FOR THE BABY'S SAKE (6 page)

Yeah, he needed to try harder. He needed to keep his distance, needed to remember that getting Mirandez was the goal. Not getting into Liz Mayfield’s pants or letting her get into his head.

* * *

L
IZ
WASHED
HER
DISHES
,
cleaned her bathroom, sorted some old photographs and even managed to force down a peanut-butter sandwich. She went through all the motions of a regular life. But what she really did was wait for Mary’s call.

When the phone finally rang at seven o’clock, she jumped off her couch, ran to the kitchen and managed to stub her toe on the way.

She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice when Jamison greeted her. “Liz, I talked to Carmen late this afternoon,” he said. “I understand that Mary was a no-call, no-show yesterday.”

Jamison would understand her worry. She knew she could confide in him. But she couldn’t bring herself to utter the words. To somehow give credence to the fact that Mary might be in trouble. That Mary might be, at this very moment, crying out for help, but there would be no one around to hear. If she said it, it could be true.

“You know how these kids are. I’m sure I’ll hear from her soon.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said. “I don’t know how much help this is, but I did get a lead on Mary that you can pass on to Detective Montgomery.”

“What?”

“I reviewed some case files today, and I saw a note that one of my girls had heard about OCM from Mary Thorton. They met at a club.”

“What’s the name of it?”

“Jumpin’ Jack Flash. I guess they have a dance contest every Tuesday night. The women don’t pay a cover, and all the drinks are two bucks. It’s somewhere on the South Side, on Deyston Street.”

Liz knew just where it was. She and Sawyer had passed it this morning on their way to the bookstore. And today was Tuesday.

“He might want to check it out. From what I understood from my client, it’s a real hangout for the young crowd. I had thought about trying to put a few brochures there.”

His business, her life.

“Thanks for the tip, Jamison.”

“You’ll tell Detective Montgomery?”

“I will. Thanks, Jamison.” Liz hung up and dialed Sawyer. After four rings, his voice mail came on. “Hi, Sawyer,” she said. “I’ve got a tip on Mary. It’s a dance club on Deyston. Call me, okay?”

She waited an hour. She’d tried his line again. When voice mail picked up again, she pressed zero. A woman answered. Detective Montgomery was not in. Was it an emergency? Did she want to page him?

She almost said yes but realized he could be in the middle of trouble. The man had a dangerous job. He didn’t need to be interrupted.

She’d just go there by herself, look around and ask a few questions. She’d only stay a short while. Then she could report back to Sawyer. It would probably be better if he wasn’t there anyway. He’d do his tough-guy cop routine and scare away any of the girls who might know Mary.

Liz had learned a lot about teenage girls in the past three years. When they got scared, they clammed up. She didn’t want the girls circling the proverbial wagons and making it impossible to find Mary.

Liz ran back to her closet and started sorting through her clothes. Business suits or jeans. Old life, new life. She didn’t have much in the middle. But tonight, she needed a young, nonestablishment look. It took her twenty minutes to find something that might work. She pulled the short, tight black skirt on, hoping like heck that she wouldn’t have to sneeze. The zipper would surely break. Then she put on a black bra and topped if off with a sheer white shirt that had come with one of her swimsuits. She left her legs bare and stuck her feet into high-heeled, open-toed black sandals.

She teased and sprayed her hair, put on three times the amount of makeup she normally wore and walked her body through a mist of perfume. For the finishing touch, she applied two temporary tattoos, one on her breast, just peeking over the edge of her bra, and the other on the inside of her thigh, low enough that it would show when she crossed her legs. She’d remembered them at the last minute. They’d come in a box of cereal. One was a snake and the other a flag. Not exactly what she’d have chosen but better than nothing. Every girl she met had some kind of tattoo or body piercing.

When she got finished and looked in the mirror, she wasn’t too dissatisfied with the effort. She didn’t look eighteen, but she thought she could pass for her mid-twenties. At least they might not guess she was thirty-two—so far into adulthood, from their perspective, that she couldn’t possibly even remember what it was like to be young.

She grabbed a small black purse, stuck her cell phone in it as well as two hundred bucks. She remembered Sawyer’s advice from earlier in the day. Everything had a price. She needed to be prepared to pay for information.

She waved down a cab and ignored the guy’s look when she told him the address. Thirty minutes later, when he pulled up to the curb, she sat still for a minute, for the first time wondering if she had made a big mistake.

Music poured out of the small, old building. Ten or fifteen teens gathered around the door, lounging against the cement walls. Everybody had a cigarette and a can of beer. More boys than girls. And the few girls who were there were clearly taken. One straddled a boy who sat on a wooden chair. He had his hand up her shirt. Another girl, plastered from lips to toes to her boy, his hands possessively curled around her butt, almost blocked the doorway.

“You getting out, lady?” The cab driver raised one eyebrow at her. “I don’t like sitting still in this neighborhood.”

Liz swallowed. This morning, the neighborhood had looked gray. Gray buildings, gray sidewalk. The sky had even seemed a little gray, as if it were a reflection of the street below. But tonight, the street seemed black and purple and red. Violent and passionate, the colors of sex and sin. Firecrackers popped, music blasted, the air almost sizzled.

“Yes, I’m getting out.” Liz threw a twenty at the driver and stepped from the car.

Chapter Five

“Oh, baby, I do like blondes.” The voice came from her far left. Liz couldn’t see him until he stepped away from the corner of the building. He looked older than the other teens, probably in his early twenties. He cocked a finger at her. “Come here. Let’s see if they really do have more fun.”

A couple of the other teens pushed each other around, laughing, but nobody else said anything. Liz ignored them all and walked into the club.

If it had been loud outside, it was mind-blowing inside. It made her head hurt. She managed to make her way through the crowd and got up to the bar. She stood next to a group of girls, most of them looking about Mary’s age. Where the hell were the police? These kids couldn’t be old enough to drink. Liz wanted them all busted but just not until she got the information that she wanted.

“I was talking to you outside, baby.”

Liz felt heat crawl up her neck. She turned around. It was Creepy Guy from outside. She knew immediately that ignoring him wasn’t going to work.

“I heard you.” She smiled at him. “But I got to find my friend before I can have my own fun.”

He stared at her breasts. Liz resisted the urge to slap him and tell him to get cleaned up and get a job. “I’ll help you, baby. Who you looking for? I know everybody here.”

She debated for all of three seconds. “Annie Smith. She likes to dance here.”

“Don’t know her.” The man grabbed her arm and pulled her close. He smelled like cigarettes and cheap rum. “Let’s you and me dance.”

He stood five inches taller, probably eighty pounds heavier and had wrists twice as big as hers. Liz felt the fear spread from her toes to her head. It didn’t matter that he was ten years younger. Age and experience didn’t give her an advantage. Brute strength would win every time.

She took her free hand and stroked him under the chin with the back of her fingers. “I’d like that,” she said. When he took his free hand and cupped her butt, she forced the smile to stay on her face. “You stay here,” she said. “I’m gonna be right over there with those girls. You’ll be able to see me.” She opened her purse and pulled out a twenty. “Buy me a drink, sugar. Buy yourself one, too.”

Then she pulled away from him and edged over to the group of girls that were still gathered just feet away. Several of them turned and stared at her when she joined the group. Then they started talking again as if she wasn’t there.

Lord, it was just like high school.

She couldn’t wait for them to warm up to her. She had only minutes before the creep at the bar got tired of waiting. She moved around the group, stopping when she stood next to a girl she guessed to be about five months pregnant.

“What do you want?” The girl took another drag off her cigarette.

Liz wanted to rip it away. Didn’t she know what that was doing to her baby’s lungs?

“I’m looking for Mary Thorton.”

The girl looked over both shoulders then started to move away. “Stop, please,” Liz pleaded, keeping her voice low. “My name is Liz, and I think she’s in trouble. I want to help her.”

“Liz who?”

“Liz Mayfield. I work at Options for Caring Mothers on Logan Street.”

Liz saw the flicker of recognition in the young girl’s eyes. “You’ll get in trouble asking about Mary,” the girl advised, her voice low. “She ain’t around anyway. She and Dantel went to Wisconsin. She said they were going fishing. Up by Wisconsin Dells.”

“Are you sure?” Liz asked, aware that the man from the bar, a drink in each hand, walked toward her.

“That’s what she told me. I don’t think she wanted to go, but I don’t think her boyfriend likes the word
no.
”

Liz wanted to hug the young woman. Instead, she winked at her, took a step backward and loudly said, “Hey, if you don’t know Annie Smith, you don’t need to be such a bitch about it. I just asked a freakin’ question.”

She turned toward the door, but the guy with the drinks intercepted her before she got five feet.
Damn.
“Oh, thanks,” she said and reached for the drink that she had absolutely no intention of sipping. She might be thirty-two and well past the bar scene, but she knew all about date-rape drugs.

Creepy Guy looked her up and down. Then he put his nearly empty glass and her full glass down on the nearest table, grabbed her hand and yanked her out into the sea of bodies. “Let’s dance, baby. You can drink later.”

The smell of sweat and cheap liquor almost overwhelmed Liz. When the man pulled her close and she could feel his erection, her mind almost stopped working. He had his hands on her butt and his mouth close to her ear.

She thought she might throw up.

Suddenly, the crowd parted and girls started screaming. Twenty feet away, two men were fighting. One had picked up a chair, and the other had a knife. Liz watched as yet another man, holding a beer bottle like a club, stepped into the mix.

Creepy Guy let go of her.

“I gotta pee,” Liz said and ran for the bathroom.

There was no damn window in the bathroom. She moved into one of the stalls and grabbed her phone out of her purse. She dialed Sawyer’s number. It rang and rang.

“Hey, don’t take all day. The rest of us got to pee, too.” An angry fist pounded on the door.

“Just a minute,” Liz said. Sawyer’s voice mail kicked on. Liz flushed the toilet so that she could talk. “Sawyer, I need help. I’m at 1882 Deyston.” She disconnected that call and had just started to dial 911 when the door to the stall was kicked open.

“Everybody out,” a female cop yelled at her. “Put your hands in the air and walk to the door.”

Liz wanted to put her arms around the woman and hug her. But the gun pointed at her told her that wouldn’t be appreciated.

Liz walked out into the club area. Some of the grayness from the daytime had eased back in. The lights had been turned on, and the music had been turned off. There were at least ten cops, with more pouring through the open door. Within minutes, the cops paired off, breaking the group into smaller groups. Everybody had to empty their pockets, their purses. A female officer patted Liz down, looking for weapons. She didn’t care.

Liz didn’t even care when she had to sit on the dirty floor, her hands on top of her head. Anything was better than dancing with that man, his erection pressed up against her, his hands grabbing at her butt. Thank God he hadn’t tried to kiss her. Even now, the thought of it made her gag.

She sat quietly. The girl next to her cried; the boy on the other side screamed obscenities at the cops who stood around the perimeter of the room. Liz scanned the area for the pregnant girl who’d given her the info, but she was nowhere to be seen. Somehow, she’d managed to slip out.

Liz tried to remember every cop show she’d ever watched. When did people get fingerprinted? When was the mug shot taken? Would she get to make a phone call before or after all that?

Who the heck would she call? Sawyer hadn’t been at his desk. She couldn’t ask Carmen to come down to the police station at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night. The only person she could call was Jamison. He’d have a cow, but then he’d come.

A minute later, when Sawyer, with his partner Robert on his heels, came through the doors, she realized that Jamison wasn’t the only one likely to have a cow.

Sawyer literally skidded to a stop. He didn’t say a word. He couldn’t.

“Damn,” Robert said.

“Hi,” Liz said.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sawyer demanded. God, he’d been scared. When he’d gotten her messages, he’d driven like a crazy person to the bar, calling Robert on the way. They’d gotten there almost at the same time. When he’d seen more than a dozen squads outside, all kinds of crazy thoughts had entered his head.

Now that he was sure she wasn’t hurt, he wanted to wring her little neck. “You came here, looking like
that?
” he said.

She put her chin in the air. “I had to fit in. I couldn’t wear my jeans.”

“Did you have to dress like a damned hooker?”

He regretted it the minute he said it. But he was scared. He hadn’t been there to protect her. What if she’d gotten hurt? Raped? Killed?

“I didn’t think a three-piece suit would fit in,” she said.

“You didn’t think. Period.”

If anything, she put her nose a bit higher in the air. “I called you. I tried to reach you.”

“You left a stupid message. Page me. That’s why I leave the number.”

“I didn’t want to bother you,” she said.

“Bother me?” This woman drove him crazy. “All you’ve been is a bother since the day I met you.”

“Look, Sawyer,” Robert interjected. “There’s no harm done. She’s fine. We’re all fine. Don’t be an idiot about this.”

Sawyer rubbed a hand across his face. He could see the pain in Liz’s pretty green eyes. It was hurt he’d caused.

He took a deep breath. When he spoke, he raised his voice just enough that Liz could hear but that the rest of the people in the room would have to make up their own story. “I’m sorry, Liz. I’m more sorry than you can imagine. I was worried and...and I’m not handling this well.” His voice cracked at the end.

“I want to go home,” Liz said. “Will you take me?”

He felt the weight of the world lift off his shoulders. “Yeah, I’d be glad to.” He looked at Robert and nodded his head at the officer who seemed to be in charge. “Can you...”

“No problem. I’ll give our boys the CliffsNotes version so that they understand why she’s making a quick exit. Get going.”

Sawyer nodded, wrapped an arm around her and walked her out of the bar.

He wished he had a coat, something that he could throw over her, cover up some skin. What in the hell had she been thinking?

Once inside his car, Sawyer kept his hands firmly wrapped around the steering wheel, afraid that he might just reach out and shake her. Of course, once he touched her, he’d be toast. It would all be over for him. He’d end up kissing and touching her and maybe more if she didn’t have the good sense to stop him.

It would be wrong. She deserved better than what he had to offer. Which was nothing. Liz Mayfield was young, pretty and someday would make some man a fine wife. They’d have pretty babies, and God willing, she and her husband would see them grow up, go to their first baseball game, drive a car, go to college, have a life.

He’d thought he’d had it. Then he’d lost it. His baby’s precious body had grown cold in his arms. The nurses, the professionals who were used to saying the words
baby
and
death
in the same sentence, let him be. They walked around his rocking chair, careful to keep their voices down, their eyes never quite meeting his.

Much wiser now, he knew what he had. He had his work, his career. He made important arrests that got scum off the streets. He made a difference every day. That was more than some people had in a lifetime. It had to be enough for him.

He’d been half out of his mind with worry when he’d gotten the two voice mails from her. He’d listened to the first and realized that she intended to go to Deyston Street and then the second; when he’d heard the panic in her voice and knew she was scared and possibly hurt, his heart had almost stopped.

It had been a huge relief when he saw her. And then he’d turned stupid. The worry eating at his soul had burst from his mouth, and he’d hurt her. He regretted that. But she needed to understand how big of a mistake she’d made. For her own sake. She didn’t understand how violent, how cruel, how humiliating the street—and those who called the street their home—could be.

He would take her back to her apartment, and they would talk. He wouldn’t yell, and he wouldn’t accuse. It would be a civil conversation, one adult to another. He’d make her understand that she needed to let the police look for Mary. That she needed to stop seeing OCM’s clients at her apartment. Then he’d leave.

Sawyer found a spot near the front of Liz’s apartment building. “I’d like to come in,” he said. He was proud that he sounded so calm, so reasonable. See, he could do this.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“We should talk. I’d be more comfortable talking in your apartment.” Wow.
He
should be the shrink.

He waited until she nodded before he quickly got out of the car. Yep, everything would be fine. They’d have a nice quiet conversation, and he could leave, knowing that she’d be safe.

He walked around the car and opened Liz’s door. Oh, hell. From this angle, her legs went on forever. She had them crossed, one sexy, small foot, with painted red toenails, dangling over the other. Tanned legs, absolutely silky smooth. Round knees, firm thighs and a...a snake. No way! It couldn’t be! He squatted down next to the open door, and with his index finger, he tapped against the tattoo.

“What the hell is this? Are you nuts?”

“Sawyer, it’s just...”

“It’s not just a tattoo,” he yelled. “You have the most beautiful, incredibly sexy legs.” He pulled his hand back and rubbed his temple, as if he suddenly had a very bad headache. “How could you even think about getting a tattoo? And a snake. Were you drunk on your butt or what?”

“Stop yelling. My neighbors will call the cops. I’m not dealing with that again tonight.”

She unbuttoned the top three buttons on her shirt. “It’s a rub-on. See? Just like this one.”

He did not intend to look. There was really no need. But he couldn’t stop himself. And when she stuck two slim fingers in her mouth, wet them with her tongue and then rubbed her breast, blending the stars and stripes of the American flag, his knees almost gave out.