Jennifer Crusie - GETTING RID OF BRADLEY

Lucy shrugged. “I know how bad my instincts are for men. I’m not counting on Zack sticking around. I’m staying independent” The toaster popped and she put two more slices of bread on a plate that already held four. “Strawberry or grape jam?”

“Strawberry. Where’s your table?”

“We’re refinishing the floor. Zack’s idea. Come on, we can eat in the dining room.”

Tina followed her in and sat down. “Lucy, you’re not paying attention here. You don’t have to worry about Zack sticking around. He’s moved in. He’s adopted your dogs. I think he’s planning on being around for the next sixty years. In fact, I think you’d better prepare yourself to turn down a proposal.”

Lucy slid into the chair across from her and reached for the jam. “He already proposed. But that was just heat-of-the-moment stuff.”

“Men will say anything in bed,” Tina agreed, and sipped her coffee.

“Oh, we weren’t in bed. We were here. Having breakfast.” She bit into her toast, enjoying the crunch.

Tina choked on her coffee. “Breakfast? He proposed in the clear light of day? In the morning?”

“Yep. Even before I fed him.”

“It wouldn’t have been the food, anyway. You don’t cook that well.” Tina sat back and marshaled her thoughts. “You’re going to have to face it He’s serious.”

Lucy tried to shrug it off. “Probably. But I don’t know if I am.”

Tina started to say something and then blinked instead.

“I don’t believe it,” Lucy said. “You do it, too.”

“Do what?”

“You blink when you think of something you can’t say. Zack says I do it all the time. And now you’re doing it, too.”

“I am? We do?” Tina was nonplused. “You’re joking.”

“Nope. What was it you were going to say?”

“Nothing.”

“Something about Zack.”

“No.” Tina stopped and blinked again. “I don’t believe it. I could feel it coming, and I couldn’t stop it That is one habit I am definitely breaking.”

“What were you going to say?”

“Just that if you think you’re not serious about Zack, you’re deluding yourself.” She looked again into Lucy’s glowing face. “I give up. He’s not the guy I would have picked for you, but he’s obviously the guy you’ve picked for you.”

Lucy looked prim. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just got divorced. It would be foolish to talk about getting married again so soon. Really foolish.”

“Illogical.” Tina buttered a piece of toast and bit into it.

“Right.”

Tina licked the butter off her fingers. “Don’t put me in pink for the wedding. I hate pink.”

ZACK AND ANTHONY stood in the dry metal-lined basement of the Third National Bank of Riverbend and stared into a dry, metal-lined safe-deposit box, the contents of which they had just inventoried. It did not have one hundred and fifty ten-thousand-dollar government bonds in it.

It had one hundred and thirty-two.

“He spent a hundred and eighty thousand dollars in less than a year?” Zack shook his head. “This guy needs a budget.”

“Running from the police and homicidal in-laws is not cheap,” Anthony said. “I think it’s time to alert the media and get this guy off Lucy’s tail.”

“Hell, yes.”

But when they got back to the station, there was a new report.

Bradley Porter -or somebody- was using his credit cards again.

In an Overlook motel.

OVERLOOK WAS A MISERABLE part of town, bleak and gray. As Zack got out of the car, an old hamburger wrapper blew down the street in front of the motel, startling a dirty mongrel who skipped away, limping, and a metal sign creaked and banged over a derelict gas station. The only signs that humanity had ever been there were the two cars parked in front of the motel, and the overflowing trash cans outside the burger place next to it.

There were no people.

“You take me to the best places,” Zack said to Anthony, as they went into the motel lobby.

Anthony ignored him.

Fifteen minutes later, they were back on the street again. John Bradley had stayed there and then checked out There were other people in his room now. In fact, there had been several other people in the room since.

Bradley Porter had never been there.

“This is nuts. This makes no sense,” Zack said. “What is he, the Invisible Man?”

“Zack…”

“We know he’s in this with John Bradley. So why doesn’t anybody ever see him?”

“Zack…”

“If this guy really is in Kentucky all this time…”

“Zack!”

“What?”

“You’ve got to stop obsessing about Bradley Porter,” Anthony said. “Get back to the case. It is entirely possible that he’s not really that involved, mat he was just doing a few favors for an old friend and got in over his head.”

Zack set his jaw. “Porter’s involved. Let’s ask the people in that burger joint. They had to eat Maybe they went there.”

Anthony stared at the cracked plastic restaurant sign with distaste. “If they did, they were desperate.”

“Exactly,” Zack said.

Five minutes later, Zack was back outside with a greasy burger and a great feeling of annoyance. The counter girl had never seen Bradley Porter, but she’d recognized the picture of John Bradley immediately.

“Are you sure you haven’t seen this man?” Zack had pressed her, showing her Bradley Porter’s picture again.

“Positive. He’s hot. Him, I’d remember.”

Great He was hot Great.

Zack had picked up his burger and stalked out, leaving Anthony to question her about John Bradley. Now out on the street, he unwrapped the burger. It didn’t look like food. It didn’t smell like food. And he didn’t want to know what it tasted like. He went to put it in the trash and noticed the mongrel he’d seen earlier, sitting by the can. It was a middle-size dog, dirty gray-brown and mangy, but it had huge eyes that looked up at him.

And at his burger.

“This is your lucky day, mutt.” He broke the sandwich in half and then in fourths so it wouldn’t choke trying to swallow the whole thing at once.

He put a quarter of the sandwich down, expecting the dog to lunge for it. The dog looked at the sandwich and then at him with huge, pleading eyes.

“Go on.” Zack nodded. “Go on. Eat it.”

The dog moved cautiously toward the sandwich and then grabbed it and wolfed it down.

“Easy.” Zack put the second quarter down. “Easy. You’re going to choke, and I don’t do the Heimlich maneuver on dogs.”

The dog wolfed that section down, too.

When Zack reached down with the third quarter, the dog took it directly from his hand. Gently.

“You were somebody’s dog once, weren’t you?” Zack crouched down across from him, watching the third section disappear. He held out the last section and the dog took it, as gently as before. Zack wadded up the paper while the dog chewed and tossed it in the trash can. It immediately blew out again and tumbled down the street, startling the dog into skipping back a few paces.

“Rough life, huh?” Zack said, and the dog came back, cautiously, to stand only an arm’s reach away.

Zack reached out and scratched him carefully behind the ears.

The dog closed its eyes in ecstasy.

“Don’t get used to this,” Zack said, and then he heard Anthony behind him say, “You talk to dogs?”

“Of course, I talk to dogs.” Zack straightened quickly and scared the dog back another couple of steps with his movement. “It’s not like I talk to plants or anything non-sentient.”

Anthony cocked an eyebrow at him. “Non-sentient?”

Zack winced. “Sorry. Lucy’s rubbing off on me.”

“Well, if your conversation’s finished, we’ve got things to do.”

“Right.” Zack got in the car, deliberately not looking at the dog. It was just a dog. Big deal.

Anthony started the engine, and Zack turned to the door to get his seat belt.

And there was the dog, sitting exactly where he’d left him. Staring at him.

Oh, hell.

“Wait a minute,” he said, and Anthony stopped.

“What?”

Zack opened the car door. “You coming?” he said to the dog.

“You’re kidding,” Anthony said.

The dog just sat there, looking at him.

“Well, come on,” Zack said, and the dog stood and walked slowly toward the car.

“Get in,” Zack said. “We don’t have all day.” And the dog climbed in carefully, favoring its back leg, and curled up at Zack’s feet.

“I don’t believe this,” Anthony said.

“Just drive to Lucy’s.” When Anthony didn’t move, Zack glared at him. “Listen, I have no choice. If I left this dog, she’d never speak to me again.”

“She’d never know.”

“You don’t know Lucy.” Zack suddenly grinned down at the dog, and it thumped its tail. “Besides, this is a great dog.”

Anthony stared at the dog and Zack with equal incredulity. Then he started the car and drove to Lucy’s.

When Zack and Anthony came in the back door, Lucy was startled. She dropped a spoon back into the cake batter she was stirring and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “You’re back early. What happened? What’s wrong?”

Tina appeared in the doorway from the dining room and made a face when she saw Zack.

“Nothing,” Zack said, his hands in his pockets. “We found the money. But we found something else, too.” He stepped to one side.

Behind him was the most pathetic-looking dog Lucy had ever seen.

“You poor baby.” She sank to her knees on the bare wood floor and held out her hand.

The dog limped over to her instantly, and Lucy began to scratch it gently behind the ears, trying not to cry.