LITMIR.BIZ

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she finished. “And obviously, I’m also the last one to know!”

      “Tony,” whispered the blonde, “I think your cleaning lady is helping herself to the liquor cabinet—”

      Tony cut her off. “Baby,” he said, tossing his keys on a side table. “Why don’t you go into the other room…”

      Baby. Corinne could almost forgive the nickname for his car—but for another woman? While his fiancée was so desperate to get married and have a baby?

      “Don’t tell me to calm down!” The blonde jabbed his chest with an inch-long crimson nail. “You bring me to your house for a nooner and we’re greeted by some plastic-wrapped maid with a deranged wife fantasy?”

      Corinne’s heart twisted. Plastic-wrapped. Like leftovers. But the blonde had one thing right. Corinne definitely had a deranged wife fantasy. She’d been a fool wanting to marry this two-timing, self-absorbed Tiger Boy…who had a lot of nerve wearing that crucifix his mother had given him, as though he needed protection from the evil in the world!

      Corinne glanced at his car keys on the table. Tony and the blonde were yelling at each other as though Corinne didn’t exist. Here she was, dressed like some kind of hausfrau hooker, and she was still being treated like Inconspicuous Corinne.

      Well, no more!

      Minutes ago, she’d shakily wrapped herself in this getup, thrilled at her audacious first step at shedding her inhibitions. Well, forget first steps. She was taking a flying leap!

      In a rush of movement, Corinne snatched the keys off the table. In a stiff-kneed speed walk, she beelined past the arguing couple and across the lawn to the Ferrari parked in the driveway. Jumping inside, she shoved the key into the ignition. As the engine roared to life, Tony tore across the lawn, yelling a string of profanities—some Italian, some English.

      Corinne didn’t try to decipher which was which as she shoved the gear into reverse and squealed down the driveway, smoking rubber obliterating the vision of her home, her husband-to-be, her future. In a moment of dread, mixed with a strange anticipation, she realized she was shedding more than her inhibitions, she was shedding her entire life.

      As she ground the gear into first, she stuck her other hand out the sunroof. “Bye bye, Baby!” she yelled before punching the gas.

      A MANILLA FOLDER LANDED with a slap on Leo’s desk. “Guy claims an oversized redhead stole his classic Studebaker,” said a gravelly male voice. “More like a classic bump and run. Couldn’t have been Lizzie ’cause she had a thing for Acura Integras.”

      Leo slugged a mouthful of scalding coffee. Too hot. But damn if he’d let on he’d just singed a layer of skin off his tongue.

      “Sorry,” Dom murmured, rubbing his temple. “Shouldn’t make Lizzie jokes. Bad taste.”

      Real bad. Leo coughed and stared at the folder, pretending to be absorbed in this Studebaker case, but his mind was on Elizabeth—Lizzie—his former wife. Everybody had known how much he loved her. Hell, everyone loved her. She’d had a knack for getting to people with her infectious devil-may-care style.

      And just as everyone had known Lizzie, everyone knew the story. How he’d been on a raid and discovered his devil-may-care wife was no angel. Caught her in a drug-bust sting. How he’d been shot at damn near point blank range because he’d been tunnel-visioned on his wife, unable to move, to digest the hellish reality. After getting out of the hospital, the department had pressured him to see a shrink but it had ripped his gut apart to talk about her, so he’d stopped going. Since then, he never talked about her to anyone else. Except Mel, the parrot, and then only after a few drinks.

      But even then, he never called her “Lizzie.” Always “Elizabeth” as though saying her full, Christian name could distance the devil.

      “When do I get a real case, Dom?” asked Leo, changing the subject. “I’m thirty-five, your best detective, and you’re assigning me senior citizen nits. Next I’ll be tracking a stolen walker.” But in Leo’s heart, he wondered if he even wanted a “real” case. He figured he kept asking because being a cop was the only job he’d ever known.

      Dom lifted his eyebrows, which lay like a fuzzy caterpillar across the captain’s brow. He opened his mouth to respond, but Leo cut in.

      “If you’d gotten shot because your wife was…” The rest of the sentence tasted bitter, so Leo let it hang. Defensive. Again. One of his newer, more pleasant personality traits since the crash-and-burn of his marriage, his life. “Forget it.” He picked up a pen. “Studebaker,” he repeated, writing the word on a legal pad. “Overage geriatric owner. Oversized—whatever that means—redheaded thief.” He stopped writing and looked up. “And who said Vegas has become nothing but a big family town?”

      Leo had lived here all his life. Watched his dad walk out on the family. Watched his mom raise her two sons single-handedly, one of whom was hell on wheels. By seventeen, Leo had been an accomplished delinquent who specialized in hot-wiring cars for joyrides…but his hobby came to a screeching halt when his mom remarried, this time to a cop.

      At first Leo hated his new stepfather, whom Leo called “Hobo Cop” behind his back. But despite Leo’s attitude, his stepdad never wavered on dishing out discipline…or love. One day, Leo accidentally called this man “Dad.” And when the man, in return, called him “Son,” Leo knew he wanted to grow up to be a cop.

      Which he became. And after that, a hotshot detective. But now he was on desk duty, his career stalled. Just like his life. Some days he wanted to start over, pack up his antiquated Airstream and head out to some new frontier, finding a small ranch in which to spend the rest of his days. Especially while recovering from the shooting, he’d had a lot of time to indulge in this fantasy. In his darker moments, it’d given him hope to plan how long it’d take to save for a down payment on this ranch…he’d figured two years would nail it…

      The sound of Dom shoving aside a bag of pretzels and a half-eaten Twinkie brought Leo back from the ranch fantasy to the desk reality. “You should eat better,” Dom grumbled, planting himself on the edge of the desk. Crossing his arms over his uniformed chest, Dom continued, “I know you hate desk duty. Trust me, if we had our way in the precinct, we’d pay you to stay home.” Dom grinned, then turned somber again. “It’s tough enough getting shot—worse being forced to take a paid leave. Let me remind you that you were to remain on leave for a full year, but not Leo Wolf-man—”

      “I would’ve had to take my parrot to AA if I stayed home one day longer.”

      Dom cocked his eyebrow, which looked as though the caterpillar was arching its back. “He wouldn’t drink wine if you didn’t pour him a glass.”

      “Hate to drink alone. Besides, Mel gets cranky when he’s sober.”

      “A parrot named after Mel Gibson,” Dom muttered, shaking his head.

      “My alter ego. He gets to see real action in those cop flicks with Danny what’s-his-name. Not sit behind some desk playing male secretary.”

      “You’re not a secretary, you’re a detective.”

      Leo did a dramatic double take. “And these four months I’ve been fetching coffee and typing with two fingers, dreaming one day I’d be promoted to office manager.”

      Dom heaved a sigh. “Why don’t you stay home and let Mel do desk duty? At least he doesn’t talk back…too much.”

      Leo had bought the parrot after Elizabeth took the furniture, Acura, even his hallowed collection of Hot Wheels while Leo was in the hospital recuperating. He hadn’t really cared that she cleaned out the place—saved him dumping anything that reminded him of her. But when the hospital released him to go home, it had been lonely.

      Damn lonely.

      That’s when he’d decided to buy a pet. One that wouldn’t be underfoot all the time. A parrot seemed perfect. A flying, lighthearted, conversational pet. Unfortunately,

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