Disclaimer: I don't own the situations or characters portrayed herein. I'm just playing with them for a while.

A Little Sex, A Little Scandal

Her name turned out to be Randi. She'd flirted hard at Nedlinger's, and he'd flirted right back. Tonight was their second date, and they would be at his apartment.

He wondered if Amanda was still seeing the Topping man. She got all defensive when anyone asked, so she must be.

He had the champagne. He had the champagne bucket. He had the ice. And, if that knock was any indication, he had the girl.

"Randi, ba—" What?

Amanda stood there, an air of preoccupation and desperation about her that did not suit her at all.

"Hello."

His tone changed from Scarecrow to Lee in an instant. "Hi."

"Lee, I have to talk to you. It's really very important."

He had moved. Had he given her this address? He must have.

"Uh... Yeah, um..." She was upset, and a date with Randi wasn't nearly as important as her being upset. So he waved her in. Maybe he could calm her down and send her on her way before Randi showed up.

"What's so important that, uh, you have to talk to me tonight?"

"Lee, I witnessed a murder today."

He almost dropped the champagne bucket. "A what?!"

"I saw someone murdered today. The PTA at Phillip and Jamie's school is having a parent-teacher night."

"Someone was murdered at their school?"

"Oh, no! Nobody was murdered at school. No. I was on the way from the nursery to the school bringing the flowers for the parent-teacher night."

"Yeah." He tried to be surreptitious in checking his watch. This was going to take a while.

Her arms started flying around. "And I saw this, well, a maroon hatchback passed me and then... It's all here. It's all here in the police report, Lee."

She'd filed a police report. She had learned from the time she'd been "mugged". He kind of wished she'd skipped the police report and called him first.

"Okay."

"I made out a police report and nobody believes me."

This was the story of her life, wasn't it? No one believed her.

He couldn't see the police report, though, because she kept shaking it. "Ah, here. Hold this for a moment." He handed her the champagne bucket and took the report.

"Okay. Maroon hatchback."

"Right."

He kept reading, and stopped suddenly. "They were chasing you?"

"Yes, they were chasing me!"

He wanted to believe her, but this was pretty far-fetched.

He sighed. "Amanda, it is possible that this guy, who was shot and killed, was only grazed or something."

Her eyes filled with hurt that he didn't believe her. "Lee, even if he was only grazed, he was still shot. Listen, I saw him slump over the steering wheel." Her voice had sunk into that strange conspiratorial tone it always took on whenever she shared evidence or information.

To be fair, she was nearly always right. And he only added "nearly" because someone in his line of work never dealt in absolutes.

He cleared his throat. "Okay! I will -I will look into this tomorrow, okay? But to tell you the truth Amanda… No car. No body. No license plate. There's really no case."

She was businesslike once more. "You need a word."

What was - what? "A word?"

"Evidence, and I don't have any. It's like when a tree falls down in the forest does it make a sound if there's nobody there to hear it. Only I heard it, and nobody believes me."

His mind was reeling a little, but okay, sure.

"That's really not the analogy I would've used, but yeah, I think, uh, I think you're right."

"I'm sorry. I... I... Thank you very much, and I really... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude."

She was slipping back into her old, self-doubting habits, and that would only end up hurting her.

"Hold it. You didn't intrude."

She was his partner, his friend. She was always welcome.

It used to be simple: keep everyone at arm's length or even farther, and go on dates with new girls whenever he could. But somehow Amanda did not seem to fall into the category of "everyone".

"Well." She was pleased that he didn't think she intruded. But she really did have to go if he wanted his date with Randi to work out.

"I'm... I'm, I'm just, uh..." Did this watch work or not? "Well, I'm waiting for..."

"Ran-di baby."

He grimaced. "Yes."

"Oh, well, um — Is Randi a person that you'd like to impress?"

No. "Yeah, uh, possibly." Now that he looked at them, his shoelaces weren't even.

"Well, then you should probably take the price tag off this bottle of champagne. It was a bargain."

She handed him the bucket without waiting for him to take it, and headed for the door.

"Oh, good catch."

"Anytime." Her voice was much too bright. "Oh, hello, Randi."

Hello, Randi?! She was here? That price tag wasn't coming off, and she was here? This was not at all how he had planned the evening.

"You'll like the wine," Amanda went on, breezing past Randi. "It's very good."

And with that parting shot she strode away.

Well, he'd just have to make the best of it.

"Amanda!" He heard her name ring through the air in a sharp, agonized cry, and the voice sounded foreign to his ears. If it were not for the raw, stinging heat in his throat, he would have thought someone else had uttered that shout of pure anguish.

He had been expecting an explosion or at least a crash when she had raced past him, yelling that the accelerator was stuck. So when she drove straight into a small flower shop, his heart stopped in his chest and time seemed to slow to a crawl. For one moment, one long, soul-crushing, paralyzing moment, he thought he would lose the one person he really loved in some fiery inferno.

He had left his car before he was aware of stopping it, leaped into the shop, yanked open her door, and half-dragged, half-carried her out of the car before he even stopped to look around him at the wreck of the flower shop.

He clung on to the hood of the car, praying that Amanda would get the upper hand. But Rita was putting up a fight, and she must have won, because the car screeched to a halt and he slid right off.

He landed on his head, and for a moment the world flickered. Then it righted, and spun a little, but he found that he could stand.

The pain would have to wait. Amanda was in danger.

"Don't make me do it, Rita," he shouted, pulling out his gun, and he almost wished she would run, so he had the pleasure of shooting her himself. Just enough to give her a fraction of the fear and pain she'd given Amanda.

She turned her spiteful smile on him, and mocked, "You wouldn't actually shoot a lady, would you?"

"No." His head began to pound. "But I would shoot you."

He looked at her until her shoulders dropped a little.

Amanda had not taken her eyes off him, and he turned to her. It was barely a whisper. "You all right?"

Her eyes were bright, and she smiled a little, reassuringly. "Yeah."

She was safe.

His head was killing him.

He had the soft lighting, the right music, even an actual homemade cake instead of that store bought one that had refused to thaw.

He just didn't have a date.

He should probably put some effort into appearing disappointed as she flounced off down the hall. "Uh, Randi. Oh, oh. Randi, she... oh."

He couldn't blame Randi. Their first date had been at a bar. On their second date, another woman had left just before her, and he was apparently so boring that she had left early. On their third date, the same woman had been there.

In the meantime, Amanda was here, with her "Thank-you-for-being-the-only-one-who-believed-me" cake.

"Oh, gosh, I'm really sorry. And you have your candles and your... Well, uh, she misunderstood. I mean..."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so."

"Well..." She shifted, getting ready to go.

"You want some cake?" He didn't want her to go, just yet.