He poked his head through the bathroom door and stared at her with his big yellow eyes, like he couldn’t imagine why she would voluntarily get inside something filled with water. He came in and set his front paws on the edge of the tub, sniffing cautiously at the bubbles and then batting at them with a paw. A glob of foam stuck to his pads and he dropped back down, trying to shake it off and then licking at it. It was pretty clear from his reaction that the bubbles didn’t taste good.
“That’s your own fault,” she told him. “Curiosity killed the cat and all that.”
Marco licked his fur vigorously, probably trying to get rid of the taste, and then looked at her accusingly. His ears and paws were still too big for him but he wasn’t a kitten any more. Trisha wondered if cat teenagers were anything like people teenagers. “Mrow,” he told her emphatically.
“I know, it’s dinnertime. I’ll be done in a few minutes.” Marco sat on the bath mat with his tail wrapped around his paws, obviously intending to wait right there. “Come on, give me a break. Mommy’s had a hard day.” He just stared at her unblinkingly and for a fleeting moment, she was tempted to splash water at him to make him go away and leave her alone for a little while longer. Instead, she pushed herself upright, shivering a bit in the cooler air. “All right,” she sighed. “Give me a minute.”
She opened the drain to make room for more warm water, swirling her hand around to distribute the temperature evenly and dissolve the remaining bubbles. She scrubbed herself quickly with a washcloth and then took a razor to her armpits and legs. She plucked experimentally at the damp curls of her pubic hair and decided to leave well enough alone. It wasn’t like anyone was going to see her naked any time soon.
“Except you, you little pervert,” she informed Marco as she opened the drain and stood up, wiping the excess water from her skin before stepping out and grabbing the towel from the rod on the wall. He retreated to the doorway and silently watched her scrub herself dry from head to toe and then inspect herself critically in the mirror.
Face, clear, she reported to herself. She’d been diligent about keeping her sugar intake down, although Halloween had tested her resolve severely. Boobs, adequate. She ran through the self-check routine, thankfully finding nothing untoward. Butt, blindingly white but not nearly tight enough, no matter what Naomi says. She jiggled her gluteus maximus with a dissatisfied grimace. She jogged regularly, at least when the weather was warm enough, but it didn’t seem to do any good at all.
She tried lifting her chin and pulling her shoulders back, turning left and right in the mirror and trying to assess herself from a man’s perspective. I’ve got all the right parts and they don’t sag, she told herself glumly, at least not much. That’s all they care about really, isn’t it? So how come Carol always seems to have a date and I haven’t been out with anyone in three months? Her last relationship had been with one of the doctors in the radiology department. He was nice enough and reasonably good looking but their schedules rarely aligned and they always seemed to end up talking about work. Maybe I should join a club or something. Like I have time for that.
She grabbed her discarded clothes from the floor and tossed her robe over her shoulder, padding out into the hallway. One of the nice things about not having a roommate was that she could walk around naked if she wanted to, not that she did all that often in the winter. She headed back to the bedroom, but Marco camped himself at the top of the stairs and informed her that she was going the wrong way. “Hold on, let me get dressed first!”
She tossed her used socks and panties into the laundry basket and grabbed the top pair of underwear out of the drawer, plain white hiphuggers. She pulled on her favorite gray flannel pajamas – they were getting a bit threadbare but they were warm and comfortable – and then covered everything up with her robe and stuffed her feet into her fuzzy pink slippers.
She headed downstairs, where Marco was already waiting by his bowl in the kitchen, staring up at the cabinet where she kept his food. “All right, let’s get you fed.” She plucked a random can from the stack, some sort of seafood combination, and plopped the contents into his bowl. He immediately stuck his face in it and chomped it down as fast as he could. “Slow down! You’ll just barf it all up again like you did yesterday.” Marco ignored her and she went in search of her own dinner.
The fridge offered her a number of possibilities, none of them particularly appealing. She peeked inside the covered bowl holding Thursday’s leftover spaghetti and then put it back. She didn’t feel like having another salad and the tuna she’d made for sandwiches reminded her too much of Marco’s dinner. The frozen dinners in the freezer were best left for emergencies and she wasn’t quite hungry enough to declare one of those yet. She found herself wishing she’d kept the rest of the sandwich Tony had made for her. It was starting to look like tomorrow would be Grocery Day as well.
She headed into the living room to extract her phone from her purse and pulled up the app for Carmine’s, the local pizza delivery service. It only took a few taps to set up her usual order, pepperoni and green peppers, but she hesitated with her finger hovering over the Confirm button.
I really shouldn’t be making someone come out in this weather, she chided herself, especially so close to Christmas. But if I don’t, he won’t get paid and maybe someone won’t get as nice a present. That feeble rationalization was enough to convince her send in the order, but she promised herself that she’d be extra generous with the tip. Maybe if he’s cute, I’ll accidentally let my robe fall open or something. She tightened her belt to make sure that wouldn’t happen. Besides, she’d have to unbutton her top to make it worth his while and it was too cold for that.
She curled up on the couch and pulled the heavy quilt her mother had made for her up to her chin, poking her hand out with the remote to turn on the TV. She flipped through her lengthy list of binge series, hoping to get one episode done before the pizza arrived, but she couldn’t settle on one. She wasn’t in the mood for a comedy or a horror series and the period shows and fantasies really needed company to enjoy them properly.
Marco padded into the room and leapt up onto the couch beside her, using his paw to clean his face and ears before clambering up onto the quilt and planting himself on her stomach. “Looks like it’s just you and me tonight, Marco,” she sighed. Just like every other night.
She picked a show at random and hit the play button, trying to remember what had been going on in the previous episode. Something about murder and betrayal, although that was probably true of half the shows she watched. It didn’t much matter anyway. She barely paid any attention to what was happening on the screen as her thoughts kept slipping away to the unusual events of the day.
What was Lucas Butler doing that put him in the hospital and how could he possibly just walk out again, as hurt as he was? If Gavin Hawk lives in New York, what’s he doing in Boston? Why are the police so interested in him and why does he seem so scary every time I see him? Is that Lionel putting ideas in my head or is Hawk really some sort of psycho criminal mastermind? Is Lionel seeing anyone?
Trisha blinked as she realized that last thought didn’t fit in with the rest. Where did that come from? I only talked to him twice. Three times. It’s not like he showed any interest in me. He probably thinks I’m the world’s biggest idiot for getting his name wrong. Come to think of it, he never told me what his last name really is. She tried to recall how that conversation had gone and decided he never really had a chance to introduce himself properly. Wait a minute, I have his card.
She dug it out of her purse but the only thing printed on it was his phone number and the striped shield. He’d written Lionel on it without including his last name. “Weird,” she murmured. Marco popped his head up and she scratched behind his ears. “Not you, silly.”
That shield must be his family crest or something. She had no idea where to look something like that up. I’ll just ask him when I see him again. If I see him again, she corrected herself.
&n
bsp; She tried to concentrate on her show, but Marco perked up again at the faint sound of a car door slamming. She glanced at the clock, surprised at how much time had passed, but it was still a bit early for the pizza guy. She listened for a minute and thought she heard the roar of an engine as someone drove away.
“False alarm,” she told Marco. “It was probably just one of the neighbors.” She was proven wrong just a moment later when heavy footsteps stomped on the wooden stairs outside and the doorbell rang.
“Just a minute!” she called, trying to shift Marco off her lap and untangle herself from the quilt. She grabbed a twenty out of her wallet and scurried for the front door. She unlocked it hurriedly and yanked it open, shivering at the wave of frigid air enveloping her. A large man stood on the top step with the familiar red and white Carmine’s box in her hands and she smelled the mouth-watering aroma of pepperoni and peppers saturating the cardboard.
“That was fast!” she exclaimed, reaching for the box with one hand and holding out the twenty in the other. “You can keep the change. Merry –” Her voice died in her throat as her eyes finally focused on the man’s face. It wasn’t some teenager running pizzas for a few bucks. It was Gavin Hawk.
12
“Miss Macmillan.” It took Hawk a moment to recognize the woman gaping at him as the nurse who’d taken care of Lucas in the ER. With her hair hanging loose and her scrubs replaced with a purple robe, she looked like an entirely different person. The expression of shock on her face didn’t help either. “I want to –”
He didn’t get any further. Trisha jumped backwards and slammed the door with a bang that shook the entire frame of the house. He heard the distinctive clack of a deadbolt being thrown.
“What the fuck?” He knew she wouldn’t be happy about him showing up on her doorstep like this, so the arrival of the delivery guy was a stroke of good luck. He’d paid the kid fifty bucks to give him the pizza so he could use it as a sort of peace offering. That obviously hadn’t worked, but her reaction still seemed a bit extreme. He pressed the doorbell again.
“Go away!” Even through the door she sounded shrill.
“I just need to talk to you for a minute.”
“Go away!” There was a definite edge of hysteria to her voice.
“I have your pizza. It’s getting cold.”
“I’m calling the police!”
“Don’t do that! Shit.” The last thing he needed was another conversation with the police.
He turned back to his car and realized he was still holding the pizza box. He looked around for a place to put it and finally placed it on the mat on her top step. It was going to be ice cold in a few minutes, but he doubted she’d be opening her door any time soon.
He sat in his car and glared through the windshield in frustration. All he wanted to do was confirm she was the woman in Lucas’s drawing. If she was the subject of his Quest, he needed to keep her safe until Lucas showed up again and explained what the hell was going on. That was going to be hard to do if she was terrified at the sight of him. He couldn’t imagine what he’d done to put her into this state. Something wasn’t right.
He pulled out his phone and found the email Nim sent him with the few bits of information she’d discovered about Patricia Macmillan, including her phone number. He tapped it and waited for her to answer.
“Hello?” Her voice was very shaky.
“Miss Macmillan, I’m sorry if I –” The connection suddenly went dead. “Hello? God damn it.”
He toyed with the idea of finding some other way into her house, which was the shape of a shoebox standing on its side and not all that much bigger than one. That would just confirm whatever crazy notions she had about him and guarantee the arrival of Boston’s finest in short order. There was no way he was going to talk to her tonight, if ever.
“Fuck,” he muttered, and he started his car and drove away, wondering what he was going to do now. After he’d gone a few blocks, he called Nim.
“That was fast,” she observed. “Did you find her?”
“Yeah.”
“Your tone isn’t encouraging. She isn’t the woman in the picture?”
“I don’t know. She slammed the door in my face and threatened to call the cops.”
“What did you do, Gavin?” she asked suspiciously.
“I didn’t do anything! I barely said hello and she freaked out.”
Nim sighed in his ear and he imagined her shaking her head dolefully. “So what do we do now? We can’t risk losing her, not until we’re sure.”
“Someone else is going to have to contact her. She isn’t going to talk to me.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You? You’re in New York.”
“I can be there first thing in the morning. It’s best we keep her identity a secret outside of the few people who know about the Quest. We still haven’t identified the agent in our ranks. As long as no one else knows about her, she’ll be safe.”
“They’re going to wonder why the two of us are in Boston.”
“I’ll come up with a story to explain it. What are you going to do in the meantime? Look for Lucas?”
“I have no idea where to start,” he sighed. “I got lucky finding him the first time. I have no idea if Lucas even knows about Trisha.”
“Trisha?”
“Patricia. That’s what they call her.”
“Ah. Well, perhaps you should head back to the apartment, then. Lucas needs a place to rest and recover, maybe he’ll go there.”
“Maybe. He’d recover a lot faster if just he stayed in the hospital.”
“I agree, but perhaps the Quest is pressing him to complete it quickly for some reason.”
“These things usually take months, years sometimes. What’s so important about this one that it has to be done this week?”
“I wish I knew. We have almost no information about this Quest.”
And whose fault is that? he thought grimly, but he kept that to himself. “Next time, use the buddy system. That always worked well before.”
“True enough,” Nim sighed, “but let’s get through this crisis before we worry about the next. Good luck, Gavin. Oh, sorry, you don’t like me saying that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said sourly. “We could actually use some luck right now.”
13
Trisha stared at her front door, expecting Hawk to come crashing through at any moment. She had no idea what he wanted or how he even found out where she lived, but she was trapped inside her own home and she didn’t know what to do.
A faint creak spun her around and she searched for the source with her heart stuck in her throat. The house was over fifty years old and it often made little sounds in the middle of the night as the frame shifted, but maybe that noise came from one of the windows or the back door.
She scrambled through every room, testing all the windows to make sure the latches were secure and turning on every light she passed. The back door led out into her tiny excuse for a backyard and the narrow alley behind the house and she always kept it bolted except on Trash Day, but she checked and double-checked the lock anyway. There was no sign that Hawk was trying to break in anywhere, but she couldn’t be sure.
She froze at the sound of a car engine starting up and she listened intently, wondering if he was actually leaving. Would he do that? she wondered hopefully. He came all the way out here for something, would he really give up that easily? Maybe he’s trying to trick me.
She saw the flash of headlights through the living room curtains, fading quickly as the car pulled away. She crept closer and carefully parted the curtains, half-expecting to find Hawk’s face pressed against the window, but there was nothing there, just the sidewalk and the empty street beyond. There wasn’t a single person in sight.
Something soft touched her ankle and she shrieked and jumped, spinning around just in time to see a small black-and-white shape skittering under the couch. She clutched her chest, trying to slow her franticly p
ounding heart.
“Jesus Christ, Marco,” she told him breathlessly. “Don’t do that!” Her eye fell on the white business card lying on the floor nearby and she snatched it up like a starving woman finding an apple. She flung the quilt aside looking for her phone and upended her purse onto the floor, grabbing her phone and dialing his number with shaking fingers. She held it tight against her ear, listening to it ring over and over. “Answer,” she whispered. “Please answer.”
“This is Lionel –”
“Lionel, it’s Trisha! I –”
“– please leave your message and I’ll return your call as soon as I can.”
“No!” The messaging service beeped and she tried to collect her scattered thoughts. “This is Trisha, Trisha Macmillan. Something’s happened, Hawk was here at my house and I don’t know what to do. Please call me back right away, please!” She hesitated, not knowing what else to say. She finally hung up, hugging the phone tightly against her and trying not to hyperventilate.
Marco poked his nose out from under the couch and she sank down to pull him all the way out and cradle him in her arms. She scratched the fur between his ears and she looked left and right for some clue as to what she should do. She couldn’t stay huddled up on her living room floor all night, even though there was no way she’d be able to sleep. She needed something to protect herself, in case Hawk came back.
Or never left. That unnerving thought got her moving, quickly. She scurried for the stairs and took them two at a time. Marco wriggled out of her grasp and dropped to the floor, shooting off in some other direction, but she ran straight into her bedroom and yanked open the bottom drawer of her dresser.
She shoved aside the sweaters piled there and pulled out the steel lockbox she’d stashed there and hoped to never open. She spun the combination, trying three times before she got the number right, and flipped open the lid, revealing the Glock 43 she bought herself after a neighborhood burglary scare.
Gawain (Knights of Excalibur Book 1) Page 8