“Mike, I don’t have to think about it,” I said quickly. “I know what I want. I want you. I want us to give this relationship a chance. If I didn’t, I never would have said yes to a first date, let alone a second, third, fourth—what are we up to now?”
“We’ve been out nine times, Clare. Believe me, I’ve kept count. Nine agonizingly arousing necking sessions followed by a number of extremely long, lonely hours alone in bed.”
“Well, you won’t have to be alone much longer. And neither will I.”
“Are you sure, Clare? You’re really prepared to move out of that beautiful, convenient duplex upstairs?” He jerked his thumb towards the ceiling.
“Moving out isn’t the problem,” I said with a sigh. “It’s where do I move in? Rents are crazy steep in the West Village. Maybe I should try Alphabet City, too. It isn’t too far. How did you get your place? I never asked you about it, but it seemed like you found it pretty fast.”
“The landlord held an opening for me in the building.”
“He what? He held an opening? In Manhattan? Were you blackmailing the guy?”
Mike’s grim expression finally loosened a little. His chilly gaze began to warm. “The landlord’s a retired detective. I was his partner for a few years there. He inherited the building, and he’s been renting to divorced cops ever since.”
“Only divorced cops?”
“The rookies are usually still living at home. The married guys get houses in the boroughs. It’s the older guys whose marriages break up that need the camaraderie. We even get together once a week to hang out, shoot the breeze.”
“So you belong to a divorced men’s group?”
“We don’t think of it that way.”
“Of course you do. That’s why you never mentioned it until now.” I stifled a laugh.
Mike rolled his eyes, checked his watch. “I’ve got to get going…”
“Okay, but…can we make a date to meet? At your place? I promise I’ll move out of the duplex the first chance I get. Is that good enough for you?”
Mike smiled for the first time since he walked in my door. “Yeah,” he said, leaning in. “It’s good enough.”
His hand caressed my hair, and he pulled me close, brushed my lips with his. But the light kiss wasn’t enough for either of us, and we locked pretty tightly for a few minutes.
“How about we get together Monday afternoon?” Mike suggested softly when we finally parted. “If you can take off, I can arrange a little picnic on the floor of my one-bedroom.”
I smiled. “Let me guess; it’s a picnic because you still don’t have actual furniture yet.”
“You’re right, Cosi. I admit it. See that? And you didn’t even have to beat it out of me.” Mike’s eyes were laughing now; his voice was warm. I’d finally melted him down to the human race.
“I told you before, Lieutenant, many times. You should let me help you detect some furniture. I promise I’ll go easy on your credit cards.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll give in soon. In the meantime, you’ll be happy to know I do have a nice big bed in the bedroom. Is that good enough for now?”
“That’s more than good enough, mister. That’s I’ll be there with bells on.”
“Really…just bells, huh?” Mike’s eyebrow arched. “Kinky.”
I swatted him. He laughed. And then we heard a bell for real; the front door was opening again.
“Hello, hello!” Matt’s mother waltzed in, bundled in a floor-length fur.
“Madame?” I checked my watch. “It’s almost twelve thirty. What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to you in person, Clare. It’s rather important.”
Mike smiled down at me. “I have to get going.” He squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll call you.”
I nodded. “Be safe.”
Mike winked at me, gave a polite nod to Madame, and then he was gone.
“I remember that young man,” Madame said as she waved me over to a café table. “He’s that nice detective who fixed your traffic violation last month.”
“You mean the BOLO that resulted from the police chase that ensued after you told me to run that red light in Brooklyn?”
“Yes, that one.”
“Mike’s handy that way.” We both sat down. “So what’s up? Do you want some coffee?”
“No, dear.”
I threw up my hands. “I can’t give it away tonight.”
“It’s just that I don’t have much time. My young man is picking me up here in”—she checked her watch—“fifteen minutes.”
“Your young man?”
“He’s only just turned sixty-six, quite a difference in our ages, but I couldn’t resist his charms.”
“Is this the man who was ‘eye-flirting’ with you last night at Solange?”
“The same. We’re going to a nightclub downtown. I haven’t done anything like that in years. And I’m quite looking forward to it!”
“Well, I’d love to hear more about him, but I don’t want you to keep him waiting. So what’s up? Why are you here so late?”
“It’s Joy.”
My breath caught. “You’ve heard from her?”
“I just left her, Clare. We spent the evening together. Now she’s on her way uptown.”
“Uptown? Why?”
“She’s going back to Solange, of course.”
Fifteen
Inside of six minutes, I’d gotten the entire story out of Madame and was waving down a taxi on Hudson. Then I was off, my driver heading uptown, transporting me back to Tommy Keitel’s hellacious house of haute cuisine.
Madame stayed behind to lock up the Blend, and I was indebted to her for that. But I was even more grateful to her for telling me the one thing I’d been waiting all night to hear:
“Joy wasn’t upset with you, Clare, not in the least.”
According to Madame, when Joy had bolted away from that cheese cave and out of the cellar, she hadn’t been running from me. She’d been running from Tommy Keitel…
“She was mortified by Keitel’s behavior,” Madame had told me. “Seeing his hands on you in that small room, she knew instantly that he was making a pass. It was a tremendous blow to her ego. But she didn’t blame you. She blamed him.”
Apparently, after Joy’s long, tearful walk, she’d returned to her job. But as soon as she started working at her prep table, Tommy Keitel delivered the final cut.
“He loudly told her in the open kitchen that he’d made a decision. He no longer wanted to see her romantically. They were through. Not only that, as of Monday, she was to report to Robbie Gray at his restaurant downtown, where she’d serve out the remainder of her internship year.”
Listening to Madame’s tale, my whole body went rigid. I’d already known what Tommy had planned for Joy, but hearing the blow-by-blow made me sick to my stomach.
“Our girl was humiliated, of course,” Madame went on. “The entire kitchen brigade heard Tommy toss Joy away like a piece of substandard produce. Rather than break down in front of her colleagues, she fled the restaurant and took a cab to my apartment to cry it all out.”
My shoulders sagged upon hearing that. “Why didn’t she come to me?”
“Because, Clare, down deep Joy knew you were right all along about Tommy. Now she’s humiliated. But most of all, she’s ashamed. She didn’t want you to see her crying over Tommy. That’s what she told me. She simply wants you to be proud of her again—”
“But I am proud of her! She made a mistake. But for so many reasons, I’m still so very proud of Joy. She should know that.”
“She knows you love her, Clare. That much I can promise you. She only came to me because she knew I wouldn’t ask questions. I’d just let her cry it out. And my goodness, she did. She cried herself to sleep on my sofa. When she woke up, she told me the whole story.
“I invited her to stay the night, but she said no. She washed her face, brushed her hair, and announced she was going back to Solange to retrieve her knives and personal items. I thought it was rather late to do that, but she was quite determined. And she assured me that someone would be there…”