The Hidden Man (6 page)

“My ‘experience’?”

“Not the training itself. But can you think of anything that you and Vignette might have ever discussed about it? Anything that might cause her to…” He stopped and sighed.

“All right. You have my attention now,” Shane quietly said. He glanced over at Blackburn for an instant before turning back to the road.

“I guess what I am trying to ask you is whether you can think of where she might have gotten any strange ideas about it. About your leaving.”

“About my being asked not to come back?”

“I know they were wrong, but—”

“They weren’t. I didn’t belong there, that’s all.”

“But is that what you told her? Because I don’t know, she seems to think—”

“I told her that I just wanted to impress you.” He let that one hang there for a second, then grinned and added, “That was before I realized that you would be so much more impressed if I got a job as a waiter in a fancy restaurant.”

“I’m the last man in the world you need to impress.”

“Ha! Mmm. Sorry to disagree again, but you’re probably the only person either of us feels much called upon to impress at all. Anyway, what about Vignette?” Shane grinned in anticipation. “All right, tell me. What did she do now?”

SHORTLY

THE BLACKBURN-NIGHTINGALE RESIDENCE

V
IGNETTE OPENED HER BEDROOM DOOR
in response to Shane’s knock. Her hair was wrapped in a towel; she wore a long bathrobe and was holding a copy of Jack London’s
Call of the Wild.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m getting ready for—”

Shane pushed past her and walked into her room without a word. He sat down on a straight-backed chair at the foot of her bed.

Vignette sighed, closed the door, and then spoke while her back was still to him. “All right, Shane, the only time you come in here and flop down like that is when you’ve got a bone to pick.”

She turned to face him. “So let’s hear it, because this is still my room and I’m not leaving.”

She waited. He said nothing.

“…I’m supposed to guess? That is just lovely, Shane.”

He still said nothing, but he finally turned to face her. When he did, he held her gaze.

Vignette sighed and shook her head. “You know it’s really very late for you to be like this with me. I ought to be asleep at this hour. Why don’t you spare us a lot of wasted time and just say whatever it is that you came here to say?”

Shane fixed her with an expectant look, but he still said nothing.

“Oh, come on, now. Is it really so bad? What could be so bad? I’m tired, Shane. Tell me what’s on your—”

She stopped and went pale.

“Oh wait. Is it…Did you hear something? Is that it? It is? That’s it?…What did you hear? Who told you?”

She spun toward the door in alarm, then back to Shane. “Was it from Randall? Did you hear it from him? Just
tell
me, Shane, damn it!

“It was Randall, wasn’t it? Isn’t that right? The point is, where did he hear it, though? You know what I mean? How many other people know?

“Damn it, Shane! You know I hate it when you stare at me like that! If you don’t stop I’m going to make you get out of here. I mean it. How much does he know?”

Shane looked away from her and slowly shook his head.

She took in a deep breath. “Everything? He knows everything? How is that possible? Who told him?”

Vignette whirled and began nervously pacing the room. “I was only going to go back for another day or two. Maybe a week. I knew it had to stop. I just, I just wanted to show that I could do it. To prove it can be done!”

Vignette kneeled next to his chair and took both his hands. “Shane, you have to believe me. I didn’t do it as some sort of reaction because you left that place. I know you didn’t belong there. Didn’t I tell you that you didn’t belong there? Hell, I don’t belong there either. But nobody
expects
me to be there, you understand? That’s the thing. You see that, right? That’s why I had to go! You do see that. Right?”

Shane regarded her for a long moment with a wary smile, before he finally exhaled and shook his head again. He nodded at her, stood up with a great sigh, then embraced her in a bear hug and did not say anything at all.

“All right, look,” she said. “I don’t think that we need to mention this again. As far as I’m concerned, anyway. You know how some people always have to go back over things and back over things? As if they could just drill them into your head? Not us. Because it’s settled. That’s what I think.”

Shane held her and gently patted her back. She tightened her grip on him the way that she liked to do, one of the only two men in the world that it was safe to hug like that. It was a quick test to see if things were all right. She knew within a few heartbeats that they were. Shane’s hug was deep and strong and did not hold back any of his love for her. It was a brother’s love, with the erotic component safely missing. She had no idea how he accomplished that, any more than she could imagine how Randall did, either. It struck her that these were the only two men on the planet who did not represent a threat to her.

As far as experience had taught her, any man who was given the chance would lunge for her on any pretext, hands grabbing for her face and body. They sometimes descended like flies, either because she was pretty and petite, or because she was a youthful-looking nineteen and appeared to be easy prey.

So much of her love for Shane and Randall was heightened by her gratitude and amazement that after nine years together, both men had always accepted her story about her shared lineage with Shane. She
said
that she was his sister, so that was enough for them. And from that moment on, they treated her accordingly in every way.

It was a mystery to her; Vignette had no other experience for comparison. Her own sexual innocence was gone long before her body had matured. She was forced to learn about feminine wiles and male gratification as a matter of her survival, back when the so-called friars at the orphanage still got away with things like that because she was only “Mary Kathleen,” and that little girl lacked the skills to
move things around
well enough to keep herself protected.

By the time she renamed herself and fled for the streets, her innocence had melted within the corrosive atmosphere of the place. The authority figures who did it to her had always carefully explained why their actions were all her own fault, for arousing their desire.

Nine years earlier, the first time it hit her that she and Shane and Randall were actually going to move in together, she felt the beginnings of a slow panic. How was it possible to survive being alone in the close company of two males? The question burned in the pit of her stomach, a sort of vigil fire, while she waited for the betrayal that was sure to follow. She never went so far as to sleep with a knife under her pillow, but it took the first couple of years for the one in the back of her mind to dissolve away.

She had no idea what particular part of their brains these two men were using that she had never witnessed anywhere else, but she had seen its effect. Her knowledge of it was thicker than water. That knowledge also presented the main quandary of her life, because it did not permit her to loathe and despise men. Otherwise that would have come to her as naturally as breathing.

And then there it was: another example, right there, when Shane released her, stepped back, and grabbed her by the jawline. He playfully squeezed her face. Then he pushed her away with a gentle shove, turned around, and walked out without having said a word.

It took another hour or so before Randall Blackburn peeked around the door frame to the living room and spotted Vignette sitting in a darkened corner. He walked on in and stepped over to the gas fireplace.

“Hi. Why don’t you come on over and have a seat by the fire?”

“I like it in the shadows, right now.”

“Good enough, if you’re happy there. I’ll just sit here where I can poke up the flames.” He smiled at the little joke while he scooted closer to the gas fireplace. Vignette did not react. “Shane went to bed?”

She spoke up from her place in the shadows, without looking up. “Yes.”

He pantomimed poking at the fire with a stick, smiled at her, then stopped poking and stopped smiling. “Well then, uh, I’m glad you waited up.”

“It’s not as if I had a choice or something.”

“What?”

“Stop it, Randall! I can tell she said something. I know she did. She’s like that. She broke the news to me that they had found me out, because the police told her when they came to put in that damned telephone thing. She wanted me to be the one to tell you, at least that’s what she said. Except she had to go and do it herself.
I
was supposed to tell you!”

“Vignette, Miss Freshell hasn’t told me anything. And the police didn’t tell her anything, either.”

“And you still call her ‘Miss Freshell,’ Randall, putting her up on a pedestal!”

“Just because I show her respect—this conversation is not about her.”

“Who?”

“Miss Freshell.”

“Ah.

“Who is still not the topic.”

“No, right now, the topic is who told you.”

“Captain Merced told me. Tonight, at the theatre, during the show. Not that it matters.”

“…oh.”

He sat still after that, staring into the fireplace, waiting for her. Eventually, she found her voice.

“You can think it through all you want. Doesn’t matter. Nothing changes. And nothing changes because it’s so simple.”

“What’s simple?”

“That there’s nothing out there for me, Randall. There never was and it never changes.”

“All right. I know you say that, Vignette, but—”

“There’s nothing out there for me! And so there’s nothing wrong with me staying here and not being in any hurry to go be a spinster somewhere.”

“Don’t use that stupid word. You’re far too young for it. Even if you were twice your age, it would still be a stupid word.”

“And I am sure as hell not anybody’s wife, not anybody’s mother. How do words like that fit me? Can you see me doing that?”

“Not right now, maybe, but you’re still young.”

“So how long does it take until you know?”

“…Don’t ask me. But you don’t want to wait as long as I did, Vignette. I mean, I’ve been single ever since I lost…that was too many years ago. You can look at me and see that, can’t you?”

“No I can’t, in fact. What’s wrong with it? Our lives are good, just like they are. Far as I’m concerned.”

“Yes. But things change. In life.” He groaned to himself.
Things change in life?
If he had already reduced himself to saying something like that, he was in cold, deep water.

He tried again. “You understand, though, right? After a while…I think, whoever you are, after a while, you don’t want to be alone.”

She took a deep breath, then shook her head. “You, maybe. I think that it’s about the only thing that will work for me.”

“Vignette, here it is: You can’t go into any of the precinct houses. You can’t go into the City Hall Station, anymore. Not for a year or so, anyway. Maybe longer. It depends on how long it takes for this to be forgotten. And the men who run an organization like this, the thing they fear the most is looking weak. In their minds, for a young woman to beat them at their own game by fooling them like you did, it makes them look ridiculous.”

“I don’t even know those particular fellows, and I can’t see how they can take personal offense.”

“I just told you how. And what you think, what I think, it just doesn’t matter. They react automatically to something like this, like swatting a fly. The important thing now is for us to make sure that these men don’t notice you for a while. We don’t want them to think about you at all.”

“I swear, Randall, if I had to stay home and keep house for some man just because he stuck a ring on my finger, I’d go insane. How do the wives avoid suicide?”

“The
police,
Vignette, I’m talking to you about the police. Now the thing that you have going for you in this is the fact that they want to hush it all up. Women aren’t supposed to be able to do what you were doing, and apparently doing quite well. And right now, the city is so conscious of its civic image that they just want it all to go away. You’re in luck.”

“I didn’t know a city could feel things.”

“I mean the people I work for.”

“They’re not going to take this out on you, are they?”

“What, on me? Why would they do that?”

“Right. I know. So they won’t do it then?”

“Don’t you worry about me. Let’s talk about what you’re going to do with yourself, with your life.”

“Oh. Well, I can get married. Or be a spinster schoolteacher. Or a spinster librarian. Or maybe even a spinster retail clerk! Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Vignette!” he was loud, nearly shouting. Randall never shouted at her. It immediately got her attention. When she finally raised her eyes to meet his gaze, she was surprised to see more pain in him than she felt herself.

“I have to be able to trust you, Vignette.”

“But…You can, though. You still can. Regardless.”

“Police training?”

“Sometimes I could explode, Randall! I swear I could! None of the roads ahead of me are going to anywhere that I need to be. Not even anywhere I can stand to think of being.”

“Regardless. The three of us only have each other as long as there is that trust.”

“You and Shane can trust me.”

“We can. Except when you decide that you need to do something like this.”

Vignette sighed, dropped her head into her hands, and silently rocked from side to side.

“I know you have to live on your own terms. But I hate to see you rely on your money like that.”

“Randall, if I keep my life simple, I can live off of that investment for years and years. And all of that time, I won’t have to cram myself into somebody else’s little world.”

“That’s good. But what I’m afraid of is that at some point the money runs out or the investment goes bad, and if that happens, you’ll be stuck out there on your own without any decent skills.”

“I can do all kinds of things, as far as working at a job, Randall. I just can’t stomach the way that they’ll treat me. And I don’t care if it’s the same way that they treat the other women. Those damned women seem like a herd of cows to me.”