Bodyguard (15 page)

Her hair was stringy, her eyes were tired and puffy, and she had on absolutely no makeup. “I look like hell.”

“Whoa, that’s pretty harsh language for you.”

“You look like hell, too.”

“Hell is an improvement for me,” he told her. “In fact, I consider it a compliment. See, shit’s my usual look. On really bad days, I look like total shit. So, yeah, hell is a big step up for me.” His smile made his eyes crinkle. “So, thank you very much.”

Alessandra couldn’t keep from smiling back.

He stepped away from her then, his hand sliding intimately down her arm to her elbow before he moved out of reach.

She felt cold without him touching her. But while cold
was uncomfortable, it wasn’t half as bad as she would feel if she let herself become involved with this man simply because she wanted to feel warm and safe.

There was no such thing as warm and safe, though, when the cold came from deep inside.

She’d learned that the hard way.

Harry had caught a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror and was futilely attempting to smooth down his hair. It was a losing battle. “Christ, would you look at me? I need a haircut.”

“Were you guarding my door to keep dogs and villains out, or to keep me in?” she asked.

He gave up on his hair and turned to gaze at her for a long moment before he answered. “A little of each.”

Alessandra nodded. “I like that you’re honest with me.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like for you to be honest with me, too.”

“Even if I told you I still think there’s been some kind of mistake?”

The muscles in the side of Harry’s jaw jumped as he stood there, just watching her.

“I counted the money,” she said softly. “It was all there. I’m sorry, I know you believe Michael Trotta killed your son, but …”

He nodded. “If you go back, Trotta will let his dog tear you apart.” His voice was gentle, contrasting the harshness of his words.

Alessandra turned away.

“You want honest,” he added softly. “That’s what I honestly believe, Allie.”

“What if you’re wrong?” she asked tightly.

“What if I’m right?”

“I want to call him.”

“Not from this house. Not from this town.”

She spun to face him, ready to drop to her knees and
beg him if she had to. “Then let’s take a ride. Please. We can drive over into Connecticut. I’ll call from … I don’t know, Hartford. From a pay phone.”

Harry was silent again for a long time. Without his smile, the lines around his eyes made him look weary. But then he nodded. “I’ll do what I can to set it up. You’ve got to be patient, though. It might take a few days to get approval from my boss.”

“I promise I won’t call from the phone in this house.”

Harry nodded again. “Good.”

She started toward the bathroom but then turned back. “Do you trust me?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Not enough to leave you alone in a room with a phone.”

Alessandra nodded. “Thank you again for your honesty.”

Harry smiled. There was more than amusement, there was a hint of approval lighting his eyes. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

Shaun pretended he didn’t see Ricky Morgan and Josh French following him as he left the middle school.

It was late, nearly four-thirty, and there were only a few other kids around, waiting for rides after rehearsal for the school talent show.

Shaun unlocked his bicycle from the stand by the front doors and slipped both of his arms into the straps of his backpack, carefully keeping his back to Ricky and Josh.

With any luck, he’d be on his bike and halfway down the drive before they approached him. With any luck …

“Yo, fairy boy, where you going so fast on your little silver wings?”

Shit.

Shaun didn’t lift his head. He refused to respond unless they called him by name. His real name.

He staggered as Josh grabbed his backpack and spun him around. “Hey, we’re talking to you, leprechaun. Show a little respect for your elders.”

Josh was only two months older than he was. Nine years ago, he’d just squeaked past the cut-off for entry into kindergarten a year earlier than Shaun.

“Just leave me alone.” This was really stupid. Although they were ninth graders, he was bigger than both of them. But he hated violence. He wasn’t anything like his father, who entered into any altercation with a gleam in his eye, ready and willing to use fists and muscle to deal with whatever came his way.

But then again, Harry only used his fists as a last resort.

“In a hurry to go home and put on your auntie’s undies, faggot?”

Shaun took off his backpack and set it down, balancing himself lightly on the balls of his feet, as if he were preparing for a strenuous jazz combination, drawing himself up to his full height. And then, as he looked down, way down into Ricky and Josh’s inbred, squinty little eyes, he gave them Harry’s best smile. “There’ve been studies done that prove most homophobes’ problems stem from fear of their own latent homosexual urges.”

Josh blinked. “Huh?”

Ricky was a little brighter. “I think he’s calling us queer.”

“Queer and faggot are derogatory terms,” Shaun scolded them gently, just the way Harry would’ve. “You should love yourselves more. Be proud of who you are.”

Ricky was already backing away in horror, but Josh wasn’t going to let that one go. Shaun made himself into a rock and didn’t sway more than an inch as the smaller boy shoved him. And when Josh reached for him again,
Shaun caught his wrist. “Look, I know you feel this need to touch me, but the truth is, I’m not gay. I’m sorry—I know how much you gay guys go for dancers, but I met this girl out in California, and we’ve been keeping in touch and—”

Josh charged him. Shaun thought he was ready for it, but the force pushed him backward, into the bike rack and over its top. He landed with a bone-jarring thud on the hard-packed dirt, grateful that Josh didn’t fall with him, grateful for the thick metal of the bike rack that now separated them.

He was grateful, too, that Josh seemed content with the sight of Shaun sprawled in the dirt. Apparently that was enough to restore the ninth grader’s threatened manhood.

Shaun watched the two boys swagger away as he straightened his glasses and checked to see how badly his elbow was bleeding.

It was only slightly scraped.

“Are you okay?” Mindy MacGregor, the tallest girl in the class, forty pounds overweight, with thick glasses that gave her the not-too-appealing look of a bubble-eyed fish, offered him a hand up.

“Yeah.” Shaun let her haul him to his feet then dusted off the seat of his jeans. Funny, he was taller than giant Mindy MacGregor. When had that happened?

She flashed her braces at him in a weirdly shy space alien-like smile. “I was kind of hoping you would kill them.”

“Yeah, well, I was hoping they weren’t going to kill me.”

“I’m sorry,” Mindy told him.

“Why? I survived. I’m considering it a victory.”

“I was too afraid to come stand next to you. I saw what they were doing, and I knew I should help, but …”

Ricky and Josh always called her “Fats MacBlubber”
or “Mindy the Mountain.” Shaun had seen her more than once, rushing toward the girls’ room in tears.

“It’s okay.” He forced a smile as he slipped on his backpack, wishing she would stop staring at him with those magnified eyes.

“I was so amazed that you could just stand there smiling at them like that.”

Shaun had been amazed, too. He smiled ruefully. Maybe he wasn’t as different from his father as he’d thought. Harry could talk his way out of anything.

Mindy giggled. “They didn’t understand half of what you said.”

“Good thing, or I probably would be dead.”

“Together, you know, we could crush them.” A pinkish hue tinged her cheeks and she was giving him another of those weird smiles and …

Oh, God, she liked him. Mindy the Mountain liked him. He froze, uncertain of what to say or do.

“You’re really great, you know, your dance number. I’m in the talent show, too. I’m playing my French horn.”

“Great,” he said unenthusiastically. He raised the kickstand of his bike and climbed on. Mindy liked him. But whenever he imagined his fighting sidekick, he conjured up a girl who looked more like something out of the X-Men comics than Mindy MacGregor. He conjured up a girl with long red hair, a killer figure in a tiny black bikini, and normal-size eyes that sparkled when she smiled.

“Have you thought about getting contact lenses?” Mindy asked. “Mrs. Fisher told me not to wear glasses onstage, that the lights would reflect off them, so I’m going to the eye doctor as soon as my mom has the time and … Not that you look bad in glasses. You look … Well, I heard Heather Ullman say you would be one of the top ten cutest guys in the school if you didn’t wear
glasses and … I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you look bad in glasses. Personally, I think they’re … nice.” Mindy closed her gigantic eyes. “Oh, God,” she moaned. “I’m such a dweeb. Just kill me now.”

Shaun knew he should tell her that she didn’t stand a chance, that he would never like her the way she liked him, not in a million, billion years. He knew all about false hopes and dashed expectations. He knew the longer hope was left alive, the bleaker and emptier it felt when its light finally burned out.

But instead, he reached over and patted her awkwardly on her giant shoulder. “Thanks for helping me.”

Her eyes flashed open and she smiled. She was almost pretty when she smiled. “I should’ve helped you crush ’em.”

He forced another smile, cursing himself for being a coward. “Maybe next time.”

Mindy nodded energetically, buoyant with hope. “Definitely next time.”

Shaun slipped his feet into the pedal straps and rode away.

Instead of being honest, he ran away. Instead of confronting the issue, he hid from it.

Yeah, he was definitely more like his father than he’d thought.

Alessandra stood in the living room, holding the telephone.

Harry cleared his throat and she jumped.

“Oh,” she said. “Harry. Hi.”

He just looked at her.

“I thought you went out to the store.”

He didn’t say a word, didn’t move a muscle.

She dropped the receiver into the cradle, and in one nervous motion, sat down on the couch, drawing up her
knees and hugging them close to her chest. “I wasn’t calling him.”

She looked nice today. Her hair hung shiny and smooth around her shoulders, her face carefully made up, her lipstick a work of art. She was wearing a blue sweater that was almost a perfect match for the color of her eyes, and a pair of jeans that were more expensive than most of the suits he wore to work.

She looked like something you’d want to wrap in plastic—kind of the way his grandmother had covered the furniture in her living room because it was too good to actually use.

“I promised you,” she told him earnestly. “And I … know you probably don’t believe this, but I keep my promises.”

Harry sighed. He took a step farther into the room. “So who were you calling?”

She bit her lip. “Look, I know I’m not supposed to make any phone calls—”

“Then what the hell were you doing? And don’t tell me you couldn’t stand another day not talking to your pals on the Psychic Friends Hotline.”

She was holding her knees so tightly, her knuckles were almost white. “I was going to call the Northshore Children’s Hospital.”

He just waited for her to explain.

“Jane had her final heart operation this morning,” Alessandra whispered. “I just … I need to know if she’s okay.”

Jane? Who the hell was Jane? The answer came to him in a flash. Northshore Children’s Hospital. Jane was the baby that Alessandra had told him about. The one she’d wanted to adopt.

“She’s had a … heart operation? Jesus, can babies have heart operations?”

Alessandra nodded. “She was born with some kind of hole in her heart. They have this new method of going in and creating some kind of patch and—” She shook her head. “I just … wanted to find out if she … you know, survived.”

“Oh, shit.” Harry started to pace.

If this was some kind of story she was handing him, this woman should be given an Oscar. He turned to look back at her.

Her face was so pale, her lips so tight.

No way was she that good of an actress.

“What was your connection with Northshore Children’s?” he asked. “Was it just some place you went when you decided to try to adopt?”

“No. I did volunteer work there,” she told him. “Fund-raising. Why?”

“And this was something people knew about?”

“Yes.”

Damn. “How about your connection to this baby? Did people know about that, too?”

“I didn’t keep it a secret,” she said. “Why?”

“I can’t let you call them,” Harry told her. “I’m sorry, but it’s too risky.”

“Isn’t there any way we could find out?” Alessandra asked. “I just keep thinking of all the things that could’ve gone wrong, and … I just want to know if she’s okay.”

Harry picked up the phone and dialed the New York City Bureau office, punched in Nicole Fenster’s extension.

“Fenster.” Nicki sounded more and more like Joe Friday every day.

“Nicki, it’s Harry O’Dell. I need you to call the Northshore Children’s Hospital out on the Island and find out the status of one Baby Jane Doe, who had a heart operation this morning.”

Nicole sighed, extremely exasperated. “Has it occurred to you that I might have better things to do with my time?”

“This is one call you definitely don’t want us to make,” Harry said. “We need this information like an hour ago. This baby is special to Barbara Conway. Call me right back.”

He hung up without waiting for Nic’s response.

Alessandra had such hope in her eyes. “Will she really call back?”

“Sure,” he said. There was a notebook, its top page filled with incredibly sloppy handwriting next to the telephone. He picked it up and read a description of sunlight on the ocean, the feel of the sand, and the smell of the beach. It wasn’t half bad. “What’s this?”

Alessandra snatched it away from him. “That’s private.”

“Did you write that?”

She held it against her chest, obviously embarrassed.