Page 142 of A Dead End Wedding

I finally had to blink. "Fine, fine. So somehow in the magic, psychic world that is the wonder of Jake, you know about Mrs. Zivkovich, her son-in-law, and that she's my client. Care to elaborate? Electronic listening devices? Retasked a satellite? Planted a tracking chip in my underwear?"

He laughed. "Actually, Henry told me. But let's go back to that underwear idea for a minute . . ."

My face flamed up to the color of the Orange Grove fire truck. "Forget underwear. Who's Henry?"

"Henry Ellison. Your employee," he said, giving me a weird look.

"Oh, right. Mr. Ellison. I keep forgetting he has a first name. What is he doing talking about my cases? That violates client confidentiality. I'm going to have to fire him," I said, not as happy about the idea as I should have been.

"No, you don't. He didn't violate anything. He mentioned that Mrs. Zivkovich was a 'real looker,' and I extrapolated from there. Especially since I knew her car had been in your parking lot."

"He's got to quit hitting on the clients. If –what? What do you mean, her car had been in my parking lot?"

He stood up and started collecting dirty dishes, not quite looking at me. "Nothing."

"Are you spying on me, Brody? I can get a restraining order against you, too, you know!"

"Right. Like the one against Croc. Except all that did was piss him off, so he cleaned out her bank account, and now he's planning to leave town. Maybe do a snatch and grab on his mouse of a wife and his infant son on the way. Great job, Counselor," he said, shoving plates and bags in the trash.

I jumped up. "We have to call the police. We have to warn her. We have to?—"

"We don't have to do anything, because he's sleeping off a drunk right now," he said, putting a hand on my arm. "Relax. Wrench is monitoring his place and will call me the minute Nervil does so much as roll over. I think you can call your client in the morning."

"How do you know? Maybe he'll wake up in the middle of the night, and?—"

"He won't, trust me."

I folded my arms across my chest. "How do you know? What aren't you telling me?"

He leaned back against the counter. "There's a lot I'm not telling you, and it's probably going to stay that way. But here's a tip. If I were a scuzzbag who'd just raided my mother-in-law's bank account, I'd have it in cash and ready to go with me. Be sure and mention that to the police when you call them."

"I – you — oh, fine. You be all Mr. Secret, and I'll just go along. That's how this is going to work, right?" I walked past him to the door, but he gently caught my arm in his hand.

I pretended the touch of his hand was not burning three layers of skin off of my arm. That electric tingle thing never happened, either, I told myself. But I couldn't help gasping a little.

Slowly, I turned to face him. "Is there something else? You've completed all the Social Security paperwork for the rest of my clients, perhaps?"

He pulled me closer. "No, but there's always tomorrow."

"Look, Jake, this is a bad idea. I think?—"

He touched my face. "You think a lot. Must get tiring, having such a huge brain, Counselor."

I felt his breath on my face and tried not to melt into a speechless blonde puddle on the floor. Talk about deprived hormones going into overdrive. "Why don't you ever call me by my name?" I whispered.

"I'm going to kiss you now, December," he said. Then he touched his lips to mine, and my eyes fluttered shut, and my entire body seemed to relax into his.

The man is a great kisser.

About three seconds before my nerve endings spontaneously combusted, he stopped kissing me and stepped out from between my limp body and the kitchen counter. I stood there, blinking, wondering what the heck had just happened.

He smiled at me again. "Good night, December," he said, then he walked over to the door.

"What? You can't just kiss a person and then leave!" I shouted. "This is not some western movie where you get to ride off into the sunset, guns blazing, after you kissed the girl."

He shook his head, but said nothing. As he turned the doorknob, I tried to think of a blistering put down, but my brain cells weren't back to the correct working order. So I stalked out to the foyer after him. "You, you, you—cowboy! Fine! You want to kiss and leave, fine. It wasn't all that great of a kiss, anyway."

I shoved him out of the way, grabbed the doorknob, and flung the door open. That's when it exploded.

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