She whispered Nikki’s name. Her daughter’s eyes opened almost instantly. The night-light was on near Nikki’s bed, and Thea reached over and pulled it from the socket. The room fell into darkness, and Nikki whimpered, reaching for Thea.
Wrapping her in a blanket, Thea gathered her daughter in her arms and hugged her tightly. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “We’re going outside to see the snow.” But she knew Nikki wasn’t fooled. The child had been through too much, seen too much. She recognized terror when she saw it.
Carrying Nikki, Thea hurried back into her bedroom. A fire escape was outside the window, which had been painted shut when they’d first moved in. Thea had scraped for hours, loosening the dried paint, so she and Nikki would have an escape route. And then she’d installed a lock, hoping to keep burglars—and the Mancusos—on the outside.
But she should have known the Mancusos wouldn’t resort to climbing through windows. That wasn’t their style. They would come brazenly through the apartment door, every last one of them, including Rick’s brothers, his father and even Lenore.
God, Lenore…
The image set Thea’s hands to trembling so badly she could hardly turn the lock on the window. Finally getting it free, she slid up the sill, lifted Nikki out and then climbed out after her.
Behind her, Thea thought she heard a squeak as the apartment door opened. She gathered Nikki in her arms again and hurried down the metal steps.
Chapter Nine
The ringing of the phone jarred John from a deep sleep. He’d been dreaming about Thea, a strangely erotic dream that made him want to cover his head with a pillow and go back to sleep.
He reached out with one hand and brought the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
The caller paused. “John?”
For a moment he thought he must still be dreaming. “Who is this?”
“It’s Thea.”
Her voice sounded different, a mixture of reluctance and fear. John sat up in bed. “What’s wrong? Is it Nikki?”
“No, she’s all right. But…someone tried to break into our apartment tonight.”
A chill snaked up John’s spine. “Where are you? Are you both okay?”
“We’re fine. We’re at a phone booth on Dorchester, near the park entrance.”
John was sitting on the edge of the bed by this time, cradling the phone against his shoulder as he pulled on a pair of jeans. “I remember where it is.”
“The thing is…” Her voice trembled and he could almost picture her biting her lip, trying to control her emotions. “I…we ran out of the apartment so fast I didn’t bring any money. I only have the change in my pocket. I can’t call a cab and we can’t go back there—”
“I don’t want you to go back,” John broke in grimly. “Just hang tight and try to stay out of sight. I’ll call dispatch as soon as we hang up and see if there’s a patrol car in the area. And, Thea?”
“Yes?”
“I’m on my way.”
He finished dressing in seconds and used his cell phone to call the dispatcher as he hurried out to his car.
In spite of the snowy streets, he made it to the park district in twenty minutes, heading south on Woodlawn Avenue. He took East Fifty-fourth Street to Dorchester, and as he neared the park, he spotted a cruiser sitting at the curb.
Pulling beside it John saw Thea and Nikki sitting in the back seat. Thea gazed at him through the rear glass, then leaned over and said something to Nikki.
John rolled down his window and held up his shield and ID for the officer’s inspection. “I’m Gallagher,” he said. “I’ll take over from here.”
He pulled his sedan to the curb in front of the patrol car and got out. The officer got out, too, and he and John spoke for a moment before John reached over and opened the cruiser’s back door. Thea glanced up at him. Her hair was mussed, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Her eyes were dark with worry and fear as she cradled her daughter in her arms.
“Here, let me help you,” he said, and bent to take Nikki from her. The little girl whimpered, but almost immediately nestled more deeply into the blanket wrapped around her, as if she could hide deep in the folds and no one would find her.
Thea climbed out of the cruiser and followed John to his car. She’d thrown her coat over her pajamas, he noted as she slid into the front seat, and her slippers were wet from the snow. He handed her Nikki, and then reached down to slip the sodden shoes from her feet. Her skin felt like ice. He rubbed her feet for a moment, trying to restore circulation.
“I’m okay,” she murmured.
“Are you sure? You don’t need to go to the hospital?”
She looked alarmed. “No. No, we’re fine. I just needed to get Nikki out of the cold.”
John nodded, but he still wasn’t convinced. He’d left the engine running. The heater was blasting warm air, but Thea was still trembling. She and Nikki huddled together as if there was nothing in the world that could separate them.
As he went around and climbed behind the wheel, a powerful emotion rose inside him. The sight of Thea and Nikki clinging to each other instilled a longing in him he couldn’t explain. He wanted to be a part of their closeness, to share in the deep emotional bond that drew them together. He wanted to put his arms around both of them, protect them from whatever evil had touched their lives tonight. He wanted what he didn’t think could ever be his.
Thea glanced at him, her eyes still dazed with shock and fear. “Thank you for coming so quickly. I didn’t know who else to call. We ran out of the apartment so fast…” She paused, drawing a shaky breath. “Your card was in my coat pocket, and your home number was on the back. You gave it to me that first night…”
“I remember.” He’d given it to her when they’d been standing near Gail Waters’s body. John had thought then, as he did now, that Thea was a woman of mystery. His instincts had warned him she wasn’t the person she professed to be, but maybe that was why he was so drawn to her. She’d been where he’d been. She’d seen what he’d seen. The darkness in his world wouldn’t scare her away, because it was there in her world, too.
John wondered what had happened in her past to make her so guarded. Was she still grieving for her dead husband?
He didn’t want to think about Thea with another man, even though he knew he had no right to feel possessive. They’d only shared one brief kiss. Regret whipped through him, even as he told himself he was a fool to want more.
“Can you tell me what happened tonight?” he asked her.
Thea shrugged, shifting Nikki in her arms. The child weighed no more than a feather, but Thea was a small woman. She could use a hand now and then, whether she wanted to accept it or not.
“Why don’t you put her in the seat between us?” he suggested softly. “That way you can buckle her in.”
Thea looked as if she wanted to protest, but then nodded. She settled Nikki in the seat between them, fastened the safety belt and then wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders, pulling her close. Again John felt that tugging sensation, that need to be a part of their closeness.
As Thea related the events of the night, she began to shudder violently, and without thinking, John draped his arm over the back of the seat, his fingers barely brushing her hair.
“Why didn’t you call 911?” he asked when she was finished.
A frown wrinkled her forehead. “I—I honestly didn’t even think to. My first instinct was to get Nikki out of the apartment.”
“Did anyone actually get into the apartment before you and Nikki escaped?”
“I think he was coming in just as we climbed out the window.”
“He?”
She paused. “I just assumed…”
John shifted in the seat so that he could see her features in the streetlight. She didn’t look quite as frightened as she had before, but she was still shaken. She bent and kissed the top of Nikki’s head, as if to reassure herself her daughter was safe and sound beside her.
“You
didn’t get a look at the suspect? Didn’t see a face, build, anything at all?”
“I didn’t look back,” Thea told him. “All I could think to do was run.”
It was John’s turn to pause. He stared at her for a moment longer, then pressed her. “You don’t have any idea who it might have been? Think now.”
She put a hand to her throat. “I don’t know who it was, but I can’t help wondering if maybe the break-in had something to do with…Gail Waters…” Her voice trailed off and her arm tightened around Nikki.
The little girl had been so still ever since John had carried her to the car, but now, as if sensing her mother’s distress, she gazed up first at Thea and then John, her face all too knowing for someone so young.
Something twisted inside John. He turned and put the car into gear.
Thea said almost desperately, “Where are you taking us?”
“Someplace where you’ll be safe. Then I’ll go back and have a look around at the apartment.”
“But…I don’t have any money. And Nikki and I will need to get some clothes…”
“We’ll take care of all that later,” John told her. He glanced in the rearview mirror. The patrol car pulled out around him and then made a U-turn, heading back north. John did the same.
“What about the intruder?” Thea asked.
“Officers were dispatched to your apartment when I called in. They’ll wait for me there.”
He half expected Thea to put up more of an argument, but after a moment she turned and stared silently out the window.
They could have been killed tonight, John thought grimly. Thea and Nikki could have been killed, and there wouldn’t have been a damned thing he could have done about it.
He muttered a violent oath under his breath as he headed the car toward home.
“YOU CAN PUT NIKKI to bed in the spare room,” John said as he straightened from the fireplace. A flame leaped to life in the hearth, and he put out his hands as if to test the warmth. “Poor kid looks beat.”
Thea sat on the sofa in John’s living room with Nikki cuddled in the crook of her arm. It was strange, she thought. Nikki had been wide awake in the car, but the moment they’d gotten inside John’s house, her eyes had begun to droop and her little body had gone limp. It was as if she felt safe here.
Thea felt that way, too, although she told herself it was irrational. A police detective’s home was the last place she should have sought harbor. If he found out about their past, he could destroy both of their lives, but for now, Thea couldn’t think beyond the moment. She was simply too exhausted.
Within a matter of moments the fire was blazing and the warmth spread into the room. Thea’s chill began to dissipate. She stood and picked up Nikki, struggling a bit with the child’s weight.
John said, “Here, let me—”
“No, that’s okay. I’ve got her,” Thea murmured, not wanting to relinquish her hold on her daughter. As much as she appreciated everything John had done for them, especially his kindness to Nikki, Thea knew it was time to reassert her self-reliance.
John looked as if he might protest, but then he shrugged. “Suit yourself. The guest room is back this way.”
He flipped on lights as he led the way down a narrow hallway. Thea caught glimpses of a bathroom, done in royal-blue, gold and white, and a master bedroom with the lamp turned down low, casting shadows over a rumpled bed.
She knew at once that she’d gotten John up from that bed, that the sheets might still be warm from where he’d lain. The notion was disturbing and exciting at the same time.
“In here,” he said, opening a door at the end of the hallway and switching on the light. It was an office of sorts with a desk and a computer, a weight bench and barbells, and a daybed covered with a patchwork quilt and blanket—and a white cat, who lifted her head at the intrusion.
It seemed incongruous to Thea that a man like John Gallagher would have a cat for a pet. A white one at that.
He picked up the feline and dumped her unceremoniously onto the carpet. “You’ll be bunking on the couch tonight, Cassandra.” The cat stretched, then stalked out of the room.
When John turned down the covers, Thea lay Nikki on the bed and then sat on the edge as she tucked the blanket and quilt snugly around her daughter. Nikki’s dark curls spilled across the yellow pillowcase, and her mouth curved in what almost resembled a smile. She sighed deeply in her sleep, then rolled over to cuddle with her doll.
Thea glanced up at John and her heart skipped a beat. He’d been watching Nikki, too, but when he turned his gaze to Thea, the look on his face…the longing in his eyes…
No, she thought desperately. This can’t happen. I won’t let it happen.
She turned back to Nikki, smoothing the curls from her forehead and then dipping to kiss her soft cheek.
“She’s a beautiful little girl,” John said behind her.
Thea nodded, a lump in her throat. “I know. She’s had such a hard time…” Her voice trailed away on a wave of deep emotion.
John took her arm and pulled her, very gently, to her feet. “She’s safe here, Thea. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
“I know.” But what about me? she wanted to ask. How can you prevent what’s happening between us?
She walked ahead of him out the door and down the hallway to the living room. The fire beckoned, and Thea, still bundled in her coat, went to stand in front of the hearth. John had gone into the kitchen to make coffee, and she used the moment to gaze around.
The house was small, a post-Second World War bungalow that looked as if it had been recently refurbished. The oak floors had been stripped and refinished, the warm hues of the wood accentuated by throw rugs. The furniture was comfortable, the thick cushions upholstered in a durable yet attractive fabric in earth tones. A leather recliner had been positioned near the fireplace, and Thea could picture John kicking back after a double shift, perhaps even dozing in front of the fire.
There were pictures on the walls, prints of sailboats on Lake Michigan and framed snapshots of men and women and boys and girls Thea assumed were all members of John’s family. But the arrangement of the photographs lacked symmetry, as if some of the pictures had been taken down and not replaced. Thea couldn’t help wondering who the subject had been in the missing photos.
Lamplight cast a warm glow over the room. It was not at all the sort of home Thea would have expected of a bachelor, and with something of a shock, she realized she’d never asked John if he was married. Was that the reason his house was so homey? Was there a Mrs. Gallagher lurking somewhere nearby?
The thought made Thea distinctly uncomfortable. A prickle of something she wanted to deny shot through her, and for a moment she wished she’d never called John tonight. She wished she’d never met him, because now that she had, it was going to be a very long time before she forgot him.
He picked that moment to enter the room, his presence filling the small cozy area. He carried two mugs of coffee by the handles in one hand and, in the other, a woman’s silk apricot robe.
Thea’s heart began to pound at the sight of that robe. Who did it belong to…and where was the owner?
He set the mugs of coffee on the small table near the recliner and handed the robe to Thea. “This should fit. You’re probably starting to get a little warm in that coat.”
“I hadn’t even thought about it,” Thea murmured, but now that he’d mentioned it, she was very warm indeed. She took the robe reluctantly, fingering the silky fabric.
“It belonged to my ex-wife,” he explained as if reading her mind.
Thea lifted her gaze to meet his. “Are you sure she won’t mind my wearing it?”
He shrugged. “She’s got a new husband and a new baby to worry about. I seriously doubt she’ll be coming back for her robe.”
Was that hurt in his voice? Thea wondered. Or merely irony?
She slipped out of her coat and into the robe, belting it around her waist. John took her coat and
tossed it over the back of the couch. Turning, he picked up the mugs and handed her one. “Here. I thought you could use a cup of coffee. I know I can. It’s decaf, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Thea cradled the steaming mug in both hands. She turned toward the fire, gazing into the flames. “How long were you married?”
“A few years. We’ve been divorced two. How about you?”
She glanced at him, startled. “Me?”
“How long were you married when Nikki’s father died?” Firelight flickered in his eyes, looking like tiny flames of…what? Passion?
Thea shivered. “We were divorced when he died. We had been for years.”
It was John’s turn to be surprised. “His death must have hit Nikki pretty hard. I guess they were close.”
Thea closed her eyes briefly. How could she explain Rick’s relationship with Nikki? He’d never loved their daughter. She’d been merely a tool for him to use against Thea. A possession his mother had coveted. A Mancuso to be trained in the art of corruption.
Thea rubbed her face, suddenly wearier than she could ever remember being.
“I don’t mean to pry,” John said. He set down his mug and turned to Thea. His blue gaze was very intense. Another shiver ripped through her as her stomach fluttered in awareness.
“You look tired.” He lifted his hand to tuck a curl behind her ear. His touch made her tremble, made her knees threaten to buckle. The rush of adrenaline she’d experienced earlier was a dangerous thing, because the aftermath could sometimes be a powerful aphrodisiac. Thea knew she could be in big trouble tonight if she didn’t keep her distance.
She smothered a yawn. “I do feel tired.”
“You can take my bed. Try to get some sleep while I’m gone.”
He was no longer touching her, and Thea felt bereft. “Where are you going?”
“To your apartment.”
She felt the panic well up in her again. Part of her alarm had to do with the fear she’d experienced earlier, but another part had to do with what John might find there—if the intruder hadn’t found it first. She’d left her stash there, the money she and Nikki would need if they should have to run. And it was beginning to look as if they might.
The Littlest Witness Page 13