by Mary McBride
Sam never had been able to figure out if that rasp was natural or affected. Either way, it worked sufficiently to make Art Hammerman, at a lowly five foot eight in his elevator shoes, sound more like six foot two.
“Right. Sam Zachary. How’re you doing, Mr. Hammerman?”
“You know this guy, boss?” the beefy bodyguard asked, moving in closer while he looked Sam over from head to toe.
“Yeah, Joey. Don’t worry about it. He’s okay. Just a guy who did a little work for me a couple of years ago.” Hammerman gave Sam a squinty look. “It was no big deal, right?”
“No big deal,” Sam said with a shrug, even though, as deals went, it had been fairly big when the man with his fingers in just about every pie in town had hired him on the sly a year or so ago to do a little surveillance of the very young, very beautiful, and—as it turned out—very unfaithful Mrs. Hammerman. Well, judging from what Sam read in the papers, the very ex-Mrs. Hammerman now.
“Damned shame, huh?” The Hammer was gesturing toward the smoldering ruins. “Glad nobody got hurt.” He snapped his gold-ringed, manicured fingers in the direction of the bodyguard. “What was the name of that secondhand clothes place? Grandma’s something or other? You remember, Joey. That pretty little blonde Artie was so nuts about?”
“Nana’s something,” the burly man said, almost blushing. “I dunno, boss. Nana’s something. Attic, I think.”
“Yeah, that was it,” the Hammer said. “Cute little blonde. She always paid her rent on time, too. See about sending her some flowers, Joey.”
“Right, boss.”
The Hammer gazed back at the wet pile of debris and gave a little shrug. “Hell of a thing. So, what brings you into this neighborhood, Sam?”
“The usual. I’m on a job.”
“So, how’s it going? Business good?”
“It comes and goes,” Sam said. “I can’t complain.” Nor did Sam want to discuss his current client or Art, Jr.’s, alleged penchant for violence. Not until he found out the whole story. The puzzle pieces may have come together, but the picture still wasn’t absolutely clear.
“Lightning,” the mobster said, shaking his head as he pondered the wreckage of his property. “A bolt of lightning. What do you know about that?”
“Arson, compliments of Mother Nature,” Sam murmured.
The Hammer chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth?” He stuck out his hand. “Good seeing you, Sam. Gimme a call if you’re ever looking for work.”
“Will do, Mr. Hammerman. Good seeing you, too.”
The man gave an affable, almost princely wave in the direction of the fire marshal, called out “Thanks, boys,” then eased himself into the dark, luxurious confines of the back seat. A second after that, the limo doors closed with one soft thunk after another, the engine purred to life and the long vehicle slid into reverse and disappeared the way it had come.
Sam picked up the form from the fire marshal and walked slowly back to his truck, thinking pretty little Laura had more than a few blanks to fill in.
This time, when the Blazer turned down the tree-canopied lane, Laura was barely aware of the pastoral views on each side or the cows dotting the lush green fields or the birds perched so quaintly along the fence posts. She hadn’t even asked Sam how he knew Art Hammerman. She didn’t want to think about that or what it might mean. In fact, she was trying not to think at all because every time she did, she felt sick. Everything was gone. Everything.
The fact that she had insurance was a relief, but it wasn’t much consolation at the moment. She didn’t want new stuff. She wanted her old stuff. The priceless and irreplaceable stuff.
She wanted the blue-and-yellow log cabin quilt that Nana had worked so hard and so long to make for Laura’s eighteenth birthday. She wanted Nana’s sachet-scented linen hankies with the tatted edges and her mother’s cross-stitched pillowcases. She wanted all the treasured photographs of her mother and Nana, even the mutilated pictures where her father had been less than artfully snipped out.
She wanted the daisy that Billy Dean had given her at summer camp when she was ten, the one that she had pressed between the pages of her favorite Nancy Drew book. Her diary from seventh grade. Her report cards. The shoebox with every birthday card she’d ever gotten in her life. Right now she even wanted the stupid philodendron that she’d half killed last year and then nursed back to life.
But they were all gone now. Ashes. Everything.
Laura was barely aware that Sam had stopped the truck until he opened the passenger door for her.
“Here we are,” he said.
She reached into the back seat for the paper bag that held the blue velvet dress, a change of underwear, rhinestone-studded and tar-streaked stiletto heels, a hairbrush and a toothbrush—the sad sum of her worldly goods.
“I feel like a refugee,” she muttered, sounding as pitiful as she felt, allowing Sam to grasp her elbow to help her out of the truck.
When he didn’t let go of her arm immediately, Laura felt the beguiling warmth that even his most casual touch could generate. Oh, no. Not that. She gently pulled away. Coming back here hadn’t been a good idea. Grateful as she was for Sam’s help, she didn’t want him helping her right into bed again.
“Sam,” she said softly, but firmly, “please, don’t.”
He blinked. “What’d I do?” His expression was so innocent, so sincerely bewildered that Laura almost laughed.
“You were touching me,” she said.
“I was not,” he protested.
“Yes, you were. On my arm.”
“That? That wasn’t touching touching. I wasn’t trying…”
Laura sighed. “Well, it felt like touching touching to me. Just don’t, Sam. Okay?”
Sam sighed roughly and raked his fingers through his hair. Laura swore she saw a flush of color stain his cheeks, and she wasn’t sure whether it came from embarrassment or anger.
“It won’t happen again,” he said, splaying his hand over his heart. “I promise, Laura.” Then he held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“You’re not a Scout,” Laura said, narrowing her eyes.
He grinned. “Well, I’ll join up, then.”
That, Laura thought, would surely set a few den mothers’ hearts aflutter, if not wildly aflame.
Sam did his best to keep his distance from Laura the rest of the day, figuring he couldn’t touch her if he wasn’t within three feet of her. During lunch and dinner, he felt relatively safe with the wide expanse of the kitchen table between them.
Laura, in an effort not to be an imposition, had prepared their lunch. Sam hadn’t had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich accompanied by carrot sticks since third or fourth grade. For dinner, he whipped up some comfort food, hoping it would help to ease the pain of her loss.
It was over dinner that she finally brought up the subject of the Hammer. About time, Sam thought.
“So,” she asked between bites of meat loaf, mashed potatoes and peas, “How do you know Art Hammerman?”
“I don’t really know him all that well. I did some work for him a year or so ago.”
She looked surprised. “The Hammer hired a private eye? With all the muscle he keeps on his payroll? Why?”
“I guess he didn’t want the boys on the payroll to know that he was having a few marital problems.”
“Ah. Well, you must have taken care of those since I heard he got a divorce last winter.”
Sam decided to ignore the sarcastic tilt of the eyebrow above the ever-changing purple-and-green shiner.
“Tell me about Artie,” he said, putting down his fork and leaning back while he watched Laura swallow a bite of partially chewed meat loaf then quickly reach for her water glass. She took a long and very thoughtful drink. Thoughtful as in scrambling mentally to come up with a story, any story at all that he might actually believe. He could practically hear the frantic whirl of activity inside her pretty head.
“Artie,” she said at last, accompanying her words with a soft cluck o
f her tongue and a slight lift of her shoulders. “I guess you’ve figured it out, huh?”
Sam nodded, keeping the skeptical expression on his face even as he let out a silent sigh of relief. He realized all of a sudden that he’d been holding his breath in anticipation of Laura’s reply. It was one thing to understand why she had lied before. That was for survival. It made sense. But if she lied to him now, he knew his feelings for her—whatever they were—would diminish.
“I’m sorry I lied, Sam,” she said, her gaze holding steady on his. “It’s just that I was afraid you wouldn’t help me if I told you the truth.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference. I would’ve helped you anyway. The minute you walked into my office, I…” He stopped speaking the moment he realized that his hand, almost of its own accord, was about to reach out to touch the bruise beneath her eye.
“You what?” she asked, cocking her head to one side, locking her blue eyes on him, apparently enjoying her ability to make him squirm.
“I, uh… The minute you walked into my office, I said to myself ‘Now there’s somebody who could use a little help.”’
“You did not.” She gave a little laugh. “You said to yourself ‘What’s this hooker doing so far away from her street corner?”’
“It’s good to hear you laugh, Laura,” he said softly, almost having to sit on his hands now to keep from touching her.
But as soon as he said it, all the merriment disappeared from her face and her eyes glistened with tears.
“For a second,” she said, swiping at one wet eye, “I almost forgot that those hooker clothes are the only things I have left. Thanks to Artie. I don’t suppose there’s any way they’ll ever prove he did it.”
Sam only shrugged. He still didn’t want to tell her about the lightning, thinking it would frighten her more than she already was. He wasn’t lying, exactly, he told himself.
Merely diverting the truth.
“Arson’s tricky,” he mumbled, rising to clear the table of their empty dishes.
But Laura was on her feet instantly, pulling the plate from his hand. “Let me do this, Sam. You go on. Go do whatever you usually do in the evenings. Play the piano or something.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. It’s about the only way I can pay you back right now.”
“Okay. I’ll be downstairs, Laura. Give a shout if you need me.”
He headed down the stairs. Playing the piano was probably a good idea. If nothing else, it would occupy his wayward hands.
Instead of just rinsing the dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher, Laura filled the sink with hot, soapy water, then diligently, almost lovingly scrubbed the plates and glasses and silverware. She’d never considered it a chore to do the dishes, even when she was young. It was pleasant to stand at the sink, gazing out the window, feeling the steam rise to her face, letting the water warm her hands.
Right now, in her homeless state, it felt good, even reassuring, just to touch each object. The plates with their antiquated blue-and-white pattern of Chinese bridges and willow trees and men porting buckets of water on poles across their shoulders. The plain, tall glasses and the short ones with Daffy Duck and Tweety Bird, all of them getting squeaky clean under her fingers, while Sam’s lovely music filtered up through the floorboards.
He was good, she thought, and then she started thinking how her mother had always wanted a piano. If she had one, though, she would have willed it to Laura, and then it would have wound up as toast, along with everything else in her apartment.
She started missing her stuff again, desperately, so before she scraped her plate into the trash can, she popped the last bit of Sam’s comforting meat loaf in her mouth. Still chewing luxuriously when the phone rang, Laura waited a moment to see if Sam had heard it, then grabbed a towel, dried her hands, and answered it as clearly as anyone could with a mouth full of meat loaf.
After the man on the other end of the line asked to speak to Sam, she swallowed and called out to him, but he still didn’t hear her. She had to go halfway down the stairs and yell to be heard over the loud chords he was playing.
“Sorry. I didn’t hear it,” he said, trotting up the stairs behind her. “Who’s on the phone?”
“I have no idea,” she said, handing him the receiver and returning to the sink to finish up the meat loaf pan.
While she scrubbed and dug the dishrag into every corner, she couldn’t help but overhear Sam’s end of the conversation. Although it was mostly a string of uh-huhs and okays, his tone struck Laura as guarded, even slightly suspicious. But then she probably shouldn’t be surprised. She supposed private investigators got more than their share of weird phone calls.
She had begun to dry the plates and put them away when Sam finally hung up.
“Who was that?” she asked more out of politeness than curiosity.
“You didn’t recognize the voice?”
“No.” She put the last plate in the cabinet, closed the door and turned toward him. “Should I have?”
“Probably. That was your pal, Artie.”
“What?”
Her heart vaulted into her throat. She felt a little dizzy. “I don’t understand, Sam. Why…why would Artie be calling here? Calling you?”
He lowered himself into a chair at the table and sat staring into space for a moment, drumming his fingers while he shook his head.
“Sam,” Laura pressed. “Why is he calling here? How did he get your number?”
His gaze finally focused on her. “From his father. It seems the love of Artie’s life has turned up missing. He wants to hire a private eye to find her.”
Laura almost laughed. A little strangling sound rolled in the depths of her throat. This couldn’t be happening. It was just too bizarre. “Well, you told him no, didn’t you? You told him that you couldn’t do it, right?”
He shook his head. “No. I took the job.”
She felt her eyes nearly pop out of their sockets and her jaw come unhinged. “You took the job!”
He nodded now. “Yeah. I told him I’d find you for him.”
Laura could hardly breathe. She could hardly speak. “Why?” she croaked.
A sly grin worked its way across Sam’s lips and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened when he said, “I took the job so our friend Artie doesn’t call the next P.I. on his list.”
Chapter 9
Sam rowed five hard miles that night after Laura went up to bed. In the basement, inside his head, the imaginary weather over the North Atlantic was over-cast and the visibility extremely low. In other words, Sam was in a fog and didn’t have a clue what was going to happen next.
One thing he knew for certain was that it was pretty unethical, agreeing to do a job that he had no intention of carrying out. But what other choice did he have? There was no way in the world he was going to leave Art Hammerman, Jr., free to call another investigator and put the guy on Laura’s trail.
What he was doing might even be illegal, bordering on fraud, he guessed, because to do a convincing job, Sam was going to have to take Artie’s money and give him regular, if bogus, progress reports.
He’d had a hell of a time convincing Laura that he wasn’t actually going over to the other side, that he had no intention of handing her over to the enemy.
“You’re my client, Laura, for God’s sake,” he’d told her.
“But I’m not officially your client anymore,” she’d said. “And even if I were, I can’t pay you, Sam.”
“Then, I’m helping you as a friend.”
“But we’re not friends,” she’d said.
He hadn’t known how to respond to that.
Because Laura was absolutely right. They weren’t friends, not in the sense that they shared memories or knew each other’s hopes and dreams. This wasn’t what he wanted. He had his own private memories. He didn’t want to share anybody’s hopes and dreams. That implied a future, and all he wanted was his past. He sure as hell hadn’t b
een looking for a friend or a bedmate when Laura had picked him out of the Yellow Pages and strolled into his office in her impossibly high heels.
He didn’t know what they were. But he knew what he didn’t want them to be, which was lovers of any kind. The promises he’d made to Jenny were real. The fact that she was dead didn’t change anything as far as he was concerned. He belonged to Jenny. Period. He always had, and he always would.
He slowed the pace of his rowing, bringing the imaginary wind down to a single knot and putting it at his back. His thoughts, however, kept racing ahead.
All he and Laura had in common was sex. A couple of hot, volatile moments. Nothing else. Maybe they were the proverbial opposites who were irresistibly attracted to each other. Sam had never experi enced anything like it before, but that could explain the physical magnetism every time they touched. Even when they didn’t touch, the pull was still there.
Wanting something he didn’t want. Wanting someone he didn’t want. He couldn’t understand it. Even so, he ought to be able to control it easily enough. He’d simply keep his distance.
The rest of the attraction, he decided, was just his innate protective nature. He was drawn to people in trouble. He was still the kid on the playground, chasing away bullies, picking up fallen lollipops and brushing them off and handing them back to little girls with wet eyes and skinned knees.
For a second he wondered what Laura had looked like when she was in kindergarten, wondered where she had hidden during storms and who, if anyone, had held her and whispered it was all right.
Then he forced himself to stop wondering.
Don’t wonder.
Don’t touch her.
Don’t even think about her.
Think about Jenny instead.
“Jenny. God, I miss you, Jen. I just don’t know how to be without you.”
The next morning Laura tiptoed down the stairs, not wanting to disturb Sam. His bedroom door was closed, but even so she could hear the faint snoring that signaled solid sleep.
She wished she could have said the same for herself, doubting that she’d had even an hour of sleep the night before. Every time she closed her eyes, her brain would begin to catalog possessions she had lost, then she’d have to sit up, reach for the tissue box on the nightstand, dry her eyes and blow her nose. By morning, with the tissue box nearly empty and hardly any tears left, Laura decided to make a concerted effort to snap out of it and to cheer the hell up.
