The Territory (Josie Gray Mysteries #1)(38)
*
At 6:35 P.M., Josie, Otto, and Marta met at the police department to discuss findings before Josie and Otto logged off. Sheriff Martínez had stopped by to ask about the prisoner’s connection to La Bestia, and they all stood in the lobby area talking by the dispatcher’s station. Josie was explaining to the sheriff everything they’d discovered with a worried eye on her watch. She had twenty minutes to drive home, change, and get water on to boil before Dillon arrived for dinner and a bottle of wine she had promised and not purchased. She needed a private, sit-down talk with Martínez about Deputy Bloster, but it would have to wait.
Josie’s back was to the entrance door, but she heard the bell ring as they wrapped up. She turned and watched a petite woman with dyed maroon hair, red lips, and red fingernails enter the department.
“Well, if it isn’t the elusive Josie Gray,” the woman said. She spoke with a heavy drinker’s rasp.
Josie gave the other three officers a look and said she would check in with them later. Mercifully, they apparently understood that whatever was about to transpire was personal and, most likely, humiliating. Otto and Marta turned and walked toward the upstairs office. The sheriff walked around the woman, who turned and watched him exit the building.
“That man’s got a backside worth watching, now. All these cops you run around with that good looking?” she asked, winking and smiling widely at Josie.
Josie felt her face redden. She was very aware that Lou was still at the dispatcher’s desk, listening to every word and most likely taking notes.
Josie pushed the door open, and then walked behind her mom into the evening heat. She felt her hands go sweaty and her stomach seize into a knot: the same physical reaction her mother had been producing in her through years of humiliating scenes. Her body had instantly recalled and replicated the physical sensations of fifteen years ago.
With distaste, Josie watched the flex of her mother’s tight back muscles through an open-back halter top and the intentional sway of her rear end. Her five-foot-five mother could paralyze her like no robber, rapist, or drug dealer she had ever encountered, and the realization depressed the hell out of her.
Her mother struck a cocky pose on the sidewalk and looked Josie over as if assessing the damage after a car crash. “You didn’t think I’d come, did you? You ought to know, if I say it, I do it.”
Josie could have laughed or cried in equal measure. Her mother had never followed through on anything unless it benefited her in a significant and personal way.
“I had no idea you were coming. If I’d known, I would have set time aside. I have plans tonight. And I can’t cancel,” Josie said. “We can have dinner tomorrow.”
“So break the plans. I drive two thousand miles, and you can’t show me a little courtesy?” Her mother shook her head, her eyes wide with exaggerated shock. “You’re a piece a work.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation streetside,” said Josie. “I explained that I have plans I can’t cancel. If you want to meet for lunch, stop by here tomorrow around noon and we can get a bite to eat.” She pulled a business card out of her front shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Just call first in case I’m out on a call.”
“Well, don’t let me hold you back, darlin’.” She turned from Josie and walked away, one hand in the air, the other on her hip. “It won’t take me nothing to find myself some entertainment tonight.”
*
Fifteen minutes later, Josie had left her front door open and was hurrying to the bedroom. She threw her clothes, bulletproof vest, holster, and gun into a heap on her closet floor before jumping into a cool shower. She left her hair in a clip but soaped up, rinsed the day down the drain, and toweled off before stepping out.
“Josie?”
She smiled. His voice was coming from just outside the bathroom, in her bedroom.
“Five minutes, then I’ll get supper going,” she called. “There’s some cheese in the fridge if you’re starved.”
Josie swiped on concealer to cover up the dark circles under her eyes, brushed her teeth, and dressed in an ancient pair of Levi’s and a gauzy sleeveless white shirt that hung loose over her thin body. She took her damp hair down, brushed it, and pulled it back up into the clip. She found Dillon propped against the couch on the living room floor with her hound dog’s head in his lap.
“Chester missed me.”
Dillon smiled up at her with his sad eyes, and Josie’s chest tightened at the sight of him. She realized she had almost lost him. She let out a long slow breath and forced herself to relax into the moment.
She sat beside Dillon and stretched her legs out next to his. “I’m sorry about dinner. I don’t even have the bottle of wine.”
He reached around the dog and sat a grocery sack on his lap. “I have you covered.” He pulled out a six-pack of Killian’s Red and a plastic bag with whole avocados, red onions, lemons, and other ingredients she knew would turn into the best fresh guacamole in Texas.
“I heard you could use a smile,” he said.
“Oh, yeah?”
“As I was leaving work tonight, Otto stopped by. He said the Queen Mother made an appearance at the department. He also said if I wanted to eat tonight, I’d better bring my own food.”
Josie shook her head, not sure if she should be angry with Otto or touched that he had intervened in her behalf.