She lowered her head, letting her brown hair spill forward to hide her face. Home sounded good: a hot bath, a long soothing drink, a couple of aspirin, her favorite flannel nightgown, and a long sleep. But that wasn't what she wanted. And she'd take the trade, even knowing she wasn't getting all of the man.
She shook her hair back decisively. "I don't want to go home," she said.
The play of emotion across his face encouraged her; she might get more than she hoped or bargained for. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes."
They were awakened by the buzzing of the alarm clock. Cathy couldn't orient herself for a minute. The bed rocked to movements not her own, then the noise stopped. She rolled to see what he looked like in the stark light of the morning after.
She wasn't disappointed. She'd noticed before that, when Peter's hair was uncombed, it didn't just flop, it flopped in several directions at once. His eyes were bleary and unfocused. Considering the thickness of his glasses, he probably couldn't see much without them. But even without the contact lenses, his eyes were still a deep, clear green in color. The blond morning stubble rasped her chin when she leaned over to kiss him.
He reached back to the table next to the bed and put on his glasses. They didn't improve his looks, but did allow him to see her expression. He grinned at her reaction. "I know, but when I have a beautiful woman in my bed, it's a waste not to be able to see her."
She saw him wince as he shifted position and asked, "How's the shoulder?"
"Sore; very sore." He moved it experimentally. "Still usable, though. A few more aspirin should take care of it."
"Why did the alarm go off?"
"It resets itself automatically. I usually remember to shut if off on Friday nights. Last night I was bit distracted. Do you want to go back to sleep?"
"Not really."
"Good.”
Sometime later they got up and faced the problem of breakfast. Cathy couldn't take the thought of another bowl of Grape-Nuts. "If you'll lend me your car," she offered, "I'll go home, shower, change and have breakfast, then come back to go to the junkyard."
She could read Peter's lack of enthusiasm and had no trouble guessing the reason. "I've driven your car once before," she said. "It survived the shock."
He gave in gracefully, visibly chagrined by his possessiveness. It took her just over an hour to fix breakfast, shower, and dress in faded jeans, brilliant blue tee shirt, and tennis shoes. As she'd anticipated, Peter's idea of rough dressing was somewhat different. He wore close-fitting jeans, a green knit polo shirt with a reptile sewn over the pocket, and running shoes. Informality meant he left the top two buttons on the shirt undone.
He greeted the return of his car with undisguised relief, but neither of them made any comment on it. "I called Mrs. Stark," he said, "and asked her to tell Danny we'd be by at nine to talk to him. She said she'd get him up. I want to know whether he let something slip."
Cathy nodded and accepted his offer of another cup of coffee.
Danny was waiting when they got to his home at a few minutes past nine. He sat on the steps leading up to the small front porch, looking young and disreputable. His straight brown hair was uncombed, he hadn't shaved, his jeans' better days had been many years ago, and his sleeveless tee shirt bore the name and picture of a punk rock group. A ginger cat threaded its way in and out around his legs. He watched them get out of the car with his usual level, expressionless stare.
He reached down to scratch the cat's ears while they walked toward him, and Cathy saw the flicker of surprise, or possibly shock, cross his face when he spotted their injuries. His expression didn't reveal anything more, but she noticed his eyes wandered several times to the scrape and bruise on the side of her face.
"What happened to you?" he asked before they'd even said hello.
"Someone tried to remove me from the picture and kidnap Miss Bennett last night," Peter stated.
Another flicker came and went, and Danny's eyes met each of theirs briefly. "Remove you?"
"With a club across the back of my head. Fortunately, he missed."
"Why?"
"Presumably so I wouldn't interfere with their attempt to grab Miss Bennett," Peter answered.
The cat, tired of being ignored, crawled into Danny's lap and put a paw on his arm. The boy scratched its stomach. "Why Miss Bennett?"
"We were hoping you could explain that," Peter said harshly. Danny looked up, surprised, and Peter continued, "Did you tell anyone, anyone at all, that Miss Bennett knew where Bobby had hidden his evidence?"
The boy let his eyes drop to the cat and continued to scratch around its throat and ears. Something in the rigidity of his body said Peter was right. Danny confirmed it when he looked up, eyes defiantly bright, and nodded.
"Where, when, and who," Peter demanded.
"At Andy's. Thursday night."
"You went back to that place?"
"Some of the guys wanted to go there after work."
Peter shook his head in disbelief. "And you went with them."
Danny shrugged.
"Go on," Peter urged.
There was a pause while Danny stared at the cat. "We met some other guys, and they got on my case about going on trial and going to prison and all. So, like, I finally got... tired of it and told them I wasn't going to prison because there was a lady who had proof I didn't do it. They asked me who the lady was. I didn't name names; just said she worked for a newspaper. That's all. I know I shouldn't've said nothing but they were really riding me. I'm sorry, Miss Bennett."
He looked directly at Cathy and, for a moment, she saw regret in his eyes. It was engulfed quickly back to defiance when Peter spoke. "What were their names?"
Danny reeled off several, none of which were familiar. Cathy pulled out her pen and pad and wrote them down.
"You damned idiot," Peter growled. Cathy could see the effort it cost him to control his explosive anger. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
Danny didn't answer, but the hand scratching the cat stopped moving; his face went as blank as a bare concrete wall.
"Have you any idea the kind of danger you've put Miss Bennett in?" Peter asked.
Danny still said nothing, but he swung around to look at Cathy, and she saw his eyes rest on the bruise again. His continued silence infuriated Peter even further. The lawyer didn't raise his voice, but the coldness of his rage made it all the more intimidating. "The men who jumped us last night weren't fooling around. If the club had hit me squarely the way it was supposed to, I might well be dead. And one of them held a gun on Miss Bennett! They wanted her and they weren't concerned with being gentle. How do you think they'd go about getting the information they want from her? I'll guarantee they weren't planning to ask politely. And they certainly wouldn't take 'no' for an answer."
Danny continued to watch Peter with onyx-hard eyes. Then he looked at Cathy again, and she saw his mouth twist briefly. For a moment, the expressionless mask slipped, and despite her own anger and fear, she felt a pang of sympathy for the boy. She turned to Peter and started to tell him to back off, but Danny acted first. He stood up and faced the attorney tensely, his face closed in on itself again, eyes hard and bright. The cat jumped out of the way.
"I said I was sorry." It wasn't so loud the entire neighborhood would hear, but loud enough anyway. "What do you want me to do? Come crawling to your feet? I ain't... I can't... " He seemed to choke on the words, helpless in his inarticulate fury and frustration. One more attempt to speak produced nothing comprehensible. He whirled and charged back into the house, slamming the front door behind him.
Cathy and Peter watched for a moment. Danny didn't reappear, but neither of them expected he would. Peter started forward, to go up the steps, but Cathy shook her head. "He's had all he can take right now. Give him some time."
-23-
Saturday - Sunday
"Was I too hard on him?" Peter asked when they were back in the car. "I wanted to strangle him; it took all
my self-control just to keep my hands off."
"I know." Cathy shrugged. "He deserved everything you said and probably more. He can be infuriating. But for a minute back there, his guard slipped, and I saw... a lot of things. He isn't as indifferent as he pretends. And his anger was directed at himself as much as at you; he turned it outward because he didn't know what else to do with it. Your tongue-lashing hurt, but he knows he earned it. Still, it hurt all the more because it came from you."
"I don't follow. Why me?"
She looked at him in surprise, and saw that he really didn't know. "Because he admires you, almost to the point of hero worship."
No question about it, Peter was astonished. And not particularly pleased. "Oh, Lord, are you sure?"
"Yes."
He was silent for a minute, absorbing the impact of her words. "Damn," he said at last.
"I know," she agreed.
"I don't need this. I'm not a hero or a god; I'm just a man, and God knows I've got plenty of faults to prove it. I don't want anyone worshipping me; I don't think I can cope with it."
"You don't have any choice. His admiration has nothing to do with whether you want it, and little to do with whether you deserve it. But I don't think you need to worry about living up to it. Just go on doing what you've been doing—even calling him down when he needs it. He'll resent it at the time, but I don't think he'll hold it against you as long as you make it clear you don't hold his mistakes against him." Cathy realized she was lecturing. "Advice from Mother Bennett," she added sheepishly.
"You seem to know a lot about boys," he commented. "Where did you acquire all this wisdom?"
"I have four younger brothers. Watching them grow was an education."
"I'll bet." Peter realized he wasn't paying much attention to his driving or where they were going. "Where is this place?" he asked.
"Keep going. You're on the right road. Left at the traffic light, then several miles down on the left."
He nodded and filed away her directions. "What do you think I should do about Danny?"
"Give him time to cool down," she suggested, "then talk to him later. Tonight or tomorrow maybe. But leave me out of it, my being there only makes it worse. Let him know you're not giving up on him because he's made another mistake. I think he needs to hear that."
Peter drove in thoughtful silence until she pointed to the parts shop, looming ahead on the left. He pulled into the parking lot, stopped, got out, helped her out, then went around the car to extract a tool box from the trunk.
She hadn't warned him about the place, partly to enjoy the sight of his reaction. It was all she'd hoped for. They could hear the uproar of chittering birds well before they got to the door, and Peter looked at her dubiously. She gave him what she hoped was a mysterious smile and nodded for him to go in.
He stopped in astonishment just inside the door, looking around the room. Most of the birds ignored the intruders, climbing or flapping around their cages. Some watched warily. The noise was incredible.
Ike popped out from behind the curtained doorway, granting a leprechaun's grin when he recognized Cathy. "Miss Bennett, isn't it?"
"Right," she agreed. "This is Peter Lowell, the friend I told you about." Ike shook hands with Peter, then turned and looked her up and down.
"See you dressed sensibly," he said. "Worried about them heels you had on last time. Don't need no lawsuits at my age. Especially since you got your own lawyer in tow." He caught her surprised look and chuckled. "I read the newspapers and my memory's good, even at my age. Never forget a name, and I've seen Mr. Peter Lowell in the paper a few times."
She enjoyed Peter's astonishment; it was rare to see him at a loss. "I'm flattered you should recognize my name," he said.
"No flattery," Ike stated. "I just remember what I read." He looked at the tool box Peter held. "Guess you want to get started. Don't let me hold you up. Can I do anything to help?"
"I don't think so, but thank you, Ike," Cathy answered, then a thought occurred to her. "Has anyone come in asking about air conditioners or air vents since I was here?"
"Not a soul," he answered. "Been hardly anyone here at all." He sighed. "Lonely. I miss Bobby coming out."
Cathy nodded in sympathy, then led Peter out into the yard. She saw him take in the extent of the junk. "Good night! This could take all week," he commented, picking up a tangle of wires and metal which had once been a waffle iron.
"I don't think we need to look at anything but the air conditioners and vents and duct work," she said reassuringly. The words didn't have the desired effect.
"Nothing but? There're three days' worth of air conditioners alone."
"No way. In any case, we won't get anywhere standing here staring at it. I suggest we start on this side and work our way to that."
He sighed. "All right. You take this half of the yard; I'll take the other. We'll meet at the fence. Have you got a set of screwdrivers? And gloves?"
She pulled a pair of work gloves out of the back pocket of her jeans, but her tools were still in the trunk of her car. Peter reached into his box and fished out an extra set of screwdrivers.
She started by looking into several lengths of duct piled on the ground near the fence. All they contained was a thick layer of grime and several species of insect life. She dropped them hastily. Not much intimidated her, but spiders were near the top of the list.
She tackled her first air conditioner next. It was an old model, crudely built and rusty. It seemed unlikely anyone had touched it in years, but she couldn't dismiss the possibility, so she set to work with the screwdriver, prying the front off the machine to look inside. There wasn't much to see: a tangled roll of wires, metal blades of the fan, some other gorpy items of unknown purpose. Nothing that hadn't been in there a year ago, except perhaps the skeleton of a dead rodent. She replaced the front and screws.
The work didn't get any more pleasant. She continued to find evidence of nature's ability to adapt to man's rearrangement of the environment. The insect life was astonishingly various, but aside from the spiders, she had no objections to them, though she hoped there weren't any wasp nests waiting.
Two toads hopped away from an abandoned ice chest before she drew near, and a mouse fled in terror from an air vent when she rolled it over. The snakes nearly did her in, though. A family of them holed up cozily inside a small Carrier air conditioner. The sight of the wriggling black bodies and nasty little eyes made her scream and drop the cover she'd just removed.
Her shriek brought a worried Peter hurrying to her side. "What's the matter?"
She gulped and pointed. "Snakes."
He crouched to look inside and grinned. "They look comfortable in there, don't they? No, don't worry, they're harmless." His words didn't restore her calm, so he stood and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her. It felt good, comforting to be held that way, feeling the strong, steady beat of his heart. She was vaguely disgusted with her own desire to cling, but not enough to break the embrace. They stood like that for quite a while, until Cathy finally worked up the spirit to back off and give him an embarrassed smile.
"Sorry," she said. "I don't usually go to pieces at the sight of a snake."
"It was the surprise I expect," he allowed generously. "No need to apologize, it made a pleasant change. Did you know you're beautiful even with dirt on your nose? Good lord, don't do that; you're only making it worse."
She quit trying to rub the grime off her face. She found she was staring into his eyes, fascinated by the warm green light in them. When he leaned to kiss her, she was prepared to respond enthusiastically, until some stray sound reminded them where they were and why. They broke apart reluctantly.
"Break's over," he commented. "Back to work." He pointed to the air conditioner hosting the snake family. "It's a safe bet nothing's hidden in there. Leave it alone."
"I will, but I wonder what else lurks in this pile of condos for creepy-crawlies?"
She enjoyed the sound of his laug
hter. That and the feel of his arms around her remained as she continued the dirty, annoying work of searching the junk pile. Her unruly thoughts kept straying back to last night. Though she'd already noted that he seemed to be good at whatever he attempted, making love definitely made it to the list.
She drew back from her own thoughts, surprised, shocked, and scared by the strength of the feelings she was indulging. Not just the physical passion, though that was fierce enough. The depth of her emotional involvement worried her. She wasn't afraid of being in love with a man, but he was the wrong man. Legally, he might be free, but the past still bound him in chains of fear and remembered pain. She indulged a few minutes' knife-edged fury at the absent Sharon for what she'd done to him, but it didn't last long. Peter himself had admitted he shared the blame and, in all honesty, Cathy knew he was right. Still, he seemed to have done more than his share of suffering for it.
She threw down another empty piece of duct work, berating herself for being every kind of fool. She saw no future for their relationship unless he could let the past go and that was unlikely. The pain went deep.
The day grew hotter as time moved on and she worked her way across the yard. Along with the feeling of being dirty and sticky, and the uncomfortable musings on her relationship with Peter, the dwindling supply of possible hiding places dragged at her spirits. By noon, there weren't many places left and they'd turned up nothing. She'd pinned a lot of hope on finding the evidence here. The fading of that hope left depression in its wake.
As she drew near the end, she looked at Peter to see how he was doing. He caught her glance and returned it blankly. Her watch said twelve-thirty. The sun, high overhead, shot brilliant reflections off the rounded, silvery side of the old mobile home in the corner; the glare stabbed at her eyes, making her head start to ache. She was tempted to go inside the trailer and try to find a place to lie down for a while.
Another half hour's work finished all the places on her side of the yard and she gave up with a despairing sigh. Peter was still taking apart the last air conditioner on his side, and she walked over and plopped herself down on the ground nearby to watch. He got the top off and fished around inside, finally shook his head negatively.
A Question of Fire Page 17