Part 6 (1/2)

A doorman approached. Lannes turned off the car engine, twisted in his seat and said, ”You can come or stay, lady. But if you stay, I want your word that you won't run or hot-wire my car.”

Frederick stared at the big man. ”You're not both staying with me?”

It was of some interest to the woman that Lannes squirmed. ”Charlie will probably call back soon. No time, Freddy. I'll make sure you're safe in the room before I go.”

”That's not the point. I would like to go, too. And help.”

”Freddy.”

”Don't let these useless hands fool you.”

Lannes rested his own hand on the old man's shoulder, and the compa.s.sion on his face, the sadness, was enough to take the woman's breath away. She forgot herself for a moment as he very quietly said, ”Never would I be fooled by anything so shallow.”

”Ah,” breathed Frederick, sagging against the seat. ”But I've become old, haven't I? What happened to those years, Lannes?”

”They're still here,” he said firmly. ”But I won't put you in danger.”

Danger I caused, added the woman silently, feeling very insignificant and helpless. Frederick glanced at her almost as though he had heard her thoughts, but she saw no accusation on his face. Just concern.

Behind him, the doorman waited, one gloved hand resting on the car. Frederick took a deep breath, tore his gaze from the woman and fumbled for the door himself. It was immediately opened from the outside.

But Frederick paused, looking back again at the woman. ”You, young lady,” he said quietly, ”I hope you find yourself. But if you do not, remember that there are worse things than...choosing the course of a new life.”

Then he was gone, rising out of the Impala with as much dignity as a king. Lannes shot the woman a brief look, then followed Frederick, keeping close, one hand under the old man's elbow. He loomed over everyone else, and as she watched him, Frederick's words rang inside her head. She thought he might be right: there were worse things than starting a life afresh.

Here she was, too, sitting in the backseat of a car just ripe for stealing. No keys, but there was a something twitching at the back of her mind that might have been a skill for stripping wires. So very tempting.

She got out of the car, ignoring the incredulous look the doorman gave her as he stared at her floppy socks and ill-fitting clothes, and climbed into the pa.s.senger seat. She leaned back and studied the steering wheel.

I am a practical woman, she told herself, willing it to be true. And Lannes was a resource, an opportunity. She needed him. Or someone like him. And while she could bemoan the safety of that, or its ethics-or beat her chest in some mocking, woe-is-me roar-the facts were dead simple: she did not know who she was, she had no money or friends, and she had only a name, only one clue to what might have happened to her. Giving that up was no longer an option.

So she waited. And locked the doors. Watched the street and the lightening sky.

The woman sat for almost twenty minutes before Lannes returned-a remarkable length of time that eventually felt like playing chicken with a freight train, a train rumbling toward her filled with the ominous specters of police and blood and murder. But finally, finally, she saw the big man exit the hotel.

He did not look entirely surprised to see her waiting for him, which the woman found a bit insulting, but he did give her a small grateful smile that felt almost unbearably sweet to her raw ticking nerves. She unlocked his door. He slid in, carrying with him the scent of earth and something delicate, like orchids.

”Is he all right?” she found herself saying, genuinely concerned.

Lannes shrugged, frowning. ”No one likes being left behind. But...thank you for asking.”

”I like him,” she said simply. ”And I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused. It's not too late to ditch me, you know.”

”Maybe later,” he said. ”I'm curious now.”

The woman could not help herself. ”No matter what happens? How do you know I'm not lying to you? Or that I didn't plant that note at your front door? I could be anyone in the world.”

”I haven't forgotten that,” he said, pinning her with a look that made her feel very small. ”This isn't an easy thing for me. But I believe you. I see a person who needs help. And if I don't help you, I'm afraid no one will.”

The woman stared at him in silence. Lannes sighed, put the Impala in gear and drove away from the curb. The sun was rising. A hint of golden light twinkled between the skysc.r.a.pers, reflected by gla.s.s and steel. It was going to be a pretty day.

”My brother called,” Lannes said. ”He found Price.”

”Okay,” the woman whispered, hardly hearing him. She was thinking instead that she should have thrown survival to the wind and done the right thing after all, embraced a little self-sacrifice and saved this man from his moral compa.s.s. She should have stolen his car while she had the chance.

Chapter Six.

Orwell Price lived in a gritty little neighborhood on the far west side of Chicago. Not much in the way of personality. All the houses were small and made of brick, with wide porches and sc.r.a.ppy yards.

The Impala purred. Lannes parked behind a white pickup. He and the woman got out of the car. The air was cool.

The neighborhood was quiet, but that was merely a lull-he heard doors banging and car engines roaring, saw tiny children crying and screaming, throwing down their book bags on the concrete sidewalks while their mothers ignored them and leaned on chain link fences, cigarettes dangling from their fingers.

Folks going to work, school. It was only Thursday.

Lannes stood for a moment, watching the woman posed frozen on the sidewalk, her gaze sharp, thoughtful. She was still wearing only socks. He needed to get her some good shoes if they were going to keep on like this. A first-aid kit for her feet, maybe.

They walked down the sidewalk to a small brick house surrounded by a chain-link fence decorated with plastic windmills shaped like birds. Yellow gra.s.s and bushy weeds filled the small lawn, which was covered in stone birdbaths and bird feeders that hung from iron poles jammed into the earth, leaning at an angle. The feeders were empty, and there was no water in the baths.

The fence gate stood ajar. Lannes and the woman hesitated, staring over the threshold at dirty windows covered in curtains yellowed with age.

”Think the boogeyman lives in there?” asked the woman. ”Or Mister Rogers?”

Lannes grunted, extending his senses into the home. Listening with his mind. Someone was in there...but that was all he could determine.

”Stay behind me,” he said, ignoring the amused surprise that flashed through her eyes-an amus.e.m.e.nt that faded just as soon as he started walking up the path to the front door, deliberately taking long strides so that he would reach the house before her. The woman hobbled behind him, her presence at the back of his mind sparking with irritation. It made him think of Charlie.

Wait, his brother had said. I'm sending help. Don't go alone.

Well. He was not alone. And he could not wait. Those instincts in his heart had been pus.h.i.+ng and pulling from the moment he had found that note-earlier even, if he considered the woman-and it was now or never. He knew it. Even if he did not understand why.

Fate. Moments pa.s.sing in time. Moments that will never come again.

And knowing just when to catch them was another kind of magic all of its own.

Lannes knocked on the front door, stepping sideways as the woman neared. His bound wings ached. So did his nerves. He had spent too much time alone to be well equipped for playing hero. Up until now, his only purposes in life had been simple: Mind his own business. Cause no harm. Never be discovered.

He heard a shuffling sound. The door opened. An old man stood on the other side of the screen, wearing a ratty blue bathrobe that gaped at the front revealing a scarred pale torso and a pair of striped pajama bottoms that hung low over wide hips. His face sagged. His nose was red. He had no hair on his head, but plenty on his chest. White and bristly.

Find Orwell Price, the note had said.

”Who the h.e.l.l are you?” growled the man.

”Mr. Price?” Lannes inquired. ”We were hoping to speak with you.”

”I'm not buying, I'm not converting, and everyone under the age of thirty-five deserves to be shot,” the man snapped. ”Get off my porch.”