Heart of a Hero

by Marie Ferrarella

  Dakota gathered up everything from the table and tossed it into the small, colorless wastepaper basket in the corner. It barely fit. Rusty was already making himself comfortable against a corner of the sofa. She nodded at the book in his hand. It had been a permanent part of her purse for the past two years.

  “You think reading that’ll help?”

  There was a lot here, he mused, flipping pages. Vincent obviously didn’t believe in being terse. Rusty glanced up at her. “It couldn’t hurt.”

  He began to read in earnest, trying to not think about the woman who was lying not ten feet away from him.

  Rusty had no recollection of dozing off, but he must have. The sound of weeping nudged its way into his consciousness, mixing with half-formed dreams of missing children and baby-faced prostitutes. Backlit by the panorama of lights, he saw Lisa walking toward him. She was sobbing pitifully, her body bruised and battered, her arms outstretched to him in supplication.

  With each step she took, her face changed a little, reforming by degrees until by the time she reached him, she was no longer the girl he’d tried to help tonight, but the woman.

  Dakota. Dakota was crying. Pleading.

  His eyes flew open, the gritty residue of sleep clinging to his lids. The pain in his neck registered somewhere on the perimeter of his consciousness as he searched for the actual source of the sound.

  It hadn’t been a dream. It was Dakota. She was asleep on the bed, the comforter gathered around her, her body bunched into an almost fetal position. And she was crying.

  “No. Get away from me. Please. No. Don’t. Please, Jamie, don’t. No!”

  The agony and terror in her voice tore his heart. Rusty was on his feet immediately, the diary falling from his lap to the floor. He almost stepped on it, hurrying to her.

  “Dakota, wake up, you’re having a nightmare.” The words didn’t seem to penetrate the heavy drape of sleep surrounding her. Placing his hand on her shoulder, he shook it gently. “Dakota.”

  She shrieked then, twisting and turning away from his touch. Bolting upright, she shrank back against the headboard as if she were trying to climb away. Her eyes were wide, unseeing and panicky. The sound of her heavy, shaky breathing filled the room.

  “Dakota, it’s me, Rusty. Wake up. It was just a bad dream.”

  Without thinking, wanting only to make her feel protected, secure, Rusty put his arms around her and pulled her to him, trying to comfort her any way he could.

  Enraged, still held fast by her dream, she began to beat on him. “Get away from me, Jamie, get away.”

  Rather than pull away, Rusty caught hold of her hands and held them in his. Who the hell was this Jamie and what had he done to her?

  “Dakota, it’s me, Rusty. Rusty, not Jamie. Nobody’s going to hurt you, do you understand?” he said firmly, then his voice softened. “I promise. Nobody’s going to hurt you,” he said as he released her.

  Reality began to seep in as the clouds of sleep faded from her brain. Her eyes focused on his face. On her surroundings. Shaking, Dakota gulped in air, struggling to pull herself together.

  It had been so real. Too real. Ten years had melted away tonight as the past and its buried horrors claimed her. It had been a long time since she’d had that nightmare. She felt as if everything was falling apart around her.

  “Right,” she finally managed to get out. “A bad dream.”

  But even as she said it, he knew it wasn’t true. It wasn’t just a bad dream. This nightmare had its roots in the past.

  “Want me to sit here and talk to you until you fall asleep again?” he asked gently.

  The offer coaxed a half smile from her. “Why? Are you planning on boring me to sleep?”

  “It’s been known to work.” He looked at her more closely, resisting the temptation to put his arms around her again. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  She was and she hated the way it made her seem. Weak. Vulnerable. Dakota wrapped her arms around herself. “Not very original, Andreini.”

  He wondered what it would take to get her to call him by his first name. “But accurate.” He looked at her. “Want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  She said it so emphatically that she confirmed his suspicions that it had been more than just a dream. She’d been reliving something. It didn’t take a genius to know she’d felt powerless against what was happening.

  Maybe Jamie had been some kind of a nickname she’d used for Vinny’s father. “Were you dreaming about Vincent?”

  “Vincent?” The question was so ludicrous, she stared at him, trying to comprehend how he’d gotten that idea. “No.” It was a trick to get her to open up, she realized. To spill her guts. Fat chance. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Though he gave the impression of being mild mannered, Rusty was not the type to back away easily. “Sometimes leaving things bottled up makes them worse. Like when you shake a can of soda. When you finally open it, it winds up exploding all over the place.”

  Did he think she was going to come unglued at the wrong moment? He didn’t know her very well. “Afraid of an explosion?”

  She was making a habit out of turning things around. “Just thinking of you.”

  She sniffed. Yeah, right. As if anyone had ever thought of her. Not even Vincent. If he had, he wouldn’t have lied to her about who he was. He wouldn’t have been at that restaurant the day he’d been killed.

  “Well, think of Vinny and how we get him back,” she retorted. She thought of what he’d said about his plan. “Or are you still making it up as you go along?”

  “Fifty-fifty.” He’d given it a lot more thought after she’d fallen asleep. “After I plant the bug, we listen for Vinny or for any mention of where Del Greco’s keeping him.”

  The urge to burst right into the crime lord’s house to search for her son was still with her. But Rusty was right. If Del Greco was keeping Vinny somewhere else, it would be pointless to enter the compound like that. Pointless and stupid.

  Reluctantly, she gave it her approval. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Unwilling to be sidetracked, Rusty studied her for a long moment. “Was it one of the foster fathers?”

  Anger flared within her. “Mind your own business.”

  His eyes never wavered from her face. “Right now, you and everything about the case is my business.”

  She glared at him. Slowly, the anger died away. What was the point of lying anymore? With a shrug, she shook her head.

  “Brother,” she corrected. “Foster brother. Jamie.” She repeated his name with all the venom that vermin like him deserved.

  He wanted to hold her, to tell her it was all right. That whatever had happened to her in the past wasn’t her fault. “Did he—”

  Her head jerked up, her eyes forbidding him to form the words. “What do you think?”

  He felt a sudden rage inside, a rage against predators that preyed on helpless children to satisfy their own twisted needs. But he knew that what she needed now was calm. “Did you tell anyone?”

  “Yes, I told someone.” Exasperation fueled the anger in her voice. “For all the good it did.”

  He sat beside her on the bed, his voice gentle, soothing. “What happened?”

  She wasn’t going to cry about that. Not after all this time. Damn Andreini for making her feel like crying. She struggled to divorce herself from the memory and from all the nights she’d lain in terror, waiting for him to come into her room again, a pipe she’d found at a construction site hidden under her pillow.

  “He was theirs, I wasn’t. They didn’t believe me.” The sigh that escaped was shaky. “He was so beautiful when I came to live with them. Tall and blond and he had this really nice smile. I was so flattered when he started paying attention to me.” She pressed her lips together. She’d been so stupid, she thought. “Until he began paying too much attention.”

  “What did you do when they didn’t believe you?”

  What could sh
e do? “I ran away. Except I wasn’t very good at it.” Her smile was rueful. “Social Services found me and brought me back. The situation got worse.” She touched no details, not even in her own mind. “So I ran away again.” She laughed shortly. “They found me again. Eventually, I got better at running away until one day, they didn’t find me. I’ve been on my own ever since.” At least she could sleep nights without worrying about someone coming in.

  Bile rose in Rusty’s throat. Jamie had raped her. Raped an innocent girl that tragedy had brought into his home. Wherever he was, he deserved to be drawn and quartered and then left to rot in hell. Anyone could see, despite her flippant remarks and behavior, that Jamie had left his mark on her.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” he told her gently.

  The effects of the nightmare lingered, reminding her of how awful she’d felt. How tainted. “It happened anyway.”

  He took her hands in his. This time, she didn’t resist. “But it wasn’t your fault, Dakota. And things happen. Good, bad, they happen and we have no control over them.”

  Ashamed of her lapse, she rallied. “Like kidnappings?” she asked cynically.

  He looked at her significantly. “Like falling for someone.”

  Feeling almost embarrassed, she withdrew her hands from his. “You always try to put a positive spin on everything?”

  He was guilty as charged and not ashamed of it. “Better than not.”

  “I suppose.” She dragged her hand through her hair and caught her reflection in the window. The world outside was swaddled in darkness. “God, I look like hell.”

  “Not hell,” he contradicted, smiling. “Purgatory, maybe.”

  She looked at him blankly for a second, then understood. “Oh, right. The halfway house between heaven and hell. I’m not sure whether I should be flattered or insulted.”

  “Positive, always pick the positive, remember?” He began to rise, then stopped. “My offer still stands. I can sit on the bed until you fall asleep again.”

  She felt silly for the scene she had caused. Except that it had seemed so real to her, so haunting. “Keeping watch over the crazy woman?”

  He countered her sarcasm with a fragment from his past. “My mother used to have nightmares.”

  She kept forgetting that they had that in common. Because he seemed so well adjusted, it was hard picturing Rusty with any turmoil in his life. “Was that because of your brother’s kidnapping?”

  He nodded. It had gone on for years, even after Chad had returned. When Mary Andreini wasn’t staying in a sanitarium. “I used to stay with her until she fell asleep.”

  “How old were you?”

  He shrugged, not remembering exactly. “Six, maybe seven.”

  She shook her head, a quiet laugh escaping her lips. The funny thing was, she could actually visualize him doing that. Sitting and holding his mother’s hands the way he’d tried to hold hers. Solemn-eyed. “Quite a switch, the little kid sitting up with his mother to make her feel safe.”

  He’d never thought about it much one way or another. It was just something he’d done. His mother had been in despair and he’d wanted to make her feel all right again. It was years before he’d understood that he never could. That his mother had slipped away into a world where ex-husbands didn’t kidnap sons and where things were safe and happy.

  He shrugged. “You do what you can when you love someone.”

  She waved him away. “I’ll be okay. You don’t have to stay and guard me.” Dakota slid back down on the bed, moving her arm under the pillow and bringing it closer to her. She heard him cross back to the sofa. “You can go on reading if you want,” she told him.

  He smiled to himself, knowing what she was saying. It was the only way she could save face and still have him stand guard, so to speak. “Thanks, I think I’ll do that. As long as you don’t mind.”

  Raising her head, she looked over her shoulder at him. The man knew.

  That he wasn’t rubbing her face in it or making a joke at her expense was more than a point in his favor.

  Without a word in response, she curled up and closed her eyes.

  This time she slept more peacefully.

  She woke up to the sound of his voice. It wasn’t entirely an unpleasant sensation, although she fought with disorientation for a moment.

  He was on the telephone, making arrangements with someone.

  It took her a second to realize that there was more than a glimmer of daylight pouring into the room. How long had she slept?

  He replaced the receiver in its cradle just as she sat up.

  “What time is it?” she demanded. There was a sour taste in her mouth that went with the heavy feeling in her heart. Vinny was still gone. Was she ever going to get him back?

  He’d checked his watch just before making the second call. “Almost eight.”

  “Almost eight?” she echoed.

  She never slept that late. Vinny was always up by seven, if not before. Her lack of sleep the night Vinny was kidnapped had caught up with her. She stumbled to her feet, abandoning the comforter she only vaguely realized he’d thrown over her.

  He’d shaven, she noticed. The faint stubble that had been coming in last night was gone. The unshaven look had made him seem a little more manly, more in control. “Shouldn’t we be—”

  “We are,” he replied, anticipating her question. “I’ve made arrangements to get a van so we don’t get crammed during surveillance and I’ve just talked to Detective Redhawk about getting information on Del Greco’s marketing habits.”

  He’d been busy. She still didn’t like the idea of the police—any police—being involved, but she bit back her protest. Andreini seemed to know what he was doing. “This policeman of yours, he’s on the night shift?”

  He’d gotten the number from Chad before leaving last night. His brother was friendly with the man and his wife. “I called him at his house.” He picked up on her wording. “And Graham Redhawk doesn’t belong to anyone, except for maybe his family and that god-awful pink Cadillac he’s had forever.”

  She thought of the ’64 blue-and-white Mustang in which he’d driven them to the airport. There’d been genuine affection in Andreini’s eyes when he’d looked at the vehicle. “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks.”

  He arched a brow. “If you’re referring to my Mustang, it’s a classic.”

  Dakota laughed. “I’m sure Detective Red Dog—”

  “Redhawk,” he corrected.

  The name had slipped her mind. “Redhawk,” she said, “thinks the same thing about his ‘god-awful pink Cadillac.’” She shifted her focus, growing serious again. “More importantly, do you think he’ll help?”

  “He already said he would.” He liked the way the smile, tinged with relief, slipped over her lips. “Gray’s a straight arrow—no pun intended—but he figures there comes a time when you have to bend a few rules to catch the bad guys, and in his opinion there are no criminals worse than kidnappers.”

  She ran her hand through her hair, trying to fluff it up. It felt plastered to her head. And somehow, it mattered that she didn’t look like walking death when he looked at her. “And in your opinion?”

  There was no hesitation. “I agree with Gray.” And then he looked at her, remembering the anguish in her sobs. “Except that maybe I’d put guys who force themselves on little girls first.”

  She flushed. There was nothing she hated more than pity. “Look, about what happened last night—I don’t want you feeling sorry for me.”

  He spread his hands in a show of mystification. “Never occurred to me. I always thought that feeling sorry was a waste of positive energy.”

  She wasn’t sure he was telling her the truth, but she appreciated the effort. “As long as we understand each other.”

  He had a ways to go before that happened, he thought, but he was trying.

  He also needed, he thought, to get out of this small, confining space because having her so close was punching small ho
les in his resolve. And a man had only so much of that to go around.

  “Want to get some breakfast?”

  She looked at the telephone on the scarred coffee table beside the sofa. “Shouldn’t you be here in case he calls back with results?”

  Rusty patted his pocket. “I gave him my cell phone number. Besides, it should take him at least a couple of hours to wade through the reading material before he comes across something as insignificant as what supermarket Del Greco trusts to get his order right.”

  There was a vague movement in the pit of her stomach that she took to indicate hunger. Yes, she wanted breakfast. She wanted other things, as well. The fact that she could even acknowledge the growing attraction she felt toward Andreini made her feel like a terrible mother.

  A terrible mother who needed a shower. She looked toward the bathroom uncertainly.

  He read her thoughts easily enough. “Why don’t you take a shower first?” he suggested. He saw the wary light come into her eyes. She’d slept in her clothes last night, no doubt as a precaution. “The bathroom door’s got a lock on it.”

  That didn’t make her feel any more secure. “Locks can be picked.”

  “And doors can be broken down,” he pointed out. “But it’s not going to happen.” He looked her squarely in the eyes. “You’re really going to have to trust me at some point, Dakota.”

  Her attraction not withstanding, she wasn’t a fool. Dakota held up an index finger. “Up to a point,” she clarified.

  His gaze never wavered. “This might be a good place to start.”

  She could use a shower. “All right. But I know Akido.” She cited a new form of martial arts she was only vaguely aware of. What she did know was how to deliver a paralyzing blow to where it really hurt, but she figured that the martial arts reference sounded far more in control.

  “I’d like a demonstration sometime,” he told her mildly, then added with a grin, “From a safe distance away, of course.”

  Having little choice if she wanted to get clean, Dakota decided to trust him for the duration of the shower. But she still locked the door. Just in case.