by Linda Cajio
“Not just any drums, Miles. They’re filled with waste chemicals from Wagner Oil. The plant is right over there.” She pointed toward faint lights far off across the empty field. “They’ve been secretly burying these here for the last four months.”
He stared at her, then at the drums. “But they look years old.”
She could feel the shock run through him. Complacent Miles was getting a rude awakening. “Months old. They’re already leaching out the waste into the ground under the fill. A developer will no doubt buy this lot some day, if one hasn’t already. And of course, the mess will be discovered then. But the culprit won’t be. There’s nothing to trace Wagner here … except Earth Angel. I have to do this. For my grandfather. I’ll be back at your house when I’m done. Just as I promised.”
She knelt down and began poking at the earth again.
Miles knelt next to her. “Catherine, these signs and pranks are not the way to stop this. It’s dangerous to be out at night alone—especially in this place. Go to the … Here, give me that.” He took the stick from her struggling hands. His scraping was much more effective than hers. “Go to the family—”
“I did. A month ago, I told my father what Byrne’s been doing. He called me a liar.”
“No comment about your father.”
“I’ve already said it anyway.” She watched him dig, trying not to smile. His mouth might be saying the wrong things, but his hands were doing the right ones. She would keep this picture of Miles in her heart always.
“Go straight to the EPA,” he said, “and report—”
“I did that too. But they take forever to act, Miles, even if they think the complaint is a legitimate one. I called them anonymously, which was my fatal mistake. Earth Angel is newsworthy, and once the media is in on it, then bureaucracy moves a whole lot faster to cover the embarrassment and look good to the public.”
“You could have come to me—”
“No, I couldn’t,” she snapped, angry with his obtuse suggestion. “You wouldn’t have believed me, either, and you know it. I’m Catherine the idealist, Catherine the alarmist, Catherine the hippie. Nobody believes me because they think I’m against anything that makes a profit. Well, I like the money fine, but let’s do it right, even if it means a little less profit. And let’s not break the law for a buck, okay?”
“Okay.” He threw down the stick and sat back on his heels. “This dirt is too damn hard. Let’s get some of the concrete to prop the sign up instead.”
“Very bright, Miles.”
She held the sign while he propped concrete blocks around it. She smiled in amusement the entire time. He was wonderful.
He glanced up. “What are you staring at?”
“You,” she said. “Just you.”
“Oh.”
As she stood next to him, she was aware of everything about him. The strength in his hands, the way his hair fell over his forehead, the intense energy within him. Emotions that ran the gamut from excitement to tenderness washed through her heart.
As he set the last block in place, he said, “Never ever do this again, Catherine.”
She smiled innocently. “I won’t do a sign again.”
“No. No more Earth Angel.”
She just looked at him.
“We’ll discuss this at home.”
She just looked at him.
He sighed and started walking toward the road. “Come on.”
She followed behind him, knowing she was still bound by the bargain. But she would never promise the other.
When they reached her car, she said, “I’m not leaving my car this time.”
“I suppose I can trust you to drive it home,” he said.
“I will be there,” she said forcefully, reaching in her sweatsuit jacket pocket for her keys.
The pocket was empty.
“Damn!” she muttered.
Miles asked the obvious. “What’s wrong?”
“I lost my keys.”
“Lost your keys? Where?”
She smiled sweetly. “If I knew that, they wouldn’t be lost, now would they?”
“Then you’ll have to leave your car and come home with me—”
“No!”
“Don’t you have a spare key?”
“In my purse. In the car, under the front seat.”
“What’s it doing in the car?”
She glared at him. “Does James Bond take a purse on a mission? Does Mother Teresa?”
“Yes, she does,” Miles said, trying the driver’s door. “I’ve seen her with one when she comes to raise money in the States.”
“Well, Earth Angel leaves hers nice and safe in the car. See?” She pointed in the passenger window to the front seat. “Nice and safe.”
In spite of her standing there, he walked around the car and tried the passenger door. It was locked too. Catherine just shook her head. Miles was from the I-have-to-touch-it-to-believe-it school of thought.
Believing it, he looked at her. “Don’t you have one of those little magnetic boxes with the key inside attached under the hood somewhere, just in case you lock your keys in the car?”
“No, because I keep a spare in my wallet just in case I lock my keys in the car.”
“Catherine …” He took a deep breath. “You’ll have to come home with me.”
“No, I am not leaving my car again. They must have dropped out of my pocket when I was digging. I’ll go back and check.”
“It’s too danger—”
“Don’t be silly,” she interrupted, starting off toward the sign. “They’re on a glow-in-the-dark key chain, so it’ll only take a minute to spot them. Besides, nothing happened when we were putting up the sign. And you can hear me scream. In the meantime, you stay put and watch my car, okay?”
She disappeared into the trees, completely ignoring his protests.
Miles watched her go and debated whether to follow her, then decided not to. She was right; he could hear her easily. Also, she would know exactly where she’d been standing or kneeling, so she had a better chance of finding her keys than he did. And someone really ought to look after the car. Both cars. He prayed the ’Vette was still safe and sound behind the bushes down the road. He could see the bushes, but not the car. He hoped nobody else could see the car, either.
If only he could get in the car, then he could reach the spare keys and they could get out of there. He tried the door again with no luck, then felt for any space around the window edge. It was pressed too tight against the door frame for him to force it down.
He walked around the car and tried the driver’s-side window. This one wasn’t butted tight against the frame under the rubber gaskets. Still, he couldn’t get his fingers in the crack enough to push the window down. The pop-up lock looked promising, though. If he had a hanger, he could feed it through the window and maybe get the lock up.
He looked around and realized there was enough trash along the road’s shoulder to provide a hanger … or something close.
“I pay good taxes for this?” he muttered as he surveyed the litter. “Aha!”
He picked up a thin loop of metal that had caught his eye. It was rusted but still flexible. He only hoped it was long enough.
At the car he was able to feed it through the window, and he grinned. Pulling it out, he bent a small loop at the end, then fed it back through the opening and began to fish for the lock. A car suddenly swung up behind Catherine’s, its headlights shining right on him. The bubble lights on the roof weren’t swirling red, but Miles still got a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Two policemen got out of the car.
“Good evening, officers,” Miles said cheerfully. “I’m afraid I locked myself out of the car.”
“May I see your license and registration?” one asked.
He casually dropped the wire and got out his wallet. “I just have my license. My registration is in the car.”
“Thank you,” the officer said as he took it. He headed back to the squad car.
The other officer pulled out the wire.
Miles smiled and shrugged. The cop didn’t. He wondered what the hell was keeping Catherine.
About a minute later, the first officer returned. “This car is registered to a Catherine Wagner. Would you step over to the squad car, sir?”
“But—”
“Step over to the car, sir,” the other cop said, taking out his handcuffs.
Miles stared at them, shocked. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you in. Will you step over to the car now, sir?”
“No, I will not,” Miles began.
The cop grabbed his arm and snapped a cuff on his wrist. “I’m afraid you are now resisting arrest. You have the right to remain silent …”
Miles started to open his mouth to tell them about Catherine being in the deserted lot. He kept it shut, though, when he realized the officers would discover Earth Angel. They would both be arrested then. He swore under his breath. Never, never, never would he follow her again. He’d retire to a monastery where there was no Catherine to make him physically and emotionally crazy.
And when he got out of the slammer in ten to twelve, he’d kill her.
As she hunkered down among the trees, Catherine clamped her hands over her mouth to silence her laughter as she watched Philadelphia’s premier banker get arrested. She shouldn’t be laughing. She knew she really shouldn’t. But the look on Miles’s face …
By the time the police car rolled away, tears were streaming down her face. She was still snickering and wiping at her tears when she finally emerged from her hiding place, her keys safe in her pocket.
She supposed she ought to go bail him out.
The thought had her laughing all over again.
Seven
“Kitteridge?”
“Here!” Miles pushed himself away from the wall.
“Someone made your bail.”
“About time.” He walked over to the cell door, then turned and waved to Iggy and Righteous William, who were in for robbing a convenience store. “I’m sprung, fellas. It’s been a pleasure.”
Iggy pushed his wavy blond hair from his eyes. “See ya ’round, dude.”
Righteous William gave him the victory fist. He had yet to speak. With his staring eyes and “Mother Doom” tattoo on his shoulder, the man was scary enough without words.
The sound of the lock opening was sweet to Miles. Standing on the other side of the bars was even sweeter. But the greatest pleasure was yet to come—when he had his hands around Catherine’s throat. He would kill her for this. And he still didn’t know what that sign said.
His morale rose 200 percent as he walked out of the cell-block area in the precinct station. He was shocked to see daylight through the grimy windows. It had seemed an eternity since they’d put him in the holding cell, and now he realized it was. As he’d waited impatiently for someone to arrive and straighten out the mix-up, he’d had time to think. He couldn’t get the image of those rusting drums leaking toxic chemicals out of his mind. He didn’t like what he’d seen, and knew something had to be done.
Catherine and his grandmother were sitting on a bench on the far side of the lobby. Catherine was still dressed in jeans and sweatjacket, her auburn hair falling around her shoulders. She looked like a teenager. The moment she spotted him, she broke into giggles.
“Wait until I get you out of here,” he muttered as she approached him.
She actually leaned against him and giggled even more. “Don’t make me laugh. My sides are already hurting. Besides, who do you think explained what happened and bailed you out?”
“Who had the money to bail him out?” Lettice asked, joining them.
“You,” Catherine said. “But I got him off.”
He looked down at her, acutely aware of how grimy, bleary-eyed, and unshaven he was. “I am eternally grateful,” he said dryly.
“Now who’s being prickly?” She glanced up at him, then wrapped her arms around him and burst into laughter.
The feel of her body snuggled against his dissolved his hours of anger. Killing her didn’t seem to be as satisfactory an idea as it had been. There were others ways to wreak his vengeance. He patted her on the back and resigned himself to being the brunt of a great joke—for the moment.
“Miles, you have damaged the family honor beyond repair,” Lettice said. She was smiling, though, an occasional snort of amusement escaping her lips. “You’re nearly as bad as your cousin Rick. I love it.”
“Rick?” He frowned in puzzlement. “Rick’s the upright English gentleman. He’s never done anything bad in his life.”
His grandmother leaned closer. “Except rob a robber’s house. My grandchildren are turning out to be quite a surprise.”
The sergeant beckoned Miles over before he could ask more. He unwrapped Catherine and collected his things. The sergeant was much more courteous this time than he had been the night before.
Out in the sunshine again, he breathed a sigh of relief to be away from the smells and the tension. It had been a long night. Which reminded him …
“Where the hell were you?” he asked Catherine. “I was in there all night!”
“Making bail,” she said, giggling again. “It took us a while to find out which precinct you were in—”
“Where were you when they were arresting me?” he interrupted.
“Yes,” Lettice broke in. “Where were the two of you when they were arresting you?”
“On a mission,” Catherine said. “Miles, I was going to come out of the trees—”
“Trees?” Lettice’s eyes widened. “What were you doing in trees?”
“Hiding,” Miles said. Then he remembered a vital point. “My car! Where’s my car?”
“I got your housekeeper’s husband to pick it up,” Catherine answered. “He must be wondering about all these cars in strange places.”
Miles relaxed.
His grandmother didn’t. “What cars? What strange places?”
He ignored her. So did Catherine, as she continued, “And the reason I didn’t pop up and say, ‘Over here, boys,’ is because that would have given everything away. Why didn’t you tell them about me? You wouldn’t have been arrested then.”
“Given what away?” Lettice asked. “What are you two talking about?”
“You know and I know we would have been arrested for worse,” Miles muttered. Okay, he thought, so he preferred to be arrested for grand theft auto rather than be convicted as a pollution commando, but that didn’t mean he was letting her off the hook.
“See?” Catherine said, nodding in satisfaction. “I knew that, so what are you complaining about?”
“Wait a minute!” Lettice explained. “What are you two talking about, you could have been arrested for worse? What about the cars in strange places? What did you two do last night?”
“We put up a sign,” Catherine said.
Miles shot her a dour look. Taking her arm, he dragged her down the few steps to the sidewalk. Her perfume teased his senses, and reminded him that he was covered in jail grunge. “We’re going home. I need a bath and a shave and a nap and a chain for you. Not necessarily in that order.”
Catherine erupted into laughter again.
“What do you mean by a chain for Catherine?” Lettice asked, following them. “What were you two doing last night in the trees? Miles, answer me!”
“I can’t give you anything but love, baby,” he sang in reply, feeling like a bewildered Cary Grant tangling with a dizzy heiress, a screwy grandmother, and a full-grown man-eating leopard.
The leopard sounded the easiest of the lot.
“So how was it?” Catherine asked, leaning against Miles’s bedroom door. He was dressed in pajama bottoms, and she watched him concentrate on putting on his watch. She knew it was dangerous to be there, but after her shower she had seen his open door and couldn’t resist teasing him about his unfortunate incarceration.
“Aggravating,” he answered. “Iggy and Righteous William w
eren’t so bad, though.”
“Iggy and Righteous William?” she echoed, but her mind wasn’t on the conversation. Instead, she was noticing how his biceps bulged slightly. His chest and shoulders were well defined, and his stomach was flat. It was obvious he worked out on a regular basis. Silky dark chest hair arrowed down his flesh, its destination more intriguing than she cared to admit. The pajama bottoms clung to his hips like a second skin. She pulled the collar of her thick terry robe closer around her neck.
“They were my cell mates,” he said, grinning.
“They sound lovely,” she said, and laughed as the image of an Iggy and Righteous William locked up with Miles momentarily overrode her fascination with his body.
“Are you going to laugh all day?” he asked, although he didn’t sound nearly as irritated as he had two hours ago.
“Probably,” she admitted. “Your face when the cops arrested you was priceless. You should have seen it.”
“I’m sure you’ll remind me of it often,” he murmured, walking toward her.
“I promise.” She swiped at her tears. “Lordy, what a night.”
“You’ve got to admit I’m a fun guy.”
“The best, Miles, the best.”
“Just so you know it.” He touched her arm. “Catherine, I have only one question.”
She straightened at his serious tone. “What?”
“What did the sign say?”
That did it. She collapsed against him and roared with laughter. He put his arms around her, literally holding her up. His chest hairs tickled her nose. She tried to regain her composure, but the laughter kept breaking out. The memory of Miles being cuffed and hauled away would stay with her forever.
He sighed. “I hope you’re still laughing when this gets in the papers. Because I’ll kill you then.”
“Oh, come on, Miles,” she said, lifting her head. “It was all a mix-up, and I’ve already straightened it out. It’s never going to get into the papers. Although …” The giggles started once more at the thought of blaring Philadelphia Inquirer headlines. That would just about make up for the mess he’d once made of her life.
“That’s right, laugh.” He patted her back. “Get it all out so I can shoot you and hang you and draw and quarter you—”