As luck would have it, they caught a case late Sunday morning. Natalie was torn between going back to work for the first time since the accident, or going wedding dress shopping as she'd originally planned.
"Go shopping," Adrian told her. "I can handle it alone."
His comment caused her to frown. "Why am I even working for you if you don't need me anymore?"
"You're not working for me anymore," he said, taking her into his arms. "You're working with me. Partners, remember?"
"If I'm your partner, I should be there," she argued.
"There will always be more cases, but you don't have a lot of time left to pick out your dress, if we keep the wedding as June fourth," he said reasonably. "Besides, you can't disappoint your bridesmaids — and your mother. They're counting on you, too."
He had a point, she had to admit. They had all rearranged their schedules and put off making other plans so they could go out shopping today.
"All right," she said reluctantly. "I'll go. Just… pretend it was really, really hard to solve without me, okay?"
He grinned as he kissed her good-bye. "I'll miss you."
As it turned out, the case wasn't a difficult one to solve, with or without her help. He was relieved to get a "softball," considering how disturbing the last murder had been.
He quickly figured out that the neighbor who had claimed to hear a loud crash and then witnessed a nondescript person running from the scene was lying, as the hedgerow between the houses was overgrown. There was no way that the neighbor could have seen anyone leaving the house.
To his credit, Leland had already figured that out for himself, but the problem was that the neighbor had an alibi. His daughter had been with him the whole time, having come over for brunch, and she swore he had never left her sight, not for a moment.
Adrian, however, deduced that the daughter — who had been having an affair with the married man next door, the same guy who was now laying in the morgue after being bludgeoned to death with a sports trophy — had been the one to leave the house and commit the crime, given the minuscule holes in the freshly-watered lawn exactly matched the length and width of her high heels. While she'd tried to clean the mud off her heels, she hadn't gotten it all. Also, she had hairs on her skirt that matched the fur of the murdered man's cocker spaniel — hair that could only have been left on her skirt that day, as the dog had been given a bath earlier that morning. The fur on her skirt was clean and shiny, and smelled of the same shampoo that had been used on the dog.
Both the daughter and her father were arrested — she for murder, he for obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact — and Adrian felt pleased with the day's work. It was late afternoon by that time, and he decided to call Natalie to see how her day was progressing.
Natalie was relaxing in a chair, watching Peggy Davenport model mother-of-the-bride ensembles, when her new cell phone rang. She'd finally replaced the one that had gotten destroyed in the accident.
"Hey you," Adrian said when she answered.
"Hey you," she greeted, pleased to hear from him. "How's the case?"
"Solved," he said with a touch of pride.
"Good for you, Mr. Famous Private Detective," she said flirtatiously.
He laughed. "So, what are you up to?"
"I just bought my wedding dress."
She could all but hear him smiling through the phone. "You did, did you?"
"I did," Natalie said smugly. "And a veil, along with a few other accessories."
"Are they even half as gorgeous as you are?"
She grinned. "I hope so. The dress needs to be altered slightly, but they promise it'll be ready in a few weeks. We found bridesmaid dresses, too."
"Sounds like a successful day."
"So far. My mother is trying on outfits now. It could still be a while."
"Are you staying hydrated?"
She sighed, glancing at the empty plastic bottle of water on the table next to the chair. Sharona had been pushing fluids on her all day. "Yes."
"And resting when you can?"
"I'm sitting down right now. I even have my feet up." Sharona had insisted on that, too.
"Glad to hear it. What's on the agenda after dress shopping is done?"
"Oh, you know, I thought I might go skydiving, or maybe play in traffic for a while." She rolled her eyes at Cassandra, who was examining a display of earrings nearby. Cassandra giggled.
"Very funny," he said, but she could tell he was amused.
"We're going to go out to eat, and then I'll be home."
"Okay. I'll see you later tonight, then," he said, and added, "I love you."
"I love you, too," she said, and ended the call.
When she looked up, Julie was pretending to vomit. "Oh, knock it off," Natalie said, laughing, flinging her empty water bottle at her.
"Why don't you just make kissy noises into the phone while you're at it?" Julie said, dodging the missile artfully.
"Next time I will, so long as you're nearby," she teased.
"Natalie, Julie, behave yourselves," Peggy Davenport commanded from the center of the room, as a seamstress adjusted the fit of a shimmery cocktail suit.
"Yes, ma'am," they both said obediently, then dissolved into giggles.
Once Peggy had finished her fitting, they went out to dinner. They were enjoying dessert when Peggy's eyes suddenly focused on the television set mounted in the corner. "Natalie," she said, "you're on the news."
"What?" Natalie twisted around to look. The set was tuned to one of the local news channels. Sure enough, there she was, Adrian by her side — stock footage, she guessed, as it looked a few months old.
The set was muted so she couldn't hear what was being said, but her eyes widened when a picture of Trudy Monk flashed on the screen, then a picture of Trudy's car from the bombing. A mug shot of Dale Biederbeck was next, and she closed her eyes momentarily. She'd known this was coming eventually, given that Dale's death effectively nullified the reason for the gag order on Dougal's case, but she'd hoped it wouldn't get much play. The six o'clock news on a Sunday night wasn't exactly subtle, however.
She opened her eyes again to see Wally Dougal's mug shot, and flinched; she received another figurative punch in the gut when his and then Mitch's formal Navy ID photos appeared on screen. Apparently someone in the media had connected the dots.
Suddenly there was a different shot. A terrible accident scene, with a beaten-up white pick-up truck smashed into a ruined wreck of a car.
Her car.
No one had told her the media had been there that night, and had taken pictures.
It was too much. Dougal, Mitch, her car, one right after the other like that — she couldn't breathe. Oh god, she couldn't breathe. There were bands of steel closing around her chest, and her vision blurred. The room was closing in around her. She started hyperventilating, desperate for air.
"Natalie. Natalie." Sharona was suddenly there, kneeling beside her chair, holding her hands and speaking in a clear, firm tone. "Listen to me. You need to take a deep breath, okay? You're breathing too fast. Take a long, deep breath."
Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it was going to burst out of her chest, but she tried to do what Sharona said. She sucked in a breath, feeling a faint pang in her ribs as she did so.
"That's good," Sharona encouraged. "Try again. A long, deep breath."
She took a second deep breath, and found it a little easier. Gradually, with Sharona's gentle coaching, her breathing slowed and her heart stopped pounding quite so frantically. The bands of tension around her chest eased. She couldn't stop trembling, though, and tears of humiliation ran down her cheeks as she realized that everyone in the restaurant was staring at her.
"Can you walk?" Sharona asked. Natalie nodded, although she was far from sure.
Both T.K. and Sharona supported her as she made her way out the door on shaky legs. She felt somewhat better once she was safely ensconced in the backseat of T.K.'s car, away from curious eyes. Julie and Cassandra were hovering nearby, their faces worried. Peggy had remained behind to deal with the check.
Sharona efficiently bucked her seat belt. "We're going to take you home, okay? Just sit tight."
She murmured something to Julie before she got into the backseat from the other side of the car, and Julie nodded. Natalie closed her eyes, striving to keep the anxiety at bay. She couldn't even say goodbye to her daughter for fear that she'd start crying again. You're fine. You're safe, she told herself firmly. Everything's all right.
But she didn't feel all right. After T.K. pulled into her driveway, Natalie could barely stumble from the car. Adrian was by her side the next moment, and she realized he must have been waiting outside for them. Someone — Julie, she supposed — had called to tell him what had happened.
Adrian took one look at her ashen face and scooped her into his arms so he could carry her inside. She clung to him, grateful, as she wasn't sure how much longer her legs would have supported her. When he laid her on the couch, she kept her arms around his neck. "Don't go," she whispered.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said, shifting to gather her in his arms as he eased down onto the couch. "I'm staying right here."
Natalie collapsed limply against him. Sharona, who'd gone before them to open to door, sat on her other side so she could take her pulse.
"Did you see the newscast?" Sharona asked Adrian, her eyes trained on her watch.
He nodded grimly. "I already talked to Leland. No one from the police department or in the district attorney's office knew the media was going to break the story tonight, otherwise they would have warned us." His mouth tightened in anger. "We also didn't know the media had pictures of her accident."
"Well, the two of you were a little distracted that night," Sharona murmured. She breathed a sigh of relief. "Her pulse has slowed down."
Natalie felt immeasurably better now that she was home and safe in Adrian's arms. "I'm sorry," she whispered against his chest.
"Hey," he said, stroking her hair. "You have nothing to be sorry about."
"I don't know why that happened," she said, tears forming in her eyes. "One minute I was fine, and the next — "
"You had a panic attack," Sharona said, her voice gentle. "It's completely understandable, given what you've been through lately."
Natalie closed her eyes, thinking back to multiple panic attacks she had nursed Adrian through during her years as his assistant. She'd had no idea how horrific they felt. How had he managed to stay relatively sane for so long?
"I'm taking you to bed," she heard him say as he lifted her. She thought about raising a token protest, but she was too exhausted.
Sharona followed him, and helped him ease an already sleeping Natalie out of her clothes and into a loose nightgown. "I'm staying here tonight," she told Adrian, in a tone that brooked no argument.
He merely nodded, grateful for her help, and her company.
Natalie had multiple nightmares that night, one on top of the other. She dreamed of her accident, Wally Dougal's beefy fist against her face, Mitch's plane crashing, Dale the Whale's mocking laughter. But each time she woke, heart pounding, chest heaving, Adrian was there to calm her down and soothe her back to sleep. She finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep a few hours before dawn.
When she woke, she was initially disoriented. She was alone, the spot on the bed next to her cool to the touch. All the blinds had been drawn so the room was dim, but she could see bright sunlight peeking through the slats. When she checked the clock, she was shocked to see that it was after nine a.m.
She felt… not necessarily better, but calmer. More in control of herself. As she lay in bed, taking stock of her surroundings, she became aware of voices downstairs. She heard Adrian speaking, then Sharona, and then… was that Leland Stottlemeyer? Yes, it was. A fourth voice chimed in, and she recognized Randy. What on earth were they doing here so early in the day? Was there a case?
She slipped out of bed, vaguely confused by the fact that she was wearing a nightgown. She didn't remember changing into one last night. But then, most of last evening was largely a blur, marked by memories of strong emotion – mostly fear and panic – but no concrete events.
Natalie quickly splashed some water on her face, ran a brush through her hair, and changed into jeans and a blouse. She went out into the hallway but paused at the top of the stairs as she heard Adrian's voice.
"…anything we can do? This is private property," he was saying.
"They're staying on the public sidewalk," Leland said. "If they cross the property line we can arrest them for trespassing, but that's about it."
Alarmed, she padded down the stairs. "Adrian?" Four heads – Adrian, Sharona, Leland, and Randy – turned in her direction. "What's going on?" she asked, noting that all the blinds were tightly shut and the curtains were drawn.
"Hey," he said, rising to greet her. "I was hoping you'd sleep longer."
She saw his haggard face and weary eyes, and felt a twinge of guilt for causing him such a wakeful night. "It's past nine," she remonstrated. "What's wrong?"
He sighed. "There are reporters camped outside the house."
"What?" She stared at him, stunned. "Why?"
"The news broadcast from last night was picked up by CNN," Leland said. "It aired early this morning. Other stations picked it up from there."
"CNN?" she repeated. National news. They had made national news. She wasn't sure if she should be flattered or terrified. Or both. Granted, it wasn't the first time one of Adrian's cases had been picked up by national news channels, but this was different. This was Mitch's case. And Trudy's case.
"I had to take the phone off the hook," Sharona said. "You've been getting calls all morning."
"You guys are famous," Randy said with a crooked smile.
She gasped as a thought occurred to her. "What about Julie? Have they – "
"I've already talked to UCPD," Leland said, referring to the University of California-Berkeley Police Department. "They're going to keep an eye out for reporters on campus. If needed they'll assign an officer to escort her to and from class. But so far she hasn't been mentioned in any of the media reports, so I don't think they're going to bother her."
"Do we need to do something?" she asked uncertainly. "Like… release a statement?" Having grown up as the child of a rich CEO, she vaguely remembered her parents dealing with occasional media attention.
"The district attorney's office is holding a joint press conference with the police department and the Navy tomorrow morning," Adrian said, reaching for her hand. "The captain and I are going to prepare a statement. They've asked us to be there, but you don't have to go if you don't want to."
"Are you going?" she asked him.
He nodded.
"Then I'm going, too."
"Are you sure?" he said anxiously. "Given what happened last night, it's understandable if you – "
"I'm okay now," she said, cutting him off irritably. "Last night I was just… taken by surprise, that's all. I'll be more prepared tomorrow."
"All right," he conceded reluctantly. "But if you change your mind, you can back out at any time."
"If you're planning on going tomorrow, you need to rest today," Sharona said firmly. "And right now you should have some breakfast." She pointed at Adrian. "You, too. You look like hell."
"Thanks," he said glumly as she strode into the kitchen.
"We'd better get back," Leland said to Randy. As they opened the front door, Natalie flinched at the sight of flashbulbs and sound of cameras clicking. Leland quickly closed the door behind him and the room was silent again.
"How long do you think this is going to last?" Natalie asked shakily.
Adrian shook his head. "No idea. Hopefully only a few days. Maybe the press conference will help things die down."
He looked exhausted. "How long have you been up?" she asked, leaning into him.
He wrapped his arms around her. "Leland called shortly after six to tell us about the CNN newscast."
She frowned. "I didn't hear the phone."
"You were sleeping pretty soundly at the time. We had at least a dozen calls before Sharona finally disconnected the phone, and you didn't even stir." He gently caressed her cheek. "I'm glad you were able to get some sleep, anyway."
"But you didn't," she murmured fretfully.
"Maybe it's best that I start getting used to sleepless nights," he said, very quietly, and for a moment she didn't understand what he meant. Once she did, her smile bloomed.
"We can start working on that right away, if you want," she said softly.
He shook his head. "Don't tempt me," he said, grinning at her.
Impulsively, she kissed him, and they forgot about everyone and everything else for several exquisite minutes.
"Oh, for crying out loud, get a room," Sharona said as she came out of the kitchen. The tantalizing scents of bacon and eggs hung heavy in the air.
They reluctantly broke apart. "You sound like Julie," Natalie laughed.
"Poor kid. I'm beginning to feel sorry for her," Sharona said. Her face was stern but her eyes were amused.
"I'd like to point out that we're in the privacy of our own home," Adrian said mildly.
"But you're not exactly alone at the moment, are you?" Sharona gestured to the kitchen. "Go on, eat before it gets cold."
"You're an angel, Sharona," Natalie said, feeling her stomach rumble with sudden hunger. She headed for the kitchen.
Adrian followed her, but he stopped for a moment to touch Sharona's arm. "Thank you," he said, and surprised the hell out of her by placing a gentle kiss on her cheek. "For everything."
"You're welcome," she said, too astonished to even crack a joke. After he'd gone into the kitchen, she smiled, touched her cheek, and followed him in.
