brick until she found her sister. Or at her parents, who were annoyed because he had bothered them without any concrete reason.

Or here.

He walked into the dining room with Einstein on his heels and found Junior practically drooling over a strange redhead. She was cute, Zack thought absently, her head haloed in short, bright, coppery curls, but she wasn’t Lucy, and Lucy was all he wanted right now.

Then she turned, and it was Lucy.

“Where in the hell have you been?” He surged toward her, relief supercharging his anger.

“I left a note.” Lucy glared at him. “And I told you before, you can’t just put me down someplace and tell me to stay. Why did you cause all this fuss?”

“Why did I cause all this fuss?” Zack threw up his hands, speechless for a moment. “Well, to begin with, there wasn’t any note. None. Trust me. We have been over this place inch by inch. Looking for your body, bloodstains, anything. There was no note.”

“Well, I left one.” Lucy folded her arms in front of her. “You know, Zack, you’ve got to stop overreacting like this.”

“Overreacting? Overreacting?” He stepped in front of her until they were nose-to-nose. “Lucy, somebody could be trying to kill you.”

She stepped back. “No. That’s not…”

“Then who blew up your car? Heisenberg ?”

“There’s no need to be insulting,” Lucy said, and Anthony walked in.

“She’s not…” Anthony began and stopped. “Lucy?” He squinted his eyes at her. “Is that you?”

“Well, of course, it’s me,” Lucy said. Anthony let out a healthy sigh of relief. “Sony, the hair threw me. You look great, by the way.” He looked from her to Zack and back again and grinned. “So I guess this means we can assume you weren’t kidnapped?”

“Of course, I wasn’t kidnapped,” Lucy said and Zack said, “There’s no ‘of course’ about it, damn it.”

Falk shook his head and turned to go. “I already called off the search,” he said on his way out “Come on, Junior.”

Matthews scowled at him but went. Anthony turned back to Lucy. “We’re all going to go now. Glad to see you safe, Lucy. Don’t ever do that again. Zack, we’ll try that search tomorrow.”

He kissed Lucy on the cheek and walked out the door, visibly relieved.

“We need to talk,” Zack snarled, and Lucy threw her purse on the table and went into the kitchen.

I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS, Lucy thought as she banged the soup pot on the stove. I get my hair done, and he calls out the army. Honestly.

She flipped the burner on under the pot and turned to see Zack standing in the doorway, scowling at her.

“I was careful,” she said, tossing her potholders onto the counter. “I called a cab. I made sure I wasn’t followed. I didn’t go anyplace I’d ever been before. I left a note. I was careful.”

Zack jabbed a finger at her. “I told you not to leave. You gave the patrol car the slip on purpose. I was worried. Worried, hell. I was frantic.”

“Zack, I can’t spend the rest of my life in this house because you worry,” Lucy said, but she felt awful. He was looking at her like she’d come back from the dead, and there was a muscle twitching along his jaw. “I know you think this is serious. But you can’t keep me locked in this house forever…”

He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “It’s not forever, Luce. Just until I figure this out.”

“Well, what if you don’t?” Lucy folded her arms, determined to stand her ground. “Whether you like it or not, I’m going back to school on Monday. Are you going to frisk all my seniors? Pat down the custodians?”

“I’ll figure it out.” Zack rubbed his hand across the back of his head. “I will figure this out. I just can’t get hold of this one, for some reason. It just doesn’t make sense. My instincts just aren’t kicking in.”

“I can’t live my life waiting for permission from your instincts.” Lucy turned and lifted the lid on the soup pot to stir it.

“No, but you can stop taking such dumb chances,” Zack flared. “You went out today for no good reason…”

“I went out for an excellent reason.” Lucy slapped the lid down hard on the pot and turned to face him. “I’m an independent woman, and I wanted to go out. And my hair was driving me crazy.”

“You went out because of your hair?” Zack’s voice rose again, incredulous. “That’s what this is all about? Your damn hair?”

“Listen, if you’d been walking around under my hair, you’d have broken, too,” Lucy snapped. “You don’t know what it was like. I mean, everybody who saw me just stopped, amazed…”

“It wasn’t that bad, once you got used to it,” Zack said, taken aback by her fervor.

“Oh, that’s a real testimonial, Zack. That makes me feel so much better…”

“Will you take it easy?”

“Take it easy?” Lucy gritted her teeth, her anger fueled by her guilt at making him worry. “Take it easy? You know how awful it was. How many times when you were in bed with me last night did you look at me and think, ‘God, she has awful hair’?”

“Never,” Zack said flatly. “Not once. Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m not kidding.” Lucy’s anger surged. “Don’t you care what I look like? What is this? Once the lights are out, I’m just like any of your other women? We’re all alike in the dark, is that it?”

“Lucy,” Zack said through clenched teeth. “Shut up.” He took a deep breath. “You are absolutely unlike any woman I have ever met, thank God, and I don’t care what color your hair is, and if you ever scare me again like you did today, I will walk out of your life forever because I can’t take that kind of fear.” He shook his head and turned away from her to stare into the dining room. “You were right about us getting married. Dumb idea. I’m not ready for it.”

“Well, that’s what I thought,” Lucy said, but she felt herself go empty inside.