Second Chance Hero (8 page)

Just like he was using her now.

She sighed and tossed another bite of cake to the dog. Why, why, why was she still attracted to him? Why? What was wrong with her?

Right. Like she didn’t know the answer to that one. Her heart didn’t know any better than to go chasing after someone who was going to toss it right back like nothing. It’s why she still cared when her parents missed her birthday.
 

But David was different.

She was stuck with her parents for a lifetime. David could be fun. Other people had flings all the time.
 

Scamp rolled onto his back and she rubbed his belly knowing the truth.

She’d never have a fling with David. She cared too much. It would hurt too bad when he rode off into the sunset.

And he’d already made it perfectly clear forever wasn’t his way of doing things.

She looked at the curled edges of a painting his baby sister Isabel had done for him. It had hung on his fridge for three years. Isabel had signed it, dated it and drawn a big heart in the corner.

He loved his family. And she supposed he might even love her in a different kind of way. His family had his forever. And they deserved it.

The phone rang and her heart flip flopped as she picked it up, half afraid it would be bad news about Miguel.

Instead it was David’s sister, Anna. Crying.
 

David slid his key into the front door and frowned at the lights.
 

“Lil.”

No answer.

Dammit. His heart dropped to his toes at the full glass of wine on the counter, the scraps of cake left on the plate. Scamp looked up from his bed next to the couch, but he didn’t come running.

A quick check of the apartment proved Lil was gone.
 

After he’d specifically told her not to go anywhere without him.

Dammit. He didn’t need this. He looked at his watch. Two in the morning. His brain was fried. He was tired and a wreck. And Lil was missing.

He picked up the phone, started to dial Ryan’s number when the door opened and Lil walked in.

Relief flooded him first and he sat before his legs gave out as he tossed the phone on the counter.

“What the hell are you doing?” He hadn’t meant the words to sound so angry, but he wasn’t taking them back. No way.
 

Her eyes narrowed as she let the door click shut behind her. “Maybe you want to rephrase that?”

No way. He stood. Stalked across the living room and slammed the locks into place before grabbing her shoulders and repeating his words. “What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing.”

She pulled away from him. “You’re overreacting, David.”

The hell he was. “I’m under-reacting, Lil.” The visions he’d had of her dead in an alley or a Juarez cemetery or on his doorstep flashed through his brain. “You have no idea….”

“I left a message.” She didn’t let him finish, looked pointedly at the flashing light on the machine.

It didn’t matter. “I thought they had you.”

She brushed away his concern.

“I picked up Anna. She called crying. Devastated. You have no idea.”

And just like that he deflated. “Anna?”

Lil was in full battle mode now. Cheeks red, she crossed the room, poked his chest with her index finger. “You should be thanking me. She was going to walk home. Can you imagine?”

Oh God.
 

He opened his mouth to apologize, to call himself an ass, but she didn’t let him. “Her boyfriend left her at the dance because she wouldn’t have sex with him.”

“I’m…”

She wasn’t done. “So I picked her up. Took her home. Told her to never even think about walking home again and she laughed at me, David. Laughed at me. Told me I needed to lighten up. How can
your family
not know the truth? We’ve got to tell them, David. We’ve got to tell everyone. This is insane. She was going to walk home. And then I come home expecting to finally, finally get my glass of wine, the wine I’ve been thinking about all while your sister wants to talk about sex and virginity and birth control and how freaking safe the streets of this city are, and instead I get you being all psycho crazy worried because you didn’t check the stupid answering machine or your stupid voice mail because your phone was off.”

Oh Jesus. He didn’t want to think about his sister and sex. “I’m sorry.” He got the words out before she started again. “I had the phone off because I was on the job, and we can’t tell anyone more than what’s already out there.”

“I told Anna to be safe. I told her to look at how many girls are missing. I told her the Hernandez family was gone. And you know what she said? She said they were probably mixed up with drug dealers. Degas is going to win again if we don’t do something, David.”

She was right. “We’re doing all we can right now.”

“It’s not enough.” She sat on the couch and buried her head in her hands and he wished he could tell her Degas wouldn’t win.
 

But he’d been on the case for five years. He knew the truth and the truth was ugly.

Sometimes the guys in white hats didn’t win. Sometimes they died.

He grabbed her glass of wine, put it on the nicked coffee table next to the Sports Illustrated and TV Guide.

She wasn’t crying, but she looked defeated. He’d done that to her.

“I really am sorry, Lil. I was just afraid.”

And God wasn’t that the truth? He’d been so afraid.
 

“I know. You thought I was dead.” She smiled up at him, and he thought maybe she forgave him, just a little anyway.
 

He handed her the wine and she sipped it before leveling him with her blue eyes filled with honest appreciation. “At least I know you care.”

She was teasing him. Good. “I care. You know I care.”

She closed her eyes again, inhaled deeply and he tried not to look at her chest as it rose and fell. Impossible.

“I’m not going to sleep with you David.” She’d caught him staring. Damn.

He looked away, not quite ashamed. “Of course not. That’s not… It’s just…” He quit talking and nearly tackled the phone when it rang.

A reprieve was what he thought. Until Ryan delivered the news.

“They’ve found Solidad Hernandez. She’s dead too.”

Chapter Five

He cared. Lil watched him grab the phone and nearly laughed. How pathetic was it that she caught him staring at her chest and it turned her on. How ridiculous that his bit of fear made her feel warm in all the right places.

Crazy, crazy Lil.
 

She watched his face fall and knew she didn’t want to know what the call was.

No. No. No.

“Lil.”
 

She must’ve said the words. She shook her head. “No.”

David looked defeated as he spoke. “They’ve found Solidad Hernandez. She’s dead, Lil. I’m so sorry.”

He tried to grab her hand, but she pulled away. Nearly jumped from the couch, crossed the room and slammed the bedroom door. She needed to be alone. She needed….

“Come on Lil. Let me in.”

Her legs quit working. They just quit. She didn’t know why or how or even what she felt as she sank to the floor on the other side of the door and willed him away. She couldn’t take him now. She just couldn’t.

“Go away David. I need some time alone. That’s all.”

Her breath was coming fast, taking over, like she’d run a marathon instead of the few steps across his apartment.

He wouldn’t understand but please God, she needed a few minutes. That’s all. Just a few minutes.

She pulled a blanket off the bed and around her shoulders. She was so cold. She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the door and waited for the emotions to bombard her.
 

Right now she felt nothing and that nothing scared her. God it scared her so bad.

She tried to control her breathing. In two. Out two. In two. Out two.

On the other side of door David spoke. “Okay.” He paused and she wondered if he meant it. “Just, I’m here if…you know, if you need me.”

She heard the worry in his voice and almost laughed at the strangeness of it. If she needed him.
 

Because she did. She wrapped the blanket tighter and let her forehead rest on her knees. She did need him. That was natural, wasn’t it? Devastating news should be the thing that drove her into his arms. She should want to be held, to hold, but she didn’t.

She just wanted to be alone. To catch her breath. To feel. To think.

Alone.

Like always.

Like that poor, poor girl. Solidad.

She closed her eyes and finally the tears came.

She’d been sitting on that couch playing pretend. She’d let herself forget how Rafe shook as he told of Degas taking Miguel away. And now Solidad was dead.

She’d been thinking about kissing David like they were real. Like this was real. Like it mattered.

She knew what she had to do.

She stood, let the blanket fall to the floor and pulled the suitcase out of the closet. It wouldn’t take long. Just a few minutes really.

She started tossing her things into the case. Her shoes, her bras, her soap, David hated Ivory anyway.

She was a distraction. She told herself that as she found her socks and tossed them alongside her nightgown. This wasn’t about what she wanted. It was about please, God, finding Miguel alive. About stopping that horrible man Rafe called monster.

But how? She was a teacher for Christ’s sake. She couldn’t
do
anything. And reading the bad guys to death wasn’t an option. So what?

What? What could she, Lil Palmer, do?

She collapsed on the bed and pulled David’s pillow to her face and inhaled at the same time she sobbed into it knowing it was all impossible. The family she’d always wanted, David, finding Miguel.

A few minutes later, she brushed her tears away and pushed his now damp pillow across the bed before sitting down in David’s ugly orange overstuffed chair. She grabbed the portfolio of Miguel and Solidad’s papers from the floor next to the bed. Something in here would tell her what she needed to know. Something had to.

She was crying. He could hear her sobs as papers shuffled.
 

It drove him crazy the way she did this, the way she just closed everything off. Body and soul. Everything shut down and she pulled so far away he wondered if she’d ever come back.

Afterwards she’d do something totally pointless like clean the fridge or the windows, over and over and over, until they sparkled like diamonds.

And then she’d snap back. Same ol’ sweet Lil.

But she wouldn’t talk and she wouldn’t unload. She’d just smile like everything was perfectly fine.

Only this time it wasn’t about him being out with the guys or her mother calling and telling her she was wasting her life in San Mario when she could be in Cannes or London or the City, which could be Dallas or LA but it didn’t really matter because Lil hated both equally.

This time it was a dead student. And that student’s dead father. And missing brother.

And Lil wasn’t closed off, or cleaning or pretending everything was okay.

She was crying and it broke his heart.

He walked to the door and knocked. “Come on, Lil. Let me in.”

“Go away.” Only it was muffled and she sounded miserable.

Lil was very big into the whole I mean what I say and don’t try to interpret thing, but this was different.
 

That voice and those tears might not mean the opposite, but they
needed
the opposite.

He twisted the doorknob, opened the door slowly and there she was.

Devastated.

Sitting in the big chair by his bed, wrapped in a UT throw, papers in her lap, her tear-stained eyes accusing.

“I said go away.” She hiccuped after
away
.

He stood there at the door, taking in her somewhat packed suitcase, her tears, those papers and that ratty UT blanket.

He thought about her need for distance when she was upset.

This was different. He crossed the room, knelt in front of her and gently brushed the tears from her cheeks. “I know what you said, but I couldn’t just let you cry.”

She gulped but she didn’t pull away. “Yes you could. Trust me, I’ve cried lots and you weren’t around.”

“Lil, don’t make this about us.”

She shook her head and pulled back. “I was out there playing pretend. For a few minutes I almost forgot. But I won’t again. I don’t know what I can do to help, but I’m sure going to try.”

Playing pretend. They’d both been doing that. She was right. He looked at the papers in her lap. “You’re looking again.”

She nodded and sobbed. “It’s not doing any good. I keep reading these essays thinking there’s got to be some clue but there’s nothing. Nothing. The only thing close is Miguel’s essay on
Heart of Darkness
but he just talks about the potential for evil in everyone. Not Degas.
 

“Solidad’s been gone longer. She talks about boys and motherhood, her favorite church. I’m an English teacher. My skills aren’t going to fix this.”

She pushed the papers to the floor and sidestepped him as she stood and walked to the window. The dawn sky was dark and he could see her tearstained face reflected in the glass.
 

He didn’t know what to do or say but then she started crying again and he couldn’t just let it go. He couldn’t.

He walked to her side, pulled her close, felt her tense at first and then sink into him.

“Shhh.” He whispered the words into her hair. “It’s okay. It’s okay to hurt, to feel powerless, to cry.”

She sobbed into his shirt and shook her head. “No, it’s not. It’s not okay at all. It’s pointless. It solves nothing.”

“It’ll make you feel better.”

“I don’t see you doing it.” She glared at him through her tears.

“I didn’t know these people. It’s different for me. Just go ahead and cry.”

For a minute he thought she was going to pull away from him, grab her suitcase and leave. Instead she let her head fall to his shoulder. He hugged her close, ran his hand over her soft hair as she cried and cried and broke his heart even more.