Mick Abruzzo

by Nancy Martin

  While the cops wrangled about technicalities, Mick sat by himself on one side of the room and thought until all the facts just churned around in his mind until it made no sense and he fell asleep, his head against the cold wall.

  Cannoli woke him up. “You can go now. You’ve been up all night. I’ll take you to see Nora.”

  Mick shook his head. “I gotta see Nicky Severino first.”

  Nicky was still in a hospital bed, gray-faced, but out of ICU. His voice was raspy from some kind of breathing tube that had come out a few hours back. Nicky said, “Sorry, Mick. I messed up.”

  Mick shook his hand and held on. “It wasn’t you, Nicky.”

  “You sure about that?”

  Mick was pretty sure his brother had somehow screwed up and led Garza’s people to Nicky. The only other option was maybe the bookie Little Frankie was in debt to—he’d probably flapped his lips and given away too much. If the trouble came from Berger, the stock broker who turned to bookmaking, there was going to be a score to settle. It would take time to unravel it all. Not now, but in the future. Retribution would be paid.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mick said. “Your job is to get well again.”

  Nicky almost managed a smile. He was a small and broken figure in the hospital bed. “I’m working on it.”

  He dozed off then, and Mick stood at the bedside for a while thinking about Garza, who was still alive in another hospital, but barely. About Little Frankie, about Nora. About Liz and what still remained to do about her. It was definitely time for her to make up with her mother, reestablish her own family. There would be arrangements to make. Maybe Bruno could drive her where she needed to go, get her settled. The FBI might get to her no matter what they did, and maybe that was okay. Liz needed to get over bad boys. With a child of her own, she would have plenty of changes ahead.

  Nicky opened his eyes and said, “Maybe you won’t need that Escalade, Mick.”

  The bullet-proof vehicle. Mick must have looked puzzled.

  Nicky said, “Better that you don’t have kids to drive around, huh? You don’t need to worry.”

  He went to sleep mumbling, and in a while Mick left the hospital trying not to think anymore.

  He needed sleep, too. Nicky’s words bugged him, though.

  No kids—was that safer? Yes, of course it was. In his line of work, it would better for everyone. Making the choice to be childless, though, would be the end of his relationship with Nora—he knew that with certainty. She wanted kids. Deserved them. Lots of kids. Family was her core, her identity. Remembering how she’d held her sister’s baby in her arms, her face soft, yet intense—Mick knew it was her natural self. Nora’s destiny was to be a mother.

  He picked up her from the party she’d attended in Philadelphia and drove her home. She was glad to see him out of custody, and he marveled at how easily she accepted that now. Him getting arrested was normal for her. She asked him a few questions, but then in a rush of excitement told him about her day, how her work problem had sorted out, how she’d helped solve a mystery, too. He listened with love weighing like a stone in his heart. She was alight with energy—pleased that she’d rescued the situation, happy that things had turned out well.

  “Where’s the kid?” Mick asked, cautious about the baby that had spent the night with them.

  “My sister Libby took over tonight.” Nora turned to him in the passenger seat, smiling, and touched his arm warmly. “So it’s just you and me. And I have something planned that you’re going to like.”

  At home, Nora didn’t dash upstairs to change out of her fancy party clothes. She wore a long blue gown that swirled around her curves in liquid waves, very pretty. She was pleased to be wearing it, he could see. Full of high spirits, she dug into the fridge and found a bottle of champagne. She waved it overhead. “What a day! We have celebrating to do.”

  Mick couldn’t hide how he was feeling anymore. He felt sobered by what had happened to Nicky. What had become of Garza. With one hand, he stopped Nora from opening the bottle, sorry to spoil her night. More sorry to have to tell her what decision he’d reached. He took the bottle from her and put it on the kitchen counter. “Let’s go up on the hilltop instead. Look at some stars.”

  She laughed up at him. “Michael, it’s a cloudy night.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve got some stuff to tell you about.”

  Her smile didn’t waver. Ready and willing, she took his hand and squeezed. “Okay, let’s go.”

  He put his jacket around her bare shoulders, and they hiked slowly through the woods, Nora with her big skirt hitched up over her arm. She asked him about his arrest, what had happened that kept him all night. He sketched it out for her, omitting everything about Garza and his warehouse. Hand in hand, they headed for the top of the hill. No telescope this time, and no Ralphie. The clouds parted occasionally, giving glimpses of moonlight through the trees, but otherwise it was dark in the woods and they had to concentrate on their footing.

  As they climbed, Mick thought about what he needed to say and how to say it. But Nora being Nora, she made it easy for him.

  When they reached the clearing at the top of the hill, she turned to him. “I’ve had a busy week, but you’ve had something difficult going on, too, haven’t you?”

  He lifted one of her hands to his lips and kissed her. “I should have told you everything,” he said, unable to meet her steady gaze. “But it was tricky. I had some stuff to clean up.”

  “Little Frankie?” Nora asked.

  “Yeah, but not just him. There was someone else I had to help. An old girlfriend.”

  If she was bothered by his confession that he’d spent a week helping an old flame, Nora didn’t show it. Instead, her quick mind counted up all the clues, and she said, “You gave her your phone. Was she in trouble? Is she safe now?”

  “She’ll be safe. Not very happy, but safe.”

  “Does she need a place to stay? Do you want her to come here? There’s lots of room in the house.” She paused and gave him a sideways smile. “Or will she make me jealous?”

  With something hard knotting itself inside him, Mick gathered Nora up in his arms and held on tight. Maybe for the last time? He tried to shut out that thought. When he spoke, he hardly recognized his own taut voice. “There will never be anything for you to be jealous about. I love you, only you, forever. I love our life together.”

  Against his shoulder, she said, “I think you’re going to love it even more.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “No, I mean it.” When she looked up at him, her smile sparkled. “I’ve been a little crazy lately. Not myself, that is. I’m sorry, but that may last a few more months.”

  He was too tired to figure out what she meant, but he liked the teasing glint in her eyes. Her smile was contagious. It lifted his drowning heart. “What are you talking about?”

  “Michael,” she said, “I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby.”

  Maybe his heart stopped. The moment felt like the sky cracking open. At first came the bad storm of darkness—the terror that life had just gotten harder, scarier. Actually terrifying. His was no world to bring a child into. This was wrong. Very dangerous.

  But then the clouds parted, and the moon shone down around them as warmly as summer sunlight. How could this be bad? The joy was in her face, in his chest, all around them.

  Nora laughed up at him. “I really surprised you!”

  He knew he was being stupid, but he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t make the right words come out. He was drunk with the news. “Are you sure? I mean—are you okay? This is real?”

  “Of course it’s real.

  Bad timing? Or fate?

  He held fast to Nora while she told him the details, but he could barely listen. By helping Liz out of a jam, had he turned things around? Aligned the stars? Here was Nora in his arms, laughing and crying, and maybe he was, too. Mick spun her around, and the Milky Way went on spinning dizzily, joyously. He
didn’t understand the universe, but under that night sky he felt a little closer to comprehending what life was all about.

  Whatever lay ahead, he would make it work. Change his life. Make it right.

  Next day, he found a florist. The shop had a window full of frilly stuff all the color of lemonade. A yellow cat sat up on a table, too, tail twitching as customers went in and house. When Mick arrived to the tinkling of a bell over the door, the lady clerk stayed behind the counter like she was afraid he’d come to knock over the place. She warmed up when he laid it on the line. She convinced him the right choice was a couple dozen pink tulips.

  “Everybody loves pink tulips,” she said, wrapping them up in paper and tying the cone with a ribbon. With a smile, she handed the package into his arm like it was a baby. “Your wife will love them.”

  The end

  The action of this story takes place between books nine and ten of the Blackbird Sisters Mysteries—LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF MURDER and A LITTLE NIGHT MURDER (published by Penguin and available from all booksellers.)