Undercover Babies

by Alice Sharpe

  But what she’d noticed first about him still dominated his looks and those were his eyes. They were green or maybe blue, it was hard to tell, and framed with dark lashes and brows. All sorts of things seemed to swirl in them: compassion, challenge, distaste, self-awareness, humor, trouble, danger. She’d seen all those things and while some had dismayed her, others had warmed her and given her courage.

  She stared at the rest of him as he dug in a wall cabinet. He was tall and powerfully built. When he’d carried her up the outside stairs, she’d felt like a feather floating on the wind, like no burden at all. He had a habit of rubbing the back of his head, ruffling the short brown hair, stretching as though there was so much going on inside his head that it put a strain on his neck.

  She suspected that she herself was the cause of his current tension.

  He produced a box of Band-Aids and a tube of ointment. “Sit down on the edge of the tub,” he told her, and she did as he said. Was she always this wishy-washy, this easy to control?

  No. She knew she wasn’t.

  Kneeling in front of her, he treated and bandaged her knee. She made herself rally to ask him a few questions. First, his name.

  “Travis MacBeth,” he said, gazing up at her. “People call me Mac.”

  The nun at the shelter had called him Mac. Now she remembered. The next question was harder. “Who is Jake?”

  “An acquaintance.” When she stared, he added, “A homeless boozer.”

  “And my clothes…they’re his?”

  “I assume so. Seems kind of unlikely there are two identical coats running around the back streets of Billington. Plus, this is the first night in two months that Jake wasn’t waiting for me at the mouth of that alley and the first night you were.” He paused for a second and added, “Grace? Why did you run out of that alley the way you did?”

  She wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

  “Were you running from something or someone?” he persisted.

  She was running. Toward the light? Away from the light. Away from Jake?

  Maybe her face reflected the unease the hazy memory of that alley engendered because Mac patted her arm and said, “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Do you think…do you suppose…I hurt Jake? To get his coat, I mean. Was that why I was running?”

  He stared at her and then smiled. Was it the first time he’d done that or had he smiled before and she’d forgotten? At any rate, he had a good smile, the kind a person could find themselves working to see again. The kind that took years and cares off a man’s face and gave a glimpse of what lay hidden in his heart. He said, “No. I don’t think so. We looked for Jake, remember?”

  They’d walked through the alley. She could recall the clanging of empty bottles and the look of disgust in Mac’s eyes as he asked if they were hers. “How old do you think I am?” she asked.

  Again he stared at her. “Early twenties, maybe.”

  “And I’ve had a baby.”

  “You’ve apparently had a pregnancy. And a husband.”

  That jolted her. “A husband?”

  He touched the ring finger on her left hand. “There’s a tan line here. There are tan lines on your body, as well.”

  Sure enough, there was a discernible white line on her finger. She stared at it until her eyes burned. It didn’t help. No memory of a loving husband surfaced. No memory of an awful husband surfaced, either. She felt a new spurt of anxiety and wondered if it was related to the husband whose ring she’d apparently forsaken.

  Or hocked. Or lost.

  Or to a baby she held in her arms, nursed at her breast, and now couldn’t remember.

  It was all too much.

  “Which brings to mind all sorts of questions,” Mac said.

  She gazed at him and waited, but when he finally spoke, she found she couldn’t comprehend what he said. She just couldn’t. His words stretched out and away and began to seem like musical notes in some bizarre song.

  Could she sing along?

  What were the words?

  She felt his hands on her shoulders and realized her eyes had drifted closed. When she opened them, she found Mac supporting her, his gaze filled with alarm. He lifted her off the edge of the tub and she melted against his solid chest, circling his neck with grateful arms and closing her eyes again. Wrapped in his arms, she felt safer than she had since this ordeal began.

  And then she felt a creepy sensation steal over her body. Flat black eyes stared at her behind a glistening silver curtain. Red hot hands grabbed her.

  Screaming, she pushed her attacker away. The jolt when she hit the floor forced another scream from her throat.

  “Grace, Grace, it’s okay,” Mac said.

  She was on the floor. Mac bent over her. Gathering her in his arms, he held her for a moment while the fear subsided and the tears died in her throat. He helped her to her feet and onto the bed. She looked around for her assailant. No one else was in the room.

  Somewhere in her head, she knew there never had been.

  Mac tucked her between snow-white sheets. She caught his hand and held it for a moment, loath to give up the connection. She wanted to thank him for helping her, but the words were swallowed by fatigue and she drifted off to oblivion…or death.

  What was the difference?

  MAC SAT at his desk. He downed a stiff drink in two swallows.

  The desk had been his father’s. Mac had grown up doing his homework on its polished surface, shoving aside the blotter and suffering his father’s wrath when the older man caught him doing it. Mac now ran his finger over the myriad of shallow indentations that still existed, ghosts of long-ago essays and algebra equations.

  He stared down the hall at the bedroom door that he’d left slightly ajar and wondered what he was going to do with this woman come morning. He reviewed the impulses that had led him to bringing her into his home. Her confusion. Her distress. Her minor injury. Her robotic behavior.

  Her vulnerability.

  Her fragile beauty.

  The memory of his mother…

  That’s how she’d gotten here.

  Now he was confronted with the realization that she was, or had been, married. She’d been pregnant, possibly still had a living child waiting for her return. Had she run away from her husband and her child?

  Like his mother had.

  Tempted to pour himself another drink, he stayed seated instead.

  She was an addict. Drugs, liquor…something. If the marks on her arm weren’t witness enough, that fit she’d had while he carried her to bed was. She’d gone berserk, sleeping like an angel one moment and screaming like a banshee the next. He would spend the night in this chair to keep an eye on her, and then the next morning, he would take her to Sister Theresa’s or back to her alley, whichever she wanted.

  And what about her child?

  Burying his head in his hands, he found it almost impossible not to feel that child’s loss. He understood all too well the ache for a mother who has vanished, the ache that never goes away.

  But what could he do?

  Find him or her?

  Find Grace’s husband?

  How did someone do any of that when the person he was helping didn’t seem to have the slightest clue as to who they were?

  Swearing at all the ambiguities, he opened the drawer and took out a dozen pages of facts and figures. Maybe he could lose himself in his work.

  Once upon a time, way back when, Mac had had a best friend named Rob Confit, an army buddy who died as a result of injuries suffered in a helicopter crash. Since Rob’s death, Mac had become close to Rob’s father, and now the elder Confit was challenging the current mayor in next fall’s mayoral race.

  It was Bill Confit’s contention that the city government’s mishandling of homelessness within Billington had resulted in skyrocketing inner-city crime. Appointing a privately funded task force to investigate this situation, Confit had asked Mac to act as chairman. Who better, he’d asked, than a former cop who�
��d risked his career to unveil corruption within the police force?

  There was no way in the world Mac would think of denying Confit’s request. At first, he’d approached it readily, able to put his own past in perspective. But gradually, he’d come to see his mother’s face superimposed on every derelict he came across and the old wounds resurfaced.

  Hence the need he felt to get out on the streets and see how the people who had next to nothing managed to survive. Did they prey on one another and the public at large? Were they responsible for rising crime rates and dying inner cities, or were they the victims of apathy and budget crunches?

  Mac didn’t know the answers yet, but he was becoming increasingly determined to make sure that the homeless and the defenseless didn’t take the brunt of the censure unless they deserved it.

  So far, he didn’t think most of them did.

  The current mayor disagreed.

  The police disagreed.

  Most of the committee disagreed.

  And to top it off, Mac couldn’t swear his own agenda didn’t sway his conclusions. Most people thought facts and figures were foolproof, that there was only one way to translate dry, hard data. As an ex-cop, Mac knew nothing could be further from the truth. There was always room for interpretation.

  But tonight he couldn’t make his eyes focus on the papers. He kept seeing flashes of the woman he’d dubbed Grace. Naked in the shower, her skin and features breathtaking; crying; dripping wet in the alley, looking at him from under the brim of his hat. Her tan lines suggesting recent sunbathing, marriage and happy times.

  Her image seemed to fill his mind and even a little corner of his heart. He knew it was foolish and he knew it was dangerous. Not only for him, but for her. He just didn’t know what to do about it.

  Rubbing his forehead, he shuffled the papers back into the drawer and thought to walk down the hall to check on Grace. He had every intention of doing this.

  Sometime later, he awoke with a start. For a second, he felt confused, wondering why he’d fallen asleep at his desk, his head on his arms.

  And then he sat up. The noise that had awakened him finally registered, and he tore off down the hall toward his bedroom.

  Breaking glass. That’s what he’d heard. His guest had woken up, panicked and tried to escape. She’d hurt herself if she tried jumping to the sidewalk….

  Light from the hall flooded the bedroom as he threw open the door. It twinkled off the shards of glass that littered the floor beneath the only window in the room, one that opened onto the street half a floor up from the sidewalk. A jagged brick lay amid the glass.

  Grace had apparently slept right through the mayhem. Sidestepping the worst of the mess, he peered out the window. Sometime during the night, the rain had turned to snow, but not the greeting card variety. Instead of making the city glow, this snow just colored the world in shades of gray.

  With a lingering look at Grace’s peaceful form cuddled beneath his down comforter, Mac grabbed a heavy wool sweater from his closet and a flashlight from his bedside drawer. The entryway was as he’d left it, filled with soggy, smelly clothes and puddles of water. He hurried down the steps and along the sidewalk until he was under the window that glowed faintly above his head.

  Examining the snow proved pointless. It was sludge at best. There was no hope of discerning a footprint and peering up and down the street, he could see no moving form at all. Mac stared at the distance between himself and the window and gauged how hard it would be for someone to toss a brick through the window. Not that hard.

  But why? Without wings or a ladder, no one could use the broken window to get inside. Once again, he scanned the street. Zip.

  That left intimidation as a motive and it didn’t take much of an intuitive leap to figure out who might want to intimidate him.

  So far, the police harassment had been relatively minor. Parking tickets. Speeding tickets. Hang-up calls. Citations for breaking archaic laws like the size of lettering on his office sign and the potted plant he’d left on a step. But today, he’d testified in court on behalf of a bum accused of shoplifting. Mac knew the poor guy was innocent; he’d been in the store, he’d seen the rich kid who originally took the camera in question and then shoved it into the bum’s hands when it appeared he was going to be caught. It was Mac’s testimony that had swayed the jury to dismiss the charges.

  This time, his testimony had counted. A year before, he’d been the only cop to speak out against three officers whose use of excessive force had led to the unnecessary death of an addict.

  Bottom line: If not to intimidate, what was the purpose of breaking the window?

  It couldn’t have anything to do with Grace. It was just coincidence that she was sleeping in that room. If it wasn’t coincidence, then that would mean someone who knew something about her knew she was here. And cared that she was here.

  He walked back inside and down the hall. He found Grace sitting on the side of the bed, staring at the shattered glass, shivering in her robe thanks to the cold air now streaming through the broken window. The thought that the broken window had anything to do with her seemed ludicrous.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “Nothing to worry about,” he snapped, guessing she wouldn’t question anything too closely and, sure enough, he was right. She rubbed her eyes and closed them again.

  “We need to get you back to bed,” he said, his voice brusque to cover the tender feeling he could sense stealing over his heart.

  She nodded without opening her eyes.

  Stepping around the glass, he leaned down and hoisted her over his shoulder.

  She screeched, “Put me down!”

  In that heated demand, the woman whose rounded bottom currently rested atop his shoulder and whose head was now upside down facing his back, had packed more passion than he’d so far heard from her and it reassured him. “Can’t have you cutting your feet,” he said as he carried her out of the room and deposited her on the sofa.

  She tugged on the robe, the first sign of modesty he’d witnessed, and that, too, reassured him. As she grumbled, he found pillows and blankets in the hall closet. By the time he had made her a new bed and tucked her into it, she was asleep again.

  For a while, he stood in the open bedroom doorway, ignoring the ice cold air. He stared at the brick. Should he report the incident to the police? Wouldn’t the jerk who threw it love that! There was no way the brick sported fingerprints. Better to swallow the cost of replacing the window himself than give Chief Barry the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled Mac’s cage.

  This was proof, however, that as the months passed and the election neared, the stakes would grow higher.

  It was also proof that the only job he’d ever wanted—to be a cop, to make a difference—was lost to him.

  The only niggling worry was Grace. If someone had tracked her to his apartment, then she was being watched.

  Was she in some kind of danger?

  Impossible to speculate on that when he possessed so little information. Reason said no one wanted her, no one had tracked her.

  He swept up the mess, closed the bedroom door and sat back down at the desk. Behind him, on the sofa, Grace slept soundly.

  SHE AWOKE when the phone rang. She could hear the rumble of a man’s voice. For one blissful moment, she snuggled in the cocoon of warm blankets and thought to herself how nice it was to be warm when the world all around was cold.

  Cold?

  Grace sat up abruptly. Mac appeared in the kitchen doorway, two coffee mugs gripped in his hands.

  “Morning,” he said, handing her one. “How do you feel?”

  She’d noticed how big he was the night before. This morning, she added attractive to her observation. He’d changed into jeans and a black cotton shirt, which he wore like a second skin. His dark hair, damp from the shower, fell boyishly over his forehead. The expression in his eyes was cautious. He probably wondered if she was going to flake out on him again, if she needed a h
it of some illegal substance or a drink.

  The only thing she craved was the caffeine she’d just introduced into her bloodstream via the excellent coffee. She said, “I feel okay.”

  “Did you remember anything about yourself?” His face now reflected how anxious he was to hear the right response. Unfortunately, she couldn’t give it to him and she shook her head. The enormity of her situation flooded back. She still had no idea who she was.

  For a while there, she’d thought that at least she would be able to think clearly today; the veil of exhaustion seemed to have lifted with the coming of the morning sun. But now, the old confusion was back and she felt tears welling in her eyes. She bent her head to hide them.

  Mac moved away as though to give her space. “My wife was about your size,” he said, gesturing at the desktop where he’d placed a modest stack of clothes.

  “Won’t she mind—”

  “She’s in New Jersey and she isn’t my wife anymore, so no, she won’t mind if you use her castoffs. I’ll go scramble some eggs while you use the bathroom.”

  “Wait.”

  He paused for a second while she fought to find the right words. It was no use; she hadn’t the slightest idea what they might be. A plea for him not to abandon her even though she could sense he was dying to get her out of his hair? What argument could she make? The logical place for her would be a hospital but the thought of going to see a doctor terrified her. Why?

  She said, “Who was on the phone?” fully aware that it wasn’t any of her business.

  “Sister Theresa,” he said curtly. “Before that, a friend of mine. Before that, the building super who wanted to know why one of my windows is broken. Now go get dressed. We’ll talk after breakfast.”

  Balancing the clothes and the coffee mug, she made her way down the hall into the bathroom. She could feel a draft of cold air blowing from beneath the closed bedroom door as she passed, and the night’s adventure came back to her.