And how could she possibly trust this stranger—this cop—with that?
"Have they caught the two men?" she asked, absently drawing her fingertip along the beveled edge of the table.
"No."
"But they know who they are."
"Your identification was as positive as it gets. They also know where the guys live and who they work for, but New Orleans is a big city. There are plenty of places to hide."
"If they're even in the city."
He nodded in agreement. "Right now they could be anywhere in the world."
"What about the man they killed?" In avoiding the news reports on the murder, she had not only avoided any possible mention of her own name, but she'd also kept herself in the dark about the other details. The two detectives who had interviewed her at the station Monday had told her his name, had repeated a few minor facts about his life, but she had still been shaken, hadn't paid much attention. She didn't remember any of it.
But she would never forget his death.
"His name was Simmons—Nate Simmons. He was thirty years old, single, came here from Pensacola. He had an extensive criminal record—had been in prison in Florida, Georgia and Alabama. He was a burglar of dubious skill, was slightly better as a thief, but he preferred the con. He could charm a lady out of whatever she held most dear with no more effort than it took to breathe."
Interesting. Her first impression of the man had been that he was handsome, her second, that he was a charmer. His smile had been quick, practiced and slick, but no less potent for that slickness. He'd been a toucher, too—brushing shoulders, bumping against her, touching her hand. She'd been warned about such people since she was a child, had been taught—especially in the Quarter—that the man bumping against her in the crowd might be the innocent tourist he seemed, but could just as likely be a pickpocket. Her first instinct, in fact, when the man—when Simmons—had knocked her purse to the ground, then handed it back, was to feel it to make certain that her wallet was still inside.
"Did he have any family?"
"I don't know."
"Do you have any family?"
For a time she thought he wasn't going to answer, and she didn't blame him. It was a nosy question and tactlessly asked. She had already intruded into his home—into his mind, if his talk of visions was true, and she believed it was—but that didn't give her the right to barge into his personal life.
But when she was about to apologize—again—he spoke. "Yes, I do."
"Here in New Orleans?"
"That depends on your definition of family." He leaned back in the chair, gazing somewhere over her head. "My parents, grandparents, sisters and their families all live in Arkansas. That's where I'm from—a little town called Titusville, right across the state line. I don't see them often."
"And here in New Orleans?" she repeated.
"I've got friends—good friends. None of us has anyone here, so we're each other's family."
Feeling a twinge of envy, Valery left the table and went to stand near—not in front of, but near—the French doors. "That's nice," she remarked, gazing out across Jackson Square
to St. Louis Cathedral through the filmy white veil of the curtains. "I've never had friends like that." With a backward glance that didn't connect, she sent a smile his way. "I mean, I have friends—people to go out with, to go shopping or to dinner or a movie—but not anyone close enough to consider family."
"But you've got family nearby."
This time, her glance did connect. His eyes were dark, shadowy, impossible to read. "How do you know that?"
He shrugged. It was a simple gesture, a slight lifting and falling of his shoulders, but it was eloquent. It told her what he clarified with words. "You wanted to go home, but you couldn't. You were afraid to get them involved."
Afraid. Heavens, yes. Aunt Marie and Uncle George deserved so much in return for everything they'd given her—a home, love, acceptance—but she had managed to give them only heartache. She was responsible for their fifteen-year estrangement from their only child. She couldn't also be responsible for bringing danger and possibly even death into their lives.
Could she, if it became necessary, be responsible for permanently destroying not only their relationship with their son, but also for destroying Remy himself?
She didn't know. God help her, she didn't know.
"So where is home?"
She turned her back on the square and the church.
"Halfway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. In Belclaire."
"Your parents live there?"
"No. My aunt and uncle. They raised me after my parents divorced. My mother is dead now, and my father…" Her voice trailed off, the next words refusing to come. It was a simple little story, the Sinclair-Navarre version of her life. My parents divorced, and my mother left me with my father, who left me with my aunt and uncle. My mother is dead now, and my father lives with his second family up in Vicksburg. Told with just the right touch of carelessness, it generated nothing more than an equally careless I'm sorry or Too bad. It didn't give a hint of the pain she had suffered at her parents' abandonment. It didn't hint at the turmoil she had eventually caused in her aunt and uncle's lives.
It didn't do much more than even hint at the truth. Copying his shrug and borrowing his last comment about his own family, she abruptly finished. "I don't see my father often." At least, not in the past fifteen years. Looking around the apartment for a likely change of subject, her gaze swept across the paintings on the wall. They were mostly French Quarter renderings, not the familiar places that any tourist could identify, but smaller, more intimate scenes that only someone who knew the district well would find. He was talented, no denying that, but so were most of the numerous artists one could find around the square every sunny day. He liked to paint, and he was good, but for him art was a pastime. It wasn't his passion.
She wondered what was.
"You aren't married." She said it as a statement, full of certainty even though she wasn't. It was apparent that he lived here alone, and obviously last night had passed without a wife's presence, but she still wanted to hear him say it. She wanted to know for sure.
"I was."
"What happened?" she asked, looking at him, seeing that his attention, as hers had been, was on the paintings.
"You don't ask easy questions, do you?"
"I'm sor—"
"Stop apologizing," he interrupted, his tone underlaid with impatience. "'Sorry' is the most worthless word in the English language."
She watched as he drew his hand through his hair. It was too long, but so well cut, so thick, that each strand fell right back into its proper place. Pretty hair.
Pretty man.
"What happened to my marriage?" He shrugged, with the same degree of carelessness that usually accompanied her partially-true story about her parents. "She was a lousy cook. I was a lousy husband." First answer, the easy one. Flippant. Then he added what she thought was probably closer to the truth. "She wasn't cut out for being a cop's wife and I wasn't cut out for being anything else."
"How long were you married?"
"Not long enough. Too long."
She waited for him to ask her about that aspect of her own life, but he didn't. Instead he rose abruptly from the table, got a pad and pen from the phone table and came toward her. "Make a list of what you need, include your clothing sizes, and I'll go shopping."
She took the pad reluctantly. Of course she needed clothes, and she would like to have her own brands of shampoo and toothpaste, and some makeup and a bottle of her favorite perfume sounded wonderful. But she hated to spend a penny of the money she had secreted away on non-essentials—after all, she still might have to leave here. Even if she didn't have to flee, even if Michael was able to resolve her problems, that money would have to be repaid to the credit card companies, and at fifteen percent interest.
"Couldn't you just go to my apartment and pick up some things?"
"Your apartment was
broken into Monday evening." Michael saw the pad tremble just a bit in her hand. "It's possible it's being watched now."
"Watched by who—the police or the killers?"
He shrugged again. "We don't want either one to know you're here."
His words seemed to reassure her that they were on the same side, which, of course, they were. They both wanted her to survive this mess that she'd found herself in through no fault of her own. There, though, their ideas went different ways. She thought she was safest with him.
He knew she wasn't. He had let Evan die. It was entirely possible that he could get her killed.
And if that happened, he would have to die, too, because he couldn't live with another life on his conscience.
Couldn't live with another death on his hands.
However, in the interest of safety, it might be interesting, he decided, to see if someone was watching the place. If it was the cops, he had Smith's permission to be there, and the assistant U.S. Attorney's okay went a long way. If it was Falcone's people … well, he knew how to lose anyone who might try to follow him. Then he would know who to look for around here. "Do you have the key to your apartment?"
His question surprised her, and she simply nodded in response. He'd already known she did, had come across it when he'd gone through the pockets of the coat she'd been wearing last night. She had abandoned her car on the street Monday afternoon, but she'd taken the keys with her. Old habits were hard to break, even when you were in a panic.
He got the jacket from the closet, and she gave him the keys, along with her address. "Anything in particular you want?" he asked as he shrugged into his own jacket.
"My pillow." Her smile was faintly embarrassed. "I sleep better on my own pillow."
After a long, still look, he nodded, warned her not to answer the phone or the door, and left the apartment. Watching her sleep last night, damp and fully dressed on his sofa, had been interesting enough. Valery sleeping in a bed—his bed—was a thought best not pursued.
Her apartment was an easy fifteen-minute drive away. The complex was typical, two-story town houses, probably ten to twelve years old, reasonably maintained but showing wear and tear. The parking lots in front of the buildings were about half full, since it was Saturday, but there was little activity outside. He parked in a lot down from her building and simply sat there for a time, keeping an eye on the traffic, studying the cars parked nearby and watching the occasional resident's trip outside.
If her place was under surveillance, he decided, the watchers had taken up residence in one of the other apartments, and if that was the case, there was nothing he could do about it. They would just have to watch him walk in.
Driving slowly, he moved his car to the space directly in front of her door. There were tall glass panels on either side and no dead bolt. Breaking in must have been a piece of cake for Falcone's people. Before all this was over, he would have to give Valery a short lesson in security. She should be more careful with herself.
He unlocked the door, slipped inside and closed it behind him. For its two stories, the apartment was small, the layout simple. A hall extended straight ahead, leading to the kitchen and a door with a four-paned window in the back. The living room opened on his right and led into the dining room, which connected to the kitchen. There were two narrow doors in the hallway ahead, one leading to a bathroom, he assumed, the other to a coat closet.
Although there were signs of a search, the rooms were relatively neat, relatively … empty. He had no sense of her living in these rooms, stretching out on that couch, sitting down to eat at this table, cooking in this kitchen. Coming back down the hall to the front door, he found himself at the stairs and started up.
At the top he found a bathroom, large and cluttered, and two bedrooms. One was apparently used for a little bit of everything: boxes were stored, along with unused suitcases, in one corner; a sewing machine sat on a table against the far wall; a tiny student's desk with a high-powered lamp was on the opposite wall; an exercise bike, untouched long enough for a heavy layer of dust to form on the seat, was near the window.
The other room was hers.
Valery's.
As he stopped in the doorway, an image of her flashed into his mind. Vision, memory or yearning, he didn't know—and he wasn't sure he wanted to. So this was where she spent most of her time. There was a television on the bureau, a stack of videotapes beside it. A quick glance showed that most of them were movies she had recorded herself, although there was one that she'd purchased. The Big Easy. Life and love, murder and betrayal, in New Orleans. The hero was a dirty—although later reformed—cop. Was that part of her problem with cops? he wondered. Did she look at the NOPD and—guilt by association—all other law enforcement agencies in Orleans Parish and see corruption, greed, dishonor?
Maybe.
But he suspected there was more to her reluctance to turn herself over to their safekeeping than that.
Slowly he turned to take in the rest of the room. It wasn't overly large and held only a few pieces of furniture—bookshelf, nightstand, dresser, bureau, bed—but it looked cluttered. Probably because of the books that spilled off the shelves and were piled on the floor. Or the magazines that were untidily tucked into baskets on both sides of the bed. Or the framed snapshots that filled almost every available space on the dresser top.
Family pictures. The aunt and uncle she'd mentioned.
And the cousin she hadn't.
He glanced at a few of the pictures. Remy looked so young. So invulnerable. Michael had never known him when he was like that. By the time they'd met, resentment—and, later, sadness—had already been a well-entrenched part of his friend's life.
Michael had never known what it was Remy had reseated, what had made him sad. Best friends half their lives, and there were still secrets between them.
Like Valery.
Returning to the other bedroom, he found an empty box and, back in her room, began filling it with clothing. Her closet held plenty of jeans and sweats, T-shirts and simple cotton shirts. He placed three outfits in the box, then started to close the closet door. The sight of a dress made him stop.
It hung on a padded hanger on a hook screwed into the wall. It was the sort of dress she sold in her shop, precisely the sort of thing he was grateful she hadn't been wearing when she showed up at his place. He didn't know enough about fashion to date it, other than to say it was old, but in this case, older was definitely better. The fabric was soft and light, giving the suggestion of sheerness even though it wasn't, and there was lots of lace, delicately made with cutouts and embroidery.
It was a lovely old-fashioned dress, the kind he would choose for a model if he were inclined to place a model in one of the old courtyards he often painted. It was exactly what he didn't want to see Valery wearing … but at the moment, it was the only thing he could see her in.
Carefully he slipped it off the hanger and folded it neatly. He had to be crazy to take it. There was something so airy about it, so romantic, so damn angelic. Yes, that was it; when her hair was long and blond, she must have looked so damn angelic in the ivory-hued dress.
But her hair wasn't long and blond anymore.
And as long as a man didn't make the mistake of believing that angels existed, what could it hurt if Valery looked like one?
Leaving the dress on the bed, he took canvas sneakers and ivory leather ballet slippers from the closet floor. Those went into the box, along with socks and lingerie. There were piles of it in the drawer, all soft, silky and sexy as hell. He took the first sets his hand touched, making certain they were ivory or white, that none of the jewel tones she seemed to have a fondness for were included. It was too easy to imagine her in this emerald-green set or that one in crimson. It was entirely too easy to see her—all pale skin and long, blond hair—in these bits of royal blue satin and lace.
Maybe he'd been wrong when he told her he preferred her hair short and black.
In a hurry to get out of
her apartment she quickly finished the packing. Bathroom articles went into a white plastic trash bag, then into the box. He grabbed one of the pillows off the bed, from the side where the night table held the phone and a lamp for reading, carefully slid the folded dress inside the pillow case, and carried them and the box downstairs.
For a moment he stood by the door, looking out through the narrow window. Again he couldn't see anyone overtly paying attention. There was a guy in the next lot washing his car and a cranky-looking woman waiting impatiently for he toy poodle to finish its business in the grass. No one else was around. No one else caught his attention. But then, anyone who was good at his job wouldn't be noticeable.
To be on the safe side, though, he braced the box against the wall, drew his pistol from the holster and laid it on the pillow. When he left the apartment, locked the door and headed for his car, he could feel the gun there, pressing against his chest, within easy reach should it be necessary.
It wasn't, but that didn't mean he could relax. Now he had to go home, taking a circuitous route to make certain no one was following him.
And even after that, he still couldn't relax, because then he would be with Valery. Talking to her. Protecting her. Watching her.
Hell, yes. Watching her.
* * *
Chapter 4
« ^ »
For a long time after Michael left, Valery remained exactly where she was, standing rather helplessly in the middle of the living room, as if afraid to make even the smallest move. While she tolerated helplessness fairly well in others, she despised it in herself. Being afraid was one thing. Being unable—or, worse, unwilling—to do anything about it was another.
Now she roamed the apartment, opening doors, peeking into closets, touching nubby fabric and old wood. She liked the contrasts—soft pastels in the living room and rich, masculine tones in the bedroom, turn-of-the-century fixtures in the bathroom and up-to-date appliances in the kitchen, the open airiness of the main rooms and the soothing closeness of the bedroom.
MICHAEL'S GIFT Page 6
