by Julie Miller
“This is complicated to explain, but you need to let him go,” Kit enunciated, as though she hadn’t made it clear that Henry was no threat. “I know him.”
“Doesn’t excuse—”
“Stop it. You’re hurting him.” She pulled at his arm, but the coiled muscles wouldn’t budge. Mr. Tall, Dark and Temperamental shrugged her off and pulled a cell phone from his jeans.
When he cocked his head at an acute angle to punch in a number, it drew Kit’s attention up to the thin black strap that circled the back of his head. But it wasn’t the strap that surprised her. She’d had a sense that everything about him was dark. But the hazy wash of sunlight filtering through the windows at each end of the hall caught and shimmered in a short crop of silvery-gold hair.
“Easting.” He spoke into the phone now, expecting whomever was on the other end to snap to. He was half supporting Henry now as he turned into the cut-through that led to a bank of elevators. “I want to rout this building of squatters. I don’t want any lawsuits if one of them tumbles down the stairs or a ceiling caves in on them. Yes, today.”
Easting? Easting Davitz? Kit hurried after them, forcing aside her curiosity about Tall, Blond and Testy, to plead once more for a patience and understanding he didn’t seem to possess. “You can’t put Henry out on the streets. It’s freezing outside. He has no coat.”
“If the shelters are full, we’ll put them up in a hotel.” It was an order to the man on the phone, not an explanation to her. “Just get them out.”
He shut the phone, jammed it back into his pocket and punched the elevator’s call button without ever releasing Henry.
“Thank you. I guess.” It was a nice gesture. The elevator doors opened. Throwing around money didn’t always make things right, but it seemed to be this guy’s method of apology.
“Get in.” He held on to Henry long enough for the old man to find his balance against the railing inside. “You, too, sweetheart.”
Kit blocked the door when he turned to go. “That’s it? Stuff us in the elevator and walk away? Who are you? How did you find us? I don’t want you beating up on my friends.”
He stopped, but didn’t turn. “The old man’s drunk, not hurt.”
“He’s sick.” In the head, in the heart—whatever happened when age and alcohol and loneliness took over.
“He hurt you. I heard you cry out.”
“I was already injured from last night.”
With that, he finally stopped walking. After a moment’s hesitation, he slowly turned, inspecting her from head to toe with a thoroughness that left her wondering if she’d left her blouse unbuttoned. Even from this distance, his perusal allowed Kit a glimpse of forbidding features—from the broken bump of his hawklike nose to the chiseled thrust of his jaw. He looked too cerebral to be a pirate, too wild to be a spy. But with an eye patch, a scar and one piercing blue eye, she got the idea he could play either role convincingly.
“Shoulder?” he asked.
“How…?” Kit clutched at her bruised collarbone, snatching up a fistful of her brown cardigan and instinctively shielding herself from his perceptive gaze.
“Your posture’s off,” he explained. “You’re holding it higher than the other. Favoring it.”
About the same moment she realized she was still staring at his unsmiling face, he reached inside the elevator and punched the lobby button. Before she could apologize for her rudeness, he was striding away. “If you need to see a doctor, send me the bill.”
“Send it to whom?” The door was closing. He turned the corner and was gone.
Uh-uh. He wasn’t vanishing like a puff of smoke in the shadows this time.
Kit hit door open button and gave Henry’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I’ll meet you downstairs. Germane will be in the diner—just knock on the window and he’ll let you in. I’ll be down in a minute to get you some coffee to warm you up. We can talk about Janice then.”
Mentioning his late wife’s name brought a glimmer of life to Henry’s stricken expression. He nodded, understanding. “Downstairs. She’ll find us there.”
Kit slipped out as the door closed. She dashed around the corner and skidded to a halt. No way. He was gone. Impossible. “You are not superhuman.”
But he did smell good.
She inhaled more purposefully this time, and detected a scent in the air that renewed her determination to find him. It was the same stringent scent of soap and skin she remembered from last night. His scent.
Tipping her nose into the air, Kit retraced her steps back to the landing where the stairs and elevators converged. Careful habit had her skirting the dust-framed footprints that had first drawn her onto the thirteenth floor. They were hints that someone had recently been here. She’d hoped one of the smaller prints would belong to Helen’s small support shoe—or to a construction worker who might have seen her. Instead, she’d found Henry Phipps. Maybe he wasn’t the only homeless person who’d adopted an apartment for himself on one of the Sinclair Tower’s unfinished floors.
She followed her would-be rescuer’s plain masculine scent through an archway masked with faded drapes that had shredded with age and use. Sniffling at the dust, she lost the smell she’d been following. But her ears wouldn’t fail her. Behind the drapes, the sound of sure, striding footsteps led her into a service corridor that ran the length of the hallway on the other side of the wall.
“Hello?” Trusting sound and touch until her eyes could adjust to the deeper shadows of the windowless passage, Kit guided herself along the wall and hurried after him. “Hey! Is money your answer to everything?” Ahead of her, the blank darkness became a black silhouette, the silhouette a silver-haired ghost. Kit quickened her pace to catch him. “I appreciate the change you left me to call a cab last night.”
The footfalls ended and she knew he’d stopped. Kit halted a few feet behind him, wondering if it was her relentless pursuit or the dull brass door in front of him that had finally allowed her to catch him. “I know you’re Helen’s friend. I recognize your voice. It’s very…distinct.” That was less embarrassing than admitting she recognized him by smell or touch, too. “How is she this morning?”
In the dim light, his expression would be hard to read. If he refused to turn and face her, it would be impossible.
“I didn’t come downstairs to chat.”
So he lived upstairs. “No, you came down to bully an old man who’s dealing with the onset of senility.”
His shoulders heaved with a breath that seemed to shrink the space in the corridor down to the few feet that separated them. But he still kept his focus trained on what Kit could now see was an elevator door. “Dr. Osbourn said she was resting quietly this morning. Her functions are normal. But she hasn’t awakened yet.”
“How did she look?” No answer. “You mean you just called? You didn’t go see her?”
“She’ll know I was there.”
“Yeah, one rose. Big whup.” Kit propped her hands at her hips. “She’s alone. Apparently, you care about her, but not enough to actually spend some time with her. That’s what she needs—your company, not some polite inquiry. You have to talk to her, hold her hand—give her a reason to come back.”
“Katherine Snow, right?” His voice crackled with accusatory static.
“Kit. Katherine was for when I was in trouble with my folks.” She shifted a step to the side, improving her view from full back to stern profile. “And how come you know my name, but I don’t know yours?”
“You ask a lot of questions, Miss…Kit.”
“And you sneak around a lot. Wanna tell me why?”
“No.”
He pulled a plastic card from his pocket and reached for an electronic keypad on the wall beside the elevator.
This game was ridiculous. Kit reached around him and grabbed his hand, stopping him from swiping the card. “Stop.”
But her impatience backfired. At first she thought she imagined the rough lines crisscrossing the back of his hand. But sh
e squinted into the shadows and saw an almost patchwork look to his skin. The scarring mottled the length of his long, surgeon-like fingers as well.
Unusual. Awful. Miraculous that he could have endured such suffering and still have use of that hand.
But it was the sizzle that leaped from his knuckles to her fingertips that imprinted a memory in her brain she wouldn’t soon forget. Heat—raw, potent. Chained. But just barely. And not for long.
The heat of passion? Or danger?
Kit curled her fingers into her palm and withdrew a step. She was out of her league with this guy. Way out.
Maybe running after Tall, Blond and Too Much had been a mistake. He didn’t listen to reason. He could easily overpower her. She’d told no one where she was going. And she was…hell, she wasn’t even sure what section of the building she was in now.
“What do you want from me, Katherine?”
His hushed, ruined voice skittered like a rough caress along her spine, pricking a trail of goose bumps in its wake.
The deliberate use of her full name—for when she was in trouble—wasn’t lost on her, either. Kit retreated another step. “I’m used to having people look me in the eye when I talk to them.”
“You’ve already seen enough. More than you should.” He offered her nothing but the jut of his shoulder.
“Are you Helen’s grandson? Nephew?” No response. “Boy toy?”
No, of course, he wouldn’t laugh.
“I was trying to find out where she lives in the building.” Was that her voice, rattling on like a frightened idiot in the darkness? “I thought the hospital and police could use the information. I thought, if there was someone I should notify—”
“I’ve taken care of that.”
“I also wanted to find out if she has a cat or any plants that need taking care of while she’s in the hospital.”
“She doesn’t have a cat. And you didn’t come after me because you wanted to know about Helen.”
“Maybe not the only reason,” she was honest enough to admit. “You’re all she has, aren’t you?” Kit’s tongue felt dry in her mouth. She should stop talking, stop needing answers, stop wondering about this unique, mysterious man. She should go. “At least tell me your name. What if I said that’s how I wanted you to repay this perceived debt you think you owe me?”
“I’d say you don’t dream big enough.”
Kit pressed her lips together, holding back emotions that were too strong to handle in these dark, intimate shadows. Sorrow she hadn’t had time to deal with. Guilt over her brother’s downward spiral into anger and grief. Fear that she couldn’t keep her parents’ legacy of family and community alive, or ever create a career and family of her own. “Oh, I’ve got plenty of dreams. But I’ve got to take care of reality first.”
Maybe there was something in the catch of her voice. Some vibration in the air that let him sense the shiver of lonely need that left her chilled.
Because he turned around.
“Reality—” the secluded corner bathed his face in shadows “—can be a very tricky thing.” But there was no mistaking the piercing scrutiny of that deep-blue eye. Or the wary suspicion that colored his raspy voice. “That’s all you want? A name?”
Kit hugged her arms around her middle for a warmth she couldn’t quite feel. “From you, yes. Solve the riddle for me. Who are you, to know where hidden passageways are in the Sinclair Tower? To have some means to spy on its tenants? To disrupt the power grid at a city hospital and carry a key to secret places like this one? Who are you?”
After an endless silence when she thought he might—might—reach through the shadows and touch her cheek, he turned away. He swiped the card and stepped into the elevator. As the brass grating closed, he gave her an answer.
“I’m Damon Sinclair.”
DAMON SINCLAIR.
As in multimillionaire CEO of Sinclair Pharmaceuticals? No way. The elevator door closed, the light on the keypad blinked off, and Kit was left standing in stunned surprise in the dark.
Kit turned and felt her way along the gritty wall toward the exit.
Damon Sinclair? As in brilliant scientist who’d revolutionized trauma-room medicine with his synthetic-skin and living-tissue-regeneration formulas? The same man who’d disappeared from the face of the planet after his wife’s tragic death?
Eighteen months ago, the papers and TV news channels had been filled with stories about the explosion that had destroyed his lab. With the chemicals and fire, no one should have survived. But he had. Five months later his name was in the news again—a grieving widower who’d resigned from life after his wife’s suicide. But there were no pictures of him. No one had seen his face. Was he still hospitalized and fighting for his life? Horribly disfigured?
By the time the real news had died down, the gossip papers had already picked up the rumors. He’d been committed to an asylum himself. He’d bought his own Mediterranean island and had holed up there. He’d gone to Africa with a doctors abroad charity work program and had gotten lost in the jungles.
Damon Sinclair? How could that be?
She’d studied his work in graduate school. Had even earned a fellowship to apply forensic technology to his artificial and living-tissue products—helping to create a databank for law enforcement entities to analyze his work for crime-scene or victim-identification procedures.
He lived here? Upstairs? He’d been here all this time?
Kit was still in a daze of sensory disorientation and emotional shock when she finally emerged from the service corridor. What had she been thinking, chasing after Dr. Dangerous like that? The man was probably nuts. He was most certainly eccentric and showed signs of agoraphobia. Yet she’d cornered him, argued, reprimanded—she’d touched him. All mistakes when it came to self-preservation. He was so far out of her league—professionally, socially, economically…intellectually—that it was laughable to think she’d had the nerve to confront him.
But it was the man who had her all mixed up inside, not the name.
Her reactions to him had been varied, unexpected, overpowering. There’d been an initial rush of sexual awareness that left her feverish. He was so tall, so hardened, so male. Trading words with him made the blood hum through her veins. He was such a complexity of words and actions and mysterious motivations that she was driven to puzzle him out until she felt as enervated as if she’d competed in some glorious game.
And then she’d seen his face and touched his hand and felt…pity. Her heart turned over at the evidence of injuries that would have turned an ordinary man into an invalid. But her mind argued that pity was the last thing a man like Damon Sinclair would want or need.
While her parents’ holding hands had been a symbol to her of love and hope, Damon’s touch had been a risky, dangerous thing—a touch that awakened things inside her that were, perhaps, better left alone.
And while Kit pondered what that impression meant, she pushed aside the drapes that had hidden the alcove for decades. The daylight blinded her for a moment and she caught the faded velvet with her hand, knocking a cloud of dust into her face, stinging her eyes and tickling her sinuses.
Kit felt the resulting sneeze bursting all the way from her toes.
“Who’s there?”
Kit jumped at J. T. Kronemeyer’s warning shout. From his position near the elevators, she couldn’t tell if he was waiting to catch a ride or if he was performing some kind of inspection. “Good grief.” With the reassurance of recognition, she lowered her hand from her stuffy nose to her racing heart. “You startled me.”
Kronemeyer popped an antacid tablet into his mouth before straightening his hunched shoulders and striding toward her. He crunched and swallowed in one bite, and from the irritation that flared in his dark eyes, she could see how he might need the extra help. “We have laws against trespassing. The thirteenth through twenty-seventh floors of this building are blocked off for a reason.”
“But it wasn’t.” There had been no barricade
to warn her from climbing the stairs, no door to keep her from peeking in.
“These floors are off-limits.” He made a fist and knocked at the side of the helmet that squashed his thick black hair. “This is a hard-hat area. We can’t guarantee your safety.”
What was it with the men in her building today?
She pointed to the elevators and apologized. “Didn’t mean to worry you. I was on my way out.”
Instead of moving aside, he blocked her path. And it wasn’t worry that narrowed his eyes. He plucked a cobweb from her sweater. “What were you doing up here?”
Chasing a phantom neighbor, rescuing homeless men.
“I was looking for a friend.” She spread her arms wide, indicating the entire floor. “Obviously, she’s not here.”
“Who were you looking for?”
Kit brushed at the dust and cobwebs still clinging to her clothes and hair. “Helen Hodges. She’s a white-haired lady, maybe late seventies, early eighties. Do you know her?”
“She doesn’t live on the thirteenth floor.”
“I figured that out. But you do know where she lives, don’t you?”
Seeing how his expression soured, she thought J.T. needed another antacid to gnaw on. “Why do you want to find her?”
Why couldn’t anyone give her a straight answer to her questions? “That’s my business.”
“Mrs. Hodges is in the hospital.”
“I know. I took her.” Mrs.? “Does that mean there’s a Mr. Hodges?” Kit quickly pieced together what Damon had said. He’d taken care of everything. He took care of Helen Hodges. “Does she live in the penthouse?”
“You can only access the penthouse through a private elevator. And no one but the owner has a key for that.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Though she now knew who had access to the penthouse elevator. Kit pointed to the jumble of footprints overlapping each other on the hallway’s tile floor. “I’m clearly not the first person to come up here. When I saw the traffic the floor was getting, I thought I might find her apartment here. Instead, I discovered a homeless man living in one of your abandoned rooms.”