I had 911 cued on my phone, my finger poised over the button, when I opened the door to see Malone.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
BB had settled into his lap and must’ve been the creature he was talking to.
I closed the phone app. “Why are you here?”
He frowned. “I was worried about you. Especially when I saw you hadn’t shut the apartment door behind you. I decided to camp out here to make sure you were okay.”
My heart melted ever so slightly, but that melting was followed by an ache. Ice cream melted, too. And folks might take you for ice cream every now and again, but ultimately they would leave you. Sometimes they might even tell you you’re not enough while your ice cream is melting because you’ve lost your appetite.
“I’m fine.”
He chuckled. “This is not my first rodeo, Stark. Never once has a woman ever been fine when saying ‘I’m fine.’ Let’s start with the migraine. How’s that?”
“Down to the pain in the back of my neck.”
He patted a spot on the love seat beside him, and I sat. He began massaging my shoulders and my neck, and I made an indecent sound.
He stopped. “Is that a bad cry or a good cry?”
“Good cry.”
He continued massaging. “So what happened yesterday?”
“I only got the title to my car after I sorted all Ken’s mail and threatened to sic the IRS on him if he didn’t sign it over to me. Then he told me that he hired Trista to spy on me. After getting my tags renewed, I went to see her. She wasn’t as remorseful as I might have hoped. Then I saw the moving van, and—”
The thought of you leaving hurt so badly that I wanted to rip off the Band-Aid and get it over with then and there.
Only I didn’t say that last part.
Instead, Malone filled in the gap. “You thought I was leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Do you really think I would leave without saying goodbye?”
My migraine threatened to return. Those weren’t the words I would’ve chosen to hear. I’d been hoping for something along the lines of “I like you as a person, not just a booty call.”
“C’mon, Stark, I wouldn’t do that,” he finally said.
I turned around so I could face him. “But you are leaving soon, aren’t you?”
He sighed deeply. “Chateau wants me to start a case in Denver after the July fourth holiday. Then I have to get back home to California to make sure no one’s burned down the office while I’ve been gone.”
“I see.”
“I figured out what Blake did and where he stashed the money. The only thing left to do was to find him, and you did that for me.”
“About that ...” I absently rubbed my breastbone since an ache bloomed underneath. By helping Malone find his cousin, I’d hastened his departure.
He looked at me expectantly.
“Hand me a dollar and pretend you gave it to me yesterday morning.”
“I don’t have a dollar.”
“Do you have any money on you?”
