MICHAEL'S GIFT

by Marilyn Pappano

  "Bedroom's empty. You sure he said she would be here?"

  "Of course I'm sure." Vince sounded annoyed—and close. In the dining room, she thought, or just inside the kitchen.

  "Well, she isn't. Now what?"

  Valery sidestepped, left foot, right foot, left, right. The decorative curlicues that separated the two balconies extended beyond the rail, and it was all she could do to stretch far enough to hook her left foot on the opposite side. With another deep breath for courage, she swung her right foot around. Just as she found a toehold, her left foot slipped from the slick metal, swinging in midair. She swallowed a shriek, wrapped both arms around the railing and held on for dear life—for very dear life—until both feet were once again firmly connected.

  Scrambling over the railing, she silently blessed Michael's unknown neighbor, whose balcony was as jumbled as his was empty. Ducking underneath a round table, she drew into a tight huddle wriggled back close to a tree planted in a half barrel and adjusted a chair in front of her. Only an instant later, Michael's French doors swung open, spilling light onto the balcony. It shadowed Vince's face as he stepped outside and took a quick look from one end to the other.

  "Nothing out here," he muttered. "Looks like our information was wrong. Damn. Some people…" He returned inside, the closing door cutting off the rest of his complaint.

  Valery stayed where she was, cold and miserable but, at least temporarily, out of the rain. Even with her fears, she couldn't stop hearing their words again in her mind. "You sure he said she would be here?" "Of course I'm sure." Who? Who had told them they could find her there? Who was he?

  Not Michael. She didn't consider that possibility for an instant. He wouldn't betray her. He cared too much about keeping her safe. He cared too much about not having to bear responsibility for someone else's death. He cared too much about her.

  Maybe she had been followed the night she had come here. Maybe he had been followed the day he went to her apartment. Maybe Jimmy Falcone's people had had them under surveillance from the very beginning. Maybe … maybe they were watching Michael right now. Maybe they had followed him to the police station and were keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't come back and interrupt Vince and his friend.

  Oh, God, she had to find him, had to warn him.

  She crawled out from under the table and to her feet, and a blast of wind off the river cut through her. Whispering a silent prayer, she tried the balcony door, and when it opened, she stepped inside the dimly lit apartment. The layout was similar to Michael's, only reversed—living room and kitchen on the right, bathroom and bedroom on the left. For a moment she hesitated just inside, listening for any sound that might indicate the place was occupied. She heard nothing.

  She made a mad dash to the door, stopping to listen once again for noises in the hall. When she heard nothing, she carefully unlocked the door, opened it only a crack and peered out. The corridor was empty.

  She was about to step outside when she noticed the shoes next to the door. They were canvas, bright red, probably a little big for her. For a moment she tried to talk herself out of taking them—it was stealing, after all—but only for a moment. She had to leave, had to find Michael. She couldn't dolt barefooted in the cold rain, and no way was she returning to Michael's apartment for her own sneakers, not without him and his gun. She would return or replace the shoes, she promised the absent owner, along with her apology and her sincere gratitude.

  Moving swiftly through the shadows, she took the stairs two at a time, formulating a plan as she went. She would stop at the first busy, brightly lit place she came to, and from there she would call the Vieux Carré District station. Someone there would track Michael down for her, and he would come and get her and take her someplace safe. He would take her someplace where Vince and his buddy could never find her, and he would protect her. She had faith in his ability to do that. She had faith in him.

  Until she reached the first busy, brightly lit place, a coffee shop at the end of Michael's block.

  Until she looked through the big plate-glass windows and saw him sitting there at a corner table, deep in conversation with another man.

  With a man that she'd once known better—or so she had believed—than she'd known herself.

  With a man Michael had claimed to know only in passing.

  With a man who might be responsible for Nate Simmons's murder.

  With a man who very well might want her dead. Shrinking back against the brick wall, out of sight of the diners inside, Valery tried to control the pain. Her parents' abandonment, Remy's rejection—those episodes were nothing compared to the way she felt right now. It was more than just hurt, more than just betrayal.

  This was how it felt, she suspected, when faith died.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  « ^ »

  "I don't understand it," Remy said for the fourth or fifth time. "I just… Damn it, Michael…"

  Reaching for his cup, Michael drained the last of his coffee. Remy had started out this meeting with coffee, too, but he had quickly switched over to beer. Michael had watched him drink half the bottle in one swallow, but he hadn't felt the old familiar longing. He hadn't craved just one taste, just one drink. He hadn't once again damned the weakness that had made him abuse alcohol. All he had felt was tension. Uneasiness. A gnawing desire to do his friend justice that was matched by a need to return home to Valery.

  "Why would they lie?"

  "I don't know," Remy answered with a scowl.

  "Why would they want the best witness to their crime to know who had hired them?"

  "I don't know. Hell, Michael … I need to talk to her."

  He gazed out the window at the cathedral, bright against the night sky. He liked it at night, liked it especially when it rose so massive and strong out of the night fog. He had tried to paint it that way but had never been able to capture the eerie, shifting, menacing quality of the fog, had never been able to offset it with the goodness the church should represent.

  I need to talk to her. His first impulse was to tell Remy no. Valery still didn't know that they were friends, and be couldn't help but worry about how she would react when she found out. She had so little trust to give; each time it was betrayed, she regrouped with even less. And knowing now what she knew—what she suspected, what she feared—he wasn't sure he could face telling her the truth.

  But it had to happen sometime, and Remy had a legitimate need. It was his career, his reputation, maybe even his freedom, on the line here. He had a right to question her.

  Why are you telling me now? he had asked her after this afternoon's confession, and she had given the only right answer, the only answer that could matter to him. Because I trust you. Would she accept the same answer from him now? Would she understand that, for her own safety, he'd had to keep his friendship with Remy secret? Would she see that he'd had no choice? Would she forgive his deception?

  Or would she simply see that one more person whom she had cared about had let her down? That one more person whom she'd trusted had betrayed her?

  "I don't know if she'll agree," he hedged.

  "Damn it, Michael—" Aware of the curious glances from nearby diners, Remy leaned forward and lowered his voice. "She can't really believe I had that guy killed. She can't believe I'd hurt her. She can't be afraid of me! We're family, for God's sake!"

  "You didn't always treat her like family."

  Remy had the grace to look ashamed as he sank back in his chair. "No," he admitted bleakly. "I didn't. I've regretted that for longer than you can imagine." He picked up the bottle, then set it down again. "I need to talk to her, Michael. If she'll listen to you, tell her … tell her, please."

  After a long moment, Michael nodded. It was time—time to be honest, for Remy's sake, for Valery's, for his own. "I'll talk to her, but I can't make any promises." Rising, he pulled some money from his pocket to cover his tab, then picked up the slicker. The water dripping from it had made a small pool ben
eath the chair leg. "I'll call you in the morning. Will you be around?"

  "Either in the office or with Jolie. Page me."

  After another nod, Michael headed for the door, leaving Remy alone with his beer. Once outside, he stopped under the awning to pull his jacket on, then, shivering against the chill, he turned toward his apartment.

  He was only a dozen feet from the bottom of the stairs when the sensation hit him with a force that was almost physical. It was frightening in the abruptness of its onset, in its intensity, in its complete unexpectedness. It was just plain frightening—fear in its ugliest, most violent form. Panic. Near hysteria.

  Dear God, something was happening—or had happened—to Valery.

  The visions never passed quickly; they simply faded bit by bit until nothing remained but the lingering residue of dismay, of despair that it was happening again. This time the fear didn't fade at all—or if it did, it was replaced so quickly by his own fear that he didn't notice the difference.

  He raced up the stairs, adrenaline flowing so strongly that he was barely winded by the time he reached the third floor. The hall was quiet. He had no sense of anything out of place, except for Valery's fear. That was still there, still constant, still haunting him.

  Trading speed for stealth, he approached his apartment door, drawing his pistol from beneath the slicker, sliding the safety off. Then he stood utterly still, listening, feeling, seeking some clue, some hint, as to what he would find inside. He got no answers.

  The door was closed, just as he'd left it, but close inspection revealed two scrapes, both recent, on the metal face of the dead bolt. Twisting the knob slowly, he encountered no resistance. The locks were undone. The door swung slowly in.

  The minute he edged into the doorway, he knew the apartment was empty. There was no threat here, no danger. Whoever had broken in had gone away again.

  Had they taken Valery with them? Was she their prisoner? Did that explain her fear? Or had she somehow escaped them? Was she once again out on the streets, on her own?

  Despite his certainty that he was alone, he checked the apartment anyway, with the gun still clasped firmly in both hands. He found nothing out of place. This was his home, a place that he knew intimately, and if not for the unlocked door, he never would have guessed that someone had been here.

  If not for the unlocked door, the vision and the fact that Valery was missing.

  Standing motionless in the center of the room, he turned his attention inward. The fear was still there, but try as he might, he couldn't force an image to go along with it. He couldn't see her, couldn't see anything around her, couldn't hear so much as a whisper. All he could get was her fear and … something more. Despair? Pain?

  His expression turned grimmer, bleaker. He would kill them if they had hurt her. He swore to the God he had long since turned his back on that he would kill them for whatever they'd done to her.

  He was concentrating so intensely that it took a moment for the rapping on the still-open door to penetrate. When it did, he whirled around, relief so strong that he felt sick with it, only to lose it instantly when he recognized the woman standing there as his neighbor, Luisa.

  Not Valery.

  "Is this a bad time?" she asked hesitantly, her gaze straying from his face to his gun, then back again.

  After a moment, he holstered the pistol, then combed his fingers impatiently through his hair, sending droplets of water down his back. "Yeah, it is." Then, reluctantly, he asked, "What's up?"

  "Something weird happened tonight. Someone broke into my apartment, only—" She looked embarrassed as she continued. "Whoever it was came in from the balcony."

  He fixed his gaze on her. "The balcony?" he repeated dumbly. "Someone broke in through the balcony doors?"

  "Not exactly. The doors were unlocked. They just walked right in." Before he could comment on the foolishness of leaving doors unsecured, she hurried on. "I lock the front door every time I leave, but the balcony… Well, hell, Michael, we're on the third floor. It's not as if someone can just walk in."

  He didn't point out that someone had apparently done just that. "What was taken?"

  "That's the weird part." His dry look made her flush and, once more, rush on with her next statement. "The only thing that's missing is a pair of shoes—these little canvas sneakers that I gave maybe three bucks for last summer. My TV, the VCR, the stereo—none of that was touched. There were three twenty-dollar bills sitting on the table right in front of the French doors, and they're still there. I'd left the jewelry that I wore to work today—some nice stuff—on the coffee table, and it's still there. Just those cheap little worn-out red shoes—that's all she took."

  Abruptly Michael moved toward the closet. "Why do you say she? What makes you think it was a woman?"

  "Well…" She gave it a moment's thought as he looked for and found Valery's jacket, her money still inside, hanging between a couple of his own coats. "I guess because of the shoes. They're women's shoes." Her tone of voice indicated that she found her own reasoning somehow faulty. Michael didn't.

  Leaving her for a moment, he checked the bedroom closet next. Valery's shoes—all three pairs—were there, neatly lined up in a row. If someone had broken into the apartment, she'd had only two choices: wait to be discovered or flee via the balcony. There was no way she could climb from there to the roof, and going down in the rain and the dark would be treacherous. But climbing across… That would seem manageable. Plus, there was all that clutter on Luisa's balcony to form a hiding place, unlocked doors to escape once the danger had passed and a pair of shoes just waiting to be taken.

  For a moment he closed his eyes and pictured her as she'd looked when he had left to meet Remy—dressed in jeans and a thin cotton T-shirt, wearing no shoes or socks, nervous and uneasy. Had she known in that way of hers that something was going to happen? Had she asked him not to leave because she'd had one of her premonitions?

  Damn it all, he wished she had told him. He never would have left her if he'd known. He would have taken her edginess seriously, would have packed their bags and taken her someplace anonymous and safe.

  As long as she was out on the streets, she would never be safe. And he had no doubt that that was exactly where she was, looking for him, maybe waiting for some signal that he'd come home again. It was the only possibility. She had no money, no coat and only a pair of stolen shoes. There was no place she could go. She couldn't rent a hotel room, couldn't buy a cup of coffee. Hell, she couldn't even afford a telephone call to track him down.

  "Michael?" Luisa called from the living room. "Should I call the police? It's such a petty thing that I hate to bother them. Still, someone did break in and—"

  "No." He returned from the bedroom, joining her at the door. "Don't worry, Luisa. I think I know… It's no big deal. You're not in any danger. You don't need to bother the cops with it. I'll handle it." He ushered her out as he spoke, then pulled the door shut and locked it behind him. He waited until she was inside her own apartment, the door locked between them, and then he took the steps two at a time.

  He had to find Valery, had to find her before anyone else did. Once he did, he would take her someplace safe. He would ease her fears. He would make her warm.

  And he would never leave her alone again.

  Not ever.

  * * *

  The rain had stopped sometime around eleven o'clock, but Valery had long since given up hope of ever being warm and dry again. Her clothes were soaked all the way through to her skin, and from there it seemed that the water and the chill had seeped into her very pores. She would ache if her nerve endings weren't frozen.

  If her heart wasn't frozen.

  She huddled on the steps of the shop where she worked, wishing futilely that she'd had time to grab her jacket, her own shoes, her money, her keys. There was a key to the shop on her ring; she could let herself in and hide in relative comfort in the back room, then be on her way long before her assistant came to open up in the morning
.

  For more than three hours she had wandered around the Quarter, sticking to the shadows, looking furtively over her shoulder with every other step. Finally, cold, wet, miserable, her feet aching and blistered from the shoes that didn't fit, she'd come here. No one would look for her here, she had reasoned; it was too obvious. And, so far, she'd been right. The occasional passersby hadn't even noticed her huddled on the top step, protected from the rain by the awning overhead, from the wind by the shop windows that extended on two sides.

  Lord, she was tired—not the sort of physical exhaustion that she could recover from with ten hours of sleep. This weariness went deeper. It came from her soul.

  Michael had lied to her.

  For four and a half hours she had refused to think further than that. Now she was too tired, too disappointed, too despairing, to stop the thoughts.

  He had told her that he knew who Remy was only because he'd been a cop so long, because it was hard to be a cop in this city and not have a passing acquaintance with other cops.

  He had told her that they weren't friends.

  He had promised to keep her presence in his apartment a secret, had promised that he wouldn't tell anyone, not the cops, not the FBI, not anyone, that she was there.

  He had lied to her.

  Just like everyone else, he had made her believe he cared about her, and then he had let her down.

  He had made her start to care for him. Then, like her mother, like her father, like Remy, he had betrayed her.

  A tear slid down her cheek, leaving a warm trail before it dissipated. And she had felt she would never be warm again, she thought with a bitter smile as another tear followed.

  Was it coincidence that Vince and his partner had discovered her at the same time Michael was meeting with Remy? Maybe … but not likely. It was just too lucky. Too convenient. Michael must have told Remy that she was there, and Remy had taken advantage of their meeting tonight to send his thugs over to pick her up.