Wendy Etherington - Undone by Moonlight

Victoria shrugged, though her eyes were bright with lust. “In between him dragging me off to Turks and Caicos, we’re—”

“He drags you off to Turks and Caicos?” Shelby interrupted in disbelief.

“Not exactly.” Victoria’s face actually turned pink. “But we go. In between we’re trying to merge our apartments in the city. No easy task, as it turns out. He wants to buy the place next door, so we can knock out a wall, and he can build a man-cave where he can watch football and drink beer. But I remind him that I should have a chick-den where I can do hair and invite over gay guys to give me grooming tips.”

“Who wins?” Calla asked.

“Nobody,” Victoria said. “We argue, have sex then forget what we were arguing about.”

“Sounds like a good thing,” Calla muttered. “Shelby, does Trevor have a man-cave?”

“He has an office. With a minifridge stocked full of sparking water and champagne. I don’t think cavemen ever envisioned the English aristocracy. His decorator’s excellent, though. Course she makes in a month what I do in a year, but our place is beautiful, and she had a commercial-grade Sub-Zero fridge installed in the kitchen, so she’s good in my book.”

“Is her brother, sister, mother, father, cousin or next-door neighbor a lawyer?” Calla asked, wondering how they’d wandered into this tangent.

“Sorry.” Shelby cleared her throat. “Back to Detective Antonio … does this suspension have anything to do with his trouble years ago?”

“I don’t know,” Calla admitted.

“You’re going to have to ask him about it,” Victoria reminded her.

Calla waved her hand. “Yeah, yeah. I will.” And wouldn’t that be fun? But if she was going to help, she had to have all the facts, no matter how painful.

“It seems to me we need to find out how strong the case is against him,” Shelby said, echoing Calla’s concern.

“And who’s this witness accusing him of assault?” Victoria asked. “Antonio might be moody, but he wouldn’t beat up some random stranger. Why would he need to? He probably intimidates most criminals with a single cold stare.”

“The department isn’t saying diddly,” Calla said, knowing they had to find a way around that. Legal advice was imperative. Course he hadn’t actually been charged with anything … yet. If she hadn’t seen the lost and furious expression on Devin’s face, she’d wonder if she was overreacting. “Devin seems to think his boss believes in him, but he has to follow procedure. IAB’s going to get involved.” She paused to gather her emotions before she added, “They took his badge. I mean physically forced him to hand it over. Talk about humiliating.”

Shelby’s eyes darkened. “Oh, Calla.”

Calla swallowed the lump in her throat. “It’s not just what he does, it’s who he is.”

“He’s still a cop,” Victoria pointed out, pragmatic as always. “He has friends, right? You know, really stoic and tolerant ones. We obviously need somebody on the inside.”

The contrast of Victoria’s sarcasm brought back Calla’s optimism. They had much more on their side than entrapment and lies. “He has friends.” Though that was also wrapped up in hope, since she’d never met any of them. “I’ll get him working on that angle right away. As soon as I find him,” she muttered.

Victoria sighed in disgust. “Don’t find him. He’ll come to you.”

Calla ground her teeth. “Sure he will.”

“Bet,” Victoria said, her eyes gleaming. “I got twenty on the Calla-dazzled detective.”

“Calla-dazzled?” Shelby asked. “Is that a word?”

“It is now,” Victoria asserted.

“Darling, we have dinner reservations,” Calla heard Trevor, Shelby’s new husband, say in his elegant English accent.

“I’m coming,” Shelby called. “Say hi to Calla and Victoria.”

Trevor’s handsome face appeared in the video frame. “Good evening, ladies.”

Calla had to suppress a sigh at his wavy black hair and vivid dark blue eyes. She really was desperate if she was lusting after her best friend’s husband.

When he moved out of view, Calla got a glimpse of him walking away, dressed in a tailored charcoal suit. With this whole assault and suspension mess, she’d also missed out on seeing Devin in a suit at the wedding.

Infuriated again, Calla vowed to personally see that lying, purse-snatching jerk paid for that crime alone.

“How’s the snow?” Calla whispered to Shelby as Trevor left the room.

“How’s the sex?” Victoria asked at the same time.

“Great and great,” Shelby returned. “And I need to get back to both. Trevor’s patient as a saint, of course, but an emergency video chat with my girlfriends is enough to drive any groom to frustration.”

“Thanks for the pep talk,” Calla said. “Both of you.”

“Tell Devin I’ll make him some of my special cookies when I get back,” Shelby said. “My next catering gig isn’t for a while.”

“And if he decides to blow off the NYPD and these bogus charges,” Victoria added, “I’m sure Jared would be glad to take him off to Borneo or somewhere equally unextraditable.”

Calla’s throat tightened. “You guys are the best. Coffee’s on me next week.”

Victoria’s lips winged up. “Wedding pictures and a plan to clear a friend on an assault charge. Only the three of us could have a coffee date like that.”

After they signed off, Calla slumped on the sofa. Her and her buddies’ latest adventures had included sending a fraudulent investor to prison and solving the theft of a cursed multimillion-dollar diamond-and-sapphire necklace.

How hard could it be to convince the NYPD of the innocence of their determined, clever, though admittedly irascible, friend? Possibly without said friend’s help?

She closed her laptop and leaned her head back. Who was she kidding? For months she’d lived in a fantasy world concerning Devin. The text, the craziness of last night and the impulsive kiss were all she had as any kind of evidence that he might want her, too.

And all of those events could be attributed to some sort of altered state.

He always comes to the rescue when you call him .

Super. If only she were the one suspended and accused of assault.

Maybe he was right. Maybe she should back out and let him deal with his problems on his own.

He’d never desert you .

Frustrated with the whole mess, and especially her interfering conscience, she rose. She needed a strong cup of tea and a big piece of leftover wedding cake.

On the way to the kitchen, she glanced at the plastic pharmacy bottle sitting on the counter. His pain meds.

Victoria was right. He’d be back.

Unless he found a liquor store open on Sundays.

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