Crazy in Chicago (6 page)

“But don't you remember anything about the time you were gone? Not even now?”

“No. Not a thing. Even after being poked and prodded by numerous doctors and therapists. They gave me pills, injections, even tried hypnosis, but didn't come up with a bloody thing.”

He rubbed his jaw as he recalled the unpleasant weeks and months after his return. He didn't mention that he'd cut his treatment short because the therapists had tried to delve into his childhood whenever they reached a blocked path. Hell, he didn't want to talk about his childhood or his relationship with his parents. He wanted to know where he'd been for six weeks, dammit. Six weeks of his life had been stolen, and he wanted them back.

Bitterness flooded through him. He blinked. He hadn't realized before just how resentful his disappearance had made him.

“But the police? Didn't they come up with anything?”
 

The concern in Roberta's voice pulled him back to the present. He looked up, surprised to see tenderness shimmering in her eyes. Outside of a purely professional concern, it had been a long time since anyone outside his immediate family had cared about him, or he had cared that they did. His reluctance to speak faded.

“Well, the cops found my car by the roadside, supposedly the day after I disappeared. There were no signs of violence and nothing had been stolen. Eventually, in the absence of any clues, the paper consulted a psychic. The best she could come up with was that I was in a strange, cold place. But if you read the stories, you already know that.”
 

He halted abruptly. His stomach had started to roil, and a damp chill slid down his spine, signs he now recognized as the first warnings of the debilitating nausea that had been sweeping over him for days.

He stood up and walked over to the parapet, hoping to circumvent the attack. But it was too late. He gripped the railing like a life raft as waves of nausea assaulted him. He took deep gulps of air. Finally, after about forty seconds, the sickness passed.

He sighed in relief. As he breathed in again, the comforting heat of another body infiltrated his senses. Roberta's bare arm brushed his arm, and she closed her hand over his. She squeezed it gently, and gazed up at him.

“I'm sorry if my questions upset you. It must be awful to be missing for such a long time and have no idea where you were or what you were doing. I can't even imagine how that would feel.”

Cody remained silent, letting the equal comfort of her words and the heat of her hand seep into him. Finally he spoke. “It's all right. It's natural that you'd want to know. Most people do.

“But you're right. It is awful not knowing. I think this is the first time I realized just how much I resent not knowing. Not knowing where I was or why. Not knowing why I was wearing the same clothes I disappeared in, and yet they didn't seem the least bit worn or dirty. Not knowing why my hair seemed the same length, or why I had only one day's growth of beard after six weeks. Not knowing anything!”

He shook his head, fighting off the nausea that seemed to be hovering just outside him, waiting for a chance to assault him yet again. She squeezed his hand and he smiled, momentarily forgetting the struggle.

“It's all pretty strange,” she said.

“Yes. Strange that the doctors could find nothing wrong with me, no evidence of drugs or foreign bodies, and yet I had changed in some very basic ways. For example, I used to be a slob. Not untidy. A slob. But not any more. Ever since my return, I can't abide messes.”

“Maybe you just matured,” offered Roberta.

Cody snorted and his smile grew more deprecating. “And you may have read that I was, to put it kindly, something of a womanizer. Now, well, I haven't been out with a woman for a year. Even worse, I haven't been the least bit interested in starting anything up.”

But I am now! The thought hit with absolute certainty. He raised his eyes to Roberta's, and read the question shimmering in the deep blue depths, a question he neither wanted to nor could ignore. Deliberately he clasped her hand between both of his. He drew the rough pads of his fingers along the smooth silkiness of her skin. Slowly he tilted his head, intent on capturing her sweet lips and exploring the attraction between them.

His mouth brushed hers. She trembled. Encouraged, he pressed forward, slanting his lips over hers for more of her sweet taste. Warm and pliant, she returned the kiss, with a tenderness that sent his heart soaring.

His pulse quickened, sparking fire in the long-dry tinder of his desire. Suddenly ravenous, he slid his hand behind her head to bring the sweetness closer. Her lips opened under his. He took what she offered, with a joy and openness he'd forgotten existed.

Without warning Roberta pulled back. She stepped away from him, her eyes round, her lips wet.

Loss swept over Cody. He raised one eyebrow. “Something wrong?”

“No . . . Yes—” Her face flamed, reminding him vividly of the night he'd surprised her in the garden. “It's just . . . we have a professional relationship to maintain.”

“I hadn't realized you were my doctor,” he quipped.

“No! That's not what I mean. I'm . . .” She looked away. “I'm a source for your stories. You can't—well, we just can't do this.”

“All right then,” he said agreeably. “I won't ask you any more work-related questions. I'll have the professional relationship with your boss, and a personal relationship with you.”

He took a step towards her. She backed up. He scowled.

“No,” she said. She raked her hand through her hair. “Besides, I'm all wrong for you. I'm not the kind of woman you usually go out with.”

“No?” His scowl deepened. “And how would you know that? Do you believe everything you read in the papers? Besides, I told you I've changed. I haven't been interested in any woman since my disappearance. But that all changed the night I met you. Ever since I saw you that first night, out under the stars, you've fascinated me.” He took another step towards her.

“Me?” she squeaked, grasping the back of a metal chair.

“Yes, you.” Cody reached out and covered the hand with which she grasped the chair.

“Uh, you're making a mistake.”

“No, I don't think so.” Cody was taken aback by her reaction. He'd been certain he read attraction and interest in her manner. Had he been out of the game so long he'd misread the signals?

“Why do you keep backing up?” he persisted. “Do you already have a boyfriend?”

Roberta pulled her hand out from under his. She retreated to the hedge separating their gardens. She didn't look at him. “No. There's no one.”

Her answer perplexed Cody. Why was she moving away from him? A slight professional relationship seemed a flimsy excuse for breaking off a kiss. Especially a kiss that he felt certain she had wanted every bit as much as he had.

“I just wanted to kiss you. And then . . .”

The unspoken possibilities in his unfinished sentence hung in the air between them.

She turned away. “Well, I don't want to kiss you. I want us to be friendly neighbors, and that's all.”

She faced him again, her expression stern. “I want you to drink your milk and go. Now.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Cody grinned. He knew when to pack up and leave. For now.

He reached for the glass of milk, raised it to her, then drained the glass in one long swig. A line of milk remained above his upper lip and once again he licked it away with the tip of his tongue. A thrill of pleasure rushed through him when he glanced up and caught her watching once more.

“Thanks.” He set down his glass and nodded to her. He was going home without having achieved his objective.

But it didn't matter. He'd be back.

* * *

Guilt gnawed at Roberta as she sat in the passenger seat of Cody's Corvette the next evening. I should tell him, she thought.

She chewed her bottom lip and fiddled with the chain around her neck. I should tell him the truth. The truth about why she was accompanying him on a visit to see his friend's new baby, despite her refusal yesterday to get involved romantically. About the real reasons why—despite the feelings he'd sparked in her—she wouldn't go out with him.

She squirmed on the leather bucket seat, then glanced at him. He hummed a cheery tune, apparently unperturbed by the terms of friendship she had laid out before agreeing to come with him. If he'd only known how difficult it had been for her to hide her eagerness to accompany him no matter what.

Guilt welled up in Roberta and she pressed her lips together to keep it inside. The real reason rested in the file lying open on her kitchen counter. The file containing the newspaper clippings about his disappearance. The clippings that had lead her to suspect more than a year ago that he had been abducted by aliens.

But she couldn't tell Cody that. Not until she had enough proof to overcome his skepticism. Not until she had enough proof to build a convincing case of alien abduction, one that would give her respect within her field, one that would make even Garnet take notice and stop patronizing her.

Her fists clenched in her lap. What a lucky coincidence that her neighbor should turn out to be a potential alien abductee! But coincidence or not, she couldn't jeopardize her first real chance at a big case by dating the subject of her investigations. When she proved her case—and her intuition told her she would—she couldn't risk an emotional attachment that might contaminate her objectivity and the results of her investigations. No one would accuse her of subjectivity! That had always been the biggest problem with Garnet's books, especially the ones involving his own abduction.

She winced as her nails dug into the palm of her hands. Still, she felt guilty about not telling Cody. With a pang she recalled the genuine delight in his eyes when she'd agreed to come with him tonight.

 
I'm doing this for his own good. Abductees always feel better once they know and accept the truth, she insisted to herself. With determination she shoved the guilt aside and concentrated on what was going on now. “So who are these people we're visiting?” she asked. “Anyone I would know?”

Cody shook his head. “Probably not. But you might have heard of one or the other. Allie and Erik Berenger. They both work at
The Streeter.
He's a photographer and she writes the column “Street Beat”. She's the one who wrote all the articles about my disappearance last year.”

“Oh.” Roberta remembered all right. “The one you were going to marry?”

“Yes.”

Roberta mulled that one over. “And you're still good friends?”
 

Cody glanced at her, then shook his head in amusement. “Actually, Allie and I are probably better friends now than when we went out together.”

“Are you sorry it ended the way it did?”

“No, not really.” Cody sounded matter-of-fact. “Allie's great. We just didn't work together as a couple.”

A spurt of relief surprised Roberta. “And what about Erik?”
 

Cody frowned. “He doesn't like me. I'm not sure why.”

He glanced at her again and his lips curved upwards in that winning smile that made her feel as if he'd never smiled at anyone else.

“That's why you're here,” he continued. “To shield me from his disapproving glare. And also to hold the baby. I'm not much good at that.”

Roberta struggled to find something to say that would diminish the effect of his smile. “I guess holding the older babes is your specialty, right?”

“Ouch!” Cody looked wounded.

“Sorry.” Roberta suppressed a chuckle.

“I told you I've reformed,” he continued, pulling into a parking space on a street in the largely commercial area of North Chicago. “And you have to admit, I'm on my best behavior today, right?”

“Right.” Roberta mentally reminded herself to leave that aspect of Cody alone. He was her neighbor, and the subject of her investigation. That was all. His love life wasn't her concern.

Cody turned off the car and Roberta got out. She looked around. After regular business hours, the downtown street of store fronts, small businesses and the odd warehouse was deserted, save for the odd car and two men standing on the sidewalk a half block away. “So where do your friends live?”

“There.” Cody nodded to the building in front of them, then reached into the back of the car for the gift bag. A pink and white teddy bear peeked out the top.
 

“But that's a warehouse.”

“Right. It was. Now it's renovated into a combination of studios, offices and apartments. Their apartment is actually a huge studio with a kitchen and bathroom.”

Roberta followed Cody through the front doors. They entered a utilitarian lobby and took the elevator to the fifth floor.

A door down the hall opened as they got off the elevator. An auburn-haired woman stuck her head around the door. “I'm so glad you've come. I was wondering when you'd get here.”