Broken Ties (7 page)

“Do you think it was the same guy both times?”

“Judging by the description, it was.”

“So he knows where I live, where I work. How do you know he isn’t following us right now?”

She shot a frightened glance behind them.

“He isn’t.” Levi had made certain of that. There was no one following them. Maybe Teddy was wrong and the man just wanted to frighten her. If he wanted to kill her, wouldn’t he have just waited for them to exit the building?

“Will you take me to see Carlotta?”

“Will you find out if she remembers anything?”

Sidra nodded, and turned to stare out the window. He smoothed his hand over her hair.

“You don’t have to push her to remember. Just ask her if she does.”

“I know,” she said, then admitted, “I’m just not sure I’m ready to hear what she might remember.”

He understood how she must feel. Twenty-four hours ago, she had no past she could remember. Today, the past was closing in on her, and it was terrifying.

“Where’s the home?”

“Freemont Street.”

When he turned at the next traffic light and headed in the direction of the nursing home, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. I can tell she means a lot to you.”

“She was the closest thing to a relative I had growing up. The main goal of the organization Carlotta worked with was reuniting families. I was the only one in any of the homes I lived in who didn’t have a family to be reunited with. The other kids got presents from relatives at Christmas, went on visitation, things that at least gave them hope they had a real home to return to one day.” She turned toward him. “Carlotta was the only constant in my life, the only thing that kept me from feeling entirely alone. The least I can do is to try to give her the same thing now.”

“She doesn’t have a family?”

“She never talked about anyone. We didn’t talk much after I aged out of the system, but we exchanged cards during the holidays with little notes about the year. Her card was the one and only Christmas item I bought each year. The last card I got from her was written by a nurse at the nursing home just after her stroke. Carlotta had dictated parts of it, and the nurse filled in the blanks.”

“What kind of blanks?”

“Not the kind that answered any of the questions we have.” She shrugged as they stopped in front of the nursing home. “Basically, it just told me where she was and why.”

“When was that?”

“Two years ago. She’s gotten much worse since then. She rarely remembers who I am.”

“But you keep going.”

“Of course, I do. I can’t abandon her now.”

The air inside the nursing home was so thick with the odors of floor cleaner and disinfectant it burned his nose and brought tears to his eyes. He barely breathed as they made their way down the hall, but Sidra didn’t even seem to notice the smell.

She spoke to several nurses and residents, smiling sweetly as a large, gruff man asked if she’d brought him a milkshake.

“Not today, Mr. Whitley,” she answered. “Dr. Johnson wants you to work on your diabetes. Remember?”

“’Course I remember, little lady. I just want a milkshake. You’re gonna bring me one next time you come, right?”

“I’ll try, Mr. Whitley, but I’ll have to talk to the doctor first.”

His eyes narrowed at Levi. “Hey, man, did you bring me a milkshake?”

Levi shook his head, and the man shuffled down the hall, mumbling under his breath as he went.

Glancing at his watch, Levi realized that if they didn’t hurry night would fall before they reached Gulfview. He had no desire to try to keep one eye on the road and one eye in the rearview mirror in that circumstance. Too much could happen on a two-lane road after dark, especially between towns that rolled up the carpet as soon as the sun went down.

“We’ve got to pick up the pace a little, Sid. The longer we’re here, the more likely we are to be spotted, and we don’t want to lead anyone here who might not have connected you to the place already.”

Obviously, that thought hadn’t occurred to her, because she paled a bit, before giving him a nod of agreement. Just outside Carlotta’s door, she stopped and put a hand on his chest. Earnest brown eyes stared into his.

“I ask the questions,” she reminded him. “Got it?”

“Got it.”

She pushed open the door, letting her usual bright smile spread over her face. Why had he never noticed until now that it wasn’t always as genuine as it seemed? Had he been that busy fighting his attraction to her and fuming about her relationship with Teddy?

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Taylor,” she said to the white-haired woman lying in the bed nearest the door. “How are you today?”

She straightened the woman’s sheet while the woman stared blankly at the ceiling.

“What the devil are you doing bringing men into my room?”

Levi’s gaze moved to the woman sitting in a wheelchair in front of the window. From her close-cut salt-and-pepper curls to her sensible navy blue shoes, she bespoke efficiency and professionalism. A dark blue polyester skirt and striped button-up blouse completed her outfit, and he nearly smiled. Sidra rarely showed up for work in anything other than modest, dark-colored dresses or skirts and blouses, and matching pumps. Until this morning, he had never seen her in jeans or anything remotely casual. He sincerely doubted Carlotta Strauss had ever been the beauty Sidra was, but she was obviously the person who had given Sidra her sense of style and decorum.

“Carlotta, this is Levi. He’s a friend who is helping me find out about my parents.” Sidra made the introductions as Levi took a step forward, and Carlotta glared at him.

“What do I care? I don’t even know who you are.” Her harsh, slightly accented voice bespoke years of chain smoking.

“Yes, you do. I’m Sidra.”

The woman shook her head. “No, you’re not Sidra. Sidra was just a little girl.”

“I was a little girl when you met me, but now I’m grown up.”

“No.” She shook her head again, this time a little more vehemently.

“Do you remember anything about her?” he said, and Sidra turned to glare at him, too. Another trait she must have perfected under Carlotta’s tutelage.

“Sit down!” Carlotta growled, her words more accented than they had been moments before. “I can’t stand a man towering over me like that, trying to intimidate me and make me tell him the secret.”

“What secret?” he and Sidra asked at the same time. The question earned him another glare.

“You can’t scare me!” The old woman cried, raking her fingernails down her arms in agitation. Blood sprang to the surface of her paper-thin skin. “I won’t tell you, no matter what you do to me!”

Sidra grabbed a handful of tissues from the table beside Carlotta’s bed and knelt in front of the woman. She took the blue-veined hands in her own, and held them on Carlotta’s lap with one hand as she gently blotted at the self-inflicted wounds.

“It’s all right,” she said soothingly, shooting him another angry look. “You don’t have to tell us a thing.”

The woman pulled her hands free of Sidra’s and placed one on each side of Sidra’s face. When she spoke, it was in the language he was coming to recognize, if not understand.

Sidra paled and stood to her feet, as the woman turned back to him.

“Run,” she said in English, eyes burning with fear. “Run!”

Chapter Eight

Sidra grasped Levi’s hand before he could ask any questions. She pulled him from the room without a backward glance at the woman she had known for so long yet, obviously, hadn’t known at all.

“What did she say?” he demanded, but she shook her head.

“Not now, Levi.”

She wasn’t translating Carlotta’s warning until they were in the car on their way out of town, and even then she would not repeat it all. She couldn’t—it was too horrible for words, too terrifying to consider.

They will torture your lover, pluck out his eyes, and take his tongue. They will stop at nothing to find you, and when they do, you will die. The ties have been broken, and there is no other way.

She shivered at the memory and picked up her pace, nearly running to get through the doors.

Once they were in the car, she slammed the locks into place.

“Go!” she ordered, but he ignored her as he turned to stare at her.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what she said.”

“She said they’ll stop at nothing to find me and I’ll die when they do.” She ignored his muttered curse. “Then she said something about the ties being broken and there being no other way.”

“What ties?”

“I have no idea.”

He slammed the car into reverse and pulled onto the road.

“Did you know she spoke that language?”

“No.”

“Maybe that’s how you learned it.”

“It isn’t.”

“They won’t find you and you won’t die.”

“Quit it, Levi!” she cried in frustration. “Just quit with the platitudes and assurances. Of course they’ll find me. They already have.”

“We aren’t going to be in town long enough for them to find you again. They won’t know to look in Gulfview.”

“I’m not going to Gulfview.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No! I’m not. I’m staying home and you’re going to Gulfview. I want you to be as far away from me as possible. There’s no reason for you to put your life in danger. And I certainly won’t let you put the rest of your family in danger by trying to hide me.”

“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m leaving you here alone.”

She sighed. There was no use arguing with him. She would just have to separate herself from him and make sure her assailants knew he was no longer involved. An opportunity was bound to present itself somewhere between here and Gulfview. She could start over somewhere else, somewhere no one could find her, far enough away that Levi would no longer be in danger.

At her house, she packed her suitcase quickly, making sure she had enough of everything to last until she got to wherever she ended up. She scooped up the kitten and, with one last look around her home, walked outside with Coda at her heels.

“You’ll be back before you know it,” Levi said, and she rolled her eyes.

“You know, you are even more annoying as an optimist than you are in your naturally pessimistic state,” she informed him.

He laughed as she put her suitcase in the back seat of his car and went around the fence to her neighbor’s house to return the kitten to the screened porch where it belonged. Coda whined as she left her friend behind and followed Sidra to the mailbox.

She rifled through the small stack of bills and sales flyers she pulled from the mailbox, then looked toward her house, the first place she had ever called her own. She had chosen everything in it. She had turned it into her home. The thought of never returning to it brought tears to her eyes, and she dashed them away.

“Good-bye, little house,” she murmured, and stepped back from the mailbox.

“Move!” she heard Levi roar, just as she heard the car speeding toward her. Before she could obey, he tackled her, knocking her to the ground with his large, hard body.

He lay on top of her for a long minute, enough time for her heart to nearly stop as she listened for any proof he was still breathing. Had he been hit? Was he unconscious?

“Levi?” she called, pushing at him. “Levi?”

He rolled off her with a low groan, and they both sat up. She cringed at the smear of blood across his forehead.

“You’re bleeding. Are you hurt?”

“No, just knocked my head against something when we fell.” He reached up and touched his head gingerly.

She looked around. Judging by the way they’d landed and the angle he’d tackled her from, she would guess his forehead had hit the corner of the mailbox hard and fast.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked him.

“Yes. What about you?”

“I’m fine.” She was already feeling a twinge or two here and there, and tomorrow she might hurt like the dickens. But it was nothing to worry about. Anyone tackled by a man Levi’s size would be sore.

He was on his feet, helping her up, holding her close, his breath hot and heavy on her neck as he pressed his lips to the delicate pulse at the base of her throat. She wrapped her arms around him, noting the pounding of his heart and the fine trembling of his arms. She realized then how frightened he was by their brush with death.

“I’m fine, Levi,” she assured him. “I’m fine.”

“Thank God,” he murmured. “Thank God.”

His lips found hers and he kissed her, his hands roaming over her arms, her head, cupping her face as he drank in the taste of her. When he had kissed her thoroughly, he took her arm and escorted her to the car.

“Why the hell didn’t you move?” he demanded as he sped down the street. Obviously he was back to normal. “I nearly didn’t make it to you in time.”

“You could have been killed,” she scolded. “What were you thinking?”

“What do you mean, what was I thinking?” His voice was incredulous. “I was thinking you were about to get run over and I needed to save you.”

“He might have swerved before he hit me.”

“He wasn’t swerving, Sidra. He was aiming right for you. He intended to mow you down.”

“The next time something like that happens, you stay out of the way. I won’t have your death or injury on my conscience, Levi.”

She sounded appropriately cold and professional, almost like her old self. She turned her gaze away from him. She needed to maintain a distance, so that when the time came she could slip away with at least part of her heart.

“So I was supposed to stand there and watch you die?” His voice was as cold as hers, and she knew they were reaching an impasse. “I can’t do that.”

She hesitated for only a moment, knowing she was about to cross a point of no return, before she swallowed hard and said the one thing she knew would drive him away.

“Why not? You did it to your own brother.”

At his sharp intake of breath, she glanced his way, and her heart splintered into a million pieces. His face had gone pale beneath his tan, a nerve ticked in his jaw, and his eyes were bleak with misery as he stared straight ahead, silent and injured.