Saving Alyssa

by Loree Lough

  Side by side at her computer this afternoon, she and Alyssa had surfed the ’net for cookie recipes, and printed out their favorites. She’d set aside the Saturday before Christmas—just two weeks from now—for baking. This weekend they’d scour the mall for gifts, wrapping paper, ribbon and bows, and then get busy hanging lights and garland, and arranging ceramic snowmen and reindeer on the mantel and tables.

  Her favorite news program flickered on the TV as Billie wrote up the grocery list that included cookie-making ingredients. The host was discussing famous criminals, starting with Charles Manson’s 1969 killing spree, and switching to the Oklahoma City bombing. She understood how they’d become icons for evil. What she didn’t get was why stories like this turned up, year after year. She was about to change the channel when the reporter began naming less violent criminals, such as the D.A. who’d disappeared after his testimony put presidential front-runner Senator Hank O’Malley into prison.

  O’Malley. The name Noah had muttered in his fevered delirium that day in the hospital. She put down her pen and paper and zeroed in on the screen. So many things made sense now… Noah’s almost fierce refusal to let Alyssa out of his sight. The lack of background information about him. His avoidance of all conversation having to do with his past. And how his wife had died.

  O’Malley sat facing his interviewer and looked right into the camera when he said that he had been framed by a man named Judson, the alleged “crooked assistant district attorney.” Billie wrote the name in the margin of her grocery list, thinking to look the story up later. The senator’s malevolent voice stopped her.

  “Didn’t get away with it, did ya?” he growled. Witness Protection, he claimed, was an exercise in futility, because he had the money and the connections to find Judson. Now something else Noah had said made sense. She’d wondered why he would mutter “lipstick” over and over. Now she realized he’d been saying WITSEC.

  Billie began to tremble, and barely heard what the journalist said before going to commercial.

  A little research helped her better understand WITSEC, the reasons for its existence, and the steps—and risks—U.S. Marshals were willing to take for people living under its protective shield. She couldn’t imagine a fate worse than the fear and desperation that drove witnesses into hiding, leaving loved ones, jobs, homes behind…. Max, Billie decided, must be the agent assigned to Noah.

  She typed “Nate Judson, Chicago” into her search engine, and found listing after listing describing the charges filed against the assistant D.A. and the senator. At first it seemed odd that the few photos she’d found of Judson were too blurry or distant, making identification—or comparison to Noah—impossible. But it didn’t matter. Noah Preston and Nate Judson were one and the same. After seeing the raw, unbridled hatred in O’Malley’s eyes as he’d uttered his fearsome threat, she understood why Noah had lied about his past. His reasons for getting involved with a man like O’Malley… Billie needed time to process those facts. Because which persona had she grown so fond of? The man who’d lied and cheated and partnered with known criminals to defend his treasured material possessions? Or the one who’d gone deep into hiding to protect his precious little girl?

  No. She didn’t need time. She loved him. It was just that simple…and that complicated.

  But did she love him enough to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, pretending she didn’t know the truth?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  NIGEL NODDED, AND from that smug look on his face, O’Malley knew he’d come to deliver good news.

  “Out with it, nephew.”

  “I’d think sitting here with someone who won’t stab you in the back is worth a little patience.”

  Oh, he needed to get out of this place and back in control of his life!

  He’d learned to forecast the political climate, and had sensed well in advance that the government had a case against him. To prevent them from seizing his assets, he’d moved everything into separate accounts, and put Nigel in control of them all. Before the trial, he’d been confident of the decision, because he believed in his nephew’s trustworthiness. But he’d believed in Judson’s loyalty, too, and look where that had gotten him.

  With every visit, Nigel gained more confidence, and O’Malley lost more control. A dangerous thing—for the nephew of a desperate man who trusted no one.

  “Just spit it out, Nigel. You know I have no patience for guessing games.”

  Nodding, his nephew said, “My IT guys dug up some stuff on Judson. We haven’t confirmed it yet, but things look promising. Real promising.”

  O’Malley ran a hand through his hair. “Are you determined to give me a stroke? Why are you beating around the bush?”

  Six months ago, the boy would have shrunk back in fear. Today, he shrugged, nodded and continued, “We locked on to a U.S. Marshal by the name of Maxine Coleson. Five years ago, she transferred from Chicago to D.C., and now she’s working out of the Baltimore office.”

  “As a WITSEC agent?”

  Nigel smirked. “Yup. I’ve already got a tail on her. Once we track her, get some pictures, we can make our move.” He adjusted the knot of his tie. “Which is what, exactly?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I know what I’d do, but you’re the boss. I just want to make sure I don’t step over the line.”

  O’Malley leaned forward, narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice. “It’s really quite simple. End. Him.”

  Nigel didn’t even blink before he said, “Done.” He stood and signaled the guard.

  “If I had a son…” O’Malley said. And nodding, he added, “I’m proud of you, boy.”

  A moment later, the door opened to the processing center, and Nigel walked unwittingly into an ugly skirmish between two inmates. The guard tried to diffuse the situation, whirling his baton, bellowing for backup as he tried to get between Nigel and the bedlam. By the time the door-open buzzer sounded, one inmate, the guard and Nigel lay motionless on the bloody floor, victims of a carpenter’s square-turned-knife.

  As the attacker dropped his handmade weapon, rage boiled in O’Malley. Sick of ducking and cowering at the whims of other prisoners, he pounded on the door. To his surprise—and delight—it opened, and he charged into the waiting area like a grizzly.

  In the next moment, he picked up the blade, slashing wildly at Nigel’s killer…until an advancing guard stopped him with a well-aimed club to the temple.

  When he came to in the infirmary, his wrists, ankles and chest were strapped to a stainless-steel table. The warden, leaning nonchalantly against the door, flicked a cigarette into a deep stainless sink.

  “Looks like we’re gonna be spending a lot more time together than you expected,” he said. “As you’re no doubt aware, our noble legislative body, always with an eye to improving our great state, abolished the death penalty. Which means your six and a half years at Stateville just became a life sentence.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. It was self-defense.”

  “Not according to the guard who clocked you,” he said, pointing at the goose egg on O’Malley’s temple.

  He was looking at years of hearings and appeals, even before the trial. Without Nigel to act as his defense attorney—or release funds for another lawyer’s retainer—the state would stick him with some snot-nosed public defender fresh out of law school. O’Malley felt like the meat in a Life Gone Wrong sandwich, and it was all Judson’s fault. Everything bad that had happened to him since the trial had been Judson’s fault!

  He had one card left in his hand: Nigel’s wife. He would ask her to solicit his former partners’ aid in securing his early release. He’d pay any price for the freedom to even the score once and for all, even if it meant dying an old man, right here at Stateville.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  A LIGHT SNOW was falling, and Alyssa stood, nose pressed to the window, watching.

  “Do you think we’ll have a white Christmas, Daddy?”


  “Anything is possible,” he said, stepping up beside her.

  “Do you think it’ll snow enough to make a snowman?”

  It wasn’t likely, but why burst the kid’s bubble? “You never know. You could wake up in the morning and find a foot of the stuff on the ground.”

  She wrapped her arms around him, and he winced. The stitches from that second surgery to find the source of the infection were healing nicely, but the site was still tender to the touch. Thankfully, she didn’t see him flinch; it would have upset her, because she’d been especially protective of him since his release from the hospital.

  “I can’t wait for it to get dark. I haven’t seen our decorations with all the lights off.”

  “I’ll bet the place will look gorgeous.”

  She and Billie had strung lighted garlands around the banister leading down to the shop, and strung twinkle lights from the valances. They’d rearranged the living room to make space for the tree, and hung a hundred colorful ornaments from the branches. Jillian used to say she’d rather have no tree at all than put one of those fake things in her house. Noah wondered what she’d say about this one, draped with graceful folds of white gauze and guarded by a satin-gowned angel that held a tiny candle in each porcelain hand. A deep red cloth covered the dining room table; in its center, a three-tiered stand held an assortment of homemade cookies, brownies and small pies. Three battery-operated flameless candles, positioned amid artfully arranged evergreen branches, stood in shallow wooden bowls on the end tables, and there were doilies—doilies!—on top of the TV and stereo.

  For the first time in a long time, he looked forward to Christmas.

  And Billie Landon was solely responsible for that.

  “And wait until you see what we did downstairs,” Alyssa said.

  “In the bike shop?”

  “Oh, yes! Billie says your customers will love it.”

  “Maybe after supper you can show me around.”

  “Can we call Billie? I bet she’d love to see if you like it.”

  “Sure. Then I can thank her in person for helping you make the whole place look so pretty.”

  Alyssa clapped her hands, grabbed the phone and hit the autodial button. He’d programmed Ike’s Bikes in the number one position for those rare days when she stayed home sick and he couldn’t shut down the shop. Max got the number two spot because, well, because she was Max. And now this. He wondered if Billie knew what an honor it was to come in third.

  “Did you program that, all by yourself?”

  “Billie showed me how.”

  Alyssa spent the next minute or so chattering happily with Billie about the snow, then invited her to join them for what she termed “Light Up the Night!” Next thing Noah knew, he was making popcorn and hot chocolate, and setting the table with dessert plates…pale blue with snowflake decals.

  “Where did these come from?”

  “Billie made them,” Alyssa said, “when she was only ten years old.” She picked one up and showed him the underside. “See? She signed her name and wrote the date.”

  Sure enough, thick black curlicue letters spelled out BILLIE. He tried to picture her at age ten, hunched over the unfired, unglazed ceramic, tongue between her teeth and brow furrowed as she concentrated on dotting her I’s with tiny black hearts. A strange warmth fluttered in his chest, and he quickly pushed it away. He couldn’t afford to let his feelings deepen. Even if he hadn’t decided that he and Alyssa should leave town after the first of the year, it wouldn’t have been fair to any of them—or safe.

  “She said she’s going to walk, because it’s faster than driving.”

  Thick red mittens muffled the sound of her knock, he found, when he’d limped to the door to let her in. When he saw her, a hand on either side of her face to block the glare of the porch light, the flutter returned. He needed to get back to his hammers and screwdrivers and pneumatic lug wrench, because all this sitting around, reading and watching romantic comedies on TV was making him think a lot about love and romance.

  “Well that didn’t take long,” he said, opening the door.

  Billie shook snow from her Orioles cap. “Took me less time to walk here than it took you to open the door!” she teased.

  “Oh. Yeah. Left my cane in the kitchen,” he explained.

  “I wasn’t talking about how long it took to get to the door. I meant…” Laughing, she hung her coat on the hook nearby. “Do I smell popcorn?”

  “Alyssa thought it would be nice to have a little something to commemorate Light Up the Night.”

  It wasn’t quite dark enough yet to get the full effect of the decorations, so the threesome had their snack before, rather than after, their celebration. When the hot chocolate and popcorn were gone, they turned on the Christmas lights, switched off everything else and stood in the middle of the living room to admire the sight.

  Noah didn’t know which glittered more, the mini bulbs and candles or Billie’s big, beautiful eyes.

  Alyssa decided it was the perfect occasion to watch Miracle on 34th Street. Noah prepared more cocoa, Billie made more popcorn and Alyssa set up the DVD player and put cookies on plates. They sat side by side on the sofa, with Alyssa between the adults, holding the big bowl on her lap.

  An hour into the movie, Noah’s right arm stiffened up. He stretched it across the back of the sofa, and when he did, Alyssa leaned into him…and Billie leaned into her. His hand was going numb, so he worked out the kinks—open, closed, open—until Billie stilled his flexing by slipping her right hand into his.

  He worried that his heart might leap from his chest. Could she hear it, hammering against his ribs? If not, surely she could feel the pulse pounding through his fingertips. Alyssa was asleep. He could tell by her soft, steady breaths.

  Billie gave his fingers a gentle squeeze. “My very favorite part of the movie is coming up,” she whispered.

  By Noah’s calculations, there were two, maybe three minutes remaining. “You didn’t like the rest of the movie?”

  “Yes, but…” She pointed, and right on cue, John Payne wrapped Maureen O’Hara in a fierce hug and kissed her, long and hard, right there in the lovely, empty house that would one day be theirs.

  Noah looked at Billie. Watched the action on the screen flicker light and dark across her face.

  She looked at him, too. If there had been any doubt about how she felt about him before now, that affectionate glow emanating from her eyes removed it. If he’d given it a moment’s thought…if he’d considered the consequences of his actions…

  Gently, he brought her closer, closer, until he could feel her soft, quick breaths puffing against his chin. Noah tipped his head and this time, this time, nothing stood in the way.

  So he kissed her.

  And she returned it.

  Oh, he was in trouble, because since that near miss beside the campfire, he’d wondered what it might feel like. Now that he knew, now that he’d tasted these cocoa-sweet and popcorn-salty lips, he’d never forget it. Already his heart was breaking, and he hadn’t even talked to Max about leaving yet.

  “Daddy?”

  He pulled back, only slightly, and it surprised him a little to see that Billie had lingered, eyes closed, a dreamy expression on her pretty face. He would have kissed her again if Alyssa hadn’t wriggled, stretched, then looked up at him with sleepy eyes.

  “I’ll tuck her in,” Billie said, her voice thick with emotion.

  He couldn’t let her do that. If he did, they’d be alone once Alyssa was out for the night, and he didn’t think he’d have the willpower to avoid a repeat performance.

  “Nah,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

  Billie looked a little confused, a little hurt, so he added, “I missed a lot of nights, tucking her in, while I was lying in that hospital bed.”

  “Oh, of course.” She smiled, making him glad he’d tacked on that little qualifier.

  “I should have known better. You go ahead and get her settled, and I’ll clean up h
ere…”

  You’re a genius, he thought. Because he’d created a stalemate…with himself.

  “…and then I’ll head home.”

  Noah nodded and held out his hand to Alyssa. “C’mon, cupcake. Daddy can’t carry you just yet.”

  His daughter padded toward her room without taking his hand. “I’ll brush my teeth and get into my pajamas,” she said, “while you kiss Billie goodbye.”

  Billie inhaled a tiny gasp, then quickly began stacking popcorn bowls and cookie plates, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  The bathroom door began to swing closed, and just before the latch would have clicked, Alyssa stuck her little face in the opening. “Well,” she said, “are you going to kiss her again or not?”

  “It’s already way past your bedtime, kiddo. Get those teeth brushed while I turn down your blankets.”

  He snapped the blinds shut and tossed back the quilt. When he glanced toward the door, there stood Billie, hair tucked under her baseball cap, snugging her jacket around her.

  “My folks are coming down for our annual Christmas Eve dinner. Todd and Dani, too. And of course, Troy will be there.” She tugged the cap lower on her forehead. “If you and Alyssa don’t already have other plans, dinner is at six.”

  Noah watched her walk toward the back door. Watched as she let herself out. At the window, he separated the blinds and watched as she ran down the stairs. Then she turned the corner and stepped out of sight, leaving nothing but tiny boot prints in the snow.

  And he missed her already.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “THE TABLE LOOKS beautiful, honey. I love that centerpiece!”

  “She made one just like it for our table,” Alyssa said. “Only ours has sugar cookies and brownies and little pies on it. All sitting on paper doilies.”