Authors: Carolyn Nash
I smiled at Mr. Kent. “Excuse us just a moment, please,” I
said then turned aside, still holding onto Andrew’s arm tightly. “The more of
us, the better. They won’t do anything if you’re with people.”
“How do you know?” he whispered fiercely. “Look, Ms. Brenner,
butt out.”
I closed my eyes, feeling a wave of crippling self-doubt
wash through, but I fought it, knowing that I was right. “What are you going to
do for transportation? I’ve got a car waiting.” Out of the corner of my eye I
caught a glimpse through the crowd of the two men conferring together. The
small one nodded and they began to move towards us. “Oh my god, they’re coming,”
I whispered, feeling the fear send my stomach on a free-fall downward.
Andrew turned toward Mr. Kent. “Please get her out of here,”
he said, still smiling.
Andrew tried to pull his arm from me, but I held on, and Mr.
Kent looked from Andrew to me, back over my shoulder in the direction of the
two men, and then he seemed to come to a rapid decision. “The limousine is
waiting at the north end,” he said with a smile matching Andrew’s. “We’d better
hurry. Another ten minutes and it’ll be towed away.”
“I can’t…” Andrew said, shaking his head, pulling back.
“Yes, you can,” I pleaded as Mr. Kent turned toward the
front of the terminal, and I pulled at Andrew’s arm. He took a reluctant step
forward as the men came closer.
Mr. Kent turned his head back over his shoulder. “I think,
Ms. Brenner, that your diversion should be continued. The more attention you
bring to us, the less likely those two men are of causing a problem in front of
witnesses.”
I swallowed hard, hooked my arm more cozily through Andrew’s
and smiled brilliantly. “Well, the flight was just horrendous,” I said loudly,
as I tried to remember every obnoxious snob-girl move and phrase from my high
school years. “Just abso-tive-ly god-awful.” I pulled away from Andrew, hanging
onto his hand, and bumped into a tall, long-haired man with a green military
jacket on.
“Whoa, lady,” he said with a smile, and I sniffed and pulled
away from him. He stopped smiling and I knew without a doubt that he’d remember
the cold bitch in the pink sweater.
Yeah, that way he can identify
your body when the police find it back behind the luggage carts.
I shivered and kept talking, every inane, loud-mouthed thing
I could think of. I didn’t look at Andrew, feeling too much the fool already. I
did see the people around me watching me, the almost uniform looks of disgust directed
toward the fool making a spectacle of herself while clinging to the tall man in
the sunglasses and ugly t-shirt. And I did see that the two men hung back, not
wanting to be included in the exhibition that we’d become.
“Ms. Brenner.”
“Yes, Mr. Kent?”
“There is a large crowd ahead. I suggest that when we reach
them, the two of you make your move.” He grinned, the skin of his face
wrinkling, his eyes almost disappearing into the folds.
“My god,” I breathed. “You’re enjoying this.”
“A little. A misspent youth reading Ian Fleming. Try to lose
them. I’ll go get the limousine and meet you at the south end of the concourse.
It’s a black, stretch limo. If we time it correctly, even should you not be
able to lose them, we should be able to make a clean getaway.” His eyes
sparkled.
Andrew nodded at the little man as he took my hand firmly. “Five
minutes?”
Mr. Kent nodded and moved smoothly off into the crowd. Andrew
and I veered to the right toward a crowd of people standing in front of the
American Airlines counter. It looked to be a charter flight--lots of people,
lots of bags, all in a partying mood. Rather than go around them, Andrew pushed
his way through, a little rougher than necessary, me following in his wake,
still clinging to his hand, receiving the worst of the looks. I nervously
smiled apologies. Andrew said not a word; rather, he thrust his arm out, using
the paper bag he still clutched to push between two women, and as he did, his
foot hooked out and kicked over one of their bags.
“Hey!” one of them said.
He just walked on, kicking over another bag.
“Watch it!” the owner of the second bag said as he moved
over to pull it back up. As he bent down, I tripped and pushed against him and
he knocked over a set of matching Gucci luggage, and as he swore violently, the
others in the group closed around him, shooting evil looks our way, as they
helped him to rise and pick up the bags, thereby quite effectively cutting off
the pursuit of the two men.
“Now,” Andrew said, and we brushed past the last line of
people and began to run up the concourse. My ankle twisted painfully as the
heels of my pumps slipped on the tile.
“Wait,” I gasped, and kicked off the shoes, grabbed them,
then took Andrew’s outstretched hand again and continued to run, faster now in
my stocking feet.
I heard another louder protest as the blond man tried to
push his way through the now angry crowd, then Andrew pulled me around a
corner, down a passage leading to, according to the sign over the opening,
Gates 34-43. A few yards down, Andrew slowed, pulling me into a bookstore, then
down an aisle toward several tall, circular racks of magazines. We stopped
behind them, panting, eyeing the doorway between the copies of Time and Sports
Illustrated.
Andrew squeezed my hand and I looked up at him. “Okay?”
I smiled nervously. “I think so.”
He squeezed my hand again, but his eyes were already back on
the doorway and the concourse beyond. He pulled open the brown bag and pulled
out the shirt and sports coat he’d worn on the trip to the LA airport. He took
off his cap, grabbed my hair, twisted it up, and jammed the cap on top,
backwards. He looked quickly to the left and right, then knelt down and peeled
off the t-shirt (I was far too frightened to notice the way the muscles of his
arms and chest flexed as he pulled the shirt over his head), then quickly
shrugged on the white shirt and sports coat. He raked his hair down over his
forehead and dropped his sunglasses into a pocket. He moved me over behind a
display of romance novels, and then positioned himself behind the magazine
rack. He’d barely reached up to turn the rack when the short blond man skidded
to a halt outside. He looked down toward the gates, across the way at an open
coffee shop, then into the bookstore. Andrew simply turned the stand slowly as
I shrank in on myself, trying to duck casually out of sight, hearing my heart
pounding in my ears. The man’s eyes scanned past, not even halting on the
vaguely seen, shaggy-haired man in the tweed sport coat behind the magazine
stand. He looked across the way, turned in a circle as he looked at the people
walking past, then he headed up the concourse toward the gates.
I breathed then, not realizing until the wave of dizziness
washed over me that I’d been holding my breath. Andrew tugged at my hand and I
realized that he’d started for the front of the store, but now was looking back
at me. “You okay?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
He dropped my hand, and took my shoulders. “I want you to
stay here,” he said. “Wait about ten minutes, and then go meet Mr. Kent, get in
that limo, and drive away from all of this.”
I shook my head and pulled the cap from my head and dropped
it down in the brown bag.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to see this through,” I said.
“There’s no need.”
“Yes, there is. You can’t go out there and flag down a taxi.
Besides, what are you going to do for money?”
“Oh, Christ, my wallet.”
“Yes, your wallet and I bet you spent what little you had in
your pocket on that t-shirt.”
“Well, yeah.” He stood, looking over my head, and I could
see him calculating, bringing in all the variables, then he shook his head. “I
can’t ask you to do this.”
“You’re not. Look, I’ll trade you this for an A in Molecular
Genetics, okay?”
A smile twitched his lips. “For the whole course?” he said. “An
A on a mid-term maybe, but not the whole course.”
“Two mid-terms and a quiz.”
“Deal.” He took me by the shoulders. His hands felt hot and
strong. He looked me in the eye as if to assess whether I meant what I said,
but when his gaze met mine…
…harmonic. When two sounds join together in just the right
way, a new sound is formed, a sound impossible for one voice to produce. When
his eyes met mine something new was formed. Some energy only two people could
produce…
…and he leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Now, what
say we get out of here, Girl Scout?”
I blinked.
Girl Scout?
I nodded, again unable to speak.
He took my hand again, snagged his bag now holding the
t-shirt, and we walked slowly out of the store, trying nonchalantly to look in all
directions at once. There was no sign of either the small blond man, or the
taller dark-haired one with the paunch. We turned toward the front of the
terminal again, heading for the south end. We almost made it, too. But as we
neared the doors, I took one last frightened look behind, and not twenty yards
back, the large, dark-haired man appeared in a gap in the crowd, moving quickly
towards us, reaching into an inside pocket of his jacket as he did so.
“Andrew!” My voice rose in a terrified squeal and Andrew
didn’t even turn, merely tightened his grip on my hand and began to run toward
the automatic doors. They swung wide as we hit the rubber pad, and we ran
through, dodging around two young sailors and their duffle bags. I spotted the
limo immediately. Mr. Kent stood at the open door at the driver’s side,
beckoning us urgently. Andrew raised a hand and Mr. Kent dropped down into the
seat and started the engine. I heard one of the sailors swear at the same time
I heard the thump of body hitting body. I stubbed one nylon-clad toe as I
jumped around a metal luggage cart, and nearly went down on the concrete
sidewalk, but Andrew jerked me upright. I wouldn’t look back, but the skin of
my back seemed to be watching for me, a feeling of impending doom crawling over
the surface as I waited for the knife/bullet to penetrate there. Mr. Kent had
left the right passenger door ajar and Andrew grabbed it, swung it wide, shoved
me in and leapt in after me even as Mr. Kent pulled away from the curb and the
large hands of the dark-haired man slapped against the tinted glass.
Andrew had landed across my legs and he lifted off them now,
twisting around into his seat, looking back at the set face of the large man
standing in the street next to the curb, ignoring the cab behind him trying to
move into the spot vacated by the limo. I swung my legs down and huddled
against the far door.
“Melanie?”
I hugged myself, feeling the trembling start.
“Are you all right?”
I closed my eyes, turning away from him, trying to shut out
his voice. His hand touched my arm and I shook it off. “Don’t,” I whispered,
near tears.
“Melanie, I’m sorry...”
“It’s okay, just don’t, please,” I said. “I’ll lose it.”
I heard him shift over in the seat. “All right,” he said.
“Would someone mind explaining now just what I’ve got myself
into?”
Mr. Kent’s voice came from the front seat. He glanced up in
the rear view mirror, looking at me. “I’m...” I swallowed, trying to control
the trembling in my voice. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kent. It’s, well, I… It’s a long
story.”
“Mr. Kent,” Andrew said. “It’s my trouble, not Ms. Brenner’s.
She’s in no way involved.”
I turned toward the window, unable to look at him. It had
been too much from the start. He was too handsome, too intelligent, too kind,
too charming, too upsetting. He was in trouble, not just ordinary
fined-for-rigging-his-own-TV-cable-connection kind of trouble. No. Hired
killers. Bombs. Attempted murder. It was all too much for anyone, and for me--god,
I was drowning.
He told Mr. Kent something, I think, but I stared out at the
cars and the people, at the jammed parking garages, at the exhaust-stained
cement wall that we swept past as we traveled in an arc around the airport
until we were headed west, and didn’t hear anything more than the rumble of
their voices. The sun had set behind the coast range and the sky was a deep
orange washing up to black. Streetlights had come on and they flashed
rhythmically in the car as we passed under them.
He’s my professor, I’m his
student…
Girl Scout, trooper
…nothing
more.
The car moved through a pool of light. I could see his
denim-clad knee at the limit of my peripheral vision before we moved back into
darkness.
He played me for a fool in the
limo!
Light again. His hand, the fingers splayed, gripping his
knee.
He does that when he’s upset,
floated into my mind, and then I violently shoved the thought away.
I don’t want to know him!
Light: The hand had shifted slightly. I saw the veins in
relief on the back of it and the glint of gold from his watch band below the
sleeve of his jacket.
My hand moved, lifting to reach over to stroke the back of
his hand, wanting to cover it, protect it, give him reassurance.
No!
I clasped both hands in my lap. My breathing had slowed from
the run through the airport, but my heart thudded fast and hard as the old
fear, the old pain welled up from just below my heart.
My father’s hand cracks
against my right cheek. At least it’s an open hand slap so it stings and rocks
my head back, but this time I don’t see black spots. I’m crouched in the space
between the brick fireplace and the TV, my Safe Place, where up until now no
monsters have been able to find me.
“See what you made me do?”my
father screams in my face. The cloud of onions and alcohol that comes with the
scream makes me want to flinch, but I know better. Even the tiniest wince will
get me another slap, probably more.