Jennifer Crusie - GETTING RID OF BRADLEY

A house. A house instead of her cold, tiny little apartment where Einstein took up half the floor space, and the oven didn’t work right, and she never felt safe. A house.

Her house.

After that, for three months, even after she started seeing Bradley, she’d drive by the house and long for it hopelessly, the way some women long for movie stars. She knew it would never be hers but it was the dream of her heart And then one day she’d been with Bradley and they’d driven by, and she’d said, “Slow down so I can see my house,” and he’d asked her what she meant, and she’d told him. And he’d said, “If we were married, we could buy that house. Will you marry me?”

And she’d said, “Yes.”

What she hadn’t realized at the time was that she was saying “Yes” to the house, not to Bradley.

“Maybe it wasn’t a mistake,” she told the dogs as she moved back into the room. “At least we have the house.”

It sounded cynical. And selfish. Tina would be pleased.

Einstein barked at her.

“I know,” Lucy told him. “I should pull myself together and stop talking to dogs. Well, you’re the only ones who listen to me without telling me what to do. Especially Tina, lately…”

Tina. Telling her to get rid of Bradley. Actually, packing up all his stuff in a box might be another small step toward independence. She wouldn’t throw it out on the lawn, of course, but she could store it neatly in the basement That would make the house seem more like it was hers alone.

Alone.

With Zack gone, she suddenly felt alone, as if something warm was missing.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to be alone. Especially if Zack was right about the shooting and the scratches… Except of course, he wasn’t right because it was ridiculous that anyone would be threatening her, and besides there was probably a perfectly good explanation for those scratches… And if there wasn’t, what was he doing leaving her alone? He should be there, protecting her. Obviously he didn’t think she was in danger, or he wouldn’t have left her alone.

Alone.

Of course, she wasn’t alone. She had the dogs.

And besides, there were some kinds of alone that were good. In fact, wonderful. For example, the without-Bradley kind of alone was heaven. No more chill in the air, no more one-right-way-to-do-things, no more long silences and emptiness. Just her and the dogs and the fireplace. Warm.

And alone.

“Enough of this daydreaming stuff,” Lucy told the dogs, suddenly straightening. “We have work to do. Let’s get rid of Bradley.”

Lucy packed up everything of Bradley’s that she could find in the house, surprised to find it filled three boxes, not one. “There was more to Bradley than I thought,” she told the dogs. Most of the stuff was papers and books. His clothes were already gone; Tina had thrown them all out the front door while the locksmiths were changing the locks. By the time Bradley had come back mat night, his entire wardrobe was on the front lawn.

Mrs. Dover had enjoyed it immensely.

He hadn’t argued much. He’d knocked on the door and called her name, and then Tina had opened it and threatened him, and he’d gone away.

Not much of a fighter, Bradley.

Not much of a lover, either.

Or maybe that was just with her. Maybe he was better with the blonde.

The blonde. Lucy tensed as she remembered the shock she’d felt when she’d come home to find the blonde standing in the middle of the living room. Her living room. Saying that she and Bradley had been together in the house. Her house. Her bedroom. How could she have been so stupid, not to even have had a clue? How could Bradley do that to her?

He had just stood there with his mouth working like a fish, saying he could explain.

Except he never had.

He was a creep. Bringing that woman into her house. Her house. What a creep.

At least she was free of him now.

Her eyes fell on the boxes.

Or she soon would be.

She stood, gently displacing Einstein’s head from her knee, and carried Bradley’s boxes to the basement door. She set them down, opened the door, picked them up again, and threw them down the stairs, watching them turn and smash against the steps as they fell.

“Too bad there wasn’t anything breakable,” she told the dogs, and shut the door.

Then she went back into the living room and studied it. Beautiful. Bradley-less. Un-Bradleyed.

Almost.

His chair still sat in the middle of the room beside the love seat. It was ugly-a recliner upholstered in synthetic olive-green flecked with red. If Bradley had been born a piece of furniture, he would have looked like that chair. Practical, boring, and irritating. The fact that he’d loved it and wouldn’t let the dogs on it only made it more Bradley-like. The dogs had been napping on it regularly since he’d gone, but it was still an annoyance.

“What do you think?” Lucy asked the dogs. “Getting rid of a perfectly good chair would be totally irresponsible, right?”

The dogs cocked their heads at her.

“Right. Just think how proud of us Tina will be.” Lucy opened the basement door. Then she pushed the chair to the doorway, shooing Maxwell away just in tune, and shoved the chair down the stairs. Halfway down, it hit the stair rail and broke through it, tumbling over the side of the steps to smash on the concrete below in a small cloud of dust.

“Independence Day,” Lucy said, and slammed the door.

“So then she said, ‘You mean that hood is following my sister?’ and tried to take off after you,” Anthony told Zack an hour later. They were back in the squad room, their feet propped up on their desks in the thin warmth of the dusty late-afternoon sunlight that filtered through the dirty windows. “I almost let her have you. I was hoping she’d rip that damn jacket off you and shred it. But then I remembered you were my partner, and I saved you.”

“Thank you.” Zack was stretched out in his desk chair, feeling every bruise that Lucy had given him that afternoon. “I gather she did finally talk to you?”

“Of course.”

“There’s no ‘Of course’ about it,” Zack said. “Lucy told me about her sister. You’re lucky you’re still in one piece.”

“We had coffee in the diner.” Anthony stretched and put his hands behind his head. “She was no problem at all.”

“You get the mean one, and she drinks coffee from your hand. I get the nice one, and she tries to beat the tar out of me. God, to have your luck.”

“It’s not luck. It’s charm,” Anthony said. “You don’t have any.”

Zack gave up. “So what does Tina Savage know about Bradley Porter?”

“That he’s a womanizing, weak-kneed, slime-covered scum who made her sister cry, so he should be shot, strangled, drawn, quartered, and castrated. I don’t think she likes him at all.”

Zack scowled. “He made Lucy cry? I’m with her, then.”

“But the problem is…”

“He’s not our Bradley.” Zack nodded. “I know. Lucy explained that. I’d hoped for a while there was a chance he might be, but she says it’s no-go.”

“I know,” Anthony said. “But I floated the possibility by the sister anyway, just to see what she’d say.”

“And?”

Anthony grinned. “Oh, she’s in favor of it. The thought of Bradley in jail for bigamy, embezzlement and tax fraud perked her right up. She was completely cordial by the time she’d thought it through.” Anthony shook his head. “This is a waste of time, Zack. Granted somebody shot at you today, that still doesn’t necessarily tie Lucy Savage’s Bradley Porter with our John Bradley.”

Zack scowled. “He’s not Lucy’s Bradley. He’s nobody’s Bradley, the rat. And there’s got to be a tie. Come on, Tony. We get a tip that John Bradley’s going to be at the diner, and Bradley Porter asks Lucy to meet him there on the same day? That’s too much of a coincidence.”

“Maybe.” Anthony leaned back. “I’m not convinced.”

Zack stared at the ceiling while he thought. “So what have we got? We’ve got John Bradley somewhere in the city with a million and a half in embezzled government bonds. We’ve got Bradley Porter somewhere in the city with an unidentified blonde. We’ve got an unidentified female caller who tips us that John Bradley will be at the diner. We’ve got Bradley Porter’s letter to Lucy telling her to meet him at the diner, or we will have as soon as she remembers what she did with it. And we’ve got somebody shooting at Lucy.”

“Or you,” Anthony put in. “Don’t underestimate your unpopularity.”

“Or me,” Zack amended. “Hell of a coincidence, though, to get shot at when Lucy’s right beside me. So what have we got?”

“We have nothing.”

“The two Bradleys have got to be in it together,” Zack said.

“I suppose it’s remotely possible,” Anthony said. “If Bradley Porter is keeping a blonde on the side, he could probably use a couple of government bonds. But it’s hard to believe that John Bradley would steal the bonds in California and then come clear out here to share with Bradley Porter out of the goodness of his heart.”

“Blackmail?”

“Let’s not make this any more complicated than it already is. Here’s a good question. Why would somebody try to shoot Lucy?”

“Bradley’s mad at her about the divorce,” Zack said.

“So he shoots at her on the street? I don’t think so.”

“Here’s a better one. Why is somebody trying to break into Lucy’s house?”

Anthony jerked his head up, suddenly interested. “Somebody’s trying to break into her house?”

“There are scratches on her locks, and the next-door neighbor saw somebody sneaking around the house. Granted, the next-door neighbor is not totally wired, but even so, if she says she saw somebody, I bet she did.”