Chapter 8
“No way, Miles, you are not driving me there,” Maxine said with a distinct finality.
Miles looked over at Eashan, who threw him a look that resembled the cringe emoji.
“Maybe he’s right, Max,” said Arden as she emerged from her room with an iridescent pink travel bag on her arm. “It could be dangerous; what if those people are still looking for you?”
“I agree!” called Derek from inside his own bedroom, where he was still packing.
In the wake of the news about Enrico’s death, the group had decided to leave the apartment for the time being, just in case. From the sounds of it, Derek’s parents were loaded and had a huge estate in Colts Neck where they could all stay comfortably. Maxine would join them after she visited Brooks, but Miles was not willing to go home and leave her to it.
With a scoff and a sigh, Maxine threw Miles a look of utter exasperation before saying, “I can take care of myself.”
“No one is doubting that, Eenie!” Eashan said. “And by the way, I would offer to go with you, but you know me; I’m more of a lover than a fighter.”
“There isn’t gonna be anyone to fight!” Maxine cried, “I’m just going over there to talk to him because he isn’t answering my calls.”
“Okay, look,” Miles said, finally stepping in. “You have your car now. You don’t need me. I hear you. But even if you don’t agree to it, I’m following you there. I’ll park on the street, I won’t even go in. I just wanna make sure you get there okay and leave in one piece. Deal?”
Maxine stared back at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable.
What broke the silence was Eashan yelling, “Take the deal, Eenie!”
Then, in a chorus, the three roommates began a chant.
“Taaaake it! Taaaake it! Taaaake it!”
“OH MY GOD, STOP! OKAY! Are you happy? You’ve annoyed me into it.”
The roommates all cheered, then went bustling about gathering their things and chattering about making sure windows were locked, and deciding whether to keep any lights on.
Seeing Maxine’s pained expression at this, he wondered if they were all being more flippant than the situation deserved. Her roommates had never been this involved in any of her work. According to them, the closest they’d come was when one of her “marks” had figured out her identity and shown up at their place. He’d been harmless; that case had been about some petty relationship drama, and the mark hadn’t been central to the conflict itself.
He had a feeling that this current case was far more serious, and Maxine was worried, maybe even feeling guilty about dragging them all into it. Miles stepped closer to her and spoke at a volume the others couldn’t hear.
“Hey, listen,” he began and was heartened when, rather than looking away or closing herself off to him, she did the exact opposite. Turning to face him, she regarded Miles with an expression of quiet desperation.
“They’re all gonna be fine, and so are you.”
“You don’t know that,” she said, but with zero venom.
“You’re right, I don’t know that,” he finally said, “But I do know that this is not the time to let that independent streak of yours take over.”
She had looked down at the ground while he was speaking, but looked up then, her eyes slightly wet. Miles restrained his gasp at seeing this.
“I don’t want something to happen to you, either. This whole thing is a mess, I hate that anyone might be in danger because of me,” she said, speaking very quickly.
Without thinking, he leaned into her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and placing a brief kiss on her head. He felt himself sway for a moment after he did so, the feel of her in his arms creating a magnetic pull that was difficult to move away from and the scent of her lingering in his consciousness.
She had closed her eyes, and she shook herself after he pulled back.
He had just opened his mouth to say something, though he hadn’t been sure what when all three roommates joined them.
“Alright, let’s blow this joint,” Eashan said.
“Are you planning to continue speaking like a 1940’s mobster?” asked Derek.
“You bet your bootleg bourbon I am,” Eashan said with a wink, stepping forward and opening the door.
“Stop commenting on it; you’ll only encourage him,” Arden muttered to Derek as she followed.
Miles turned back to Maxine, and they both began to speak at once, then let out stifled laughs. A tense beat passed before he said, “I’ll be right behind you,” then turned and followed the roommates down the stairs.
Before he got too far, he heard her say his name and turned around.
“You can follow me to Colts Neck, too, if you… wanna hang out.”
Miles could not hold back the grin that took over his face.
𓂃🖊
Maxine pulled open the door of her white Jetta, feeling incredibly grateful to have it back from the shop. Sliding down into the soft seat was like coming home, which was useful at the moment since her apartment was no longer the safe haven it had been.
Enrico had been looking for her. If he had been murdered, which she was 99% sure he had, there was no telling what information he’d had on him, what he might have revealed. If he was important enough to be killed, then she was important enough to be hunted. Shuddering, she put her key in the ignition and then waved to her roommates, who were just pulling away. Eashan was in the back seat of Derek’s Jeep, throwing two thumbs up at her through the window.
Her heart swelled with fondness and discomfort in equal measure.
They would be safe at Derek’s family home. Maxine had never seen it in person, only heard about it, but she imagined that Derek had been unduly modest in his descriptions, as he was with most things. It was probably some mansion house where he had his own wing. She’d once made a joke about him being a modern-day Draco Malfoy, and he hadn’t taken well to it. Aside from the fact that he loathed Harry Potter, Derek really didn’t want to be seen as a spoiled rich dude.
Maxine understood that desire, but at this moment, she was happy to think of him that way because it meant that he and all of her friends would be in great hands.
As she pulled away from the curb, her eyes caught on Miles’s Civic in her rearview, following behind. She felt a small smile threaten her lips, but pushed it away. It was like she was two people at once: the serious detective who needed to not get caught up in anything other than her case, and the twenty-six-year-old girl who could no longer deny her imminent crush.
Maybe after this case was over, she could allow herself to explore these new feelings, but in the meantime, the possibly life-or-death situation at hand had to be her top priority. She took a deep breath and focused on driving.
When she pulled up to Brooks’s office ten minutes later, it was to see the lights on, but the blinds drawn. This sent an odd swoop through her belly; Brooks rarely drew the blinds.
Miles had had to park a few cars in front of her, but when she got out, she saw him looking back. Not wanting him to suspect anything was wrong, she threw him a small smile before heading to the door of the building.
It was locked, which also gave her pause. Feeling Miles’s eyes on her, she quickly withdrew her set of keys and located the only gold one on the ring. Inserting and turning it as quietly as she could, pushing the door open with equal care.
As she slowly ascended the stairs, she could hear quiet voices from the office above, realizing with a small jolt that Brooks was not alone. Maybe it was Ernie, his tech guy, having come to review some new evidence. If not him, she thought with a sinking feeling, maybe it was another junior detective he’d involved in the case.
She knew Brooks didn’t like to work alone, and if he was keeping her out of this for her protection, he could very well have brought in someone else. They wouldn’t be as good as her, of course, which was why he kept her as his principal assistant, but they’d be better than nothing.
By the time she reached the top landing, it became apparent that the other voice she’d heard was that of a woman.
This should have sparked some semblance of jealousy, that he’d found another junior who was actually female (they were a rare breed) only, Maxine could tell that the woman’s voice was too mature to be some young up-and-comer.
A moment later, she became absolutely certain that the woman was no junior when she heard Brooks’s voice, low and husky, saying the woman’s name.
“Christ, Adrienne.”
Maxine froze upon hearing this, as well as the sounds that followed, which were distinctly those of two people absolutely sucking each other’s faces off.
Unable to help herself, she whispered, “Oh my GOD,” out loud.
Abruptly, the make-out sonata ceased, and she thought she heard a whispered, “What was that.”
Again, unwittingly, she made a sound, only this time it was a small squeak like she was a mouse caught in the kitchen when the lights turned on.
In keeping with this new mouse-like effect, she spun to scurry away as quickly as possible. Said spinning, however, caused Maxine’s hip to graze something that had been leaning against the wall.
To her horror, Maxine saw that said something was none other than a mop and bucket, which went promptly cascading down the stairs, causing a level of ruckus that could potentially even reach Miles’s ears.
She could not think about that, however, because within Brooks’s office, panic had ensued. Well, she presumed that all of the sounds were of them panicking, and not simply moving on to frantic love-making on top of Brooks’s desk.
Maxine barely had time to collect herself before the office door was wrenched open, and there stood a wide-eyed Brooks. Upon seeing her, his mouth fell open, and he froze, thereby becoming a mirror image of Maxine herself.
They were two fish gaping at one another for a long moment before someone else stepped into view and pulled their focus away from one another.
Detective Adrienne Gladstone wore a navy pencil suit and a white blouse that did incredible things for her figure. The majority of her face was made up impeccably from her matte foundation to her precision eyeliner. The only exception was her mouth and lips, which were bare of artificial color, yet flushed all the same. Her long blonde hair, previously swept into some sort of chignon, was a complete mess, presumably due to Brooks’s hands having been dug into it.
Regardless of these obvious tells, the woman stepped forward, and with effortless confidence, said, “Ah, the famous Maxine, we meet at last.”
A loud noise caused them all to jump as Brooks’s phone, lying over on a side table, began to ring. They all turned to look at it, instinctively moving closer in unison to see who it was.
“Shit, it’s Ernie,” Brooks said, ripping the phone from its charging cord and turning to face them.
“I, uh, gotta take this,” he said, then looked from Maxine to Detective Gladstone with a look suffused with some deeper meaning Maxine was not yet sure how to interpret.
It didn’t take long for it to become clear, however, that he didn’t want to take the call in front of Maxine and was asking Detective Gladstone to occupy her. The nod that she saw the woman level at Brooks confirmed that she would agree to this plan. By the time Maxine registered this, Brooks had already slipped out of the office and down the stairs, shutting the door quickly behind him.
She would have turned to protest, but that was when Detective Gladstone made good on her nod to Brooks by saying, “While I have you alone, Miss Alvarez, would you care to share why you never told your mentor that you wanted to be a cop?”
𓂃🖊
“You don’t need an app, Abuela. Mira, just take a photo of the plant and your phone will tell you what kind it is,” Miles said as he fielded an unexpected Facetime call in his car.
“What do you mean? I didn’t hear anything when I took the picture! I never hear nothing when I take pictures!”
She was holding the phone directly in her face, so most of what he saw on the screen was her mouth.
“Ay, Dios,” he said quietly on an exhale.
“Oh, pobrecito, I am annoying you now, huh?”
With a good-natured laugh, he said, “No, Abuela, I’ve just had a day.”
“Oh yeah? Your girlfriend didn’t call you still?”
“She is very much not my girlfriend!” he said, and at that same moment, he noticed a fly in the car, and rolled down his windows, gently swiping at it to encourage it to leave. The cool spring air was a welcome sensation, as he realized then that his grandmother’s comments had caused him to warm slightly from embarrassment.
“Well, she is a girl, no? And you said she is your friend, just your friend! Only your friend! You said it so many times, I think, hmm, this is your girlfriend.”
Miles sighed, his hand coming up to cover his eyes. Deciding this wasn’t an argument he was going to win, he chose to humor her instead.
“Actually, she sort of called me. I’m with her now, kind of.”
“What did you say? What does it mean?”
“Sorry, I… it’s a long story, weird situation, but I’m waiting outside her work now, she has something she needs to do. And I’m invited to go hang with her after.”
“Oh! So tonight is your next date!”
“No, Abuela, it’s me, her, and her three roommates. We’re staying over at a farm in Colts Neck. Probably gonna play a lot of video games and eat junk. That’s all.”
His grandmother moved the phone so all he could see were her eyes squinting at him as she shook her head.
“You pretend this girl means nothing to you except as a friend, but I know you, you sneaky boy!”
With a scoff and a toss of his head, he replied, “I’m not sneaky.”
“Yesss you are, you sneaky sneaky boy! You like this girl, I can tell. But you don’t want me to know? Okay. I pretend not to know. HOWEVER,” she said, then let it hang in the air for dramatic effect. Finally, after enough time had passed, she went on to say, “Let me just tell you this; you act this way, and she gonna put you in the friend zone.”
Miles shook himself, blinking rapidly as he said, “Excuse me. Where did you learn the term friend zone?”
“From the YouTubes! I watch with Zane and Leo, they show me all kinds of nonsense, boy oh boy! I not sure whose brain is gonna rot first, mine or theirs, but don’t change the subject.”
“Fine, okay?!” he said, again knowing when he was beaten. “I like her as more than a friend, are you happy?”
A sly smirk took up the entire rectangle. “Yeeeessss mi amor,” she said, starting slow, then rapidly speeding up the pace of her speaking. “I am happy to hear the truth always. Now, what are you going to do about it? Because you are a quality man, yes? You need to act like one. Not go on little sleepovers. You said she’s Puerto Rican, does she have good hips?”
“What?! Why are you asking about her hips?”
“Because! Good hips make good big babies. Just like your daddy. Big. Healthy. Strong. My hips were the besssst,” she said with a growl.
This was a common refrain; his grandmother loved to tell him about her younger years, particularly about how the boys all wanted her.
Since he could sense a rant coming on, and wanted to end the call so that he could be alert and ready for Maxine to come back, he said, “She has excellent hips, Abuela.”
“I knew it!” she said, her voice the very definition of joyful and triumphant. “You get her, Miles; she doesn’t wanna be your friend, neither. I promise you that!”
“Maybe so,” he said with a shrug, trying to mask the actual longing he was feeling at that moment. “But I gotta go; she’s gonna be coming back soon.”
“Okay, mi amor. Love you so much, you kiss that girl okay? Okay byyyyye.”
She then mumbled to herself about not knowing how to stop the FaceTime call, and with a smirk, he hit the button himself to put her out of her misery.
“So you’re not workin’ for those assholes, you’re just whipped,” said a voice from the sidewalk, causing Miles to jump so badly his head nearly hit the roof of his Civic.
The body belonging to the voice came closer until finally, Brooks was leaning down over the open window of Miles’s passenger seat with a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Hello again, sir,” Miles said with a nod in the man’s direction.
“She’s got you runnin’ surveillance now? You two buddying up since I put her on leave? Told her to stay away from you, too, glad she listened.”
“Oh, she did listen, actually. Her roommates called me for some reason, and asked me to come over, and—”
“Hmm,” Brooks interrupted. “So you’re just waitin’ for her like a lost puppy down here?”
“Well, no,” Miles said, blanching a bit at what felt like an unfair, reaching assessment. Maybe? He wasn’t sure now.“Looks that way to me, but hey, who am I to judge?”
Miles thought that Brooks probably had some right to judge. His words had struck an uncomfortable truth. When it came to Maxine, Miles had been far more accommodating than he usually was with women. Not that he wasn’t a gentleman, but after his engagement had ended, he tended to be more guarded with anyone new that he met.
With Maxine, he let those walls down naturally. Despite initially thinking she was some kind of con artist, he never could shake this innate sense of trust he had in her. Maybe it was a reaction to her guardedness; an attempt to disrupt it, to shake her out of her protective shell. Whatever it was, he found it fun as hell. And easy. Somehow things were just easy with her.
Just as Miles opened his mouth to say that Brooks had a point, the man went on to say, “So, what are you doin’ here exactly?”
“Uh, waiting for her while she went to talk to you about the… uh…”
Brooks stood from bending over, put his hands on his hips, and said, “She heard about the catering hall?”
Miles nodded. “Her roommates actually told her.”
“What?!” Brooks said in a whisper-shout. “They shouldn’t have known where she was working.” The man groaned, placing a hand over his face.
“In her defense,” Miles said, causing Brooks to remove his hand and look at him, “I don’t think she told them; I think they got nosey and found out themselves.”
“That’s not good,” Brooks said with a shake of his head, his tone somber. “They need to stay out of this, and so do you, come to think of it!”
Putting both hands in the air, “Trust me, sir, I would love to be out of it, and yet… I’ve been involved for almost a week now, however unintentionally.”
Brooks strode towards the car, bending over once again to regard Miles.
“You just wanna spend time with her. I think you’re happy to be involved, even if just as her little lap dog.”
Miles blanched again, then let out an actual gasp when Brooks flung open the car door and deposited himself in the passenger seat before slamming the door shut again.
“If you wanna be somethin’ other than a lap dog; if you actually wanna help, and keep her out of trouble in the process, I may have an opportunity for you,” the man said, suddenly all business in a way that made the hair on Miles’s neck stand on end. Not necessarily in a bad way, either; he was intrigued and keen to do something about this newfound awareness that he’d been behaving like a bit of a doormat.
“Pays better than whatever chump change you’re makin’ driving suburban grandmas to their colonoscopies.”
Miles flinched, eyes in a squint as he said, “Harsh.”
“But true,” Brooks said, and Miles shrugged in acknowledgment.
“You’re gonna need to convince her you’re not helping; she’ll never stand for it; she can’t know. But all the juniors I usually call are busy with other jobs, and you actually fit the profile perfectly.”
“Okay,” Miles said, feeling a bit of fear start to rise up in his throat. “How can I help?”
Brooks took a deep breath, then let it out on a sigh before saying, “Have you ever worked undercover?”
𓂃🖊
Maxine felt like she’d just gone eighteen rounds with a heavyweight, but the sport was verbal sparring. Adrienne Gladstone was a master of conversational dynamics. In a few short minutes, she had not only wheedled some significantly personal information out of Maxine, she had also gotten her to admit that she was actively keeping her past ambitions from Brooks for fear that he’d reject her.
Through their conversation, it came to light that Detective Gladstone had looked into Maxine from the moment she started working with Brooks three years ago. She knew everything. Her mother’s death, her estrangement from her father, the years she spent in foster care, and most embarrassingly, the way she’d played amateur detective in order to try and locate said estranged father.
This information had been readily available to Detective Gladstone because Maxine’s sixteen-year-old brain had thought it a good idea to break into a police station to look for records. That same sixteen-year-old brain had spent some time in juvie before someone took pity on her and allowed her early release.
She did her community service and was a perfect angel for her probation officer, relating to the incident as the jolt she needed to get serious. After working hard in school, she attained a scholarship for college and chose to double major, setting herself up well for the possibility of becoming an actual police detective.
It wasn’t until she was fairly far into that process that the background check pulled up her time in juvie, and she was excused from the program.
Of course, they had offered her a number of menial jobs as a way to work up to become a candidate again, but there was no guarantee she would ever qualify as a legitimate candidate for detective.
A faster path was available, she realized, after looking into local private detectives. The first one who agreed to talk with her was Brooks, and everything snowballed from there. He expressed early on his dislike for cops, which was ironic considering she’d just caught him in the act of making out with one, but she decided right away never to tell him about her previous goal. Being a private detective was a more appealing path, and she would make it work.
So there she was, laid bare before Adrienne Gladstone, a woman who terrified and comforted her in equal measure. Maxine got the sense that, despite the woman’s ability to see right through her, she respected her. Maxine couldn’t pinpoint why she felt this; it was just there. A mutual respect for another female in the field. An insistent euphoria slid itself into her heart at the idea of being related to as a peer by an actual police detective.
Then she realized, she’d gotten away from her intention for being there. Showing up to find Brooks in the state that he was, she had completely put Enrico from her mind. With a new conviction to focus on the task at hand, she said, “Not that I’m not getting a lot from this free therapy session or anything, but this isn’t exactly what I came here to talk about.”
“Ah, and what was it that you came here to talk about?”
“Enrico Cruz,” she said, then watched the light leave Detective Gladstone’s eyes.
“You know about that, huh?”
Maxine nodded.
Detective Gladstone took a deep breath, crossed her arms. And then, the room.
“They didn’t call me when it happened. Saying it was just an accident.”
“I knew it!” Maxine yelled, unable to control herself.
Gladstone spun around, suddenly surprised to see her there. “Shit, I wasn’t supposed to say anything to you about it! Brooks is gonna—”
“Brooks is gonna what?”
They both spun to the door to see Brooks re-entering, no longer on his phone call.
“Kill me. I just told her I think the kid’s death is suspicious.”
“Not like I didn’t already know,” Maxine said, cringing at the petulance in her tone, but again, unable to help it.
“Yeah, well, that’s the last thing you’re gonna know. Just mosey on to yer little farm, and stay there till I tell you otherwise.”
Maxine’s face scrunched up in disgust. She wanted to argue about his use of language as well as the demand that she do as he says, but then she realized something else which caused her expression to go slack.
“Wait, how do you know about the farm?”
“Oh, I uh, met your boyfriend again downstairs. On the phone with his grandma. I believe you now; he’s not evil. So, let him whisk you away to the castle where you’ll be safe in your tower, alright? Goodnight,” he said, then waved.
Maxine scowled at him pointedly, then caught sight of Detective Gladstone’s face. She wore an expression that was a mix of kindness and amusement. It seemed to say, “Just leave it.”
Something about it made Maxine’s heart calm. She felt herself take in a deep breath and recognized that she wasn’t going to get anywhere with this tonight. She would go get settled at Derek’s, try to relax a bit, and figure out something new because she was not simply going to sit in a tower like a pitiful fucking princess.
a/n: thank you for being here and for your lovely comments! I continue to marvel at the fact that I am continually working on this in a calm, orderly fashion rather than a manic sprint 😂 I'm sure this pace would be fast for some, but for me it feels like molasses! I'm enjoying it, though, as I have my substack as well as a new ebook about roller coasters and coaching that I'm working on (!!!)
I'm not sure I will do this, but there is the possibility I will need a few week hiatus here so that I can either clean up some earlier chapters or work on this ebook, but I don't lie to get out of the writing flow for too long when I'm in the middle of a story, so if I do take a break, it will be brief, and we will come right back to it.
I'm super excited about where the story is going, and I hope you are, too!!
What do we think Miles is going to do next? How about Maxine?