Robards, Karen (32 page)

The crisp afternoon was gone. The night was dark, and cold, and smelled of lingering dampness. A light wind had arisen, gusting through the trees, rattling the leaves of the snowball bush, setting the wind chime dancing. Shadows shifted and blended, came together

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and separated. Something seemed to move in the far corner of the yard.

Grace froze and then had to laugh at herself as a piece of someone’s Sunday paper, abandoned to the elements, blew close enough to be identified.

But she did not step into the yard to pick up the paper, which she once would have done without thought.

It was this that had been taken from them by the ir creep who was preying on them, Grace thought. The’ sense of security, hers and Jessica’s. Where once the small world they inhabited had seemed familiar and safe, now everything, even the home they had lived in for years, was a strange and frightening place. Little things like a sheet of newspaper blowing across the yard in the dark had the power to send her heart leaping into her mouth,

Grace shivered and went back into the house, taking care to lock the door behind her.

Thank God Tony was there. The knowledge caused her tense muscles to relax a little. Until the creep was caught, she and Jessica were protected. She did not like to think how she would have felt if they had been alone.

She still could not get the thought of Tony’s Rachel out of her mind.

Grace went upstairs, reluctant but resolute, and found Jessica sprawled out on her bed fast asleep. Both dogs were curled up next to her, lying together right against her side. They lifted their heads as she entered, but did not bark and made no move to jump off the bed.

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Lips tightening with disapproval-how sanitary could it be to sleep with dogs? didn’t they all have fleas, or something?-Grace looked the animals over, wondering how to shoo them from the bed without waking Jess in the process. They looked like brownand-white dust mops cuddled close beside her daughter, Grace decided as they lowered their heads to their paws again. Watching them seemingly prepared to sleep the night away at Jessica’s side, Grace felt a sudden,

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totally unexpected rush of appreciation for them. After all, their presence had made what would have been a hard day much easier for Jessica. Their presence had emboldened her sufficiently to do her algebra in her room. And their presence had comforted her enough so that she could fall asleep in her bed. Not only that, but they would guard her while she slept.

A few fleas were a small price to pay for all that. Grace withdrew a small quilt from Jessica’s closet and gently covered her with it. The dogs never moved, and when she was done Grace rather clumsily patted each one on the head.

The puppy licked her wrist.

Rubbing the damp spot against her pants, not sure whether to be pleased or disgusted, she turned off the light, closed the door, and went downstairs.

The dogs stayed where they were.

It was after ten now, and Grace’s usual practice was to be in bed no later than eleven. Before she could retire, though, she had a case full of briefs to look over, clothes to lay out for the morrow, a shopping list to make, and several loads of laundry to do.

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Instead of doing any of that, she went looking for Tony.

He was in the family room, lounging comfortably on the couch, his feet in their white athletic socks crossed at the ankles and resting on her coffee table. He had taken off his sweatshirt-the house was warmand wore only the snug white T-shirt tucked into his jeans. His gun lay on the end table beside him, next to the lamp which, besides the TV, was the room’s sole source of illumination at the moment. The remote control unit was in his hand, and he was casually flipping channels. He looked up as Grace entered the room.

“Your idea about dog as bribe is beginning to grow on me,” Grace said by way of a greeting, crossing the room and sitting down in the rocking chair. His gun, black and lethal looking, lay on the end table between them. “Would you really letJessica have the puppy?”

“Sure.” He smiled lazily at her and turned the volume down on the TV. “She was a big hit with my nephews, by the way. They were impressed.”

“Probably because she’s got a heck of a jump shot,” Grace said with a lurking smile of her own.

He laughed. “Well, that, too.”

“I liked your family. Everyone was very nice to a couple of strangers in their midst. And the food! Your mother and grandmother are wonderful cooks. They should open a restaurant.-

“I’ll tell ‘em you said so. They’ll love you for it.” “All your brothers seem to have made very happy marriages,” Grace ventured.

“Yeah, they all picked out nice girls.”

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“Except You.”

He cast her a sideways glance. “Except ine,” he said agreeably.

Grace took a deep breath, Obviously, if she wanted him to answer her question, she was going to have to ask it first.

“Tony,” she said, “who’s Rachel?”

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E LOOKED AT HER for a moment without C

Itsaying anything. His body stiffened, and his eyes widened slightly as if he were absorbing a body blow. Then his jaw hardened and his face closed up, leaving it absolutely blank except for a disquieting shadow in the backs of his eyes.

“Who told you about Rachel?” he asked carefully, as if he had to concentrate to enunciate the words. To .her surprised dismay, Grace felt jealousy like a

gnawing pain in her chest as she saw how much he cared. Whoever this Rachel was, he had obviously loved her—did still love her—desperately. No way was she ever going to be able to compete with that, she thought, and then was surprised and depressed to discover that she would even Want to.

“Your grandmother mentioned the name. She didn’t tell me anything. She told me I should ask you.” “Ah, Granny.” Tony closed his eyes, then almost

immediately opened them again. He looked directly at Grace,

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“Rachel was my daughter,” he said,

Was. Grace caught that word, assimilated its meaning, and felt her blood freeze. For a moment she simply stared at him, appalled.

“Oh, Tony,” she said at last, her voice hoarse with sympathy. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“That’s all right.” He looked away from her at the TV. Some shoot-‘em-up flick was playing on the channel he’d stopped at when she’d come into the room. Along with Tony, Grace watched as an enormous, muted explosion blew a car into smithereens.

“I should be over it,” he said then, his voice very steady, cool, and coUected. “It’s been more than four ears now. Life goes on.”

y The pain he took so much care not to express screamed silently at her through the emotionless words.

“I don’t think anyone ever gets over losing a child,” Grace said, her heart aching for him. Standing, she took the few steps needed to bring her to the couch, too, then sat down beside him, automatically kicking off her shoes and curling her legs up beneath her so that her shoulder butted into his side and her knees brushed his thigh. The cozy resilience of the couch gave beneath her weight; the hardness of his body was unyielding. She put a hand on his shoulder, which was warm and solid feeling beneath the softness of the cotton T-shirt, and pressed closer against his side in a wordless gesture of comfort. “Four years, forty years, four hundred years. I don’t care how much time had passed, I would never, ever get over it if something happened to my child … to Jessica … …

Her eyes fiHed with tears.

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He flicked her a sideways glance. “For a tough-acting judge, you’re pretty softhearted, aren’t you? The reality is, no matter how much you love something, you don’t own it, you know? Sometimes you just can, t keep it no matter what you do, and it goes away and you’re left behind. And you gotta deal with that, and if you do, if you keep breathing and eating and sleeping and counting sunrises and sunsets, it’ll get better. It’s been getting better for me for a while now; I can think of her sometimes and smile, just at something silly she said once or something we did. I’m glad I can do that.”

He broke off and stared at the TV, as if he were concentrating hard on the program. As a Turns commercial had taken the place of the movie, it wasn’t hard to guess that he was focusing so intently without really seeing anything at all, trying to conceal what he would consider an excess of emotion.

“Was it an accident?” The question was hardly more than a breath, and Grace patted his shoulder in a silent offer of comfort as she asked it. “If you’d rather not talk about it, just don’t answer.”

For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to. Then he flicked her another one of those sideways looks and his arms slid around her waist. His hands gripped her hipbones, liffing her up and across him with easy strength so that she was sitting on his lap. His arms wrapped around her, and in answer her arms slid up around his neck. Seen at such close quarters, he looked tired and drawn-his eyes bloodshot, with tiny lines fanning out around them, deeper lines scoring his bronzed face from nose to mouth, and a day’s growth of beard darkening his lean jaw. Closing his eyes, he

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leaned his head back against her encircling arin and the back of the couch and took a deep breath. After a moment he lifted his head again and opened his eyes, meeting her gaze.

“She had cystic fibrosis,” he said. “We-my wife and I-found out when she was just a little kid, hardly more than a baby. I was a cop then, too, just like now, a rookie on the force, and we lived in Cleveland at the time because that’s where Glenna-my wife-was from. They told us Rachel wouldn’t live but we couldn’t believe it; she was so full of life, such a happy kid, such an absolutejoy. But there was this mucus that would fill up her lungs and we had to pound on her, literally beat her little thin chest and back with our fists so that she could breathe. Glenna couldn’t take it. She left us, left Rachel and me, divorced me, just came to see Rachel sometimes. After a while, Rachel didn’t care, I didn’t care. We had each other. We were tight. Then one morning, at the end, when Rachel was really sick, she sat straight up in her hospital bed and said, ‘Listen, Daddy, do you hear the angels singing?’ I was sitting there on the bed beside her, and she smiled right past me like there was somebody else there, and then she just slumped against my shoulder and died. I couldn’t believe it. just like that, and she was gone.”

He broke off, and took another deep breath. “She was eleven years old.”

Tears that he wouldn’t let fall glittered in his eyes, and Grace’s heart swelled so with his pain and her sorrow for him and his little girl that she felt it would burst.

“Oh, Tony,” she whispered, hugging his neck,

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snuggling closer, kissing his bristly cheek. “I’m so sorry. “

His arms tightened around her so fiercely that for a moment Grace couldn’t breathe.

“I lost it then. just completely lost it. If it hadn’t been for Dom, who came and got me and brought me home to Columbus and basically put me back together again, I don’t know what I would have done. I quit the force, started drinking, didn’t care if I died too. In fact, I hoped I would. I couldn’t bear to think of Rachel, my Rachel, in a dark cold grave all alone. She didn’t like to be alone, especially toward the end, when she was so sick. After she died, all I could think of was, now she’s alone in that grave for eterruity.” His jaw clenched, and he stopped talking abruptly. Then his head dropped to her shoulder, and his chest expanded against her as he drew in a mighty breath, and then another. In Tony’s world, real men didn’t cry, Grace realized, but he was crying nonetheless, silently, without tears, drawing in deep, harsh breaths and slowly releasing them. Helpless to alleviate his grief and knowing it, she did her best anyway, holding him close and kissing his cheek and his ear and whatever other parts of him she could reach, murmuring soft, broken things while tears coursed down her own cheeks.

After a few moments he lifted his head and looked down at her. His eyes were red-rimmed and damp, the golden-brown irises suspiciously bright, but with her gaze on him he managed a quirky half-smile.

“What are you crying for?” he demanded huskily. His gaze touched on her wet cheeks and brimming

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eyes and shaking mouth, then met hers. His voice went absurdly gentle. “Never say you Ire crying for me?”

“Oh, Tony …” She couldn’t help it. Her voice broke and she couldn’t continue, not that it mattered anyway because there was really nothing to say. More tears coursed down her cheeks, and as he watched them fall his mouth tightened.

“Grace,” he said, his voice deep and low; and then he kissed her.

At the touch of his mouth, more tears flowed from her eyes, and she was cr-ying openly as he kissed her, sobbing in his arms when he was the one who had suffered the loss, who had been dealt the near-mortal blow of losing a child. She wept for him and his child, and for herself and her child, and for the terrible tragedy of love ripped asunder. All the while he kept kissing her, whispering her name as if he would offer her comfort. And finally she kissed him back, clinging to him as she realized that she had no more defenses left, that her heavily armored heart had swelled so with emotion that the armor had finally cracked to let him in.

His kisses turned hard and fierce then, as he felt the change in her response, and his hold on her deepened. His tongue was wet and scalding hot as it thrust into her mouth. Raw emotion consumed them, and they pulled at each other’s clothing, greedy for the warm, life-affirming contact that was sex. Grace tugged at the edges of his T-shirt, pulling it from the waistband of his jeans, her hands sliding beneath the thin cotton to find and stroke the chest she had so admired eariler in the

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day. Warm, faintly damp skin over steely muscles, the silkiness of fine chest hair, the rough raised bumps of his nipples: Grace gloried in each and every sensation. Cradled by his arms, her hands caressed him with sensuous delight.