by Laura Leone
There were also a lot of women who were clearly clients. Ryan saw several hookers who looked like they were dressed for work. A dozen women were going into a group discussion. A hollow-eyed woman sitting outside an office was smoking with furious dedication and repeatedly checking her watch. Although the woman was within three feet of a "No Smoking" sign, Isabel didn't admonish her. Ryan saw track marks on the woman's arm, which didn't surprise him. A lot of hookers were addicts.
In addition to two group meeting rooms, there were several private counseling rooms, a small clinic, a conference room, a modest soup kitchen, some storage rooms, and some simple showering facilities for clients.
"No dormitory," Ryan observed.
"We're here to get people off the street permanently, not to warehouse them for a night." She added, "But I can recommend a shelter if Adam needs a place."
"I don't know," Ryan said, uneasy with the idea.
"Maybe not today, then. If you change your mind, you'll tell me." When they reached the reception area, she asked the secretary for some documents, then handed them to Ryan. "This tells you more about Safe House and our work. This is a list of names and phone numbers; you can reach us twenty-four hours a day. And this is some information about volunteer training, in case you—"
"Volunteer?" he repeated.
"Well, we do have some paying positions. If you'd like a job application—"
"That's not what I meant." Ryan waited until someone passed them, then said in a low voice, "You don't really want a prostitute volunteering here, do you?"
"Well, we do have a strict policy about that," she admitted.
"No kidding?"
"None of our staff or volunteers can be working prostitutes."
"So I don't need information about vol—"
"We want to protect kids from prostitution, not teach them how to make top dollar at it. The way someone evidently taught you."
"Could you just lay off me and—"
"So, like everyone else here, you'd have to give it up if you wanted to contribute to our work."
"Everyone else?"
"Well, almost everyone else. I am one of the few people on our staff who wasn't a prostitute before working here, Ryan. I'm also one of the few people on staff here with no rap sheet, whether we're talking about arrests or convictions."
He didn't try to hide his surprise. "Everybody working here was in the life?"
"Almost everybody. Including, as you may recall, the boss."
"Oh. Right."
"Nobody here condemns a person's past, Ryan."
"Yeah, well, it's not my past."
"But you could quit it, turn it into the past," Isabel said, "and do important work here."
"Are you trying to save my soul or something?"
"I don't care about your soul. I care about the kids I think you can help. You've developed some trust with Adam and will get him to seek our help. Having talked with you, I think you can do that with a lot more kids."
"Let's just see if I can help this one," he said.
"You're a potentially valuable resource, and you're wasting your life turning tricks for a rich clientele." Her gaze flicked over him. "I mean, you're obviously not selling it in the streets for fifty bucks a pop."
He checked his expensive wristwatch. "No, I'm certainly not, Isabel. And, if you'll excuse me, I've got an appointment on Telegraph Hill. Mustn't be late for work."
"Ryan."
He walked away, angry and defensive. "I didn't come here for this. You have no right to—"
"Ryan, I'm sorry."
He looked over his shoulder at her.
She smiled. "Occupational hazard, I guess."
He shrugged. "I guess so."
"We'll get Adam off the streets. Then we'll talk about what you could do to help around here if you'd just apply yourself."
A puff of laughter escaped him. "I think you just spoiled your apology."
She called after him, "I'll make those calls I mentioned, and I'll be in touch very soon."
He waved over his shoulder in acknowledgement.
#
"No, Kevin, you're not canceling!" Catherine snapped over the phone at him two days later. "Not again."
"Oh, come on," he said into his cell phone. "I didn't cancel last time, I just postponed." After his appointment at Safe House, he'd dutifully bedded Alice Van Offelen for the rest of the afternoon, even though he was so distracted by thoughts of his conversation with Isabel that his performance was a trifle erratic. He'd apologized and claimed he had injured his back during a game of squash; Alice had believed him and expressed sympathy.
"Don't mince words," Catherine said. "Just get your ass to your damn appointment on time, Kevin."
He knew she only swore when she was really angry. "Catherine. I'm sorry, I know this is inconvenient—"
"Inconvenient? It's outrageous, and I won't put up with this, Kevin! Not twice in once week!"
"What do you want me to do?" he said. "I'm almost a hundred miles from the city, stuck behind an overturned eighteen-wheeler, with traffic at a standstill all around me. I'm not getting back in time for this evening's appointment, Catherine, and there's nothing I can do about it."
"What are you doing that far out of town on a day when you knew you had to work?" she demanded.
"I had some personal business to take care of."
"What personal business?"
He closed his eyes and clung to his patience. "It was personal, Catherine. I'm not free-lancing. I wasn't out here doing a job."
"What's going on, Kevin?"
"Nothing that you need to know about."
"You're becoming unreliable. You're letting me down."
Oh, the hell with patience. "It's not my fault I got stuck behind an accident blocking the whole goddamn highway, Catherine! Go find a traffic report if you don't believe me!"
"I want to know what you were doing out there."
"My personal life is none of your goddamn business," he said.
"It is when it interferes with your work!"
"Oh, right, because the world will certainly come to an end if I don't show up tonight."
"This is an important client, Kevin, and I won't have you fucking up."
"What an interesting choice of words."
Her voice dark with fury, she said, "If you don't get there on time and do exactly as—"
"It's not going to happen, Catherine. I won't be there. Call Trevor or someone to replace me."
"I will not tolerate this, Kevin!"
"Fine. Fire me."
He hung up without waiting for her reply.
#
Ryan tapped on Sara's French doors, then opened them. "Sara?"
"Ryan?" she called from the bedroom. "Is that you?"
He strolled into the living room, tired from his long drive. "No, it's the other man who's always entering your home without warning."
She came out of the bedroom a moment later, buttoning a pretty blouse. Her hair looked nice and she had on a pair of earrings he hadn't seen before. She said, "I thought you weren't going to be home tonight."
"Change of plans," he said. "Going somewhere?"
"Dinner with friends." She glanced at the clock. "I have to leave in a minute. But since you're back, tell me! What did you think of the place?"
He sat down on the couch and watched while she started searching for something. "You were right."
"I love those words! Say them again."
He smiled. "It was worth the trip."
Isabel had called yesterday to tell him that there was a space available for someone Adam's age at a place called the Bernice Village Foundation. Since it was a juvenile facility a hundred miles from the city, Ryan had instantly rejected the very idea, knowing how Adam would view this suggestion. After an hour of arguing about it, Sara had convinced Ryan to call Isabel back and make arrangements to go see the place himself, the sooner the better. So he'd gone this morning.
"So," Sara said, nudging him aside
to search the cushions behind him, "it wasn't a concentration camp?"
"I never said that. You said that."
"Yes, when you were accusing me of colluding with Isabel to lock Adam up in a bleak juvenile detention center in the middle of nowhere."
Ryan shifted so she could search on the other side of him. "I've already apologized for that. I've already said I overreacted. Could we not go over this again?"
She smiled. "So what was it like?"
"Actually..." He watched the way her pants stretched across her bottom as she bent over to look under the coffee table. "It was nice. I liked it."
The Bernice Village Foundation was named after a woman, Bernice, who had been the foster mother of an orphaned girl who eventually grew up to star in a popular television sitcom for nine years. It was a private foundation which mostly relied on the TV star and wealthy donors for its funding. The "village" consisted of several group homes in a peaceful rural setting.
"There's a short-term shelter for kids who need a temporary place to stay while permanent placement is found for them," Ryan said. "But what we're looking at for Adam is one of the permanent group homes, where he could stay until he turns eighteen. Or until his father is able to take him back, if that happens before then."
Sara put her hands on her hips and looked around the living room with a frown. "And what did you think of the permanent homes?"
Ryan rose from the couch and looked under her desk. "Here, Sara." He handed her purse to her.
"Oh, there it is!" She looked surprised. "Thank you."
He watched with fond amusement while she checked its contents. "Well, in fact," he said, "the group homes were nice. Clean. A little impersonal, but pretty cheerful. The kids are very well supervised, so it seems unlikely that another kid would have an easy time harming Adam in this place."
Clearly dissatisfied with the contents of her purse, Sara started searching again. "What did you think of the staff?"
"Very earnest. Dedicated. Pretty strict."
"That's good, right?"
"Adam would have to follow the rules, or he couldn't stay. But it means that dangerous kids definitely don't get to stay." He started walking towards her kitchen.
"How would you feel about Adam living there?"
"Much better than I thought I would." He looked on the kitchen table and, sure enough, found her keys. He picked them up and went back to the living room. "The staff spent two hours answering every question and showing me everything. Here, Sara."
"Oh! Thank you!" She accepted her keys from him, put them in her pocket, and said, "I need my shoes."
"And the people there think ahead to the future," Ryan said, raising his voice as she disappeared into the bedroom for a moment. "They'd get him back on track with his education. They'd even do what they could to help if he wanted to attend college after he leaves."
"That's wonderful!" She came back into the room and sat down to put on her shoes.
He nodded. "I think..."
"Go on."
"I think I'm going to talk to him about it."
"That's great, Ryan." She finished buckling both shoes and looked up at him. "It sounds like a very good opportunity. I didn't even know a place like that existed."
"It's new. And there are very few places like it. There's just one spot available there at the moment, and once it's filled, they don't know how soon another will open up."
"So you need to talk to Adam soon?"
"Yes."
"And see if you can convince him to meet with Isabel?"
"Uh-huh."
As if sensing his restless emotions, she paused in her preparations and fixed him with a concerned look. "What is it?"
He shook his head. "Nothing really. Just..."
"Ryan?"
"Isabel and I had a long talk today. This time on my cell phone. While I was stuck in traffic and couldn't escape her."
"You could have hung up," she pointed out dryly. "Or just not called her."
"She, uh..." It was on his mind so much, he couldn't not talk about it with Sara anymore. "She keeps trying to talk me into volunteering at Safe House."
"Yeah? Doing what?"
"Act as a pipeline between her staff and homeless kids. Start building trust, convincing kids to come to Safe House and find out how they can get off the streets."
"That's a great idea!"
He looked at her. "I don't know..."
She caught his shifting gaze and held it. "Would it bother you? To spend a lot of time on the streets, I mean?"
He shouldn't be surprised at her perception. She was sharp, and she knew him well by now. "Yes. No. I don't know anymore. It bothered me a lot the first couple of times I went to hunt up Adam. It made me feel like I was that kid again—that helpless, scared, ignorant kid living on the razor's edge." He folded his arms across his chest. "But I'm not."
"No, you're not. Even though, sure, you sometimes feel like it. The way I sometimes feel like that bespectacled, dateless nerd whom the boys all snickered at."
The vibrant colors of her blouse brought out the contrast between her dark hair, fair skin, and dark eyes. Her breasts pushed subtly against its fabric, and her hips and thighs filled out her trousers just right. Sara's face was alive with enthusiasm, concern, and good humor.
"Well," he said, "the boys aren't snickering now."
She smiled, pleased. "Then if being there again isn't what bothers you..."
"I would just feel like a fraud. I'm no outreach worker, Sara. I'm..." He shrugged uncomfortably. "You know what I am."
"Isabel knows, too," she reminded him. "So why not just assume that she knows what she's talking about when she says you can help?" She glanced at the clock. "Damn! I have to go, Ryan. I'm late." She jumped up and picked up her purse. "I'm sorry. We'll talk more later."
"Will you be out late?" he asked, following her to her door.
"Hmm? Oh!" She looked frustrated. "Yes, I will. I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd be home tonight."
He put his hand on her back and steered her toward the door. "I didn't, either. Go have a good time with your friends."
"Do you want to come?"
"No, I'm beat. I'm going to sack out."
"Oh! Wait. I knew there was something I wanted to tell you. I heard from one of the literary agents I queried."
"And?"
She waved a hand. "It's probably nothing."
"And?" he prodded.
"Well, we had a really good talk. About my career, about the business. About my work—she's read one of my books. And she's asked to see the first six chapters of the new book."
"Do you have that much done?"
"Yes." She added, "I'm not getting my hopes up or anything, of course. But, well, she's sort of my dream agent. I know her reputation, and I'd be thrilled if we could work together."
"Who are you trying to kid? Your hopes are up."
"Okay, yeah, they are." She smiled. "Thanks. You know. For the moral support. For listening to me babble and obsess. And for the good feedback and sensible advice."
He gave her a hug, closed his eyes, and held on to her for a long moment. His body knew what it wanted, and so did his heart, so it wasn't easy to let go. Judging by the flush in her cheeks as she stepped back, it wasn't so easy for her to let go, either.
"Will you be around tomorrow?" she asked softly.
"No," he said. "I have to work, and I also want to go s—"
"Oh. Never mind." She turned to leave. "Goodnight."
"Sara."
"No," she said over her shoulder. "You don't get to put your arms around me and then tell me that you're 'working' tomorrow."
He saw the anger in her eyes and felt stricken. "Sara, can we jus—"
"No, don't." She shrugged off his hand. "Even if what you do means nothing to you, it means something to me. It cuts me to ribbons, Ryan. Every single goddamn day."
She slammed the door behind her, leaving him standing alone in her apartment.
#
&nb
sp; The following morning, Ryan wrapped his hands around a cup of bad coffee while watching Adam eat a huge, greasy breakfast.
After a long silence between them, Adam said, "What's with you? You seem all wound up today."
He didn't bother denying it. If the kid smelled insincerity, it would chip away at the trust. Ryan understood. He'd been the same way. He supposed he still was. That didn't wash off, no matter how clean he got. One of the many things that drew him to Sara was her inability to be anything but sincere.
He said to Adam, "Yeah, I guess I am pretty wound up today."
"You have a fight with your girlfriend or something?" When Ryan looked at him in surprise, Adam said, "With you, it's always 'Sara this' and 'Sara that.' But you ain't said her name once today."
Ryan made a wry face. "That's not exactly what I was thinking about. But, yeah, good call. She got mad at me yesterday."
"What about?"
"Personal stuff."
"Like what?"
"Like personal stuff."
Adam rolled his eyes. "Whatever."
Ryan had never told Adam that Sara was his girlfriend, but it was a natural assumption for the kid to make, and Ryan didn't bother to correct him. It was the way he felt about her, after all, even if it wasn't the way they were living.
Now he said to Adam, "But there's something else on my mind. Something I want to talk to you about."
Adam stuffed half a sausage into his mouth and looked expectantly at Ryan.
"I don't think it's safe for you to be living on the streets."
Adam snorted and said, with his mouth full, "Y'think?"
"So I've been thinking about where you could live instead."
That got his attention. He stared at Ryan for a moment, then swallowed his food in such a huge gulp that Ryan winced a little.
"The thing is," Ryan said, "you can't live with me."
The kid looked so hurt for a moment that Ryan was surprised. Adam still shifted so easily into hostile suspicion, Ryan hadn't realized the boy had been entertaining the possibility of living with him. Or even, in fact, of getting into a car with him.