Jennifer Crusie - GETTING RID OF BRADLEY

“She’s fine.” Zack held out his hand to Bradley. “I’m Detective Zachary Warren, Riverbend P.D. We’d like to ask you a few questions about John Bradley. Where have you been?”

“Detective Warren.” Bradley looked at Zack’s hand for a moment, and then he released Lucy so he could shake it. “I’ve been in Kentucky. I left a forwarding address with the bank.” He put his arm around Lucy. “Thank you very much for helping my wife.”

“Ex-wife,” Zack said, his teeth clenched.

Bradley looked down at Lucy. “Thank God, you’re safe.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I think it’s time we talked.”

“I do, too.” Lucy stood rigid inside his arm, keeping an inch of space between them by sheer force. “I think we should have talked about this a long time ago. Why didn’t you call?”

“Tina told me not to,” Bradley said. His arm dropped away, and Lucy relaxed a little. “And you were being unreasonable. You threw my clothes out on the lawn. You threw my chair down to the basement.” He stopped as if he realized he was sounding petulant and then smiled down at her, tightly, forgiving. “But I understand. You were upset. I think we should talk now.”

“I don’t,” Zack said, almost spitting the words out. “I think we should talk now.”

“Zack,” Lucy said to him, willing him to understand. “I need to know what happened. Then I can pick up and go on.”

Zack glared at her. “Lucy, I’m a cop. He has information about a crime. I need to take him in for questioning.”

“I know,” Lucy said. “But I’m his ex-wife. I need a few answers myself. Give us just a little time. Please.”

Zack clenched his jaw. “Swell. Let’s all go in and talk.”

Bradley’s grip tightened on Lucy’s shoulder. “There’s no need for you to stay. This is between Lucy and me.”

“Just half an hour alone.” Lucy pleaded with him with her eyes.

Zack hesitated and then said, “All right.”

Lucy stepped back so that he wouldn’t kiss her. She didn’t want Bradley putting up any more walls. She wanted to know what had happened, and how that blonde had come into her Me and blown it into pieces just like the other Bradley’s bomb had blown up her house.

And when she knew that, she’d have a new life, one with Zack this time, full of laughter and promise.

But first she needed to know what had happened.

Zack looked back at Bradley one more time. “All right. I’ll wait outside. You have half an hour.”

And then he was gone, out the front door.

Lucy took a deep breath. “Come on,” she said to Bradley. “I’ll make you a cup of tea. Two sugars.”

ZACK SAT IN HIS CAR in front of Lucy’s house and seethed.

Something was wrong. It wasn’t jealousy. Okay, he was jealous as hell, but that wasn’t it. He knew Lucy wasn’t going back to Bradley. He knew she’d stay with him. At least, he was pretty sure she would. Hell, they’d adopted a dog together.

Think, he told himself. What was wrong with Bradley? He’d felt uneasy before he’d met Bradley, but afterward, he’d been crazy with suspicion. So it was something Bradley had said. Or done. And all he had to do was go through everything word by word, movement by movement, until he figured it out.

Fast.

LUCY WAS UNEASY.

There was something really wrong with Bradley. He kept looking at her like she was some precious treasure he’d lost and found, and, worse, he kept talking that way, too, in spite of everything she’d said.

“It’s good to be home.” Bradley surveyed the kitchen. “Where’s the table? What happened to the floor?”

“It…came up.” Lucy took a mug from the shelf and filled it with water, trying to think of how to get the answers she needed. Two weeks with Zack had taught her the futility of subtlety, so she put the mug of water in the microwave for his tea, punched the button, and then turned to face him. “Bradley, what’s been going on?”

He frowned at her, annoyed by her directness. “It’s very simple, really. An old friend of mine from high school came into town and asked for help.”

“ John Bradley.”

“We called him J.B. in high school.”

“He was an embezzler,” Lucy said.

Bradley suddenly grew remote. “Unfortunately, I didn’t know he’d broken the law. All I did was help an old friend.”

“How?”

He frowned at her. “I arranged a hotel room for him.”

“In Overlook?”

Bradley’s frown deepened. “He didn’t have much money. I offered to lend him some, but he refused. J.B. was always very proud.”

“He had money,” Lucy said, folding her arms. “He had almost a million and a half in government bonds.”

“He didn’t tell me that.” Bradley was visibly angry with her now, annoyed that his statement had been questioned, and Lucy fought the coldness that his anger always drenched her in.

He couldn’t do that anymore. Zack was going to keep her warm forever.

“You knew,” she said calmly. “You put them in a safe deposit box.”

“Once he told me he had them, of course, I did.” Bradley was rigid with anger now. “It was the only prudent thing to do. I can’t understand how you could even question that.”

“I’m not questioning it,” Lucy said. “I’m amazed by it. Where did you think he’d gotten that many bonds? K Mart?”

“Really, Lucy-” Bradley began, and she interrupted him, fueled as much by his anger as by hers.

“So how does the blonde figure into this?” Lucy said, glaring at him. “You know, his wife. The one you…”

“So that’s it.” Bradley’s anger disappeared. “You’re still upset about that.”

“Well, of course, I’m still upset about that. I-”

“She lied.”

Lucy stopped, dumbfounded. “What?”

“She lied,” Bradley said. “She wanted to force me to tell her where J.B. was, so she said if I didn’t, she’d tell you that ridiculous story, that we’d been…together. I told her not to bother. I told her you’d never believe her.” Bradley’s eyes were suddenly hurt and accusing. “And you believed her.”

“Bradley, she described my bedroom,” Lucy said, trying to keep her temper. “And you didn’t say one word. Not one.”

“I told you I could explain. You wouldn’t listen.”

“I listened,” Lucy said. “You didn’t explain. You said you would, and then you just stood there.”

The microwave beeped, and Lucy took the mug out and plopped a tea bag in it before she shoved it at Bradley. Water slopped over the edge.

Bradley took the cup and watched the water drip off it. “A wife who loves and trusts her husband believes him without an explanation,” he said, not looking at her at all.

“Not in this century,” Lucy said, and when he didn’t say anything, she went on. “So you never had an affair at all. And I’ve gone through all this pain and all this soul-searching for nothing.”

“You should have trusted me. You know how much I love you.” He looked up at her. “I was going to tell you the day of the divorce. Bianca said she’d meet me at the diner if I brought J.B. and then she’d explain it all to you. But she didn’t come. We watched from across the street, but she didn’t come. It seemed like no matter how hard I tried, things just got worse. I thought for sure if she’d come…” He stopped, and Lucy felt almost sorry for him, he sounded so trapped and frustrated. Then his voice changed. “And then we saw you with that man. J.B. said he was from the police.” He frowned at her, cold and remote again. “You were with another man.”

“He was asking me questions about your friend,” Lucy said. “About J.B. Bianca had telephoned him that J.B. would be there.”