Page 27 of Kiss Kiss Bang
“Was the car locked? I mean, the windows aren’t broken, so either this person had the keys or you left it unlocked,” Oliva said, shaken up by the words.
Liar. Whore.
The only reason she could think for the word “whore” was her date or elevator makeout session with Joey. Liar—well, it was standard political crap. But whore? That was personal.
When she’d run her first campaign, her opponent for superintendent had called her all sorts of things from insinuating that as a single mother she was not equipped for the position to saying she was uneducated and therefore not qualified. This was not her first rodeo, but it was the first time the words had shifted into something physical. Vandalizing her car was not the same thing as a Twitter post or television ad.
“Of course it was locked,” Tom replied indignantly. He looked around as if searching for clues and then moved closer to the door. “Look.” He pointed to a bunch of tiny, barely noticeable scratches by the back passenger-side window. “Someone picked the lock. In a car like this, you really have to know what you’re doing to get inside.” Then he jogged to the front and bent down underneath the steering wheel.
“What are you doing?” Mark asked.
“I’m looking for—yep, they disengaged the alarm when it went off and then reconnected it. Whoever did this went through a great deal of trouble, Ms. Russo.”
”Shit,” she whispered.
The next two hours were chaos. Tom’s employer, G & F Security Services, had come in and started barking orders which riled up the police who were heading some sort of investigation. Everyone had told her, none-too-nicely, that she needed to get back into the building as it was uncertain who had done the vandalism and whether it was safe for her to be outside in the open. Meanwhile, everyone who had a cell phone had taken photos and videos of the scene. Needless to say, she’d missed lunch and it wasn’t until five o’clock in the afternoon that she finally headed home—exhausted from a rough night with Sophie, an early morning because of the Facebook post, and the scare from the events at the speech. All her afternoon meetings had been canceled, which meant that her already hectic week would surely be even busier as these meeting would have to be squeezed in somewhere. She was answering emails from her phone, distractedly, when she finally walked into her house.
“You’re all over the news.” Winnie, who picked up Sophie from school daily, was waiting for her inside. Snatching the phone from Olivia’s hand, she replace it with a glass of wine. They’d spoken throughout the day, and Winnie knew about the incident.
She should have been all over the news for her innovative campaign strategy and for her budget plan, instead she was all over the news because of a bullshit vandal. “Just politics,” she said, trying to soften the situation and not wanting to worry her friend.
“Come on, Livie. Who do you think you’re talking to? It’s not just politics. This is getting out of hand.” She took the wine from Olivia’s hand. “You’re shaking.”
It was intense, and in between emails and phone calls she was trying to come up with a reason why someone would do or say this to her.
“Why don’t you go take a hot bath and I’ll stay until you’re all settled. Soph is upstairs watching HGTV. That girl is something else.” Winnie shook her head and laughed.
A hot bath sounded like heaven. She took her wine and went upstairs to try to forget what the hell had just happened.
* * *
Olivia woke up startled and confused.
How had she ever found those door chimes melodic?
She groaned and sat up, wiping her palm down her face and looking around her darkened room. What time was it? Hell, what day was it?
Sophie!
That was the first thought that crossed her mind as the door chimes rang again. In a state of confusion she turned to see Sophie sleeping soundly next to her in bed. Then she ran to the front door, unthinking. As soon as she opened it she startled for the second time in the last two minutes.
“Uh . . .” was all she said as she looked at Joey. She grabbed his arm, turned it, and looked at his watch, causing him to chuckle. “Shit, it’s midnight.”
She vaguely remembered saying goodbye to Winnie, then watching TV in bed with Sophie. At some point, they both must have fallen asleep. “What are you doing here?”
She reached up to her hair, which was surely a rat’s nest. And oh God, what was she wearing? An old threadbare T-shirt from the community college she’d attended part-time determined to get a college education. Tugging down the shirt to cover herself, she let him in.
“I was out of town on a job. I got here as soon as I could. I called but you didn’t answer so I came straight over,” he said, shutting the door behind him.
She titled her head and furrowed her eyebrows, still confused.
“You were on the news? The vandalism?”
Of course. He saw it, everyone saw it.
“Make yourself at home. Give me a second.” Still in a state of disarray, she jogged to her room and grabbed a robe and her phone.
“Shit. I didn’t charge it. It’s dead,” she commented as she walked back to the living room to deal with the gorgeous man.
