“Why?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t he say anything to you? And what could have happened to him?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
“He’s not hurt, is he?”
Nick felt a flicker of shame for the way he’d treated her. “No, not that we’ve discovered.”
“The blood isn’t his?”
“We didn’t find any marks on him. Did you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No one has seen his mother in three days or so.”
“Is that unusual? For her to simply disappear and leave him on his own?”
“No, it’s not.”
Nick swore softly. What kind of a world was this where it wasn’t unusual for mothers to go off and leave their children for days at a time?
He knew the answer to that – a crazy one. They lived in a crazy, mixed-up world.
But that wasn’t Nick’s problem any longer. The boy in the room wasn’t, either, though Nick couldn’t stop himself from asking, “How long has he been missing from school?”
“Three days.” She took a long, shaky breath. “Do you really think he’s been on the streets for three days?”
Nick shrugged. “It’s impossible to know for sure. Hopefully, when he wakes up, he’ll tell you.”
She leaned back against the wall and hung her head, for the first time losing that shield of invincibility she wore so well. She looked scared now.
“I can’t – ” She hesitated.
Amazed, Nick realized they’d spoken several civil sentences in a row to each other.
In another lifetime, Nick would have smiled at her. He’d been told women liked his smile. He would have admired her, too. They would have shared a common goal – looking out for kids like the one on the bed in A.J.’s old room. And maybe they would have been friends, maybe something more.
In another lifetime.
But not now.
“You can’t...what?” he asked in his best professionally detached manner.
She looked at him sharply. If she was going to analyze him, he wished her luck. He was doing a miserable job of it himself, and he was trained for it.
“I can’t believe he didn’t come to me,” she said. “Or at least phone me. He has my number. I made him memorize it. And he knows he can call me anytime.”
“He’s lucky to have someone like you,” Nick said, and meant it. Again he felt her gaze on him, as she measured him and his words. “I’m not such a rotten guy,” he felt compelled to add.
“I didn’t say that you were.”
“Not exactly,” he said, then found himself smiling in spite of himself. Maybe he could dazzle her just a little with one of his smiles.
Nick could have left right then, but he stayed. He told himself he was simply making conversation when he said, “Tell me about Rico and his mother and this apartment that’s been trashed.”
Laura took a minute to think about whether she wanted to comply. And she was still in shock over how good this man looked with a smile on his face. Not that she was the kind of woman to be bowled over by an attractive man. Mitch Davis had cured her of that long ago.
But the transformation of Nick’s face was incredible. What was once forbidding had become inviting. What she’d taken initially for sheer arrogance had become a cocky self-assuredness not without its charm. And the smile, coupled with his easy manner in which he showed her that her near insult hadn’t wounded him at all, told her his ego wasn’t as big as she feared at first.
Maybe this man would prove to be tolerable after all.
Laura was disconcerted to realize that now she was the one staring so blatantly at him, and she quickly forced herself to look away.
What had he said? He wanted to know about Rico and his mother. Because he truly cared? Or because he was simply making conversation? She would have to find out.
“So,” he said, “you go out looking for all your students when they miss class?”
She was about to deny it, but the truth was, she didn’t let any student miss class for an extended period of time without finding out why. “Someone has to watch out for them.”
“And you’re the guardian angel of the—what grade is he in?”
Laura certainly didn’t feel like an angel around this man. “Second grade, at Saint Anne’s.”
Nick whistled. “Rough neighborhood. And he’s a long way from home.”
“I know.”
“So what happened?”
Again she wondered whether his concern was genuine. Laura still cared deeply for all her students. She had little patience for people who worked with children yet didn’t care.
Today had been a particularly hard day for her because she had said goodbye to her students for the summer. She could still see them huddled around her, twenty-two pairs of arms trying to reach her, tugging at her from all directions, as the kids tried to make the final few moments of the school year last a little longer.
Laura’s kids weren’t the kind to count the days until the end of the term because they wanted out of school. For her students, school was often their haven, away from the noise, the overcrowding, the ugliness and the violence. Most of them lived with the very real threat of violence every day of their lives in their own neighborhoods.
Her students always found their own special places in her heart.
Everyone told her not to become so involved with them. Other people warned the kids needed too much. That they needed more than one person could possibly give. That she would only end up getting her heart broken in the process. But she wasn’t capable of stopping herself. Someone had to help them. Someone had to care and to fight for them. She would quit teaching the day she didn’t think she could make a difference.
She wondered why Nick had given up on all these kids around him. Somehow she felt certain he had. And that puzzled her, now that she decided she might have judged him too hastily.
He was still waiting for her answer, and Laura decided he deserved one.
“Today was the last day of school,” she began. “It was the third day in a row Rico missed, and I knew there was no way he would miss the last day of school unless something was wrong. So I went to look for him. When I knocked on the door to the apartment, the door wasn’t even shut, so I walked in.”
Laura hadn’t prepared herself for anything like the scene in front of her. The apartment wasn’t simply dirty or messy—it had been trashed. Everything inside had been pulled out of place, turned over, broken, with piles of rubble left in the middle of the floor.
“They were searching for something,” Laura said. “Thoroughly and recklessly searching. They didn’t care who knew it.”
“Who?” Nick said. “And searching for what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does his mother do drugs?”
Laura nodded. “She’s been in and out of drug treatment centers all year.”
“Maybe she crossed someone. Maybe one of her suppliers?”
Laura had considered the possibility. The sad part was that it probably didn’t really matter what Renata was doing to endanger Rico. Simply living in parts of Chicago was a hazard to the children. In some neighborhoods, kids were killed in their own living rooms or on their way to school just because they were in the line of fire when someone started shooting.
It was absolutely insane.
“So,” Nick said, “you didn’t find out anything at the apartment?”
She shook her head. “I walked through the place, to make sure they weren’t...there.” She couldn’t bring herself to put into words what she had feared finding in that apartment.
“Lady, you need a keeper. Do you have some kind of death wish or something?”
“I had an eight-year-old boy who was missing.”
Nick’s look told her he didn’t think that justified her actions in the least.
“They’re just little kids,” she insisted. “Someone has to look out for them. You can’t tell me that doesn’t matter to you at all.”
Laura knew she must have hit some nerve with him because she saw his whole face change. It looked as if a mask had slid down over his features, blocking out all the light and the warmth, leaving the cold, hard stranger from downstairs in their place. It was chilling to see a man change so quickly and so completely.
“Go ahead,” he said, appearing totally disinterested. “Tell me the rest of it.”
“Then I started knocking on their neighbors’ doors until someone answered. An elderly woman finally admitted that she hadn’t seen Rico or his mother in three days and she was worried about them. Two nights ago, she heard what sounded like someone tearing apart their apartment.”
“Did you call the police?”
“I went to the station and filled out a missing persons report on both of them, but once I told the officer Renata just disappears from time to time, he wasn’t that interested.”
Laura remembered now that Rico’s mother used to date a policeman, though she couldn’t recall his name. Maybe if she did, she could go to that officer for help.
“How did you find us?” Nick asked.
“I was getting ready to leave, when one of the officers at the front desk got a bulletin saying a little boy fitting Rico’s description had been found here. It was hard to believe he would come all this way by himself, but that was the only lead I had. So I came here hoping to find him.”
And found this enigmatic man, as well. Now that she’d found him, what was she going to do with him?
Laura could put up with him if he actually could help Rico. She could put up with anybody who would help Rico. Still, the idea of spending time with this man, of entrusting Rico into his care, was terribly unsettling.
However, there was really no choice. For the past year, Rico had been the troubled kid in her classroom whom Laura had most wanted to save, the one who broke her heart day after day with his spirit, his trials and tribulations, his hopes.
She had hope for Rico. He could be saved. And Laura Sandoval was going to fight for him. She would put up with the devil himself if she thought he could help Rico.
Chapter 3
To Nick’s relief, A.J. came around the corner a minute later with a woman he recognized as a social worker. Nick saw his chance to escape, and he took it. In the flurry of introductions that followed, he slipped out the door. He was halfway down the back stairs, when A.J. caught up with him.
“Gotcha.” She looked pleased with herself. “You’re just not as fast as you used to be. Now you’re going to have to talk to me.”
Nick swore softly under his breath. It seems he’d traded one thoroughly unsettling woman for another. Resigned to the fact that he wouldn’t get away without saying something, he turned to face A.J.
They hadn’t had time to talk before, and he could just imagine what she wanted to talk about. Nick didn’t want to hear what she thought of the way he was living right now, or what a wonderful step she thought he’d taken in coming down there tonight.
So, if A.J. was determined to talk, they would have to talk about her. He needed to let her know that he’d accepted what had happened and that he wanted her to be happy. Jack MacAlister had damned well better make her happy.
Nick couldn’t deny that she looked great, even if she was pregnant with another man’s child. “I saw the pink ribbons all over the place,” Nick said. “So I guess...”
“It’s a girl.”
“I’m happy for you, A.J.” It amazed him how far she’d come in such a short time. She used to run this shelter. And at one time, she was one of the kids who’d walked in off the streets into another runaway shelter in this city, one where Nick happened to be working.
Until about eighteen months ago, A.J. had had no idea what her life had been like before she was thirteen. Nick had helped reunite A.J. with her family, and lost her to another man in the process. He would never forget her. And he had the urge to tell her, just in case she didn’t already know, how proud he was of her for what she’d made of her life.
“You look beautiful,” he said, settling for that to start.
Her hair was a little longer, enough to cover her ears now. She’d gained a little weight—something she badly needed to do. And with the baby... He wasn’t sure he could explain it. She looked outrageously radiant now, despite all she’d been through.
A.J. stepped back. “I don’t think I ever got over being mad at you long enough to tell you I’ll always be grateful for what you did last year. I don’t think anyone but you would have made the connection between me and that old picture of Annie.”
A.J. still spoke of Annie McKay as if she were someone else, and in many ways Annie was. A.J. was a different person now.
“You do look beautiful,” he repeated, because he knew she had a hard time seeing herself that way, and because a part of him would always love her.
He thought for a minute she was going to cry, then she quipped, “You look like hell, Nick.”
He nodded and tried to smile. He knew he looked bad, just as he knew she was worried about him. She would help him, if only he would let her.
“I have to go.”
He thought she might argue for a minute. She knew he had absolutely no obligations, nothing that meant he had to leave here at any certain time for any purpose. She took another step back. “And I need to get in there and find out about our mystery man. Thanks for coming tonight.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Yes, you did.”
Laura knew all about social workers and paperwork and the bureaucracy of the social-services system; she’d been through this routine before, which made the process relatively easy this time around.
There were never enough spaces in foster care for the kids who needed help, so Sharon Sawyer was relieved to know she wouldn’t have to spend the night on the phone trying to find someone who could take Rico on a temporary basis.
All the social worker had to do was check to make sure Laura’s paperwork was in order from the last time she served as a foster parent for Rico, process another mountain of paperwork and turn the boy over to Laura.
Since it was already after ten and Rico was asleep, Sharon agreed to let Rico stay put until morning, when they could hopefully sort this whole thing out.
There was also the matter of finding Rico’s mother, but Laura was going to leave that to the social worker and the police. Her concern was with Rico.
She leaned against the doorway to Rico’s room. A.J. had returned, and she was now saying a lengthy goodbye to Sharon.
“Sorry,” A.J. said, turning back to Laura now that the social worker was leaving. “It’s my last day on the job, and I’m not sure when I’ll see Sharon again.”
Laura couldn’t help but notice that A.J. was pregnant and from what she’d seen, the kids and the staff at the shelter adored her. Laura felt a bit envious, particularly of the child she carried.
“You’re taking some time off until after the baby comes?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet. If my husband had his way, I’d never set foot in this part of town again, but he knows how I feel about the kids, so... we’re going to have to do some talking.”
Her smile said it all. Laura bet this woman could talk her husband into anything she wanted.
“So?” A.J. looked around. “Nick didn’t get anything out of this little guy. That’s too bad.”
“You...know Nick well?” Laura asked. That seemed to be the safest question of all.
A.J. nodded. “And I think I let him get away much too easily just now. Let’s see if we can catch him before he leaves.”
Laura followed A.J. down the stairs. “If you wouldn’t mind, and if there’s room, do you think I could stay the night?”
“Of course,” A.J. said, as if it never occurred to her that Laura would stay anywhere else while Rico was here.
“I’d hate for Rico to wake up and be alone,” Laura said.
“We’ll make Nick carry a cot upstairs for you.” Laura smil
ed, liking the idea of this woman enlisting the help of the psychiatrist with the fancy shoes for manual labor. “Is he...?” How ever could she phrase this? “Is he always so... ?”
A.J. didn’t beat around the bush at all, and if anything she seemed a bit protective.
“I heard the two of you got into it in the hallway downstairs.”
Laura felt a sliver of what could only be described as shame. Normally, she tried to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. She hadn’t been that generous with the man downstairs.
“Nick has been through a rough time,” A.J. continued. “But he’s definitely one of the good guys. He’s the best, in fact. Do me a favor. Cut him some slack, okay? He’s not exactly himself today.”
Laura waited for her to elaborate. What exactly was he like normally? What kind of a rough time had he gone through? Had he dented his BMW? Gotten mud on those fancy shoes of his? Somehow she knew that wasn’t what A.J. was talking about. Still, he was well educated, and he obviously had a lot of money. She would bet he’d had every advantage from the time he was born. How difficult could his problems be compared with those of someone like Rico Leone?
Laura was ashamed of herself then. It was unkind of her to think like that, and she wasn’t an unkind person. But she was having a very bad day.
Laura was so worried about Rico. She couldn’t imagine him surviving on the streets alone. His apartment had been trashed. His mother was gone. And the blood...
What in the world did that mean? How did it fit into this whole mess? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but feared she was going to find out.
Nick would just have to take care of his own problems.
They didn’t find the good doctor anywhere inside the shelter, but they did find A.J.’s husband, who carried the cot upstairs for Laura. Then he escorted his wife out of the shelter after she’d hugged all the kids, cried over them, threatened many of them if they didn’t straighten up, then cried all over them again.
Laura stood there and watched it all, thinking that A.J. was a person she could admire and that maybe she had been unkind to the doctor.
Now she stood outside the entrance to the shelter amid the twinkling white lights that had so intrigued her when she’d arrived. Laura looked at her watch and saw that it was nearly eleven now. She had a cot upstairs and A.J.’s promise that the staff would let her spend the night. She was tired, but too keyed up to sleep.
Temporary Family Page 3
