“Well, my career was pretty deep too.”
“You know, I taught her everything she knows,” Olsher tipsily boasted. “I’m like a father to her! Except…a little darker.”
“My father didn’t smoke cigars, either, Larrel,” she said.
Eules and his men drank liberally, but then so did most everyone else. “Thank you for saving my life,” she bumbled to them.
“Hey, are my guys good or what?” Eules immodestly replied. “Cherry-pickers, all of them.”
Then one of the snipers said, “This is the real reason we do this stuff. There’s always a free kegger afterward.”
Helen drifted around in a happy daze. Then someone tapped her on the shoulder.
“Congratulations.”
It was Tom.
“Thanks, Tom.” She didn’t know how to feel about him now, but that didn’t surprise her. “Sorry I—”
“You really did think I was involved, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes. Sorry.”
“No big deal. But…were you really going to arrest me that night?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
He smiled then, looked around as if distracted. “Well, you saved my life. Thank you. If you hadn’t been perceptive enough to put a DF on yourself…”
We’d both be dead, she realized.
“Look, I know I’ve made things rough for you, but I still meant what I said,” Tom stared. “I think we should talk about getting back togeth—”
She cut him off. She had nothing against him now. Why should she? It simply wasn’t meant to happen. “Let’s be friends, okay, Tom? That’s the best thing to do.”
He sipped his drink, unscorned. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
A moment later, Olsher bulled in, bearing a large, flat parcel in gift wrap. “You’re immortal now, Helen. What could be a greater honor than this?”
“What…is it?” Helen tore off the wrapping paper and nearly shrieked. It was the front page of a newspaper, matted and framed. TOUGH AS NAILS GAL COP SOLVES “DAHMER” CASE! the headline read, along with an absolutely atrocious picture of her. But it wasn’t the Washington Post, the New York Times, or even the Tribune.
It was the National Enquirer.
“My favorite journalistic forum. You’re all heart, Larrel. I’ll hang this in my living room where everyone can see it.”
The room filled with laughter. She glided around, greeting the revelers much like a bride at a reception. All this is for me? she thought. No one had ever really thrown a party for her. Then she bumped into someone getting a plate of hors d’oeuvres in the kitchen. It was Nick.
He gave her a congratulatory peck on the cheek. “Great work, hon! You’re famous!”
“Just what I always wanted. But the pay raise is all I care about, just like any cop.”
Nick chuckled, arranging rolls of cold cuts, pigs in blankets, and toothpicked chunks of cheese. “Say, how about I take you out later for a night on the town, continue the celebration?”
Helen faltered. “Gee, Nick. I don’t know.”
“Aw, come on. I’m not a rubberneck, you know that. And besides, you only make deputy chief once. If that’s not cause for celebration, what is?”
Helen looked at him. He’s really not my type at all. Profane, arrogant, and so…just so…coppish. But then—
She shrugged, gave it some more thought, and smiled.
I’ve still got my whole life ahead of me. Why shouldn’t I play the field like everyone else?
“Come on, Helen. Whadaya say?”
“Sure, Nick,” she consented. “Why not?”
— | — | —
About the Authors:
Elizabeth Steffen lives in the desert Southwest, where she works for a federal law-enforcement agency. Her hobbies are sunbathing, dead movie stars, and showing off her fingerprinting talents.
Ex-police officer and Army grunt, Edward Lee is the author of over thirty novels and a variety of short stories, comic scripts, and novellas. He lives in Florida.