Vince must have been thinking the same thing. “Without you I would have never made it through school, so you’ll get perks as long as you want them because I appreciate everything you’ve done. Helping Courtney is just what the doctor orders.”
“Keep your perks to yourself, doc.” Marc shoved up from the table, leaning heavily on the cane. He was done.
Vince frowned. Their mother hovered behind him, patting his shoulder consolingly. She cut Damon dead with a sharp, “You better think twice before you open that mouth.”
Damon’s mouth snapped shut before he uttered a word, taking their mother’s advice for once.
This damned family. Marc was done with being at their mercy.
Levering his weight onto his cane, he stood. For one shining moment, he felt some semblance of control, empowered almost, as he stared down at everyone seated before him, waiting expectantly for his next move.
“Courtney,” he said, and met her surprised gaze. “You’ll provide a place to work and transportation.”
Her eyes widened, but she nodded.
“And pay my premium?”
She didn’t even blink. “Yes.”
Marc wasn’t surprised. She came from money. Otherwise she would wait for the FBI like most law-abiding citizens. He chased people like her—the ones with enough money to think rules didn’t apply to them. They broke laws, and if they were stupid enough to get caught, they had the means to try to escape paying the price.
Those were the skips he brought to justice.
This case would be different, but given his present circumstances...
Marc motioned to the door. “Then you’re on. Let’s go.”
He began his trek across the kitchen. He headed down the hallway and didn’t stop until he got to the front door. He didn’t need anything. Not his wallet. Not money. Not a damned house key.
The spare was kept under the porch swing if he needed to get in when his mother wasn’t home. Courtney could drive him if he did. His cell phone and painkillers were in his pocket.
All he needed was out of this house.
* * *
“GO, GO, GO!” Mama said urgently under her breath.
Courtney stood and reached for her plate, unsure. “That was coercion. You all were merciless.”
“Just another day in the DiLeo house.” Vince shrugged and dug his fork into the pasta.
“Better hurry or Gimpy might get away.” Anthony gestured that she follow.
“Leave the plate,” Mama commanded. “Go.”
So Courtney could face the resentful man who’d been bullied into helping her? Why had this seemed like a good idea again?
Hurrying from the kitchen, she saw the door wide open and Marc making his way across the yard. From behind, he could have been any one of his brothers, any one of the broad-shouldered, tawny-haired Italian boys with the big laughs and bear-hug welcomes.
Except for the cane. And the attitude. And the fact that she actually liked all the other DiLeo brothers.
Marc must have heard her approach because he said, “Can you get to your car?”
“I’m parked on the street.”
“The Mini Cooper, right?” His tone made it clear he wouldn’t have expected anything else.
She quickly realized he would have trouble getting in and out of her small vehicle with a leg that didn’t bend easily. Covering the distance between them, she set her hand on his arm to stop him.
They needed to clear things up here and now.
“Marc,” she began, but when he glanced at her, the whiskey eyes all the DiLeo boys had inherited from their mother belonged to a stranger.
How had she not realized he was even taller than Anthony? She had misjudged the distance because suddenly she was too close, had to tip her head back to meet his stormy gaze.
The impulse to retreat a step hit hard, but Courtney stood her ground. “Listen, that didn’t go the way I expected in there. You don’t have to help me. Not unless you’re willing.”
“You don’t want to pay me?” he asked in that dark voice, throaty yet somehow smooth like molasses.
“No, that’s not it. It’s not the money.”
Something flickered deep in his gaze. She might not know this man well, but she knew his brothers. Every one quick-witted and a bit of a ballbreaker in his own way. Marc was making her uncomfortable and didn’t mind.
What was it about this man, the one and only DiLeo she didn’t absolutely adore?
“I don’t understand why you need to be rude, Marc. I know your family coerced you. I was there, remember? And if you remember correctly, I wanted your opinion. I never asked you to do anything.”
“I don’t come cheap.”
“It has nothing to do with your fee.”
“Your call, then. Pay me for my time and provide chauffeur services to everywhere I need to go, or let me get back to my busy day.”
The everywhere I need to go made red flags fly. Did he mean everywhere he needed to go to discover what had happened to Araceli or did he mean everywhere everywhere he needed to go?
Courtney didn’t ask. Ironically, she probably had less to do with her days than he did. And the only thing she cared about was finding Araceli.
“Getting you where you need to go is no problem,” she said. “I’ll make arrangements for a different vehicle if we need to do a lot of running around.”
“We’ll need to do a lot of running around.”
“No problem.” He was only trying to provoke her. She knew it, but she didn’t want him to think he could push her around. As she faced Marc’s somber expression, she suddenly felt as if her very life depended on standing up to this man.
So she stood there, gaze unwavering, though the effort cost. Her chest grew tight, making her breaths come in shallow bursts, but she refused to look away, refused to blink, even though her neck felt as if it might snap from keeping her head tilted.
“We’re good then.” He was the first to break. “You’ve hired yourself a bounty hunter. For what that’s worth nowadays.”
That said a lot about why Marc had resisted.
“Thank you.” She meant it.
He leaned heavily on his cane and repositioned himself in the springy grass, and Courtney suspected she hadn’t won that little battle of wills at all. Marc had probably only needed to move his injured leg so he didn’t topple over.
His physical limitations were all too evident as he made his way to the car and braced himself with a hand on the door frame to lower himself into the passenger seat. She held the door, watched the muscles bulge in his arm. His jaw tensed as if he fought the pain of bending his knee to wedge his big body into the compact compartment.
She opened her mouth to tell him to use the seat release, but he was already there. The seat jumped back with a metallic spring, and his expression eased.
She didn’t know what to say, so she circled the car, leaving him to pull the door shut himself. She had only meant to consult with this man, to be advised about how to proceed. Now she had her very own bounty hunter, broken though he was, and she had no clue about what came next.
He sat so close, his elbow propped on her console, his hand draped casually on a knee. Somehow he managed to fill up her spacious-for-a-compact-car interior, and she wasn’t sure what to say or do.
Drive...that much was a given.
Cranking the car, she slipped the shift into gear, feeling flustered and off-kilter. Driving away from the curb, Courtney was determined to find her center and regain control. “So what kind of place do you need to work? Let’s start there.”
“Standard office setup. Wi-Fi. Printer. Fax.”
Okay, great. “One office coming up.”
He didn’t reply, just stared ahead, so she drove along in silence, r
emembering what Mama had said about being an answer to a prayer. What had Mama wished for this son?
Courtney didn’t have a clue. Up until Marc’s protracted visit after his accident, she had seen him only a handful of times through the years. He was quiet, intense, brooding almost, and suddenly seemed to suck up more than his share of air.
CHAPTER FOUR
“HERE IT IS—Beatriz Ortero.” The librarian used the name I had gone by for years now. “I’ve been waiting for you to come in. I wanted to ask about your tutor. She hasn’t been in with you for a while.”
“Her schedule is nuts.” I didn’t sound too sure, even though I had known this question would come up sometime.
Not that I expected some random librarian to notice Debbie was gone. One of the neighbors maybe. Definitely one of the ladies at church if I had ever seen one. But I hadn’t run into any yet—thank God—and I hadn’t been back to our church since Debbie had gotten too sick to make it to services.
“She has conflict with an after-school program, so she makes me work online.” I sounded more certain this time, more casual. “She doesn’t want me to lose the habit of making a time and place to study. She calls it practicing for college.”
Had called it, anyway.
But the librarian was not interested, which made me wonder why she had noticed in the first place. Her gaze darted to the window as some kids passed the glass wall that separated this librarian from the others.
The queen on her throne.
No, that didn’t fit. This librarian in her bland-colored pants with her disapproving expression wasn’t regal as far as I was concerned. She was annoyed. That much I knew. Probably because the security guard hadn’t noticed the kids. He was too busy puffing up his chest at the pretty page who shelved books.
She finally turned back to me. “Will you please let your tutor know the paperwork needs to be renewed if you want to keep using the tutoring room?”
“Does she need to come in or do you want me to bring her the paperwork? She still has a few weeks left of the program.”
The librarian didn’t answer. Instead, she leaned over and searched through a desk drawer.
So I stood there and didn’t say anything, even when she glanced up as that same group of kids got noisy, jockeying to get through the teen room door.
The security guard still didn’t notice. When the librarian looked in his direction, her expression pinched, her angular features converging at an imaginary point in front of her face.
If I were to sketch her, I’d exaggerate her pointy features and add whiskers, turning her into the rat queen. Of course, she probably wouldn’t find anything to laugh about. But I would. And I had not had much laughter in me lately, so one smile might be worth getting stiffed a tip.
The image in my head smoothed away some of the worry. I just hoped this unhappy woman wouldn’t take out her unhappiness on me since I was around the same age as the noisy kids.
She withdrew the papers and handed them over. I smiled and said, “Thank you,” very politely, hoping to prove myself different than everyone else my age.
If I lost this tutoring room, I couldn’t get another. Not without an adult. I didn’t need a quiet place to study—my whole life was quiet without Debbie—but I would have trouble when I needed to present for one of my online classes. I needed some place to videotape, and I couldn’t invite anyone home. That would be breaking our most important rule.
Never ever let anyone know where we live.
Debbie had made me swear before she died never to break that rule. Not until I was eighteen. Not until I could make my own decisions, so I didn’t get caught in the legal system again.
Debbie trusted me to care for myself far more than she did the government, and had done everything possible to set up life so it would continue without her. She had bought four boxes of checks and had signed every single one so I could pay the rent and utility bill on time. She had set up auto-deposit on her trust fund, so it would continue to deposit monthly payments until someone figured out she had died.
“It’s not a lot,” she had said, “but it will be enough to cover the rent and that’s something.”
As always, Debbie had delivered even the most dismal news with a smile and jingly laughter. An angel. That’s how I always sketched her. With wings and a halo. My angel.
The memory made me ache. Even after all these months, the pain was still so big it stole my breath.
Most days I pretended Debbie was out on a church errand or running to the bank whenever her old uncle would surprise her with a check. Or that she’d been tired from the chemotherapy and had gone to bed before me. But little things, like this paper that needed a signature, got me every time. So I stood there waiting for the rat queen to find her keys, with my chest so tight I ached.
“Here we are.” She stood and led me from around her glass castle with quick steps.
The security guard straightened up as she passed, puffing his chest some more so the shiny buttons on his uniform glinted importantly, but the kids behind the windows of the teen room didn’t notice her. There was more laughter, still too loud, but she didn’t slow down until we reached the tutoring room.
After unlocking the door, she flipped on the light. I thanked her and unloaded my backpack. I only had the tutoring room for one hour and my presentation would take forty minutes. Every minute under, and I would be docked five points off my overall grade. My GPA was my most valuable asset, second only to my talent, so I wasn’t about to screw it up without good reason. I would never get scholarships otherwise. And I would need lots of scholarships to pay for the Art Institute of Chicago.
Setting the dry-erase markers on the whiteboard, I checked the time.
4:06.
The paperwork and key search had chewed into my hour. Sometimes the librarians would let me run over time if the room wasn’t booked. Not the rat queen. She would be waiting outside the door and counting the seconds until my hour was up.
Slipping out the door again, I walked around the back of the audiobook section to the quiet study room, hoping to avoid notice. This is where the smart kids were, the ones with more to do than check their social media. The only thing we all had in common was that we couldn’t afford our own technology. I had a tutoring room, so the rat queen should have known what kind of person I was.
A person with a plan.
A plan that was in big trouble when I looked around the quiet study room.
“Where’s Peter?” I hissed beneath my breath, careful not to disturb the adults who were seated at the various study carrels.
The last thing I needed was more trouble.
“Don’t know,” Faffi whispered from her seat nearest the printer. Beside her, Sylvia shrugged.
Faffi was another person with a plan. I called her the screaming liberal. She had political aspirations and already served as an intern on a local councilman’s campaign. She would love my presentation about immigration policies today. I argued both sides, but personally leaned left.
“Was he at school today?” I asked.
“I didn’t see him.” Sylvia’s plan wasn’t as specific as mine or Faffi’s, but it didn’t have to be. She wanted to be a doctor, which meant she had to rock her International Baccalaureate program to get scholarships to a good university. She was another one who would need lots and lots of scholarships to pay for school. Good thing she was brilliant.
“Are you talking about that kid on the skateboard?” Rohan tugged an earbud from his ear.
“Yeah, the one with the hair like that gay guy from American Idol.”
Rohan laughed, loud enough to make me glance around to see if we were annoying the room’s other occupants. Adults in a library liked nothing better than to narc on kids who weren’t obeying the quiet rule. Rohan didn’t seem to care. Maybe he didn’t ha
ve to because he had such a cool name. Who knew they watched The Lord of the Rings in Bangladesh? “I saw him on the public bus this morning, but he wasn’t at first lunch.”
“I didn’t see him, either,” Faffi told me.
I sighed. Nothing was ever going to be easy, was it? I had to record four people, so the virtual teacher knew I’d actually presented to an audience. Peter had agreed to sit in so long as I paid him in cigarettes.
Would the rat queen sit in if I offered her the three packs of Camels in my backpack? I’d bet money the security guard would. If I had any money to bet. I didn’t because I’d already spent what I had on three packs of Camels. Not to mention the time I’d wasted finding a convenience store to sell them to me without identification because I was underage.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll figure out something.”
I glanced at the clock on the way out. Six whole minutes to come up with a plan. Great. I got everyone quietly inside the tutoring room. Then I saw him.
He walked past the window, looking as noticeable as he had the first time I’d noticed him. Which was sort of strange really, since there wasn’t anything that noticeable about him.
Except for the guitar slung over his back, he might have been any student from the high school. A senior, definitely. I wasn’t surprised to find him here since we were only a few blocks away from where I’d first seen him.
He had been playing on the street corner across from the Western wear store where I usually set up my pitch. The lady who owned the store liked me. I was quiet compared to all the street musicians who played in the District, and I always chalked a brilliant design on her sidewalk space that made tourists slow down long enough to notice her store.
Whenever tourists sat for a caricature, they stared at her window displays. I always threw a cowboy hat or some boots and fringe into my sketches to get folks in the country mood.
We were a match made in heaven.
Maybe this guitar guy went to school, maybe not. But I remembered him. And his music. Not the usual country that every musician in town played. He stuck out in the streets the way I did with my art.
Love In Plain Sight Page 5