Chapter 10

Wilde City Hospital is,as you can imagine, a busy place, full of pretty nurses, crotchety old docs, and well, a lotta gunshot victims like me and Harry.

While the police interviewed us, a doctor with a fat cigar hanging out of his mouth stitched us both up and told us, "You boys are lucky sons-a-bitches. The bullets passed straight through without hittin' a single artery. Of course, you coulda been luckier and not got hit it all, but I guess them's the breaks."

Once he and the cops were done, Harry and I were left in a tiny room in the emergency wing.

The moment we were alone, he leaned forward and kissed me. "So, I guess that case is well and truly closed."

"I should never have taken that job in the first place," I told him. "I knew there was somethin' strange about that dame right from the start." Looking back, the warning bells were sounding from the get-go. The mark on her ring finger was left by a ring much larger than a meek and mousy woman such as Miss Whitmore would wear; it was, however, a mark prominent enough to be made by one of the rings worn by the nuns of St. Agatha's, all of whom were betrothed to Christ. Then there was the fact that every time I staked out the Whitmore residence, there was no sign of Miss Whitmore whatsoever. Not to mention the fact that when Miss Whitmore showed me the picture of Stu and Marky outside the picture theatre, she told me it was several years old, which I knew straight away was a lie. The Hunchback of Notre Dame starring Lon Chaney only opened the year before.

Harry took my hand. "It gave me a chance to find you. It brought you to my club." He kissed me again. "Speaking of which, you're coming tonight, right?"

"Tonight?" I'd completely lost track of the days.

"My launch party."

"Of course he is," came the loudest, squeaky little voice I knew from the doorway. "We got you a bow tie and everything, toots!"

Harry and I looked up to see Stella strut into the room with Lois holding one hand and Lucy holding the other.

"You boys okay?" Lois and Lucy both asked in unison, one looking at the bandage around Harry's waist, the other looking at my arm in a sling.

"We're just perfect," Harry answered, looking at me.

"Couldn't be better," I smiled right back at him.

"Good," Stella said, "'cause we got a party to get to."

"We?" I asked, grinning at her. "How'd you manage to wrangle yourself an invite?"

Stella grinned back and sat her hands confidently on her hips. "Well, as your new personal assistant, it's obvious I need to be there to keep your troublesome ass outta trouble!"

"Personal assistant?" I coughed. "Since when?"

"Since I been chatting to my new best friends, Lois and Lucy. You know as well as anyone, if there's one person who can whip that patootie of yours into shape, it's me! Now here, try this on for size." Stella tossed me the bow tie.

Several hours later, Harry and I stood under the moon on the rooftop of Hart's nightclub, where he adjusted that bow tie for me for the eighteenth time that night.

In the club beneath us, the band played loudly as the crowd danced and whooped up a storm. But up here we were alone. The speeches were over. Harry had officially opened his club. The free-flowing booze meant everyone was happily distracted, at least enough not to notice Harry and I escape to the rooftop where the fireworks had lit up the sky before leaving it to its rightful owners—the stars.

"I've got so much to tell you," he said as we both gazed up at the bright night sky. "All those missing years. We've got so much catching up to do."

I took his hand. "I'm in no rush. We've got plenty of time."

"We do," he said with a smile. "And this time, I promise, I'm not going anywhere."

I leaned in and kissed him, and he wrapped me in his embrace just as he used to do. My Harry. My everything.

And I knew at last I'd found the one place where I'd always belonged.

In his arms.

And in love.

Yes, Buck Baxter, the Love Detective, was finally—and forever—in love.

Picture that.