by Metsy Hingle
“How much farther?” Adam shouted as he pulled her along the sidewalk where the crowd wasn’t quite as thick.
“About six more blocks.”
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“If I tell you, you’ll have no reason not to kill me.”
He made a face at her. “All right. I’ll play your little game for now. But I’m warning you, I’m growing tired of it. Now let’s go.”
He yanked her again, and this time Lily really did stumble. She fell to the pavement, scraping her knee and tearing the white dress that Ricardo had taken such pride in giving to her.
“Get up,” he ordered, and hauled her to her feet. “You’re filthy,” he told her, noting her hands and dress were now stained with God-knows-what mixture of drink, food and bodily fluids that the Mardi Gras revelers had discarded onto the streets.
She tried wiping the sticky wet stuff down the skirt of her dress. Adam grabbed her by the arm again and started pushing his way through the sea of bodies.
They made it another block before everything came to a complete halt. “What in the devil is going on up there?” he demanded.
Straining to see, all Lily could make out were the overhead trucks and flashing lights at the corner. The parade passing in the street itself had come to a stop, as well. Marching bands, dance teams and drill units all marched in place. She even spied several of the flambeau carriers, the torchbearers established when there were no streetlights or car lights to show the way and who continued to march during the evening parades, holding their unlit torches as they danced in place in the street. People were running up to the floats. Women and children were riding atop shoulders, holding their hands up, begging for more throws.
“Why aren’t we moving? Why has everyone stopped?” Adam demanded to no one in particular.
“Rex is toasting at city hall,” a guy next to him said. “Probably Zulu or the mayor. It’s tradition. The rest of the parade has to stop while the kings and queens make their toasts.”
“How long does it take?” Adam asked.
The guy shrugged. “Not long. You’ve probably got time to take your lady friend up to the float and get her some nice beads.”
“I don’t like this,” Adam muttered. His gaze darted to the right, to the left, looking all around as though expecting a trap. “Let’s go.”
Lily tugged back. “Adam, there’s nowhere to go. We can’t get through. You heard the man. Everything stops until the toasts are over.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed. He spun around, looking behind him. “No. We can’t wait any longer. I don’t trust Sullivan and his brother. They’re out there. I know it. If we stay here, they’ll get me.”
Lily knew in that moment that Adam’s sanity—if he still had any left—was now hanging by a thread. So many people crowded the streets that there was no way he would be able to pick out Michael, his brother or anyone else.
“Let’s go.”
“But we can’t move.”
“Yes, we can,” he told her, shoving her forward.
She rammed into the back of a man and elbowed another. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, continuing to offer apologies that no would could hear above the thundering noise of the bands and people shouting for throws.
Adam urged her toward the curb. “We’re going to cut across, take the back streets where there aren’t any parades.”
Lily knew that once he had her away from the crowd, she would have no further chance to escape. Even if she were to bring him to Gertie’s and retrieve Timmy’s teddy and give him the disk she’d sewn into the stuffed toy, it would not stop him from killing her—possibly Gertie, too, if she was still there. She couldn’t let that happen. And she wasn’t going to die.
“Come on,” Adam said, pulling at her arm again.
Lily stared up ahead. The big overhead truck with its flashing lights started to move. Maybe if she could somehow break away from him when the parade started to move again she could escape.
She thought she heard someone shouting her name and glanced behind her. Had it been Michael? Had he somehow managed to come after her despite being shot?
“I said come on,” Adam ordered. He grabbed her arm again and shoved her toward the corner, not noticing the curses and complaints his elbowing was generating.
When they reached the curb, Lily pretended to stumble again. Only this time when she fell, something seemed to snap in Adam. “Get up, you troublesome bitch,” he said, grabbing her by the hair and yanking her to her feet. He pulled out the gun and pointed it at her chest. “I’ve had enough of these stalling tactics.”
Stunned that he’d pulled the weapon out in the open, Lily looked about her. She was surrounded by people—people dressed like Keystone Kops with toy guns, prisoners from jail in their striped outfits, gangsters in striped suits and fedoras with machine guns, make-believe soldiers with rifles—but not one of them was paying any attention to her and Adam. No one realized his gun was real.
“Where’s the disk?” Adam demanded.
“Lily! Lily!”
She looked back, positive now she had heard Michael’s voice above the din. But she couldn’t depend on Michael to save her. She couldn’t depend on anyone to save her now, but herself. She scanned her surroundings, tracked the progress of the parade. The floats had begun to move again. So had the marchers. She could see a gap in the parade—thought she saw one of the monster-size floats coming.
Adam shoved the gun beneath her breastbone. “I said, tell me where the disk is, or I’ll shoot you right now.”
Lily held her breath a moment as she waited for the float to come closer. She gauged her options, deciding she had none. She had to try it. Praying her timing was right, she said, “All right. I’ll tell you. Just put the gun down, Adam.”
He lowered the weapon, but continued to hold her arm. “All right, where is it?”
“I hid it. It’s in…” She yanked her arm free, pretending to fall backward into the street where the floats had been passing.
“Bitch! You’re not getting away from me,” Adam yelled, and lunged toward her.
As he tried to grab at her in an effort to keep her from escaping, Lily reached out and caught Adam’s arm. She pulled him forward instead, sending him sprawling into the street in front of the giant float.
Adam screamed, and Lily turned away as the tractor pulling the float hit his head first, then dragged his body beneath the massive tire wheels, unable to stop. She didn’t bother looking back to see if he’d survived. Lily knew no one could have survived that kind of blow to the head.
“Lily! Lily,” Michael called out.
Stunned, sickened by what she had done, she looked up and saw Michael shoving his way through the crowd of horrified people. He limped toward her, his leg wrapped with a bloodied bandage, blood streaked at his temple. The fleeting thought that went through her mind was that he really did look like a gladiator—one who had just survived a battle.
Then he was standing in front of her, pulling her into his arms, kissing her head, stroking her back, holding her. “It’s over, Lily. It’s over.”
Suddenly other people were surrounding them. Some of the men she’d seen dressed as Keystone Kops and soldiers were holding very real-looking weapons and making official noises as they ordered people back, trying to maintain order amid the chaos.
When she lifted her head to look at Michael, she said, “I killed him, Michael. I killed him.”
“Webster killed himself. He was sick, Lily. A sick man who would have killed you. All you did was save your own life.”
“Timmy?” she asked.
“He’s safe. And Gertie’s fine. So is my father. Everyone’s okay. Thanks to you. You’re the hero here, Lily. You saved us all.”
Lily didn’t argue with him. She didn’t bother telling him that it was his love that had made her strong, had made her believe in herself. He’d made her want to live not just for Timmy, but for herself.
Michael continued to hold her c
lose, murmuring reassurances. She didn’t know how long he held her. It might have been minutes. It could have been hours. And then the blue-eyed security officer was tapping Michael’s shoulder.
“I need to get a statement from her, Mike.”
“Not now,” Michael told him.
“It’s all right,” she said, extricating herself from Michael’s arms. “You must be Travis Sullivan.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and flashed her that same charming grin that belonged to Michael.
“I’m please to meet you, Agent Sullivan.”
“Travis, ma’am. And I hope it’s all right if I call you Lily. I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.”
She certainly hoped so, Lily thought. But when she looked at Michael, she saw those dark clouds, that same self-recrimination she’d seen the night he’d told her about his friend’s death.
“If you’ll come with me, I’d like to get a statement from you.”
“Of course,” she told him.
“Mike, you coming?”
“No. You go on and get Lily’s statement. I’m going to see about this leg.”
Seated across from his brother in the temporary office he’d been assigned to use at the Bureau’s office in New Orleans, Michael listened as Travis gave him a report on what had transpired the previous evening after he’d taken himself to the emergency room to have the bullet removed from his leg.
“With the stuff on that disk,” Travis began, “Webster would have been facing a life behind bars—maybe even the death penalty.
“Talk about a smart lady,” Travis went on. “She sewed the disk into her son’s teddy bear. She knew Webster couldn’t stand the kid, and she figured if he did find them, he wouldn’t bother with the boy’s favorite stuffed toy.”
“Lily’s a lot smarter than she gives herself credit for.”
“She’s also very brave. From what I gather, the guy has had her under his thumb and in his control since she was a kid. It couldn’t have been easy for her to walk out on him like she did. And she took a big risk stealing that disk—that took a lot of guts. Hell, I know men who wouldn’t have had the nerve to do what she did.”
“Lily’s a lot stronger than she thinks.”
“All I know is with that disk and Webster out of the way, she saved a lot of agents’ lives last night. With the information Webster had, our agents would have been sitting ducks.”
“I hope you told her what a difference she made,” Michael said.
“Sure did,” Travis said as he sat back in his chair and kicked his feet up on the desk. “That’s some woman you’ve got there, bro. I’m happy for you.”
“She’s not my woman,” Michael corrected. Lily didn’t belong to him or anyone.
“Funny, I got the impression you thought that she was,” Travis said, swinging his feet back down to the floor. He eyed him closer, leaned forward a fraction. “And from what you told me, the lady risked her own neck to save you from taking a bullet in the head last night.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, I doubt the lady did that unless she thought there was something between you, too.”
“She’s better off without me.”
“That what she said?”
“It’s not her decision,” Michael said, and stood.
“I’m not sure it’s yours, either.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you can’t decide what’s best for everyone, Mike. Lily has a say in this, too. You took off and shut everyone out when Pete got killed because you thought it was your fault. Now there’s this thing with Lily. So you were the one who led Webster to her. You’re also the one who helped her to fight him.”
“I didn’t help her. I almost caused her to be killed. That monster would have killed Timmy, too,” Michael pointed out.
“But he didn’t. They’re both alive, and they’re fine.”
“No thanks to me.”
“All right, you made a mistake by not telling her up front about Webster hiring you. You’re human, Mike. We humans make mistakes. You get over it and move on.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“You’d better,” Travis insisted. “Because if you don’t, and you walk away from that lady, you’ll be making the biggest mistake of your life.”
Nineteen
“Timmy, you stay here and take care of Gertie while Mommy answers the door. Okay?”
“’Kay.”
The doorbell sounded again. “I’ll be right back, Gertie.”
“Go on and answer the door,” Gertie told her. “You’ve been fussing over me worse than a mother hen ever since those nice agents brought me over here last night. Timmy and I will be fine. Right?”
“Wight,” Timmy said, and went back to munching on the bowl of popcorn that sat between him and Gertie while they watched a new Disney video.
Relieved to see Gertie relaxed after the fright she’d had, Lily rushed from Timmy’s room through the length of the house to reach the front door. “Coming,” she called out as she drew closer. She pulled open the door and saw Michael.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” she said, drinking in the sight of him. She noted the bandage near his temple, saw the cane he leaned on, the dark shadows beneath his eyes.
“May I come in?”
“Of course,” she said, holding the door open for him to enter. She felt a little blip in her heart as she watched him limp inside. “Would you like to sit down?”
“Thanks,” he said with all the politeness of a stranger as he sat down in the big stuffed chair adjacent to her couch. “I guess I probably should have called first instead of just showing up like this.”
She smiled at him. “It does seem to be one of your faults,” she teased, immediately regretting the remark when he didn’t smile in return.
“Travis tells me Timmy and Gertie are both okay.”
“Yes,” she said, growing more uneasy by the second. Any thoughts she might have harbored that Michael had come here to declare his love for her faded like yesterday’s revelry had with the dawn of Ash Wednesday.
“Is that Timmy I hear laughing?”
“Yes. He’s in his room with Gertie. Your brother was kind enough to have one of his agents bring her over. I didn’t want her to be alone after what had happened,” she explained. “But she seems fine now. She and Timmy are watching a new Disney video. They’re halfway through their second bowl of popcorn, too.”
“Sounds like you’re spoiling them.”
“After everything that they’ve been through, I figured they deserved to be spoiled.”
“So do you,” he told her.
“I don’t know about that,” she told him, remembering the role she had played in the tragedy last night. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget what happened, knowing I’m responsible for Adam’s death.”
“You have nothing to feel guilty about, Lily. The man was insane, and if you hadn’t done what you did, he’d have probably killed you.”
“I know that. But it doesn’t absolve me of all blame. Running away like I did seven months ago…it was a mistake. And the rest of my life I’m going to have to live with the knowledge that had I been stronger and stayed and fought Adam for what was right as I should have, he might still be alive.”
She swallowed, searched for the words to explain to Michael the conclusions she had reached during the night. “I know I’m also going to have to face Timmy one day and answer his questions about his father and how he died.”
“You’ll find the right words,” he told her.
“Yes, I will.”
He gave her a fleeting smile. “You sound confident. I’m glad.”
“I am confident, because I learned a few things about myself these past few days. I learned that I’m not weak or stupid or helpless.”
“You never were.”
“But I didn’t know that. I thought I needed someone to rescue me, to save m
e and Timmy from Adam.”
“You saved yourself,” Michael pointed out.
“Yes. I did. And now I know that whatever happens in the future, I’ll be able to handle it.”
“I never doubted that you would. You deserve to be happy, Lily. I hope you will be.”
“Why does that sound like a goodbye?” Lily asked, her heart heavy.
“Because it is. I came to say goodbye to you and Timmy. And to give you this.” He reached inside his shirt pocket and removed a photograph, handing it to her.
Lily stared at the snapshot of her and Timmy. “But how?” she began.
“Margie Schubert asked me to give it to you.”
Pain and anger sliced through Lily, a reminder of Michael’s betrayal.
“I’m sorry for my part in what happened. The minute I realized that the situation wasn’t what Webster had claimed, I should have told you who I was and that he had hired me to find you.”
“Yes, you should have.”
“I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know,” he said, and shoved his hands through his hair. He kept his head down for a moment, and when he looked up at her again, he looked like a man who had lost his soul. “I hope you believe me when I tell you that I never meant to hurt you.”
“I believe you,” she told him. “But your deception hurt, Michael. You should have told me.”
“I realize that now. But at the time, I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“You could have trusted me to understand,” she said.
But hadn’t she been guilty of the same thing? Lily asked herself. She hadn’t told him about the disk because she had been afraid to trust him, too.
“I should have. But I was afraid you’d run away from me, and I wanted to protect you, to keep you safe. Of course, thanks to me, you were nearly killed.”
“But I wasn’t killed. I’m alive, Michael. Probably more alive than I’ve ever been, because for the first time in a very long time, I’m not afraid. I’m actually thinking about the future.”
“I’m happy for you,” he said as he picked up his cane. He stood. “I hope someday you’ll be able to forgive me. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to say goodbye to Timmy.”