The kids had called him “Leprechaun,” and still did even though he was no longer as short as he’d been back in sixth grade.
Being called a leprechaun was better than his other nickname.
Fag.
He had blond hair, green eyes, and soft, pale skin that burned instead of tanned, while both Harry and Em turned a deep nut brown in the sun.
He was going to be taller than his father, too. At fourteen, it was clear he’d inherited his mother’s Northern European stature. Over the past two years, he’d gone from being the smallest kid in his class to being one of the tallest. In fact, at five feet eleven, he looked old enough to pass for a high school student.
Apparently that’s what that red-haired girl had thought when she’d stopped to talk to him.
Shaun put on his glasses and stepped back slightly. The muscles in his chest and legs were strong and well developed from two solid years of dance class. He’d played Little League baseball before he and Em had moved to Marge’s house in Colorado. He’d been good at it; he was coordinated and a fast runner, but his heart hadn’t been in it. He’d merely gone along with it because Kevin and Harry liked it so much. And he’d adored them.
He would have gone swimming in shark-infested waters just to be near them, if that’s what they had wanted to do. Baseball hadn’t been quite that bad, of course. Still, it didn’t get him excited.
But dancing … Ballet, jazz, or tap—he didn’t care which, he loved it all. And he was getting good. Good enough to have gotten the part of the Artful Dodger in the middle school musical. Dozens of kids had tried for the part, but he’d seen Mrs. Janson’s face when he’d started to dance.
All of the teachers had been impressed with his performance.
All of the kids still called him “fag.”
His aunt had urged him to call Harry, to tell him about getting the part in the show, but Shaun hadn’t done it. He couldn’t bear to leave another message on his father’s answering machine.
He hadn’t told his dad about the musical, so he hadn’t been disappointed when Harry hadn’t shown up.
And Harry wouldn’t have come, even if Shaun had called.
He was certain of that.
“Can I pick my new name?” Alessandra asked.
“You can definitely have some input,” George told her. “Do you have a name in mind?”
“I’ve always wanted to be called Friday,” Alessandra said almost shyly.
Harry nearly choked on his tuna-salad sandwich.
“She was a character in a book I really liked,” she continued.
Friday. He looked at George and rolled his eyes. “Perfect,” he said sarcastically, after he swallowed. “You’ll blend right in with the fifty-eight other Fridays in whatever small town in Ohio you end up being placed in.”
“Ohio?” She sounded horrified.
Christ, she was clueless. He steeled himself as he looked back at her, refusing to acknowledge the zing of physical response he felt each time he forced himself to meet the pure blue of her gaze.
“Ohio,” he repeated. “Or Indiana. Or maybe even Illinois. You have a better chance blending in in the Midwest than you would in the South. Unless you want to learn to speak with a southern accent.”
“I can do that,” she said, meeting his gaze in a way that was almost challenging.
Harry had to smile. Yeah, sure, she could. And his mother was the pope. “It’s harder than you think, Mrs. Lamont.”
“I know exactly how hard it is,” she told him quietly. “I learned to speak without a New York accent. I grew up out on the Island. Massapequa Park. I took elocution lessons for nearly half a year to lose my accent.”
That surprised him. According to her file, she’d been born in Connecticut. He’d been so certain she’d lived in Fairfield County nearly all her life, attending private school and taking tennis lessons, and speaking with perfect, round, very wealthy-sounding vowels from birth.
Massapequa Park was pretty solidly middle class.
Why hadn’t that been in her file? Harry made a mental note to find out who’d fucked up. Screwed up. Sheesh.
“We’ll need to talk to the people at the Witness Protection Program before we know exactly where they’ll end up sending you,” George told Alessandra. “And as far as the name goes …” He shook his head with an apologetic smile. “Friday’s not going to fly.”
Harry was more blunt. “They’ll choose something absolutely white-bread bland. Ordinary. Barbara Conway. There’s a perfect name for you.”
Her extremely nonordinary blue eyes were filled with dismay.
“They’ll make you cut your hair,” he continued ruthlessly. It was going to happen; she was going to have to get used to the idea. “And probably dye it a real average shade of brown. And they’ll get you clothes more suitable for a Barbara Conway, too. Probably lots of knee-length skirts in olive drab and navy blue. Sturdy shoes. Cotton blouses that button to the neck. That sort of thing.”
She was looking at him as if he were describing the horrors of Armageddon.
George delicately wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Come on, Harry, make it sound worse than it is, why don’t you?”
Alessandra looked to George hopefully. “I won’t really have to do that, will I? Dye my hair?”
“You will if you want to be safe,” Harry told her. “You’ll say good-bye to Alessandra Lamont and become Barbara Conway.”
“But what good is being safe if I have to turn into someone I don’t want to be? I mean, what’s the point?”
Harry shrugged. “Your choice. Although, it seems pretty clear to me that if it’s a choice between short brown hair, ugly shoes, or a bullet in the head … Brown hair and ugly shoes win, hands down.”
She didn’t look convinced. But she didn’t argue any further. They ate in silence for several minutes before she spoke again.
“So tomorrow someone from the Witness Protection Program will arrive,” she said to George. “Will you and Mr. O’Dell go home at that time?”
Mr. O’Dell. Jesus. “We won’t leave you until you’re set up in your new town, and we know you’re safe. And call me Harry,” he said. “Mr. O’Dell gives me a rash.”
“You call me Mrs. Lamont,” she countered.
Damn, she was right. He took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “You call me Harry, I’ll call you … Allie.”
She looked pained. “My name is Alessandra.”
“Not anymore it’s not. Consider Allie a temporary stop between your old and your new name—whatever it’s gonna be.”
“Who actually gets to decide that?” she asked.
George finished the last of his 7UP. “Probably some computer somewhere.”
“How long will it be before I’m actually allowed to start living my life again?” she asked.
Harry looked at George. This was a tricky question. If this were a normal Witness Protection Program deal, they would say good-bye to her tomorrow. They’d pass her off, put her in someone else’s capable hands. But this wasn’t normal. They were using her as bait, to lure Trotta into a trap. Because of that, he and George were going to be beside Alessandra, 24/7, for a week or two. Maybe even longer. Certainly as long as it took for Trotta to take the bait and attempt a hit.
There was that twinge of guilt again. God, he had to get over it. Yes, they were using Alessandra as bait. Yes, that was a shitty thing to do. It was unfortunate, but necessary. Why couldn’t he accept that and move on?
George cleared his throat. “That really depends,” he said. “It’ll probably be at least a week, maybe more.”
“That long?” Alessandra’s gaze flicked in Harry’s direction, and he knew what she was thinking.
He didn’t like it, either. He forced a smile. “Just until we know you’re safe,” he said. “We’re pretty thorough. And you know, after awhile, you won’t even know we’re around.” He reached for his soda, but his fingers fumbled and the can slipped free, spilling the cold liquid directly on h
is crotch. “Shit!” he shouted, grabbing the can and then a pile of napkins to mop himself off. His pants were soaked. It looked as if he’d wet himself. Or worse. “Fucking unbelievable!”
He looked up, directly into Alessandra’s cool blue eyes.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, feeling the cold of his cola saturate his boxer shorts.
She looked at George, as if choosing to pretend Harry didn’t exist. “When do you get to go home and spend time with your families? How do your wives feel about you spending the night here—in my hotel room?”
“I’m divorced. And we didn’t have kids, so …” George shrugged. “And Harry—”
“I don’t have a family either,” he interrupted. “Not anymore.”
Alessandra turned to look at him. “But George said you had kids.”
Harry stood up, wishing he had a clean pair of pants to change into, wishing he’d brought his bag with his jeans, wishing he were anywhere but here. “George needs to work on his compulsive lying.”
“Harry’s got a son and a daughter,” George told her.
“If you’re here with me all day and all night, when do you get a chance to see them?” Alessandra asked.
His pants were cold and sticky—never a good combination, even on the best of days. And this one was definitely out of the running for the best. “Never,” he said flatly, heading for the bathroom. “I try to see them as close to never as possible. Maybe that way they’ll live to see their sixteenth birthdays.”
“I don’t understand.” Alessandra looked to George for an explanation as Harry closed the bathroom door behind him.
“Harry had another son,” he told her quietly. “Kevin. He was killed two years ago when—”
Alessandra jumped as the bathroom door swung open and hit the side of the tub with a crash.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Harry came back out of the bathroom with a towel and a dangerous light in his eyes. Luckily for her, his death glare was aimed at George.
George shrugged, unperturbed. “I thought—”
“Don’t!” Harry shouted at him. “Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here. And don’t talk about me when I’m not here. Just keep it the fuck to yourself.”
Alessandra felt responsible. “I asked, and he was just—”
He turned toward her. “I’m not sure why George seems to think it’s important you know that my son Kevin was virtually decapitated when the car he was riding in slid underneath a truck. What do you say George? Were you also going to tell her that the crash that killed my kid and my ex was the result of the mob trying to scare me off a case? The bullets were supposed to be fired only in warning, but someone screwed up and a truck driver was hit. He lost control of his rig, and Sonya and Kevin didn’t stand a chance.”
Alessandra closed her eyes, dizzy from lack of sleep, dizzy from the harshness of Harry’s words. Dear Lord.
“But hey, you know, if Allie here needs to know that, maybe she should know all my deeply personal and private shit, too.” Harry’s voice was softer now but no less intense. “Like the fact that I haven’t had sex since 1996. I really think she better know that. Or how about sometimes the only way I can fall asleep at night is to stay awake for seventy-two hours and then collapse. Oh, I know. This is a good one, Al, you’re going to like this: I was too much of a coward to face my surviving son and daughter and tell them that both Kevin and their mother were never coming home again. And let’s not forget how I still can’t look my kids in the eye, so I just never go home. Does that give you the fucking insight you needed to psychoanalyze me?”
Alessandra couldn’t look at him, couldn’t move. He’d lost a child. She couldn’t begin to imagine his pain.
He slammed back into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
George cleared his throat and gave her a weak smile. “I think we’ll let Harry go out to get dessert.”
Six
ALESSANDRA SAT IN the darkened bedroom of the hotel suite. The small amount of grilled chicken she’d managed to choke down an hour ago now made her stomach churn ominously as she stared at the telephone.
The glowing red numbers of the clock beside the phone calmly changed from 2:13 to 2:14. Despite the fact that she was nauseous from fatigue and more than ready to sink into bed and sleep until morning, it wasn’t the middle of the night. It was only mid-afternoon.
It was smack in the middle of the workday.
In fact, Michael Trotta was probably back from lunch, probably in his office right this very minute.
Just a phone call away.
The grilled chicken made a slow circle in its unending dance of horror, and she reached out to touch the phone with one finger.
She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to spend another minute playing this frightening game. She wanted to call a time out and find the road that led back to her real life. She wanted to push her way behind the curtains and remove herself from this alternative reality in which she’d found herself trapped.
She wanted to pick up that phone and call Michael Trotta. She wanted the destruction of her cars and her house to be a giant mistake. She wanted to find out that some not-too-bright thug named Lenny or Frank or Vince had misheard Trotta’s instructions and set those bombs.
She wanted her life back.
She’d prefer the evil she knew over this horribly frightening uncertainty.
She didn’t want to live in Ohio. She wanted to stay here, where maybe someday she’d have a prayer of a chance of adopting Jane.
She couldn’t give up hope. It was close to hopeless, she knew, but she couldn’t give up.
She wouldn’t.
Alessandra glanced at the door to the main room of the suite. It was open a crack and dim light streamed in. She’d wanted to close it, but Harry had told her not to. Even when she showered, even when she used the facilities, she was supposed to leave the door unlocked.
Welcome to privacy hell.
When Harry had informed her of the open-door rule, she’d glanced up and for the briefest of moments their eyes had met and locked. His were probably the darkest, blackest shade of brown she’d ever seen, filled with a weariness that seemed at least a million years old, permanently shadowed from the loss of a child and the death of a woman he probably still loved. Her heart had twisted, imagining the open rawness of his pain, and in that instant, time had seemed to twist and turn, too. For the slightest fraction of seconds, for a segment of time too small to measure, she was back inside her house, just out of the bath, flames and smoke around her, Harry’s rock-solid body pressed against hers, his callused hands warm against her still-damp skin.
His touch had felt sinfully good.
She stood up abruptly, banishing that memory to the farthest reaches of her mind. She didn’t want to feel anything for Harry O’Dell, particularly not this odd compasssion. Compassion and … lust? No, she was tired. She was still in shock. He’d lost a child and she felt sorry for him. That was all this was. Compassion. Period.
Lord, she hated this. She didn’t want to be here.
And one phone call—just one—could clear up this entire misunderstanding.
She picked up the phone.
“Calling anyone I know?”
Alessandra jumped, and the phone handset rattled in its cradle.
Harry pushed the door open even farther and stepped into the room. His face was harsh and grim, his eyes as cold and devoid of life as the farthest reaches of outer space.
“I was just …” She didn’t know what to say. He knew exactly what she was just about to do.
He stared at her, nearly boring an ice-encrusted hole into her with his zero-degree gaze, waiting for her to continue.
And she could only think about the way he’d looked at her before, the heat in his eyes, the way he’d touched her.
Alessandra knew she looked good. Not great, but passably good. George had made a quick run to the drugstore and had picked up a number of things from her list, including som
e cheap makeup. She’d put it on immediately and had instantly felt a little bit better. A little bit more in control.
She shifted back very slightly on the bed, pulling her legs out from beneath her. She moved just a little bit so that the stream of light from the open door fell on her carefully made-up face, on the shining gold of her hair, on the deep V-neck of the pajamas she wore, giving him a flash of skin, a clear shot of her delicately boned ankles, a hint of gracefully shaped legs.
It was a calculated movement, a subtle invitation to look, meant to distract and befuddle. A nonverbal change of subject.
And although Harry did look, his gaze lingered insolently on her breasts before he practically scraped his way down her legs. He wasn’t at all distracted. And certainly not befuddled.
“Did you try this on Michael Trotta?” he murmured, his gaze intimately tracing the curve of her hips and thighs before moving back to meet her eyes.
Alessandra pulled her knees in to her chest, holding them tightly, instantly embarrassed. This was her fault. She’d done it automatically. All her life she’d used her looks as a bargaining chip. But she should have known not to play with fire. It was all she could do not to burst into tears. “I don’t know what—”
“Yes,” he said. “You do. You know damn well what you look like. You didn’t want to admit to me that you were thinking about calling Trotta, so you figured you’d change the subject by giving me a hard-on. Well, guess what, Al. Didn’t work.”
Alessandra felt a flare of anger at the crassness of his words. “You really are—” She stopped herself.
“What?”
She turned away. “No. I refuse to be dragged down to your level.”
“A fucking bastard. That’s what you want to say, isn’t it?”
Alessandra stood up and began pulling the covers back from the pillow. “You said it, I didn’t.”
He sat on the end of the bed before she could pull the bedspread all the way off. “I really am curious, though. What was Trotta’s response?”
She tugged at the spread. “Excuse me. I’m very tired and—”
“He could buy and sell you.” Harry didn’t move. “In a way, he already has. Think about it. He pays a price—and not even a particularly high price for a guy with as much money as he has—and someone snuffs out your life.”
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