A Deep and Dark December(100)

“What the hell?” Crosby said from behind them.

They’d almost made it to the door when Crosby called them back. “Mi, in my office. Now!”

Mi would have dropped her arm, turning to go back was the perfect excuse, but Lucas still held her to him.

“Get in here and close the door.” Crosby waited while they crowded into his office, which wasn’t much bigger than the makeup room. Crosby gestured back and forth between them. “What the hell is all this?”

Lucas dropped his arm, forcing Mi to do the same. “Appearances. Unless you want everyone to know Mi has a bodyguard?”

“No. I suppose not.” Crosby never looked happy, but this was a new level of displeasure even for Crosby. “You’re gonna watch where you put your hands. You get me?”

Lucas tucked his hands in his pockets. “Yes, sir.”

“Crosby.” Mi’s cheeks heated. She felt about sixteen, going on her first date.

“There are a bunch of goddamned protesters out front, more than usual,” Crosby said. “Sellers hired a couple of guards for outside, but I wanted to give you the heads up. The lady from C.A.L.M. is out there with a goddamned megaphone, stirring up all kinds of shit.”

“C.A.L.M.?” Lucas asked.

“Christians Against Loose Morals,” Mi explained. She tried not to show how much it bothered her that Cookie Dixon and her group picketed every show taping or that their numbers seemed to be growing every week. When she met Crosby’s eyes and saw the softening of his expression, she knew she hadn’t pulled it off.

“It’ll be all right, kid. You’re well protected.” Crosby sent Lucas a look, communicating something Mi didn’t catch. “Investment number one, remember? Here’s your mail.” He handed a stack of envelopes to Lucas. “I know you like to answer your fan mail, but from here on out, he goes through it with you. Anything that’s off gets bagged and goes to Detective Rolls. Got it?” Crosby said more to Lucas than Mi. “Now get out of here.”

They did as Crosby said, exiting the building through a side entrance near where Mi had parked her car. The building that housed the Pleasure at Home studio and offices looked like every other building in the huge industrial complex just outside of Dallas.

The air hung heavy with the heat of the dying day. The last rays of the sun slashed the sky orange and red, foretelling another day of oppressive summer tomorrow. They could hear the crowd on the other side of the building, sending up cheers after everything Cookie Dixon said through her megaphone. Mi tried not to let the negativity and hatred get to her, but it was hard when so much of it was often directed at her as one of the faces of Pleasure at Home.

Lucas held out his hand. “Give me your keys.”

“Why?”

They’d reached Mi’s car, a compact sedan that looked like every other vehicle in the parking lot, and faced off on the driver’s side of the car.

“I drive,” Lucas insisted.

“This is my car.”

“For me to do my job I’m going to need you to do what I say. Sometimes I’ll be able to give you a reason, sometimes not.”

“So what’s your reason?”

He looked at her for a moment like he wouldn’t answer, challenging her to go along without having to give her a reason. Then he seemed to come to some kind of decision. “I’d feel weird having you drive me around.”

She dropped the keys into his palm. “That’s as good a reason as any, I suppose.”

He walked her around to her side of the car and opened the door for her. She saw him flick a look at the car seat in the back and cringed inside, anticipating his questions. Instead he closed the door without comment, which felt almost like he’d closed off a part of himself.

He climbed into the driver’s seat with difficulty, his knees up near his chin. Mi smothered a laugh. He finally got the seat adjusted as far back as it would go, but his legs were still too long.

“Damn compacts,” he muttered.

This time Mi didn’t bother hiding her chuckle. “I can drive.”

“We’ll be taking my truck going forward.”

He pulled out of the parking space. They drove around the building and got their first look at the mass of people gathered outside the gates of the parking lot. Cookie stood on something to make her taller than the crowd that jabbed picket signs in the air, shouting in response to the things she said. There were more than ever before and their signs were more sophisticated. This was a new kind of crowd—organized and more dangerous than the Sunday school teachers and PTA parents who usually protested.

Suddenly a loud crack rent the air. The back window exploded behind them, pelting them with glass.

“Get down,” Lucas ordered, shoving Mi’s head between her knees. He hit the gas pedal, sending them straight at the crowd blocking their exit.