Nick Novak, the one man she thought she could trust, had made a damn fool of her. If he had told her he knew Louise, it would have been over too quickly for him. He couldn’t have given her those streetwise lessons on living the life of a runaway. He wouldn’t have had his opportunity to use her.
She’d thought he cared for her. Loved her, even.
Well, wasn’t she the biggest fool on earth!
The moment she opened the door, Nick ambushed her. “I keep the confidence of the kids I tape—or help. You knew that because I told you up-front! It’s part of the code, keeping confidences—you, of all people, should understand that concept since you do it for your father. Isn’t that what this whole thing between us is about?”
She pushed by him. How dare he have the audacity to look angry, as if she was the one who’d done something wrong?
She stood in the middle of his studio, gawking as if looking for something to collect. But she had nothing but the clothes on her back.
She didn’t even have him.
About to leave, Isabel hesitated when he said, “As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t tell you what I knew.”
“How much do you know?” she demanded. From his tight-lipped expression, Isabel was certain there was more. “You know where Louise is, don’t you? You’ve known all along.”
“No, not all along. Not until tonight.”
“Humboldt House.”
“Yeah, Humboldt House.”
“Where is it? What’s the address?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“But Louise is there, right? And that’s where you were just now? You went to…what? Warn her I was getting close?”
He didn’t answer and she wanted to hit him. Even now he wouldn’t be straight with her.
“I never would have thought it of you, Nick.” Her throat was so thick she had to force out the words. “Congratulations. I guess we’re finally even for what I did to you in high school.”
With that, she headed for the door.
“Isabel, that isn’t fair! Wait a minute! You can’t leave now—”
“Just watch me!” she shouted back. “And, uh, oh yeah—I never want to see you again!”
Running down the stairs, she tried playing the game. The one where she blocked everything out and presented a cool, clean facade, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. But by the time she hit the street, she was struggling to keep from losing it.
Eyes stinging, only her will keeping her together, Isabel stood at the doorway, the realization that she had no money hitting her. The bank across the six corners—it must have an ATM. She could get cash and then find a taxi.
As she headed that way, she automatically scanned her surroundings. Not much on the streets. Two cars coming through the intersection. A lone taxi going the other way—empty. A truck at a red light. A young exec-type who’d had too much to drink weaving his way home.
Then movement caught her eye—racing down Milwaukee, a slight figure, pale hair standing out under the streetlights.
The product of wishful thinking or could it be…?
“Lulu!” she called, waving.
The head bobbed up and found her. The girl waved and yelled, “Izzie!” the nickname nearly drowned out by an engine starting up behind Isabel.
Louise ran to the intersection where she had to wait for the truck to pass. Isabel reached the crossroads just as a car came screeching away from a curb along Damen Avenue. Expecting it to stop at the red light, she was horrified when the vehicle seemed to pick up speed as it turned, and an impatient Louise stepped off the curb before the light changed.
“Louise, watch it!” Isabel yelled as the vehicle made a wide arc.
Louise looked up just in time—the car was speeding straight for her. The teenager swerved off to her right and jumped back up on the curb, safe by mere inches. The car continued to pick up speed and careered down Milwaukee.
For a moment, heart pounding, torn between imagination and reality, Isabel stared after the speeding vehicle. Had the driver purposely tried to hit Louise or not?
Quickly crossing the street, Louise was all over her, enveloping her in a big hug. “Oh, Izzie, I’m so glad to see you!”
Isabel hugged her back, but she was distracted, still watching, waiting for the car to swing around and come back for them both. But the street remained quiet but for the few vehicles passing at a reasonable speed.
Isabel brought her attention back to her sister. “We have to go home, Lulu.”
The teenager appeared horrified. “No, I can’t live with Daddy anymore!”
“I’ll make other arrangements for us, I promise, but we have to get off the streets to someplace safe.” She would warn her father in person, but if he wasn’t there, too bad, she had to call the police. “We can get a good night’s sleep, then in the morning, pack and move to a hotel until I can find us an apartment—”
“No!” Louise pulled herself out of Isabel’s arms. “You don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand, Lulu? I know about Amber Bower.”
“And our brother—do you know about him, too?”
“Brother?” The air whooshed out of Isabel’s chest. She had a brother?
“Half brother, and he’s turned out to be a bastard for real! He’s the one who grabbed me last night.”
Unable to connect with the new information, Isabel felt as if her mind was racing out of control. “We can’t talk about it here.” She looked around. Where the hell was a taxi when you really needed one? “We have to get someplace safe!”
Grabbing Louise’s hand, she started pulling her back along Damen toward the rapid-transit station. Maybe they could duck under the turnstiles and get to a train.
“I’m not going home.”
“Fine. I get it.”
She got lots of things now. Her mind reeled with Louise’s revelation.
“Why can’t we just go into Nick’s place?”
“Nick’s place?” Of course Louise knew where to find him—it seemed all the kids on the street did. “Not an option.”
“I—I don’t understand. Isn’t that where you just came from? He said you were there when he tried to get me to come back with him to see you.”
Yards from the rapid-transit station, Isabel stopped. “What? That’s what Nick was doing tonight?”
“He couldn’t bring you to see me, because that would have been against the house rules. And no one would have ever trusted him again. But he came to tell me you were scared for me and needed me.”
“Oh, honey, you know I need you.”
Isabel swept Louise into her arms and felt her sister shudder. Dear Lord, the hell she must have been through.
“I need you, too, Izzie.”
“Now, isn’t this touching.”
The familiar voice drove an icy coldness through Isabel and she immediately whipped around, placing herself between Louise and the man she’d thought of as her friend, her buddy, the brother she’d never had.
Irony was no stranger to her tonight.
Trying to formulate an escape plan, Isabel grew very centered as she stared at him. He wasn’t himself. His hair was a mess, matted and poking every which way. His eyes were big and staring and he didn’t seem too steady on his feet.
Ignoring Louise’s frantic poking and prodding her from behind, she calmly asked, “What are you doing here, Boyd? Isn’t it above and beyond duty to report for work at this hour?”
His laugh sounded bitter. “I thought a family get-together was in order.”
“Really, we don’t have time,” she said, subtly pushing her sister and inching toward the rapid-transit station. “Louise needs her rest.”
“I insist you make time, Isabel.”
With that, Boyd Cummings pulled out a gun.
IT HADN’T TAKEN NICK LONG to decide to call 911. He’d seen the sisterly reunion from his window and made the decision that it was time they let the authorities in on what had gone on. With both sisters there,
the police would get the full story.
If Isabel had been mad enough to never want to see him again before, she was going to want to kill him now for taking things into his own hands, he thought, racing down the stairs two at a time. Nevertheless, he would see that the sisters stuck around until the police arrived. It was for their own good.
Only by the time he got out on the street, they were gone from the corner. He stared in that direction for a moment before turning to look behind him. He got a glimpse of Isabel and Louise before they disappeared from sight, followed by a familiar, ominous figure.
“Damn!”
He ran after them, slowing when he got to the break between buildings where he’d seen them disappear.
Cautiously, he peered around the corner. They’d gotten to the end of the station building and the bastard was waving a gun at them, pushing them back farther, directly under the elevated structure.
Nick’s pulse pounded as he realized what was happening.
The area back there was deserted, private. And “L” trains pulling into stations and braking could be loud enough to cover some unusual noises…like gunshots.
Unless he thought of something, Nick feared both Isabel and Louise would be dead before the police got there.
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT’S going on,” Isabel said, not liking the dark, dangerous-looking place littered with all sorts of refuse.
The only light came from the elevated platform above, cutting through the tracks and raining down on them in narrow ribbons.
“He’s nuts, that’s what,” Louise said hotly. “Ever since I found out the truth, he’s been threatening me to keep quiet.”
Isabel gave her a nudge and a look that told her to keep her mouth shut now. Louise crossed her arms over her chest and got that stubborn expression that drove Mother crazy.
“Little Nancy Drew here couldn’t leave it alone,” Boyd said. “She was at Mama for details until she lost her temper and gave it to the kid straight. Then Louise came after me for not telling you both who I was.”
“So we know who you are, so what?” Isabel asked, still not wanting to believe any of it.
“The brat’s going to ruin everything for me,” he said, staring at Louise. “Everything I’ve worked for all these years. You have no idea of what it’s been like, being the ignored bastard son.”
“I think I get the ignored part.”
Boyd shook his head, and there was a wild look in his eyes when he said, “You two were recognized as his daughters, while I, his son, had to hide my identity.”
“For the good of Father’s political career.”
If Boyd hadn’t tried to kill her, if he wasn’t holding that gun on her now, Isabel would feel sorry for him. As it was, she knew how dangerous he could be and knew she had to figure out a way to neutralize him.
“But Father didn’t ignore you completely,” she said. “Obviously he wanted you near him. Otherwise he wouldn’t have given you a job as a press liaison.”
“Subordinate to you!” Boyd spat, obviously insulted by the fact. “Day after day, I had to pretend to be your friend, to be fond of the brat—”
“To what end, Boyd?” Isabel asked softly, trying her best to sound reasonable. And sane. “What’s the bottom line here?”
“A smooth entry into the club, of course. With Senator William Grayson backing me, I plan a meteoric rise straight to the top of the Democratic party.”
“President? Of the United States? You see yourself as presidential material?”
“Why not? I’ve got the looks for it. The charm. The connections. And obviously I’m good at waiting for what I want.”
Either Boyd was delusional or…he was delusional. The only real question was whether he’d always thought this way or if drugs had influenced him. Now Isabel could see it—wild-eyed and nervously handling that gun, Boyd had to be on something.
“Actually, your deaths will give me that exposure I need,” he continued. “Consoling the senator…getting on the gun-control wagon.” He brightened. “That’s it. I’ll make that my platform for my first election—”
“You’re insane!” Louise blurted out.
“No, no, I’m being ironic.” Boyd laughed and looked even more manic, if that were possible. “You want to know the real irony, Isabel? I’ll be consoling him about your death to the whole world…and the senator’s not even your father.”
“Liar!” Louise shouted.
“Oh, he’s your father, brat, just not hers.”
In a night of shocks, this outdid them all, Isabel thought. Her father not her father? That couldn’t be true.
Boyd went on. “His marriage to your mother was a matter of convenience for them both. She got the father she needed for you, and he got her family’s money and political backing for his career.”
Noting a movement in the shadows behind him, Isabel tried to stay focused, saying, “I don’t believe you.”
“Ask him. Ask how he went into the marriage refusing to give up my mother. Another irony? She found out she was pregnant with me the day my father and your mother married. You do know they eloped. Oh, so romantic, right? That’s so he wouldn’t have to spend too much time with her. He spent his wedding night in my mother’s bed.”
Isabel’s stomach twisted at the thought. She looked beyond him briefly to the moving shadows. Her blinking a few times turned the shifting dark shape back there into a Nick Novak facsimile. But that couldn’t actually be Nick. He was out of her life for good.
Or was he?
Realizing she wasn’t imagining things, that Nick had come to their rescue once more, Isabel knew she had to keep Boyd’s full attention on her.
“I can understand why you might hate Father,” Isabel said as she saw him creeping into position behind Boyd. “But why us? We’re all victims of his ambition, Boyd. All three of us.”
“Don’t compare your lives to mine. Don’t you dare!”
Aware that Louise stiffened, Isabel knew she, too, had spotted Nick. She reached back surreptitiously and found her sister’s hand. Louise squeezed back in acknowledgment.
“Did you want for anything, Boyd?” Isabel mentally counted the yards between him and Nick. “Food, clothing, a roof over your head?”
“No, what does that prove?”
“That Father thought as much of you as he did of us. And by the way, why Cummings? Why aren’t you using your mother’s name, Bower?” she asked as those yards of separation dwindled and Nick signaled her to be ready.
“Mama had a short-lived marriage. The man’s name ended up on the birth certifi—”
Before he could complete the word, Nick was on him, knocking his hand upward as the gun went off. The men danced under the metal structure until Nick got a grip on Boyd’s hand and banged it against a support. The gun dropped to the ground. And when they turned away again, trading ineffectual punches at the close distance, Louise shot forward and grabbed it.
“Louise, no!” Isabel cried as her sister put the weapon in both hands and held it out toward the dueling duo. “Put down the gun!”
Louise’s hands were shaking and Isabel was terrified the gun would go off and the bullet would find its way to an unsuspecting Nick. The two men were impossibly close.
“Please, Louise,” she begged, “for me. Put the gun down for me.”
Then Louise seemed to get hold of herself and lowered the gun. Isabel rushed to her, took the weapon from her hands and wrapped her arms around her sister’s shaking shoulders.
“He can’t hurt us now,” Isabel reassured her.
“What if he hurts Nick?”
“Nick can take care of himself. He learned how a long time ago.”
Even so, she watched carefully to be sure, as Nick pushed Boyd away and drew back his arm. He delivered the punch with so much force that Boyd spun and fell forward, trying to grab on to a support and missing.
Even as Boyd’s forehead glanced off the edge and he slumped to the ground, Isabel heard the commotion out fr
ont. Undoubtedly someone had heard the gun go off.
Suddenly, two cops burst through the gangway, guns drawn.
“Nobody move!” one yelled.
15
“INCREDIBLE, ISN’T IT?” Nick muttered, taking another slug of coffee at the early-morning ritual meeting with Annie and Helen at the cybercafé. “I lose the love of my life twice, both times to the same man—her father.”
The irony being that she wasn’t even related to the man, not that he wanted to go into that.
“If you truly love Isabel, you have to fight for her,” Annie told him.
“I would, if only I could be sure she was free of the senator for good.”
He feared that once Isabel confronted him with his duplicity, the senator would use her feelings against her, find a way to trick her into staying loyal to him.
“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered, downing the rest of his coffee. “I can live without her.”
“You big jerk!” Helen gave him a furious scowl. “Now is not the time to let something slide off your back. At least not Isabel Grayson. She isn’t just some woman. She’s the woman for you. Now, get off your butt and do something to get her into your life permanently.”
“Who died and made you boss?”
“No, not this time,” Helen said. “You’re not sucking me into some verbal battle to distract me. I’m serious. You ought to be glad you have something personal to fight for instead of just professional woes.”
“Where is this coming from?” Nick asked. “Part of the idea of running our own businesses was to get away from ulcer-producing jobs.”
“Right. But that was before the Hot Zone.”
“The Hot Zone?” Nick echoed.
“The Hot Zone,” Annie clarified, “is a national chain of coffee houses.”
Helen explained, “They’re planning on opening several in Chicago, starting with this neighborhood. If I don’t do something to stop it from happening, I’m ruined.”
“So you’re planning on what?”
“I would have a face-to-face with the owner himself if I thought it would do any good. But I’ve heard about this Luke DeVries, how he smiles and nods, makes you think he’s with you…and then just goes ahead and does what he wants, anyway. Maybe I can get local businesspeople to picket the area and then the politicians—”
Improper Conduct Page 18