LITMIR.BIZ

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explain.”

      “Fuck you, Pete!” I said. “You can’t explain fucking my partner any more than Lou Ann here can explain fucking my boyfriend, can you, honey?” I put the second bullet into the mattress six inches away from her thick left thigh and was rewarded with a terrified shriek.

      “How long have you two been meeting like this?” I asked, trying to recall all of Lou Ann’s recent sick days.

      “Baby, I swear, this was the first time!” Pete said. “Now baby, really…” He started to shift toward me, and I lifted the gun, aiming it dead center at his chest.

      “Do you feel like trying me, sweetheart?” I asked. “Because I don’t care if you do. Dead is dead, but I’m thinking I just might take the family jewels instead. Wouldn’t that give you a little more to think about? Wouldn’t that be just the right thing for this particular occasion?” I lowered the gun a few millimeters and smiled as his balls shrank up behind his already invisible penis. “Bad boy,” I murmured. “Bad, bad boy!”

      I looked over at Lou Ann for a fraction of a second, knowing Pete would make a move if he found an opening. “So, you tell Dave and the kids you’re fucking Pete, or did you save that for me to do?” I asked her.

      Lou Ann’s face paled. “Oh, Stella, don’t do that!” she cried.

      I could feel my body begin to tremble with rage and grief. I couldn’t stay in the trailer too much longer or I really would hurt somebody, like maybe myself.

      “So what did I do to deserve this, Pete?” I said, looking back at him, never moving the Glock from its target.

      “Baby, you didn’t have a thing to do with this….” he began.

      “Damn straight, I didn’t,” I said. “And I never will, not ever again.” I backed up a step. “That’s the trouble with weak men,” I said. “They can’t handle strong women. You and Lou Ann ought to be perfect for each other.”

      I kept walking backward, keeping Pete in my sights, daring him to leave the bed before I turned and walked out of his life forever. I took in every detail of the room, memorizing everything, the way Pete and Lou Ann looked together naked, the way the sheets and blankets puddled in a heap at the foot of the bed, the fear in Lou Ann’s eyes and the blank look on Pete’s face. I was forcing myself to commit the unthinkable to memory so that I would never, ever be tempted by Pete’s charm to forgive him and start over. No, this was a lesson I was going to learn and never need to repeat, a lesson I’d somehow forgotten to learn from other lovers in the past and one that was almost killing me now.

      I felt the shaking begin to get worse as I closed the kitchen door behind me and stepped out onto the stoop. I almost tripped over Lloyd in my hurry to get down the stairs and escape before anything worse could happen.

      He yipped as I squashed his paw and stared up at me with his huge dark eyes.

      “You were trying to tell me, weren’t you?” I said as I passed him.

      I kept on going, crossing the dry, crunchy grass and half-running toward the car. I jumped in, started the engine and threw the car into Drive as Pete appeared in the kitchen doorway.

      “Stella! Wait!” he cried.

      I put my foot on the accelerator, lurched forward, pulling even with the back steps, then stomped on the brakes.

      “Honey, really, come on inside. Let’s talk about this,” he said. “Come on, Stel, where are you going to go, huh? Come on, baby.”

      I saw a flash of Lou Ann behind him, hastily pulling on her jeans and hopping around on one leg. She was panicked; I knew that much, and that made me perversely happy.

      I put the car into Neutral and opened the driver’s side door. Pete looked hopeful, probably thinking that with just the right approach he could smooth the entire thing over.

      “Well,” I said. “I guess you’d better pick one of us. Tracy left you. She’s never coming back. Are you going to keep on waiting for a miracle, or are you ready to start over, too?”

      Pete looked puzzled, then almost relieved, but it was Lloyd who never wavered. He bounded down off the steps, crossed the yard and leaped into the car with a joyful bound of doggy delight.

      “Pete?” I said, my voice a sweet coo of encouragement.

      “Yeah, baby?”

      “Bite my smooth, tender ass!”

      With that, Lloyd and I drove away, laying rubber down the narrow trailer park road, screeching out onto the main drive and flying away from Pete and Lou Ann as fast as we could, the cool night air slapping our faces and drying the tears that for some reason lasted only a few minutes.

      Chapter 2

      Lloyd and I drove around Garden Beach for the better part of an hour before I came to any conclusions or developed a working plan. My cell phone rang continuously and I finally had to turn it off so I could think without interruption. It seemed to me that I’d lost just about everything I’d come to Garden Beach to find. Losing Pete was probably the least of my worries. I’d also lost my partner—the person who was supposed to be watching my back had been flat on hers with my boyfriend. That hurt, but even that wasn’t my biggest loss.

      Garden Beach, Florida, was a small town with a small police force. Pete and I couldn’t coexist in the same department. He was the department’s hero, the wonder cop who always got his man, or now, woman. It wouldn’t take long for Pete and Lou Ann to spread the rumor that I was unstable and that they were the two injured parties. They’d tell people about me firing my service weapon at them. My reputation, and worse, my opportunities with the force, would be dead, and even Needle Nose Robanski’s capture wouldn’t salvage that. No, if I was going to remain in law enforcement, I’d have to move on.

      At 5:00 a.m., I pulled into the police department parking lot.

      “I’ll be right back,” I promised Lloyd, and limped in through the rear entrance. I slowly made my way down the empty corridor to Randy’s closet of an office, stepped inside and closed the door behind me. I reached into my purse for the gun, dropped the magazine out, and left the police-issued Glock sitting empty in his top desk drawer. I grabbed my shield and felt tears stinging my eyelids as I ran my fingers over the gold-and-silver badge one last time. I dropped it into the drawer beside the gun, closed it and walked out of the office before I could change my mind.

      I went into the women’s dressing room next, spun the combination to my locker and found the street clothes I’d worn in to work the night before—a pair of denim shorts, flip-flops and a worn T-shirt that said Garden Beach Police Softball League. I changed, slammed the locker shut and left before the first shift people started arriving. My ankle throbbed and I felt like shit. How had I so totally screwed up my life in such a short amount of time?

      I spent the next three and a half hours with Lloyd, sitting on the beach, drinking coffee, feeding Lloyd a chicken biscuit I ordered but then couldn’t stomach and saying goodbye to my old life. I was feeling about as sorry for myself as Needle Nose was probably feeling over in the county lockup. Only, maybe Needle Nose was luckier. His future was all behind him. He could count on a trial followed by a thousand-year jail term. I had no idea what was going to happen with me.

      At 9:03 a.m., I walked into the credit union and withdrew every last dime from my joint account with Pete. The grand total came to $384.96. I took the money and didn’t look back. What goes around comes around, I thought. Besides, he could always sell the clothes and few personal items I’d left behind, couldn’t he?

      “Look at this, Lloyd,” I said when I got back to the car. “That’s all we had to show for ourselves, just under four hundred dollars. Ridiculous, huh?”

      Lloyd looked over at me and smiled. His doggy tongue hung out the left side of his mouth, and his soft black-and-white ears drooped across his face, half hiding his eyes.

      “I know it’s a small fortune to you.

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