“Yes.” I try to see his eyes past the mask, but it is too dark. “I thought maybe this would be good for our relationship, but maybe we need some time alone first. To warm up, you know. I heard you had rooms to rent?”
“Yes. Follow me.” He puts his hand on my back so low I cringe and scoot away, making my leg erupt in pain from the sudden jerking movement. I clutch Lopez’s arm and give him a look. He picks up on it and places himself between the birdman and me. The man leads us through another room.
This room is dark except for one giant spotlight shining down on a man getting oral sex from another man. Claudio takes a key and opens a door to a small passageway. Once the door behind us closes, he uses a different key and opens the door to a bright hallway with about a dozen doors. He opens the closest door to our left and hands us the key. He catches me eyeing a doorway at the end of the hall.
“There is a doorway to the street for our regular guests to use. But I suggest you come back through the club. That way you can pay me for the room. Come find me.”
“You trust us?” I can’t help but ask.
He leans back and lets out a laugh. “No. But I’ll take a gamble. I’m going to take a chance that you will come back and find me, and that way I can think of a creative way for you to pay for your room. Money means nothing to me. I have more than I will ever need. It is so boring. I weary thinking about it. You, however, I’m fairly certain I would never tire of.” He runs a finger down my cheek and across my lips. I am frozen by his touch. I stare at the black orbs of his eyes beneath the mask until Lopez pulls me into the room and closes the door.
“Jesus H. Christ, I thought you were leaving with him. What’s the creepy Pied Piper done to you?”
“Nothing,” I say and can’t bite back the anger I put into the word. I’m not mad at him. I’m mad at my traitorous body, which was responding to that man’s touch.
Lopez has his ear pressed to the door. Within seconds, he turns the knob. “He’s gone. Let’s go.”
We start down the hall, pressing our ears to each door before moving on. At one door, I hear a few moans, but most are quiet.
Then, in the stillness, I hear a sound. It’s a baby making a loud cry that is abruptly silenced.
Chapter 49
“OVER THERE,” I whisper, pointing to a door halfway down the hall.
When I get to the door, I press my ear against it. Yes. A baby is whimpering.
Lopez tries the door first. Unlocked. He raises his eyebrows, steps to the side, and pushes the door open, his gun held in front of him. The door creaks open. We step inside, leaving the door behind us wide open. Inside, a small table lamp illuminates the scene. A woman with teased hair and a slinky nightgown is sitting on a desk chair. She holds Lucy. The baby gurgles in her arms, clutching a bottle. The woman’s eyes are wide with fright.
“He made me. He called me and told me to give her this bottle.” The woman says it in a daze. Her eyes are bloodshot, and her arms are scarred with needle marks. “I’m babysitting. He said he’d give me money and more smack if I did what he said.”
It takes a second for her words to sink in. Did he poison her? I race over and grab the baby out of her arms. “Someone call nine-one-one. We need poison control.”
“Nobody is calling anyone.” Joey Martin’s voice sends a chill down my body. I turn. He is standing in the hallway just beyond the open door, a small gun aimed in my direction. Behind the door, Lopez lifts his gun. Before I can react, the room erupts in a chaotic cacophony of gunfire and screaming and shouting. The last thing I see before I dive for the floor is the door exploding in shattered pieces of wood. Dragging Lucy with me, I roll under the bed. When I turn my head, I’m face-to-face with the woman in the negligee. A black bullet hole gapes between her eyes. After a few seconds, the sounds of scuffling recede and are taken over by feet pounding down the stairs.
The room is dead quiet. Lucy is cooing above my head. She doesn’t appear to be hurt from the fall, and she seems happy to see me. Was there poison in that bottle? Is that why he ordered that woman to give Lucy the bottle? I have no idea how much Lucy ingested. We need to get her to the hospital to have her stomach pumped.
I push and slide us out from under the bed, forced to shove the half-naked woman’s body out of my way. I try to avoid looking at her face again. Once I’m standing on wobbly legs with Lucy in my arms, I scan the room. Lucy and I are the only ones here—except the dead woman.
My eyes widen as I take in the room for the first time. In one corner is a small bassinet. It contains a pink puppy stuffed animal, and a tiny musical mobile dangles over it. Some milk crates are stacked into a makeshift dresser. The top one holds a neat stack of diapers. The second one has more than a dozen folded baby outfits. The bottom one has baby shampoo, lotion, and diaper cream.
I smell Lucy’s hair. Freshly washed. I check her diaper. Dry as a bone.
It is now so clear. I search the floor until I find the bottle I tore from Lucy’s grasp. Leaning over, I pick it up, unscrew the nipple, and take a tiny sip. It tastes like regular milk. I thought that woman was implying the bottle contained poison and maybe in her drug-addled brain she thought it did, but it tastes normal.
Joey Martin wanted to kill Lucy. In fact, he might even have tried to kill her. But in the end, he couldn’t. All this flashes through my mind in a few seconds.
I spot a thick manila envelope on a bureau. With the hand not holding Lucy, I dump the contents on the bed. Photocopies of letters. Maria’s letters.
Shouting and gunfire erupting from down on the street send me heading toward the window. At the same time, the bone-shuddering thump of a helicopter arriving sends a chill down my spine. The entire building is vibrating from the reverberation.
The dead woman is in my way, but instead of going over her to the window, I take the long away and go around her. I’m limping, clutching Lucy to my chest, and trying to ignore the pain in my leg. I push aside heavy blackout curtains, and my breath fogs a small circle on the window as I peer out.
Kicking up dirt and trash, a small, dark helicopter lands in the middle of the street below. Within seconds, five men in full body armor spring out a door and grab a figure dressed in black. Joey Martin. They have his arms and legs and basically throw him in the helicopter in one fluid movement before the buglike aircraft shoots straight up and disappears into the night.
The whole operation—landing, scooping up Martin, and taking off—takes less than thirty seconds.
Blinking, I take in the scene on the street below. A group of people huddles around a figure prone on the ground. An icy chill runs down my spine until I see it’s not Lopez. He’s nearby, hunched over the body lying in the street. I squint and realize who the man on the ground is—Strohmayer. People dressed in rubber and leather and lacy lingerie are pouring out the front door of the club.
The noise of sirens grows closer, and the room lights up with red and blue strobe lights as emergency vehicles arrive on the street below. More than ten squad cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance.
Holding Lucy’s head against my chest, I hobble down the back stairs with one hand grasping the rail. My leg is screaming in pain now. Outside, I push through the crowd in the street, but by the time I get there, they’ve loaded Strohmayer on a gurney and are pushing it toward the ambulance. His eyes are closed, and his face is ashen.
“Oh Mother Mary, please let him be okay.” An image of his wife and kids flashes into my mind. “His family needs him.”
I head toward an ambulance that pulls up.
“The baby. Can you check her? There’s a slight chance she’s been poisoned.” Two EMTs take Lucy from me and bring her in the back of the ambulance. I want her checked out. Just in case. Even though I don’t think there was anything but milk in that bottle.
“What did she ingest?”
“Maybe nothing, but can
you check? Here is her bottle.” I thrust the bottle at them. One EMT rips the nipple off, smells, and crinkles his nose.
Inside the ambulance, they have Lucy strapped down. They’re checking her pulse and heart rate, looking at her eyes, inside her mouth. They feed her something. Lopez is at my side.
Without warning, my legs give out, and I slump to the ground. A wave of vertigo washes over me. Maybe the bottle did have poison. The next thing I know, I’m guided to the back of an ambulance. I look down, and the blood has soaked through Lopez’s makeshift bandage. The sight makes me even dizzier. At the same time, I struggle to get up and go back to Lucy.
Lopez’s face peers down at me from the back of the ambulance. “Hey, man, don’t worry. I’m riding in the ambulance with the baby girl. She’s doing okay. She’s in good hands.”
I lay back in relief as the ambulance doors slam shut. He’ll take care of her.
“Let’s get you to the hospital and patched up. Looks like you’ve lost a lot of blood,” one of the EMTs says.
I want to fight, but I don’t have it in me.
In the emergency room, I call Lopez on my cell after the doctor has stitched up my leg.
“Where is she?”
“Right here. Grandma’s got her. They don’t think she ingested any poison. In fact, they don’t think the bottle had anything poisonous in it at all. But they are keeping her overnight for observation.”
Thank God. Then I remember. “Mac?”
“Concussion. He’s having an overnighter, too.”
I chew on my lip for a second, the events of the evening replaying themselves in my mind. Lopez was right about the black helicopters all along.
“Who was in the helicopter?” I ask. “Who took Martin?”
“You don’t ever have to worry about that punk ever again,” Lopez says. “Wherever they took him, he’s not coming back.”
“Will they kill him?”
“Probably already have.”
“Guess that’s justice of some sort.”
“Yeah. We almost had him. He pulled this fucking knife out of his ass or something and poked Strohmayer in the back. I probably could’ve got him, Giovanni, but your cop buddy was bleeding so bad, the helicopter landed, and bam. He was gone.” He clears his throat for a minute. “How is Stroh, anyway?”
I scramble to find my clothes so I can get dressed. “I don’t know. You saw him up close. How bad was it?”
“Hard to say. Could’ve been a lot worse, though. He could’ve bled out. Hell, you could’ve bled out, too.”
“Well, it sounds like you saved him and me. Thanks.”
“Ain’t no big thing, chica.” He waits for a second, and I know something is wrong.
“What is it, C-Lo?”
“The sensei. He was already dead by the time the fuzz got there.”
“Thanks for letting me know.” I hang up, remembering the bundle of pussy willow branches the sensei gave me for good luck, now sitting in a vase in my kitchen. All he wanted to do was protect his niece.
A doctor and nurse come in with release papers, and although I’m limping, I move as fast as I can down the hall toward the lobby. The nurse told me someone is waiting for me. The way she smiled, I know it is Donovan, so I hurry, filled with both excitement and nervousness. He must have taken the next plane after we spoke earlier. I round a corner, and a petite woman with short red hair and a pink scarf grabs me in a giant hug. I recognize her from the picture. Strohmayer’s wife.
“He’ll be fine,” she says. “It was only a scratch. A deep one, took a few stitches, but no permanent damage.”
“Oh, thank God,” I say with a big exhalation. I stick out my hand. “I’m Gabriella.”
“I’m Mary. We have a lot to talk about. Scott told me you might be interested in going skydiving with me. I need more friends like you. As soon as the hubby gets on his feet again, we’d love for you to come over and have dinner with us. That is, if you don’t mind two crazy energetic twins talking a hundred miles a minute as part of the dinner package.”
I can’t stop the smile from spreading across my face. “That sounds perfect.”
Chapter 50
DONOVAN WRAPS ME in a hug as we walk out of the hospital. He hasn’t stopped touching me since I practically threw myself in his arms in the ER lobby. He put his mouth against my hair as he breathed into it. “Thank God you’re okay.”
I reach up and whisper in his ear. “I love you, but let’s get the hell out of here.”
He supports me as I walk. I have twenty stitches in my leg. The E.R. doctor said I was pretty damn lucky and the only reason it didn’t hurt so bad earlier is that the adrenaline kept me going. But now that everything is over, the pain is intense. I downed a few painkillers and hope they kick in soon.
We are both pretty quiet on the drive back to my apartment. I sink back into the leather seat of his Saab, feeling warm and sleepy. “I think the drugs are kicking in,” I say.
“Good. I’m taking you home and putting you to bed.”
“Sounds good,” I say with a sleepy smile. It’s becoming hard to keep my eyes open.
He reaches over and squeezes my hand every once in a while.
Upstairs at my place, I get a second wind.
“I’m starving. Can I eat first?”
He flashes me an appreciative look, and I realize it’s been a while since he’s heard me say those words. He takes out a loaf of sourdough, some olives, and some cheese, and pours a couple of glasses of red wine.
“Sit.” He points to the table.
I sink into the chair, glad to be off my leg, which still smarts a little.
He drains his wine in one gulp and runs his hand through his hair. Uh-oh.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” he says.
The bread in my mouth seems to expand into a mushy pile of newspaper.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” he says. “I want a family almost more than I want anything else in the world.”
My heart sinks.
“But I want one thing more than that.” He reaches over and grabs my hand. “I want you. I want you with or without a baby. I want you. That’s why I need you to let all of this go. Let go of wanting to get pregnant. It’s destroying you. If it happens, it happens, but it won’t be worth losing you. Nothing is worth losing you.”
He takes a breath. “But I need to know. Can you let go? Can you let go of having a baby, even though we both want one? Can you let go? For me. For us?”
It takes me a while to answer. I take my own huge gulp of wine before clearing my throat. I can’t lie to him. He deserves the truth.
“I can’t let go, Donovan. I’m so sorry. This is who I am. This is what I am. I can’t change, Donovan. I can’t give up wanting a baby. I don’t have it in me.”
He stares at me for a second. I hold my breath, waiting to see how he will react. He heads to the counter and opens another bottle of wine before he turns back.
“I’ve thought about what would happen if you said that. I thought about it on the plane, imagining my life without you.”
I watch his mouth as he says these words, and I wait.
“I’ve decided that I’ll do whatever it takes to help you,” he says finally. “I want you to let all this go. But if you can’t, I’ll be here for you.”
Hot tears form in the corners of my eyes. He takes my hand. “I promise you I will put you first. If it means blowing off Finn, I will do that. I can always make up for it later. Hell, he can handle the slack. I will put you first no matter what. I promise.”
Even though it is what I’ve dreamed of hearing him say, it doesn’t stop the despair from rising up into my chest. I bury my face in Donovan’s shirt.
As if he senses the dark pit I’ve fallen into right on my own couch, Donovan takes my chin in his hand and starts
to kiss me with a fury I have never felt before, his mouth traveling across my skin with an urgency and intensity that make my body respond wildly. I’m moaning, and clawing at him, tearing his clothes off him and myself until I’m naked, straddling him on the couch.
Nothing exists except our bodies.
In our wild desire, I distantly register objects flying off my coffee table, glass breaking, pillows flung to the floor, sudden darkness as a table lamp is knocked over. We don’t stop or care—all over the apartment, on top of the kitchen table, under it, I lose track of time and can’t distinguish between his body and my own. There’s definitely something to be said about a lover who knows how every inch of your body responds to his touch after years of practice.
When we finally collapse on the bed, the only thought in my head is wondering when we can do it again.
It’s not the first time I’ve turned to sex to squash pain and doubt and feelings of helplessness. But I don’t care. It is what we both need so badly. After last month’s sterile, obligatory, hoping-to-get-knocked-up, clinical sex, tonight’s session is one for the record books.
Because this time, everything is different. This time, maybe for the first time ever, I’m not afraid to lose myself completely in someone else. And not just anyone—it’s the man I’m hoping will be the father of my children.
Chapter 51
FINALLY, AFTER WRITING for ten hours, I hit send and slump back into my chair at my desk.
Kellogg, who has been hovering over my shoulder for the past twenty minutes, sprints back to his desk like a wide-end receiver.
The newspaper attorney reads over Kellogg’s shoulder and after a few minutes, gives the thumbs-up. Kellogg stands up, knocking his chair onto the ground and throws his fists up in the air.
The entire newsroom erupts in cheers. A few bottles of champagne are uncorked, and waiters start carrying in plates of food and setting up on a conference-room table.
I close my eyes and smile. My story is flying through the ether. Kellogg is sending it to the Associated Press and then it will appear in newspapers around the world.
Blessed Are Those Who Weep Page 23
