Just another unhappy kid who was looking at her as if he wished she would disappear off the face of the earth.
So he shared something in common with Jamey.
She wondered where Reid’s parents were, if he’d ever had any sort of home to speak of, how far he’d gotten in school before boredom, circumstances or peer pressure had led him to drop out. She wondered how much of the crime on Serenity he was personally responsible for, how he’d wound up working in a roundabout way for Jimmy Falcone, why he’d never left Serenity looking for something better. He obviously wasn’t happy here. Nobody with even an ounce of satisfaction in his life could pull off such a heavy-duty scowl.
As-she watched him, she became aware of a blue mood creeping over her, replacing the last of her annoyance with Jamey. She felt sorry for Reid, although he would undoubtedly hate her for it. At some time in this young man’s life, he could have been saved. Just a little attention, a little love, the right influence at the right time, and he could be living a fulfilling, productive life instead of terrorizing helpless victims on these streets. Would that have been so much for his parents—or any other adult in the boy’s life—to offer? Would it have hurt them to devote just a little time and effort to the child they’d brought into the world? Had they wanted him to turn out like this—uncaring about the law, society, people around him, about anything but his own needs, his own desires and his own fun? Had they wanted him to choose a life that carried with it a major risk of being dead before he was twenty-five?
That was why she was here—to try to save the four- and six- and ten-year-old kids on the street from the same fate. To help their mothers and, eventually, their fathers provide them with a healthy, safe environment to grow up in, free of anger and violence within the home. If she and her staff could help the families, the families. could help their neighbors. If they could make their homes safe, then they could extend that safety to their buildings, their blocks, their streets and their entire community. When it was safe, they could bring in the businesses that would make it a community in every sense of the word. That was her long-term goal.
Her short-term goal, though, was to get this place in shape so Kathy’s House could eventually open, and she wasn’t doing anything to accomplish that standing there and staring out the window at a young man who just might prove to be one of her major adversaries.
With a sigh, she cleaned the rest of the glass from the window frame, scanned the how-to directions once more, then began following them step by step. She’d never been the slightest bit handy, had never done anything more difficult than change a light bulb while balancing on top of a stepladder. When she’d told her parents that she intended to do the bulk of the work on the house herself, they were appalled. Even in the nineties, Robert and Kathryn Taylor still believed in the division of labor practiced by their parents, their grandparents and everyone around them. Kathryn took care of the housework and the flowers, and Robert handled the repairs and the yard work. She never took out the trash. He never washed a dish. She didn’t know the working end of a hammer. He was stymied by the operation of the stove. During her own marriage, Karen and Evan had fallen into the same habits. He had handled the man’s work, and she had taken care of the woman’s.
And here she was, replacing a broken windowpane, she thought, smiling as she slipped the glass into place, and with no help from anyone but her neat little handyman how-to book. Finishing the job, she took a step back to examine it, and her smile grew into a foolishly wide grin. The work might be hard, but it was going to be good for her ego.
Maybe her parents and Evan’s believed she was crazy for coming here. Maybe every single friend she’d ever had in the city would share their opinion once they found out. Maybe Jamey O’Shea could think of nothing that would brighten his day more than seeing her drive away never to return. Even young Reid with the world-class scowl seemed to want her gone. No one believed in her, not the people who knew her or the ones who didn’t. They all thought she was chasing a foolish dream, but, hey, she could replace a broken window. She could repair damaged walls and brighten them with paint. Over the next few months, she would do a million other things that no one thought she could. By the time Kathy’s House opened for business, she would be more than ready to take on the problems of Serenity Street, because she would have proved to herself and everyone else that, with a little persistence and a few good directions, she could learn anything.
After giving herself a pat on the back—mentally, at least—she dragged the trash can from the bathroom, then made a quick trip downstairs for painting supplies. The trim would have to wait for a coat of paint, since her book recommended letting the glazing compound cure for a week, but she could get the walls painted. A couple coats of fresh paint would do wonders in brightening up the room. Then she would add throw rugs in soft pastels, a ladderback chair that had once belonged to her grandmother, a pink wicker table to hold stacks of towels, and a few arrangements of dried flowers on the wall, and it would be as homey as any bathroom she’d ever seen.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too long before the entire house started feeling equally welcoming.
She painted until her arms were tired and her head ached. She tried opening the windows to help disperse the fumes, but the occasional breeze blew in dust that embedded in the wet paint, so she closed them again. When she finished, she set a small oscillating fan in the open doorway, turned it on high, then headed downstairs once more. She would take a break for lunch, she decided, before starting to work on the remaining dozen or so windows. She’d brought a few groceries with her yesterday—lemonade and coffee, milk and cereal, chips and cookies, the makings for salad and sandwiches. She had figured she wouldn’t want to be doing any cooking until she’d spent about a hundred hours scrubbing ten years of filth and grime from the kitchen.
She was just passing through the kitchen door when a shout echoed through the house. If it had been a man’s voice, she probably would have panicked. As it was, recognizing the woman’s voice, she almost panicked anyway. She considered beating a retreat out the back door and taking refuge in the barren yard until her uninvited guest—uninvited by her, at least, though she suspected an invitation had been made by someone down here, damn Jamey O’Shea’s scheming heart—gave up and went away. But she knew better. Jolie Wade Kendricks never gave up. That was what made her such a hotshot reporter.
Wiping away the sweat that had collected across her forehead, Karen turned in the doorway and headed back to the front of the house. When she’d brought the paint in, she had left the door open for a little air, with only the unlocked screen door between her and company. A screen door was far too flimsy an obstacle to deter Jolie.
When she came into the foyer, the smile she’d pasted on faltered. It wasn’t just Jolie who had invited herself in. Smith was with her, and they were both looking dismayed. “Hey,” Karen greeted, tucking a stray curl behind one ear, wishing they didn’t both look so cool and perfectly put together while she was so hot, sweaty and paint-spattered. “I was planning to call you guys soon, but I guess my neighbor beat me to it. How are you—”
Jolie gave her a crushing hug. “It’s been so long. We haven’t seen you since our wedding, and that was four years ago. How are you and what the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m fine. I take it you guys are fine, too. You’ve never looked better.” A little flattery never hurt, especially when it was true. Jolie’s blond hair was short and sleek, her skin was burnished gold, and she still had the lean body of a distance runner. No one would ever guess looking at her that she was past forty and had gone through two pregnancies practically back to back, resulting in one sweet two-and-a-half-year-old son and twin daughters not far behind. Smith was as handsome as always, with the same aura of power and authority. That little bit of gray at his temples only served to emphasize his good looks...and to stir a twinge of longing deep inside Karen. She and Evan had often joked about growing old and gray together, just them, their kids
and the guys—Smith, Michael and Remy. But Evan had died far too young, there had been no kids, and the guys all had families of their own now. And she was alone. It just wasn’t fair.
But life wasn’t fair. That was why Evan had become a cop, why he’d risked his life for strangers, why he had died saving the lives of an innocent little girl and the best partner and friend any cop could ever ask for.
Smith gave her a gentler hug when Jolie stepped back. “It’s good to see you, Karen.”
“It’s good to see you, too. You look more satisfied with life than any man has a right to be.”
“I am.” Taking a few steps back, he looked around, then fixed his most serious look on her—and, being the U.S. Attorney, that was pretty serious. “What’s going on, Karen?”
“What did O’Shea tell you?”
It was Jolie who answered. “Just that you’d bought this place and moved in. I know Evan never brought you down here, Karen, and there was a reason for it. Serenity is a bad place. It’s nowhere you want to be.”
“No, it’s no place that you want to be. It’s exactly where I want to be.” Karen faked more confidence than she actually felt as she opened her arms wide to encompass the entire house. “Welcome to Kathy’s House, Serenity Street’s first—and hopefully last—women’s center. I’d ask you to sit down, but the furniture is all upstairs. Would you like a tour instead?”
Her guests exchanged dubious glances, but Jolie gestured for her to lead the way. “We can talk while we look around,” she said determinedly.
Not if she could avoid it, Karen thought. “Do you remember this house from when you were a kid?” she asked, leading the way into the front parlor.
“Yeah. It looked almost this bad then. You really don’t think you can undo eighty years of neglect, do you?”
“Yes, I do, with a lot of work.”
“And a lot of cooperation from the punks on the street. They’ll take great pleasure vandalizing every bit of work that you do.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Karen said optimistically.
Wide double doors and hallways led from parlor to study to dining room, from gentleman’s parlor to keeping room to kitchen to pantry. Off a hall on one end were the turret room, the door to a glassed-in back porch, and a bathroom, long and narrow and lit with stained-glass windows in bright royal blue. She loved the windows but had every intention of removing them intact and using them for decoration someplace inside, because Jolie was probably right. Until Karen gained acceptance on the street, Ryan Morgan or others like him would delight in destroying every part of her dream that they could reach.
Once they finished the tour of the second floor, she faced them, waiting for judgment. They were standing at the top of the stairs, and the smells of paint and dust were heavy in the air. Jolie started to speak, but closed her mouth, leaving the task to Smith. Instead of criticism, though, or questions about her sanity, he made a friendly suggestion. “Let’s get some lunch, okay?”
“Sorry. I’ve got too much to do.”
“At least come across the street. Let us buy you a beer.”
The best use she could think of for a beer at O’Shea’s was throwing it in Jamey’s smug face, but she didn’t say so. She just shook her head. “I’ll go out on the veranda with you. There’s a bit of a breeze today. But there’s no place to sit out there, either,” she warned as she made her way down the stairs. That was one of her goals—to fill the length of the veranda with rockers or wicker chairs, to boldly announce her intention to the Ryan Morgans and the Marinos and the Reids—and the Jamey O’Sheas—that she was determined to turn this street, starting with her little piece of it, into a front-porch sort of place.
Outside, she sank down on the porch floor and stretched her legs out into the sun. Her skin was whiter than the paint on the weathered boards, she noticed. Fish-belly white, Evan had often teased her. Unlike some redheads, she could tan, but it was a slow, tedious process, one that she hadn’t had much patience for lately. Maybe once she started working on the house’s exterior, she could get a little badly needed color.
Across the street, the doors to O’Shea’s were open, but the van in the driveway blocked most of the view. Telling herself she didn’t want to see Jamey anyway—not yet, at least, not while her friends were still there—she focused instead on the vehicle. “I remember a time when you drove a Lexus, Smith, and Jolie had a fast little red Corvette. Now you’re in a minivan.”
“I still have that fast little Corvette, and he still has his Blazer,” Jolie replied, sitting on the top step. As her husband leaned against the railing beside her, she gave him a chiding look. “And I didn’t know about a Lexus. When we began dating, he made me think I was a snob for expecting him to drive a Mercedes or Lexus.”
Smith shrugged. “We can’t fit three kids and all their gear into anything smaller than a van.” After a moment, he said seriously, “You’ve got a great idea, Karen.”
“But?”
“But Jolie’s right. This is a bad neighborhood. The cops don’t even come down here without backup.”
“That’s their problem,” she said stubbornly. “They’ve let Ryan Morgan and his—”
“You’ve met Ryan Morgan?” he interrupted, looking grimmer than before, making her wish she could recall the name. Morgan worked for Jimmy Falcone, according to Jamey, and Smith had convicted Falcone in federal court, only to see the man walk free. Naturally he would still keep up with Falcone and his dealings. Naturally he would be familiar with anyone who worked for him.
She tried to shrug carelessly. “I’ve seen him. I’ve been warned about him.”
He crouched in front of her. “Ryan and Trevor Morgan, Vinnie Marino, Reid Donovan, Tommy Murphy—they’re all bad news. Vinnie Marino would as soon kill you as look at you—unless he took some perverted liking to you, in which case you’d probably be better off dead. If they’re coming around here, you don’t stand a chance in hell. They like Serenity the way it is. They won’t let you change a thing.”
“I’m not stupid,” she insisted. “I’m not going out looking for trouble—”
“Honey, just being here is an invitation to trouble to guys like that,” Jolie said, her voice soft but tense, verging on pleading. “This is a dangerous place, Karen. You want to help out down here? Help the few decent people relocate, then burn the place down.”
Karen refused to give the little shiver of fear deep inside any room to grow. Instead she shook her head and forced a chastening smile. “Serenity can’t be so bad. It produced thirteen good, upstanding, law-abiding Wades.”
“Yeah, and it also produced the Morgans, the Marinos, the Donovans, the Murphys,” Jolie said hotly. “You want to help people, Karen? Try another neighborhood, someplace where you have a chance, someplace where you can truly make a difference. Forget Serenity. Let the punks have it. Let Falcone have it.”
Karen shook her head once more, this time with finality. “People have forgotten Serenity for too long. The people who never lived here ignore it. The people who did live here and got out, like you, Jolie, pretend it never existed. But what about those people who still live here, those few decent people? Do we pretend that they don’t exist?”
“No,” Smith said, his patience tried but his voice still calm. “But you don’t risk your life for them, Karen.”
“Michael does. Remy does. Evan did. To some extent, you two do.” Jolie never backed away from a story, or Smith from a case, simply because it might endanger their lives. “All my life I’ve sat back and done nothing, and it’s cost me dearly. Now I’m going to do something. I’m going to try. If it doesn’t work out, well, at least I’ve made the effort. And if it does?” She smiled a little cynically. “We just might turn this neighborhood into a community where even Jolie would be happy to raise her kids.”
Jamey was in the kitchen, fixing a tray of sandwiches, when an impatient customer called his name from the bar. Karen, he thought, more than a little disgusted with how quickly he’d come to
recognize her voice. He had seen the Kendrickses drive away a few minutes ago and had figured that was as good a time to retreat as any. Not that he regretted the call to his old friend Jolie one bit. He would use whatever ammunition he had to get rid of Karen before she got herself hurt—or the people on the street, people who just might come to believe in her. If that included Jolie and her prosecutor husband, no problem.
After putting the last sandwich together, he picked up the tray and a bag of apples from the counter and went around the corner and through the swinging door to the bar. Old Thomas was at his usual table, and Pat, one of his few regulars who held a job, had taken the best table for watching the ball game on television. Karen was seated at the bar, her paint-splattered tennis shoes dangling six inches above the floor, and she was giving him her sternest, most severe look. “I thought bartenders were supposed to be very good at keeping their mouths shut. Now I know not to trust you with any more confidences.”
He set the tray down, took two paper plates, each holding a sandwich and a helping of chips, and two apples, and delivered one to each of his customers. O’Shea’s was no restaurant—although it had been, in one of its earlier lives, back before he was born—but any of his customers who’d missed a meal could always get something here. Most of them didn’t even have to ask. They just got this look about them, one that he’d come to know well, one that he’d worn himself often enough when he was a kid. Old Thomas had that look today. As for Pat, hell, it would be rude to feed one and not the other.
When he returned to the bar, he fixed himself a glass of iced water and wordlessly offered Karen a cold soda. “You weren’t trusting me with confidences,” he pointed out at last. “You were making conversation.”
“Which you immediately tried to use to your advantage and my disadvantage by tattling to Jolie that I was here.”
Convincing Jamey Page 5