Unhinged E-Book

Lois Greiman

• Herausgeber: NYLA
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 380

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Chrissy McMullen #9 "Dangerously funny stuff." –Janet Evanovich Chrissy McMullen, L.A.'s most death defying psychologist, is madly juggling a couple of too-hot-to-handle beaus, several weirder-than-hell family members, and a plethora of disturbed clients when longtime friend, Micky Goldenstone, is found shot and unresponsive beside a dead adversary. Is Micky a murderer? Or can Chrissy find the culprit before her juggling act crashes to a deadly conclusion? "Lois Greiman is a modern day Dorothy Sayers. Witty as hell, yet talented enough to write like an angel with a broken wing." –Kinky Friedman, author of Ten Little New Yorkers "Sexy…sassy…An entertaining series." —Mystery Scene "For the Janet Evanovich fans who are craving a protagonist similar to Stephanie Plum." —Mystery Scene A delightful romp, a laugh on every page." –MaryJanice Davidson "Just what the doctor ordered."--Publishers Weekly

Leseprobe

Copyright

This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Unhinged

Copyright © 2017 by Lois Greiman

Ebook ISBN: 9781943772841

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

NYLA Publishing

350 7th Avenue, Suite 2003, NY 10001, New York.

http://www.nyliterary.com

Praise for Lois Greiman

"Dangerously funny stuff."

Janet Evanovich

“Simple sexy sport may be just what the doctor ordered.”

Publishers Weekly

"Lois Greiman is a modern day Dorothy Sayers. Witty as hell, yet talented enough to write like an angel with a broken wing."

Kinky Friedman, author of Ten Little New Yorkers

"What a marvelous book! A delightful romp, a laugh on every page."

MaryJanice Davidson, NYTbestsellingauthor of the Undead series.

“Amazingly good.” (Top Pick!)

Romantic Times

“L.A. psychologist, Chrissy McMullen is back to prove that boobs, brass, and brains make for one heck of a good time…laugh out loud funny…sassy…clever.”

Mystery Scene

"Excellent!"

Library Journal

"Sexy, sassy, suspenseful, sensational!! Lois Greiman delivers with incomparable style."

Bestselling author ofTo the Edge, Cindy Gerard

"Move over Stephanie Plum and Bubbles Yablonsky to make way for Christina McMullen, the newest blue collar sexy professional woman who finds herself in hair raising predicaments that almost get her murdered. The chemistry between the psychologist and the police lieutenant is so hot that readers will see sparks fly off the pages. Lois Greiman, who has written over fifteen delightful romance books, appears to have a great career as a mystery writer also."

thebestreviews.com

"Ms. Greiman makes a giant leap from historical fiction to this sexy and funny mystery. Bravo! Well done!"

Rendevous

“A fun mystery that will keep you interested and rooting for the characters until the last page is turned.”

Fresh Fiction

"Fast and fun with twists and turns that will keep you guessing. Enjoy the ride!”

Suzanne Enoch, USA Today best-selling author of Flirting with Danger

“Lucy Ricardo meets Dr. Frasier Crane in Lois Greiman’s humorous, suspenseful series. The result is a highly successful tongue-in-cheek, comical suspense guaranteed to entice and entertain."

Book Loons

Dedication

To Caitlin Alexander, who has been brave enough to edit my Chrissy books since their inception and who understands the incomprehensible world of commas. Thanks for being spectaculent!

Chapter 1

If it wasn’t for weird I’d be bored out of my mind.

—Christina McMullen, who is rarely bored

“You look well,” I said and kept my tone clipped, my wayward hands strictly to myself. I was casually dressed in cutoff jeans and a T-shirt that had seen better days.

He smiled, just a tilt of those swoon-worthy lips. “As do you,” he said, but his eyes, those burning sapphire flames, said so much more.

Heat seared my cheeks, then zipped off to less humdrum parts. But I resisted fidgeting, though I had dreamt of this moment on a hundred less . . . conscious . . . occasions. I put my hand on the countertop, making certain I was still in the here and now. The newly installed granite felt cool, smooth, and simultaneously sticky. Sure enough, I was home.

“So your business in Callatis went well?” I asked.

He shrugged. The gesture would have been oh so insignificant had he not been sans shirt. His chest, a lightly oiled work of art, was, in a word coined by a man I’d known as Thing One, spectaculent.

“Well enough.” His voice was slightly accented. He took a step toward me.

I lifted my chin to maintain eye contact. At 5’9” plus, I’m no wilting dandelion, but no part of him appeared to be droopy. His pecs were bulging, his arms corded, his chiseled face shadowed with bristly scruff.

“Rahim was satisfied?” I asked.

He stepped closer, crowding my personal space, filling my senses. He looked like a wet dream, smelled like chocolate Bundt cake. “When have I failed to satisfy?”

I ignored the steamy suggestiveness as best I could, but honest to Pete, he was shedding sexual innuendoes like a molting lovebird. “I’m glad—” I began and turned away, but he grabbed my arm, yanking me toward him.

“Admit it!” he snarled.

His grip was steely around my biceps. My heart pounded. I should never have agreed to meet him. But he was here now, up close and personal, while my cell phone, my most reliable means of obtaining help, seemed a million miles away.

“Admit what?” My voice was raspy.

“You want me.” He breathed the words into the air between us, setting it afire. “Say it.”

But I couldn’t. Didn’t dare. Too much had happened. I straightened my spine. Raised my chin. “No. You’re—”

He kissed me.

His lips seared mine, but I held strong, held steady . . . for two endless seconds, then I twisted my fingers in his hair and jumped him like a hyena on a hapless hare. He stumbled a little under my weight, then grabbed my ass, holding me astride as I wrapped my legs around his waist and dove in.

“Cut.”

His torso was hard and rippled against mine, his lips full and warm and—

“Cut!”

His heart was drubbing like a kick drum. Other parts throbbed in concert. My own answered lustily. I fumbled with his belt, but his sword—the plastic one suspended from his hips—kept impeding my progress.

“Mac,” Laney called.

“Ms. McMullen,” he murmured.

“Christina Mary McMullen!” Laney scolded, perhaps thinking that using my full name, as the Holy Name sisters had done on a thousand ill-disciplined occasions, would somehow penetrate the fog in my brain.

Sadly, it worked. I felt reality seep in like battery acid. I unsuctioned my lips, blinked, and turned my head groggily to the right.

Brainy Laney Butterfield, aka the Amazon Queen, stood ten feet away, baby to her shoulder, TV script held loosely in one hand. “That’s the end of the scene.”

Sergio, more commonly known as Morab to the viewing public, stared at me, brows raised. There might have been a littleWTF in his gaze.

“That was . . . ” Laney paused, patted the baby. “An interesting interpretation.”

“Oh . . . ” I cleared my throat, carefully avoiding Sergio’s bewildered gaze. “Thank you.”

“You can probably . . . ” She sighed but resisted rolling her eyes. Laney’s kick-ass disciplined that way. “Dismount now.”

“Oh, right. Right!” I said, and yet my legs failed to comply, while my fingers, nasty little sluts that they are, remained curled in Sergio’s waistband like eagle’s claws gone rogue.

That’s when someone knocked on the door.

I gasped and jerked my attention toward the foyer. Perhaps because the arrival of visitors is generally followed by screaming, running, and subsequent death threats.

Don’t ask me why people keep trying to murder me. Mysteries abound. Even for a psychologist, a PhD, and a really dynamite kisser such as myself.

“Should I get that?” Laney asked, nodding toward the door.

“What?” I was having a little trouble dragging myself from the just-interrupted scene and back into reality. Some might say I’d been employing the acting technique called the Meisner method. Others could argue that I was just really really horny.

Laney gave me one more hopeless glance and pattered toward my front door.

“Apaixonado,” Sergio said.

“What?” I repeated. It was the best I could do. My blood, it seems, can either supply my brain or my reproductive system. Both is beyond my ability.

“It is what we call women such as yourself in Brazil.”

Our mouths were inches apart and our chests even closer. My nipples, those damn little bullets of destruction, were aimed directly at his heart. “Women . . . ” Good God, he had fantastic lips, made to suck and be sucked. “Like myself?”

“Women with . . . ” He shook his head as if searching his memory banks for a politically acceptable term. “Verve.” His sparkling-heaven eyes bore into mine. “Women who are aflame with . . . ”

“Should I call the fire department?”

The voice ripped my attention from Sergio’s suckable lips. I snapped my head to the left, and there, sure as that bastard Murphy, with his deplorable law, would predict, stood my nemesis, protector, my ex-lover.

Lieutenant Jack Rivera.

Chapter 2

There’s no room in my life for you anymore. My trunk’s pretty empty, though.

—Angela Grapier, a girl who knows when enough is enough

Rivera’s voice was deadpan, but his hot mocha eyes could only be described as jaded. Or disgusted. Or annoyed. Or pissed as holy hell. Okay, there was a shitload of ways his eyes could be described, so long as none of them implied even the tiniest degree of happiness.

He raised one low-dipped brow at me.

“Oh . . . I . . . umm . . . we were just . . . ” I shook my head, honestly uncertain what the hell Sergio and I had been doing. Although I was pretty damn clear on what my vervish body had been hoping for.

“Rehearsing a scene,” Sergio supplied evenly.

“Were you the villain or the horse?” Rivera asked and shifted his killer gaze to my impromptu mount.

“The . . . ” Sergio’s tone was perplexed, but then he chuckled, heartily. “She is neither attempting to strangle nor ride me,” he said. “It is a love scene between Morab the indomitable slave and Hippolyta”—he nodded toward Laney, who stood to Rivera’s left, expression bland and not a bit surprised by this turn of events—“the Amazon queen. Our Christina was kind enough to act as Elaine’s understudy.”

“Our Christina?” Rivera said and stared at him in silence for half of forever.

“She is a wonder,” Sergio added.

“Yeah, she’s peachy,” Rivera said, then moved his smoking eyes to mine. “Shall I tell them to bring the Jaws of Life?”

I scowled, but my brain cells were finally beginning to twitter back into real time. “Oh, because . . . ” Rather belatedly, I realized that my thighs, recently honed by a thousand hours of not so willing physical training, were still clamped around Sergio’s rock-hard waist like opinionated pliers. I exhaled carefully and loosened my death grip. Despite the lack of discernible seasons in SoCal, my legs looked winter white against the love slave’s Brazilian skin.

Sergio, gentleman that he was, let his hands slide up my behind and over my waist, making sure I didn’t fall on my ass as I pried my legs apart and dropped my feet to the floor.

The room was suspiciously quiet. I cleared my throat in the cricket-chirping stillness and stepped back a pace, though honest to God, I had nothing to be embarrassed about. Yes, the dark lieutenant and I shared something of a tumultuous history. We had, in fact, been caught in a similarly awkward situation not too many months before, but recent developments involving general dishonesty and an individual I referred to simply as Skank Girl had made me swear off men in general and Rivera in particular.

Men, of course, did not include Hollywood love slaves who’d been branded on their superlatively sexy loins and who tended to be oiled like Caesar salads.

“Sergio,” Laney said, voice dulcet in the pulsing silence, “this is Lieutenant Rivera of the LAPD. Jack, meet Sergio Carlos Zepequeno.”

“Ahh.” Delight sparked in Sergio’s eyes. He couldn’t have looked happier if he’d spied a leprechaun toting a large pot. “You’re an officer of the law? But this is maravilhoso. I wish to read for the part of a detective. Yet I was unsure whether I could assume such a commanding presence.” He stepped forward, offered his hand. “Perhaps we could speak sometime. I would love to . . . how do you say . . . pluck your brain.”

“That would be . . . what’s the term?” Rivera asked, sarcasm needle sharp in his tone. “Fantastical. In fact . . . ” His eyes narrowed. “We could step outside right now if you’d like to learn a few things.”

“Truly? You would do that for me?” Sergio splayed artists’ fingers across his Greek-god chest. But I grabbed his arm before he scampered out to his doom.

“Don’t be a moron.” I crushed Rivera with a glare. The dark lieutenant had been the bane of my existence for years. Maybe I’d kind of liked him at one time, but now I saw him for what he was . . . a pushy Neanderthal with a superiority complex. So what if he also had a really primo ass and a semi-endearing way of making baby talk to our love child/Great Dane on the phone?

Sergio frowned. Laney shook her head, then spoke into the confusion.

“Mac and the lieutenant are . . . ” Laney paused. She’s my oldest friend and very possibly the nicest person on the planet. “What would you call your relationship, Jack?”

He shifted his gravedigger’s gaze to hers. Men usually find it impossible to maintain a scowl when Laney’s in the universe, but Rivera was giving it the old college try. “She was in danger,” he growled, alluding, I assumed, to his supposed reason for exiling me from the city some months before. An exile that caused me an extended stay in purgatory. “She could get herself killed in the Vatican. I was trying to keep her alive.”

“And I trusted you to do just that,” Laney said. Her tone suggested she wasn’t quite ready to absolve Rivera of his most recent FUBAR. That fact almost made it possible for me to do so.

“Danshov should have known better than to—” Rivera began, but she cut him off.

“Danshov?” Her voice had risen a little, causing baby Mac to squirm like a tadpole. She patted his back but kept her gaze pinned to Rivera’s. Her eyes, those knock-’em-dead emerald orbs, snapped like peas. “Does it strike you as ironic that you trusted a known assassin to ensure the well-being of my best friend?”

“You are associated with an assassin?” Sergio gaped, tone going hyper-squirrel with excitement. “Truly? But this is magnificent. MGM is casting for just such a character. If I could but meet this Danshov I might learn much.”

Laney yanked her gaze from Rivera to Sergio.

There was a heartbeat of silence, then, “My apologies,” he said, reading her mood with unmanly speed. Morab, it seemed, was not the idiot an equitable universe would require someone with his lusciousness to be. “There are issues here, real-life concerns to which I am not privy. Hence, I should leave you to your discussions.” Yet he remained as he was, looking like he’d give his right kidney to be privy to those juicy tidbits.

“Perhaps that would be best,” Laney agreed.

Rivera remained silent, but I believe his eyes said something like, Fuckin’ A.

A moment later, Sergio had sauntered out the door, plastic sword and bulging pecs in tow.

Rivera scowled at my inoffensive front door, then settled his ire on me. “We need to talk,” he said.

“Seriously?” My ovaries were not currently programmed for a mature conversation involving real words. They were, I was pretty sure, concerned about other details. “Maybe you should have thought of that instead of lying to me like a fu . . . ” I gritted my teeth and glanced regretfully at baby Mac. Kids! I guess you’re not supposed to swear around them. Go figure. “Instead of lying to me,” I finished poorly. Turns out it’s hardly worth speaking if you can’t toss out the F bomb now and then.

“I didn’t lie,” Rivera said.

“Really? So your house actually was being attacked? So terrifying gang members were honestly about to burst into your kitchen, making me scurry for parts unknown like a hunted—”

“I was trying to keep you safe!”

“By sending me to Danshov . . . who, by the by, almost drowned me. Did he tell you that? That’s the guy you thought would be a dandy choice to look after me during my time of need?”

A muscle bunched in his jaw. “What do you want me to do, McMullen? Challenge him to a duel? Pistols at dawn? Would that make you happy?”

“Pistols? No.” I gritted a smile at him. “That would imply you two were civilized human beings. I think I’d prefer a fistfight. Bare knuckles.”

“Yeah?”

“No holds barred.”

“Well”—he cocked his head at me—“if that’s what it takes . . . ” He pulled his cell from his back pocket. “I’ll set it up right now. I assume you’ll want to watch?”

I snorted. I was an enlightened woman . . . a feminist, in fact, but nothing would make me happier than seeing Danshov beat the crap out of Rivera . . . or, conversely, seeing Rivera beat the crap out of Danshov. It was, in my bloodthirsty opinion, a win-win. “Do I want to see you get your ass handed to you?” I scoffed. “Just let me know when and where so I can show up with a lawn chair and popcorn.”

He stepped toward me. “If you think your little monk can touch me, you’re even crazier than I thought.”

I stepped toward him, hormones humming like honeybees. “You think you’re such a hard-ass with your bulging . . . ” I tossed a dismissive hand toward his chest and felt my breath hitch at the sight. “And your . . . ” I motioned toward the smoldering rest of him. “But . . . ” I inhaled heavily and took another step toward him. “You’re—”

“All right! That’s enough!” Laney snarled, maneuvering between us like a world-weary referee. “I don’t want any fornicating around my baby.”

“Fornicating!” I snapped, and yanked myself out of the lust-induced haze. There might have been some spittle involved. “I wouldn’t fornicate him if he had the last dick on the—”

“Mac, please,” she pleaded and held up a hand as if to ward off evil spirits. “Can’t you two just discuss things like adults?”

“Well, I’m an adult,” I said. “But clearly—”

“Adult? Are you shitting me?” Rivera whipped an arm toward the door through which one branded love slave had just escaped. “Is that what you call it when you jump the first oiled-up—”

“Enough!” Laney sliced a hand between us. “I was shooting too high. You don’t have to be adults. How about human? Could you manage that much?”

Rivera ground his teeth. I looked away. Honest to God, I didn’t want to be a moron. In fact, I wanted nothing more than to be lucid, sensible, maybe even—wait for it—classy, but he drove me bat-shit crazy. Okay, truth was, maybe I was a little bat-shit without him, but he brought all the excrement to the forefront.

“I’m sorry.”

I zipped my gaze to Rivera, sure my ears were playing tricks on me. “What?”

“I’ve apologized before.” His voice was no more than a simmering growl.

“In this lifetime?”

“Listen, McMullen . . . ”

“Dammit!” Laney barked.

I gasped. Rivera gaped.

Laney, even pregestational, didn’t swear. Now that baby Mac had boots on the ground, I was certain she would have expunged all four-letter words from her vernacular.

“I just . . . ” Her expression shifted from anger to fear. “I love you, Mac.” Tears swam in her otherworldly eyes. “I don’t know what I’d do if . . . if something happened to you.” And suddenly she was sobbing.

“Laney . . . ” Stumbling forward, I wrapped her and the baby in my arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I glanced over her head at Rivera.

His hands were fisted, his body tense, as if he were undergoing some terrible torture. But he managed to remain where he was, which was pretty amazing. I’ve seen men tear their hair out by the handfuls when Laney looked mildly dewy eyed.

“We won’t fight anymore. Tell her we won’t fight, Rivera.”

“We won’t,” he said.

She hiccupped noisily, patted Mac’s back. “You promise?” she asked and shifted her sorrowful gaze to Rivera.

He flexed his hands, probably battling a dozen fictional villains on her behalf. “We won’t fight . . . today,” he said.

She turned her gaze to me. “Mac? Do you . . . ” She sobbed noisily, trying to control her emotions. “I’m sorry. I’m leaking hormones, but I just . . . I need to know you’ll be all right. That you’ll treat each other with the mutual respect you deserve. Promise me.”

“I promise,” I said.

“Really?”

“Cross my heart,” I vowed and did.

“Okay,” she said without a modicum of emotion, and turned casually away. “I’m going to head home, then. Traffic’s going to be a bear and we’re trying to get Mac on a decent schedule.” I stared after her, remembering, rather belatedly, that (1) Brainy Laney Butterfield is an excellent actress, and (2) when she cries in earnest she does so in absolute silence. Histrionics are reserved for the camera. “But remember—” She stopped in my humble foyer. “There’s a special place in hell for those who lie to new mothers.”

“You’re evil,” I told her. “I don’t know why I always forget that.”

“It’s because you love me,” she said and left.

Chapter 3

The fact that jellyfish have survived for millions of years without a brain must be the best news ever for you douche-nuggets.

—Chrissy McMullen to her brothers, following a particularly unappreciated episode involving superglue and hair

I shifted my gaze to Rivera, noticing for the first time that he looked kind of tired. Tired, grim, and heart-palpitatingly handsome.

“Can I get you something to drink?” My tone sounded a little bit saccharine, but perhaps that was better than pissy. Or its evil sister . . . horny.

“No.” He exhaled, clearly trying to remain civil. It was a stretch for both of us. “Thank you.”

“Hungry?”

“Not right now.”

“Okay,” I said and moved toward the kitchen. “But I think I’ll have a little something if you don’t mind.”

I could feel him following me but ignored him. Trying to lower my emotions to a boil, I glanced into the freezer. My recent exile from L.A. had changed everything: the way I thought, the way I exercised, the way I ate.

Except when it came to ice cream. Ice cream, clearly, was the one constant in a world gone mad, and the only thing likely to bring my mood back into the non-lethal range.

I took out the unopened tub of Häagen-Dazs, removed the lid, and dished a modest portion of brownies à la mode into a bowl. Plopping my leaner-than-it-used-to-be ass against the counter, I settled my gaze on my uninvited visitor.

“Why are you here?” I had meant the question to sound approachable, but the icy ambrosia had not yet numbed my rancor.

Rivera glared at me. “Do you still have that mermaid getup?”

“Tell me the truth, Lieutenant.” I raised my brows at him. “Have you been sampling Narcotics’ confiscated gains?”

The scar at the corner of his mouth twitched. Why, dear God, why did I find that sexy? “The getup you wore while you were playing Sherlock at Elaine’s after-party, do you still have it?”

I took another nibble of icy bliss and considered pretending ignorance, but it was too much of a leap. “Laney was in danger,” I said, remembering my incognito investigation on the oh so embarrassing night in question. Even Rivera’s über-posh but philandering sire, the estimable Senator Rivera, had appreciated my disguise. “Some people, present company excluded, of course, try to help the individuals they care about instead of bursting in to call names, spew accusations, and periodically send them fleeing into more danger.”

He ignored my rant, fished a spoon from my silverware drawer, and dug into the bucket. “So in that particular situation you thought dressing like a sea siren and pretending to be . . . Who were you impersonating again? A French prostitute?”

I considered a few choice swear words but I had bigger problems: my bowl was already empty. I gave that some judicious consideration, then began feeding directly from the tub. Our spoons sparred for an instant. “Why are you here, Rivera?”

His lips twitched again, probably at the reminder that he hadn’t come solely to piss me off. “The mayor’s charity ball is coming up.”

I froze, utensil halfway to my mouth, and blinked at him. “Are you serious?”

He managed to look angry and confused at the same time. “Why would I make up something like that?”

“Are you asking me on a date?”

The confusion was gone now, replaced by increased anger and a smidgeon of defensiveness. “We’ve been on dates before.”

“Can you remember any that didn’t involve loaded weapons?”

He opened his mouth, probably to issue some ridiculous double entendre, but finally shook his head. “You want to go or not?”

I scowled, which was simply wrong. One should be ever joyous when brownies à la mode is involved. “When is it?”

“Couple weeks.”

I quirked a cocky brow at him. “And you still haven’t found some skank who’d agree to—”

“I thought you cared about her!”

I paused, baffled.

“Elaine. I thought your promise to her, at least, might mean something.”

A thousand nasty rejoinders rushed to my lips, but I trapped them behind clenched teeth despite the fact that he only seemed to appear when there were other men interested . . . e.g., Morab the love slave. “Very well, I’ll play nice if you will,” I said, and smiling grittily, batted my stubby lashes. “The mayor’s ball, you say?”

He eyed me. Suspicious didn’t begin to describe his expression. “Yeah.”

“How nice of you to ask.” I fished out another morsel of ice cream, nibbled delicately. “Where might this auspicious event be held?”

“The Belasco.”

Holy hell, the Belasco Theater! The mayor must have some big-ass balls. “I see,” I said, tone cool. “And when exactly?”

A muscle danced a hot tango along his jaw, reminding me that we had, on more than one occasion, gone from frosty to fornication in a sizzling thirty seconds. “The twenty-eighth.”

“Of this month.”

“Yes.” He might have ground his teeth.

“Well . . . ” I smiled. “It’s ever so flattering that you asked, Lieutenant, but I’ll have to check my social schedule.” I pattered to where my purse rested on a kitchen chair and pulled out my cell phone. Half the time I forget to punch in my future plans. The other half, those plans became mysteriously lost in the ether, but I was trying hard to join the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, the new millennium was fighting back; it generally took me half an hour just to find my digital calendar.

“Well?”

I glanced up at his growl. “Well, what?”

“Are you free?”

His impatience rang of jealousy, and as any woman with an ounce of honesty will tell you, jealousy from an ex is tantamount to winning the lottery. “Let’s see . . . ” I scowled at the tiny screen, nodded, and muttered softly, “Oh, yeah, Vincent. I’d almost forgotten.”

“Vincent Angler?” he asked.

I was rather pleased that he remembered I was acquainted with the good-looking linebacker who played for the Lions. “Then there’s Tavis . . . ” I sighed as if put-upon.

“Who? Not that fucking Mayberry cop?”

“Oh . . . Vigo . . . ” I crooned happily. My gaze remained on the screen, but I couldn’t help noticing that Rivera had clenched his fists.

“What about him?”

“It’s been ages,” I said and raised my brows at his obvious displeasure. “We’re just meeting for drinks. Nothing to get excited about.”

“Where?” he asked, seeming not so much excited as well and truly pissed. “When?”

I smiled. “Looks like it’ll just be a quick visit. I’m seeing Mr. Archer afterward.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“Thennnnn . . . ” I wobbled my head, having a jolly old time making crap up. “D, Micky . . . ” I paused. “About which day were you inquiring again?”

His eyes were narrowed, his body language obscene. “The twenty-eighth.”

I sighed, long and heavy. “I should probably be studying for my exam then.”

“Exam?”

I raised my wondrously innocent gaze to his. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m going back to school.”

I wasn’t entirely sure, but it looked as if he might have quit breathing. “What for?”

Sashaying back to the counter, I fished a luscious chunk of brownie from the ice cream tub. Savored it. “I’m studying to become a profiler.”

For a second, I thought he might actually implode. Thought the throbbing veins in his neck might burst, ejecting his head right off his neck. “A profiler.”

“Yes.”

“For the police department.”

I shrugged. “Or the FBI.”

“Are you trying to get yourself killed? Is that it?”

“What’s the matter, Rivera? Afraid I’ll fall for some hot cop fresh out of the academy?”

His lips twitched, his hands flexed. Then he turned and stalked out the door like RoboCop on autopilot.

But that was okay. More brownies à la mode for me.

Chapter 4

I’m beginning to believe you may never be old enough to know better.

—Father Pat, who knew Chrissy fairly well

“Hey,” I said, and stepping into my office at L.A. Counseling, closed the door behind me. Micky Goldenstone was standing with his back toward me as he stared out the window. His low-cut pants hugged his hips, his waffle-knit shirt was snug, his shoes leather. My view was considerably better than his.

“Doc,” he said and turned. His smile, a twisted, kick-ass grin, looked both devilish and heartbreakingly vulnerable against his dark skin. But what was behind it? Worry, maybe, and the usual truckload of unrelenting guilt. “How you doing?”

“Good,” I said, though I was still suffering from post-love-slave humiliation and after-Rivera gluttony. Sometimes it’s hard for even me to believe I’m a reasonably well-paid and semi-respected psychologist.

“What are you doing here?” Micky hadn’t made an appointment—Shirley had called me during my dog-food-buying lunch break to inform me of his arrival. “How’s Jamel?”

It was a good place to start. He’d learned the boy was his son fairly recently, was raising him as such, and was subsequently experiencing the joy/agony that any self-respecting child causes his parents.

“Good. We’re planning a trip to King’s Canyon. I’m letting him pick the camp sites.” An almost imperceptible tremor quivered in his fingertips.

I sat, motioning toward the couch for him to do the same. He prowled the short length of my office instead.

“Just the two of you?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s nice. The sequoias are spectacular.”

Silence pulsed between us for a beat.

“How’s your grandmother?” I picked up a pen from my desk and fiddled with it as I silently analyzed.

“Terrifying,” he admitted, and I smiled not so much because it was true but because my own horrific family remains a couple thousand miles to the east.

“Is work going—”

He turned toward me. The smile was gone, replaced by angst and ferocity. “What if something happens to him?”

I inhaled slowly, filling my lungs, calming my nerves. Sessions with Micky were never boring. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“Nothing.” He prowled again, brows low over his wildly expressive eyes. “Probably nothing.”

“Probably . . . ”

“He’s safe. He’s fine.”

“Why wouldn’t Jamel be fine?” I felt a niggle of worry low in my gut. There was something about Micky’s son that had always stirred my soul. Maybe it was his stuck-out ears or the loss of his mother . . . or the fact that he was the product of rape; Micky had a hideous past. A past for which he’d spend the rest of his life making amends.

Micky huffed a laugh. “Because the world’s fucked up, filled with fucked-up people.”

“Any people in particular?”

He stopped prowling to look at me. “Me, maybe?”

“No,” I said. “Not anymore.” I liked to believe I had a little something to do with that. He had come to me years ago, burning with guilt, bursting with anger. Those elements still remained, but they were banked now, fueling his desire to make a better world for his son, for himself.

He snorted in disbelief, but his shoulders relaxed a quarter of an inch. “You planning to have kids, Doc?”

“Not today.”

He sighed, rubbed his neck beneath his clean-cut hairline. “They’ll drive you insane. Make you want to shove your head in the oven, or wrap them up in that . . . ” He made a winding motion. “That plastic stuff.”

“Bubble wrap.”

“Yeah. Wrap them up in that shit so nothing can touch them. So nothing can hurt them. It’s crazy. Scary as hell. Being responsible for someone else. Someone you’d die for. Someone you live for.”

“You’re a good dad, Micky.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind of person do you think I am?”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

He stared at me, then chuckled as I’d intended, relieving a little more of the tension. He sat finally, perched on the edge of the couch, expression troubled, palms, paler past the curve of his fingers, pressed together. “I don’t know where to draw the line.”

“Between . . . ”

“Duty to my kid and duty to”—he shrugged as if lost—“society.”

I raised a brow.

He tilted his head back and laughed at himself. “Jesus, I sound like an idiot. But I don’t—” He rose to pace again. “How much are you supposed to give up?”

“Me?”

“Sure.” He leaned against the edge of my desk and stared down at me. “You’re a do-gooder.”

“Me,” I said again, and remembered, with a mix of horror and longing, a scene I’d played out just the day before in my living room. I was pretty sure do-gooders did not ride half-naked Brazilians like a proverbial untamed stallion.

“Saved my ass,” he said.

I started to deny it, but I had kind of done just that. “Well . . . it was worth saving. Your life!” I corrected. “I mean your life was worth saving.”

He cocked his head. “I’d be lying, Doc, if I said it doesn’t do my heart . . . and stuff . . . ”—that grin again, mischievous as hell—“good to know you’re thinking about my ass.”

I gave him a prudish scowl and he straightened, still grinning. “I bet your lieutenant doesn’t appreciate you sticking out your pretty neck for an ex-Skull like me.”

“What’s this all about, Micky?”

For a second, I thought he might actually tell me. “You ever get tired of sleeping alone?”

Had I missed a segue somewhere? Sometimes it was best just to let the conversation roll where it would. “I have a Great Dane. Takes up about ninety percent of the bed.”

“Yeah? Maybe that’s what I need.”

“A dog?”

“Low expectations,” he said, and leaning down, kissed me.

I would have objected, honest, but the kiss lasted only a moment before he drew back, then walked out the door.

I stared after him, mind whirring. That kiss had been a goodbye kiss, a condemned man’s kiss—what was going on that Micky had been so reluctant to say? I had no time to get my bearings; Shirley was already buzzing me. It took me a moment to remember how to answer the intercom.

“Yes?”

“Rose Unger is here, Ms. McMullen.” She was using her professional voice. I might have been imagining it, but I thought I could hear her what the hell just happened in there? voice being firmly squelched. Shirley is half receptionist, half mother bear, and all psychic.

“Oh, yes . . . ” I glanced around, feeling lost. “Please, send her in.”

A moment later, I was seated across the coffee table from my next client. She was as pale as Micky was dark, as prim as he was passionate.

“So, Rose,” I said, lifting my gaze from my notes to her, “tell me a little about yourself.”

“Well . . . ” She pursed her lips. “There not much to tell, really.”

According to my records, Rose was eighty-two years old. There had to be a little something to talk about.

“So you live in San Marino?”

“Yes, I have a little bungalow not far from the Mission.”

“You live alone?”

“Ever since Orvill passed.”

“And Orvill was your . . . ” I paused, letting her fill in the blanks. According to her daughter, one Amelia May Langer, Rose had been acting erratically since her husband’s death. But I would judge for myself.

“My husky,” Rose said.

“It must be difficult . . . ” I paused, staring at her. “Excuse me?”

“He was such a good boy. Most heavy-coated breeds don’t care for the water. But he loved to swim.”

I blinked, trying to navigate. “Orvill was your dog?”

She watched me in bland insouciance for several seconds, then grinned. “I’m sorry.” Her expression might have contained a modicum of regret, but mostly she just looked impish. “I’m teasing. Orvill was my husband, of course. But I suspect you know that.” She cocked her head a little, eying me. “Amy probably told you everything but my shoe size. Six and a half,” she added. “If they run true to size.”

I settled back a little. Rose Ungar, I thought, was a pistol. “Tell me why you’re here.”

“You want the truth?”

Generally speaking, the truth and I have a somewhat tenuous relationship. But maybe now wasn’t the time to admit that. “Yes,” I said. “The truth would be nice.”

“Well . . . ” She sighed heavily. “I used to blame the government.”

I waited for some sort of explanation. When none was forthcoming, I nudged gently. “The government?”

“Lance, my son-in-law, worked for the State Department. Lance . . . ” She shook her head, platinum curls bobbing. “Sounds like a knight or a cowboy or a firefighter or something, doesn’t it?”

“He’s not a knight, I take it.”

“He’s a dud is what he is. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Amy wasn’t ever going to be tearing up the roads with the Hell’s Angels or anything, but once she married Lance . . . ” She sighed again. “Do you mind if I smoke?” She drew a package of Camels from her handbag.

I tried to keep my eyebrows from popping into the stratosphere, but they seemed to have a mind of their own. “I’m sorry. It’s actually against my landlord’s policy.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t you know it, just when I’m ready to start a nice little bad habit.” She tucked the box tidily back into her purse.

“So . . . you haven’t smoked in the past?” I asked.

“Not for sixty years or so.”

“And you still miss it?” If that was the case, it didn’t look good for my own hopes of breaking the nicotine habit . . . for the four hundredth time.

“I don’t know. Sometimes, I guess. It’s just . . . ” She shrugged, a birdlike bob of bony shoulders. “If not now . . . when?”

She kind of had a point, but I didn’t say as much. “Do you think that’s why your daughter wanted you to see me? Because of the smoking?”

“Could be, but I’m thinking it might be because of Rodney.”

“Your . . . ” I took a stab in the dark. “Border collie?”

She chuckled. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “He’s my gigolo.”

“How important is sex?” I asked.

Shirley turned toward me like a bulky ballerina, face showing her surprise. “As a form of entertainment or as a means of perpetuating the species?”

Shirley was a high school graduate with seven kids, innumerable grandkids, and enough practical knowledge to fuel an East Coast think tank.

“Either.”

“Well . . . ” She settled into her chair behind the reception desk. Since she began working for me nearly two years ago, the place had come to resemble a well-tended jungle. One broad, variegated leaf threatened to tickle her left ear. “It’s tough as hell to find a good movie these days. Plus, even the matinees will cost you ten bucks. Sex, on the other hand, is free.”

“Usually,” I agreed, remembering Rose.

“Unless you get a kid out of the deal—then it’d be cheaper to buy a nice little island someplace. Why? You thinking of giving it up?” Reaching under her desk, she pulled out a white bakery box and a bottle of milk.

I didn’t bother to tell her that except on very rare but clearly remembered occasions, I had been celibate for years. I also didn’t turn up my nose at the goodies contained in the box. I am, if nothing else, gracious.

I took my first bite of a maple-frosted long john and waxed philosophical. “Maybe it’s not as important as our social mores would suggest.”

“Sex?” she asked, as if thinking I might have wandered onto another topic without informing her. Taking a bite from her own pastry, she gave me a dubious look out of the corner of her eye.

“Yeah.”

“How long has it been since you’ve had any?”

I considered lying, but Shirley seemed to have inherited Laney’s ability to read my mind. “A while.”

“Could be you should get some soon to see how you feel about it.”

“You think?”

“But only if you got yourself a really fail-proof contraceptive.” Shirley was a huge proponent of birth control. I guess raising a litter of kids will do that.

“Hard to beat abstinence in that regard,” I said.

“Yeah, but then you’re neglecting your humming place.”

I had heard her refer to such a locale before. “I’m not sure I’ve got one of those.”

“Oh, you got one. You just been ignoring it is all.”

Chapter 5

I can refrain from swearing or I can refrain from poking you in the eye with a chopstick. You choose.

—Chrissy McMullen, with whom breaking up was not only hard to do but frequently dangerous

I considered Shirley’s words on my drive home, ruminated on them over Chinese take-out, which I shared with Harlequin, my significant other of a different species.

Afterward, he licked my ear and promised never-ending adoration, while Shikoku, a malamute lookalike, watched with a mixture of disdain and indifference. Shikoku is a story unto herself. Suffice it to say she does not adore me, and yet we share an abode. An arrangement not entirely acceptable to either of us, but forced upon us by her master, Hiro Danshov, chef, self-defense expert, and purported assassin. Had I met him earlier in my life I would have said he was the most exasperating man in the world. But I’ve known Jack Rivera for some time.

By ten o’clock, we had watched enough Walker, Texas Ranger to convince me it was time for bed . . . or possible suicide. Gathering up our used crockery to prevent Harley from wearing it on his oversized snout, I marched it into the kitchen.

The phone rang as I was returning for the now empty Häagen-Dazs bucket.

The number on the screen was unidentified. I answered anyway. “Hello?”

“How you doing, white chick?”

It took a moment for my brain cells to clatter around enough to recognize her voice. “Lavonn?”

“Living and in the flesh.”

Lavonn Blount and I have a short but colorful history. It involves abusive boyfriends, drugs, and badass dogs. Somewhere in that quixotic mix we had trauma-bonded.

“So how are classes going?”

I scrambled to catch up. “Classes?”

“I saw you in the library.”

“What? How? I thought you were in Cleveland or something.”

“Well, you know what they say. Be it ever so weird, there’s no place like home.”

“I’m not sure that’s how it goes.”

“I’m paraphrasing.”

“So you came back to . . . ” Honest to God, I was surprised at her return. Not long ago, Lavonn had fatally shot a dirty cop. That was followed by the shocking revelation that she’d been acting as sort of an unofficial undercover agent.

“Study for the bar exam,” she said, completing my sentence.

“At UC? Why didn’t you say hello if you saw me?”

“You were thinking really hard. Looked painful.” She paused for a beat. “Charley says hi.”

Charley was the above-mentioned badass dog. “How is he?”

“He misses you.”

I snorted. Lavonn and I definitely had the kind of relationship that included snorting. Snarling and cursing were also acceptable forms of communication.

“Well, maybe he knows I saved his life.” Charley had been seriously injured. Lavonn and I had dragged him to my vet, where I’d paid the ensuing bills.

“Yeah, either that or he’s hungry for white meat.”

“I had almost forgotten how awful you are,” I said.

She laughed. “How’s life?”

“About par.”

“That bad?”

“I didn’t say it was bad.”

“Girl,” she said, “par for you is one short step from the morgue.”