“And that didn’t count as a wish?”
Melody shook her head. Her hair tickled his flesh as it moved over his skin.
“What did count?”
“My master had to say I wish for whatever and believe it. Really believe it. I didn’t think Billy was going to be able to free me because he was a little out of it right there at the end.”
“And you only give three wishes.”
“Three wishes.”
“And you can’t bring back the dead or make anyone love you.”
“No, I can bring back the dead. Could have. I did a couple of times, but they are still rotting so it’s pretty gross and they’re not usually very happy about being back. Making somebody love you never worked out really well either.” Melody propped herself on her elbow and started tracing circles on his chest. “If one person doesn’t like another person and I changed something about them to fix that, it changed the person. They ended up not being the person the wisher originally loved. Honestly, most wishes didn’t turn out very good.”
A hole opened up under Jerry. Making one person love another person changed something about them. They ended up not being the person the wisher loved. Melody was trying to grant his wish. She was trying to change to be what he wanted. And when she did that, she was going to stop being the woman he loved. “Why?”
“Wish for talent and you end up the most talented person in the poor house. Wish for fame and you’re hounded. Wish for money and suddenly you have a lot of friends who aren’t friends. Wish for women and you end up with a bickering harem you can’t support. Wish for beauty and no one loves you for who you are. And then you’re out of wishes and you’re angry.”
“What did Billy do right?”
“For one thing, Billy made a good first wish.”
“What did he wish for first?”
“He just wanted to make a living at music.”
“So he rubbed your lamp and wished to make a living at music?”
“That’s a myth. I could be summoned just by making a wish. Most of the time my master’s first wish was for food.”
“Food?”
“Yeah. Boy, do I wish I had a turkey sandwich right now. I wish I could taste Mama’s lasagna one more time. I wish I had a cold beer. My masters were usually not happy with the results of their first wish. Billy just happened to say that he wished he could make a comfortable living at music not long after he bought my lamp.”
“What was his second wish?”
“He wished away his arthritis. I told him to wish for good health, but he didn’t listen. If he had, he’d still be alive.” She smiled at him. “But then I wouldn’t have you.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” And that might be better for both of them. “We should get moving. We have a lot of work to do today. What time is that collector coming to pick up the records?”
“Two o’clock.”
“We’ll be able to get everything over to your new place and then wait for him while we’re cleaning this place up.” He swatted her butt. “Let’s get moving.” Because the sooner they got moving, the sooner he’d stop thinking.
She stood up at the side of the bed and looked down at him, her expression serious. “Are you sure?”
He smiled, but didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure. Not at all.
* * * *
“’Night, Melody,” George, the owner, called from the door of the coffee shop. “Be careful on the way home.”
“I will.” Melody studied the sidewalk passing under her feet. The pretty summer evening didn’t make a dent even though all day, everyone had been commenting how beautiful it was outside. She’d known Jerry didn’t want her. That afternoon in bed, she’d known. The fact that he hadn’t been to the coffee shop in a week and hadn’t stopped by her apartment once either confirmed it. The few times he had called, he had sounded perfunctory. Making sure she was settling in and everything was okay. Okay. He said okay a lot.
He’d made his wish. He didn’t wish for her. Melody pursed her lips. It had never hurt before when they didn’t wish for her. This time it felt like a hole had been ripped in her chest. She’d been trying to fill the space, but nothing quite fit. A few of the librarians at the local branch were coming to recognize her when she stopped in. One of the customers at the coffee shop believed she was a jazz buff because of the stories she could tell, and she’d learned to phrase things so they didn’t sound weird. George had agreed to allow her to experiment with the coffee. There were a few customers for whom espresso wasn’t hot and bitter enough who asked her to make cawa for them. Two of the other baristas, Sue and Parker, had invited her out to lunch in a couple of days. Over time, she hoped it would be enough. She had plenty of experience waiting.
Her purse strap jerked. Automatically, she grabbed for it, stumbling forward when it kept going.
A skinny man with a hood pulled over his head had the other end. He yanked and she lost her footing. The pavement pounded into her knees and the material on her jeans gave way. She held onto the purse strap with both hands.
“It’s mine! Let go!” she shrieked.
“Hey! What’s going on?”
The other person let go of the strap. Melody fell forward, her elbows connecting with the cement before her cheek. She heard footsteps running away under the pain rattling through her head from the impact. Pain flared in her knees, elbows and cheek.
“Lady, are you okay?”
Melody squeezed her eyes shut. Okay. Jerry always asked if she was okay. But Jerry hadn’t wished for her. “I’m fine.”
“You’re one tough chick.” The man helping her to her feet beamed at her. He sort of looked like Jerry. Blue eyes, blond hair. A little more hair, a little softer around the jaw. “You need an ambulance? Want me to call the police?”
The police. Jerry would come and he would be disappointed that she couldn’t take care of herself. He might even be repulsed because she was such a hopeless case. “No, I don’t need the police.” Melody stood and inspected the knees of her jeans. They were a total loss. Huge holes in both knees that were now covered in blood. Her elbows were much worse. Even though she hadn’t been dragged by them, they hadn’t had the protection of denim.
“Lady, you really need to get that looked at.”
A dark-haired man jogged up to them and then bent over with his hands on his knees. “Got away.” He gasped. “Couldn’t catch him.”
Sirens screamed in the distance and a woman came out of her house carrying a dishcloth. “I called 911,” she said. “That man has been lurking around here for days. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I was sure he was up to no good. Here, wipe off your elbows.”
Melody had seen the tight-lipped blonde working in her yard a few times on her way to or from the coffee shop, but hadn’t been able to get more than a suspicious “hi” out of her before now. She patted the cloth on her elbows and wondered why it didn’t hurt. Everything was hazy and distant. “I’m all right. I don’t need to go to the hospital.”
“You have to give a statement to the police,” the woman insisted.
Oh no, they had already called Jerry. He would be here soon and he would be so disappointed. “But I don’t want to.” Melody took a step back, but the sidewalk moved and she staggered.
The blond man caught her arm. “You should sit down or something.”
“I just want to go home and take a bath,” Melody muttered as the two men guided her to the curb. The world wavered.
“The paramedics are here. You might as well let them look at you,” the dark-haired man said, easing her down. The paramedic truck came around the corner and rolled to a stop in front of them. Another siren approached from the opposite direction.
“Hi there.” One of the paramedics knelt in front of her, flashing a penlight in her eyes. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Some guy tried to grab my purse and I didn’t let go.” Melody frowned. Why hadn’t she let go? On television they always said it was safer to let go.
<
br /> “You hit your head?” He turned her face to inspect her cheek. His hands were soft and warm. He had nice blue eyes too. He didn’t seem at all disappointed in her, and the confident way he tended to her made her feel safe.
“That was the last thing that happened. I went down on my knees and then my elbows.”
“Ow. That looks nasty.”
The patrol car arrived and a uniformed officer climbed out. Not Jerry, then. The other paramedic opened a box of first aid stuff.
“How come your boyfriend wasn’t walking you home?”
Melody’s mouth went dry. She could hear the other people talking to the police officer and the other paramedic rifling through the box. The one who was working on her had started dabbing at her elbow with an antiseptic. She clenched her teeth to keep from flinching. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Really? What are you doing for lunch tomorrow?”
“Dan,” his partner muttered.
“I’m serious.” He looked her in the eye. “I am serious. What are you doing for lunch tomorrow?”
“Where are you taking me?” She smiled.
He laughed. “Great.”
“Excuse me, miss. I need some information.” The officer tapped his pen on his notebook. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Melody Welsh.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “Melody Welsh? You must be having a really bad month.”
“Yeah.” Melody watched Dan work in her knees. He had to cut the hole bigger before he could clean out the scrapes. She had liked these jeans.
“Wasn’t Detective Howland handling you?”
Detective Howland? Jerry. “He helped me after my grandfather died.”
“You want me to call him?”
“No.”
Too much anger must have slipped into her voice. Dan drew back and the officer glanced up from his pad. Her three rescuers stopped talking. She might have been imagining it, but she’d have sworn the birds stopped chirping and traffic stopped moving on the main road two blocks away where the coffee shop sat. She pictured everyone in a one mile radius staring at her with their mouths open.
“I don’t have to call in Howland,” the officer said slowly. “Can I have your address?”
Melody answered the rest of his questions while Dan bandaged her knees. Dan told her she should go to the emergency room, but she refused. She didn’t refuse his offer to walk her the rest of the way home so she could give him her number. He wasn’t Jerry. Not solid enough, but he seemed like he might fill the hole for a little while. Tara and Gina, two of the girls from the coffee shop, were always talking about men they had gone out with and men they wanted to go out with. People on television always dated different people too. It was what people, independent people, did. So she would date. Like a normal, independent person.
Chapter 5
Jerry leaned back in his desk chair and stared at the computer screen. Shift’s end and nothing to do. He’d closed every case he’d been assigned this week and filed all the paperwork for the DA’s office. Every night, he’d stayed late to finish up so he didn’t have to go home and look at that stupid brass lamp sitting right where she’d left it that day when she’d stalked him to his house. Between the lamp and Amanda’s pictures, he didn’t even want to go home.
But he couldn’t do that again. He couldn’t deal with another woman who needed him so much that he had to be there for her every moment. It wasn’t fair to either of them. Melody should have her own life. If she’d been a slave for thousands of years–and there was no saying whether she had been or not–she deserved to be free.
“Hey, Howland.” Szabo strolled across the room with his hat under his arm, the image of a perfect patrolman. “I ran into that girl last night.”
“What girl?”
“The girl from Welsh’s closet. His granddaughter, or whatever she was.”
“Melody, she was his granddaughter. What about her?” Melody. Sweet Melody. Szabo must have stopped in the coffee shop to talk to her. He was probably working up to asking her out. That was going to be painful.
“She almost had her purse snatched last night.”
“What?” Jerry shot up out of his chair so fast it rolled into Nulty’s desk. “What do you mean she had her purse snatched? Is she okay? Where did it happen? When?”
“I said almost. She wouldn’t give it up even though he dragged her halfway down the block. Paramedics were on scene when I got there, but the fire station is right around the corner practically.”
“Paramedics?”
“She got scraped up pretty bad. Elbows, knees. She was limping a little when the paramedic walked her home.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” Jerry started for the door.
“She didn’t want me to.”
Jerry spun around. “What?”
Szabo hadn’t moved from the side of his desk. “I asked her as soon as I recognized her and she was pretty firm about not calling you.”
Jerry’s gut fell through the floor. He’d called her to make sure she was okay. Not yesterday, but the day before. On the phone she’d sounded fine. Making friends and organizing her life. She didn’t sound like she hated him. But to not want to see him when she was in trouble?
“She was pretty tough about the whole thing. Didn’t get hysterical or anything. She didn’t even want to go to the hospital. Just wanted to go home.” Szabo shrugged. “I just thought I ought to tell you.”
“Thanks.” She didn’t hate him, she was just being independent like he told her to. Great advice, moron.
“Sure thing. You want me to make sure I drive past her place and make sure everything’s kosher?”
Jerry nodded. A drive-by. She didn’t even need to know it was happening. That wouldn’t interfere with her independence. “If you could try to time it for when the coffee shop closes, I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll do my best.” Szabo strolled out of the room. “See you around, Howland.”
Jerry returned to his desk long enough to shut down his computer. Then he headed out. He needed to see Melody and explain. He’d only meant to pull back so she could learn to live her own life. Maybe she’d heard something in his voice that made her think he didn’t want her. What had they said the day he helped her move? He’d explained to her that he couldn’t be the caretaker for another person. Had she misunderstood that? He’d only meant that he wanted her to live on her own for a while, not that he never wanted to see her again.
But he hadn’t stopped to see her in a week. They had the conversation, had sex, finished moving her out on her own and…
He’d left. Like a jerk.
She had been so fucking angry that he wouldn’t forgive her for getting arrested. Why would he need to forgive her? He hadn’t been upset. It was a pretty logical mistake on her part. When they’d donated Billy’s body to the medical school, she’d started to sign the old coot’s name on that paperwork. She’d always signed Billy’s name. Jerry had had to teach her to sign her own.
He drove to the coffee shop and parked on the street. When he strolled inside, she wasn’t behind the counter so he leaned into the dining room. A couple of guys playing chess. A few people on their computers. A couple more reading while they sipped their coffee. No Melody. He stopped the kid who was wiping down tables.
“Where’s Melody?”
“It’s her day off. You want me to tell her you came by?”
“No, thanks. I’ll stop by her place.”
The kid shrugged. “Sure thing.”
He drove to her apartment. Once upon a time it had been a single family home, now chopped up into three little apartments. Her place was on the second floor. It was a nice little place. From the look of things, it had been the master bedroom before the house was divided up. One big room with a little kitchen, a little bath and an enclosed porch that she was using as a bedroom. It wasn’t as nice as Billy Welsh’s, but it was secure and she could afford it. From his car, he called her. The phone in her apartment r
ang and rang. She refused to have a cell phone. Claimed they were unnatural.
Jerry sat in the car looking at the house. Knocking at the door would be useless because her apartment door was up a short flight of stairs and down the hall. Even if she did hear it, he’d told her not to answer unless she expected someone to come over. She’d laughed and said that meant she never had to answer the door because she didn’t have any friends to come over.
If he’d paid attention to comments like that for ten seconds, he’d have known not to leave her alone. She was far too vulnerable to handle modern life on her own. He’d been so selfish, wanting to make her stand on her own so she wouldn’t lean on him.
Jerry slouched in the driver’s seat and wished he’d at least bought a cup of coffee to keep him company on this stakeout. All he could do now was sit here and analyze every word they’d said since he opened that interview room door. Maybe he should throw in the towel on this independence experiment. If she stood up to a thief, she wasn’t a shrinking violet. Amanda would have thrown her purse at the man and run in the other direction. No, Amanda hadn’t liked to go out after dark. When she had to stay home alone at night, she’d insisted that a patrol car stop at the house to make sure she was okay and she’d walked around with the cordless phone in her pocket. Melody hadn’t blinked at the thought of walking home alone after dark.
Tonight, when she got home from where ever she was, he was going to tell her he’d changed his mind. He wanted her with him. Where he could protect her.
Long after he’d run out of all his favorite stakeout games and started inventing new ones, a car parked half a block away. A guy got out. Young, athletic. Bringing his girl home from a date. Hoping to get inside her apartment tonight, or at least to get the promise of another date. Jerry couldn’t even remember being that young. Right now he felt older than God. The young stud bounded to the other side and opened the passenger door.
Melody climbed out.
The guy put his arm over her shoulders as he guided her up the stairs to the outside door of her place. They were talking and laughing. Melody wore one of her old dresses that covered her elbows and knees. It looked like something Jackie Kennedy would have worn. Melody didn’t have on a pillbox hat though. Instead she had her hair pulled up in a clip. It spilled down her back, as shiny and black as oil. She looked elegant and confident and happy. So incredibly beautiful it made his heart hurt. Even the careful way she walked didn’t mar the picture.
Melody Unchained Page 6
