Knock Me Off My Feet (12 page)

Quinn was jolted out of his melancholy by Matt Lawler's delivery of his beer. "Perfect, Matt. Thanks."

He felt the dark, rich stout slide down mellow and smoky at the back of his throat and sighed. A pint was always best at Keenan's, in the company of his brothers and in the memory of John.

"So, how's lifestyles of the rich and fatuous, Stacey?" Pat smiled at him.

"Oh, it's rough," Quinn answered.

"Tell Pat about the household hints chick. He's gonna love it." Michael's eyes flashed above his full cheeks. "He's working on a stalking case with Homey Helen. Can you believe it? Is that perfect or what?"

"Really?" Patrick took a reverent sip of his own pint and eyed his older brother. "The new one or the dead one?"

"The dead one would be easier to handle." Quinn raised an eyebrow as his brothers laughed.

"The dead always are," Pat said broodingly. "It's the living that piss me off to no end."

"Bad day in the confessional, Father Pat?" Quinn asked.

"The usual." He waved his hand and sighed. "So somebody's stalking Homey Helen? What the hell for, to get their hands on her secret recipe for window cleaner?"

"Haven't quite figured that out yet," Quinn said. "Could take a while."

"I've seen her on TV," Michael offered. "She's a complete babe. Now tell Pat who she used to date."

Quinn leaned across the booth and whispered, "Timmy Burke."

Pat nearly spit out his beer. "Jaysus! No way!"

Quinn nodded. "A little over a year ago. Just after he oozed his way into City Hall."

"My God, is the poor woman daft or just a rotten judge of character?" Pat asked.

Quinn shrugged. "I think Timmy pulled his usual on her. She didn't hang around long. She's too good for him."

"My shit-stained drawers are too good for Timmy Burke," Michael quipped.

"Yeah, well I had to go talk to the man this morning."

Both Pat and Michael went silent.

"He's a possible suspect, like all her old boyfriends," Quinn continued. "Would you believe that bastard made me wait outside his office for twenty minutes?"

Pat cleared his throat. "How long had it been since you talked to him, Stace?"

"I don't know. Mom's funeral, I guess, so a couple years."

Pat nodded silently, feeling Michael kick him under the table. "What?" he whispered, scowling at Michael. "Stop it, you eejit."

Quinn shook his head at his brothers. "We were quite civil to each other, as far as Timmy and I go. No bloody noses or anything. He just threatened to fire me." He smiled. "Of course, I'd like nothing more than to arrest the dickhead, but Audie seems to think he's got nothing to do with the threats."

"Who's Audie?" Michael asked, confused.

"Oh. Homey Helen. Her real name is Autumn Adams—people call her Audie."

Pat set down his beer and smiled at Quinn, relieved to direct the conversation anywhere other than Timmy Burke. He wanted to enjoy himself tonight.

"So did you tell this Audie person how important she was to Mom? How she made our lives an anal-retentive hell?"

Quinn laughed at Pat. "That was
her
mother, really, but I may have mentioned it. I kind of had to. She saw Mom's
box."

Michael jerked back as if Quinn had slapped him. "The box at your place?"

"Shit…
"
he hissed to himself, rubbing a hand over his face. Quinn was toast now and he knew it.

"Need I remind you you're under oath, Stacey?" Michael draped a big arm around his brother's shoulders and grinned. "You had the squeaky-clean babe in your house and I bet you weren't reorganizing the linen closet."

"So he likes her, so what?" Pat said, frowning at Michael. "It's not a big deal. Leave him be."

"The hell it's not a big deal!" Michael's eyes went wide. "I think it's the first time he's brought a woman to his house since Laura took off. Am I right?"

Pat's eyebrows shot up. "Really? Is that true, Stace?"

He wasn't responding to his brother's taunts in his usual brusque fashion, and Pat wondered if Stacey still hurt over Laura—it had been more than a year since she'd had a fling with Timmy Burke and then left with the radio disc jockey. And good riddance to her, Pat thought. She wasn't right for Stacey, not that anyone in the family ever dared say so to his face.

Pat studied his older brother carefully, almost hearing the gears inside his brain as they clicked into place.

"Uh-oh," Pat whispered, turning to Michael, suddenly making the connection.

"Hel-lo," Michael said in singsong.

"Shut up, both of you," Quinn said, looking
down into his pint glass. "I like her."

Michael's lips flapped together in a sudden burst of laughter and Pat joined in. "Well, of course you'd like her, Stacey!" Michael said. "She's your fantasy woman!"

"Martha Stewart…
"
Pat began.

"And Carmen Electra," Michael finished for him.

"So we were wrong—she does exist," Pat whispered respectfully, before he and Michael began laughing again. "No, really, I think that's great, Stace," Pat said. "So how
much
do you like her?"

Good question, Quinn thought to himself. What did it mean when a woman you'd just met monopolized your thoughts? What did it mean when you stayed away from her because you didn't trust yourself in her presence? What did it mean when you wanted her to have your grandmother's handkerchiefs and saw her face every time you closed your eyes?

"A lot, I guess." Quinn took another gulp of Guinness as his brothers exchanged glances.

"Have you winterized her yet?" Michael asked, and Quinn saw the glint in his eye.

"Jaysus, Mike. I've only known her a couple weeks. I think it's a little early for that."

"You can never do it soon enough," Michael said, quite serious. "I'll never forget what happened with Bridget Feeney—gorgeous woman, but she went totally psycho on me that winter. It was like a five-month-long case of PMS. I should've tested her in the fall, but I forgot. I was distracted by her ass."

Pat frowned. "What the hell does
winterized
mean? I have a feeling you're not talking about antifreeze."

Michael and Quinn nearly busted a gut.

"Actually, it
is
kind of like that," Quinn said.

"Look, Pat," Michael explained patiently. "You can never really know a woman until you go through a
Chicago
winter with her, OK? The cold, the wind, the flu, scraping ice off the car, shoveling out your parking space—from November to March, that's when the real woman comes out.

"Incredibly bad things can happen during that time, let me tell you," Michael continued. "Ugly things. But if you can stand her during winter, you've got a good one. Sheila passed with flying colors. It's one of the reasons I married her."

Pat's mouth hung open. "Lovely. But that doesn't explain why in God's name the woman married
you,
Michael." Then he turned to Quinn, frowning. "Are these lucky gals aware they're being tested?"

"No," Quinn said. "That would skew the results."

Pat scowled at him.

Quinn held up his hands in defense. "It's nothing awful, Pat. All you do is ask a couple basic questions, like what she'd enjoy doing on a Sunday afternoon in February."

"And this accomplishes what?" Pat asked.

"Well," Michael said thoughtfully, "the best answers involve food, televised sports, beer, and sex in any combination."

"There's a range of good answers," Quinn added. "But if she mentions sex and beer, things are looking up."

Pat shook his head. "Good God, I'm glad I'm a priest."

They all felt him before they saw him—the room pulsed with energy when the door opened and Jamie Quinn strolled in, exchanging warm greetings all around.

"Hello, boy-os," he said, eventually sliding his big, sturdy body in next to Pat. "Did I miss anything?"

Pat nodded and gestured with his pint glass. "We were just talking about Stacey's new girlfriend, Da."

Jamie leaned toward his oldest and tapped a beefy fist on the table, grinning. "It's about damn time, lad," he said, settling back in the booth. "Well now. Let's just hope she's not the pain in the arse that Laura was, shall we?" He winked at Pat and Michael. "That woman gave me pontab of the gullet every time I saw her."

* * *

Audie lay sprawled out on the Italian couch, realizing yet again that she hated the feel of leather against her skin, especially in the summer, realizing yet again that for all its glitz, she hated this apartment.

It was sleek and huge and she felt insignificant and uncomfortable in it. The city lights and the dark lake were beautiful at night, beautiful and big and powerful—but all it did was make her feel small.

She thought of her old apartment in Wrigleyville, with the big oak tree in the backyard, its crooked little back porch, the neighborhood sounds and the cooking smells, the old clawfoot bathtub, the cozy bedroom. It fit her like a favorite sweatshirt—warm and comfortable and not trying to be anything it wasn't.

Why she let Marjorie convince her to move to Helen's place was anyone's guess. She was making a lot of stupid decisions around that time, if her memory served her correctly—one right after the next. She took on a job she didn't want and couldn't do. She agreed to pretend she was somebody she wasn't. She started living a life that belonged to someone else.

All for her mother. All for a woman who never loved her.

Audie closed her eyes at the awful memory of her mother's last hour. Her face was swollen and bruised from the attack and her hair was matted with blood. And the terror in her voice, the pleading…

It was the desperation that was Audie's undoing. The woman who was always perfect, polished, and poised was gone, and in her place was an old lady who was bleeding and trembling and could barely speak.

"I'm counting on you," her mother had whispered as they rolled her down the hallway. "Swear to me. Don't disappoint me, Autumn."

She was twenty-eight years old the night her mother died, but Helen could still slice her to the quick with those familiar words:
Don't disappoint me.
She said it, then reached for Audie's hand and died.

In her more self-pitying moments, Audie realized she had become Homey Helen to prove to her mother that she was worth loving, that she could be something other than a disappointment.

Stupid decisions, certainly.

And now what? Was a year long enough, Audie wondered? Did Helen ever look down from the Elizabeth Arden salon in the sky and feel rotten for putting her daughter in this position?

"Can I bag the
Banner
renewal and go back to my old life?" Audie asked out loud. "Will you forgive me if I at least
try
to be happy, Mom?"

Audie sighed. The woman was dead. She couldn't hear her and she couldn't love her. If Helen had ever wanted to do either of those things, she would have done them while she was alive.

With a sudden burst of energy, Audie hopped up from the couch and kicked a soccer ball down the long, dark hallway, hearing it smack dead center against the far wall.

"She scores," she mumbled to herself, "and the crowd goes wild." She heard her feet shuffle over what seemed like acres of carpets and wood floors before she reached the kitchen.

She walked around the long curved counter of teak and stainless steel and reached for the refrigerator handle.

"Gross." There were things in there that scared her.

"Crap." There was nothing to drink except water.

"Oh, hell." She opened the pantry to discover she was even out of tea bags.

Audie turned around and put hands to hips over her nightshirt—one of
Griffin
's soccer jerseys from his pro days. What was she doing? Was she nuts? It was a balmy Friday night in the big city and there she was—a reasonably attractive, pseudo-successful, still somewhat young woman, alone in her dark castle tower, talking to dead people, with nothing to eat or drink.

She was pathetic. She should be out enjoying her life.

Oh, wait. She had no life.

Her life lately consisted of following Marjorie's business plan, hanging out with Stanny-O and eating way too many Frango Mints, and waiting each day by the mailbox for the next death threat.

Oh, and let's not forget the best part about her life—Stacey Quinn! The intensely sexy cop who kissed her until her spine fused, then disappeared with some lame excuse, then sent her a gift so inexplicably sweet and personal that it made her cry.

Enough of that, she told herself—no more thinking of Stacey Quinn tonight. She'd see him Sunday. That would have to be enough. She was sexually frustrated. That was her problem. And Stacey Quinn was simply the hottest thing she'd ever seen in her life!

She covered her face in her hands and groaned. "You're such a jerk, Quinn," she whispered. Then she smiled in the dark.

It was beyond her control, so she gave in and wondered what he was up to right then, who he was with, what he was wearing, and whether he thought of her. She wondered who got to hear the sound of that gravelly voice and who was lucky enough to hear him laugh.