Heart Stealers

by Patricia McLinn

  He explained his impulsive trip to Hotshots. The smile that lit her face was hard to ignore. So he forced himself to play the cop. “Cassie, sit down and tell me exactly how this happened.”

  She blew her bangs out of her face and shivered.

  Returning to the storeroom, he picked up her sweat suit and gave it to her. It was a little damp.

  “Put this on.”

  “Haven’t we already been through this tonight?” she said lightly as she leaned against the edge of the desk.

  “This is no joking matter. Somebody locked you in this closet.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “What other explanation is there?”

  “I left the key in the door. I could have relocked it.”

  “And who closed it, the Opera Ghost?”

  Cassie smiled. “Very quick, Captain.”

  “Cassie?”

  “All right. Earlier, I felt a draft from the hall, like someone had opened the door. The wind could have blown the storeroom door closed.”

  “The outside door is locked.”

  “Now. Maybe not—” She looked at the clock. “Wow, I’ve been in there two hours?”

  “Someone could have come in and trapped you in there.”

  She frowned. “One of the kids?” Her expression turned into a scowl. “I’ll kill them if they pulled a prank like this on me.”

  “Maybe it isn’t a prank.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Would anyone want to hurt you? Scare you?”

  “No one.”

  “Are you telling me the truth?”

  She angled her chin. “Why would I lie?”

  “To protect someone?”

  “Who?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Look, Captain, I’m not in the mood for guessing games. If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise, I’m going home.”

  Suddenly, anger, mixed with the anxiety Mitch had felt since he discovered she’d never made it to Hotshots, was ignited by a fierce blast of desire. He grabbed her shoulders again and gave her a not-very-gentle shake. “Damn you, I was worried.”

  Her eyes deepened to charcoal, and her lips parted slightly. Her breathing speeded up, making his own breath catch in his throat. “You were?”

  He yanked her to him. She was tall, and as he locked his hand at her neck, he could feel how perfectly each soft curve of her body fit against the hard planes of his. He pressed her face into his chest and threaded his hand in her hair, then he buried his lips in it. “Yes,” he whispered hoarsely. “I was.”

  He felt her relax against him, and allowed himself to enjoy the sensation of holding her close.

  “Hey, what are you doin’ down here?” The voice from the hall was raised and irritated.

  Mitch stiffened. He glanced toward the door and saw someone whiz past it, heading down the corridor to the front of the school.

  In seconds, Mitch set Cassie aside and bolted for the door. The intruder was six feet away from the outside exit when Mitch tackled him. He slammed the guy facedown, jammed his knee in the man’s spine and yanked his arm behind his back.

  From behind him, Cassie asked, “What’s going on?”

  Then the janitor said, “I saw this guy—”

  “Let me up, you bastard.” The voice was familiar enough, but when Mitch heard Cassie’s gasp, he knew who his victim was. Jerking the kid’s head to the side, Mitch could clearly see Johnny Battaglia’s profile.

  Chapter Six

  Johnny kicked the loose gravel with the toe of his boot as he made his way up the alley that led to Zorro’s tenement house. The midnight wind whipped his Blisters jacket open, sending a chill skittering through him. The nylon coat wasn’t warm enough for the end of January, but after the scene at school, Johnny had purposefully gone home and exchanged his heavy parka for his gang jacket. He tried not to think about what had happened, but he couldn’t stop remembering....

  “Let me up, you bastard,” he’d said to Lansing after he’d been tackled like some featherweight. He hadn’t realized the cop was so big.

  “Not until I get some answers.”

  “Mitch, what are you doing?” It was Cassie, standing behind them.

  Thank God, Johnny had thought. She’d call off this watchdog.

  “Let him up. Right now.”

  Reluctantly, Lansing had let go, and Johnny scrambled to his feet.

  “I’ve caught our prankster,” Lansing said when Johnny faced him. “Get a kick out of locking your teacher in the storeroom? Out of scaring Ms. Smith?”

  Johnny remembered his confusion. Until he looked at Cassie. She’d stood there with accusation in her eyes, written all over her disappointed face.

  It was only for a second. But it was enough.

  “You believe him.” It wasn’t a question.

  She’d shaken off the doubt, almost visibly. But it had been there. Briefly, Johnny explained that he’d been on his way to catch the end of the wrestling match after work and seen her room lights on from the parking lot. He was stopping by to say hello. In truth, he was going to tell her she shouldn’t have been at school so late, all alone, but he hadn’t revealed that. He’d listened while Lansing told him what had happened, but he didn’t look again at Cassie.

  After the explanation, she’d insisted Johnny didn’t do it, that Lansing let him go. When the cop agreed, she asked to talk to Johnny alone.

  “We got nothin’ to say to each other,” he’d said callously, and stalked out of the building…

  And ended up here, for more than one reason. Hunching against the cold, he headed to the front door, carefully picking his way around broken glass and scattered two-by-fours. He entered through a thin, creaky door, turned right and strode down the first-floor hallway. A naked bulb burned above, illuminating the colorless walls. Water stains ran down in tiny rivulets, and there was a new hole in the plaster about the size of a man’s fist.

  Johnny rapped hard on the door to apartment 112, stinging his knuckles.

  “Enter.”

  Inside, he found Zorro staring at a black-and-white TV, its volume so muted Johnny could barely hear it. When Zorro glanced up, his ebony eyes lit from within. “Tonto, my man.”

  For a moment, Johnny glimpsed the boy he loved behind the facade of a man he no longer respected. Walking to the rumpled bed, Johnny leaned over and grabbed Zorro by the collar of his faded flannel shirt. He yanked hard.

  Zorro’s head snapped back and his chin bobbed. “What the fuck—”

  “Saw your car at school an hour ago.”

  Zorro stared at him. “No, man. I been here all night.”

  “I saw it. I was on my way to the wrestling match.”

  “What you doin’ at a wrestlin’ match?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I ain’t.”

  Johnny studied Zorro’s face. His eyes were smudged underneath with faint purple rings. The two-inch scar on his cheek—earned in a knife fight at fourteen—had faded over the years, but still marred his olive skin. A trademark of the Blisters, his hair was shaved on each side and shaggy on top. It was the exact texture and color of Johnny’s own hair, which was now cropped short. They’d pretended for years they were brothers. Hell—they were brothers in all the important ways.

  For a moment, Johnny was transported back to the old neighborhood. He’d been seven when his father first hit him. Johnny had staggered out of the apartment right into his best buddy....

  “What happen to your face?” Zorro had asked.

  “Nothin’.”

  Zorro, a year older and quite a bit bigger, had grabbed Johnny’s shoulder and inspected his cheek. “You got hit.”

  Mortified, Johnny shook his head. But he couldn’t quell the tears filling his eyes.

  Zorro had dragged him down the hallway into his own seedy three-room place. “My old man hits me,” Zorro said, snagging some ice, popping it into a bag and scrunching it into Johnny’s face. “Lemme
tell ya what I do....”

  The memory increased Johnny’s need to believe his friend. He let go of Zorro’s shirt and dropped down on the chair next to the bed. “Aw, hell, I thought it was your car. Maybe not.”

  “Why you think I was at your stupid school?”

  “Somebody locked Cassie in the storeroom. I thought you’d paid her another visit.”

  Zorro’s eyes turned February frigid. He swore vilely.

  Johnny glared at him. “Don’t say nothin’ about her.”

  Like quicksilver, Zorro came off the bed. He kicked a wastebasket, sending the contents flying. “What’s with you and that broad, man? You sure you ain’t gettin’ it on with her?”

  Johnny closed his eyes. God, he was tired of this. Zorro just couldn’t understand how he felt about Cassie. It wasn’t sexual. It was sisterly and maternal and friendship all mixed together. “Let’s drop it.”

  Zorro’s eyes flamed at him for a few seconds, reminding Johnny why his friend had been sought out to head the Sixth Street gang. As one of the toughest fighters in lower Manhattan, Zorro held grudges that would shame the Mafia. He was also the best with a blade—hence his name—and dangerously reckless when he used it.

  “Fine, I’ll forget it if you come with me tonight,” Zorro said.

  “Where?”

  Zorro’s smile was silky. “An initiation.”

  Johnny sighed and checked his watch, stalling for time. He remembered his own jumping in. He could almost feel again the punches jabbing him in the gut, at the temples. He could hear the crack of bone that led him to wonder if his jaw was broken. He’d been sick to his stomach for an hour after. Zorro had held his head until he was finished. Johnny had been thirteen.

  “Tonto?”

  Johnny stared at his buddy. Why the hell not? he thought as he stood and zipped up his jacket. He wasn’t going near school tomorrow. Not after the bastard accused him of locking her up. Not after the look in Cassie’s eyes said she’d believed the cop—if only for a few seconds. Any doubt about something like that was enough.

  God, he’d almost begged her in the car that night not to let Lansing turn her against him. And tonight made me think maybe he could take you away, too. You know, turn you against me. All I’d have left then is Zorro and the Blisters. How humiliating. Well, never again. He faced his buddy. “What you takin’?” he asked Zorro.

  His best friend in the world slapped him on the back and crossed to the scarred dresser in the corner. He pulled open the bottom drawer. Johnny followed him and glanced down at the chains, clubs and even some old-fashioned brass knuckles Zorro had found at a pawn shop in Times Square. Bending over, Johnny picked up a chain. The once-familiar weight was heavy in his hand.

  But he hadn’t forgotten how to wrap it around his fingers. When he did, it felt more comfortable.

  It felt right.

  * * *

  From the doorway of the office at the Forty-Second Street Clinic, Mitch watched his brother Kurt close his eyes, lean back on a chair, link his hands behind his head and prop his feet up on the desk. His sagging posture testified to his fatigue. Operating an independent clinic in the heart of New York City was tough, even if Kurt did have the help of two partners. His brother’s desire to do humanitarian work, like running this clinic, rather than earning money as a hotshot doctor on Park Avenue, had cost him his marriage.

  Mitch slouched against the door frame. “When are you going to get some more help around here?”

  Kurt’s eyes opened and a smile spread across his face. “You volunteering?”

  “Nope, I shoot them. You patch ‘em up.”

  The old joke between brothers widened Kurt’s grin. Mitch sauntered farther into the small office. Dropping onto a faded chair facing the desk, Mitch’s smile quickly transformed into a worried scowl. Kurt’s eyes were bloodshot, and there were deep lines around his mouth.

  “Seriously,” Mitch said. “I thought you were going to hire some help.”

  “I did. Five premed students from Columbia University. One lasted a week, one ten days. The jury’s still out on the others. Real life in the city is too much for them.”

  Mitch rolled his eyes.

  “You wouldn’t know anybody interested in medicine who can handle what goes on in the trenches, would you?”

  An image of hostile black eyes and a sneering mouth popped into Mitch’s head. Johnny wants to be a doctor...He didn’t take the scalpels...He loves his job...He’d never do anything to jeopardize it.

  “Do you know someone?”

  “Yeah, but it’s complicated. Let me think about it.”

  “Fine. It’s nice to see you.” Kurt peered at his brother intently. “Something’s wrong.”

  Without warning, Mitch felt his heartbeat quicken with the familiar welling of panic he experienced every time he considered opening up. “Not wrong, exactly.”

  Kurt unlocked his hands from behind his neck, dragged his feet off the desk and rose. He went to the small utility table, poured coffee for them both, gave Mitch a mug and sat down in the chair opposite him. And waited.

  Looking into the cup, Mitch took a couple of sips before he said, “I’ve met someone.”

  Coffee sputtered from Kurt’s mouth. Laughing, he wiped his face and said, “Sorry. But, my God, are we talking about a woman?”

  “I do occasionally spend time with them, you know.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve never come in here wound tight as a spring and told me you cared about one. I couldn’t be happier. It’s about time some female penetrated that wall you’ve built around yourself.”

  “I never said I cared about her.”

  His brother sat back, still smiling. “Okay, who is this woman you don’t care about?”

  “A teacher at the school.”

  Kurt sobered. “Is it still hard for you? Being there?”

  Mitch was tempted to brush off his brother’s concern, but he needed help tonight and Kurt was the only person in the world he could be honest with.

  “Yeah.” Mitch dragged his hand through his hair. “It is hard. But I like it, too. I like the students. Cassie has a saying on her wall, ‘Teachers change the world, one kid at a time.’ I can help do that and it feels good.”

  “Is Cassie this someone you’ve met?”

  Mitch nodded.

  “What’s she like?”

  Blowing out an exasperated breath, Mitch stood and paced. “She’s opinionated, obstinate, feisty and mostly a real pain in the butt.”

  “Oh.”

  “She’s also loyal and brave and almost as concerned about helping others as you are.”

  Kurt smiled. “My kind of woman.”

  “Well, she isn’t mine.” Mitch paced to the other side of the room.

  “So I can see.”

  Mitch let out a string of colorful obscenities—which made Kurt laugh again. When Mitch glared at him, Kurt said, “You obviously like this woman. Let yourself seek a little human comfort.”

  “It’s not comfort I want from her.”

  “Oh. You can barely talk about her and it’s all sex? What is she, a runway model gorgeous?”

  Mitch stopped in his tracks. “No, not at all. She’s pretty enough—she doesn’t wear any goop on her face.” He hesitated. “She’s wholesome-looking, I guess. Except for the tattoo on her ankle.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Kurt glanced at his watch. “Well, my partner should be here in ten minutes. I’ll buy you a beer and you can tell me about this plain-Jane.”

  “All right.” He glanced around. “And maybe we can discuss getting another helper around here.”

  “It’s a deal, buddy.”

  * * *

  “This was the third day he was out of school. No one answers his phone or doorbell.” Cassie, perched on top of a ladder, looked over at Zoe, who was across the room on a makeshift scaffold. They were stenciling the walls of Zoe’s bedroom.

  Zoe said, “I know, Cass.”
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  “I can still see his face. In that split second when I doubted him.” She swallowed hard and blinked. “He’ll never forgive me for that.”

  “I think Johnny Battaglia is a bigger person than that.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Zoe turned back to the painting job. The design was of abstract birds in various tones of silver. “Johnny’s got a lot of depth and sensitivity. Especially when it comes to you.”

  “Maybe too much. How could I have believed—even for a moment—that Johnny would lock me in the storage closet? Lansing’s accusation was totally unfounded.”

  “Oh, now it’s Lansing. Not Mitch or even Captain.”

  “Don’t start.” Zoe was quiet. Cassie continued with painstakingly small brush strokes. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. Obviously it’s a sore spot with you.”

  It was still hard, after all these years, to talk about her feelings. Even with Zoe, who was a wonderful, loyal friend. But damn it, Cassie needed to get some of this out or she’d go nuts. “Actually, it’s more than that.”

  Much more. Cassie could vividly remember the feel of Mitch Lansing’s chest against her cheek, the steady thud of his heart beneath her ear, the all-consuming, potent smell of him.

  Zoe didn’t answer.

  “I’m having some unexpected feelings for him.”

  “Honey, every female at Bayview Heights High School except you has been having those feelings for him.” Zoe got down from her ladder and set the brush in its can. “Let’s take a break. I’ll get us coffee.”

  Cassie was sitting on a drop cloth when her friend returned. Zoe sank onto the floor, handed her a mug and faced her squarely. “Tell me.”

  “You’ve got paint on your face.”

  “And your feelings are written all over yours. Even if you can’t express them.”

  “I express my feelings all the time at school. Much to the dismay of people like Jerry Bosco.”

  Zoe reached over and squeezed Cassie’s arm. “Feelings about school and the students. Cassie, the kids aren’t enough.”

  “I’m scared,” Cassie finally admitted.

  “You’re also lonely and ready for more in your life.”

  “But why did I have to pick him? Why couldn’t this be easier?”