Leigh (13 page)

His ironic comment couldn’t be true. “TV? Me?”

He nodded soberly. “Your parents saw you.”

“Oh, no.” Distress welled up inside her—a geyser. Her mother, who hadn’t wanted her to come, would be fit to be tied.

“Your parents were going to fly here, but I persuaded them that the best idea is my getting you out of this crazy city.”

“Thanks,” she said in warm relief. She didn’t want to think how embarrassing it would have been having her parents fly in
to take her by the hand and lead her home. “They still think I’m a baby.”

Dane shrugged. “Well, how old are you?”

“I’m twenty-one,” Leigh defended herself.

“Then you are a baby.”

She made a face at him and her head twinged with pain. “I missed the nomination tonight,” she said, going through her mind,
trying to bring everything back into focus.

“Hubert Horatio Humphrey got the nomination after all—even without your being there,” he said dryly.

She grimaced, but with only half her face. She closed her eyes. She wasn’t up to repartee. And besides, everything that had
happened here was awful.

“What? Didn’t Humphrey have your support?”

“Stop teasing. What does my opinion matter? I was just a hanger-on with the Maryland delegation. Tonight has been a total
disaster.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. At least we got to tour an
other historic Chicago police station, another
venerable dump.”

She ignored this, worrying her lower lip. “Where’s Mary Beth?” She opened her eyes, peering at him through her veil of pain.

His face drew down. “So far we haven’t found her. I’ve got the local police and FBI on the lookout for her.”

She relived seeing that cop dragging her friend by the hair.
No. She’s okay. She has to be. “
Then I’m not going home. I can’t leave without Mary Beth.”

W
hat makes you think she wants to be found?” Dane asked with blatant sarcasm in his voice. “The last time we saw her, she was
doing a good job of straying from the straight and narrow. She’s probably off somewhere stoned out of her mind.”

His sarcasm stung. Leigh wanted to say that wasn’t true. But unfortunately, it might be. This fact made her quiver inside,
feel a bit sick or sicker than she already felt. “She’s my friend.” Leigh emphasized the word
friend. “
One of my best friends.”
And someone has to care about her.

“Then you should choose your friends with better care. I don’t think she’s looking for you.”

Leigh flushed warmly since, again, she couldn’t disagree. “A friend is a friend. I don’t abandon my friends just because they
make bad choices. Despite what you think, Mary Beth wouldn’t leave me behind, and I can’t leave until she’s found.”

“Are you sure about that?” But he gave her no time to answer. “You won’t be doing anything until you are released from this
hospital today. So you’re stuck here until I get back.
And I’ve got to check in with the local Bureau here.” He nailed her with both eyes. “Be here when I come back.”

Leigh wanted to argue, but her residual weakness left her mute. She nodded. How had everything gone so awry?

Dane chuckled without mirth and walked out of her room. She watched his back recede from her sight, feeling an inexplicable
sense of loss. He was sarcastic, but when he was with her, he made her feel safe.

F
rank sat hunched over on his cot, a pen in his hand and a pad of paper on his knee.
I have to write her. I can’t just let her hear it from someone else.
But why did he feel this way? Why did Leigh rate a
separate
letter, a
separate
announcement? After those few brief letters five years ago, he hadn’t written her—at least not
only
her, but her and her two friends. Why did Leigh linger in his mind—always a temptation?

He recalled Leigh’s innocent beauty as she’d sat beside the reflecting pool in Washington, D.C., while Dr. King preached.
Then he recalled her as she’d marched up the aisle at her graduation, her lovely, long blonde hair flowing from under her
black mortarboard. Tightening his lips and his grip on his pen, he knew he had to explain this to her. He owed her that. He
owed himself that.

Dear Leigh,

Where have the years gone? Doesn’t that make us feel old? You were sixteen and I was twenty-two when we met that evening at
Ivy Manor. I still remember how lovely you looked in the twilight holding a willow whip in your hands.

He ripped the page off the pad and crumpled it.
I can’t tell her that, not with what I need to say to her.
He’d made his decision, and it was a good one. These were just sweet memories of the past…

Still wearing her cloying, blood-stained, dirt-smeared outfit, Leigh hobbled defiantly on her broken shoe through the line
of police and into the lobby of the Conrad Hilton. In silence, she and Dane rode the elevator to her floor. Again, his presence
filled her, driving out the residual fear. Dane stood by as she unlocked the door of her room. The hotel hallways held the
sickly odor of tear gas from the night before. Still lightheaded, she led Dane inside. The room was empty of her roommates,
whom she’d barely known; it looked as if they’d already checked out.

Even hours after last night’s events, she felt flat, tired and weak from her slight concussion. Somehow she had to recover
enough to start looking for Mary Beth. In spite of wanting to peel off her sticky clothes and throw them in the waste basket,
Leigh plopped down on her freshly made bed. “This is a nightmare.”

Dane made no reply, but crossed to the phone and picked it up, speaking to the hotel operator. “This is Agent Dane Hanley.
I need to make a phone call to the FBI headquarters in D.C.”

Leigh closed her eyes and lay back on the bed, wondering if he were going to report everything to her stepfather. As soon
as she had the strength, she’d take a shower and change into clean clothes. She’d never felt this filthy in her life. It was
as if she were wearing garbage.

“Hi, this is Hanley. Is Gaston there?”

Dane’s voice, so businesslike, steadied Leigh. She tried to
think where Mary Beth might go. Maybe Leigh would find her somewhere in Old Town.

Dane turned and offered Leigh the receiver. “Your dad.”

With a sigh, Leigh put it to her ear. “Dad?”

“Hi, honey. I hear you had an exciting evening. Are you planning on making a career in revolution?”

In spite of her lingering weakness and tender head, Leigh smiled. Only her stepdad would tease her about being in a riot.
How she loved this man. “Not really. No fringe benefits.” She grinned. “And I’m not much for being hit with billy clubs.”

“If I had any way of finding out,” he said, suddenly sounding like an angry father, “who clubbed you—”

“Cool it, Dad. I’m fine. Just feeling a little rough.” Her head was still tender where the billy club had struck her. She
closed her eyes and turned on her side, longing for a tub of hot water and bubble bath. Dane sat down by her feet, making
the bed dip and reminding her of his presence.

“Leigh, here’s your mother.” Her dad’s tone begged her to be diplomatic.

But Leigh didn’t feel diplomatic right now. Out of respect for her father and Grandma Chloe, she’d always tried to keep her
dialogues with her mother polite, but detached. She’d had to maintain her distance because her mother always did. Her mother
always seemed to sit on Mt. Olympus raining down her opinions from on high. Today Leigh couldn’t handle that.
Right now I just don’t need her scolding me with, “I thought something like this would happen,” and telling me to come home.

“I knew something like this would happen,” were her mother’s petulant first words. “What were you thinking, putting yourself
in harm’s way?”

Had her mother ever realized how predictable she was?
Leigh tried to hold onto the ragged ends of her temper. “Mom, I was just getting into the limo headed for the Amphitheatre
when everything came undone. It’s not my fault the police overreacted and started attacking unarmed citizens—”

“I can’t believe that the police would attack without provocation,” her mother snapped.

Right. Cops never do anything they’re not supposed to do. “
Believe what you want, Mother. But I was there. I know what happened.”

“Why can’t you just focus on finishing your degree and leave politics for the future?”

“Because I can’t just sit on the sidelines.” Leigh sat up, making her head spin. Dane reached out and gripped her upper arm.
“I’m going to be out in this world as a journalist. This is what I’ll be doing with my life. This is my time. I can’t hide
from what’s happening all around me.”
Like you do.

They’d had this conversation more times than Leigh wanted to remember. And her mother never understood the insatiable restlessness
that drove Leigh. How could she? Her mother’s generation had fought its war in the Pacific and in Europe. But Leigh’s generation
was fighting its war in Viet Nam and in the dangerous streets of Watts, Detroit, Harlem, and now Chicago.

Dane held on to her and she found herself leaning toward his strength—too weak to care how it looked.

“No one can hide from life,” her mother said, “but do you have to be on the front lines?”

“Yes, I do,” Leigh snapped. Pain spiked over her right temple. “I can’t just sit back and watch things happen. I want to report
it, to witness it. And fortunately, I can.”

Stiff silence.

Leigh rested her palm on Dane’s knee, needing to
strengthen the bond forming between them. She’d never played the damsel in distress before and she wasn’t “playing” it now.
It was real, and Dane had come just in the nick of time.

Her stepfather came back on the line. “Honey, we’ve been very worried,” his voice again entreated her for understanding. How
could he know her so well and her mother not at all? “You can imagine how we felt when we saw you being clubbed and gassed
on national TV.”

“I didn’t exactly enjoy it.”
I love you, Dad. “
And believe me, I don’t plan on getting that close to a billy club anytime soon. Does Mom think I did it on purpose? I was
just heading for the limo to go to the Amphitheatre and everything exploded around me.”

“I’ve been in similar situations, sweetheart. We’re just glad that you’re safe and that Dane’s there with you. He’s a good
man, one of the best, and you can trust him. He’ll bring you home. We’ll meet you at the airport—”

A good man, one of the best.
She turned her thoughts back to her dilemma. “Dad, I can’t leave Chicago until I find out what happened to Mary Beth. I’m
the one who persuaded her to come. Did you see her on TV, too?”

“No.”

“I got clubbed while trying to get to her. A policeman had her by the hair and was dragging her while he beat her.” The gut-wrenching
memory of witnessing physical violence made Leigh quiver sharply and draw a deep breath. She released it slowly. “That was
why I got hurt. I was trying to get to her.” Leigh pressed her lips together to hold back the tears.

“You’re safe now,” her stepfather murmured. “Now let me talk to Dane.”

Leigh handed over the phone and then lay down on the bed again. She was glad when Dane stayed on the bed with her as he talked
to her dad. Being forced to recall the events
of last night had stirred the pot again. The concussion, the tear gas, and being the target of physical violence all rolled
together and left her shaky and weak.

It was one thing to see actors fighting in a movie, but it was so much different when it took place in person. She’d never
before witnessed physical violence or been near a riot. How did her friends do it—those who had quit school and were protesting
the war full-time? Last night, the yippies had sounded exhilarated over the violence. Did a person ever really get accustomed
to brutality?

“Right, Ted,” Dane said into the receiver. “Yeah, I can do that. What if we don’t find her today?” He made sounds of assent
and then handed Leigh the phone again.

“Hi, Dad,” she muttered, trying to let her affection show in her softened tone.

“Honey, Dane and I have talked. He will spend the day trying to find your friend. If you don’t find her, then we’ll talk about
what to do next.”

“Thank you, Daddy. I just couldn’t leave her. I mean, I needed Dane last night or I might still be in that awful holding cell.”
Thank you for sending Dane, Daddy. “
And sometimes I think Mary Beth has lost her mind or something. She…” Leigh didn’t want to say what she feared—that Mary Beth
was doing more drugs instead of less.

“You were in a holding cell?” Dad asked sharply.

“Yes.”

Her father swore under his breath. “Okay, honey, you let Dane investigate while you recover. I’ll contact Mary Beth’s parents
and find out if they’ve heard from her. We’ll talk later.”

After thanking him, Leigh hung up and looked at Dane with sudden determination that was quite at odds with how she was feeling.
“I’m going with you—”