Accompanying Alice (4 page)

“I told you, as soon as it’s safe, you’ll get your house, your life and your money back.”

Alice shrugged. “Forget it. I always give my grocery money to men with guns.”

With a sense of irony, Gabriel took in the line of her jaw, the soft oval cut of her chin, the disturbing quality of her eyes and his unaccustomed vulnerability to them. He knew better than to let her get to him. He didn’t expect this kind of weakness from himself. At least not under the circumstances. And if he hadn’t felt exactly like the kind of cheap mugger she compared him to, he’d have been able to grin and ignore—hell,
enjoy
—her
barbs. Instead, he sucked air between his teeth, too tired and shaken not to snap back. But before he could say anything, the pawnbroker reappeared with a pair of oversized stereo speakers on a dolly and settled them in front of him. Distracted by his original purpose, Gabriel
turned to inspect the speakers, momentarily giving Alice both the last word and his back.

Speechless, Alice stared at the three-dimensional brown rectangles, all fake maple and textured cloth.
This
was what it had been about, the gun in her face, the six miles she’d just driven with her heart quivering against her lungs, and her knees feeling like mush?
This
was his evidence, his proof, the embodiment of all that desperation, the intense agony of life and death? She didn’t know what she’d imagined he had to pick up here, but a set of
speakers
? And she’d
bought into his story, his emotion.

Deep inside her the little flame she thought she’d put out ignited again. Reaction hit her before she could control it. Inside her chest, her lungs compressed, refusing to let her breathe in anything more regular than shallow gasps. The reckless sensation in her stomach that always preceded her doing something brave but stupid grabbed her, tried to warn her not to do what she was already doing. Her hand slipped under the tail of his T-shirt, found the waistband of his
jeans, touched the gun. Fast but casual, his hand whipped around, caught her wrist in his fist.

Holding her tight, he eased her around in front of him, tipped up her chin and smiled down at her, eyes hard.
Don’t,
they warned her silently,
because I know what I’m doing here, and you haven’t got a clue.

“So, what do you think, honey?” he said aloud. “Great speakers, aren’t they? Come on, let’s take ‘em home.”

Chapter Two

T
he car jerked to a halt in the driveway at 88 North Rutgers.

Alice swung herself out of the car and stood for a moment, face raised to the rain, looking down the mostly tree-lined street with its rows of tiny post-World War II tract houses. Home at last, she sighed. But it felt more like,
Free at last, free at last!
And thank God for it.

She moved toward the house, vaguely aware that Gabriel had set the first of his speakers on the front porch and returned to the car for the other. She mounted the steps and unlocked the door, thinking.

Corrupt cops, politicians on the take, murdered informants, drugs missing from police property rooms, “hits”—Gabriel had told her he’d been called out of a pair of cases going nowhere in New Jersey to investigate the lot.

Instead of distrusting her for attempting to turn the tables on him at the pawnshop, he’d taken her partway into his confidence, explaining what he hadn’t been able to explain
to her before. With growing horror, she’d listened to him tell her how he and his partner had been shot in the wooded park not far from Alice’s house shortly before dawn this morning retrieving evidence—a thumb drive and the gun—how he’d watched his partner go down, how there’d been nothing he could do for him but run until he’d collapsed.

How he thought the evidence he’d hidden with his badge and his personal emergency fund in one of the speakers weeks ago, coupled with the weapon and the thumb drive, would tie this case into a tight neat bundle that would bring arrests within the week.

If he could stay alive, that is.

To Alice, who’d been raised to balance life between the Ten Commandments and the West Point cadet code, and who read the newspapers with an eye entirely focused on what books to stock in the store and what movie titles to recommend, and as little as possible on police cases and politics, the story was unbelievable. Things like this didn’t happen in her world. Her life was forever bounded by the petty and the sensible, honed by soapbox family drama and—

She stopped to push open the door and let herself in, then shut it, leaning against it as though to keep the world at bay, automatically slapping the dead bolt into place and securing the chain. Maybe her sister Sam had been right yesterday when she’d said Alice could use an attitude overhaul. Or, more appropriately, a life overhaul. Whichever, Alice would have to think about it later. Because, if what Gabriel said was true, then the entire county’s judicial system was on
the rocks—and she’d brought the evidence home with her for a shower, a shave and tea.

As if she needed this on top of worrying about her daughters, Grace’s wedding, that damned investment broker and all the seed pearls she had left to sew onto Grace’s veil. And she’d thought
last
week was the worst of her life. Ha! But she supposed that only went to prove how relative
worst
could be. At least last week the “plethora of evil things,” as her grandmother used to say, had only happened one per day,
instead of one every five minutes. Just as soon as she could scare up the energy, she meant to have a serious talk with whoever dealt out lives and demand recompense for the past few days of hers. Surely in the heavenly scheme of things she was entitled to a reduction in purgatory time. If not for last week, then at least for today?

A clear conscience is payment enough,
her mother whispered wisely to her thoughts, and Alice sighed. Wasn’t that exactly what she’d been trying to teach Allyn and Rebecca for the past eighteen years? Wasn’t conscience what she now prayed would carry them through their reckless rush to come of age? And wasn’t conscience exactly what had landed her in the middle of this terrible, horrible day?

Nothing’s black and white, Allie,
her father’s voice assured her.
Your mother forgot to tell you there are always shades of gray.

Shades of gray, Alice humphed wryly. Shades of mud would be more like it. Mud-colored choices, mud-spattered conflicts, mud-murky days, mud-coated bodies-speaking of which...

She turned to the mud-coated body she’d assumed was right beside her, but the space was vacant. Her eyes lit. Maybe it had all been a dream. Maybe she’d never left the house this morning. Maybe between daily stress and her occasionally rabid imagination she was only in the midst of a PMS breakdown. What luck medication was available to take care of these things—

Someone kicked the wooden door behind her. Whispering a word she’d never used before Allyn and Rebecca had left home, Alice undid all the locks and yanked open the door.

Looking something like a drowned Big Foot, the being on her porch hefted one of his speakers and lifted a soggy hairy upper lip at her. “Fuller Brush Man,” he said.

With a huff of irritation, Alice flung the door aside and grabbed a stack of newspapers from beneath the chair beside it. “Why can’t you and my parents leave me alone?”

Gabriel stepped into the house and set the speaker on the floor, taking the non sequitur in stride. “Trouble with authority figures?” he asked.

“I—” Alice shut her mouth and took a breath, then gave him her mother’s best I-am-not-going-to-rise-to-that-despite-untold-provocation face and opened newspaper sections, piling them on the carpet. “Drip on these.”

Obligingly Gabriel stepped onto them “My mother used to say the same thing to me. Makes me feel right at home.”

“Don’t,” Alice urged, and he grinned. Even through all that hair, he had a nice grin.

As if she should notice.

The fuzz on the small of her back rose, sent provocative messages helter-skelter through every nerve. For no appropriate reason at all, she suddenly felt connected to him, bound by something more than circumstance or the responsibility incumbent on saving his life. Her veins still tingled and her nerves rattled but, caught in his smile, she once again understood the legendary lure between schoolmarms and wounded desperadoes. She understood race car drivers
and the thrill of speed. She remembered what Allyn was looking for on the road to California.

And that scared her. And thrilled her. And intoxicated her.

She never remembered feeling so alive, so reckless. Not even when she’d given Matthew her virginity.
This is how Becky feels when Michael looks at her,
she thought, then stamped on the notion in shock. She shouldn’t be able to imagine how her son-in-law made her daughter feel—especially not when she was looking at a man who’d held her at gunpoint, ruined her morning, then trusted her with a whole lot of information she didn’t want to be trusted with
at all.

Boy, had he rattled her cage.

“Look,” she said uncomfortably, and he did. Looked her up and down, looked her patiently in the eye and dripped
on the papers. Alice turned her back on him. It wasn’t right to feel the way he made her feel. It wasn’t
safe.

“Let’s get a few things straight,” she tried again, but the phone rang. Surprised, she looked at Gabriel, turned to the wall where the phone hung, automatically pointing a finger to keep him in place. “Wait,” she ordered.

He reached for her wrist, aiming at her attention, captured both. “Careful what you say,” he cautioned. “I’ll be right here.”

Alice swallowed, aware of him as she’d never been aware of anyone. She nodded and answered the phone to hear her eldest daughter’s absurdly pleased, slightly rebellious and more than a little nervous voice at the other end of the line. Forgetting Gabriel entirely, Alice-the-mother pressed a hand to her mouth in relief. “Lynnie? Where are you? Why haven’t you called? It’s been three days—I’ve been worried sick. You were supposed to call—collect.” Frightened
Mother Gambit Number One: attack and impose guilt.

“Ah, Ma, get a life, will you? I’m fine. Jeez,” Allyn snapped.

Alice shut her eyes at the automatic offense and swallowed Gambit Two. This was her child, her daughter, her life.
She’s grown up now, Allie,
she told herself.
It’s time to let go.
“I’m sorry, Lyn. I’m sure you’re fine. It’s just…” She looked at Gabriel. He gave her half a smile and
shrugged. “It’s just been really hectic around here.”

“Oh, man. Becky told you she was pregnant and married, didn’t she? God, what a fool. I mean, I tried there, Morn, I did. I told her she should protect herself ‘cause Mike wouldn’t. I even went to the school dispensary to get her some condoms, but she wouldn’t take ‘em. Said Mike didn’t think it was ‘
natural
.’ I told her I thought Mike was an immature jerk. I mean, it’s her body. I said, use your brain, Beck, look what happened to Ma. But she said she wanted
to be like you.”

“Like me?” Something that felt like hysteria gurgled in
side Alice. What was it her mother used to say about setting a good example and just wait till she had children of her own? Then the gist of Allyn’s tirade registered. “You
knew?”

Allyn made a sound of annoyance. “Who else was she going to tell?”