Destroying Angel, page 11
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Emery said, stepping back and holding out her hand. “But let’s have that glass of wine and you can tell me what’s going on.”
Julia took her hand. It was a drop of about six inches to the floor, but she smiled at the chivalry, which Emery took as a good sign. Whatever she had to say couldn’t be that serious, right?
“Do you want the cheese and crackers?”
“Maybe later,” Julia said.
So Emery grabbed a couple wine glasses and the bottle from the counter, and led Julia into the living room. Emery poured them each a glass and set the bottle down on the coffee table.
“I like your apartment – it’s very cozy. Is that your spiderweb art?” Julia gestured to a couple of baroque-style frames on the wall.
“Yeah, this is the one I had in mind for you,” Emery said, leading her over to an intricate web in a gilt oval frame. “But you can pick out whichever one you want if you like a different one.”
“I love this one,” Julia said. “And I like that you picked it for me.”
Emery pulled it off the wall and set it on the kitchen counter beside Julia’s purse so she’d remember to take it with her when she left. When she turned back around, she found Julia staring pensively into her wine glass, looking worried.
Emery came over and put a hand on top of Julia’s. “You can talk to me. I promise there’s nothing you can say that will make me hate you.”
Julia downed a big gulp of wine, then turned to face her. “You can’t promise that. You don’t even know me.”
“I haven’t known you long, but I do think I know you.”
“Don’t be so sure,” she said. “My name isn’t even Julia Taylor.”
22
JULIA
Emery’s eyes subtly widened, and then she made an effort to narrow them so as not to look shocked. Julia’s heart beat faster.
“It’s not?” She let out a chuckle to try to lighten the mood. “What are you, an assassin? My opponent at the state mycological society must be taking the annual elections more seriously than usual.”
Julia couldn’t help laughing. She sputtered, trying not to spit the wine she’d been drinking.
“So you’re not here to kill me for being too cool and knowledgeable during my lecture at the last conference?”
“I wouldn’t announce it if I was,” Julia shot back, grateful for the distraction. It was like Emery had pulled the tension relief valve and all the pressure building up in her came out at last. “But no, I’m not here to kill you and I’m not an assassin. I’m… well, not in actual witness protection, but it’s kind of like that.”
She sighed, then told Emery about Sam.
About how when they started dating, she’d seemed perfectly normal. And then that veneer had quickly cracked, Sam’s jealous and possessive side coming to the surface with frightening regularity.
“I’m not naive – I’m a cop,” Julia said. “I knew it was only going to get worse, so I cut ties, or tried to.”
Samantha had only gotten clingier and scarier after Julia broke up with her. It had been a short relationship, but in Sam’s head, it was everything, and Julia had ballooned in her mind into an ideal girlfriend that the real-world version could never live up to.
“I tried everything from stern warnings to a restraining order, and I even showed her picture to all my coworkers and family members in case she showed up where she wasn’t welcome,” she explained, “but none of it fazed her. She just didn’t care, and she said she’d do anything to win me back. Including calling my old chief and making up lies, trying to get me fired because she thought I broke up with her because I was too busy with my job.”
“That sounds awful, I’m sorry you had to go through it,” Emery said. “And I’m sorry I sent you so many messages last week – that must have freaked you out.”
“So many?” Julia wrinkled her brow. “I counted three. You should have seen how Sam used to blow up my phone… but I do appreciate that you worried about that.”
“So what happened? Is she in prison for stalking you?”
“I wish.” Julia took a deep breath. “There’s a pretty big correlation between intimate partner stalking and domestic violence. I was alone in my apartment back in Michigan one night when a rock crashed through my front window. That was it, no one tried to come in, but I know it was her and I took it as a warning. If she was willing to do something like that, I wasn’t going to wait around for her to violate the restraining order so I could call the cops. I got the hell out of Dodge, and changed my name so she couldn’t follow me.”
I hope.
She was just about to go for her glass of wine again – feeling ready to down the whole thing – when Emery threw her arms around her and held her tight.
It felt good, firm and comforting. It instantly relaxed her even though her mind had been racing only moments before.
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” Emery said into the hug. “And I’m so proud of you for looking out for yourself. Not everyone is strong enough to do that.”
Tears threatened at the edges of Julia’s eyelids but she blinked them back. When Emery released her from the hug, she drew another deep breath to clear her head. “Thank you. I still get freaked out sometimes in my new apartment, thinking I heard something on the street, or saw a shadow cross my bedroom window.”
“I’d be jumping at shadows too if I went through that – anyone would.”
“I’m a detective, though,” Julia said. “I’m supposed to be… I don’t know, better prepared.”
“Says who?”
Julia didn’t have an answer for that.
After a moment’s hesitation, Emery added, “So… can I ask you what your real name is? Or is that a faux pas?”
“It’s Frances Martin. Julia is my middle name,” she said, then laughed. “I always hated Frances anyway, so I guess one good thing came of this.”
“I like Frances,” Emery said. “It’s unique, like you.”
“Frannie,” Julia said, sticking out her tongue. “Or Fanny, as I got called as a kid.”
“Well, I’ll call you whatever you want me to,” Emery said.
“Julia, please,” she answered. “I had to tell Chief Wilson about my name change during my interview, and he would have found it during a background check anyway. But no one else here knows. Even to my detriment – one of my coworkers, Renee, knows something’s up with me and she’s so suspicious. But I can’t get over this fear that Sam’s going to find me the minute my old and new names get linked.”
“But you trusted me,” Emery said, pride evident on her face.
“I had to,” Julia said. “Or this was never going to work out.”
“This?”
“Us.”
“Well, I’m glad you felt you could. My lips are sealed,” Emery promised. “I won’t tell a soul. And there’s another bit of good news.”
“What?”
“I can assure you that I don’t hate you,” she answered. “In fact, I have an even higher opinion of you now than before you told me, because despite what you may think, the whole ordeal proves what a strong, incredible woman you are. And we can go as slowly as you want.”
“Right now, I don’t feel like going slow at all,” Julia said, coy at first, but soon she was straddling Emery’s lap, their wine forgotten once again.
The two of them ended up naked in Emery’s bed, a platter full of cheese and crackers in between them. They’d made love, got famished and ventured to the kitchen for a snack, and then fucked again right there on the kitchen floor before eventually making their way back to the bedroom.
It was such a relief for Julia to have one more person in her life who knew her secret, who she didn’t have to continually hide things from or worry that she’d forget to answer to her new name. Even more importantly, now she had an ally here in Fox County, a friend… certainly a lover, but maybe even more than that?
If she was ready for more…
She wasn’t so sure about that, but it seemed that Emery was eager and willing, should it turn out that she was.
For now, she was just enjoying a creamy slice of smoked gouda on top of a rosemary cracker, trying not to get crumbs in bed and absently rubbing her foot against Emery’s leg beneath the sheets.
“This is nice, right?” Emery asked.
She wasn’t eating. She was simply propped up on her elbows, her dark brown nipples peeking out from the top of the sheet, her eyes on Julia.
“It is,” Julia agreed, then shot Emery a sidelong glance. Her thoughts had taken a turn, and now she had something new on her mind. Emery read it on her face and she quickly moved the cheese and crackers off the bed.
Julia had Emery pinned against the headboard, hands gripping the bedposts while Julia thrust her fingers inside her… when the phone rang.
She nearly missed it. It was tucked into the pocket of her pants, which had been abandoned in the living room. If it’d been on vibrate, then nothing would have stopped her from relishing the blissed-out expression on Emery’s face as Julia made her come just as hard as she had earlier.
But damn it, once she heard it, she couldn’t ignore it.
“That’s my work ringer,” she apologized, hand stilling between Emery’s thighs.
Anguish cut across Emery’s features, but she nodded. “It’s okay, duty calls.”
Julia reluctantly climbed off the bed, sparing just one more moment to notice the fact that Emery wasn’t stopping, even if Julia had to. She reached into her dresser drawer, pulled out a small vibrator, and lay back down on the bed.
“You’re going to finish without me?” Julia pouted.
“Hurry back,” Emery teased. “Maybe you can finish me off.”
The vibrator buzzed to life and Julia had never felt more jealous of an inanimate object as she watched it disappear between Emery’s thighs.
Then she forced the thought from her head as she sprinted through the apartment and snatched up her phone. The call had gone to voicemail, but she saw it was an FCPD number, just as she’d expected.
Rather than waste time listening to the voicemail, she just called back.
“Hey, it’s Lena. You busy?” Detective Wolf asked asked as the call connected.
Julia looked down at her free hand, still slick with Emery’s arousal. Fuuuck, she wanted to be back in that bedroom. She wanted to throw that damn vibrator out the window for daring to finish a job that she couldn’t.
At least not this time.
She turned on the kitchen sink to wash her hands and ignored Lena’s question, instead asking, “What’s up?”
“I’m on third shift today and there’s not much going on,” she said. “I know you already checked social media for connections between your two mushroom poisonings, but I figured you might not have thought to check Nextdoor since you’re not on social media and you probably don’t have access to this area since you just moved–”
“Lena.” She was rambling, and Julia was trying her best not to sound like someone who’d just gotten torn from between a gorgeous woman’s thighs and was displeased about that.
“I found a connection,” Lena said.
Damn, way to bury the lede! Julia felt slightly less guilty about leaving Emery to her own devices now. “Don’t leave me hanging, what is it?”
“Nick Wilkins.”
“Brandon’s best friend? We cleared him.”
“Up until a month ago, he lived in the same apartment building as Kyle Brody,” Lena explained. “What do you think? That’s too big a coincidence to be nothing.”
Julia agreed, but she liked to think she could read people pretty well. She’d never gotten a bad feeling from Nick the whole time they were in the woods together, or when she questioned him with Tom. Was he involved after all?
As the sole link between Kyle Brody and Brandon Hawthorne, there had to be something she wasn’t seeing about this kid.
“Thanks, Wolf, I’ll take it from here,” Julia said, and when she hung up the phone, she found Emery standing in the kitchen doorway, a sheet wrapped around her, shoulders glistening with perspiration.
“You have to go?”
“I’m really sorry,” Julia said. “Hazard of the job.”
“Well, you missed your chance to finish me off,” Emery said, then came closer, murmuring against Julia’s ear, “If it’s any consolation, I came fast because you already had me really close to the edge.”
“That does help, yes,” Julia smiled. “But next time, I’m not giving up my place to a hunk of plastic.”
“Hey, that hunk of plastic has been my number one for a long time,” Emery teased. “Very reliable, always available, doesn’t leave cracker crumbs in my bed.”
Julia laughed. “You’re the one who brought the cheese and crackers to bed.” She stole a kiss, then added, “Maybe next time we can make it a three-way if your little plastic friend means so much to you.”
“I’d rather just have you,” Emery answered.
23
EMERY
The first Monday of the month was everyone in the mycology department’s least favorite – everyone except Glen, that was. He loved it because it was faculty meeting day, the only day of the month when he got the full and undivided attention of each and every one of his employees. And he had the opportunity to delegate, nitpick and micromanage to his heart’s content.
“Think I can fake morning sickness to get out of this?” Monica whispered as she and Emery found their customary seats at the side of the classroom they used for meetings.
“Don’t abandon me,” Emery shot back a warning glare.
“If he asks me to recite the grades of every single one of my students again, I’ll have no choice,” Monica answered.
The first half-hour of the meeting was simply Glen enjoying the sound of his own voice. He went over the things that everyone in the department was already fully aware of thanks to the modern miracle of email, and everyone did their best to look like they were paying attention. Emery was blissfully envisioning the curves of Julia’s body and the way her skin tasted beneath Emery’s tongue… she was content to zone out and let Glen ramble.
Then they all went around the room discussing their plans and challenges for the month. There were only five full-time faculty members, split evenly between research and teaching roles, but there were another half-dozen adjunct instructors who also had to stand and deliver at these meetings. Monica talked about some upcoming fieldwork she was planning for her upperclassmen, and thankfully Glen wasn’t interested in their individual grades this time.
“Dr. Ellison?” he asked next.
She made a conscious effort not to slump down in her chair. She was fully expecting him to make her report on the debacle that had been Tarzan, err, Mason and his mother.
Instead, he said, “I hear you’ve had an eventful time working with the police lately.”
Emery relaxed, a smile coming involuntarily to her lips as a certain ponytailed detective flashed in her mind’s eye yet again. “Yes, I have.”
She told everyone about the two amatoxin cases – or what she was permitted to say, considering the investigations were ongoing. They listened with genuine interest, and Glen nodded approvingly.
“You seem to be coming into your own, Dr. Ellison,” he said at the end of her report. “Perhaps I won’t be putting up a job posting to fill the community liaison position for next year after all.”
A statement like that a couple months ago would have sent her practically under her desk with fear. Now, though, when Glen moved on to the next person and Monica leaned in to ask, “How do you feel about that?” she was surprised to find she didn’t feel half bad.
“It’d look good on my resume,” she said with a shrug.
Monica elbowed her. “More chances to work with the sexy detective too.”
The meeting let out a short while later and everyone fled the classroom the same way students did at the end of a long lecture.
“Lunch?” Monica asked.
“We ate just before the meeting,” Emery reminded her.
Monica just shrugged. “Baby’s hungry again.”
Emery’s phone started to ring and she asked Monica to wait while she dug it out of her pocket. Fox County Police Department was on the screen, and Emery recognized Julia’s extension.
Monica looked over her shoulder and said with a wry smile, “Guess I’m going to second lunch on my own.”
“She’s calling from her desk, that must mean it’s business,” Emery said, waving as she stepped away to take the call. “Hey, babe.”
Okay, so she wasn’t capable of being fully in professional mode whenever she was around Julia.
“Hi, are you busy?”
“Just finished a meeting,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“The hospital called,” Julia answered. “Kyle Brody’s getting sicker.”
“His liver function?”
He’d been on dialysis and the transplant list since Emery confirmed the presence of amatoxin, which had given him the best chance of recovery. But with destroying angels, nothing was for certain.
But then Julia said, “No, back to vomiting and diarrhea.”
Emery’s brow furrowed deeply. “That shouldn’t happen.”
“I know,” Julia answered. “You told me that GI symptoms happen in the first seventy-two hours, and the doctors I’ve spoken to have said the same thing. It’s been over a week since Kyle last had those problems.”
“Could he have a stomach bug from being in the hospital?” Emery wondered.
“I just got done talking to the doctor and she says he’s got the exact same symptoms he came in with.”
“She thinks he was exposed again,” Emery concluded.
“Yep. Does that mean he ate more mushrooms?”
“I can’t think of any other reason,” she said. “If his new symptoms are due to amatoxin, there had to have been a second exposure.”
