MICHAEL'S GIFT

by Marilyn Pappano

  After another long silence, she rose from the bed and went to the suitcase to gather clothes and toiletries. On her way to the bathroom, she had to pass him, and she came to a stop beside him. She didn't say anything, didn't look at him, for a time didn't do anything at all. Then her hand sought his, and for a moment, one all-too-brief moment, she moved closer, resting her cheek against his chest, letting him touch her, hold her.

  Then she was gone, disappearing into the next room, closing the door behind her.

  As encouragement went, it wasn't much … but for now, Michael reflected, it was enough. It was enough to hope, enough to believe.

  Things were going to be all right.

  Sometime in the future—a few weeks, a few months, a few years—everything was going to be fine.

  And until then he would be patient.

  A knock at the door drew him from his thoughts. He gave the room a quick once-over to see if anything was out of place. The bed was rumpled, but it didn't look as if anything more intimate than conversation had gone on there. They had slept in their clothes last night, hadn't even bothered to pull the spread down or untuck the pillows from the covers.

  After checking out the window, he opened the door to find Remy standing there alone. His friend looked impatient, troubled and worried as hell. Without a greeting, Michael stepped back so he could enter; then he scanned the parking lot. "Where are—"

  "They were following me in Jolie's car. We got separated in traffic. What about Valery?"

  "She's taking a shower."

  "Jolie said Falcone's men almost got her last night. What happened, Michael?"

  "You tell me." He was starting to close the door when a flashy little sports car pulled into the lot. Jolie, with Smith beside her. Leaving the door open a few inches, he sat down on the bed, leaning back against the wall.

  "I don't know. I don't know anything, because that's the way you've wanted it." Remy combed his fingers through his hair. "What happened last night?"

  "Yes, by all means, fill us in." Jolie pushed the door open with her hip and came in, carrying two bags from a local doughnut shop. Behind her, Smith had his hands full with a cardboard holder and five tall cups of coffee.

  Michael waited until everyone was settled and the food had been passed around before he quietly related the events of the night before. He had no sooner brought them up-to-date than Jolie and Remy, at the same time, asked, "How did they know—" They both broke off, and she scowled at him before continuing. "How did they know where to find her?"

  Michael responded with a question that he didn't want to ask but knew he had to. "Did you tell anyone, Remy?"

  Remy's scowl became darker and more intense than Jolie's could ever be. "No."

  "Could someone have followed her there and been watching the apartment ever since?" That came from Smith, near the door.

  "I suppose," Michael replied. "But why wait so long? Last night wasn't the first time I'd left her there alone. I met Remy one morning, you another, and I was out most of the afternoon yesterday, when I ran into Jolie."

  "And if they had known enough about her movements to follow her," Jolie added, "why not take care of her then? Why wait until she'd gone into hiding in some cop's apartment?"

  In the bathroom the shower shut off. Valery was in there, drying off, getting dressed, Michael thought. In a few moments she would gather her courage and come out here into this roomful of strangers. He wished she didn't have to, wished her life could be safe and normal again, with no talk about dead men or killers stalking her. He wished he could take her away from her problems as easily as he'd taken her from his apartment.

  It was only a moment until the door between the rooms opened, and she stepped out. She was wearing jeans that were faded and fitted and a shirt—one of his—that didn't fit at all. He wondered if she'd grabbed it out of the suitcase by accident or design. He preferred to think the latter.

  All conversation broke off, and all eyes turned in her direction. She stopped short and returned the stares, her gaze moving from one stranger to the next, lingering longest on Remy before finally reaching Michael. He offered her a faint smile that, though she tried, she couldn't return.

  With a casualness that he was far from feeling, he performed the introductions. "Valery Navarre, this is Smith Kendricks, Jolie Wade and…" He shrugged. "Remy you used to know."

  Smith nodded in acknowledgment, and Jolie said hello, but they were perfunctory greetings. Their attention—and Michael's and Valery's—was on Remy, and his was on her. He rose from the dresser where he'd taken a seat and took a few steps toward her before coming to an abrupt stop. For a moment he simply stared at her; then he moved in a slow circle around her. When he was finally in front of her again, he took one step closer, then lifted his hand before letting it fall back to his side.

  Shaking his head in disbelief, he found only one thing to say in greeting. "Good God, Valery, what happened to your hair?"

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  « ^ »

  When he asked the question again a few moments later in the privacy of the bathroom, Valery offered him a frown and a defensive reply. "I cut and colored it. Since everyone was looking for a woman with long blond hair, I figured short and black was a better way to be."

  "Damn. Even when you were the worst tomboy I'd ever known, you wouldn't let your mom cut your hair."

  "I didn't have much choice this time. I needed to hide."

  Sobering, he settled more comfortably on the small bench in the open end of the room that served as a closet. "You could have come to me, Valery."

  She gave him a doubting look. "Could I? It seems I made the mistake of counting on you in the past, and look what it got me."

  He had the grace to look ashamed, something—if she'd considered it—that she might once have expected to enjoy. Instead she just felt petty.

  With a sigh, she dropped the brush she'd been fiddling with and turned away from the mirror. The bathroom was small and lacking in comfortable places to sit. Spreading the last dry towel, she settled on the floor, her back against the side of the tub. "What happened, Remy?"

  "I don't know. I swear to God, I didn't tell anyone where you—"

  "To us," she interrupted. "When we were kids."

  With no regard for his suit, he moved from the bench to the floor, too, mimicking her position, resting his arms on his knees. They were on the same level now and closer than they'd been in twenty-four years. Only an inch or two separated her bare feet from his Italian leather shoes. They were almost touching, something they hadn't done in so long that they'd almost forgotten how.

  "You didn't like being an only child, did you?" he asked. "You always thought it would be neat to have a brother or sister, so you'd always have someone to play with or to fight with or to scheme with. You figured two kids would be twice the fun, twice the opportunities. You would never be lonely, never be alone."

  She nodded. She had wanted an older brother—had wanted Remy—but since that was impossible, she would have been happy with a younger sibling. She would have made a fine big sister, she'd always thought. She would have done the things for a kid brother or sister that Remy had done for her—teach them how to throw a curveball, to slide into second and tell truly awful jokes. She would always have been there to stand up for them when other kids were picking on them, to make sure that they were treated right.

  "Well, I didn't feel that way," he continued. "I liked being the only kid. I liked my family exactly the way it was—Mom, Dad and me. I didn't want anyone else around, not on a permanent basis. I didn't want you around."

  Even after living with that knowledge for so many years, she still felt a twinge of pain at hearing it stated so bluntly.

  "You were so damn needy when you came to live with us, Valery. For weeks—months—our entire lives revolved around you. When you were around, Mom and Dad were constantly fussing over you. When you weren't around, they were endlessly worrying about you. All my life I'd been
the center of the family, and suddenly there wasn't a damn thing I could do to get my own parents to notice me. They gave you everything—attention, time, affection. By the time they were through with you, there wasn't anything left for me."

  His words brought to mind a memory that Valery had long since forgotten of a pretty spring day. It had been her mother's birthday, her first birthday since the divorce, only she was off in places unknown, far from Valery and Belclaire. Valery had dreaded the day, had mourned it for weeks before, and to cheer her up, Aunt Marie and Uncle George had suggested a trip to Baton Rouge. They would make a day of it, would shop and play tourist and cap it off with dinner in the fanciest restaurant Valery had ever seen.

  There had been just one problem: Remy, who was first baseman for the Belclaire High team, had an important game scheduled that same Saturday afternoon—a game that he was counting on his parents to attend. Valery could have been generous about it and agreed to postpone the trip one day, but she hadn't been feeling generous. She'd felt abandoned and unloved and desperately unhappy, and she hadn't been willing to accept one more disappointment.

  So Remy's parents had missed his game and taken her to the city. It was no big deal, Aunt Marie had explained to him. After all, he would play in plenty more games and, besides, Valery needed this trip. She needed them.

  They had gone to the city, and Remy had won the game with a grand slam homerun. He had finished out the season, and he hadn't gone out for any sports during his remaining years in high school. There had been no more games for his parents to watch him play.

  So damn needy. Yes, she had been, so needy and so desperate for a family to belong to that she had taken his.

  "I was selfish," he acknowledged. "I understood that at the time. I just didn't know what to do about it. And I resented you. I wanted you to go back where you came from. I wanted to go back to just being long-distance cousins. I didn't want you living in my house or disrupting my life. I didn't want to watch you take my place in my own family."

  "If I'd had more of your attention, Remy, I wouldn't have needed so much of your parents'," she murmured. "You're right. I was needy. In the space of a few days I lost my mother, my father and my best friend. I didn't know why, all at once, nobody loved me anymore. I didn't know what I had done wrong. Your parents were all I had left, and I was terrified of losing them, too, so … I clung to them. I held on tight so they couldn't leave me, too."

  He rubbed one hand over his temple; then, with a sigh, he went on. "You read about families where one kid has some fatal illness and the other kids are healthy. The sick kid gets all the time and attention and, it seems, all the love, because the parents realize they won't have him around for long. The healthy kids are worried and afraid, but they can't help being a little resentful, too, because they've been pushed into the background. Their problems don't matter anymore, because, hell, what kind of problem can a normal kid have that can compete with impending death? They get jealous and wish things could go back to normal, and they wish they could have just a moment to be the important one, and then they feel guilty for being jealous and selfish."

  "And that's how you felt," Valery said, her voice soft. Then she smiled tightly. "Only you didn't have the luxury of knowing that I was going to drop dead sometime soon."

  He smiled, too. It wasn't the easy, teasing grin that she remembered painfully well from the first third of her life, but it was a start. All too quickly, though, it faded, and he became serious and grim again. "I'm sorry, Valery. I'm sorry I went from loving you to hating you to being such strangers that you could be afraid of me."

  That made twice in one day that a man had spoken of loving her. It was funny that she found it easier to believe that Remy, this stranger, had loved her than that Michael did—and not so funny, too, because it was partly due to Remy that she found it so hard to believe in Michael.

  "I didn't distrust you completely," she said in her own defense. "If I had, I would have told everything to the detectives the day of the shooting."

  "I shouldn't have given you reason to distrust me at all." His tone and expression were glum, reminding her of the teenage Remy she'd grown up with.

  "If it's any consolation, Michael never doubted you, not for an instant. He has tremendous faith in you."

  "I'm not surprised. All Michael's doubts are reserved for—"

  When he broke off abruptly, she smiled faintly and finished for him. "For himself. For God."

  For a moment, he looked surprised—that she was sensitive enough to pick up on Michael's doubts or that his friend had trusted her enough to confide in her?—and then he shook his head. "I guess you had to do something all those hours you were together."

  "Yes," she agreed with a tiny smile. "Something." Before he could comment on that, she got to her feet. "We have a roomful of people waiting to discuss the trouble we've gotten ourselves into. I don't guess we should keep them waiting any longer."

  He also stood up and touched her gently, stopping her as she reached for the doorknob. "I'd like to be friends again, Valery. I'd like—" He broke off and sighed. "I'd like to make things right. Tell me honestly, do you think that's possible?"

  Honestly. Honestly, while she was pretty much convinced that he'd played no role in Nate Simmons's death, a part of her still didn't completely trust him. He had hurt her deeply once before. Could she give him a chance to do it again?

  Honestly, she harbored a little resentment of her own. Maybe she had been needy and demanding, maybe she had usurped his place in the family, but she had been a child, for heaven's sake—a terribly hurt, terribly frightened child whom he had turned his back on. His rejection had helped make her into the woman she was at this very minute—still hurt, still frightened … and still so damn needy.

  Honestly, they were strangers. He might not like the woman she was. She might not care for the man he had become. They might have nothing in common. "I don't know," she replied, meeting his gaze head-on. She saw the disappointment flash there, and it touched something deep inside her. It prompted her to go on. "But I'd like to try. When this is over…"

  After a moment he withdrew his hand and nodded resolutely. Ending on that note, she opened the door, and they rejoined the others in the bedroom. Michael was still sitting on the bed, a pillow behind his back. Smith had settled one of the chairs, and Jolie sat cross-legged on the dresser. While Remy took the other chair, Valery settled a few feet from Michael on the bed.

  Smith seemed to step naturally into the role of moderator, and the others let him. They were an interesting group, Valery thought—three strong-willed men and an even stronger-willed woman, and yet them was no struggle for control. They worked well together. They fit well together. They all, Jolie included, seemed to understand something that she didn't—the workings of the criminal mind, perhaps? The harsh realities of life?

  Prompted by the assistant U.S. Attorney, Valery repeated her story—the details they all knew and the ones she had kept to herself. After a few questions, Smith turned to the reporter and asked for her input.

  "I covered Simmons's murder from the start," she explained for Valery's benefit; the three men already knew it. "A couple of days ago I got a call from his family—his mother and two uncles live in the area. They had some new information on his death, they said, and they wanted to share it with me. What they have is a lot of speculation, a lot of say-so and suspicions. What they don't have is proof."

  "Fortunately, as a reporter, you don't need proof," Remy said dryly. "That's why you people invented the word 'allegedly.'"

  Jolie ignored him and went on. "The family story is that Nate was a good boy who took a few wrong turns and got in with a bad crowd. They admit that he wasn't perfect—all that time in prison probably had something to do with that—but he had his own code. There were things he simply wouldn't do, not for any reason—honor among thieves, that sort of thing."

  "And what was it in particular that Nate wouldn't do?" Remy asked, skepticism in his voice.
<
br />   "Lie to trap a friend. According to the family, he'd been asked to do just that. It seemed that he'd gotten hooked up with an FBI agent who wanted to use Nate to bring down his friend and sometime employer, Jimmy Falcone. Now, keep in mind, the work Nate did for Mr. Falcone was on the up-and-up, strictly legit. As far as Nate knew, all of Mr. Falcone's business was legit. He told the FBI agent that, but the agent wasn't satisfied. He pushed hard, but Nate wouldn't give. Finally—"

  Jolie broke off to rummage in one of the white bakery bags beside her. "All that's left is an apple fritter and two glazed," she said, turning her gaze to Valery. "Which do you want?"

  "The glazed."

  Jolie fished out the fritter, then crumpled the top of the bag and sent it sailing to the bed, where it landed between Valery and Michael. When Valery reached for it, she caught his grin and knew he was thinking about all that rich cake she'd eaten little more than an hour ago. With a scowl, she took out one of the glazed doughnuts and, while Jolie returned to her story, devoured every crumb.

  "Anyway, finally the agent got threatening. He told Nate that if he couldn't get Falcone, he would settle for him. He would set him up for some crime or another and send him to prison. Nate knew that, of course, he could do that, and since he'd already seen more than his share of prisons across the South, he didn't much care to take up residence in another one, so he agreed to cooperate. He agreed to help the agent falsify evidence implicating Mr. Falcone in various crimes, agreed to plant the evidence on Falcone—at his house, in his records, whatever was necessary—for the agent to find. Then Nate's conscience got the better of him. He was going to come clean. He admitted everything to Jimmy, who accepted his sincere apologies, and he called the crooked FBI agent to tell him that he wasn't going to play his game any longer. The agent threatened him, tried to talk him out of it, and when he couldn't change Nate's mind, he demanded a meeting the next day. Nate reluctantly agreed."