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She bit her lip.
“I…I could stay and wait with you.” He stared at her, or rather through her, and made her heart skitter. “Would that help?” he asked.
She shouldn’t spend an extra second with him. “Y-yes.”
“So, where’s your car?”
Reluctantly, she led the way. Which was a mistake—she was parked in his spot. Worse, he stayed behind her and watched the way her hips moved when she walked.
When he laughed, she whirled on him. “Do you have to drill holes through me?”
His gaze shot sparks. “Do you have to walk like that?”
“Like what?”
“You know.”
She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “I don’t have the energy or time for this. I’m exhausted, okay?”
He drew a long breath and nodded.
They walked the rest of the way to her Mercedes in silence.
When they reached the front of her car, she pushed her hands in her pockets. “I’m late to pick up my little girl.”
“Georgia?”
“How did—”
“Old car,” he said.
“New tires,” she countered. “I maintain it.”
“My parking spot.”
“Sorry. Look, I’m in a hurry.”
“If you don’t want to wait for a wrecker, I have a can of something that blows air and a sealant into a tire. It’s only a temporary fix, but it should get you where you’re going.”
“I’ll pay you for the can.”
She pressed her lips together and stared into the corners of the shadowy garage.
“Follow me,” he murmured, watching her too intently. “The can is in my car.”
His brand-new, gleaming black Porsche was parked on an upper floor. Quickly, he opened the trunk and pulled out a spray can. They walked back down the stairs to her car together. Then he knelt beside her front tire and began twisting something before he attached the can to her tire.
“Muriel should have told you not to park so near the ramp and definitely not in my spot when she was giving you instructions how to get here,” he muttered as he punched the nozzle that sprayed air and goo into her tire.
“She did. I—I think.”
And she’d told Muriel she probably wouldn’t park in the garage, anyway.
“Every summer, the street kids like to skateboard in the garage,” he said. “They flatten the tires of any car that parks near the ramp where they make their turns.”
He was frowning, and she had the distinct impression that he was leaving some vital piece of information out.
“Why don’t you stop them?”
“We’ve tried everything. But what we eventually learned is that if we don’t want to come out to a flat tire, we don’t park near the ramps.”
“I’d think a building full of lawyers could best a bunch of kids.”
“Street kids are a dangerous breed.” He spoke with the authority of one who knew.
“Were you a street kid?”
He didn’t answer.
It should have been difficult to imagine him as a little boy, but the image of a tough little guy in a tougher neighborhood sprang full-blown in her mind. She saw a red sky and an industrial neighborhood peopled with young thugs that beat him on a regular basis.
The kid in her vision was brown and dirty and had a permanent scowl. The other kids his age refused to play ball with him. Bullies chased him.
“Kids used to beat you up when you walked home from school, didn’t they?” she said.
A muscle flexed in his jaw, and he nodded. “But not every day. Back then I could run like a greased jackrabbit. I had this fat friend—the Charger. He wasn’t as fast as me, so they usually caught him and beat him up. He was big, so it took about five of them.”
“And you just ran off and left him?”
His mouth quirked.
“So, where’s the Charger now?”
“Around.” The skin above his white collar flushed and he focused on filling her tire. When her tire was full of air, he stood up.
Nervously she backed away from him but not without glancing around the garage. “I—I guess I’d better go—”
“Just say thank you. Thank you for fixing my flat, Campbell. That will suffice.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, “for fixing my flat.”
“I could follow you,” he offered, catching her frightened glance when she turned back to him.
“Oh…No…I’d rather you didn’t,” she said, plunging her hands into the pockets of her jumper so he wouldn’t know how violently they were shaking.
“Just to make sure your tire doesn’t go flat before you reach your destination,” he offered.
“As I said…” She paused and made her eyes and voice firmer. “I’d rather you…didn’t.”
He flushed and set his jaw. “Right.” He drew in a deep breath. “I could give you another can.”
“That’s not really necessary.”
“Hopefully not.” His tone was clipped now. “But just in case, I don’t want you stranded somewhere.”
As though you care.
As they walked upstairs to his car again, their footsteps echoed in the concrete stairwell. She glanced around nervously, keeping close to Campbell. When they reached his car, he opened his trunk again and pulled out another can.
“At least let me follow you out of the garage.”
“No. You have to know you’re the last person I would have asked for help if…”
“If there had been anybody else with a golf club handy.”
“Just so we understand each other.”
Again he flushed, his dark eyes so haunted, he almost looked human.
As if he were a gentleman, he followed her down the stairs. Anxious to pick up Georgia, she ran down them as rapidly as possible.
When they reached her car, he opened her door.
“Who the hell are you really?” he muttered as she got in. “What the hell are you so afraid of?”
She looked up. “I’m sorry I kept you. Thank you.”
In a panic to get to Georgia’s school, she rolled her windows up and started her car before the glow plugs had a chance to warm up. When he shouted at her to wait, she raced quickly away.
Every mile she put between herself and the parking garage calmed her until she got to Georgia’s school and saw his gleaming black Porsche parked in front of the school. She gasped when she recognized Joe Campbell, of all people, sitting under the wide ash trees right beside her own darling, innocent, unsuspecting, little Georgia and the elementary school principal. The two men were chatting as if they were old friends.
Coincidence? She didn’t think so.
Georgia was reading out of a storybook. Her golden hair shone. Her pose was unusually still. The book had to be wonderful. Usually Georgia was such a live wire, her teachers complained.
When Campbell glanced down at the little girl, he looked sweet and fatherly. Hannah’s throat tightened. He wasn’t a nice man. She had to remember that. He had no business here. Still, for nine years, she had dreamed of Georgia having a father to dote on her. She’d kept hoping that Dom…The thought of Dom terrified her.
Shoving her car door open, Hannah got out of her Mercedes. Georgia didn’t look up until Hannah called her. Then her rambunctious, little darling jumped up and skipped down the sidewalk toward her, avoiding every crack.
“Mommy, what took you so long?” Georgia’s smile was so trusting, Hannah forgot Campbell and smiled, too.
When Georgia hugged her, Campbell shook hands with the principal and started toward them as if he’d been waiting for her the whole time.
Georgia turned her head and beamed at him shyly.
“Sweetheart, get in the car,” Hannah said before turning to face Campbell.
Three
The sun was streaming through the trees, making shadows dance across his target’s dark, carved face as teachers streamed out of the building on all sides of him and the little girl.
Mothers were double-parked in their cars, and the air reeked with exhaust fumes.
Damn.
One minute he had him in the scope and the next he was blinking at a bright disk of white glare.
Campbell’s Porsche was parked directly in front of the school. A few students loitered, teasing one another, laughing, talking and shoving one another. The watcher smiled grimly as the barrel of his rifle roamed from the chain-link fence surrounding the schoolyard, from the crossing guards, the teachers, to the kids carrying armloads of books.
Bang. Bang.
The watcher itched to blow them all away.
You’re not here to play games.
It took a second or two to pick Campbell out of the crowd and sight him in with the scope again. One glance at that arrogant face in his crosshairs, and the shooter’s finger twitched. Sweat beaded his brow. It was so damn hot one wondered why the dry brown grasses on the playground didn’t burst into flame.
His gut twisted as he zeroed in on his target, dead center. His eyes blurred. His temple throbbed. Soon the pain in his head was intense, electric, explosive. He had his target; he had the right weapon, a Sako .270 mounted with a Nikon scope.
He was thinking how easy it would be to take Mr. J. Campbell out. So, easy. Then a woman with black hair, fine-boned features and pale, creamy skin got in his way.
Move your cute ass, bitch.
He shifted the gun to the unsmiling woman. She seemed to be scolding a blond little girl.
The woman moved toward Campbell. She was angry. All of a sudden the watcher felt a nagging sense of familiarity.
His trigger finger shook again. No way to miss. Not at this range; not with a gun like this. With difficulty he set the gun down and wiped his sweaty cheek on his shoulder.
To do this right, he had to eliminate his emotions. With difficulty he suppressed his hatred and distrust for the legal system and for his intended victim and watched him through his scope.
Lowering the gun, the watcher stared at Campbell and the woman. They seemed like players on a stage as they stood perfectly still, their gazes fixed on each other.
Shoot him. Blow him away. What have you got to lose?
“Yes, why did it take you so long to get here?” Campbell demanded, his eyes hard and intent on Hannah’s face.
Frowning at him, Hannah turned to Georgia. “Darling, I said get in the car.”
“But…but this nice man, Mr. Campbell, is a friend of Mr. Brayfield’s.”
“I thought I told you never to talk to strangers.”
“Besides, Mummy…er…Mommy, you were late. And he isn’t a stranger. He gave a speech to our school. He’s a friend of the principal.”
Campbell smiled at her. Hannah’s stomach writhed.
“I have something to say to our friend, then,” Hannah muttered through her teeth.
