The Cinema Files s1 p13

The Cinema Files
page 13 chapter 13

Drive-In Drama

I found myself checking my phone just after 7:30pm. I'd missed a text from Vincent. Hitting the forward button on the cd player, I had commandeered the music on the ride back as a Doors song blasted into the interior of the vehicle.

"So, you got what you need?" I asked noticing a chipped nail.  Detective Whitechapel said no as his eyes darted back and forth from the rear view mirror to the windows and back again.

"The detectives running the case found nothing in the warehouse. They think someone tipped the Hosts off." he cleared his throat as he turned the corner. "I need to get invited to another event."

"A lot of work for a decoy. Come on, tell me the truth. This is your case isn't it? Not just a decoy but full on your case."

"I owe you dinner." he said trying to change the topic.  I leaned back in the seat shaking my head.

"Huh. I don't understand why you can't admit when I'm right?"

"At lest I know that anything I tell you won't end up in the morning edition."

"That why you're so..." I gestured towards him. "You? My aunt's job.?"

"I was serious Desdemona, when I said the other day about not wanting to start with you now she's gone. The less I have to ban you from my crime scene coattails, the better for us both." he punctuated his point by changing the song on the cd player, letting Johnny Cash slither around us.

"Talk about your mixed messages."

"What's that suppose to mean?" he never took his eyes off the road.

"You ask me to join you on a case and scold me in the same second about not hanging around your cases."

"Totally different situations." He looked at me in the sideways way again in the rear view; his eyes sparkling under the passing streetlights. He pulled into the parking lot of the Ruthven causing me to have to catch my breath. Unbuckling his seat belt, Ryan moved in his seat just enough to have to reach over my lap for the glove compartment. The heat of his breath on my knee made me jump. Not finding what he was searching for within it's depths, he slammed it closed again. "There a keycard in the pocket there?" he nodded towards the cup holder in the door. I held up the plastic rectangle just as the driver side door slammed and I found myself in an otherwise empty car. Detective Whitechapel already standing in the parking lot. "Come on then." he gestured in that slow way of his that ironically made you feel rushed. I got out of the car as the sound of the lock beeped in my wake. "I do believe I still owe you breakfast."

"Uh dinner. It's dinner time."

"That's what I said." his eyebrows rose double time as he took the keycard from me, his free arm at my elbow. Just as we entered the hotel lobby his phone started to ring. "Oh it's the station I've got to take it."  Ryan moved a few feet talking into the contraption before turning right back handing me the room key mouthing the words room 333.  I found myself shaking slightly as I got off the elevator my breathing ragged knowing I was blushing. "Sorry." I felt more than heard Whitechapel as he arrived a moment later behind me from the second elevator. "Well Mrs Whitechapel." he said barely holding the smirk as he tapped the fake wedding rings we'd worn for the undercover job. "Any thoughts to what you'd like for breakfast?"

"Dinner." I said without thinking.

"Yeah, what I said."

"You do realize the restaurant is back downstairs. Yonder." the sarcasm was the only thing holding me in check keeping me from just throwing myself at him as I hooked my thumb over my shoulder.

"Haven't we had enough crowds tonight?" he replied unlocking the door to his room hitting the light switch. I watched as the room began to glow in the semi spotlights that began to flood the space in the delayed seconds. The sofa was in the middle of the room dividing it, the bed to the front of us and a table and dresser behind the sofa; the bathroom beyond that. A small styrofoam board was sitting on the sofa covered in notes and photos, two large case files beside it in place of the throw pillows. "I said I can't have you at my crime scenes. I didn't say I wouldn't let you into my briefs." Whitechapel stood between myself and the sofa hands now in his pockets. "Your instincts as good as your aunt's?"  My turn to raise an eyebrow.  "Officially, your aunt Jackie was the biggest pain in my arse. Unofficially my best partner."   I felt the deflation of my ego as a woman at the same time an excitement traveled down my spine. I should have known better. The good detective only wanted me for my mind.


Tune in again for another installment of the Cinema Files starring your heroine...me(straight up story. Well, that's one way to get into a man's briefs.)