Authors: Karen Rose
With an effort, Winters brought his rage under control and his consideration back to the matter at hand.
Robbie. His son was upstairs in Apartment 3A. Alone. Right now.
He slipped out the utility door and made his way back to his rental car he’d left parked in an alleyway, opened the trunk and found the coveralls he had stored there. People ignored a man in coveralls. The old man on the front step would assume he was the television repairman. A small toolbox and a nondescript brown wig completed his ensemble.
He entered again through the front door and nodded to the old man.
„A little late for a house call, isn’t it?“ the old man asked, looking up at him.
Winters regarded him from behind lowered eyelids. „I’m running behind. This is my last service call today.“
The old man squinted up at him. „What company are you with, young man?“
Winters bit down on his temper. Meddling old fart. He thought fast. „Three A Contractors.“ He nodded briefly to the old man and made his way up the steps, ignoring the way the old fart turned to look over his shoulder with a frown.
Winters jimmied Mary Grace’s door lock with surprising ease. Trusting little soul she’d become.
That would soon change.
His heart pounding in anticipation, he pushed the door open and looked inside.
It was quiet. Like a tomb. Disappointment crashed around his ears.
Robbie wasn’t here. But he had been. Slowly Winters crossed the small living room, his eyes locked on a group of pictures arranged on a little wood shelf.
Robbie. His son. Winters picked up the picture closest to the end of the shelf. His son had grown into a man. Tall, blond, athletic good looks – Robbie was a handsome young man. Pride swelled even as his heart grieved for the lost years. He picked up a second picture – Robbie in a basketball uniform, the ball nonchalantly held under his arm. His son played basketball. Winters scowled. It should have been football. It was always supposed to have been football.
Like me.
But it wasn’t so. Still pride swelled. His son was MVP once… twice, three times; he counted the trophies. He took a step closer and quickly quelled the roar that threatened to erupt.
„Tom Stewart,“ he read aloud, his voice now icy. She’d changed her name and his son’s. Denied his son his heritage, even his own name. „She’ll pay for that,“ he muttered.
Carefully he set the trophy back in its spot, ensuring the thin layer of dust on the shelf went undisturbed. He wanted one of those pictures of his son for himself. He picked one up from the back row on the shelf, one that had obviously been sitting for quite a while. A ten-year-old boy looked up at him, smileless and sober. Robbie was obviously unhappy living here without him. He could see it in his son’s eyes. The dust that lay across the top of the picture frame in a thicker layer than on the rest of the shelf told him two things. First, Mary Grace had become a lousy housekeeper. Second, she apparently had not picked this picture up in a long time. She wouldn’t miss just one. He slipped it into his pocket as if it were pure gold.
Cautiously, he made his way to the back of her apartment and opened a door. A bathroom. Shampoo bottles littered the edges of the tub. Pigsty. He frowned at the razor on the sink. Robbie was shaving already. Who’d taught him to shave? That tall guy with the limp? One of Mary Grace’s other men? He felt anger rise again. He’d missed so many of the little things while some stranger, some sugar daddy to his whore wife, got to see his son grow up.
He closed the bathroom door to the same way he’d found it, then opened the door to Robbie’s bedroom. Plain blankets covered the twin bed; posters of Michael Jordan covered the walls. A computer sat in one corner, schoolbooks stacked on the desk. Winters opened the closet, taking in the single dark suit and shiny black shoes. Big shoes. His boy was almost grown.
A photo was stuck in the upper corner of an old mirror. An old man held Robbie on his lap while Robbie held a balloon and wore an enormous grin, showing off missing teeth. The picture hadn’t been taken long after Mary Grace stole him away. He yanked the picture from the mirror and turned it over, read the words written in Mary Grace’s even hand. Eli and Tom at the circus. Winters gritted his teeth. A stranger had taken his boy to the circus. He’d never gotten the chance.
His eye roved over the top of a chest of drawers, more trophies cluttering the top. An inch of dust covered the furniture. Mary Grace was a lousy housekeeper, he thought again. He’d have to ensure her… improvement. He’d turned to his door when his eye caught a glint of silver on the bed. It was a small trophy lying on the pillow, clearly out of place. Winters picked it up with an angry jerk and put it back on the chest of drawers where it belonged.
The boy had developed some bad habits. There would be some work to be done when they were together again.
The door to Robbie’s room was closed with as much care as the bathroom door. Winters wasn’t ready to let them know he was around.
But soon they’d know. Soon.
Winters opened the door to Mary Grace’s bedroom and stopped dead in the doorway.
His heart jolted in his chest as if he’d seen a ghost.
There it was.
There was that damn statue again, next to her bed. With a fierce frown he crossed the floor to her nightstand and picked it up.
It wasn’t the same statue, he realized as he inspected it. It was a man this time. Still Catholic, though. He turned it over. St. Joseph, read a little engraved brass plaque glued to its base. Not the same Catholic saint at all, but its meaning to Mary Grace would be completely the same. The anger he’d felt at standing in the Sevier County Police Garage, when he’d realized she’d kept that damned, cracked St. Rita for two years before she’d run away came back. It no longer simmered. His anger was now very cold. Anger was better cold, he knew. It made him even smarter, even more able to plot what was quickly becoming a very sweet revenge.
The statue meant independence to Mary Grace. It meant escape from him. It meant cutting him off from his son. Winters hefted it, tossing it from one hand to the other. It was made from the same pottery as the other statue. Likely as breakable.
He let the statue drop to the floor, but the carpet broke its fall. Intact, the clay saint lay on the floor, looking up at him reverently, its hands still folded in pious prayer. Goddammit. The thing wouldn’t break. With one hand, Winters picked up the statue and knocked it against the corner of her nightstand. With a shattering crash the new idol lay in pieces on the floor.
Good enough, he thought savagely. Let her wonder and worry about how it got broken.
Let her be afraid. Let her be very afraid.
He left her bedroom door wide open and made his way down the narrow hallway towards the front door, not caring anymore if she suspected anything or not. He’d put his hand on the doorknob when a little knock came from the other side.
„Caroline?“ the voice called. A girl’s voice. „Caroline, I need to talk to you.“
Winters silently swore. Visitors. Between this girl, the gimp, and the old man, Mary Grace’s apartment was like Grand Central Station.
„Caroline, please open up.“ The girl’s voice was pleading. „I want to apologize.“ She paused, then knocked again. „I’ll stay here until you open the door. I have Bubba here. He’s hungry, Caro.“
Winters rolled his eyes. Terrific. A nosy old man on the steps and a whining girl out in the hall. He checked the peephole. Better still. A whiny, skinny girl holding an ugly orange cat. He hated cats. He also couldn’t stay here all night. Mary Grace would eventually come home with the sugar daddy and Winters didn’t want to be in her apartment when she did. Nor did he want that old man knowing he’d been in the apartment for too long and becoming suspicious. The last thing Winters needed was a confrontation with the Chicago PD.
Dammit anyway. He jerked open the door, taking perverse pleasure in the way the girl shrieked at the sight of him. The big orange cat she’d been holding in her arms leaped to the ground and slunk past Winters’s legs into the apartment, disappearing behind the sofa.
„She’s not here right now.“
The girl shook her head, eyes wider than a deer caught in his headlights, one thin hand splayed against her heart. „Wh-who are you?“ she gasped.
Winters put on his most charming smile. She actually wasn’t bad looking. Rangy. Coltish. „I work for the building. The tenant called about a leaky faucet, so I was just checking it out.“
Her breath sighed out in relief. „Oh. You scared me.“ The girl peered inside. „You’re sure she’s not here?“
„Not unless she’s hiding under the sink,“ Winters smiled. „Why do you want to see her?“ Any friend of Mary Grace’s would have useful information. Like where the hell he might find his son.
The girl heaved a giant sigh. „Never mind. You wouldn’t be interested in my problems.“
Winters leaned against the doorjamb. „You’d be surprised what I’d be interested in,“ he said, keeping his friendliest, most supportive smile firmly in place. „You look like you’ve had a hard day. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?“
The girl looked around, bit her lip, seemed to consider, then finally nodded. „I think that’s probably the best offer I’ve had today. My name’s Evie Wilson.“ She stuck out her hand.
Winters shook it. „I’m Mike Flanders. It’s nice to meet you, Evie.“
Chapter Sixteen
Chicago
Friday, March 16
8:30 RM.
„You never told me why you chose to go into law.“
Caroline looked up from her dinner, startled. Max’s question had come out of the blue after a distinct lull in their conversation, during which he’d stared at her as if trying to see straight through her skin. Or devour her for dessert. She wasn’t sure which notion she found more unsettling. Carefully she blotted her mouth with her napkin and shrugged. „You’ll think I’m hopelessly naive.“
Max reached across the table and covered her hand with his. „Then I’d be hopelessly cynical.“
She looked up at him, her smile wry. „You are.“
Max grinned. „But I never felt so gosh-darned happy about being cynical before.“
Caroline chuckled. „Dana always says I’m the Pollyanna type.“
Max’s fingers tightened around her hand. „I hope not,“ he murmured.
She pressed the fingertips of her free hand to her cheek, feeling the rush of heat. Mercy. The man could melt her into a puddle of goo with just his voice. He raised their joined hands to his lips and kissed each one of her fingertips. It was barely a kiss. Yet so carnal it rocked her to her toes.
„Caroline?“ There was rich laughter in his voice. „Are you going to tell me about law school?“
Caroline blinked and his face came back into focus. He was smiling the smile of a man who knew he’d achieved his goal. And somehow that turned her on even more.
„Law school,“ she repeated, taking a rather large sip of wine. He’d picked it to go with the pasta she’d prepared, dismissing her embarrassment about not knowing which wine to choose to go with specific meals, and taking the opportunity to teach her. She frowned, just a little. Somehow the teaching had resulted in extensive sampling. She’d never had so much wine in her life.
„Why are you frowning?“ he asked, tracing the seam of her downturned lips with one finger.
Caroline looked up, accusation her mission. „You’ve gotten me tipsy.“
Max threw back his head and laughed, reminding her of the way her son had looked doing the same thing earlier in the day. How much of the warmth that filled her was from the wine and how much was from knowing she pleased the two most important males in her life she had no idea.
Nor did she care. Playfully she swatted him with her napkin and rose to put her dishes in the sink. From behind her she heard his chair scrape the floor. One thump of his cane and his arms were around her waist, pulling her close against him.
„I’m sorry, Caroline.“ Max kissed the top of her head. „You just look so adorable when you’re outraged. So tell me about law school,“ he repeated.
She relaxed back into him, loving the feel of his solid strength. She needed to tell him the truth. She’d chosen law school to aid abused women. Because she herself had been one of those women. It was a perfect segue. One she’d use later, she thought, loathe to spoil their playful mood. Later.
„Well, it’s the three-year period when one studies the theory of law and the statutes and – “
Max groaned. „So don’t tell me. See if I care.“ He still held her, rocking them ever so slightly. He dipped his head, kissed her ear. „But I do, you know,“ he murmured into her ear.
A shudder racked her body, from the outside in. She turned her face just enough to feel his lips graze her cheek. „Do what?“ she whispered, her voice gone hoarse.
„Care about you.“ He feathered kisses along the line of her jaw. Her limbs grew heavy and she sagged against him. His arms tightened instantly to support her weight, then one hand glided up her body to gently cup her breast. Her reflexive intake of vital air only served to press her flesh more firmly into his palm. His reflexive response was to bring the other hand up to cover her other breast. He simply held her, allowing her to become accustomed to his possession of her body.
For that’s what it was. He possessed her heart and now he was claiming her body. And she couldn’t think of a single reason why it wasn’t the right thing to do.
Then his thumbs brushed against her nipples and she couldn’t think at all. Her pulse pounded like a thousand drums, all sensation centering where he touched her. And where he didn’t. She felt the liquid tug of desire woman low and pressed back against him, seeking relief.
He groaned in her ear, deep, wrenching and absolutely wonderful. Her hands slid up her own body until they covered his, pressing his hands harder against her breasts, learning it didn’t come close to relieving the pressure that had become an ache. Blindly she turned her head, seeking his warm mouth. Finding it.
He devoured her with whole open-mouthed kisses that left her shaken and wanting. One of his hands left her breast to wind through her hair, tugging her mouth closer still. His tongue sought access and to deny him such elemental contact was never even a consideration. She did her share, stroking, exploring the warm, wet interior of his mouth that tasted like the wine they’d shared. Sweet and potent.