Getting Rid of Bradley Read online

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Lucy said, pulling away from Anthony. “I’ve been here since Thursday. I’m going stir-crazy. At least take me with you.”

  “Not a chance.” Zack grabbed his jacket. “Bradley’s been shooting people. I’m not taking you into that.”

  “Which Bradley, yours or mine?”

  Zack shrugged into his jacket. “You don’t have a Bradley. Remember that. Come on, Tony.”

  Lucy put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Don’t you think you should narrow down who you’re chasing before you go charging off like this?”

  “We’ll argue about it when I get back.” Zack started for the front door, and Anthony kissed Lucy on the cheek. Zack backtracked, grabbed his arm, and pushed him toward the door. “Why don’t you cook dinner for a change?” he said to Lucy on his way out.

  Lucy leaned against the back of one of her overstuffed chairs, defeated. “I’ll order a pizza,” she said, and Zack stopped and said, “No, you won’t. I haven’t gone through all of this to get you wasted by a pizza delivery man.” He followed Anthony out the front door, and Lucy felt like killing him.

  “Maybe Phoebe will get him again,” she told the dogs, and then the door opened again.

  “I almost forgot,” Zack said, and grabbed her and kissed her, bending her back over the chair in his enthusiasm. She clutched at him to keep from falling, and that relaxed into his kiss, relieved that he was kissing her again and reveling in his heat. “I will definitely be back,” he said to her and kissed her again, pulled her back upright and left.

  “Oh, good,” she said, but he was already gone.

  By noon, the silence had gotten to Lucy.

  She’d made a big pot of vegetable soup, and talked to the dogs, and turned on the radio, but the silence was still there, even though there was enough racket for anybody.

  There was nobody talking to her.

  It had never bothered her before. But now, after days of Zack’s constant rambling, it made the house seem empty.

  “It’s not like he’s not coming back,” she told the dogs. “Actually, I don’t think it’s him at all. I think it’s just that I haven’t been out of this house for days. I need to get out.”

  She caught sight of herself in the mirror over the fireplace. Her hair was even shaggier than before. She looked awful.

  “I could go out and get my hair fixed.” Even as she said the words, she knew she would. It was too awful not to. And how many people got killed in beauty parlors, anyway?

  The dogs looked skeptical.

  “This is so ridiculous,” she told them. “People Wowing up my car and shooting at me. This makes no sense. I’m going out.”

  LUCY WAS CAREFUL. She called a cab to pick her up three houses down so that the patrol car out front and any miscellaneous killers lurking around wouldn’t know she was gone. She felt guilty about the patrol car, but she was tired of arguing with policemen. Granted, Zack was probably the worst of the bunch, but she was fairly sure that the one in the patrol car wouldn’t be any more understanding.

  And she left a note for Zack, so if he came home early he wouldn’t panic. “Dear Zack,” she wrote. “I can’t stand the thought of you waking up to see my hair like this anymore so I’m getting it fixed. And I’ll get something for dinner, too. Don’t go to bed without me. Lucy.” Then she stuck it on the mantel where anyone coming into the room would see it.

  She just hoped that anyone was Zack. If it was Anthony she was going to be embarrassed.

  LUCY ASKED THE CABBIE to recommend a good beautician, and he dropped her at a dingy strip mall paneled in peeling redwood and rusted chrome. It had a bar, a convenience store, a drugstore, a secondhand clothing shop, and a beauty parlor. The basics.

  The beauty parlor was Thelma and Lou’s.

  It was dim inside the pink-and-orange salon, so it took her eyes a moment to adjust to the light and to the young amazon who walked forward to meet her.

  “Hiya,” the girl said and cracked her gum, and Lucy’s eyes swept up, startled, to her hair.

  It was purple, shaved at the sides, and gelled until it stood straight up. Since the girl must have been close to six foot before the hair, the effect was riveting. So riveting that the nose ring and the skull tattoo on her chest were hardly noticeable.

  “Are you Thelma or Lou?” Lucy asked, unable to take her eyes off all that purple hair.

  “I’m Chantel.” The girl stared at Lucy’s hair, fascinated. “Thelma and Lou are in Florida. Like, permanently. What can I do for ya? As if I didn’t know already. Jeez.”

  Her own eyes still fixed on Chantel’s hair, Lucy said, “I have a hair problem.”

  “No kidding.” Chantel cracked her gum again. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”

  They had to look like Harpo Marx meets the Bride of Frankenstein on a bad color TV. Lucy started to laugh.

  “Well, at least you still got your sense of humor,” Chantel said. “So, you want me to fix you or not?”

  “I don’t know. Do you have any experience fixing this kind of mistake?” Lucy touched her hair and it crackled under her fingertips.

  “I don’t, have any experience at all. I just got out of beauty school yesterday.” Chantel cracked her gum and smiled cheerfully. “If you don’t want to take a chance, it’s okay. I mean, somebody obviously did a number on you once. Why take a chance again?”

  Chantel’s smile was as open and honest as a child’s, which Lucy knew was no reason for her to put her already ravaged head into her hands.

  Or maybe it was.

  “Somebody did do a number on me,” Lucy agreed. “I ended up with the most awful bleach job you’ve ever seen. And then I tried to fix it with shampoo-in color, but that didn’t work.”

  Chantel looked at her hair again and nodded. “That explains the green.”

  Lucy took a deep breath. “Can you fix this?”

  Chantel looked cautious. “I can try. You sure you don’t want to try one of those big places downtown?”

  Lucy hesitated. “Yes. Yes, I’m definitely sure. What are we going to do first?”

  Chantel’s eyes narrowed, and she became all business. “Condition. We’re gonna megacondition that mess and hope it doesn’t fall out from relief.”

  Lucy swallowed. “And then?”

  “A cut. Real short to cover up the breakage. And some color. I suppose you want brown or something.”

  “Brown.” Lucy looked up at Chantel’s purple hair and swallowed again. “No, not brown. That’s not me. I’m the spontaneous, independent type.”

  Chantel cracked her gum. “Oh, yeah. I could tell that right off.”

  THE HOTEL ROOM WAS generic: bad paintings, worn green carpeting, tan flowered bedspread, and beige curtains at the sliding-glass doors.

  Unfortunately, it was also clean. One of the Bradleys had checked out four hours earlier.

  “The desk clerk recognized John Bradley’s picture but not Bradley Porter’s. So John Bradley was here using Porter’s credit cards.” Anthony surveyed the spotless hotel room. “Bradley Porter was probably never here. This makes no sense. This should be such a simple case. We have Porter’s credit-card numbers. We have his house. We have his ex-wife.”

  Zack started guiltily.

  “So why don’t we have him?” Anthony went on, tactfully ignoring him. “Why hasn’t anyone seen him? If he’s innocent, why can’t the Kentucky cops find him? If he’s guilty, why did he give John Bradley his credit cards? I don’t get this.”

  “We’re not going to find anything here,” Zack said. “It’s got to be the house. Although I’m telling you, there are no government bonds there. I even took up the kitchen floor, which is the only floor that’s not plain hardwood. If something’s there, it’s small.” He folded his arms and sat down on the chipped edge of the desk. “You know, Bradley Porter’s a banker. He wouldn’t keep bonds in his house. Not for more than a night, anyway. What do you think?”

  “A safe-deposit box,
” Anthony said. “I thought of that. I asked at Gamble Hills. No dice. He doesn’t have one.”

  “There are other banks.”

  “Almost a hundred. Talk about hopeless. There’s no guarantee he’s using his name. And we’ll need some specifics to get a warrant. Any other ideas?”

  “Find the key and work from there. Which means, back to Lucy’s.”

  Anthony looked around the room again and gave up. “Fine. Let’s go back and look again. This place has been wiped so clean, we’ll never find anything here anyway.”

  “Let me call Lucy first.” Zack picked up the phone on the desk beside him and dialed. “We may need groceries.”

  “Groceries?” Anthony looked confused. “You do groceries now?”

  “Hey, I’ve changed. I’ve matured.”

  “What do groceries have to do with maturing?” Anthony asked and then stopped when he saw Zack’s face change. “What’s wrong?”

  “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.

  Zack turned back to face her. “I knew it would be like this. I told Tony it would be like this. You start caring for people, and your instincts go. Hell, your brains go. I don’t mind being scared for myself. I’m scared for myself all the time. That’s just part of being a cop.” He look a deep breath. “But the way I felt about you today...no. I was so damn scared I couldn’t think. I am never... never going to feel like that about anybody ever again.”

  They both stood still for a moment, silenced by the emotion between them, and then Lucy turned back to the stove, unable to cope with the pain in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry. But I think you’re overreacting.” She picked up the lid again and began to stir the soup. “You and Anthony both told me that this man is only trying to scare me out of the house. Nobody thinks I’m in danger anymore. Not even you.”

  “I’m overreacting.”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine.” He turned and left the room, and fifteen minutes later he came down with his bag packed.

  Lucy felt her breath go when she saw him, but she made herself sound calm. “Leaving?”

  “This isn’t going to work, Lucy,” he said. “I’m too emotional about this to be doing you any good. And you’re probably right. I probably overreacted. If you want somebody here with you for a while, I’ll call Matthews.”