by Nancy Gideon
Max didn’t flinch. He didn’t even breathe.
“I’m sorry, Max. I’m sorry that she hurt you. I know how much their acceptance meant to you, and how their betrayal must burn. But you have to understand: They never saw you as something human. To them you were just an animal to be tricked and teased and used and cast away. They could never look past what you are. You know that. You know there is no possible way that a detective with the NOPD would fall in love with someone with your past, someone who’s not even a man.”
Then, with condescending gentleness, “Did you really think she was going to welcome you into her world, into her life? Did you believe she was going to plan a future for the two of you together, that she’d willingly breed your offspring, whatever they might turn out to be? Did you, Max?”
His eyes blinked slowly. “No. Of course not.”
“You have to put it behind you, boy. You can’t let yourself dwell on how they deceived you, on how they must have laughed over your gullibility. You have value here, Max. You matter to me, and I’ll do everything I can to keep you from harm’s way. All I ask is that you distance yourself, quickly and completely. Then we’ll see what they plan to do with what they know. Maybe nothing. Who would believe them? Who would believe in looking at you, what you really are inside? What do you think, Max? Do you think they would speak out against you, even if it meant implicating themselves with their own deeds?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so before tonight.” Before Charlotte tore his heart in two with her brutal words. Now he was thinking quickly, dispassionately, the way he’d been trained to, with self-preservation foremost in his mind to hold back the anguish building behind it.
“We need to protect you, Max. We need to see to that before anything else. So I need you to do something for me tonight. Something that will let them know they can’t spit on you without consequence. Something that will teach them both about loyalty and love. I know you won’t let me down. I know you would rather die than fail me. We’ll show them how wrong they were to think they could turn us against each other.”
“Anything you want, Jimmy,” came the soft response threaded with steel. “Anything you want.”
“SO HE SENT you,” Mary Kate Malone said casually as she wrapped her tea bag around her spoon.
“For an answer,” Max said quietly as he slipped from the shadows to stand on the other side of her table.
“Did he tell you the question?”
“No.”
“Do you want to know it?”
“No.”
Mary Kate studied his hard features for a moment until she could get her fear under control. It was time for an atonement. Time to pay for her vanity and her pride. When she spoke, her voice was soothing, serene. “I guess there’s not much more to say then, is there?”
“What’s your answer?”
“He knew my answer before he sent you.” She took her time, stirring in milk and sugar. “I’ve done things in the past and even just today that are weak and cowardly, and I ask forgiveness for them. When Charlotte and I were taken, all I could think was, why me? Why were they taking me? I would have let them take her. If they’d opened that door for me, I would have run from there without ever looking back.”
“But not Charlotte.”
“No. Never Charlotte. She never runs from anything. Except maybe her feelings for you.”
Max said nothing.
“I would have given you up to save myself and to save her. I would have done it without a second thought.”
“It’s all right. I understand.” And he did, even though he was surprised to hear her admit to it. He understood that kind of fierce love and loyalty. It’s why he was here: to prove himself to a man who’d given him everything. To redeem himself even though Jimmy had said it was unnecessary. But obedience was the only way he could repay his debt to the man who’d saved his life, who’d pulled him from a nightmare with the simple offer of his hand. A hand he’d slapped away when taking a sideways step to rescue these two women. He didn’t regret that action, but he’d make amends for it now.
Mary Kate’s calm blue eyes lifted to his. “Do you forgive me?”
“Yes.”
Distress filled her eyes. “Watch over her for me, Max. She needs someone to rein her in, to remind her to smile, to tell her it’s all right to care. Love her. She has no one else.”
A pained remorse jabbed through him. “I can’t promise that.”
She sighed. It was too much to ask of him now. She’d lost him. That tentative regard they’d held for each other no longer softened his stare. It cut through her like a laser, cold, clear, and hard. Whatever Jimmy had said or done, he’d managed to jerk him up short and bring him to heel.
“Fair enough. I won’t keep you waiting, then.” She picked up her teacup and carried it to the counter, then she turned to face him. Her expression, so defiant and enraged, reminded him of that tattered girl who’d dumped gasoline over the remains of her abusers. “Tell him the answer is no. Not only no, but hell no. Tell him that smart and brave aren’t always the same thing. I’m not going to let him scare me into letting Charlotte down. For once, I’m going to be brave for her. I plan to fight him with everything I have.”
“I’ll tell him.”
She held his gaze for a long, silent moment. She knew he wasn’t there just to relay a message. Jimmy Legere sent Max Savoie to rid him of problems. And she’d carelessly let herself become one. She’d callously used Max to spit in the old man’s eye, because he was one of them, one of Legere’s vicious minions who deserved no sympathy or respect. And he’d been so easy to manipulate, torn up by guilt and grief and by whatever strange affection he held for her best friend. He let himself be subtly turned against Legere by exacting her revenge.
That was over now. Legere had him back under his control and had sent him there to kill her.
And once that was accomplished, he would own Max’s soul.
She knew he had one, no matter how dark and troubled it was.
She didn’t expect to feel regret, but it was a bittersweet burden to carry with her. She should have protected Max. She should have had a care for him, but she’d been too lost in her own fury, her own retribution. Max had roared to their rescue, snatching them from a hell no one should have to suffer. And he’d become her Saint Michael, her avenging sword, punishing those who preyed upon lost and frightened victims.
Why hadn’t she realized until now that Max was one of those who’d needed her to save him?
And now it was too late. In taking her life at Legere’s command, he would forfeit his own. The only thing that could pull him back from that black void of self-destruction was his love for Charlotte.
“Don’t let him hurt her, Max. I wish I were strong enough to keep her safe. I wish I were as strong as she always has been. But you are. You can protect her for me. That’s all I ask for myself.” She took a jagged breath, then said softly, “Tell Charlotte my thoughts were of her.”
“I will.”
Was he saying yes to all or just to that last request? There was no answer in his unblinking stare.
Before she lost her courage, she turned her back to him, leaning her elbows on the edge of the sink, trying to keep her knees from shaking as she folded her hands and silently recited the rosary. She never heard him move, but the awareness of him right behind gave her a sudden start. Then her fear was gone. He would make it quick. He would do that much for her.
He leaned close, touching a light kiss to the scar on her cheek.
“Say a prayer for me.”
She stood for long minutes, waiting. Then the wondering got the better of her, and she turned to face an empty room.
Her breath expelled in a shaky relief that was short-lived. Jimmy Legere wasn’t about to let this go. He wasn’t going to forget and forgive—not her, not Charlotte, and now, not Max. And he would strike viciously at the weakest link among the three of them to break the other two. She knew herself to be that weak spot, and what Max hadn
’t been able to finish would be picked up by another, crueler hand. The kind of hand she could never suffer under again. Then Charlotte would come charging in to protect her, flying into the teeth of danger. And Jimmy Legere would crush her.
Terror and fury tangled up into a panic. The need to escape Legere’s retribution, to protect the one close enough to her heart to be considered family, pounded deep and desperate. What could she do to keep Legere from winning a brutal victory over both of them again? He’d stolen their innocence, their security, their ability to love and be loved.
No more. He wouldn’t use her as the means to strike out at her dearest friend. She wouldn’t allow herself to be the bait to lure Charlotte to her own rash destruction.
As she paced and thought and tried to pray, one solution kept returning to her fevered mind. One horrible, final conclusion that would expiate all her sins and all her debts to those she loved.
A sacrifice that offered escape from what she feared more than death, and which promised a bittersweet revenge.
Eleven
THE SOUND OF Porky and Baco madly thumping around their cage woke Charlotte. A glance at her clock told her it was just past eleven. Lightning strobed in the distance and she looked forward to a cooling rain. She closed her eyes, about to let go again, when the pigs began a frantic wheeking.
She was off the bed and grabbing up her gun in the same motion.
The living room was dark. A hot breeze came in through the open balcony doors. Odd, she thought she’d closed them. She headed across the room.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” Max said.
She clutched at her chest. With a fierce curse, she sought him out in the deep shadows. He was sitting on her couch, feet together, hands on his knees as if he were outside a principal’s office waiting to be expelled.
“Max, you scared me out of ten years! Stop doing that.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here. I know you don’t want me here. I just couldn’t think . . . I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Max, what’s wrong?”
“There was something I was sent to do tonight.”
She took a quick breath, her hand tightening on her revolver, as she was reminded with an icy chill of who and what he was. “Did Jimmy send you to kill me, Max?”
His eyes glittered in the darkness as he continued to speak in the same emotionless voice. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t talk to you about it. I can’t go back. I can’t go home. There’s no place for me now. You’re the only person I know. How sad is that? The only person I know, and you couldn’t give a damn about what happens to me.”
“What are you talking about?” She set her gun down and went to kneel in front of him, instinctively rubbing his knees in a consoling manner. “What’s happened?”
Max sank back into the couch cushions, drawing his feet up, hugging to his knees so she wouldn’t touch them. He stared straight ahead, not at her. “He’s going to kill me. He’ll have to now. He won’t want to, but he won’t have a choice. I didn’t leave him a choice.”
A shiver ran through her, but she dismissed his claim with a shake of her head. “Jimmy? That mean old bird loves only one thing more than his money and power, and that’s you, Max. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I can’t go back. I’ve never been anywhere else. I don’t have anything of my own. I don’t have enough in my pockets for a streetcar token. I don’t know what to do. What am I going to do?”
He was scaring her. She eased her hands over his. He clutched tight, then pulled away, crossing his arms over his chest, making his hands unavailable under his armpits.
“You’ll stay here, Max.” she said firmly. “At least for tonight. We’ll worry about the rest tomorrow.”
Though she didn’t believe for a minute that Jimmy Legere was going to kill him for some infraction, he believed it, so she had to take it seriously. What had he done? What could be huge enough for him to seek refuge at her door? The cool cop part of her mind whispered, And how can I use it against Legere? Max Savoie knew Jimmy’s every move, his every secret. In saving Max from Legere, she’d be within reach of her own revenge.
“You’re safe here, Max. You’re safe with me.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and she was sure he could see right into the clever workings of her mind. But she wouldn’t let guilt keep her from taking the chance to get Legere. She hadn’t tried to lure Max from him; she hadn’t used tricks or lies. She’d done everything she could to separate her feelings for him from the job she was doing.
But here he was, of his own accord. He’d come to her. He’d made his choice. Elation quivered through her, a thrill that had nothing to do with gaining an advantage over her enemy. He’d chosen her. Perhaps only out of desperation, but it was a start. And she could have him, and Legere. If she could earn the trust of this cautious creature.
“Stay,” she told him softly.
He was so wary, so oddly distant. “I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t involve you.”
“I thought we were already involved.” She smiled, trying to relieve the tension pulling through him.
His smile in return was complex. “So did I.”
“You’re safe here.” She palmed the side of his face. He leaned into her touch for a brief moment, then turned his head away. “Stay here,” she repeated more strongly, rubbing his arms until he nodded.
“Okay. I’ll just stay out here on the couch.”
That wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind, but because of the distress and distrust she could feel churning inside him, she agreed, “If that’s what you want.”
She adjusted her thinking, considering him not as a man, but as a wounded wild thing who’d come to her for comfort. If she came on too strong, he’d run. And if he ran, and he was right about his break with Legere, she could be sending him into danger. How desperate and alone he must be feeling, to have everything familiar stripped away. She was all he had, and she would not let him regret coming to her. So she would be as careful with him as he’d once been with her.
“Let’s get these shoes off you. This sofa is the only nice thing I have.” She started unlacing his high-tops. Armani and Converse—Max Savoie was a study in nonconformity, right down to the strangely passive-aggressive role he played with Jimmy Legere. Jimmy had to be crazy to let him go, to dismiss his love, his devotion. She would not make that same mistake. She weighed the size 12s in her hands. “The measure of a man is in his shoes.”
“What did you say?”
“Just something Jimmy told me.” She set the shoes aside and gently massaged his toes. “Are you going to be all right out here by yourself?”
“I’m a big boy, detective. Of all the things out there hiding in the dark, I’m probably the scariest. I just need a place to sleep. I’ll be out of your hair in the morning.” He was smiling slightly, but there was tremendous sadness in his tone.
“What if I want you in my hair and on my couch a while longer?” she teased, worried even more, especially when she reached out to touch his face and he winced back to avoid contact.
“You’ll get used to the disappointment.”
What was wrong with him? Where was the urgent lover who’d kept her up all night, the sweetly eager suitor who’d tangled about her feet with adoration? “You know where I’ll be if you need anything.” If you need me.
“Yes. I do.”
He just watched her with those empty eyes until she swore softly. Cupping the back of his head so he couldn’t pull away, she leaned in to brush her cheek against his. He didn’t move. He didn’t take a breath. Not until she touched her lips to the corner of his eye. Then he exhaled in a noisy shiver. She eased back.
“Good night, Max.”
“Thank you.”
On her way to her room, something started to bother her, nagging at the back of her tired brain. She frowned, then it struck her like a shotgun blast. “That son of a bitch!”
She marched back into the living room, snappin
g on a light. Max flinched from the brightness but finally looked up at her. His face was set in raw lines, all sharp angles and hollows.
“The bastard played you that tape, didn’t he?”
Something sparked in his eyes, but then they returned to the unblinking pale jade. His voice was equally hard. “Which tape? The one with you stating I was a stepping-stone fuck on your way to Jimmy Legere? Don’t look so distressed, detective; it wasn’t a surprise. I’m not stupid. I never expected you to care for me. I just didn’t expect to hear myself being rated as one rung on a long ladder.”
She heard the anger, hurt, and humiliation rumbling just below the surface chill. “And you believe that?”
He gave a harsh laugh. “I’m not the one who said it to her partner.” He took a quick breath, then another. “Are you going to tell me it’s not true?” He waited, his glare both challenging and pleading.
“Of course it’s true.”
That sucked the wind from him for a long second, then his jaw firmed into a solid granite wall. “Care to tell me where my rung was in your grander scheme of things?”
“At the top, Max. No one’s closer to Legere than you are. What did you expect? That I wouldn’t look through your mail and eavesdrop on your calls? That I wouldn’t take advantage of the time I spend with you to keep my eyes and ears open?” Temper stirred in her own voice.
Because Jimmy had shattered his trust. Because she’d knowingly put herself into this position to hurt him. So there was nothing to do but brazen it out with arrogant dignity. “This goes beyond me being a cop, and you know it. It doesn’t get more personal than me and Jimmy. I’ve never kept that from you. I want his head on a plate. He’s responsible for what happened to me and Mary Kate. He’s behind my father’s death. I’m going to make him pay for those things if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
“Thank you for your honesty,” he said stiffly, over a boiling cauldron of emotions.
“I’m not finished. Would I tease you to keep you interested? You betcha. Would I spend time with you hoping to learn something important? Yes, I would. Would I let you put your tongue in my mouth and your hand up my skirt so I could bang another nail in his coffin? What do you think that answer is, Mr. I’m-not-stupid?”