by Joyce Lamb
A thought struck her that she didn’t find at all appealing. “A girlfriend then.”
“Geez, Chase. Why don’t you just ask if I’m gay?”
“Just because a guy’s apartment is neat doesn’t mean he’s gay.”
“Just because a guy’s apartment is neat doesn’t mean he has a maid,” he countered.
“Then you have a girlfriend.” Mentally, her shoulders sagged. She’d actually started to like him. He’d gone above and beyond for her, and she had to admit that the way he’d handled it when she’d gotten sick spoke volumes. She reminded herself that it didn’t matter if he had a girlfriend. Daniel had shown her in vivid Technicolor how it felt when a relationship imploded. She hadn’t sworn off relationships, but she had sworn off relationships with co-workers.
Cole shut the door and gestured toward the tiny living room to the left. “Why don’t you get settled? I’ll make us something to eat.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
He dangled the pharmacy bag from one hand. “If you take any of these on an empty stomach, I’m going to be holding your hair for you. I’m guessing neither of us is eager for that encore.” He gave her a gentle nudge toward his black leather sofa. “Go ahead, get comfortable.”
She really didn’t have the energy to argue. “Can I use your phone? I usually pick my nephew up from school, but I need to call my brother to get him to do it.”
Cole’s brows quirked. “Uh, sure.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I just didn’t know you had a brother.”
“And a nephew. Why does it matter?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t. I’ll bring you the phone.”
She took her time getting to the sofa, wishing she could have wolfed down a couple of those pain pills right now. Her side was on fire, every step seeming to tug at the stitches. She would have traded anything to be in her own home, making her way to her own sofa, surrounded by her own belongings. But that wasn’t how it was going to be, so she needed to buck up. No use spilling over cried milk, her dad used to say.
Tears welled. He’d had a knack for coaxing a smile out of her when she was down. Silly sayings, like “Keep your eyes on the wheel and your hands on the road.” Goofy faces and dances. God, she missed him. He’d been gone for five years, and the ache remained.
Shaking her head, she focused on her surroundings before she could fall head first into the pity pool. At the rate she was going, she’d land in the deep end and drown.
The décor of Cole’s apartment surprised her. She’d expected a ratty recliner, a monstrous flat-screen TV, video game consoles and some kind of football or basketball paraphernalia. Maybe that was why she was so impressed by the polished wood floors, freshly painted white walls and beautiful, most likely original, molding in dark wood.
The dining room she had just crossed, which appeared to be the center of the apartment, contained a modest, square oak table on an Oriental rug of emerald green, red and royal blue. A ficus tree much like her own thrived in one corner, where it caught plenty of sunlight from the three large windows that covered the longest wall.
The living room, separated from the dining room by a wide, arched entryway was only big enough for the sofa, a matching black leather chair and a coffee table. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, crammed with more books than she’d ever seen in one place that wasn’t a bookstore or library.
A TV resided in the corner on white built-in bookshelves. Double doors led onto a porch, and she would have liked to check out the view—the house sat on the banks of the winding Caloosahatchee River—but her knees were trembling.
After lowering herself gingerly onto the couch, she let her head rest against the comfy cushions. A skylight let in warm, relaxing light.
She thought of her promise to take Austin to a new mini-golf place with a jungle theme down on Kendall Falls Beach after school. The six-year-old loved mini-golf. Maybe, if she got some sleep, she’d manage to pull herself together enough to putt some golf balls with him before dark.
Cole returned, carrying a pillow, blue plaid blanket and a cordless phone. “How do you feel about tomato soup and grilled cheese?” he asked as he handed her the phone. Then he tucked the pillow behind her and spread the blanket over her, just like her father used to do when she was sick.
She managed a smile, despite the lump in her throat. “That’s my favorite.”
He arched a brow. “Really?”
“Unless you have lobster bisque and a broiled crab cake, yes.”
Chuckling, he walked into the kitchen. She tried James first, not surprised when he didn’t answer his home phone or cell. He’d become increasingly unreliable in the past few weeks, which worried the hell out of her. She’d thought things were improving, with the job offer and prospect of tech school. But he’d gone from cheerful to morose in one day. God, she hoped he wasn’t slipping.
She shoved away the anxiety and called Austin’s grandmother, her brother’s mother-in-law. The older woman was thrilled to pick the boy up from school. When she expressed concern about Bailey, she assured her she’d simply been delayed by work, everything was fine.
After hanging up, she closed her eyes and told herself not to worry about James. She tried to think of a song to sing in her head to distract herself from the sensation in her side that felt like fire ants burrowing under her skin. Eighty-five bottles of beer remained on the wall when Cole returned with a tray laden with lunch for one.
He set the tray on the coffee table and handed her a plate that held a bowl of soup, a grilled cheese sandwich and two pills: one for pain and the other an antibiotic. She wasn’t particularly hungry, but she was desperate to pop the pain medication, so she dug into the diagonally cut sandwich without hesitation.
After she’d put half of it away, she took the pills and prayed the painkiller would work fast. She wasn’t a weepy person, but the discomfort was getting to the point where she feared the waterworks would kick in and embarrass her yet again. And crying was right at the top of the list of things she refused to do in front of Cole Goodman. Now that she’d already barfed in front of him.
“We should reconstruct your assignments for the past week or two,” he said.
Then she remembered again that she’d lost her iPhone, which contained her schedule and every last detail of her life. Phone numbers, addresses …
“What are you thinking?” His voice was quiet.
“My phone was in my bag.”
“Do you back it up?”
“Yes, on my laptop.” God, her entire life was on that damn Mac – and backed up on the missing hard drive. The enormity of the loss dangled above her like a Hefty bag full of rocks. It was only a matter of time before the thin plastic ruptured.
Cole nodded, his face grim. “They really wiped you out.”
They. The entity couldn’t be any more vague. She had no idea who they were. What they wanted. Why they had focused on her. Or even if there really was a they. Couldn’t the attack and the break-in be unrelated? A freak coincidence? That stuff happened all the time.
“Bailey?”
She focused on him and tried for a reassuring smile. “I’m fine.”
His expression replied, Sure, you are. “Maybe we should talk about it after you’ve had a nap.”
She didn’t argue, certain that if the conversation continued right now, she would end up blubbering.
She’d barely finished eating when she felt a pleasant numbness seep through her limbs. She was struggling to keep her eyes open when Cole began clearing away her dishes.
“Don’t fight it. Sleep will help you feel better.”
Letting her head sag back against the pillow, she gazed up at him, liking the way his dark hair fell across his forehead. He really was a good guy. A bad guy wouldn’t have doted on her like Cole had. He certainly wouldn’t have held her hair while she puked, carried her up a flight of stairs, fed her and tucked a blanket around her. If he hadn’t had such a chip on
his shoulder about her, she could easily …
She let the thought trail off as he met her gaze, one eyebrow arching in question.
“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”
The intensity of his gaze turned teasing. “Don’t worry. I’ll find a way for you to repay me.”
* * *
Cole sat at his desk in his office in the smaller bedroom at the back of the apartment, his laptop open before him, but he couldn’t concentrate. He kept thinking about the woman snoozing on his sofa on the other side of the dining room. He listened for any sound she might make that would indicate she was awake and needed something.
His concern for her unnerved him, but he figured it made sense on some level. She’d been hurt because he’d been an impatient bastard. If he’d waited for her to catch up, that brute wouldn’t have been able to corner her. Of course, there wasn’t anything he could have done about her apartment getting trashed, but at least she wouldn’t have been stabbed.
He glanced down at his hands. His knuckles were still red from the earlier scrubbing and, even though it was long gone, the metallic scent of Bailey’s blood lingered in his senses. He couldn’t stop the memory of the last time that scent had clung to him. The scorching desert heat had beaten down on his head as the life faded from the eyes of his fellow journalist and friend. He hadn’t felt his own pain, not physically anyway.
Shoving the memories back, he returned his attention to Bailey. It really was too much of a coincidence that she had been attacked the same morning that her apartment had been trashed and a lifetime of her pictures stolen. The two had to be connected.
He picked up the phone to call his contact at the police department. First thing he needed, he figured, was to get copies of the police reports. The cops probably hadn’t had time to turn up anything on any of the prints taken from Bailey’s apartment yet, but Cole planned to be among the first to know if they did.
Chapter 9
Bailey woke slowly, aware first that she wasn’t at home, second, the room was dark, and third, she needed to find the bathroom.
When she shifted, the tug of stitches reminded her that she’d had a lousy day. Or perhaps the day before had been lousy. She had no idea the time or even the day. Cole’s living room wasn’t pitch black, but she didn’t have enough light to read her watch.
Most important: her full bladder.
Getting up wasn’t that difficult, though her body felt stiff, as if she hadn’t moved at all while she’d slept. Stitches pulled, and her side ached, but once she straightened, most of the discomfort faded.
Figuring out which way to go now that she stood was a different story. She remembered the layout of the apartment, mostly, but the location of the bathroom was a mystery. Following her instincts, she edged toward a closed door on the other side of the dining room, hoping it wasn’t a closet. Luckily, the door revealed a bathroom, a handy nightlight plugged into a socket by the sink.
She was washing her hands when she elbowed the light switch and confronted herself in the mirror. “Jesus,” she said under her breath as she dried her hands. “What compost heap did you roll off of?”
Her hair was a mess, flat on one side and looking like a comfy resting place for birds on the other. Shadows drooped under her eyes, and her skin was pale and splotchy.
She might have looked like hell, but she felt better than she had.
Now that the light was on, she took in Cole’s bathroom. Like the rest of his apartment, it was cleaner than the average guy’s. The walls were white, the only color the very manly dark blue of his towels, rug and shower curtain. A comb sat on the edge of the sink, and Bailey detected the faint, minty scent of aftershave.
A clock on a shelf above the towel bar told her that it was just shy of six. Must be a.m., she thought, judging by the lack of light coming through the small window above the old-fashioned, claw-foot tub. That meant she’d slept an astonishing fifteen hours. And sleep apparently was the wonder drug, because other than stiffness and the nagging ache in her side, she felt capable of climbing stairs all by herself today.
Now all she needed was a shower, and she’d be practically like new. She settled for splashing water on her face and running wet fingers through her hair to tame the worst of the wreckage. Hopefully, Cole was not a late sleeper, because she wanted to see Austin as soon as possible. Her nephew no doubt had been disappointed by the cancellation of their mini-golf plans. She should have called him once she’d gotten settled, but she hadn’t meant to fall asleep and stay out for the entire night.
Opening the bathroom door, she ventured into the dining room toward the kitchen, careful to be quiet in her quest for a bagel or toast or anything to take the edge off the hunger poking at her. She was a firm believer in eating small and often, so she rarely went three hours without food of some kind, let alone fifteen.
A small cluster of framed photos on the wall made the photographer in her pause. She studied each one in the growing morning light, fascinated as always by other people’s pictures. One of them was obviously Cole’s father, and she got a preview of what Cole would look like in his sixties. The older Goodman stood beside a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle, the old-fashioned kind, hands in his pockets. He was distinguished, gray-haired and fit with a wealth of sadness in eyes so blue they seemed to reach out of the photo and tug at her.
She recognized that look, realized that she’d seen it in Cole’s eyes once when she’d been studying him in the newsroom, thinking that he’d make a striking portrait. He hadn’t known she was looking, and when he’d glanced over and caught her, the sorrow had vanished as if he’d slammed a steel door in her face.
The other photos were mostly of the same three kids in varying stages of growing up. The oldest—a boy—looked like a teenager, the youngest—a girl—was probably ten. The boy in the middle looked to be about twelve. A man appeared in some of the pictures of the kids, as did Cole and his father. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised that Cole apparently spent a lot of time with his family.
She was wondering why no women appeared in any of the family photos when a snapshot in particular made her smile. She guessed it had been taken after a game of touch football several years ago—probably before he’d left the Sun for The Washington Post. He looked like she’d never seen him look: mud-caked and sweaty, laughing with three friends, his teeth flashing white, his dark hair disheveled, one arm slung casually around the shoulders of a striking redhead.
Seeing him like that made her stomach clutch, but then she recognized one of the other men in the photo, and her warm and fuzzy feelings iced over. Cole and Daniel were better friends than she’d thought.
* * *
Cole rolled over in bed and blinked the clock into focus. Just after six.
Yawning, he shoved aside the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. He’d been getting up every couple of hours to check on Bailey, and his head was bleary from not enough uninterrupted snoozing. Going back to sleep this time, though, was out of the question. He had a deadline to make for his profile of the senator he’d stood up the day before. Postponing the story wasn’t possible: Groundbreaking on the man’s pet project happened in a couple of days. So he’d have to hustle today to do his follow-up interview and pound out the story.
He got up and padded toward the door, not bothering with a shirt. He planned a quick stop in the bathroom, then another in the kitchen to start coffee. He’d grab a shower before thinking about waking his guest.
Opening his bedroom door, though, he found her standing in the dining room, staring at photos on the wall. She turned her head to look at him, and he almost stepped back. Her cheeks were pale, the skin under her eyes looking as if someone had smeared light purple paint over it. Her eyes …
“Are you okay?” he asked, his heart tripping.
As she shook her head, she lowered her gaze and shut him out. “I just got up.”
He glanced at the photos and spotted the one with his college friends, which reminded
him that she was Daniel’s ex. And she was clearly bothered by the picture of his friend. Well, there wasn’t anything he could do about that.
“Want some breakfast?” he asked.
She turned toward the living room. “No, thanks.”
He followed close behind, telling himself he didn’t have to apologize for who his friends were.
“Did A.J. call last night?” she asked.
“She stopped by briefly, but we didn’t want to wake you. I had a hell of a time convincing her you’d be fine here until morning. Your brother returned your call, too. He wanted me to tell you that he picked Austin up at his grandparents’.” He paused, not happy with the three vertical lines of stress that had appeared above the bridge of her nose. “What about coffee? You probably could use some caffeine.”
“Thanks, but I could use a cab more.”
Her voice was cool, and he heard the vibration of nerves in it. Not a glimmer remained of the affability that had failed to desert her even after she’d been stabbed, stitched and sick. Seeing that stupid picture of her ex had knocked it right out of her. “It’s only six,” he said.
“I’m sure you have plenty to do after I wasted your entire day yesterday.”
“What’s another hour or two?” he asked, and smiled.
She didn’t return his smile as she carefully lowered herself to the sofa and bent forward to pick up a hiking shoe. She instantly froze and pressed a hand to her side. “Damn it,” she said on an exhaled breath.
Cole eased the coffee table aside and knelt before her, reaching for the shoe. “I’ll help you.”
She brushed his hands away. “I can do it.”
Sitting back on his heels, he watched her slip the shoe on and try twice to tie the laces. Her face flushed, and tiny beads of sweat popped out at her hairline. When she fumbled the laces the third time, he leaned forward and nudged her fingers aside. “Sit back,” he said.
“No, I can—”
“Sit back.” When she didn’t move, he looked up at her with narrowed eyes. “Please.”