Page 84 of Hold Your Breath
Lou just nodded, not mentioning the fact that she had a pair of functioning ears and had been able to hear the call just fine.
“I’ve been to that address before.” Standing up, he pitched his cup toward the trash and missed. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, and the tips of his ears reddened. She politely pretended not to notice. “Erma Vann is probably chucking things at her wuss of a boyfriend again.”
“You’d better get out there, then,” she said, trying to use the force of her mind to shove him out the door, “before he gets injured.”
He snorted, walking toward the exit. “Nothing he doesn’t deserve. He needs to stand up and act like a man.”
“Uh-huh,” Lou muttered, distracted by the fact that he was apparently going to leave his discarded cup on the floor with the dregs of his mocha leaking onto the tiles. As much as she wanted him to leave, it would’ve been nice if he’d taken two seconds to pick up his trash.
“I’ll see you later, Lou.” He paused by the door. “Hey, would you want to…? Damn it!” The dispatcher’s voice interrupted his question. Since Lou had a horrified idea of what he was about to ask, she made a mental note to find out which dispatcher it was and take her flowers in thanks for her excellent timing. As he snapped a response into his shoulder mic, he shoved the door open with his shoulder and gave Lou a final wave.
“Thank you, baby Jesus!” She sighed, letting her forehead rest against the counter. If he’d stayed any longer, she was pretty sure she would’ve found either a gun or a heavy, blunt object. If her jury was made up of people who knew Deputy Lawrence, she was pretty sure she would be acquitted of his murder.
After releasing a long-contained growl of frustration, she dampened a paper towel and circled the counter to pick up his abandoned cup. She cleaned up the spilled mocha and tossed everything, marveling at how she managed to hit the trash can every single time, unlike a great number of people frequenting the coffee shop.
Immediately after moving back behind the counter, she grabbed for her cell phone. “You’re becoming a dependent ninny,” she warned herself, even as she tapped his name on her screen.
“You okay?” Callum answered, and just the sound of his voice made her muscles relax. She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been holding herself since she’d started her shift.
Ignoring the voice in her head screaming, “Helpless weakling!” she said, “Yeah. Now.”
“What happened?” She could hear a few other voices in the background on Callum’s end of the call.
“Where are you?” she asked instead of answering.
He seemed to take this subject change in stride. “Hardware store.”
“Yeah? Say hi to Deedee for me if you see her.” Just the normalcy of the conversation was calming her.
“No.”
Well, there went the normalcy. “No? Why not?”
“Because if I even mention you, she’s going to take that as permission to ask a thousand questions about…us.”
“Us?” She grinned. It was rare—and fun—hearing Callum sound so flustered.
“Idon’t even know the answers to these questions—not that I’d answer them, anyway.”
“You could try ‘no comment,’” she suggested.
His answer was a grunt. “Why’d you call? I know it wasn’t to hear about Deedee’s interrogation.”
“Oh.” Lou sighed. The misery of a few minutes before had already faded. “I’ve just had a really sucky shift so far.”
“What happened?”
“Ivy was pissed, then Smelly Jim came in—acting super twitchy—and then, to cap it all off, our favorite deputy decided to hang out for forty-five minutes, telling me about Gordon Johnson sneaking his garbage into his neighbor’s cans. I’ve never wanted to commit homicide so very badly.”
His chuckle was low, but it still warmed her belly. “Poor Lou. You had to deal with the trifecta.”
“I did,” she whined, although there was a laugh buried underneath. “Can you stop by the shop after you get done with dodging Deedee’s questions?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you! You need to sit on your stool to kill the Lawrence cooties.”
“What?”
