Switchback

by Catherine Anderson

  When Mac drew up beside the white BMW, she fell across the front fender and labored for air. It was some comfort that Danno looked like a blob of jelly beside her, his mouth gaping as he fought to breathe. Mark leaned against the building and slid down it to sit on the sidewalk. Holding his belly with one arm, he groaned and started coughing.

  “That’s what cigarettes do for you,” Mac said with a growl as he unlocked the passenger door of the car. “Come on, pile in. I want to get out of here.”

  Mallory skirted the open door on quivery legs, so weak she felt as though she might collapse before she made it onto the seat. Danno boosted her in by placing a hand on her back. He slid in beside her and sank low, throwing his head back and gulping for air. The other three boys climbed in back. After Mac got in, he gave everyone a quick once-over, then cranked the engine. “Everybody in one piece?”

  “Yeah,” Danno assured him. “Fine, Coach.”

  “Good, that means I can wring all your necks. I thought I told you to stick with Mallory?” He swerved the car out onto the street. “What did you think you were doing, Danno? You could’ve been killed. Or what if the cops had come? Assault with a deadly weapon? I asked you not to carry chains anymore.”

  “Sorry, Coach. We’ll trash them, I promise.” He took several deep breaths and swallowed. “Tomorrow. We’ll do it tomorrow. Right, Mark? I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? Sorry wouldn’t comfort your mother much if you ended up hurt! That wasn’t a game out there. Those guys were trying to kill me. And what about Mallory? How would you have felt if you’d gone back and found her with her throat slit?”

  Eric leaned forward to peer over the seat. “Coach, Danno didn’t leave the broad alone. I stayed with her.”

  Mac reached back and smacked Eric’s forehead with the heel of his hand. It was more an affectionate thump than a reprimand. “Apologize, idiot. You don’t call women broads.”

  “Why not? I’ve heard you—”

  “Er-rr-ic! Just apologize, please.”

  “Sorry.”

  Mallory closed her eyes. “Apology accepted.” Glancing at Mac, she said, “And it was my fault Danno left me. I could have stopped him.”

  “I’ll wring your neck, too, then. If I get into a spot, I don’t want the diaper brigade coming to help.” Glaring into the rearview mirror, he said, “I’m trying to get you guys straightened out, not killed. A serious offense for any of you and it’s going on your permanent records. End of career. Is that what you want, Mark?”

  “I’m nineteen,” Danno protested. “That’s not exactly the diaper brigade. You were fighting in Vietnam when you were younger than me.”

  “Just old enough to go to trial as an adult, that’s what you are. No more juvenile hall and a slap on the wrist for you, Danno. You do realize that an attorney can’t be a convicted felon? You keep your nose clean, understand?”

  “I have! I’ve been so straight, my back aches!” Danno jackknifed forward so he could see around Mallory. “You were in trouble. What was I supposed to do? Let them cut you to pieces? You wouldn’t have deserted me, law or no law.”

  Mac took a right turn and pulled the car up next to a curb. Mallory peered out the window at a two-story Victorian row house that had been converted into apartments. Many of the windows were patched with cardboard. Trash was strewn across the porch and small yard. Dim lights shone through tattered curtains.

  “Danno, I’m counting on you to keep these yahoos off the streets tonight. Got it? Those guys might recognize you.”

  “Consider it done,” Danno replied sullenly.

  “Coach...” Mark’s voice sounded strangely off-key. “Coach, I think maybe I’m bleeding.”

  Even in the dim light, Mallory saw the color wash from Mac’s face. He twisted in the seat. “You’re what?”

  Mallory had seen Mac scared a number of times, but never had she seen such stark terror in his expression. He loved these boys as much as he would his own. She could feel his body going taut. Struggling for room to turn around and battling a suddenly writhing ball of frightened boys, Mallory at last managed to get on her knees so she could look over the seat. “Open your door, Danno,” she said crisply as she reached for Mark’s uplifted arm. “I can’t see anything in the dark. Mac, give me some room.”

  The cool authority in Mallory’s voice brought Mac’s head around. The dome light flickered on. A little amazed, Mac did as she said and scooted aside, watching as she gently slipped Mark’s jacket off his shoulder and freed his arm from the sleeve. “Don’t look so scared, Mark,” she said with a grin. “If it was serious, you would be pumped dry by now.” She turned his arm to examine a long slash that ran from his elbow toward his wrist. Placing a thumb on each side, she pulled at the edges of the wound. “It’ll hurt like the devil, but it’s not going to need stitches. Hardly more than a scratch. You were lucky.”

  Mac realized he was shaking. The calm in Mallory’s voice soothed him like a balm. Passing a hand over his eyes, he let out a breath of pent-up air. Some of Mark’s color was returning. The boy grinned. “Yeah, I figured it was nothing.”

  Danno laughed. “Which explains why he’s green. Admit it, Mark, you thought you’d got it bad.”

  “Well...” Mark’s voice rang with anger. “I couldn’t feel anything. When it doesn’t hurt, it’s usually real deep.”

  Mallory gave his shoulder a pat. “I think you were just too scared to feel it. Have you had a recent tetanus shot? Good.” Turning toward Danno, she said, “I want you to disinfect it—”

  “Not with Merthiolate, either,” Mark cut in.

  “—and wrap it with clean gauze,” Mallory went on. “By morning, it won’t need a bandage.”

  “It’s not that teeny a cut,” Mark cried. “Whatcha think you are, a doctor or something?”

  “A nurse. Used to be, at any rate. Not a very good one, I admit, but I do know enough to recognize a life-threatening wound.” Mallory gave him a reassuring smile. “Trust me, Mark. It’s superficial. Your jacket got the worst of it.”

  Mac’s attention snagged on what she had said. She was a nurse, but not a very good one? There was an underlying bitterness in her voice. From where he sat, watching her in action, he would have said she was top-notch. Even before she had known how serious the injury was, she had reacted with calmness and decisiveness. Which was better than he had done. She was a natural, able to instill trust in others, take control.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Danno teased. “Once I finish with it, he’ll think it’s life threatening.”

  The boys piled out and slammed the car doors, plunging the interior back into shadow. Mac lowered his window and reached out to collar Mark as he walked past. Drawing him toward the car, he ruffled the boy’s hair. “Thanks, my friend.” After giving him a light punch on the chin, he plucked the cigarettes out of Mark’s shirt pocket. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Coach, don’t you know how much those are a pack now?”

  “Yeah, too expensive for a college kid. So quit, huh? And the next time I see you, that chain better not be in your pants. Clear? I’m serious, Mark. No weapons, period, no matter what. I have too big an investment in you.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Mac leaned his head out the window. “Hey, Danno! Come here a minute.”

  Mallory sat down and leaned across the seat to roll down the window so the boy wouldn’t have to open the door. Danno braced his hands on the top of the car and bent at the waist to bring his face on a level with theirs. “Yo?”

  “I owe you one,” Mac told him huskily. “If you hadn’t come along when you did, I wouldn’t be here. If I came across as ungrateful, I didn’t mean to. You saved my bacon. Thanks.”

  “What goes around, comes around. It’s called a payback, Coach. I’m sorry I left your lady. It just seemed like the thing to do at the moment, you know?” Even in the dark, Danno’s teeth gleamed as his mouth slanted into the lazy grin. Extending his hand to Mallory, he said, “I hope I see more of you
.”

  “I’d like that.” Mallory was faintly surprised to realize that she actually meant it. She gave Danno’s hand a friendly squeeze, then dug in her purse for her business-card case. “Hold on a sec.” She found a pen and scribbled notes on the backs of two cards, signing off with her initials. Handing them to Danno, she said, “There’s one for you and one for Mark. Go to that address and tell them I sent you. You can both get on-the-job training there with fairly good pay. After school, summers. When you get your degrees, get in touch with me through Mac. I know a couple of influential people who may be interested in promising young graduates.”

  “No lie? Hey, that’d be radical. Why would you want to do that?” He tipped one card toward the streetlight so he could read the print. “Attorneys at Law? Hey, it’s right downtown. Me and Mark can walk there. You sure they’ll hire us?”

  “Guarantee it.” Mallory snapped her purse closed. “As for why? It’s called a payback, Danno. Thank you for all your help tonight.”

  With a chuckle, Danno threw his chain on the seat beside her. “She is choice, Coach. Don’t let her get away.”

  Mac bumped the horn as he pulled out into traffic. Craning her neck, Mallory watched the boys until the car rounded a corner and she could no longer see them. Turning back to Mac, she sighed. “Quite some baseball team you’ve got there.”

  “They’re especially good with bats.”

  She wished she could manage a smile, but it simply wasn’t in her. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes. “Now what?”

  “Now we can relax until Lucetti calls in the morning. I have enough information on him to hang his—” he cleared his throat “—to hang him. Because of that he’ll have to give us the extra time we need. At least if he doesn’t want the wrong people to hear he wasted Miles and that other guy. Which I’m sure he doesn’t. Knowing his penchant for keeping his trail swept clean, he wouldn’t like the heat it would generate. Even if the cops couldn’t find him, they’d sure make a massive effort to.” Her shoulder was touching his. He glanced down at her. “Hey, you okay? You’re shaking.”

  Mallory tried to smile. She wasn’t at all okay. Mac’s line of reasoning seemed sound, but that was all it was, a line of reasoning. He didn’t have an insight into the future. He couldn’t predict Lucetti’s next move with any certainty. She knew he meant to comfort her, but a new kind of terror had her in its grasp. If the man who had Emily was like Chapin, was her daughter still alive?

  Chapter Eleven

  Before they went home, Mac stopped at a pay phone to call Shelby. Thus far, his friend had learned nothing about the identities of the three men chasing them. Teddy, the gunsmith, had come up with zilch. If the men did business anywhere on a steady basis, it was outside Seattle. Shelby’s luck had been no better. A friend of his had run a tracer on the car, and the only real lead he got on a cream-colored Buick with similar tags turned out to be a vehicle that had been reported stolen. The three would-be killers were clearly professionals, far too clever to do their misdeeds in a car that could be traced to them. And Shelby had gotten no information on Miles out on the streets. He did agree to keep trying with the information they’d just gotten.

  Mallory’s house seemed eerily silent when they went inside. And the overturned and dismantled furniture left by the searchers was a grim reminder of the danger they and Emily were in. Mallory tossed Mac’s sack of mail on the table in the breakfast nook and, driven by hunger she could no longer ignore, stepped to the refrigerator. She needed her strength.

  She withdrew a container of yogurt. “Want something?” Mallory asked.

  “Two of those for me,” Mac replied, pointing to Mallory’s yogurt.

  They ate standing, backs to the counter, their gazes locked on nothing, eyes glazed with exhaustion. Mallory was trying desperately to be optimistic. Mac had to be right. Lucetti would give them more time. She either had to believe in that or lose her mind.

  When the containers of yogurt were scooped clean, they gravitated upstairs to reassemble Mallory’s bed. It would accommodate two bodies. Both of them were too tired to wade through the shambles in another bedroom to fix a second bed, and Mac seemed inclined to sleep near her. She supposed he was uneasy because of the attempts on their lives that day. She could understand that and appreciate it. She needed to stay alive until Em was home safe. But it seemed an unnecessary precaution; every window and door had a safety latch. Then she remembered Lucetti’s men had already gotten into the house, and how easily Mac had broken in. Maybe it was a sensible precaution.

  Mac stripped off his jacket, holster, shirt and wristbands, discarding them in a pile on the rug. Then he toppled onto the bed on his back. Slanting an arm across his eyes, he yawned and groaned. Mallory stared at him, convinced the breadth of his shoulders took up more than half the space. Her gaze lowered to his bronzed chest and her throat tightened. She had never seen male flesh contoured into so many rock-hard bulges and ridges.

  “I’m so tired, I’m dead,” he murmured on the crest of a sigh.

  He looked amazingly vital to Mallory. Suddenly she needed a little distance. “I’m going to wash off and put on my nightclothes. That is, if you don’t mind. I have a flannel gown that’s—”

  “Honey, you can come back in nothing and I won’t notice,” he cut in gently. “Just do whatever you have to and come to bed so you can get some rest. There’s nothing more we can do tonight.”

  Closeted in the bathroom, Mallory washed her face, applied night cream, brushed her teeth and wriggled out of her clothes. The clean flannel gown felt like heaven. She supposed she should sleep dressed since there was a man in her bed, but she was too sore. She had chosen her primmest gown. Stepping back into the bedroom, she felt suddenly shy and doused the light. As she moved toward the bed, a rumbling sound made her leap. She peered through the darkness. There it came again. Mac was snoring. The sound was comforting, made her feel less alone. She lay down, trying not to wiggle the mattress, and hugged her side to keep space between them.

  Mac muttered something and rolled toward her, slinging a heavy arm across her waist. He pulled her close and nuzzled his face into her hair. Just when she was about to protest, he let loose with another rumbling snore that fluttered the hair at her nape. The stiffness left Mallory’s body. If this was a sly pass, he was a master and his embrace was comforting.

  She leaned back against the broad, cushioned wall of his chest. It had been so long since a man had held her that she had forgotten how good it felt. Surely it couldn’t hurt...just for a while. He was asleep, after all. And—as she often told Em—everyone needed a hug now and again, even mommies. His arm was heavy, but not too heavy, the bone and sinew overlaid with a thick layer of muscle and smooth flesh. Wonderfully warm. Lying close to him made her feel confident that everything would indeed be okay. If needing that kind of reassurance was wrong, if it was weak of her, then it would be her secret. In just a few minutes, she would pull away. He would never know. She closed her eyes, absorbing his heat, finding solace, however meager, for this little while. Her last thoughts were of Emily as she plummeted into a black void of exhaustion.

  Some time later—Mallory had no idea how long—she awoke with a start, her heart slamming as she clawed her way up from a nightmare. She had been standing on a city sidewalk, looking up at the grimy window of an apartment. Emily’s face was on the other side of the glass. Creeping up behind her was a horrible man with a switchblade, his mouth twisted in an evil grin. Running frantically back and forth in front of the building, Mallory sought a door. Above her, she heard Emily screaming. There was no way inside the building, no way to reach her. She was going to be killed, and Mallory couldn’t save her... Drenched in sweat, Mallory had jerked awake, her hands clawing the mattress.

  For several moments, the dream still held her in its clutches, so real she could hear Em crying, “Mommy, Mommy, save me, save me!” Not wishing to wake Mac, Mallory slipped out of the bed. The residual horror of the nightmare drove her into
the hall. She went to Em’s room and flipped on the light. After staring at the mess for several minutes, she began putting Em’s clothes back into her drawers. When that was done, she dragged the mattress into place and remade the bed. One chore led to another, and before she knew it, she was putting the whole room back together, feverish in her need to have everything as it had been before.

  She worked until she was limp with exhaustion. Then she found Ragsdale. The little dog had been gutted, his stuffing tossed all over the floor. A cry tore from her throat and she began to shake. She fled the room, hugging the destroyed toy to her breast. She walked aimlessly through the house, stumbling sometimes on out-of-place cushions and lamps. Tears flowed down her cheeks and soaked Ragsdale’s floppy ears. When her sobs became so ragged that they sapped her remaining strength, she sank to her knees and leaned against the dining room wall. She had no idea how long she cried, only that she at last cried herself empty. No more tears, no more anything. Just a great aching hole where her heart had once been.

  That was how Mac found her. He had missed her in his sleep and jerked awake to go find her. In the moonlight, she looked like a little girl, huddled on the floor in a trailing nightgown, hair tousled into a silken cloud. Dropping to one knee beside her, he touched Ragsdale and felt the wet fur.

  “Mallory, sweetheart, what’re you doing down here?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “Thinking? You’ve got to get some sleep.”

  “I did. I slept. They tore Ragsdale apart, Mac.”

  He glanced down at the dog’s flattened torso. There was a peculiar, hollow sound to her voice. He knew that she was somehow equating the destroyed dog with her daughter, imagining Em destroyed, as well. Mac settled for touching her hair, but what he really wanted was to gather her into his arms and soothe away her pain. If only he could. “Can you think in bed where you won’t get chilled?”

  “I didn’t want to wake you.” She turned her face toward him, “That Chapin man—he was a horrible person, wasn’t he? Em may be dead, Mac. I have to face that.”