Destroying Angel, page 10
“She was at the hospital last night when I showed up,” Emery explained. “She came back to the lab with me while I ran the tests.”
Scandal broke across Monica’s face and she was practically screaming now. “You hooked up with her here?”
“Shh!” Emery considered lying, but there was no way Monica would buy it. “In my office. It was amazing, and I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“No shit, she’s written all over your face. I am so jealous.”
Emery raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t even met her, and I didn’t think you were into women.”
“No, that you hooked up in the office! Bucket list item, for sure,” Monica said.
“Since when?”
“Since my pregnancy hormones have started making me want to fuck twenty-four, seven,” she said. “Plus I’m constantly overheating, and I bet this stainless steel would feel nice on my back.”
Emery lifted her hands off the counter. “Promise me you’ve never been naked in the lab.”
Monica laughed. “Don’t worry, Dean is not adventurous enough to indulge me… not that I haven’t tried.”
“Good for Dean,” Emery said, praising Monica’s husband.
Monica gave her a cross look. “Hypocrite. Why do you get to do it and I don’t?”
“Well, for one thing, it was not premeditated,” Emery said. “And for another, at least we kept our bodily fluids confined to my office. I would never have sex in a lab.”
She put her eye down to the microscope again and Monica snorted. “Oh, live a little.”
The two of them worked for a while, side by side, on their own separate projects. Then Monica asked if Emery was planning to ask Julia out properly.
“I know you’re usually a lone-wolf type, but it seems like there’s something special about this girl,” she added.
Emery lifted her head from her microscope again. “You can tell that from the second-hand stories I’ve told you about her?”
“I can tell from how you’ve changed since you met her. You’re more confident, more comfortable in your own skin.”
She thought for a minute, then let out a dreamy little sigh that just didn’t want to stay in. “Yeah, she is special.”
“Then call her.”
“I will. At lunch.”
She looked down at her work again, and Monica – still full of that self-satisfaction – said, “Good. You deserve love, Em.”
20
JULIA
Julia didn’t answer when Emery called her that afternoon, and she didn’t reply to the text message that came in that evening either.
She wanted to – very badly. And it would be the polite thing to do after the woman completely and utterly wrecked her with one of the best orgasms of her life. Emery was constantly on her mind.
But Julia wasn’t in a good place right now – not good enough to be dating someone new. Not when she was looking for Samantha around every corner and flinching at every unidentified noise in her apartment at night.
Maybe after a good, long stint in therapy.
Maybe when she knew Sam was gone for good – if that was even possible. It felt like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and as much as she liked Emery, it wasn’t fair to drag her into the muck too.
So Julia kept her head down and focused on the case for the next couple of days. She tried unsuccessfully to find family members for Kyle Brody – he didn’t have an emergency contact listed in his files and had refused the hospital’s offer to reach out to someone. Weird, but not evidence that he was a killer.
Julia also recruited Ariel to go with her to check out Kyle’s apartment, since Tom and Renee were now busy with the skeleton-in-the-tree case.
“What are we hoping to find, a dartboard with Brandon Hawthorne’s face on it?” Ariel asked as they explored the place.
“That would certainly help,” Julia said with a smirk. “Look for mushroom foraging books, medical books, a computer we can search…”
She trailed off as she opened Kyle’s refrigerator.
“Huh.”
“What?” Ariel asked.
“Two take-out containers, a half-drunk gallon of milk, and mustard that expired last year,” Julia inventoried. “Not exactly the fridge of a guy who would whip himself up a casserole.”
Ariel joined her in the kitchen, opening cupboards. “He only has one pot – a chef’s kitchen this is not.”
The whole apartment was messy but not quite slovenly, and it didn’t look like Kyle got many visitors. He definitely didn’t cook for himself. She took pictures of everything, and they moved on to the bedroom. Drool-stained pillowcase, box of tissues at the bedside, mattress and TV both sitting directly on the floor.
If Brandon Hawthorne’s apartment was a picture of a man who’d been sick recently but generally had his life together, Kyle Brody’s said the opposite. Julia could practically smell the depression – a scent akin to the pile of unwashed laundry accumulating in the bottom of the closet.
“Okay, I think I’ve seen enough,” she said. “I need to go talk to this guy again.”
Kyle Brody was sitting up in his hospital bed when Julia arrived.
He’d been moved to the intensive care unit to begin his liver dialysis, but at least he was no longer trying to regurgitate his own internal organs. He looked exhausted, and he was hooked up to a number of tubes and beeping machines, but he also looked relieved.
“Do you know what you ate, Mr. Brody?” Julia asked as she helped herself to a seat next to his bed.
“Destroying angel,” he said. “Didn’t quite finish the job though, did it?”
“Is that what you wanted?” Julia asked.
“To kill myself? No!” Kyle hissed. “Far from it.”
“Your doctor says you’re not out of the woods yet.” Although the digestive symptoms had abated in the time she’d been at the lab with Emery, Kyle’s liver and kidneys were still battling for survival. He’d likely recover, but maybe not without multiple organ transplants.
“And you can’t tell me where you foraged that mushroom?” she pressed.
“Not specifically, other than from the woods around my apartment,” Kyle said, his head flopping limply against his pillow. “Sorry.”
“Are you feeling okay?” Julia asked, eyeing the call button dangling over the rail of his bed.
“Just tired.” His eyes were closed and his skin was looking clammy. She should let him rest… but a man was dead and even though she couldn’t make the connection between them, Julia knew there was one. He had to answer her questions, for the sake of Brandon’s family.
Time to put the pressure on.
“How long are you going to keep pretending you made that casserole, Mr. Brody?”
His eyes fluttered open. “What?”
“I went to your apartment,” she said. “I know you’re not a cook.”
“Oh, you know me?”
“I know you have one pot in your kitchen and it’s barely big enough to make a box of Kraft Mac n’ Cheese.”
He shot her an annoyed look. “On second thought, I am feeling pretty sick… you better let me rest.”
“Just a few more questions,” Julia said, the compassion gone from her voice. “Who did you piss off?”
“Excuse me?”
“A friend of Brandon Hawthorne, maybe?”
She studied him closely, lucky that he was actually choosing to look her in the eyes now. There was no flicker of recognition, and he shook his head.
“That name supposed to mean something to me?”
“I thought it might,” she said.
“Nope,” Kyle said, his head flopping back on the pillow. He was starting to look pale and genuinely tired, not just annoyed.
“Maybe you have a mutual acquaintance. Whoever made you that casserole?”
“I don’t know the guy,” he gritted out. “And I told you, I made that casserole.”
“So you were trying to kill yourself,” Julia insisted. She didn’t buy his story – the guy’s kitchen told the tale of someone who could barely boil water – but she’d humor him for the moment.
“No, it was an accident.” He was looking at the ceiling as he talked. The machines he was hooked up to were noisier now, and Julia knew if Tom were here he’d make her stop. “God, I could think of a thousand less painful ways to off myself if I wanted to.”
A nurse came in and checked his vitals, and the machines calmed down. Julia watched the nurse draw his blood from an IV in the back of his hand. He didn’t seem to be on any friendlier terms with the hospital staff than he was with her.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” the nurse said on her way out.
“Can’t wait,” Kyle grimaced. He turned back to Julia. “Hourly blood draws to make sure my kidneys and liver don’t give up on me.”
Julia hoped they didn’t – for his sake and because she needed more time with him. He obviously wasn’t going to tell her the truth today.
“I’ll let you rest,” she said. “One more thing before I go.”
“Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you ask the hospital to notify an emergency contact that you’re here?”
“I don’t have an emergency contact, okay?” It was the first time that an emotion other than anger rose to the surface, and Julia thought she heard his voice crack. “I have no one. My parents are dead, I’m an only child, it’s just me.”
Empathy twisted in Julia’s chest in spite of herself.
She believed Kyle had something to do with Brandon’s death. Otherwise, why lie about the casserole?
And yet, part of her felt bad for him.
She hesitated, then went over to the tray table beside his bed and poured him a cup of water because no one had thought to do it yet. She handed it to him and dropped a straw into the cup. He started drinking without a thanks, and she said, “I’ll be in contact, Mr. Brody. Feel better.”
21
EMERY
By the end of the work week, Emery was getting pretty despondent over Julia’s complete lack of communication.
Emery had tried texting her a couple of times, until it felt like the string of unanswered messages was starting to look needy. She was trying to resign herself to the fact that she’d been ghosted, but at lunch on Friday, Monica was determined to get Emery to call her again.
“She’s probably just busy,” she said. “She’s a detective working a homicide case, and she just moved into a new town. I bet her routine’s all screwed up and she just forgot to answer your texts.”
“We had great chemistry and we really clicked, we had sex and now she’s done with me,” Emery said, trying to feel as nonchalant as her words implied.
“She is not done with you,” Monica insisted. “You do have great chemistry. You went to lunch together and couldn’t stop talking about how intriguing she is. That’s not hit it and quit it behavior. Call her.”
So Emery did, against her better judgment, and she was sent to voicemail.
“What do I do?” she asked Monica.
“Leave a message,” Monica said, rolling her eyes like it was the most obvious answer in the world.
Emery’s heart climbed into her throat, threatening to cut off her words. Nobody liked talking on the phone anymore, and that included leaving voicemails. She hadn’t left one for a non-work-related reason in she couldn’t remember how long – what the hell was she supposed to say?
Hey, I know you didn’t answer any of my texts, which you definitely would have done if you actually wanted to talk to me. So here I am, barging into your voicemail, making a pest of myself.
The longer she tried to think of something to say, the more dead air got recorded and the more awkward the whole message became.
She was just about to hang up when Monica snatched the phone out of her hand. “Hey, this is a message on behalf of Emery Ellison. She had fun in the lab on Sunday night and she wants to know when you’re free to do it again. Bye!” She hung up, then handed the phone back to Emery. “Was that so hard?”
“Um, yeah. Excruciating. Thank you.”
Emery figured that was the end of Julia – unless something came up with the case. She tried to put her out of her head, but just as she was walking into her apartment that night, Julia called her back.
Emery saw the caller ID on her smartwatch and immediately started juggling her messenger bag and coat. She ended up throwing all of it on the floor and answering the call right there on her watch because she was scared she wouldn’t get another chance.
“Hello?”
“You sound out of breath – is this a bad time?” Julia asked.
“No,” Emery said, doing her best to force the wind back into her lungs without it being audible through the speaker. “What’s up?”
“Well, first of all, I’m really sorry I ghosted you.”
“Oh, no, you didn’t ghost me. It’s cool.”
See, Monica? She totally ghosted me. Emery could practically hear herself having that conversation at lunch on Monday.
“Yes, I did,” Julia insisted, her tone apologetic. “What we did in your office kind of spooked me.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No. God, no, you were amazing.” Julia chuckled and it brought a satisfied smirk onto Emery’s face. “Without getting into far more details than you need to hear over the phone, I have some baggage and I got nervous. I should have told you but instead I stuck my head in the sand. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” It was actually a relief to hear that Emery hadn’t found some unique and creative way to fuck things up with Julia, that she hadn’t somehow driven her away.
“I’m glad you called me,” Julia said. “Or… who was that?”
Emery chuckled. “My best friend Monica. She was excited to play wing-woman.”
“She’s good at it,” Julia said. There was a little silence, during which Emery started to think about what it felt like to have Julia pressed up against her desk… what it might feel like to bend her over one of the lab tables and finger her from behind…
Despite what she’d told Monica about how many different lab safety violations that would entail, she was secretly warming up to the idea.
“Anyway,” Julia said, “I feel bad for how I treated you and I’d like to make it up to you. Can I take you out to dinner or something?”
Emery opened her mouth to tell Julia that wasn’t necessary, that all had been forgiven, then paused.
What would Monica do?
“I’d like that,” she said, “but rather than going out, why don’t you come over to my place? We can open a bottle of wine, maybe pick up where we left off when the mass spec interrupted us.”
“Your place?” Julia asked.
“Yeah, I can finally give you that web art I promised you.”
There were a few seconds of silence on the line, during which Emery started to question what she’d just proposed. Was it stupid to be so forward when she was just resigning herself to never hearing from Julia again?
But then she said, “Text me the address. I’ll be there in an hour.”
Emery hung up the phone with the biggest smile on her face. First step, text Monica to tell her what a devilish, wonderful influence she was. Step two, pick up all the work stuff she just dumped all over the floor.
And step three, go let the wine breathe.
Pretty much exactly an hour later, Emery’s intercom buzzed and she let Julia up to her apartment. She met her on the stairwell, and took the cloth shopping bag that Julia had looped over one arm.
“I brought ‘sorry I’m a dick for ghosting you’ cheese and crackers,” she said.
“Is that what cheese and crackers means?” Emery asked. “I’m so out of the loop on social etiquette.”
They went inside and Emery set the bag down on her kitchen counter. Julia followed her into the room, and it was a tight squeeze in the small kitchen. When Emery brushed by her on her way to grab a serving plate and some wine glasses, she inhaled Julia’s sweet, fresh perfume. When Julia chose that exact moment to turn around, meeting her gaze all of ten inches from each other, well, Emery was a goner.
She abandoned her quest for dinnerware and planted both hands on the edge of the counter at Julia’s hips. She leaned forward, indulging in her delicious scent and the swish of her ponytail as she said right against Julia’s ear, “I missed you.”
She was rewarded with the press of Julia’s body against her own. Her hands on Emery’s hips. Her breath warm and inviting on her neck as she answered, “I missed you too.”
And then they were kissing, hot and heavy just like in Emery’s office.
It seemed that they both had incredible self-control when they needed it, but whenever either one of them broke the seal, all bets were off.
Soon, Emery had Julia hoisted up on the countertop, thighs squeezing Emery’s hips. She had one hand tangled in Julia’s hair and the other wrapped around her, holding her tight. She tasted like heaven, and Emery craved more of her, ached to lay this woman down in her bed and worship her like she deserved.
A quickie was great when it was the only option. But now they had the time to savor each other.
“You feel so good,” she groaned as she scooted Julia’s hips closer to the edge of the counter, enjoying the way Julia’s body fit against her own.
“So do you,” Julia murmured, her hands reaching down to grab Emery’s ass and her legs hooking around the backs of her thighs.
“I want you.”
“I want you too… wait.”
Suddenly, Julia’s hands were on Emery’s chest, but not in the way she wanted. She was pushing her back, making space between them.
“What’s wrong?”
There was a storm behind Julia’s eyes. “We should talk first. About why I got scared after Sunday morning.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes… sort of…” Julia sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it, and I’m afraid you’ll hate me.”
