Page 49 of To Die For

I was kissing him back with enthusiasm when, belatedly, my danger signals began buzzing at me. Breathless, I managed to pull back. “You can kiss me, but we can’t have sex. There. I said it after you touched me, so it counts.”

“Maybe all I planned on was kissing,” he murmured, and kissed me again.

Yeah, and Napoleon’s venture into Russia was just a little day trip. Uh-huh. Did he really think I was buying that?

He kissed me until my knees were wobbly and my toes were curled, then released me with a smug look on his face. He couldn’t hide the woody in his pants, though, so I felt pretty good myself.

“Did Lynn find the name of that man in the files?” I asked. Maybe I should have asked that much earlier, but the handstand thing had kind of thrown us into a no-talking zone for a while. We were over that, so I wanted to know.

“Not yet. MacInnes was going to call me as soon as they got the name and he did some preliminary checking. Lynn was having some trouble with the computer.”

“What trouble? Why didn’t she call? She knows how to use the programs, so what’s wrong?”

“It crashed.”

“Oh, no. The computer can’t crash. We’re supposed to open again tomorrow. Weareopening tomorrow, aren’t we?”

He nodded. “We finished processing the crime scene, and all the ugly yellow tape is down.” He put little verbal quotation marks around “ugly yellow tape,” and I knew MacInnes had probably given him—and the entire department—a verbatim replay of our conversation.

I waved that aside. “The computer,” I said urgently.

“I sent one of our computer guys over to see what he could do. That was right before I left work, and I haven’t heard anything since.”

I dug out my cell phone and called Lynn’s cell. When she answered, she sounded a little distracted. “Blair, we have to get another computer. This one’s possessed.”

“What do you mean, possessed?”

“It’s doing weird stuff. It’s speaking in tongues. Typing in tongues, anyway. This is gibberish. It isn’t even English.”

“What does the computer cop say?”

“I’ll let him tell you.”

A moment later a man said, “It’s a major crash, but I can salvage most if not all of your files. I’m going to uninstall your programs and reinstall them; then we’ll see what we have. Do you have a backup?”

“No, but I’ll get one there tonight if you say we need it. What caused the crash?”

“It’s what they do,” he said cheerfully. “Right now, other than the gibberish on the screen, it’s totally frozen. Mouse won’t work, keyboard won’t work, nothing will work. Don’t worry, though; I’ll unfreeze it again—this is the third time it’s frozen—and we’ll dig those files out.”

“What about the new computer tonight?”

“Wouldn’t hurt,” he said.

After we hung up, I explained the situation to Wyatt. Then I called one of the big office supply superstores, told them what I wanted, gave them my credit card number, and told them to get it ready because a policeman was coming by to pick it up. Wyatt was on his phone already getting that arranged. Then I called Lynn back and told her a new computer was on the way. There was nothing we could do after that except wait for the cop computer-guru to work his magic.

“That was a couple of thousand dollars I hadn’t planned on spending,” I grumbled. “At least it’s tax deductible.”

I looked up to find Wyatt grinning. “What’s so funny?”

“You. You’re such a piece of fluff; it’s funny hearing anything businesslike coming out of your mouth.”

I was so appalled and taken aback that I’m sure my mouth fell open. “Piece offluff?”

“Fluff,” he said firmly. “You have a pink hammer. If that isn’t fluffy, I don’t know what is.”

“I amnota piece of fluff! I own a business, and I’m good at what I do! Fluffs don’t do that; fluffs let other people take care of them.” I could feel a really serious snit coming on, because I hate being put down, and being called a piece of fluff definitely felt like a put-down to me.

He framed my waist with both hands, still grinning. “Everything about you is fluffy, from that Pebbles hairdo to your fancy little flip-flops with the shells on them. You wear an anklet all the time, your toenails are hot pink, and your bras match your panties. You look like an ice cream cone, and I could just lick you all over.”

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