Finding Mary Blaine

by Jodi Thomas

  Mark dodged it easily. “Look. I don’t want to play. Leave me alone.”

  Another boy danced in front of him shadow fighting like a boxer. “How about we play?” He swung faster, harder, than the first.

  Mark dodged once more.

  The dancer continued, weaving back and forth as if only practicing. Then, without warning, he advanced.

  Mark had never fought in his life, but his hands went up by instinct in defense of the blow.

  The kid’s knuckles connected at Mark’s shoulder. Before he could dance away, Mark shoved him hard. “Enough!”

  Mark turned on the others. He knew if one made a move, they’d all storm toward him. In the darkness he couldn’t even tell how many there were but his odds were not good.

  One stepped closer, a bottle in his hand. He swung toward Mark’s head like a baseball player preparing to make a home run.

  Mark had no problem blocking the blow with one arm as he shoved his fist into the kid’s middle and felt his release of air as he stumbled backward.

  Another, shorter than the rest, ran at him like a bull. Mark jumped to the side, but the blow of the boy’s head still plowed hard against his lower ribs. As he twisted, he raised his arm, swinging hard at anyone within range.

  His fist connected with what felt like a face. He heard a cry and felt the warm rush of blood across the back of his hand. He swung again, blindly now.

  The boys backed away.

  Mark saw his chance. He ran into the total blackness between two buildings knowing that if he could make it five feet they’d have trouble following, for they wouldn’t know if he stood a few feet down the alley waiting for them, or had gone on. The blackness would be his ally, not theirs.

  He ran half a block toward the faint glow of a street-light ahead. When he looked back, he heard no steps following and smiled. He’d escaped. A moment later as he turned back toward the light, something tripped him. He tumbled into a pile of trash that had dripped out of an overflowing Dumpster.

  Boards tumbled from a stack of forgotten wooden delivery trays. One hit him hard across the head and he saw stars.

  He lay back amid the trash and tried to keep from passing out. Every muscle in his body hurt. Rotted food clogged his senses. Warm blood dripped from his forehead. Mark took a deep breath as something crawled across his leg. Too large to be a cockroach, too small to be a cat. Mark forced himself not to guess what animal it might be.

  He slowly stood and stumbled toward what he hoped was the direction of the café. He needed help, but he passed a dozen places that would have called an ambulance for him, or doctored his wounds and still he moved forward. He needed to reach Blaine and know that she was all right.

  The thought crossed his mind that with Miller gone from the café the bomber might return.

  Mark’s head throbbed, his muscles hurt, but he ran on toward the café paying little notice of the people who stared as he passed. As soon as he knew she was all right, he’d worry about the bothersome cut that kept dripping blood in his eye.

  When the café came into view, he saw Blaine serving coffee to a couple by the window. Miller stood at the counter. All looked calm. Mark slowed his steps and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Looking down, he realized his dress shirt was more red than white, with the blood of others more than his own, but he couldn’t rush into the café and frighten everyone half to death.

  He changed directions and took the alley. Finding Midnight Muffins’s back door was easy, the old drunk everyone called Shakespeare slept on the steps as if it were his new flat. He mumbled when he saw Mark, but didn’t stop him as Mark pulled the heavy door open and slipped into the back of the café.

  A small bathroom stood just inside the door. Mark maneuvered around a stack of boxes and slipped in. He pulled off his shirt, and after rinsing it as best he could, used it to wash the blood off his body. The pesky cut above his eyebrow was just bad enough to continue to bleed. Mark rinsed the shirt once more and held it to his forehead hoping to stop the blood and wishing he’d paid more attention in health class years ago.

  Just then, Tuesday reached for one of the boxes stacked beside the bathroom. A moment too late Mark realized he should have closed the bathroom door. He must have frightened her to death, for she screamed loud enough to wake Shakespeare outside. He poked his head around the back door as Miller hurried through the kitchen.

  For a moment Tuesday and Miller danced amid the boxes, both trying to get past the other. Tuesday screaming. Miller swearing. The boxes toppling one by one as she bumped against them.

  “It’s all right!” Mark yelled, fighting down the spinning in his head. “I’m not hurt that badly and I didn’t come in to murder anyone.” He lowered the shirt from his forehead and the wound started dripping blood down his face again. The light around him was beginning to dim, as if someone was playing with a dimmer switch.

  Blaine’s face appeared from behind the others, her blue eyes full of worry and horror. Mark fought to focus.

  The world dimmed. “Blaine,” he whispered as he fell.

  Thirty-Four

  When Mark came to, Miller knelt on one side of him and Detective Randell on the other. Despite the pain, he mumbled, “You two are the ugliest nurses I’ve ever seen.” He managed to sit up, pushing away from one of the take-out boxes that dug into his left shoulder. “I’m suing this hospital.”

  “He’s all right, or as good as lawyers get.” The cop chuckled as he stood, taking up most of the space in the narrow hallway between the back door and the café’s toilet. “He’d have to take a few more hits to the head to make him human.” Randell glanced behind Mark. “Hope he didn’t chip the sink with his hard head.”

  Miller poked at the bandage on Mark’s forehead as if testing the doneness of a cake. “Bleeding’s stopped, or at least it’s not leaking through the gauze anymore.”

  “Stop that.” Mark pulled away and banged the back of his skull against the sink’s pipes. No one seemed to notice the ringing sound but him as he straightened and tried to sit up amid the clutter of boxes and brooms. “I’ve reached overload on my share of pain for the night.”

  Randell pulled out a notebook. “All right, let’s get the facts down. Who beat you up?” He scribbled notes across the page. “Were you robbed?”

  Mark stared straight at Miller, ignoring the detective’s questions completely. “Any luck finding the guy?”

  The old man shook his head. “You?”

  “No. I never even saw a hint of him once he disappeared through the café door.” Mark shifted to Randell. “I did run into the thugs you hang around with, Detective.”

  Randell’s pen stopped. “Did they do this to you? Can you ID them? If you can give me a clean description of one, I can pretty much figure out who his friends were. They always run in packs like young wolves. But they’ve gone too far this time.”

  Mark laughed. “No, the kids didn’t do anything.” He pointed to his head. “I did this to myself. I ran over some trash in the alley.”

  Randell frowned. “How about the truth, Anderson? Miller’s already told me you both ran after the suspect after I thought I was clear all I wanted you to do was phone if you saw him.”

  Mark was surprised by the hardness in Randell’s tone. “Are you cross-examining me, Detective, or accusing me of lying?”

  Randell pointed to the bruise along his ribs. “Unless I’m mistaken, those are knuckle bruises. I’ve seen the mark a fist makes too many times not to recognize it.”

  “You’re right. I did spar with the boys. I gave more than I took. When I saw a way out, I darted down a dark alley, making a clean getaway until I fell over some trash someone had thoughtlessly left in the way.”

  This Randell believed. “You want to press charges on the boys? After all, I’m sure they started it. You wouldn’t have been in that alley if they hadn’t been bothering you.”

  “No.” It crossed Mark’s mind that they were probably underage. They could press ch
arges on him if they wanted, but somehow he knew they wouldn’t get close enough to anyone in authority to do so.

  The cop still didn’t look happy. “Miller tells me he had no luck tailing the guy after he left the café.” Randell glanced at Miller, who looked as if he wasn’t listening to the conversation.

  Randell turned back to Mark. “You should have phoned. This guy is deadly, Anderson. He’s not someone to play hide-and-seek with. You’re a suit. You don’t know the streets.”

  “I’m learning the hard way.” Mark rubbed his hair away from the bandage covering most of his forehead.

  “I just wanted to make sure he was the right man before I called,” Mark lied. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell Randell more. He’d done nothing with the information Mark had handed him so far. For all he knew, Randell might be the “good friend” Winslow had in the department.

  While Randell made notes in his police version of a Big Chief tablet, Miller offered Mark a hand up. The grip felt as if it was shattering the bones in Mark’s bruised knuckles. When he looked at Miller, he knew he’d been right to say nothing to Randell. Somehow the details were connected to Blaine, and Randell still called her Mary. The whole café seemed to be sheltering Blaine, protecting her.

  “You had supper?” Miller asked with the tone of a drill sergeant.

  Mark shook his throbbing head as he pulled on his wrinkled dress shirt. It was still wet and clung to his frame, but he didn’t care.

  “Mary grilled you a cheese sandwich before we talked her into going out front with Tuesday to close up.” Miller made the invitation sound like an order. “We didn’t know how many teeth were rattling around in your head. Thought you might not be able to eat anything else.”

  Mark nodded and pushed his way past the two men. Even though the kitchen was closed for the night, all clean and ready for another day, he found a plate of food by a high desk built into a corner. Bills and receipts covered the wall on three sides of the desk, but from the stool where he sat, he could see through the passageway into the café. Papers had been shoved back from the center of the desk to make room for his place. He flipped off the light above and relaxed, eating his sandwich more by feel than sight.

  Miller returned to his watch by the door and Detective Randell went out front to ask Tuesday for another cup of coffee. They were all waiting, like strangers trapped in the same foxhole.

  Mark needed time to try to reason through all that had happened, but first he had to get past the drums pounding in his head. In movies when guys take a fall there is never any mention of how bad it hurts. Actors just jump up and start fighting again. Mark wasn’t sure he could make it to his car. Like his bruised knuckles, his eyes saw blue and purple clouds floating around in the shadowy room. He remembered an old joke about someone saying to a drunk with bloodshot eyes, “Those look terrible.” The drunk replied, “You should see them from this side.”

  He still sat on the stool when Blaine hurried through the swinging door, her hands loaded down with coffee cups.

  She sat them in the sink and turned to him. He could see the need in her eyes, but she kept her distance. “Sailor June just came in and said she’d talked to the Annas. They claim the stranger who was in here with them took one of their bags when he left.”

  “How’d they know? They each carry a dozen.”

  Blaine shrugged. “June said it was the one with a Lego in it.”

  “Strange,” Mark said as he watched Blaine slowly inch her way toward him.

  “You gave us a scare,” she whispered in that low voice he thought belonged on a midnight radio show and not in a late-night restaurant.

  “I’m sorry.” He brushed her back, knowing that if anyone looked through the pass-through from the café they wouldn’t see his hand. “It was my own damn fault. What kind of an idiot runs down a dark alley?”

  He put his head in his hands and leaned into the desk, trying to stop the spinning.

  A moment later, Blaine’s fingers moved over his hands. She tugged them away and kissed the bandage on his forehead.

  He started to push her away, but she whispered. “Randell’s too busy with Tuesday to see us.”

  Mark closed his eyes as she leaned down and let her kisses drift along the side of his face. “I needed to talk to you,” he mumbled when her mouth pressed gently over his. “I thought we should talk about…” He couldn’t finish. She was doing the very thing that he thought they should discuss.

  She moved between his knees and melted against him the way she did when he’d kissed her in the darkness. She’d never been so bold before, so sure of herself. All the pain of his cuts and bruises vanished. Mark kissed her as he had before, with a hunger that went all the way to his soul.

  “I need to talk to you too,” she whispered against his lips. “I need to tell you…”

  He swallowed her words within the kiss. The longing for her drove him beyond all reason and Mark no longer cared. He slipped his hand beneath the loose blouse she wore and spread his fingers over her skin.

  She swayed with him, leaning against his bent leg for support as his fingers moved over her. Starved for the feel of her, he no longer wanted to pretend. He was a man who needed his mate.

  He wanted to drown in the familiar warmth and passion of her.

  If Mark had been standing, his knees would have buckled at the softness of her flesh against his palm. He moved his hand down and felt the slight swell of her abdomen just above her waistband. Slowly, he pushed the elastic band down until his hand could move over the place where the baby grew. His baby.

  If he’d been asked at any time before today, Mark would have sworn he’d have been repulsed by the feel of a pregnant woman. Any time before today. He spread his hand over her, loving that a part of him grew inside her. Loving her for carrying their child.

  “I want you,” he whispered against her ear, forgetting every other thing he wanted to tell her. “I need you.”

  “I know,” she said against his lips. “I feel the same.”

  Tuesday entered the kitchen and flipped on the light. Blaine turned away. Mark felt as though if he fell off his stool he’d fall all the way to hell, because when she’d slipped away she’d taken his heart with her.

  Tuesday, as always, was totally unaware of what went on outside her realm of concern. “Detective Randell has offered to take me to IHOP. You can drive my car back to the doc’s and I’ll pick it up later. I thought I heard it thunder a while ago and you don’t want to be caught walking home in the rain.” She laughed and whispered low so her date waiting in the café wouldn’t hear. “I may be much later, so don’t wait up.”

  Miller squeezed past her and deposited his cup in the sink. “I’ve already locked up. It’s time we call it a night. You want me to see you back to the doc’s?”

  “No, I’ll take Tuesday’s car and leave the keys where she can find them.”

  For some odd reason, he didn’t look at Mark, then Mark realized from his post by the door he probably had seen through the passageway—had seen everything that went on in the corner of the kitchen. It might have been too dark for details, but Miller could have noticed them leaning close. And Mark guessed Miller didn’t miss very much.

  Blaine moved about the kitchen, her head down as if she didn’t notice anyone else in the room. He couldn’t tell if she was waiting for them to leave, or was embarrassed at how far they might have gone if they’d had another minute.

  He wasn’t embarrassed, wouldn’t have been if Miller had seen it all, heard it all. He was more amazed that he’d responded so deeply, so quickly. The thought that he’d let Blaine sleep alone so many nights amazed him. How could he have been such a fool?

  Mark stood. “How about I take Mary home?” He tried to keep his tone casual when all he wanted to do was be alone with her. “Then Tuesday can keep her keys and pick her car up here.”

  Miller frowned and Mark didn’t miss the way Blaine put her hand on the old man’s forearm. “It’s all right,” she wh
ispered.

  “Are you sure, pest?” Miller gave Mark a look that said he’d gladly kill him if she gave the word.

  “I’m sure. I’ll catch a ride with Mark tonight.” She pulled on her sweater, picked up a bag of muffins and milk and walked through the swinging door to the café without even looking back.

  Mark smiled, but Miller didn’t bother to look in his direction. He wondered if Blaine had told this hairy friend of hers that he was her husband. Mark had a feeling she had or the big man wouldn’t be allowing her to go home with him.

  The thumping of the door closing blended with static from Randell’s radio, which crackled in the café area. Everyone in the kitchen froze, trying to listen.

  The only two words Mark could make out were bus stop. The rest was all in number codes. He glanced from Miller to Tuesday, but they didn’t seem to understand any more than he had. Everyone waited as if to hear a translation being broadcast.

  “Take a rain check on that breakfast, Tuesday,” Randell yelled. “Bus stop across from the Driskill was just bombed.” His words faded.

  Miller moved first. As he headed out of the kitchen, he shot orders. “Tuesday, get Mary safely home and stay with her until I get there.” He glared at the girl. “Do you understand?”

  For once Tuesday didn’t question. She nodded.

  Miller moved on to Mark. “Maybe we can help the police spot the bomber. If he was at the bus stop, he can’t be far.” He opened the swinging door into the restaurant.

  Mark agreed and they all rushed into the café.

  “I hope the Annas weren’t hurt,” Tuesday said more to herself than the men. Then, addressing Randell, she asked, “Andrew, was anyone there when the bomb went off? Andrew?”

  The door that Miller had locked only minutes before stood wide open. Randell had answered the radio’s call. He was gone.

  It took Mark a moment to realize what was wrong. The sack of muffins and milk sat on the counter. Blaine was gone.

  Mark’s heart rolled in his chest. “No!” he shouted and ran for the door with Miller a step behind. They were at a full run when they hit the corner and turned toward Sixth Street and the bus stop.