Nobody's Angel

by Patricia Rice

  “He was driving a cherry red ’Vette and living in a fancy apartment in SouthPark,” Dolores exploded. “He was shoveling money into that girlfriend of his while we lived in this hovel and wore hand-me-downs.”

  “Misty paid for the apartment, and the ’Vette was ten years old.”

  Faith nearly bit her tongue as that bitter voice intruded. She looked up to see Adrian in the doorway behind his sister, leaning his forearm against the doorjamb as if he'd been there for a while. The cynical, taut lines of his jaw pulled tighter as he saw Faith watching.

  “You're a liar and I hate you,” Dolores shouted, swinging around to aim a fist at his stomach. “I wish you'd never come home!”

  Adrian didn't dodge as she slammed her punch home. He didn't even gasp for breath at the impact. “You only hurt yourself when you strike out at others,” he said mildly as she drew back and cradled her hand.

  “Bastard,” she spat, before squeezing past him and into the front of the house.

  Still slumped against the doorway, Adrian lifted his gaze to Faith. “I am, you know.” At her questioning look, he explained. “A bastard. My father never married my mother. Of course, that makes him a bastard in my book.” He lifted himself from the wall and entered the kitchen to examine the contents of the refrigerator.

  “Labels don't solve anything.”

  “Nope. And ‘bastard’ isn't precise enough to be descriptive except in the one definition. If she'd called me ‘thief,’ you'd have a better picture of my character.”

  “But you're not a thief.” Faith figured he was many things, but thief wasn't one of them. She ought to know. She'd lived with the biggest thief of them all, one who stole lives and hope as well as money.

  “Fool, maybe, not thief,” he agreed producing an assortment of jars and half a chicken carcass.

  He was taking his sister's explosion much too calmly. If she'd learned anything at all about this man, it was that he harbored passions so flammable, it was a wonder he didn't incinerate. Something was wrong.

  “Dolores said you were on the phone.”

  Adrian reached for a butcher knife and began whacking the chicken into slivers. “We had messages.”

  Faith shivered as she waited for further explanation. He sliced viciously at a hunk of meat as if he were disemboweling someone. In a moment, fury would steam out his ears. She worried more about seeing him implode than about whatever bad news had visited them now.

  “I'd suggest you spit it out,” she offered conversationally, “or you'll be punching me like Dolores did you. I don't think I have the stomach for it.” She eyed Adrian's flat abdomen speculatively. Dolores hadn't held anything back. He truly must have abs of steel.

  His jaw tightened into a flat plane beneath sharp cheekbones as he finally looked up. “Tony didn't hit you, did he?”

  “I would have been out of there a lot sooner if he had. I'm not that messed up. Who called?”

  “Juan. Annie.” He dumped the slivers of meat and vegetables and the contents of several jars into a large skillet with the ease of experience. “Juan called to say someone broke into your shop before Bill and Pearl arrived.”

  The images of her grandmother's precious bowl and her meticulously selected inventory trashed beyond repair flashed through her mind so vividly, she almost moaned.

  Fingernails biting into her palms, she tried to sound calm. “The clair de lune?”

  “Safe.” He shook the skillet instead of stirring. “They've called the cops and made the report for insurance purposes, but you may have problems collecting.”

  Head spinning, Faith clung to the counter and tried to organize her thoughts. “What else? What was stolen if they didn't take the clair de lune? I keep only fifty dollars in the register at night.”

  “I don't know if Annie has been making deposits. Pearl couldn't tell. But whoever it was didn't just steal the cash. They ransacked the place. They found the clair de lune lying on the carpet and its pedestal broken open. Anything else that may have held anything was either trashed or on the floor. Apparently the intruder flung around a few curios for good measure.”

  The clair de lune was safe. Faith tried to take a deep breath and nearly choked. Her windpipe closed in panic. Breathe easy, she told herself. She was insured. She couldn't possibly have insured her grandmother's bowl for what it was worth to her, but the other things were replaceable. Mostly.

  She'd had an alarm installed on the bowl display. Her head shot up. “Why won't the insurance company pay?”

  Adrian turned down the stove, leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. “Because the store wasn't broken into. It was unlocked and disarmed with keys.”

  When she merely stared at him, open-mouthed, he continued relentlessly. “First, you report your car totaled. Then, you report your store robbed and vandalized. And Juan's already told me what Annie has to report. They've hit your apartment, too.”

  She couldn't think of a thing to say. Four years she had lived safely and uneventfully. This couldn't be coincidence.

  “They were all unlocked with keys,” he said gently. “Whoever stole your purse used your ID to locate your apartment. How many criminals would bother traveling all the way to Knoxville on the off chance the owner of an ancient VW might have something worth stealing?”

  “Tony?” she squeaked. Dizziness and lack of air collapsed her head to her arms and she nearly slipped from the stool before Adrian caught her.

  Adrian watched Faith all through supper as she pulled together her calm mask, spoke pleasantly with Dolores and Elena, asked questions of the twins, and helped the younger ones with their tacos. Only he knew she was splintering into little pieces inside.

  So he watched her carefully as she managed to lay claim to the phone before the teenagers could finish eating. Belinda finally appeared, and Adrian left her to handle the kids while he followed Faith into the other room. She was talking to Annie, and her face was as pale as it had been after the accident.

  He'd done that to her.

  Beneath that tightly controlled facade she was approaching hysteria and not thinking clearly. He'd have to do the thinking for her until she grasped the full implications of this disaster.

  When she hung up the phone, she didn't even look in his direction. She brushed past him, into the kitchen, where she picked up the car keys he'd thrown on the counter. Damn, but the woman didn't miss a thing. At least he still had the bank keys.

  He expected her to waltz right out the back door, but he'd forgotten her proper upbringing. One didn't leave without saying farewell to one's hostess. Ignoring her crutch, she limped down the hall to his mother's bedroom.

  Adrian didn't feel inclined to listen to what they had to say to each other. He caught Hernando as he raced out of the kitchen, directed him toward the bathroom to wash the sauce off his face, and waited.

  Faith emerged from the back hall carrying her box with her few precious possessions a few minutes later. This time she at least acknowledged his presence. “I'm going home,” she announced, before unfastening the front door latch and walking out.

  She was making him crazy. He really ought to let the fool woman get herself kidnapped by a professional this time. Maybe Tony really was alive and he'd murder her. Even Faith the Invincible wouldn't have the kind of violent mind necessary to escape from a real criminal. She was tough, but she wasn't that tough.

  He didn't want her to be that tough.

  With a sigh, Adrian stalked out the front door after her. She was already in the driver's seat of the rental, testing the strength of her injured knee on the brake pedal.

  “It won't hold up that mountain,” he warned her. “You'd have to use your left foot. You want to try driving that road at night, with all those semis, working the gas and brake with your left foot?”

  “Yes.” Determinedly, she caught the door handle and tried to yank the door shut.

  Adrian caught the door top and held it firmly open. “You're not thinking,” he chided her. “
You're reacting. Just stop one damned minute and think.”

  “I don't want to think. I want to go home. They've already done their damage. What more can they do? Annie said they're installing new bolts in the morning. I'll stay with her until then.”

  He wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her pretty head. He figured shaking was the last thing he'd do if he got his hands on her, though. “You want to think that through again? If they didn't find what they wanted in your apartment or your store, where do you think they'll look next time?”

  “Who says there'll be a next time?” she asked fiercely, glaring out the windshield, her fingers glued to the steering wheel.

  “Do you think this was all coincidence?” He didn't want to terrify her. He wanted her to be defiant and courageous and all those insane things, because she would need it. “Do you really think that we were accidentally run off the road and some thief accidentally came along and stole your purse and that same thief accidentally turned up in Knoxville to search your stuff right after I accidentally got out of prison and found you?”

  Her arms stiffened. Her mouth tightened into a pale line. He figured she would twist the wheel into a pretzel any minute.

  “Tony is dead,” she said stonily. “No one survived the plane crash. No one could. It was in the mountains. In winter. It took rescue teams days to reach the site.”

  “Maybe Tony is dead,” he agreed softly, “but he had friends. Maybe someone else knew about the money.”

  She collapsed then. She buried her face against her arms, and her shoulders shook, and she seemed to melt into boneless jelly.

  He squatted beside the car and caressed her leg through the jeans she'd borrowed from Elena. “Someone has to be after that money.”

  She shook her head, whipping her fine hair back and forth. “Only Tony.”

  Ah, he was beginning to see the hang-up here. He had his guilts; she had hers. He pressed her leg tighter to catch her attention. “Not your money. The other. The tons I'm supposed to have stolen.”

  That caught her, all right. She lifted her head, and he could see the tears glistening in the blue of her eyes.

  “They think I have your money?”

  “The stolen money,” he said gently. “It's all tied together, don't you see? We're not the only ones who suspect Tony may have stolen from those accounts. And I'm not the only one who thinks you may have the clue to where the money is hidden. They just couldn't find you until I led them directly to you.”

  “Remind me to thank you sometime.” She dropped her head back to the steering wheel, but this time she wasn't shaking. “We've not exactly been hiding our presence. Anyone could have followed us the other day. That pickup …”

  “It was a truck that hit us,” he agreed. “They could have seen us with Headley the night before, followed us to the motel.”

  “Oh, charming. So now they think I'm in collusion with a criminal.”

  “You could have found a better way of wording it.” He stood. “Let me get my stuff. I've already called Cesar. He should be here shortly. I don't think we'd better stay here any longer.”

  She stared up at him. “You think they'd hurt your family?”

  Well, at least she was thinking again. “They could have killed us both with that accident. What do you think?”

  He wanted to smile at her two-syllable pronunciation of a four-letter word but he couldn't. He should have known this could happen, but he'd been focused on only one thing— himself.

  Cesar's van rattled into the drive, saving him from any further introspection. Primeval instincts for survival came first.

  “This is ridiculous.” As the car lurched into the gravel drive, Faith glared at Cesar's ramshackle boardinghouse near the community college. “We have no money, no jobs, and this is the next best thing to being homeless. Did anyone ever tell you that you're a bad influence?”

  Adrian parked under the low-hanging branch of a willow oak and turned off the key. He supposed anger was better than her earlier hysteria, but not by much. He already felt cad enough without her rubbing it in. “We're just calling a time-out until we develop a better plan,” he reminded her.

  “Cesar's roommate returns Monday,” she goaded him. “You'd better think quick.”

  Swinging his duffel over his shoulder, he helped her out of the car, removed her box from the back, and led her toward the rickety outside stairs. He winced every time she limped.

  “I could carry you up,” he suggested as she clung to the rail as if it were her crutch.

  “Screw you, too.” Favoring her injured leg, she took another step.

  That would suit him fine. One good long screw would go a long way toward taking some of the edge off. He could scarcely tear his gaze from the way her rounded posterior swung as she limped up the stairs in front of him.

  One look at the interior of the apartment and he knew tonight wouldn't be the night he got lucky. “It's worse than a cheap motel,” he muttered as he threw the duffel and carton on the littered carpet. “Prison was better than this.”

  Faith glanced around at the empty beer cans, the tottering stacks of books and paper, dirty dishes and glasses, and shrugged. “We can always check out the homeless shelters.”

  “You're gonna rub this in, aren't you?” He peered into the filthy galley kitchen, then checked the tiny hall. “Two bedrooms. I recommend you take the one in back. It looks like it may actually have sheets.”

  She sank onto the overstuffed couch instead. “I want a definite plan of action or I'm going to the police. I can't live like this.”

  Heaving two dictionaries, a stuffed monkey, and a whiskey bottle off a battered armchair, Adrian collapsed into the seat and nearly sank to the floor. He leaned his head against the chair back and stared up at the ceiling. He thought he saw tomato spatters on the cracked and filthy plaster. “Do you really think the police will listen? Do you think they're even bothering to trace the bastard who broke into your places? The guy had keys. They're figuring it's a domestic dispute or that the crook is long gone.”

  “The D.A. here will understand the significance if we explain it.”

  “First, he'll throw my ass in jail for parole violation if he finds out I've been in Tennessee. Second, the break-ins are out of his jurisdiction. Third, we have no proof the accident wasn't an accident. And lastly, we'll just give him the idea to have someone tail us so he can lay his hands on the money first. And don't think he'll be much help if the bad guys get to us before he does. He'll count on going in and cleaning up after. He doesn't have enough investigative force to do anything else.”

  “Cynic,” she grumbled. “Paranoid cynic,” she amended.

  “I prefer to think of it as realism. Give me credit for having a little more experience with the criminal justice system than you have.” If he'd had any character at all, he'd have been one of the good guys in white hats who represented the little people against the cold cruel world of that system, but no, he had to make his millions first. Somehow, he just didn't think his punishment fit the crime.

  “All right, Mr. Realism, what do we do next, then?”

  He wished he knew. Lifting his head, he tried a seductive leer. “Go to bed?”

  She flung an empty beer can at him.

  He caught and squashed it. “All right. Let's take the basics first. It's probably not safe to return home, agreed?”

  “No,” she said mutinously. “They know there's nothing there now. Why should they go back?”

  “Because you're there?” he suggested. That shut her up. “As I said, we can't go home. If this person is as dangerous as he seems, he could threaten our families, our friends, anyone within our vicinity. What would it take to break you?”

  “Not much, but I'd have to make up a story to break since I don't know anything. Why didn't they continue following us around town if they think we know where the money is?”

  “Good question.” Tossing the can up and down, Adrian thought about it. “Maybe they already know
where the money is and they just want the keys? Maybe they thought you had the keys in your purse, and when they weren't there, they checked your places?”

  “They couldn't open the boxes unless they were officers of the corporation. And Tony was the only other officer besides me.” She grimaced as logic returned them full circle to that unpalatable prospect.

  She was sharp. If he'd had her around a few years ago, he'd never have gotten into this mess. She would have pulled him up short before his ego and ambition tumbled him over the edge. “Okay, but forging papers similar to the ones you have wouldn't be difficult. The bank wouldn't know the difference.

  And now they have your ID.”

  “Sandra!”

  He thought about that and shook his head slowly. “Sandra has the wattage of a Christmas tree bulb. She has a houseful of kids. Admittedly, she might know about the keys and the boxes and everything, but she couldn't personally carry this off. She'd have to hire someone.”

  “Or someone could have found her in Florida after Tony's plane crash and made her think she had a lot more money coming to her. She probably went through Tony's life insurance pretty fast.”

  “If she had the life insurance,” Adrian reminded her. “If you don't have a death certificate, what are the chances that Sandra managed to get one? She wasn't even his wife.”

  Faith made an unladylike snort. “Maybe she had a husband like Tony had a wife. Or a lover. The whole world, or at least most of Charlotte, would know that money is still out there.”

  “Well, that's helpful. Now all we have to do is suspect the entire city. I suggest we find the money and run.”

  “I suggest you go to hell. I wouldn't touch that money if you buried me with it.”

  “Rise right up out of the grave, huh?” He smiled at the tomato-splattered ceiling. She had pluck, Miss Faith Hope did. And integrity. Damned dangerous combination. That thought triggered another. “How much money is left in that nonprofit trust fund you set up from Tony's assets?”

  “It's invested in stocks, and they've appreciated,” she said grudgingly. “The income goes to charity, but there's still a few hundred thousand or more.”