To Have and to Harm

by Debra Doxer

  “You’re starting something you can’t finish,” I point out.

  “I’ll finish it later tonight,” he says.

  My eyes close, and I groan. “I came here to talk to you, but you’re making my head all fuzzy.”

  He chuckles low, but his thumb stops moving. “Okay, talk. I’ll be good.”

  I peek at him and the bedroom eyes are gone. He’s just watching me with amusement now.

  When I open my mouth to start, two guys appear beside our table. The taller, lankier of the two starts talking. “Hey, Diesel. Party at Kenny’s tonight. You going? They’ll be plenty of sorority chicks there and if you give it some time, they’ll all be wasted.”

  The shorter guy elbows the tall one, and when he has his friend’s attention, he looks pointedly at me.

  “Oh.” His eyes widen. Then they travel over me. “Nice. Bring her with you,” he adds without missing a beat.

  Now it’s my turn to shoot Lucas an amused look.

  “Dumbass, that’s his girlfriend,” the other guy whispers.

  Lucas’s expression turns wry. “You’ve met Ray.”

  His face is a mask of surprise. “Oh, right.” Then he laughs. “Sorry about that. No offense.” He glances nervously at Lucas. “Um, well, maybe we’ll see you both later.”

  “Let me guess. Freshmen,” I mutter dryly once they’re gone.

  Lucas laughs and squeezes my hand.

  I’ve gone to a few parties with him, and I’ve seen how girls throw themselves at Lucas. But I trust him. And I’ve perfected the death glare that sends them scurrying away. The one thing I do worry about is him missing out on stuff like parties because of me. “You can go if you want,” I say. “You don’t have to blow it off because I’m working.”

  He looks at me like I suggested he go for a swim in the Hudson. “Let me think about this,” he says, releasing my hand and leaning back in his chair. “Get drunk with those idiots or come home to be with you. That’s a tough one.”

  “What about the slutty sorority chicks?”

  “Actually, he promised me wasted sorority chicks. I think the slut part was implied.” His fingers tap his chin. “And you’ve got a point. I forgot about them. I may have to rethink my plans for the night.”

  “Screw you.” I laugh, kicking him lightly under the table.

  He leans forward. “Screwing you is my plan, and I’m not changing it.” The bedroom eyes are aimed at me again. They erase my smile, and have me gulping back any lingering comments.

  “So.” He nudges my hand. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  I exhale and give myself a little shake, trying to switch back to serious mode as quickly as he somehow does. “I healed someone today.”

  He stills, completely alert and focused now.

  Nerves creep in, and for a moment, the hard way he’s looking at me makes me feel like a child who’s been naughty. We haven’t talked about this. I know he assumed I’d put my power on the back burner. When we left California, I was determined to never put Lucas at risk again. At the time I wasn’t sure if that meant suppressing my power, but even then I knew that wouldn’t be possible, and I can’t pretend anymore. “I was right there when a cab hit a bike messenger. It was bad,” I explain.

  Lucas still hasn’t moved or spoken.

  “I reached over and touched him,” I continue. “I didn’t think anyone saw.”

  “But someone did,” he says evenly.

  I nod. “She said she was a nurse. She was helping him, too. She knew what I’d done right away. She asked me if I would heal her sick father. She gave me her card to call her.”

  His brow furrows. “What do you mean, she knew what you’d done?”

  Then I tell him the story she told me about the children at the hospital and the volunteer. He’s quiet as he listens, never interrupting. When I finish, he surprises me by saying, “That’s what’s different about you.” There’s an edge to his voice. “You healed someone for the first time in a while. It does something to you.”

  I bite my lip, realizing he’s right. Since it happened, I do feel different, like I have more energy. And I feel something else that’s hard to describe, like a missing piece of me was put back into place, like I’m more whole than I was when I woke up this morning.

  “Do you want to help her father?” he asks, and the edge has dulled. I can tell he honestly wants to know the answer.

  When I don’t respond right away, he nods once to himself. “You do. Give me the card.” He holds his hand out for it, but I don’t move.

  “What are you going to do with it?” I ask suspiciously. I can’t read his expression, but I won’t let him throw it away, if that’s what he’s thinking.

  He sighs. “I’m going to check her out. I can use the paper’s resources. If she’s telling the truth, I’ll find out. Then we can decide what to do.”

  “Really?” I was expecting more resistance. Actually, I was gearing up for an argument, and I don’t know what I would have done if he were dead set against this.

  I hand the card over to him. He studies it for a moment before slipping it into his jacket pocket.

  “Are you sure you want to open this can of worms?” he asks.

  My hands rub against my jeans as my nerves continue to jump.

  He reaches beneath the table and settles his hands over mine, stilling them. “Ray.”

  “Yeah?”

  His eyes lock onto me. “Are you sure?”

  “Are you?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, he says, “No.”

  I swallow. “Neither am I.”

  His gaze softens. “But we’re doing it anyway, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  I’M IN Midtown, pushing through the office doors. Someone calls out a greeting to me, but I don’t stop. The trip here was a blur. I have no idea how I got here. The card Raielle handed me is burning a hole in my pocket. My only thought is to get to Adam. I did him a favor a couple of weeks ago, and now I want payback. He’s a rookie reporter, just out of school. But he has well-placed friends, and he has access to information. If I don’t like what he finds, I’m tempted to take Raielle and disappear for a while. There’s no way Grant or his friends are getting near her again if that’s what this is about.

  As I exit the elevator, Cassie’s there. “Hey, Lucas. I’m taking a break. Come hang out with me.”

  It’s the same thing every time with her. She doesn’t take my unfriendliness at face value. She thinks I’m being coy. Without stopping, I tell her, “Sorry, I can’t.”

  “Sure you can.” One of her shoulders hitches up. “It’s a slow news day.”

  “Not for me.” I walk into the bull pen, where all the reporters sit. They call this place a newspaper, but the actual paper circulation is low and diminishing each day. It’s mostly online now, and it’s all the time. Nothing waits for the next issue. The story happens. It gets written, and it goes on the Internet. Sometimes all within an hour. Everyone grumbles about the pace and the subsequent lack of quality, but everyone does it. And Adam does it 24–7 because he’s hungry. That’s why I wanted him to owe me. I knew he’d be useful.

  He’s here, like always, sitting at his desk, hunched over his laptop. There’s a pen stuck in his frazzled puff of hair. It’s teetering toward his nose, about to drop onto the desk. It slides that last millimeter past the point of no return when I stop beside him. He whips around, and the pen hits me square in the chest.

  “What do you want?” he asks impatiently. “I’m on deadline.”

  I retrieve his pen and place it on his notebook. “You’re always on deadline.” Then I slide the card from my pocket. “I need you to check out some people for me. I want to know who they are and if there’s anything shady about them.”

  He squints at me now, giving me his full attention. “Is this for a story?”

  I shake my head slowly. “It’s personal.”

  Adam turns back to his laptop. “Leave it. I’ll do it
later.”

  “I need it now.” Leaning against his desk, I lay the card down over his keyboard.

  His hands hover above it. “What part of later don’t you understand? That bomb threat at your school wasn’t worth missing my deadline today.”

  “It got you the lead story. First time that ever happened.” I bend toward him. “This is important to me. Don’t fuck me over, Adam. I don’t forget shit like that.”

  His jaw clenches as he tries to stare me down. “Fine,” he finally bites out. “Let’s go find an empty office.” He disconnects his laptop, slams it closed, and tucks it under his arm. I follow him to one of the many empty offices that line the wall, meant for meetings or private phone calls.

  He grabs a chair and doesn’t spare me a glance when he says, “Give me the card. But we’re even after this. Don’t ask me for anything else.”

  I shrug. “Okay. If I catch a lead, I’ll give Cassie a call next time.”

  Now he looks up. “You’re such an asshole.”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  This earns me a sliver of a smile before Adam gets down to work. I make myself comfortable as he punches keys and starts navigating through systems he really has no business accessing.

  Kevin, the managing editor of the paper, walks into the office and starts looking around. I watch him through the glass. “Diesel,” he says when he spots me.

  Jumping up, I stick my head out the door. “Yeah?”

  Kevin reminds me of Humpty Dumpty with his huge belly, and skinny arms and legs. But for a small guy, his voice is surprisingly loud, kind of like a natural bullhorn. He points a pen in my direction.

  “Manhole fire downtown. A transformer blew. Some tourists got hurt. You’re with Sheila. The address is on your desk. Grab a cab and wait for her.” Then he disappears back down the hallway.

  Adam chuckles behind me. “Covering a fire with Sheila? That’s like descending into the pits of hell with Satan himself.”

  “She’s not so bad.” I’ve been to a couple of fires with her. Fires are always news, and Sheila almost always gets assigned to them.

  He winces, disagreeing with me. “Try sitting next to her when a story breaks, and doesn’t stop for three days. When she can’t get home to eat or shower, she chain-smokes and drowns herself in perfume. That combination is toxic when it reaches certain concentrations. I was ready to call in a hazmat crew.” He shudders. “Go. I’ll have this ready when you get back.”

  “Thanks, man.” I clap him on the back.

  “And you’d better not fucking call Cassie next time!” he yells after me.

  I throw him a wave over my shoulder, grab the address off my desk along with my bag, and head downstairs. I’m waiting in the cab for less than five minutes when Sheila comes running out of the building with her luggage-sized purse bouncing against her hip, and a cigarette hanging from her mouth. She’s somewhere in her forties, I think, and thin as a rail. Her voice is a deep, phlegmy baritone; I assume from all the smoking.

  She slides in beside me, tossing her bag in my lap. “Did you give him the address?” she asks, slamming the door.

  “You can’t smoke in here,” the cabbie says, eyeing her in the rearview mirror.

  “Yeah, no problem. I’ll put it out,” she tells him, but she doesn’t. “Have you got cash for this, Lucas? I left my wallet inside.”

  I nod at her. She does this to me every time, even though she’s the one with an expense account.

  We sit in silence as the cab pulls out into traffic. Then she turns to me. “You’d love my niece. Blonde, built, and she’s a smart cookie, too.” She blows smoke in my direction. I shift toward the door and crack open the window.

  “I know. You’ve got a girlfriend.” She nods dismissively. “But if you ever find yourself single, you’d love Stephanie. I’m telling you.”

  Smiling politely, I turn to the window and inhale the traffic fumes instead of her secondhand smoke, wondering which toxin is more likely to kill me first.

  “So, what kind of a reporter do you want to be when you grow up?” she asks.

  I just look at her, not sure if this is a serious question or not.

  “A strapping young man like yourself?” Sheila waves her cigarette around, gesturing at me. “You probably want to travel the world or go to war. Cover the big stories that get you the syndicated headlines.”

  I don’t bother responding, but she’s right. When I thought about being a reporter, that’s how I imagined it, going where the important stories were, uncovering the truth and writing about it.

  “Is your girlfriend up for that? Saying good-bye to you every time she turns around and watching you fly off to dangerous places. It takes a strong woman to deal with that.”

  I grin because she has no idea. My woman is as strong as they come.

  “But you’re only nineteen. You’ve got time to figure all that out. You’ll probably change your mind ten times before you graduate. A reporter, a baker, a candlestick maker.” She laughs at her joke. The sound is a wet cackle before it changes into a deep, hacking cough.

  But I imagined that career before I met Raielle, when leaving was all I wanted to do, and a potent mix of numbness and anger were all I ever felt. Things are different now. A long separation from her is not something I can think about.

  I glance out the window while Sheila chatters on. My thoughts return to the possibility of Raielle exposing her abilities to a stranger, and what the consequences could be. When I first saw her at Lerner Hall today, she took my breath away. She had a glow about her, and every person in that place was throwing glances her way. She’s a beautiful girl and she always attracts attention, but today was different. She shined, and everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of her. That alone should be enough for me to put a stop to this. It would be better for her to be inconspicuous. But how can I stop it when she looked so excited at the possibility? Unless I find a very good reason to tell her no, I just don’t think I can.

  Meanwhile, Sheila is having an entire conversation with me, and I haven’t had to open my mouth once. I don’t understand why Adam doesn’t like her. She’s easier to be with than a lot of women I’ve known.

  “DO YOU want anything to drink?”

  I get no response.

  “Lucas!”

  “Yeah, I’ll take one of those iced teas,” he calls from the other room.

  Reaching into the refrigerator, I easily find the blue can he wants because its only company is a bag of apples I bought on the way home last night. After tossing away the wrappers sitting on the counter from the takeout Lucas had for dinner, I make my way down our narrow hallway to the end, where it opens up to the sunken living room.

  Sitting on the black leather couch, Lucas is sorting through a stack of printouts he brought home with him. We’ve been house-sitting the empty apartment of a friend of Lucas’s father since we got to town. It’s on the Upper West Side, a few blocks from Central Park, and the owner is working overseas in Europe for the rest of the year. Apparently, we’re doing him a favor by staying here.

  At least, that’s the story I’ve been told. And no, I’m not an idiot. I’m sure Lucas somehow scammed us into this great apartment with an excuse he thought I would buy. I don’t think he’s outright lying, since there are pictures of this friend around the place and a closetful of his clothes, but I also don’t think we were asked to house-sit. And now Lucas is avoiding looking for our own place by saying that he doesn’t have time, and that this arrangement is good until the end of the year. So, why bother.

  I must be getting soft because I haven’t pushed it. I figure if he went to so much trouble to get this setup for us, he must care about it more than I thought. He has offhandedly mentioned that he wants me to live in a safe building with a doorman too many times for me to miss his point. So, I’m letting this one go and saving the money he won’t take for rent, since he claims we’re not paying any. His intentions are good, and it’s hard to dig in my heels when he seems so happy
right now.

  When I got home from work a half hour ago, he grunted a hello to me, barely looking up from his reading material. Somehow, he’s already managed to pull together everything there is to know about the nurse I met this morning and her family. He has public and not-so-public records on them, and he’s been reading these documents for hours.

  “They’re on Facebook and everything.” Lucas smirks at me as I plop down beside him, place his drink on the glass coffee table, and curl my legs beneath me. “Thanks, babe,” he says. He has the television on mute, tuned to a basketball game.

  “Her name is Samantha Miller and her brother, the cop, is Dominic. So far, I can’t find anything suspicious. Everything she told you checks out.” His voice is flat, sounding almost disappointed, like he wanted to find a reason for me not to help them.

  “She used Facebook to try to find healers,” he says, glancing up at the TV and then back down at the sheet in his lap. “She had a post on her page a few months ago.” He starts chuckling. “You should read some of the responses she got. Nothing but crackpots.”

  I guess she never found her way to my father’s network. She probably wasn’t rich enough to attract his attention.

  “He got an award for bravery,” Lucas says, still reading. “Her father saved a kid from a building fire. Ran inside, right through the flames. It also says that he started a mentoring program for underprivileged children.” Putting down the papers, he slaps his hand on the pile beside him, indicating that he’s read it all. Then he turns to me. “I can’t find any red flags. He’s a good guy, Ray. He seems worthy of your help.”

  His statement rubs me the wrong way, and I sit up straighter, placing my feet on the floor. “This isn’t about his worth. It’s about making sure they’re being honest with us. It’s not my place to sit in judgment of anyone.”

  He gives me an amused once-over. “That was predictable,” he says, reaching for his drink.