Alessandra didn't move. "You want me to… ?"
"Grab your bag and open it," he said patiently. "You have about three pairs of really tight pants somewhere in there. One black, one gray, and one navy blue, I think. Get 'em out. We need to talk about your clothes."
"They're leggings," she informed him, wrestling the cheap nylon bag George had bought for her up into the front seat.
"Whatever. And that black turtleneck," Harry said. "The tight one with the lines."
"It's a rib knit," she said, unzipping the bag and rummaging around.
"Rib knit. At last. My life is surely more complete now that I know that." Harry took the leggings and the sweater from her and held them up. "Tight," he said. "Too tight, too nice. You look too good in this stuff." He put them on his lap then reached directly into her bag and pulled out two very tiny T-shirts, one plain white, the other olive green. They were remarkably soft to the touch. That blue sweater she'd worn the other day. "These looked very nice on you, too. Very flattering to your figure. What else you got in there?"
"Not much. A few more shirts. A skirt. A pair of jeans."
"The same style as that black pair you wore yesterday?"
"Yes, but in blue."
"Let me see." Harry dropped the T-shirts into his lap with the other clothing as he took the jeans from her. Yes, they were definitely cut to be formfitting. "And the skirt?"
She held it up. It was black and very short. Very sexy. It would make her long legs seem even longer. He took it and put it in the growing pile then reached into the bag for the last two shirts. One was an oversize T-shirt. He tossed that back, along with several satin panties and a lacey bra. It didn't matter what she wore underneath her clothes. No one was going to see it.
Especially not him—a thought that hurt him worse than the pain in his ribs.
The last shirt was a tank top. He hadn't seen her wear it, but he didn't have to. He had a good imagination. Too good at times. He put the tank top in the pile.
"Those shoes you're wearing," he said. "Give one to me, will you?"
With an exasperated sigh, she slipped one of her shoes off and handed it to Harry. "Why?"
"High heel," he said. "Too high. Too sexy. You're going to want to stick to flats from now on, probably even just wear sneakers."
He moved into the left lane, rolled down his window, and tossed all of Alessandra's new clothes and her shoe out of the car.
"Oh, my God!" She spun in her seat, watching as her clothes hit the ground seventy-five miles an hour, getting caught in the brush. "Oh, my God!" She stared at him, aghast. "Why did you do that? Are you completely out of your mind?"
"You told me you want to stay alive."
"Stop this car!" She was furious. "Stop this car right now and back up and get me my clothes!"
"Can't do that. Backing up on the highway is against the law. And as a federal agent—"
She punched him. She actually hit him in the arm. "You idiot! That was everything I owned in the whole world! And you just threw it all away! Oh, God, how could you do that?"
"You couldn't have worn any of it, Al. It would've gotten you killed."
"I refuse to believe I can't wear nice clothes, that I can't just be quietly attractive—"
He raised his voice to talk above her. "Quietly attractive? Are you nuts?" He gestured to what she was wearing. "This isn't quietly attractive! This is full twenty-trumpet fanfare. Everybody look quick because here comes one of the ten most beautiful women on earth. This sets off alarms and bells and whistles. There's nothing even remotely quiet about this!"
"Okay, so maybe in your opinion, I need to tone it down a little, but—"
"No buts. No maybes."
"I tried not to go overboard with the makeup, but when I looked into the mirror, with my hair this color… I just couldn't stand looking so sallow." She shook her head. "It was the same thing when we went shopping. These clothes were all so cheap, I thought—"
"They don't look cheap on you."
"But—"
"What do you want, Allie? Do you want to be able to hide, to blend in with a crowd? Or do you want to keep on being the beauty queen, wearing clothes that will make people look at you? You can't have it both ways."
"You make it sound as if I'm Helen of Troy. I'm not that beautiful."
"Don't be coy. You know exactly what you look like. When you walk into a room, people turn to look at you. Men turn to look at you."
"But don't you see?" she burst out. "Being beautiful is all I've ever done. It's all I'm good at!"
Christ, she was serious. "If that's really the case, then it's definitely time for you to learn some new skills. You know, plumbers get paid a shitload—"
"Stop making this into some kind of joke!"
"You want dead serious? If you dress so that people notice you, sooner or later Trotta will find you. And if you're lucky, he'll have someone put a bullet in your head. If you're not, he'll bring you back to New York and let his dog tear you apart for an afternoon snack. How's that for dead serious?"
She had gone pale. "Now you're just trying to scare me."
"Bottom line, Al. Unless you agree that the best way for you to hide is by completely—and I mean completely—altering your appearance, I'm not taking you to Colorado. I'm not going to risk my kids getting caught in the cross fire when Trotta's men finally catch up with you. And they will catch up with you."
"I have altered my—"
"No, you haven't."
She pulled down the sun visor and flipped open the vanity mirror on the other side and looked at herself. "I look completely different with my hair this color. And I've never worn this style of clothing in my entire life!"
Again, she was serious. She actually believed she looked different enough to hide from Michael Trotta.
"Sorry." He gestured toward her again. "But this doesn't cut it. You're going to have to trust me on this one. From now on, you wear nothing tight, nothing that really fits, nothing even remotely fashionable."
"I can't believe—"
"Believe it. Think about the word hide. If you hide, no one can see you, right? You can do it by locking yourself away from the world. Or you can do it by making yourself invisible, making it so that no one gives you a second glance. Invisible. Think about what that means."
Alessandra started to speak but stopped herself. She sat silently, eyes closed and hands pressed against her forehead as the miles rolled past.
When she did speak, her voice was subdued. "There's no other option?"
"Plastic surgery." He glanced at her. "Completely change your face."
"No other viable option?"
"Not that I'm aware of, but next town we go through, we can stop and see if the library has a copy of Hiding from the Mob in Ten Easy Steps. Maybe there'll be some tip in there that I've missed."
She shot him a dark look. "Very funny."
He laughed. "Actually, it was pretty funny. George really would've liked it."
"I have no money." Her voice shook slightly, but she cleared her throat and when she spoke again, she sounded as cool as ever. "How am I supposed to buy these new ugly clothes that will render me magically invisible?"
"My treat," Harry told her. She shot him another look. "Sorry. Bad choice of expression. Look, Al, we'll be coming up on Louisville just about when the stores open. We'll find a Target or a Kmart or an Uglyland or whatever they have out here."
"Uglyland," Alessandra murmured. "That's just great."
"We'll take care of your hair, then, too."
She looked at him. "Mousy brown?"
He nodded. "Mousy brown."
She nodded, too, looking out the window so he wouldn't see that she was blinking back tears. "Do me one favor, Harry," she said. "Try to enjoy this just a little bit less."
"You have a visitor."
George opened his eyes to find the nurse standing over his bed. It was amazing. He'd survived being shot, survived surgery, survived an incredible loss of blood and all those transfusio
ns. They finally pulled him out of ICU, giving him a permission slip to celebrate the fact that his life wasn't over yet, and what did they do?
Did they give him Felicity, the twenty-four-year-old bombshell of a nurse, just out of school, ready to be impressed by the brave and handsome FBI agent who'd been shot while on the job?
No.
No, they give him Stanley. The male nurse.
"A visitor?" George whispered. "Who?"
Stanley shrugged. "I didn't catch the name, dude." Stanley, the surfer nurse. Even better.
"Man or woman?"
"Woman," Stanley told him. "A most excellently bodacious woman."
Nicki. It had to be Nicki. He'd expected to see her when he was in ICU, expected her to push her way through the door and plant herself next to his bed.
He'd asked for her. He'd been in a haze of pain, light-headed from the loss of blood, afraid he was going to die, but he could remember asking for Nicki. He'd wanted to tell her he was sorry about everything. He'd wanted to hold on to her hand, certain that if anyone was strong enough and tough enough to pull him back from the dead, it was Nic.
But she'd never shown up. Not until now.
"Better late than never," George whispered to Stanley. "Dude."
The nurse checked the amount of painkiller going into his IV drip. "I'm going to assume that was a hearty yes."
"Yes." George closed his eyes, managing a wan smile. Nicole was finally here.
He heard Stanley leave, heard the door open and close and then open again. He heard her footsteps as she approached his bed.
"Omigod, you look awful!"
George opened his eyes.
Kim. It wasn't Nicki, it was Kim. She smiled at him tremulously. "I guess you must look pretty good considering you almost died, but…"
Kim. He fought the haze of stupidity caused by the painkillers. "How did you… ? What did you… ?"
She sat down next to the bed, looking oddly out of place in the sterile hospital room. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but despite that, she still looked like a stripper. Her generous bustline seemed seriously disproportionate to the rest of her. Bodacious, Stan had said. He should have known.
"Your partner told me what happened," she said, "and gave me a ride up here."
His partner? "Harry?"
Kim shook her head. "Someone named Christine."
McFall. What was Chris McFall doing, giving Kim a ride to be by his side? Chris was really tight with Nic, and…
And she'd probably called Nicki, who no doubt had let her know she didn't give a damn if George lived or died. And Chris, being a complete softy had brought someone here to sit by his bed.
He fought to blink back the tears that had rushed to his eyes, afraid that Kim might see, and know.
But he was too late. She did see. But she didn't know a thing. She took his hand and smiled sweetly, gently brushing his hair back from his forehead. "You really are glad to see me, aren't you?" she said. "Oh, honey, I'm so glad I came."
Chapter Eleven
Alice Plotkin.
The woman in the motel-room mirror was definitely named Alice Plotkin.
Alessandra Lamont had vanished, perhaps forever, and in her place stood geeky Alice Plotkin, whose life was destined to be one bad hair day after another.
Her new bangs hung limply in her eyes. The short cut itself was exactly wrong for the shape of her face. And the color… There was almost no distinguishable color. Her hair was now simply drab. More mousy than brown.
Without any makeup on, she looked both older and younger. Her eyes looked naked and tired with unconcealed bags beneath them, yet the freckles on her face made her look like a fourteen-year-old.
And her clothes…
Nothing fit quite right. Her jeans were so baggy she had to wear a belt to hold them up. Her T-shirt was oversize. It swallowed up her breasts and hung down to her thighs, concealing the fact that she actually had a waist. It drooped off her shoulders, the short sleeves coming down past her elbows. The entire outfit—if you could even call it that—made her look skinny rather than slender, her arms and wrists bony instead of elegantly graceful.
The running shoes she wore weren't a name brand either. They were a hideously horrible mix of bright white and neon blue, made of plastic and fake leather.
No, Alice Plotkin would not be turning any heads in the near future. She looked like a rather unremarkable teenager.
And that had been Harry's idea. She would move into this still-nameless town in northern Colorado, pretending to be a very young woman. Gradually, over the next few years, as the people in the town came to know invisible Alice Plotkin, she would age a bit and graduate up to clothes that fit a little bit better and a haircut that actually made her look decent again. At best, she would be quietly pretty.
Alessandra sighed.
Harry was sleeping the sleep of the dead on one of the beds behind her; still wearing his jacket and baseball cap, the cap bent uncomfortably beneath his face.
He'd checked them into this room under false names, paid in cash, unlocked the door, tossed the bags with her new department-store clothes onto the dresser, and fallen facedown onto the nearest bed.
They were alone in a motel room, and Harry had fallen instantly asleep. Alessandra didn't know whether to be insulted or relieved.
She caught another glimpse of herself in the mirror as she gently pulled his cap free and set it down on the bedside table. Was it any wonder he hadn't tried to kiss her again, to reignite that fire they'd started back in the Stop and Shop nearly three whole days ago? She looked like a fourteen-year-old boy.
Not that she really wanted him to kiss her again. And, indeed, she wouldn't have kissed him again, not after the way he'd betrayed her. But she wanted him to regret the fact that he couldn't have her. She wanted him to lie awake, desperate from wanting her. She wasn't proud of that, but it was the truth. She wanted him to suffer.
But since about ten hours ago, since she'd had her "makeover," she didn't look like anything anyone would ever want. And Harry sure wasn't having trouble sleeping.
Alessandra sat down on the other bed, watching him. With his face slack, his mouth slightly open, his soulful eyes tightly closed, he shouldn't have been so good-looking. Shouldn't have been, but he was. What was it about him? He'd lied to her, nearly gotten her killed. And now he'd gone and forced her to conceal her beauty—the only thing she'd ever been 100 percent positive she had going for her.
"You bastard," she whispered.
She stared into the mirror at her reflection, and Alice Plotkin—Lord, even the name he'd given her was awful—stared expressionlessly back. Geeky and plain, unskilled and unwanted.
Completely unlovable.
But tough. Way tougher than Griffin ever imagined her to be, of that much she was certain. Tougher and stronger and smarter than Ivo and Michael Trotta—and even Harry—realized.
She may have lost everything she'd ever thought she'd cared about, but as long as her heart was still beating, as long as she could draw air into her lungs, she was winning.
She'd hit her low. Right here, right now was the absolute bottom. From now on, it could only get better.
She hoped.
"He wasn't exactly sure when he was going to arrive. He's driving out," Marge said, and Shaun looked away, carefully keeping his face expressionless.
It was stupid. He should know by now not to let his hopes rise when his aunt told him something like "Your father is coming to visit." Until Harry arrived, unless he had a plane ticket in his hand with the exact date and time of his arrival printed on it, it was more likely than not that he'd be calling back to apologize, to say that something important had come up, something he couldn't get out of.
To say that he wasn't coming.
"Do me a favor," Shaun told Marge. "Don't tell Em."
Emily was too little to temper her expectations. She would be horribly disappointed if Harry didn't show. If? Who was he kidding? When was more like it. His
stomach twisted.
"He got the letter from the lawyers," Marge told him. "He's pretty upset."
Harry wasn't the only one. "Just don't tell her, all right?"
"All right." Marge sighed. "Shaun, about this custody thing…"
Shaun didn't want to talk about it. It made his stomach hurt too much, made him want to cry. He stood up and took his plate to the sink, rinsing it and putting it in the dishwasher. He forced a bright smile, forced it to touch his eyes, so Marge would know that he really didn't give a shit about Harry. "I've got a lot of homework."
Marge brought her own plate to the sink. "You're so much like him."
"No," Shaun said, escaping down the hall to his room. "I'm not."
Alessandra stirred, and Harry looked over to find her awake.
The early morning air was cool coming in the car windows, and she pulled her legs up under one of the enormous sweatshirts he'd bought her. Without any makeup on, her beauty was more delicate, more subtle. More. He couldn't believe it. She'd gotten the worst haircut in the world, and he now found her more attractive than ever.
He knew she didn't see it that way, though. She looked into the mirror and only saw what she was missing. As if the makeup, hair, and clothes had been the crucial elements in her beauty. It was completely absurd.
He was worried that she was still too beautiful. That too many people would still notice her. She was going to have to lose that regal manner of sitting and walking. Start ducking her head down, slouching her shoulders. Stop looking like a queen dressed down in her kid brother's clothes.
Of course, right now, the way she was sitting, she looked a lot like a gray beach ball with a head. Harry smiled. When he'd first met her, he never dreamed in a million years that he would ever describe Alessandra Lamont as a beach ball with a head.
"What's so funny?" she asked.
During the days they'd been on the road and the night they'd spent together in a motel, she'd initiated conversations maybe twice. Maybe. He'd lectured endlessly about the best ways to hide herself. She shouldn't wear perfume, especially not the scent she wore in the past. She should take care to keep her dairy allergies completely hidden, even to the point of occasionally going to the local ice-cream stand and getting a cone, throwing it out when no one was looking. She should get a job doing something completely alien to her past life. She should change her habits and her lifestyle. She should overcome her fears and get herself a dog. Something big with lots of teeth. She should take that dog everywhere she went.
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