“Yes, p.m.” She frowned, setting the tray down on the foot of the bed. “Something to eat, sir?”
“No, thanks,” he murmured, distracted by the feel of his hand as he made a fist and let it go. A tingle perhaps, more than a normal person felt, but no sharp fallout from bundles of nerve endings.
Mrs. Fitz picked up the tray and moved it to right under his nose. “You’re going to want to see this, sir.”
“A sandwich?”
“The newspaper, sir. Gillian has made the news.”
He snatched it up and scanned the front page. Under the banner headline “Search for Nightshade Continues,” they had repeated that same ridiculous sketch. “Black Bart at the OK Corral,” Luke said derisively. Quickly he read the accompanying article.
Gillian Quinn, an elementary schoolteacher at the Benedict Academy in West Riverside, may well be the “emotional connection” forensic psychologist Arthur Dent noted in his Nightshade profile.
Quinn notes that she has been present at each appearance of the mysterious West Riverside vigilante. “I don’t know whether he is a former student of mine or perhaps just someone who agrees with me that the mayor’s plan to destroy our neighborhood for a casino is a terrible idea,” Quinn said. “But he knows me, that’s for sure.”
“What is she doing?” Luke cried. “‘He knows me, that’s for sure’? Is it open season on Nightshade all of a sudden? Or open season on Gilly?”
The article continued:
Police have indicated that they would be interested to know Nightshade’s real identity, but that it is not a priority at this time since he has committed no crime, but instead, stopped several. “We don’t encourage people to take the law into their own hands, but in an area as bad as West Riverside, every little bit helps,” said Police Commissioner Ronald Segretti.
“Oh, great. Gilly gets in her zinger about the mayor, but they still find a way to bash the neighborhood.” Luke shook his head. “I guess we can add Commissioner Segretti to our list of stooges on the mayor’s payroll.”
“Read on, Lucas,” Mrs. Fitz commanded. “You haven’t gotten to the worst part yet”
“It gets worse?”
“Since the police are not willing to locate Nightshade, I will have to do it myself,” Gillian Quinn said Sunday.
“Oh, Gilly…” he murmured, but he couldn’t avert his eyes from the paper.
“I’ll camp out in every dark alley in West Riverside if I have to, but I know he’ll come.”
“Like waving a red flag,” Luke said grimly. “Gilly, what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“We’ve already talked to everybody on Operation Gillian Watch, and they’re all on alert,” Mrs. Fitzhugh was quick to assure him. “No need to panic.”
He wasn’t panicking. He was furious. Luke stormed into the closet and shoved aside the false back, pushing into the secret passageway.
“Luke, what are you doing?” his housekeeper demanded, crowding in after him. “You can’t mean to—”
“If she wants Nightshade, Nightshade is what she gets.” He stopped at the small storage room off to one side, delving into a trunk for the old padded hockey uniform his grandfather had worn when he was young. He started to drop his pajama bottoms. “Staying around for a show?”
“No, of course not.” Mrs. Fitzhugh skedaddled, but he could hear her hovering in the bedroom outside the closet, pacing, fretting.
He dragged on the padded pants and jersey, pulled black warm-up pants on over that and finally grabbed the long black coat and fedora off the broad oak coatrack in the corner.
The scarf and gloves hung there, too, while the final piece of the Nightshade costume, the sunglasses, lay in the coat pocket.
His arms full of Nightshade paraphernalia, he swept back into the bedroom for his earplugs.
“You can’t do this!” Mrs. Fitz protested. “You’ll make yourself ill again.”
He thumped his chest. “I’m covered. Flying pucks didn’t put a scratch on grandfather, and nothing will hurt me, either.”
“Think about last time—”
“Last time I was completely unprotected. This time I’ve got the whole shebang.” He opened his palm, revealing the earplugs. “I went out before this way, you know. I picked her up, I carried her, I kissed her, I even fought with a burglar, and I was fine afterward. Apparently all this protective covering muffles my senses enough to let me get away with things I otherwise couldn’t.”
“You kissed her? You carried her?” Abigail’s mouth dropped open. “You never told me any of that!”
“Why would I?”
“Mr. Fitz! Mr. Fitz!” she cried, running out into the hall. “I told you there was a romance brewing here. He kissed her!”
In what was becoming a habit, Luke pushed in his earplugs, shrugged on the coat and tucked the scarf around his neck. He strode for the bedroom door, tugging on his gloves, just in time to meet Fitz, who was racing up the stairs. Luke stopped.
“Just so we all have our stories straight,” he announced. “I have now kissed her four times, twice as Nightshade and twice as myself. And I’m not sorry. Well, actually I am kind of sorry about the last time, because it didn’t work out well. But otherwise I’m not sorry at all. Is there a romance brewing? No. There can’t be. It would be pretty tough to romance someone in this outfit.” He threw out his arms to give them a good look at his padded getup. “And without it, I can’t even touch her. It blows my circuits.”
“Luke, please don’t go. You’re too…fragile,” Abigail Fitzhugh pleaded.
“I will be careful. I will be fine.” He squeezed past her and her husband. “Don’t worry, Fitz. I’ll drive myself this time.”
The chauffeur cleared his throat. “Uh, sir? You might want to wear shoes.”
All three of them stared at Luke’s bare feet, poking out from under all those layers of black clothing.
“Shoes. Excellent idea.”
GILLY WAS TAKING approximately her fifteenth phone call of the evening. “Yes, Suzette, yes, I’ll have that report to you tomorrow. First thing. I promise.”
The doorbell rang and Gilly said hastily, “Doorbell. Gotta go. Bye, Suzette.”
Running a hand through her curls, she crossed to the door as the person on the other side continued to lay a heavy hand on the buzzer. Who now, for goodness sake? A peep through the hole told the story. Mrs. Mooshman again.
“Mrs. M, I thought I told you—” she started, swinging open the door.
“Look, honey, I brought you some muffins.”
“How sweet.” Gilly took the plate, sniffed appreciatively, but couldn’t really smell the muffins under their heavy coat of plastic wrap. “Thank you. I’d invite you in, but I have to get back to work. I didn’t even plan to be in tonight, but the assistant principal just assigned me a surprise report that I have to do right away, so I’m in kind of a rush.”
“Sure, sure, I understand.” Mrs. Mooshman’s eyes filled with a rather determined light. “But if you go out, bring back my plate, okay? I might, uh, need it right away. So come and check, all right, darling? Just if you go out. That’s all I’m saying.”
Mystified, Gilly gazed down at the dish Mrs. M was so attached to. It looked like just a regular dinner plate. “Well, sure, if you need it back,” she said vaguely as she closed the door on Mrs. Mooshman. Shaking her head, she retreated to her kitchen and immediately peeled off the wrap and stuck the muffins on a plate of her own. Just in case.
She had no sooner sat back down to her report than the phone rang again. She stared at it balefully, but finally deigned to pick it up.
“Hi, Mrs. Fielder. What a surprise. Yes, Tony is doing fine. No, no more incidents. Yes, just fine.”
She nibbled on her lip, waiting for her student’s mother to get to the point. Mrs. Fielder had never called before just to chat. And this wasn’t a good time to start a new habit.
“Maybe we should make an appointment sometime during school hours, Mrs. Fielder, wh
en we can discuss this more fully. It’s just that I’m a little tied up right now. Okay, sure. No, no problem. If you’d like to talk right now, I’d be happy to.”
Bzzzz. The doorbell. Again?
“Look, Mrs. Fielder, that’s my doorbell. Can I get back to you? Oh, you’ll hold? Okay.”
She felt like screaming. Why had every person she’d ever met decided to show up tonight?
This time she tore open the door with a bit more force, catching sight of Mrs. Mooshman rapidly closing her door across the hall. Spying? What for? Turning to her latest visitor, resplendent in his bright green NOD Squad warm-up suit, Gilly offered, “Hi, Mr. Zamechnik. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been taking a class over at the senior citizens center and I made you this.” The old man held up a pretty, pseudo-stained-glass sun catcher that looked suspiciously like the ones on sale at the Five-and-Ten last week. “Would you like I should come in and hang it up for you?”
She narrowed her gaze. Muffins and now knickknacks? What was with the neighbors?
“That’s just lovely, Mr. Zamechnik. Sure, come on in. I’m not going to get anything done, anyway, I can tell.”
So Mr. Z trudged to the window to fasten his trinket, while Tony Fielder’s mother was still hanging on the phone, waiting for Gilly to get back.
“Mrs. Fielder, here I am,” she said into the receiver. “Oh, it was my neighbor. He came over to hang up something for me. Yes, Mr. Zamechnik. I didn’t know you knew Mr. Zamechnik.”
If she hadn’t already decided she’d fallen down a rabbit hole into Wonderland, this would’ve put her over the top. Tony’s hardworking mother, who was in night school training to be a nurse, was pals with cantankerous old Mr. Zamechnik, who never went anywhere except to play checkers at the senior citizens center or to bother Mrs. Mooshman.
“Okay, then, Mrs. Fielder. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Oh, was that Tony’s mother?” Mr. Z inquired, turning away from his laborious attempt to tie a string around her window latch. “Nice lady.”
“How are you and Mrs. Fielder acquainted?”
“Oh, well, the, uh, NOD Squad. She just joined,” he said agreeably.
“I see.” But she didn’t see. Tony’s mother no more had time to be on the NOD Squad than fly to the moon.
As she pondered the problem, the doorbell rang again.
“Grand Central,” she muttered. “Mrs. Mooshman again. What a surprise.”
“Well, I couldn’t help but notice that he was here, and I didn’t want you to have to entertain the imbecile, seeing as how you’re so busy. So I brought you some more muffins.”
Another dinner plate full of muffins. How nice. Gilly found a smile and a thank-you as Mrs. Mooshman barged right in.
“Now what are you doing with that thing? Your string is too long,” she declared, pushing poor Mr. Z aside. “Don’t I have sun catchers in all my windows? Don’t I know? Now where’s your little suction cup?” She stared at him. “You don’t have a suction cup?”
Gilly went back to her report as the battle raged on behind her. The phone rang twice, but she didn’t pick it up either time.
Knock, knock. “Let’s see,” she said out loud, counting off on her fingers. “Unless my mom or Aunt Gert took a flight back from Florida this morning, I’ve already seen or heard from every single person I know.”
“Gilly, it’s Suzette,” a voice called from the other side of the door. “I have some papers you may need for that report.”
As Gilly made for the door, Mrs. Mooshman and Mr. Zamechnik both threw themselves in front of her. “Check, see who it is,” Mrs. M hissed, as Mr. Z peered into the peephole. To Gilly, the old woman chided, “You should always check first, Gilly. Check and be safe.”
Gilly just stood there, her hands on her hips, giving them the once-over. “I recognize her voice. Are you going to let her in, Mr. Zamechnik?”
“Somebody could disguise a voice. It’s so easy, Gilly, I saw it on TV,” Mrs. Mooshman said, fluttering her hands.
Meanwhile, Mr. Z finally consented to open the door for Suzette, who burst in with a whole sheaf of papers.
“Hey, Gilly, sorry to bother you, but here are those documents we talked about.”
Gilly thumbed through a few of them. “We didn’t talk about any of this stuff, and it doesn’t look to me like these have anything to do with my report.”
“Oh. Dear.” Suzette was not a terribly good liar. “Well…I…”
Gilly would’ve waited her out to see what lame story she came up with, but the doorbell rang again.
Her three visitors just looked at one another as if they thought someone else should go first.
“I’ll get it,” Gilly said sweetly, sidestepping them neatly and pulling it open. “Tony and his mom,” she called out over her shoulder. “Bearing cookies. Anyone else I should be expecting? Should I just leave the door open?”
The whole gang of them exchanged sheepish looks.
“So what is this?” Gilly asked finally. “You know, it isn’t my birthday, and I can’t imagine any other reason for all this attention.”
“Well,” Suzette ventured, “we all saw the article in the paper, Gilly, and we were a little worried.”
“So you decided to stage round-the-clock surveillance?” Gilly bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Well, listen, folks, I appreciate the concern. But you’re busted. Everybody out, okay? I can handle things from here.”
They tried to protest, but she shoved them out, thanking them profusely. “I’m not going out tonight, I promise. As soon as I shut this door, I’m going to lock it and that will be that. I’m going to take the phone off the hook, too, so no more calls and no more visitors. Bedtime for me. I’ll see whoever is on duty in the morning. I assume that’s you, Mrs. Mooshman?”
The older woman nodded unhappily.
“All right, then. Good night, everyone!”
She had never been so happy just to be alone in her apartment.
It was sweet, really, that they were all so concerned, but nothing was going to happen. So she had tried to flush out Nightshade. Big deal. What was the danger in that?
“Well, maybe that comment about hanging out in dark alleys was excessive,” she reflected as she turned out the lights in the living room and padded into the bedroom. “Now I just have to figure out how to make it look like I’m in danger when I’m really not so I can get Nightshade to come calling. Hmm…sort of like having your cake and eating it, too.”
She gave the problem a bit of thought as she brushed her teeth and changed into her nightgown, imagining what she would say and do if she could just get him alone for a few minutes.
Who are you? How do you wrap me around your finger without even opening your mouth?
Not the best opening gambit.
IT WAS A DARK moonless night, but to him it was as bright as day. He waited there on the fire escape, tinkering with the window. But the latch was broken and gave way easily, without more than a simple tug.
Balanced on the fire escape, he eased the window open, waiting, listening for any untoward sounds. All he heard was Gilly’s breathing, steady and soft, coming from the bed, the buzz of her refrigerator from the kitchen, a creaky water pipe somewhere in the building.
Noiselessly he stepped inside.
It was dim and shadowy in her bedroom, but that was no obstacle. Behind his sunglasses, he focused his eyes. It was odd how much like a zoom lens they could be. It took a second to concentrate, to tune them properly, but once he did, he could see every freckle on Gilly Quinn’s pretty little nose.
She lay there, her covers partially thrown back, one slim leg exposed. Her hair, that bright halo of fire, flowed over her pillow, her lashes fanned against her cheeks, and her soft luscious lips were parted in sleep.
As he watched, mesmerized, she tossed restlessly, and her nightgown—more like a big T-shirt, really— rode higher on her perfect white thigh. Lucas’s mouth went dry. He wanted to trace the line o
f that thigh so badly his fingers pulsed inside their cashmere gloves.
It only got worse. She rolled over onto her back, sighing, murmuring dreamy words, extending a hand into the pillow over her head. The sleepy movement was innocent enough, but it arched her round high breasts, pushing the buds of her nipples up against the fabric of her shirt.
Desire surged inside him. Pleasure and pain wound together inextricably.
He could hear the raggedness of his own breathing, and he had to clamp down fiercely. He couldn’t do this right now. He couldn’t do this ever.
But there she was, a drowsy, sleep-tousled vision, soft, vulnerable, achingly erotic. It was beyond foolish, beyond risky, but he couldn’t help imagining what it would feel like to join her on the bed, to fill his hands with her breasts, to tease those nipples into hard peaks of desire. And then he would pull her into his arms and taste her sweetness, and when she was trembling with need, he would wrap her legs around him and plunge into her so far he would never leave.
“Oh, God,” he said, but his voice was no more than a raspy moan.
Gilly awoke at the sound. “What’s that?” She sat up abruptly, clasping her pillow to her chest. “Who is it?”
Without saying anything, Luke moved away from the window, closer to the bed, closer to the danger zone.
“Nightshade,” she whispered. Her voice had such an edge of erotic wonder he wished the name were really his.
“I saw your words…in the paper,” he managed with difficulty. “I came to tell you—”
“Don’t say anything.” She slid to the edge of the bed, rose to her knees and looped her arms around his neck as he tried to backpedal. But she held him fast. “I knew you’d come for me.”
He had to steel himself, had to pretend he was in Antarctica and he was freezing, just to try to cool his rapidly rising ardor. Mind over matter, he told himself shakily, but it wasn’t working. No matter what he said, no matter how rigidly he held himself, he could feel her warm pliant breasts pressing against him through all those layers of clothes, could smell her hair and her skin and her mouth, even the faint scent of her deepest secrets.
Touch Me Not Page 14
