Nobody's Angel

by Patricia Rice

  “You're turning out to be damned bossy,” he protested, but he took his seat again. “What do you suggest?” he asked snidely.

  “A little more respect, Mr. Macho.” Faith sipped her tea and thought about it. “Chances are, if it's our mysterious broker who's tracking us, he doesn't know about Sandra. She wasn't someone Tony would flaunt in financial circles.”

  “Sounds like Sandra would have spent every dime Tony stole if she knew about it,” Cesar commented, reaching for the refrigerator door behind his back and producing a carton of milk without getting out of his seat.

  Faith grabbed the half-gallon carton as he lifted it to his mouth. “Don't do that. It's rude. I bet your mother wouldn't let you drink from it.”

  Cesar grimaced and glanced at Adrian. “You could have picked someone less like the women we already have in this family.” He stood up to fetch a glass.

  Adrian grinned briefly and looked her up and down. “I thought I'd found someone as far different as I could.”

  “I'm the same sex as your mother and sisters. That's all it takes. You want to live like animals, go find a cave.” Unperturbed by the complaint, Faith swung around the legal pad Adrian had been writing on. She recognized most of the names and firms he'd written down. Tony liked dealing with the biggest names, whether or not they were the best at what they did. “I can't believe any of these men would have anything to do with illegal funds. If we want to believe it's anyone except Tony or Sandra ransacking our houses, then we have to figure it's someone who knows they've been doing something wrong.”

  The phone rang. After a silent exchange between the brothers, Cesar reached for it. Adrian scribbled abstract designs across the bottom of the legal pad.

  “Yeah, she's out sick. I was supposed to call and forgot. If she's feeling better, she'll be in this afternoon.” Cesar hung up, ran his hand through his badly cut hair, and glanced uncertainly at Adrian.

  Adrian shot him a glare. “You shouldn't lie for them. Dolores?”

  “Yeah. She was at the bus stop this morning. Someone must have picked her up.”

  Wearily, Adrian shoved the chair out from under him. “I suppose the boyfriend has an apartment?”

  “Probably, but I don't know where it is.”

  Faith warred with herself about becoming involved, but she was already involved. She knew what it was like to be a confused and hurt teenager. They did stupid things, like marrying stupid men. She didn't want Adrian's little sister to go through that. “She'll have an address book. It's probably in her purse. If she took her purse, she'll still have notes jotted in her notebooks, on her desk, under her bed. She wouldn't want to lose something that important.”

  Adrian raised his eyebrows but didn't question. He took off for the far reaches of the house. Cesar grimaced and finished his milk. “I should be on my way to class. She's the one who's supposed to take over for me. Girls have no sense of responsibility.”

  “Belinda doesn't?” Faith challenged him.

  He shrugged. “Okay, maybe Belinda. Sometimes. But getting pregnant right now isn't all that responsible.”

  “But maybe it's better if she has a life than following Adrian's route. It's hard being yourself and being there for everyone else at the same time.”

  Cesar shook his head. “A family like ours can't afford the luxury of being ourselves. We have to work twice as hard for everything. Dolores has to learn that.”

  Faith pitied the teenager faced with that attitude. Not everyone could have the brains, energy, and ability of Adrian. He'd set a difficult example to follow. Her own sister had always been the smart one in the family, the one most destined to follow in their parents’ footsteps. Maybe the eldest children were blessed with more responsibility than the ones who followed. That didn't make them any better. Or worse.

  As Adrian stalked into the room carrying a piece of school notebook paper, Faith stood up and snatched it away from him. “I'm going with you.”

  “This is none of your damned business.” He tried to snatch it back, but she stuffed it into her purse.

  She didn't like arguing, had never nagged in her life, had always given in to Tony and her parents and everyone else simply to keep the peace. She couldn't go back to being that cream puff anymore. She patted his chest, recognized the tensing of his muscles beneath her hand, and met his gaze firmly. “You want to keep your sister, you'll let me come with you. Cesar has to go to class, and Dolores hates you right now.”

  She shouldn't have been so harsh. He looked defeated and accepted her offer without further argument. Maybe it was time Adrian Quinn Raphael learned to accept the help of others.

  Faith contemplated locking Adrian in the van when they located the apartment in a run-down boardinghouse on one of the city's more dangerous streets. Steam almost visibly poured from his ears as he grabbed for the door handle before she'd even parked the van.

  She hastily turned off the ignition and pocketed the keys before running after him. Damn good thing he didn't carry a gun, but a man like Adrian could be deadly without any weapon other than his fists.

  She grabbed his arm before he could rip open the door. “She may not be here,” she reminded him. “You could be scaring the poor boy to death for no reason.”

  He pounded on the door instead of ripping it off the hinges.

  A lanky teenager in torn T-shirt with tousled blond hair answered. He looked blankly at them and said nothing.

  “Who is it, Mike?” a familiar feminine voice called from the interior.

  Faith groaned as Adrian bunched the kid's shirt in his fist, shoved him backward, and stalked inside without invitation.

  “Get yourself out that door this instant, Dolores!” he shouted at the terrified girl sitting on the sway-backed plaid couch. “So help me, I'll handcuff and tie you—”

  “I'm not going home,” Dolores replied sullenly. “I refuse to be a slave any longer. You're back. You do it. You take care of the kids and Mama and clean the house and work yourself to death in a crummy fast-food place. I won't.”

  “Shut up, Adrian,” Faith intruded before he could open his mouth. The boy looked terrified now that he knew who they were, or maybe because of Dolores's declaration. Chances were good that he'd never considered marriage or responsibility or anything except Dolores's rather bountiful breasts. Boys that age were like that. “Dolores, if you love Mike, you won't saddle him with the same burden you're complaining about. He needs to finish school, find a good job, and provide a decent place to live before he can even think about taking you in.”

  “I can live anywhere,” she said sulkily, refusing to look at them. “I can work full-time. I don't need school. They don't teach anything that will help me work anyway.”

  “Dolores, so help me—” Adrian started across the floor, but Faith grabbed his arm and hung on.

  “Adrian, listen for a change, will you?” She shook his arm to capture his attention.

  He glared down at her, and when she didn't flinch or release him, he glared at the boy. The boy tucked both hands under his armpits and managed to look defiant. Both had the sense to shut up and let the women do the talking. Faith gave thanks for small favors.

  “Dolores, look, you've had to grow up much too fast while Adrian was away.”

  Dolores snorted at the term “away” but didn't interrupt.

  “You have to help him back into the swing of things. Adrian doesn't understand that you're not a little girl anymore, and that the others aren't babies you can tuck into bed at night. You're a lot more grown-up than he gives you credit for, but you really don't need to grow up this fast. You need to be cheerleading again, going to football games and parties, not working at a crummy fast-food chain. If you don't like it now, wait until you've done it to support kids and a family for a few years.”

  “Mike's a good mechanic. He'll make a lot of money.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She still wasn't looking at them, but she was listening.

  “Mike could get run over
by a bus tomorrow,” Faith answered harshly. “Life happens. You have to be ready for it. Unless you enjoy being a burden on someone else, you need to finish school, get some kind of technical training at least. Adrian can help, once we knock some sense into his head. But right now he has a lot on his mind and hasn't been paying attention.”

  Dolores threw an uncertain look at the silent Mike. He shrugged and looked a lot less defiant than earlier. Not finding what she wanted there, she dared a look at Faith. “Is he coming home, then?”

  Faith figured this was the time for Adrian to step in, but he remained tight-lipped, fists at his side, waiting for her to answer. She didn't have any answers.

  “Actually, we could use your help a little.…” she said tentatively.

  Adrian's eyebrows flew up, but he was obviously biting his tongue. Hard.

  Dolores scowled, but she wasn't protesting.

  All right, so she'd have to wing it. Trying to remember what she would have liked to hear when she'd been that age, Faith mentally rolled her eyes and tried again. Separate magnet and nails first, she reminded herself, turning to the boyfriend. “Mike, this is kind of a family thing. Would you mind if Dolores called and told you about it later?”

  Treated as if he were an adult, the boy looked relieved and a little anxious as he glanced at Dolores. “You know I'll be here. You do what you need to do.”

  She shot him a black look and stood up. “Fine. But I'm coming right back here. I'm not baby-sitting those brats again.”

  Hearing Adrian's growl, Faith smiled, dropped an arm around the girl's shoulder, and practically shoved her out the door. “Thank you for listening.”

  Out at the van, Adrian held out his hand, and deciding she'd already tested his patience beyond endurance, Faith slapped the keys into it.

  “I'm entering a monastery as soon as I figure out how to escape this nuthouse,” he grumbled, flinging open the passenger door and gesturing for them to climb in.

  “We'll visit.” Refusing the front bench seat, Faith opened the rear door, leaving Dolores to sit with her brother. She did so, reluctantly.

  “What's this all about?” Dolores demanded once the car was under way.

  “Ask Faith. I'm just the dumb male here. What do I know?”

  “Are your grades good enough at school that you can afford to skip today, or should we come back for you after school?” Not to be forced into anything, Faith sounded out the situation. Years of pacifying Tony had given her a few talents, anyway.

  “I have a test today, but I don't see any reason to take it. I don't need school.”

  “She's testing your temper, Adrian, so keep it canned,” Faith warned. “When I was sixteen, I decided I'd never be the beloved daughter my sister had been, and I ran away, too. Dolores probably had a better excuse than I ever did.”

  Dolores glanced over her shoulder with her first display of interest. “Where did you go?”

  “I didn't have any money and couldn't go anywhere. I tried hitchhiking, hoping to reach my grandmother's. The police picked me up and I spent a night in jail.”

  Adrian hooted. “Miss Dilworth spent a night in jail? Did Tony know that? That might have shot down his political aspirations.”

  “Shut up, Adrian.”

  Dolores giggled.

  “Let's get this back on track. Take Dolores back to school so she can take her test.” She was winging this, interfering where she had no right, but if she couldn't have kids of her own, she might as well mess up someone else's. Somebody had to do something, and Adrian's mother didn't need this burden. Before Dolores could poker up and refuse, Faith offered the carrot. “Adrian is trying to find the guy who helped frame him and who took the money. That woman who came to your house the other night might know some things we need to know, but she won't tell us. If we fix you up so she doesn't recognize you, do you think you could help?”

  Dolores blinked in disbelief. “You want me to talk to that slut?”

  “Good Catholic girls don't use words like ‘slut,’ ”Adrian said dryly.

  “Shut up, Adrian,” they both replied in unison, and the tension unexpectedly broken, laughter filled the van.

  “One night of sex and you turn into a manipulating, demanding bitch,” Adrian griped as they left Dolores at the high school. “And don't you dare tell me to shut up again.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Raphael, sir,” Faith answered meekly from the seat beside him.

  He could hear her muffled laughter and bit back a grin. He wanted to throttle her but couldn't. Her way of doing things was far more effective than his would have been.

  “What the devil do you think Dolores can do with Sandra? She's a kid. She doesn't understand anything.”

  “She's sixteen, going on sixty, and she understands a lot more than you give her credit for. She may not react appropriately to what she understands, but she isn't dumb.”

  She reached over to pat his thigh, and his libido shot skyward. He'd hoped to work some of this out of his system so he could think clearly, but it was obvious thinking clearly in Faith's presence wouldn't happen in his lifetime. “I don't want the kids involved,” he warned. “This is my problem. She has enough of her own.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but it doesn't work that way. You want Dolores to step into your mother's place, accept an adult's responsibility, then you have to treat her as an adult and let her decide if she wants to be involved in what is, after all, a family problem. It's affecting the whole family, Adrian. Can't you see that?”

  He didn't want to see that. He was the eldest. He took care of things. His stepfather would have wanted it that way.

  He'd felt worthwhile and useful when he was doing the providing. He felt like a piece of garbage now.

  “Hell, I can't see anything clearly,” he admitted. “I just want this over so I can pick up what pieces are left and go on.” He wanted a hell of a lot more than that, but he'd always been a greedy, arrogant piece of shit. He knew he'd really hit bottom when he was agreeing with his worst enemies. Hell, maybe he was his own worst enemy.

  “You're not Superman. You can't do everything. We need to find out if Tony really was diverting funds through a firm you didn't know about. We need to find out who knows about the fund. Sandra is our only starting place, unless you want to go back to canvassing banks. I need to put together those bank letters again while we're at it.”

  “All right, we'll go to the library. You can compose them again, print them out, and we'll take it to the copy store.”

  Faith seemed to relax as he gave up his plan of trapping the stalker. Maybe she cared just a little. It didn't mean anything, couldn't mean anything, but right now he needed one person in this world who didn't think he was a piece of shit. He couldn't believe he'd fooled a woman as smart as Faith, but it gave him reason to stay grounded.

  Faith reformatted and repeated the letters she had drawn up earlier. While they were printing, she hovered over Adrian's shoulder, watching his on-line manipulations.

  “If Tony had any accounts at these places, they're not letting me find them,” he complained. “Hard to come up with a password if we don't even know there's an account.”

  “Ummm.” She sounded hesitant. “It occurred to me that if the bad guy is Tony's broker, he could do anything he wanted with the money if he thought Tony dead and no one else aware of it.”

  “Now she tells me.” Adrian threw up his hands in disgust and shut down the computer. “So what exactly is our agenda here? He doesn't need us if he already has access to the account.”

  “Maybe it's not the broker?” she suggested. “Maybe someone else knows of the account but has no authority over it?”

  “And they think you do?” He wanted to sound skeptical, but that's what he'd thought when he went after her.

  “They're obviously after me. They think I have something.”

  “You have the bank keys, but you're the only one who can use them.”

  “Unless …” She leaned her lovely silk-covered
rear end on the computer desk and stuck a fingertip between her luscious lips, and he had to fight to keep from pulling her on his lap.

  She brought him back to the real world with a sharp look. “Unless the ‘he’ was a ‘she’ and she's as good at forging my name as yours.”

  “Oh, shit.” He slumped back in the tiny chair the library provided. “You're not suggesting that barmy little bookkeeper Tony kept—”

  “I'm not suggesting anything,” she said curtly. “Let's have these letters copied and devise some way of questioning Sandra. She has to know something.”

  “With her hair back, wearing a business suit and heels, she'll look old enough,” Faith protested, pinning up what there was of Dolores's hair to show the effect.

  “She's a kid!” Adrian shouted, pacing his mother's front room while various of his siblings sprawled across chairs, watching as if this were pay TV. “She looks like a kid. She doesn't know anything about investments and insurance. She'll sound like a kid.”

  “Act-u-al-ly,” Dolores drawled haughtily, “our class invested in the stock market last year and did quite well. I bet I know more than you do about stocks.”

  “Considering I never owned any, you're damned right.” Adrian glared at Hernando, who'd commandeered his chair. The ten-year-old giggled and scrambled up on the arm. So much for scaring some sense into anyone.

  “If Sandra thinks she'll get money out of it, she'll answer anything. I would if I had three kids to raise and their bastard of a father left me no way to take care of them.”

  “One should not say such words in front of the little ones,” a soft voice protested from the doorway.

  “Mama!” several voices yelled at once. Little Ines leaped from behind a table and raced to capture her mother's legs, nearly toppling her. The others were a little more respectful, standing to offer the best chairs in the room.

  “Mama, you shouldn't be out of bed.” Adrian gently took her arm and led her to the big upholstered recliner, helping her into it and covering her legs with an old afghan.

  “I am not helpless,” she said with dignity, sitting up straight. “I can sit here and watch my little ones, and they will look after me.” She nodded in Faith's direction. “Dolores tells me you make my headstrong son behave. You will keep him out of any more trouble?”