CHAPTER 11
"So I'm guessing this has something to do with why you hate pink flamingos?"
Sharon rolled her eyes, already feeling the heat of Provenza's interrogation. "I want my lawyer."
"I'll bet you do. And I bet Castillo does as well," growled the lieutenant. "The captain just gave his regards to the table, kissed Amy on the forehead, and left."
"Is there any tiramisu left?" Sharon tried to change the subject.
"No. And I doubt if you could eat it anyway, as your throat's gotta be sore from Castillo stealing your tonsils. Honestly, Sharon!"
She hummed nervously. "Just how much did you see? Hear?"
"More than I care to have."
"Oh gods."
Provenza pulled up two wrought-iron outdoor chairs and motioned for his friend, and not his boss, to join him. "I think I can piece together what happened between you two, so you can skip the sordid, two decades old play-by-play of you and your Latino lover. What's the real shit?"
Once seated, Sharon looked down and folded her hands in her lap. "He was my first after I broke with Jack. And I was his, after he briefly reconnected with the wife that he thought had died."
"Of course."
The lieutenant had his own past issues with ex-wives, but had never had the occasion for one to resurface from the dead. He counted himself lucky in that regard, and was increasingly intrigued and amazed by the enigmatic Martin Castillo. It really wasn't a complete surprise that the man had been once involved with Sharon Raydor. The woman was equally fascinating, once she let her guard down. Provenza had gotten to know her quite well, over the years, and he was secretly in awe of her. The minute she'd walked into their squad room, investigating his former boss, Brenda Leigh Johnson, Provenza knew they were in for something.
He had a feeling a big something was coming, once again.
"Afterwards, we both felt like we'd cheated on them both," Sharon told Provenza.
"Being the good Catholic you are, and that Castillo apparently is, as well. Go on."
"Everything had felt so right, and it all happened so fast."
Provenza couldn't help but crack a smile. "Funny, I don't see Castillo as a fast, in-and-out kind of guy."
Sharon gave him a death stare. "He's not."
Provenza covered his ears, and shut his eyes tightly at the thought. He had to hand it to his boss. She gave as good as she got.
"We weren't thinking clearly... just feeling," Sharon recalled distantly. In her mind's eyes she saw flashes of her time with Castillo, and not her trusted lieutenant. Seeing him again, and being with him once more, had brought everything to the surface.
Her lips were still swollen from his kiss.
The older man shook his head at the Telenovela-worthy scene being set. "I take it that you and Marty didn't use protection," Provenza surmised, adding air-quotes to his rhetorical question.
Sharon hugged herself. "No. As it was, we never even made it back to my hotel room."
At that, Provenza started laughing uncontrollably. "I see it now... Darth Raydor, control freak of the L.A.P.D, got an STD from a back seat one-night-stand! Whoa, Lady, you are the lucky one! With the AIDS crisis in the 90's, you can thank your lucky stars Castillo kept his nose- and his dick, pretty clean after all those years in the Golden Triangle. Ha, ha!" The older man slapped his hands together. "So, what'd he give ya?"
Sharon smiled wanly at the man's inability to be politically-correct, much less polite.
Reflexively, she placed a hand to her abdomen.
"A baby."
#TO BE CONTINUED#
