The Great Escape (48 page)

That outraged her. “What do you mean, go away? You’re supposed to be helping me get my job back.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“By telling me what to do.”

“I have no idea.”

“What do you mean, you don’t have no idea? I’m turning you in to the director. She’ll fire your ass. You don’t know nothin’.”

“Well, since I’ve been here less than a month, that might be true. How can I do better?”

“Tell me the things I have to do to keep a job. Like showing up on time every day and not disrespecting the boss …” For the next few minutes, Shauna lectured Lucy, repeating the advice she’d received from other counselors.

When she finally wound down, Lucy nodded in admiration. “Wow. You should be the counselor instead of me. You’re good at it.”

Her hostility vanished. “You really think so?”

“Definitely. Once you get your GED, I think you could excel at a lot of jobs.”

By the time Shauna left, Lucy been able to solve at least one of the teen’s problems. It was such a small thing, but it posed a monumental barrier to a homeless kid. Shauna didn’t own an alarm clock.

Lucy gazed around at the empty counseling room with its worn, comfortable couch, cozy armchair, and graffiti-inspired mural. This was the work she was meant to do.

She left the center later than usual that night for her apartment. As she headed for her car, she popped open her umbrella against the chilly evening drizzle and thought about the writing she still needed to do before she could collapse into bed that evening. No more haunting the halls of Congress; no more banging on corporate doors to see big shots who wanted to meet her only so they could brag that they knew President Jorik’s daughter. Turning a book into her public platform was far more satisfying.

She sidestepped a puddle. A floodlight illuminated her car, one of only two vehicles still left in the parking lot. She’d nearly finished her book proposal, and half a dozen publishing houses had already asked to see it. Considering how many writers struggled to get published, maybe she should feel guilty about that, but she didn’t. The publishers knew that her name on the spine of a book would guarantee big press and big sales.

She’d decided to tell the personal stories of homeless teens through their eyes—why they’d fled their families, how they lived, their hopes and dreams. Not only disadvantaged kids like Shauna, but the less publicized suburban teens living a nomad’s existence in affluent communities.

As long as she focused only on her work, she was energized, but the moment she let her guard down, her anger returned. She refused to let it go. When she was bone tired, when her stomach refused to accept the food it needed, when tears sprang to her eyes for no reason … Anger was what got her through.

She’d nearly reached her car when she heard the sound of someone running. She spun around.

The kid came out of nowhere. Wiry, hollow eyed, in dirty, torn jeans and a rain-soaked dark hoodie. He grabbed her purse and shoved her to the ground.

Her umbrella flew, pain shot through her body, and all the fury she’d been holding inside her found a target. She screamed something unintelligible, pushed herself off the wet asphalt, and chased after him.

He hit the sidewalk, passed under a streetlight, and glanced back at her. He hadn’t expected her to give chase, and he ran faster.

“Drop it!” she shouted in a rush of adrenaline-fed rage.

But he kept running, and so did she.

He was small and fast. She didn’t care. She was juiced on vengeance. She raced down the sidewalk, her boots slapping the pavement. He swerved into the alley between the drop-in center and an office building. She went right after him.

A wooden fence and a Dumpster blocked the exit, but she didn’t retreat, didn’t think about what she’d do if he had a gun. “
Give that back!
”

With an audible grunt, he pulled himself on top of a Dumpster. Her purse snagged on a sharp corner. He dropped it and threw himself over the fence.

She was so rage-crazed that she tried to climb the Dumpster after him. Her boots slipped on the wet metal, and she scraped her leg.

Sanity slowly returned. She gulped in air, her fury finally spent.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

She retrieved her purse and limped back toward the sidewalk. Her leather skirt had offered some protection when she fell, but she’d torn her hot pink tights, scraped her leg, skinned both knees and hands. Still, despite the ringing in her ears, nothing seemed to be broken.

She reached the sidewalk.
Stupid.
If Panda had seen her run into that alley, he’d have gone ballistic. But if Panda had been nearby, the kid wouldn’t have gotten close to her.

Because Panda protected people.

An awful dizziness swept through her.

Panda protected people.

She barely made it to the curb before she collapsed, her boots sinking into the rushing gutter, her stomach heaving, the words he’d spoken coming back to her.

“
… out of nowhere, he slammed her into the wall. Broke her collarbone. Do you want that to happen to you?
”

She cradled her forehead into her hands.

“
I don’t love you, Lucy … I don’t love you.
”

A lie.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love her. It was that he loved her too much.

With a clap of thunder, the sky opened. Drenching rain pounded her shoulders through her trench coat, stung her scalp like sharp pebbles. The soldier who tried to strangle his wife … The man who’d beaten up his girlfriend … Panda saw himself as a potential danger to her just like them, another enemy she needed to be protected from. And he intended to do exactly that.

Her teeth began to chatter. She considered the possibility that she was making this up, but her heart knew the truth. If it hadn’t been for the steadfast anger she’d so carefully nurtured, she would have seen through him earlier.

A white van slowed and stopped. She looked up as the driver’s window came down and a middle-aged man with a grizzle of gray hair stuck his head out. “You okay, lady?”

“I’m … fine.” She struggled to her feet. The van moved on.

A flash of lightning split the night, and with it, she saw the anguish in Panda’s eyes, heard the phony belligerence in his voice. Panda didn’t trust himself not to hurt her.

She turned her face into the grimy, rain-soaked sky. He would lay down his life to protect her even from himself. How could she fight an iron will like that? She could see only one way. With an iron will of her own.

And a plan …

Chapter Twenty-six

W
HEN THE FILM SHOOT ENDED
, Panda went back to the island, as if that would bring him closer to her. The house sat wet and lonely in the gloomy November afternoon. Leaves plugged the gutters, spiderwebs decked the windows, and tree branches littered the ground from a recent storm. He turned on the furnace and walked through the quiet rooms, his shoulders hunched, his hands in his pockets.

He hadn’t gotten around to finding another caretaker, and the furniture held a light coat of dust, but Lucy’s touch was everywhere: in the bowl of beach rocks on the sunroom coffee table, the comfortably rearranged furniture, the clutter-free shelves and tables. The house no longer felt as though it were waiting for the Remingtons to come back, but it didn’t feel like his either. It was hers. It had been since she’d first stepped inside.

The rain stopped. He pulled an old extension ladder from the garage and cleaned out the gutters, barely avoiding falling off when he slipped on a rung. He threw one of Temple’s disgusting frozen dinners in the microwave, popped a can of Coke, and tortured himself by going to bed in Lucy’s old bedroom, the one that used to be his. The next day he ate a cold breakfast, drank two mugs of coffee, and set off through the woods.

The cottage had a fresh coat of white paint and a new roof. He knocked on the back door, but Bree didn’t answer. Through the window, he saw a pot of flowers on the kitchen table and some school papers, so she and Toby were still living here. Since he didn’t have anything else to do, he sat on the front porch and waited for her to come back.

An hour later, her old Cobalt came into sight. He rose from the damp wicker chair and wandered to the steps. She stopped her car and got out. She didn’t seem upset to see him, merely puzzled.

She looked different from the person he remembered—rested, almost serene, no longer quite so thin. She wore jeans and an oatmeal-colored fleece jacket with her hair pulled up in one of those casual buns. She walked toward him with a new confidence.

He dug his hands into his pockets. “The cottage looks good.”

“We’re getting it ready to rent out next summer.”

“What about your bees?” Lucy would care about that.

“I made an arrangement with the family that owns the orchard next to the cottage to move the hives there.”

He nodded. She waited. He shifted his weight to the other foot. “How’s Toby?”

“The happiest kid on the island. He’s at school now.”

He tried to think of what to say next and ended up asking the question he’d never intended to utter. “Have you talked to Lucy?”

She was just like Temple. She nodded but didn’t offer any information.

He pulled his hands from his pockets and came down off the steps. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Just then, Mike’s Cadillac drove in. Mike jumped out, arm extended, looking as if seeing Panda again was the highlight of his day. “Hey, stranger! Great to have you back.”

His hair was shorter, no longer so carefully styled, and except for a watch, he’d given up his jewelry. He looked easy, happy, a guy without any demons. Panda stifled his resentment. It wasn’t Moody’s fault that he’d managed to do what Panda couldn’t.

Mike slipped an arm around Bree. “Did she tell you we finally set a date? New Year’s Eve. Toughest sale I ever made.”

Bree arched an eyebrow at him. “Toby made the sale.”

Mike grinned. “Chip off the old block.”

Bree laughed and kissed the corner of his mouth.

“Congratulations to both of you,” Panda said.

The day was warming up, and Mike suggested they sit on the porch. Panda took the chair he’d just abandoned, and Bree claimed the matching one while Mike perched on the railing. He talked about how well Bree was doing with her business, then offered up a list of Toby’s recent accomplishments. “He and his teacher are working together on a black history unit.”

“Toby knows more than she does,” Bree said proudly. “But you came here to talk to me about something?”

Having Mike around complicated an already difficult task. “It’s okay. I can come back later.”

Bree frowned. “Is it about Lucy?”

Everything was about Lucy. “No,” he said. “It’s a private matter.”

“I’ll leave,” Mike said genially. “I have some errands to run anyway.”

“Don’t go.” She gazed at him. “Despite appearances, Mike is the most discreet person on the island. And I’ll end up telling him whatever you tell me anyway.”

Panda hesitated. “Are you sure? This … has to do with your family. Your father.”

She looked wary. “Tell me.”

And so he did. He sat there in the creaky wicker chair, leaning toward her, his forearms braced on his knees, and told her about her father’s relationship with his mother, then about Curtis.

When he was done, Bree had tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

Panda shrugged.

Mike came to stand beside her. Bree searched her pockets for a tissue. “After my father died, Mother made sure we all knew what a rotten husband he’d been, so it’s not exactly a surprise. But none of us imagined he had another child.” She blew her nose.

Mike curled his hand over the back of her chair and gave Panda a steady gaze, his easygoing demeanor vanishing as he assessed whether this information posed any harm to the woman he loved. “Why did you buy the house?”

Panda liked him for wanting to protect her, so he told them the truth. “Some kind of twisted revenge. I hated your father, Bree. I told myself I hated your whole family, but that was jealousy.” Panda shifted in the chair and then he shocked himself. “I wasn’t thinking too clearly when I bought the house. After I got out of the military, I had problems with post-traumatic stress.”

He said it as if he were confessing a tendency toward head colds.

Their expressions were a mixture of concern and sympathy, but they didn’t run screaming from the porch or dash around looking for a weapon to protect themselves. He had Jerry Evers to thank for this. Kristi had found the right guy for him to talk to, a no-bullshit shrink who’d seen combat himself and understood exactly how terrified Panda was that the demons he’d fought would reemerge and make him hurt other people.

Bree was more interested in Panda’s revelation about Curtis. “Do you have any pictures of him?”

He hadn’t thought of that, but he liked that she’d asked. He reached for his wallet. “I’ll send you some when I get back to Chicago. This is the only one I have on me.”

He took out Curtis’s final school photo. It was tattered, a little faded, the word
PROOF
still faintly visible across his T-shirt. Curtis was smiling, his adult teeth a tad too big for his mouth. Bree took it from him and studied it carefully. “He … looks like my brother Doug.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “My brothers need to know about Curtis. And they need to know about you, too. When you’re ready, I want you to meet them.”