Several Weeks Later
Damn it. He could've sworn that coupon expired next week.
Maybe he could still get the cashier to take it. After all, at this hour they were either half his age or inebriated. Likely both. None of them would give a man like him trouble at the grocery store at this hour.
So he hoped.
There stood a weary Detective Berman in the breakfast aisle of his local supermarket, its bleak, overwhelming fluorescent light bearing down on him. The box of whole-grain bran flakes in his hand was more than he could justify without the coupon, and the other brand, though cheaper, he knew wasn't quite as tasty. But there was a new brand on the shelf which looked appealing enough to give a try. Should he even bother to get another type if the coupon didn't go through? He was trying to tighten his budget, but maybe he deserved to treat himself. His credit card company had upped his grocery cash-back bonus to three percent, after all.
He sighed and pressed his lips together, rubbing an eye under his glasses. The amount of high-stakes decision-making required of him immediately following a 12-hour shift of constant high-stakes decision-making was beginning to get to him--and that was just the cereal. It hadn't helped that on top of all the running around he'd done that week, he'd begun to suffer stomach trouble. The detective supposed it was the recent onslaught of work that had him spread all too thin, that nagging Walter case notwithstanding.
It was a strange case, that one. Lately, it had begun to plague him to the extent that he'd actually started having second thoughts about it. He could've sworn that at some point he was doggedly on the trail of his strangely bewitching ostensible primary suspect, but the details of his first brushes with her now seemed distant and hard to recall--more impressions than memories. And the more time he spent with her, the less certain he was of her culpability.
For one, she was oddly at ease with a law enforcement official arriving at house every Friday night for extensive questioning. Most criminals were well aware of their rights; if they weren't, more than a couple of interviews with him prompted calls from lawyers and pleas of the fifth from any sane person, let alone a bona fide murderer. Doctor Angelos simply made him cups of chamomile tea and...obliged his questions.
Of course, he didn't normally interview a single suspect over the course of an entire weekend, let alone every weekend for well over a month straight, but this case was simply making his head spin. She simply gave completely sound answers. Her alibi was simply airtight.
The man was simply altogether too close to just throwing his hands up and leaving the store with naught but a handle of scotch.
While on a brisk walk at the rear of the store, a ponytailed, sweatpants-clad Doctor Angelos could've sworn she spied a familiar figure in her peripheral vision. She stopped, took a single, incredulous step backwards, and discreetly peered down one of the aisles. There were a couple of others milling about, but she instantly honed in on one bespectacled, wild-haired man, coupon in hand, mumbling something to himself about whether the cashier was high enough to scan it.
The doctor frowned in thought. It would be quite risky to be seen with him like this in public, even at this hour of the night with hardly anyone else around. But she couldn't help but stare at him in such casual attire, visual whiplash from the sharp jackets and ties he typically wore for work.
He looked like nothing special, of course--just a faded, navy blue flannel sloppily tucked into jeans that looked almost as old as he was, all tied up in a bow with dirty white running sneakers. But she found something pleasantly, humorously intriguing about seeing him perusing cereals in humble garb, akin to seeing one's respected professor on a late-night run to Taco Bell.
There was, too, something to be said about the fun in observing him like prey: watching him compare prices, furrow his brow in thought, dig in his pocket for his shopping list--all the while blissfully unaware of her gaze.
She bit her lower lip, suppressing a laugh at his sheer concentration, as fascinating and charming as it was strange. With the unholy amounts of intense focus he put into a task as menial as cereal choice, it was no wonder that the moment she'd seized it, he was putty in her hands.
Driven by adrenaline and serendipity, not to mention how very pinchable his ass looked in those jeans, Doctor Angelos decided she'd wait until he was alone before pouncing.
He looked up in her direction for a brief moment; she instantly hid behind the endcap, holding her breath. The man paused, rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, then went back to his extremely important deliberation.
Luckily, it seemed as though he hadn't caught a real glimpse of her. But he'd finally placed a box in his basket and was on the move again now, and off she went to shadow him discreetly. Up and down several more aisles he wove, taking his sweet time, the doctor thanking the stars that the store was sparsely populated.
All of a sudden, as he ponderously perused pints of fudgy ice cream, one of the man's coupons fluttered out of his pocket onto the cold, aged linoleum floor of the freezer aisle. As if on cue, Doctor Angelos silently snuck up behind him and snatched it.
"You dropped this."
He whirled around in shock at that smug, familiar voice coming from behind him. Upon registering the source, he chuckled.
"Am I gonna need a restraining order?"
"Wow. No hello, not even a thank you," she said with a smirk. "I see how it is."
"I'm sorry. Good evening, dear madam, and thank you so very kindly for picking up my expired coupon for a buck fifty off a box of overpriced bran flakes. However might I repay you?"
"I've got a bright idea," she said, stepping closer towards him. He stepped backwards, feeling his back touch the freezer door. "No, but really, I just so happen to shop here, too, you know. As I'm sure you've pieced together, I don't live very far."
"Likely story, 'normal lady who comes to the grocery store at ten for just crackers'," he said dryly, nodding his head towards the only item in her hand. His own basket, of course, was stuffed with processed foodstuffs and frozen meals.
Doctor Angelos laughed, her eyes meeting his. His deep, smiling brown eyes seemed to sparkle behind his glasses in the store's lurid fluorescence, holding her captive for a moment. Taken off guard, she purposefully broke eye contact.
"I did really come for these," she said, looking at the green-and-orange box of organic flaxseed crackers. "I usually do most of my shopping at Joe's down on Green Street, but they've got a few things here that I like, so here's where I usually take care of the rest."
He blinked a few times, the magic word giving him that funny feeling to which he'd become so accustomed over the last several weeks. Once foreign, the warm calm that spread through him was now a familiar sensation--though in public, he found himself fighting it.
"Really?" he said flatly. "Here?"
"Well, for starters, they're the only ones around here who even have these, the ones with the flaxseed, and I--"
"No, I mean...you know what I mean."
"What's wrong?"
"We're in public, for one," he muttered warily, his eyes no longer naturally meeting hers but now helplessly glued to them. She put her hand on his arm and stroked it gently. He swallowed.
"Ah. So you still don't trust me, after all the time we've spent together," she said calmly. "That's understandable. But you know, nothing bad will happen. I won't ever let it, you see, and so you don't need to worry about such trivial matters as being in public, because you are with me, and with me you feel so safe, and when you feel safe you feel so relaxed, so tired, so good, so in dire need of
rest
."
She tugged sharply on his arm. His features slackened, his basket clattering to the ground as he leaned against the cold glass of the freezer door. Mentally, he reeled, trance flooding his mind and trouncing his defenses, his breath slowing.
Fine, so she was good at this. Really good at this. That, he could wrap his mind around. What he couldn't quite wrap his mind around was how the hell she'd managed to tug his arm and send him plummeting in the middle of a Shop 'N' Save. Though with each breath, veins filling with tranquility, the fact that he was at her mercy amid said Shop 'N' Save seemed less and less relevant.
Abruptly, squeaking footfalls on tile reverberated throughout the largely empty aisles, getting louder as they neared. Doctor Angelos acted swiftly.
"Find energy in your muscles to stand at attention while remaining in this state of mind. Eyes open," she said quickly. Detective Berman's posture straightened and his tired eyelids lifted, eyes bearing a glassy lack of focus.
"You know," she started in normal conversational tone. "They never put mint chocolate chip on sale."
"'cause it's the best one," he replied without missing a beat.
She cracked a grin. A man of culture.
"We deserve a break every now and again, don't we?"
