Creepers (11 page)

"It's a natural reaction."

"Oh? I didn't know there were natural reactions to having your daughter kidnapped. Or should I say disappear?" She sipped her coffee. "Have you heard anything, Frank? Off the record? I only get a cold shoulder from the police."

"Sony," he said, blushing. He'd forgotten they were on a first-name basis; she made his name sound sexy. "The NYPD is still investigating...it's a big city."

"That's always the reason for everything that goes wrong here, isn't it--it's a big city. It's an unfeeling city, is what you really mean."

Corelli could see the toll her pain was taking on her. Yesterday, despite the tears, Louise had seemed alert and alive. Today she was bedraggled, like she hadn't been sleeping or had been sleeping too much. A patina of listlessness was slowly enveloping her. Corelli had seen it happen before. Confronted with a terrible situation with no action to take, the mind often closed down--rolled over and went to sleep, as it were. In its extreme form, catatonia set in, isolating the person totally from the world. In its more pedestrian form, life became dull and the little daily tasks of taking care of oneself grew to monumental proportions. Louise Hill seemed right now on the verge of falling into the abyss.

"You don't have to give in to it, Louise," Corelli blurted out, his thoughts a non sequitur.

"What?" She looked puzzled.

"Letting this kill your spirit." Jesus, he was preaching at her. That wasn't why he'd come over. Was it?

"And what would you suggest, Detective Corelli?" Her voice was strident, full of anger and embarrassment. "What's your prescription for what ails me?"

"Fight it, Louise! Stand up against it. You're dealing with your own anger and it's dragging you down. For Christ's sake, if you're angry, yell, throw furniture, beat someone up...something!"

Louise listened impassively. Corelli had edged forward and now sat at the front of the couch, his coffee cup clasped tightly between the palms of his hands. The muscles of his neck were tensed. She mentally traced them from his collar to his jawline. He was right, but she didn't believe the answer to what she felt could be so simple. The weight of her helplessness had crushed her; getting out couldn't be as easy as he made it sound.

"Sounds like you're talking from experience," she finally said.

"I am." He fell back against the cushions and drank from his coffee. "But we're not here to talk about me, are we?"

"Just why are we here, Frank?"

And suddenly Corelli no longer knew why. The chances were that Louise wouldn't be able to remember anything new. She was an artist. She was used to observing, looking for details. Prodding her memory was probably useless. He really didn't need her help any longer. But maybe she might need his. That was it. That was why he'd telephoned her to invite himself over. Yesterday, in his arms, as the anguish of her loss won out, Louise Hill had needed him. She'd needed him there to tell her it was all right. For the first time since Jean's death, a woman had needed him. And that was why he'd come back--to let Louise know he was there for her.

"I want to help," he finally answered, simplifying the complex reasons and emotions.

"Thank you." She held his eyes for a moment, then stared into her coffee cup. "You're unique, you know that, Detective Corelli? You're a transit policeman who seems to spend most of his time aboveground helping ladies in distress, a man who works his off-duty hours. And a man who also happens to make a damned fine cup of coffee."

"You don't do so badly yourself." He drained the coffee. "Now, I want to admit something to you--I just stopped by to see that you're okay."

"And I appreciate it, Frank. Right about now I could use a friend."

"Then you've got one." There was a long, awkward silence. "Look, I've still got some things to do. I'd better get going." He stood up and followed her to the front door. "I know this might be the wrong place and the wrong time, but I never was much good at the social amenities. How about having dinner with me one night? It'll do you some good."

"I'd like that," she said without hesitation.

"When?"

She threw her head back and laughed, sending her hair swirling around her long, graceful neck. God, it felt good to laugh. "How about tonight? That is, if you're not too busy."

"I'll pick you up here, about eight?" She smiled in agreement. "See you then."

Corelli walked south on Columbus Avenue to give himself time to calm down. Jesus, he was feeling like a high-school kid about to go out on his first date. Louise Hill was a great-looking lady. And she had a head on her shoulders, to boot. There weren't many women he could say that about. At least not the women he'd spent time with since Jean's death. The truth was, he hadn't been looking too hard. Being in perpetual mourning had its advantages, after all. It kept life small and manageable. The pain of loneliness was a familiar if somewhat unpleasant companion. Before today, Corelli never considered that his prolonged grief over Jean's death might be a way to avoid the responsibility and reality of his own life. He'd always felt a great part of himself had died that night with her-- and now he began to feel he wanted that life back. Jean was dead. Frank Corelli was very much alive.

Chapter 5

Louise was nervous. Actually nervous! Like a college girl waiting for a blind date. Not that she'd been one of the flighty girls who viewed a higher education as four years of sowing wild oats before getting married. She'd wanted to learn, enjoyed the process. And had gone into Fine Arts because she had a decided talent for drawing and painting. It had paid off in a successful career. Textile design might not be the epitome of artistic endeavor, but it satisfied her creative spirit and it filled her bank account to overflowing.

But now, once again sitting at the vanity table, all the money in the world couldn't have made Louise feel less nervous about her date with Frank Corelli. She rearranged a wild wisp of hair, wishing, not for the first time, that after her divorce she'd done a little less work and spent a little more time investigating the appealing and slightly frightening world of men. Before her marriage she was always being asked out, but she limited herself to one date a week, even on summer vacation. Only after she met and married David Hill did it occur to her that she was afraid of men--as evidenced by a long series of one-time dates with an endless number of faceless men.

But David hadn't let her off the hook so easily. He was a grad student in business administration when Louise was in her junior year. He followed her, talked to her, cajoled her, and eventually convinced her she'd be better oft with him than without him. Louise acknowledged this barrage of flattery by giving him her virginity during her senior year. And for two weeks after, David avoided her, stopped calling, and refused to answer her calls. Louise was convinced she'd been a fool and had paid the ultimate price for her naivete. It seemed the classic case of the unwilling virgin seduced and abandoned by the older man. Until David resurfaced with profound apologies and a gushing display of tears that both fascinated and embarrassed her.

"I needed the past two weeks . . . alone...to think," he shyly explained over dinner their first night back together.

"Think about what?" she asked coldly.

"You...me...us." He easily declined the pronouns.

"You mean now that you've gone to bed with me, what are you...me...us...going to do about it?" Louise mocked in a voice intended to be lighthearted but that was filled with deep hurt at her betrayal.

"I want to marry you, Louise," David blurted out. "Look, we both know I've been around, but this is the first time I've ever felt like this."

"Oh?" was all Louise could manage to say. The fact was, she didn't know David had "been around."

"I know you're not the kind of woman who plays around, then walks away laughing. You're serious. And I like that." He smiled and played with his chin like he always did when he was serious. "So, what do you say? Marry me?"

Louise was a sucker for David's easy charm. Physically he was her dream man--blond as vanilla pudding; flawless blue eyes, perfectly trimmed mustache flecked with red highlights, and enough nice white teeth for three handsome men. That the attraction on both their parts was mainly physical didn't become obvious until he started fooling around with other women. But that came years later. After moving to New York City. After Lisa was born.

Lisa.

The tears started automatically. In the past three days Louise had cried more than she had in her entire lifetime. They sprang from her with an ease and volume that reaffirmed her Italian ancestry. Louise now dealt with her tears offhandedly, as she might with a fit of sneezing--she waited patiently until they stopped, mopped up as best she could, and then assessed the damage to her makeup. There was nothing she could do to stop the tears. Lisa was still gone. The police knew nothing. And the gap in her life, like a cigarette burning through a fragile swatch of silk, grew steadily outward, destroying everything, until it threatened the very threads that held it together. If only there were something she could do. She'd do anything...anything...to get her baby back.

Corelli was prompt and even brought flowers. He'd decided while showering that he'd do it up royal, go all the way. Besides, the activity of selecting flowers and thinking about Louise took his mind off his own frustrated search for answers to these disappearances. Since finding the missing-persons file, he'd thought of nothing else. It wasn't good. It wasn't healthy. It reminded him too much of his obsession with Jean's death. He was becoming obsessed again, and he was powerless to stop it.

Louise was pleased by the flowers. She suggested having a drink before going out, but Frank turned her down. He needed to get out, to walk, to keep his mind from fixating too long on the series of unanswered questions that were beginning to plague him. More than that, he needed to feel like a man once again, not just a policeman.

They walked to a restaurant on Columbus Avenue far enough north of Seventy-second Street to avoid the cute shops and bistros that were changing the neighborhood into an expensive, trendy, and utterly charmless chunk of prime real estate. They sat outside in the cool of the evening, silently enjoying each other's company.

After a time Corelli raised his glass of wine to Louise, then took a sip. "I prepared a long list of things to talk about," he said candidly. "I'm not great at making small talk, so I had some questions to ask...about you."

"Ask away." Louise now wondered why she'd been so nervous; Frank Corelli was utterly guileless.

"I've forgotten every damned thing I wanted to know." He laughed.

Louise laughed, too. She felt very much at ease with Frank. He wasn't out to prove anything to her. "Then let me ask you a few things. I think we've come that far, don't you?" His answer was to raise his eyes to hers and smile. "So, what makes Frank Corelli tick? I thought all police were straightforward, uncomplicated types. I don't get that feeling from you. You actually seem to have feelings."

"It shows, huh?" He laughed.

"Maybe just to me," she countered.

Frank stared at her a few seconds, then had some more wine. "I started out on a law career and I got sidetracked. Maybe that explains a few things."

Louise sensed he was letting her enter personal territory, so she pushed ahead. "Want to tell me why you're working underground instead of in court?"

"Why not? I've been living with it every day and night for five years." They ordered dinner, and while they ate, Corelli told Louise about Jean. "So, after the trial was over, I kind of went to pieces. I stopped studying and finally dropped out--before they asked me to leave. I bummed around a couple of years, feeling very sorry for myself. Then I decided to become a cop."

"For revenge?" Louise identified with the need to erase the hurt by taking some action. Getting back to her own work was the only thing that kept her mind off Lisa.

"You'd think I'd want to get even, wouldn't you? But that wasn't it. I wanted to change things so tragedies like Jean's death wouldn't continue."

"Have you changed things?"

He sadly shook his head. "Evil is inherent in human nature. The most I can do is try to keep the really bad ones from doing too much harm. But there's no stopping it. It can happen to any of us."

"I know all about it," Louise replied wearily. "I wish I could be as understanding as you are. I wish I could forgive the monster who took my Lisa, but I can't. I don't even try anymore. I just act like she's already dead. I'm mourning her while trying to remember that I have to go on living. There's nothing else I can do but accept the shitty hand fate has dealt me."

"Looks like we're in the same boat, Louise," Corelli said softly, needing the words to bring them closer.

"I kind of thought we had something in common, Frank. When I first met you I suspected there might be someone capable of caring lurking under that tough facade." Her eyes grew wide with amusement. "But I must admit it took a lot of looking before I was sure. You've got your act down pat."

"Saves a lot of wear and tear on the ego." He drained his postprandial brandy and paid the check. "How about getting out of here? I'll walk you home."

Their eyes met for a moment and Frank recognized in Louise Hill the same gnawing need for love he'd denied in himself for so long. He wanted to go to bed with her when they got back to her apartment. She'd probably readily agree; the past days had broken down her defenses. It'd be easy . . . too easy. An image of her locked in his arms postcoitus flashed past him, and he knew sex tonight would be a mistake. Sex would turn them against each other, complicate their budding feelings, eventually killing them Their need was raw; it must be tempered with understanding, caring. And for that reason, tonight dinner was enough. There'd be plenty of time for sex later; he'd see to that personally. . .