Heat (5 page)

Mary rounded the last turn and headed up to the landing.

Loki faded back into the shadows. He moved with absolute silence, and his clothes blended with the

darkness. He stood absolutely still. He didn't breathe.
He didn't even blink
.

Mary passed within five feet of him. She could have reached out and touched him. He could have reached out and sent her to her death. But Loki had decades of experience in being unseen. Mary went on without pausing.

Loki waited until the girl had passed, then started after her. Mary would live through the day. He had decided that he didn't have enough information to act at this point. His surveillance of Mary Moss was incomplete. She might have informed others of Gaia's story.

He would have to tighten the noose around Mary. He would find out exactly what she knew and who she had told. Once those questions were answered,
Loki would see that Mary Moss met with an early and tragic end
.

ED FARGO HATED SALT.

Bizzaro Heather

Not salt on food. As far as Ed was concerned, salt was in its own food group with an importance level that put it right below the all-powerful sugar-and-chocolate group and just above the equally

vital grease group. Food salt was good. Unfortunately, not every grain of salt was lucky enough to end up decorating a giant pretzel.

As soon as there was the least hint of snow, the storefronts around the Village began to apply liberal amounts of salt to the sidewalk. Not little dashes of salt. Not handfuls.
Tons
of salt
. Whole bags of coarse, milky rock salt. So much of the stuff that Ed wondered if there was actually more salt than snow.

There were several reasons to hate the stuff. Most of the year, being in a wheelchair was at least quiet. Now that it was salt season, every pump of his arms crunched so loudly that he sounded like he was rolling over
a bag of potato chips
. There was also the cleanliness factor. The salt from the wheels got all over his hands and on his clothes. And then there was the mechanical safety factor. Ed could only imagine what all the crud was doing to the chair. Salt rusted cars, and cars were covered over with nice layers of paint and all kinds of expensive antirust coatings. Ed's chair was nothing but bare metal. He wondered if the whole thing was going to melt into a
puddle of rust
one day and dump him in the middle of an intersection.

Ed was so involved in staring at the salt clinging to the spokes of the wheels that he almost ran over a beautiful girl.

"Hi, Ed."

Ed looked up to see Heather Gannis standing on

the sidewalk in front of him. As usual, Heather was dressed wonderfully, with a cream-colored sweater peeking from under her jacket and a matching cap of soft wool pulled down over her mass of thick brown hair. And as always, Heather looked great.

"Heather," he said. "You, um ... You look great."
Another brilliant, insightful observation by Ed Fargo.

Heather gave a halfhearted smile. "Thanks." She looked past Ed for a moment. "I wish I felt better."

Ed searched for the right thing to say. Back when Heather was his girlfriend, he knew what to say. Even after he and Heather had broken up, he had his patented collection of
smart-ass remarks
. Now that Heather was actually being nice to him again, Ed wasn't sure how to play it.

"Well," Heather said with a disappointed tone in her voice. "I guess I'd better--"

"Wait," said Ed. He gave up looking for something clever to say and went for the simple question. "What's wrong?"

Heather shrugged and looked off into the distance. "I'm not sure."

"You feeling okay? You're not sick or anything?"

"It's not me," she said. "I was supposed to meet . . . someone . . . down here, and he didn't show up. And then I saw you and I thought . . ." She stopped again and shook her head. "I probably shouldn't talk about it."

Ed stared up into Heather's face. She was pretty. Maybe even prettier than Gaia. Of course, Heather didn't have the quirky beauty of Gaia Moore, but there was only one Gaia Moore--and that was probably a good thing for the sanity of everyone involved.

Still, there was no doubt that Heather was very pretty, and at one time Ed had been convinced he loved her.
Maybe he really had loved her
. He had hated her, too, for the way she had left him after the accident. He wasn't sure that either one of those feelings was completely gone.

"I better go," said Heather. She licked at her lips and fidgeted with her wool hat. "It's getting late."

Ed nodded, but as Heather started to step past him he reached out and caught her by the arm. "How about some coffee?"

Heather shook her head. "I don't know if I should."

"Come on," Ed urged. "Let's have a little latte and talk."

For a long second Heather stood with her head hanging down. Then she nodded. "All right," she said. "I guess I need to talk to someone."

Ed followed her down the street to Ozzie's. It was a place famous in Ed's memory because it was the place where Gaia and Heather had first met--the place where Gaia had doused Heather with a full cup of steaming coffee.

"What are you smiling about?" asked Heather.

Ed pushed back the memory and shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "I'm just glad you decided to come with me."

For once he seemed to find the right words. Heather smiled at his response. "I'm glad you asked me."

While Heather grabbed a spot at one of the tables, Ed went to the counter and ordered for both of them. He had no trouble remembering what Heather wanted. She hadn't been Ed's first girlfriend, but she had been his first really serious girlfriend.
And his last
. Ed could probably remember almost everything Heather had ever ordered on their dates.

With two steaming double lattes clutched carefully in one hand, Ed rolled over to the table where Heather was waiting. She took her drink without a word and lifted the foamy brew to her mouth. As she put down the cup, she sighed. Her eyes slipped closed for a moment. "Thanks," she said. "I needed this more than you can know."

Ed took a quick sip from his own latte. He knew that Heather had been through a lot over the last couple of weeks. In fact, Ed might be the
only
one who knew everything that had happened. For some reason, Heather had trusted him with some pretty heavy secrets. Still, it wasn't like Heather to let down her guard out in public. Heather lived at the top of
the high school food pyramid
with the truly popular people. It was a nasty place up there, a place where

you didn't dare let people know that you were less than perfect.

"Okay, now that we're stocked on caffeine and sugar, are you ready to tell me what's up?" Ed asked.

Heather put her elbows on the edge of the table and rested her face in her hands. "I don't know if I should," she replied, her voice escaping through her slim fingers. "It's not one thing. It's a lot of things. Some of it's not even really my problem."

"If it's bothering you, then I guess it is your problem."

"Maybe." Heather nodded and gave another sigh. "Maybe I do need to talk about it."

"Then tell me." Ed looked at her with what he hoped was a confident, solid expression.
Your trustworthy friend Ed
. "You know you can tell me anything."

The tightness in Heather's face relaxed a notch. "I always could." Heather lowered her hands and looked around her, as if afraid someone else might hear, but the coffee shop was nearly empty. Finally she looked back at Ed. "Part of it's about Phoebe," she said softly.

"Phoebe?" Ed flushed. A wave of embarrassment washed over him that almost knocked him out of his chair.

Phoebe was Heather's older sister. If anything, Phoebe was even more beautiful than Heather, though

until recently she had been a little bit heavier. Not now, though. Ed had seen Phoebe only a few days before, and she had looked fantastic.

What made Ed red with embarrassment was the memory of what he had said about Phoebe. In the middle of an intense game of truth or dare, Ed had said that he wanted to sleep with Phoebe more than any woman in the world. It had been a lie, of course, and Gaia and Mary were the only ones there to hear him. Surely neither one of them would have talked to Heather. Would they?

Ed swallowed hard and tried not to look too terribly guilty. "Is Phoebe still in town?"

Heather nodded. "Just for a couple more days, though. Then she's going back to college."

A little bit of relief edged through Ed's near panic. Heather didn't
sound
like she knew
about Ed's big sex-with-Phoebe confession
. "So what's wrong?" he asked.

There was a long moment of silence, then Heather shook her head. "I can't talk about it. At least, not yet." A sad half smile settled on her face again. She reached across the table and took Ed's hand. "Thanks for asking me in here," she said. "I really appreciate it."

Ed tried out another reassuring smile. Anybody else at school might not recognize this soft, vulnerable person. This couldn't be Heather Gannis. Where were the biting remarks? Where was the absolute

confidence? They would think this girl was
bizzaro Heather
. Most of the students at the Village School probably thought Heather's family was rich and Heather was a pampered princess. Ed was one of the few who knew how hard Heather worked to keep up that illusion.

"So if you can't talk about Phoebe and she's only part of it, what's the rest?"

Heather picked up her coffee, took a long drink, then set the cup down hard on the table. "Sam."

Once Ed had seen some science show where people's brains were monitored while someone read words from a list. Different words caused activity in different parts of the brain. If someone had clamped one of those helmets on Ed,
the word
Sam
would have blown out the circuits
.

"You and Sam are having trouble?" Ed hoped his voice didn't show as much strain as he felt. He didn't know whether he wanted Sam and Heather to be apart or not. On the one hand, if Sam stayed with Heather that meant Sam wasn't with Gaia. But Ed wasn't completely sure that he was over Heather. All things considered, Ed decided the world would be better if Sam Moon experienced spontaneous combustion. "Sam was the one who was supposed to meet you."

Heather nodded. "Over an hour ago. We were going to have lunch and maybe see a movie. Everything seemed fine."

"Except he didn't show."

"No," said Heather. "He didn't." She looked over Ed's shoulder toward the street outside. "You don't think that he knows about . . . you know."

Ed knew. "Charlie."

Heather looked around the coffee shop again, then brought her face close to Ed's. "Do you think Sam knows?"

Ed wasn't sure what to say. Charlie had gotten Heather into bed. He had bragged about it and had even used Heather for "points" in the
little sex game
some of the jocks had put together. "I think it's possible," Ed said carefully. "I mean, Sam's not around the Village School, but he's not on the other side of the world. What are you going to do if he finds out?"

Heather closed her eyes and put her hands against her temples. "I don't know what to do," she said. "I mean, no matter how big a jerk Charlie was and no matter what really happened, I went with him into that bedroom. Nobody made me do that."

Ed reached out and touched his hand gently against Heather's cheek. "It's okay," he said. "Sam probably doesn't know, and even if he does, I'm sure he'll understand."

Heather covered Ed's hand with one of her own and leaned against his palm. "You think . . ." She hesitated for a moment, then ventured a tentative smile.

"You think you would be interested in getting something to eat?"

Ed grinned. "When have I ever turned down food?"

Heather's smile brightened. "And after that--"

"A movie," Ed finished. "Sure. I'd love to."

Heather's smile grew wider and lost some of its sad edge. "I can always count on you." Then, much to Ed's astonishment, she leaned across the table and kissed him on the cheek.

MARY MOSS HELD THE HANDLE OF
one shopping bag with her teeth, put another between her knees, and bent down to jab her key into the lock. She managed to turn the doorknob and stumble inside before everything tumbled to the floor.

That Tone

"Little help here!" she called out, but the apartment was dark and quiet. Mary dragged her stuff inside and let the door swing shut.

Actually, it was probably good that her parents weren't home. For one thing, it showed that they were beginning to trust her again--even if it was for only a few hours in the middle of the day.

Since learning of Mary's drug habit, her parents

had been smothering her with everything from videotapes and brochures on rehab centers to books from famous users who had kicked their addictions. Even her Christmas presents had been heavily loaded with an assortment of such uplifting material.

Mary didn't feel uplifted. She was off the drugs, and it wasn't because she had gone to any trendy center or been inspired by
some has-been celebrity
. She had kicked cocaine on her own. Well, maybe having Gaia around had helped a little. Maybe more than a little. But the point was, Mary was off the coke. If her parents were looking for the right time to give her books about drugs, they had missed it--by years.