Winter's Daughter (3 page)

There was something about him that unnerved her.

Out of the corner of her eye Tannis saw the patrol car cruise closer, only ten or fifteen yards away. She sucked in air. It was now or never.

"I have to go," she said, and aiming the cart at the derelict’s midsection, gave it a mighty shove. It caught him just below the place where his belt would have been if he’d been wearing a belt.

Air exploded from the wino’s lungs. Hurtling backward in a half crouch, he struck a trash can a glancing blow. There was the sound of breaking glass. The trash can careened into the gutter and overturned, followed immediately by the wino, who landed on his backside squarely in the middle of a pile of spilled refuse.

Tannis clamped her hand over her mouth and stared in horror at the wino’s contorted face. Well, she hadn’t meant to hit him
there.
Too late for regrets though. It hadn’t been pretty, and she wasn’t proud of herself, but the maneuver had provided her chance to escape. As she was pushing her cart hurriedly down the sidewalk, she heard a screech that could only be the police car braking to a stop at the curb.

Dillon heard the screech too. It was followed by the slam of two car doors almost simultaneously. He heard a voice say disgustedly, "Jeez, Louise, ten o’clock in the morning. Isn’t it a little early for this shit?"

Another voice answered, "Five’ll get you ten he doesn’t know what the hell time of day it is." Two pairs of khaki–clad legs planted themselves, one on each side of Dillon. The second voice went on, jacked up a notch or two now in volume. "Okay, buddy, having a little trouble keeping our feet, are we?"

Dillon could only shake his head. He was getting his wind and probably even his voice back, but he didn’t waste either one on explanations. It wasn’t going to do him any good, these guys weren’t about to believe him. Hell, he thought morosely, I wouldn’t believe me.

One of the cops squatted down beside him and picked up a fragment of the broken whiskey bottle. "Whoo–ee!" he said, waving his hand in front of his nose. He glanced up at his partner. "Couldn’t have wasted much of this stuff, by the smell of him."

Dillon groaned and closed his eyes. "Hey, guys, this isn’t what it looks like."

"Yeah?" The cop seemed interested. "What does it look like?"

Knowing it was pointless, Dillon said, "I know you think I’m drunk, but I’m not."

"Of course not," the squatting cop said in a soothing tone, "you’re just a little under the weather, right?"

"More than a little, actually," Dillon muttered darkly. "Listen, I know you’re not going to believe this, but I haven’t drunk a drop of what was in that bottle."

"Right." The cop ducked his head to hide a grin. "Uh—you got any identification?"

Dillon just sighed and shook his head.

"Come on, buddy," the cop said, slipping a hand under Dillon’s elbow. "I think you’d better come with us."

"What charge?" Dillon grunted as he was hoisted to his feet. And then, sourly, he said, "Never mind. Let me guess. Public intoxication? Disorderly conduct? Creating a public nuisance?"

The older of the two cops, the one who’d remained standing, gave a low whistle and drawled, "You
are
familiar with the drill, aren’t you? Been here a few times, I’ll bet. So you know how it goes, right, my friend? You come along nicely, you get to spend a couple days indoors, maybe dry out a little, get a couple square meals, compliments of the city of Los Padres. How’s that sound?"

"Great." Dillon straightened and stretched experimentally, and discovered the damage done to his anatomy by the shopping cart probably wasn’t permanent. "Just—great."

Resigned to the hassle, the inevitable indignities he knew he’d have to suffer before this whole mess was straightened out, Dillon settled into the back of the patrol car. He wasn’t really thinking about his own situation at all. He was thinking about the woman, wondering who she was and what she was doing on the streets. Because for darn sure she wasn’t any ordinary bag lady. Those eyes of hers—the clearest, bluest eyes he’d ever seen.
Fire and ice.
Looking into them had made him feel as if he’d just swallowed a hefty slug of white lightning. Maybe she was somebody he ought to recognize, and maybe she wasn’t, but there was one thing he knew for sure: He’d know her if he ever saw her again. He’d know those eyes.

As the patrol car pulled away from the curb, Dillon turned to look back down the street. He didn’t see any sign of the bag lady, but it didn’t matter; he knew he’d be seeing her again, and a lot sooner than she thought if he had any of his old skills left at all. He was going to be looking for that woman, whoever she was and whatever her game was. And he’d find her, too.

With a laugh that was more pained than amused he realized he owed her one for what she’d done to him with that shopping cart.

"Lord, I hate this," the younger cop grumbled as he picked up the radio’s hand unit, wrinkling his nose fastidiously.

The veteran gave his partner a look that was part amused, part cynical, and maybe a little sad. "Get used to it, kid."

Dillon knew exactly how he felt. He’d felt that way often enough himself.

He had no rancor for the two cops, even though they’d put a temporary crimp in his program. He hoped Logan didn’t come down too hard on them, that’s all. Dillon was fairly certain the fertilizer was going to hit the fan when Los Padres’s finest discovered the wino they’d busted was their own newly elected city councilman.

It was a long way from downtown Los Padres to the northern outskirts of the city, the area known as The Estates. It was certainly a long walk, especially pushing an overburdened shopping cart, but Tannis was always more conscious of an even greater distance that couldn’t be measured in miles.

The Estates was a gated community bordering on the Los Padres Golf Course, home of the Los Padres Open, which only last year had become an official stop on the PGA tour. The homes were large, all built in the same Spanish style with red tile roofs and courtyards. The houses eventually gave way to pricey town house and condo complexes that clung to brush–covered hills overlooking the golf course. The streets of the neighborhood were broad and clean and sun–drenched. The air smelled of flowers and new–cut grass and, day or night, it seemed almost to breathe with the muted hiss of sprinklers.

As Tannis turned into Fountain Court, a short cul–de–sac backing onto the seventh fairway, she reached under her coat, opened her purse, and took out a small rectangular object. Taking aim at a sloping driveway occupied by a child’s overturned tricycle, she pressed a button with her thumb, then waited while the massive garage door creaked slowly open.

Her aching muscles complained as she pushed the cart up the driveway and into the garage. Sweat itched and trickled under her arms, down her back, and in the hollow between her breasts. A shower was going to feel so good.

As the door clunked softly shut behind her, Tannis pushed the cart toward the far corner of the garage, maneuvering between a white BMW and a yellow Honda scooter. In the stuffy semi–darkness she pulled off the brown gloves, and then, with a grateful sigh, the purple knit cap and a lank, gray–streaked wig. Her fingers touched the cool petals of the flower woven into the cap, and she paused, frowning, while a little whirlwind of troubling feelings twisted and turned inside her. Then she tossed the cap into the shopping cart, closed her eyes, and indulged in a vigorous massage of her scalp, combing and fluffing her dark blond hair, reveling in the coolness of drying perspiration.

The door to the house opened, and a small woman with short blond hair and a worried crease between her eyes peered into the gloom. "Tan? Oh, good, it is you. What are you doing home? I thought you were going to be staying in town all week."

"Was," Tannis answered, shrugging out of the coat and placing it carefully across the top of the cart. Methodically she continued removing layers of shabby, shapeless clothing. "Changed my mind." Realizing she was still speaking in the gruff phrases she affected on the streets, she cleared her throat and gave a short laugh. "I couldn’t stand it anymore, Lisa. You wouldn’t believe how much I’m longing for a shower!"

"Oh, I believe it," her sister said pointedly, wrinkling her nose and watching with a mixture of distaste and awe as Tannis removed the pads from the insides of her cheeks and peeled bits of latex from her eyelids, nose, and chin. "Isn’t it kind of cheating though?"

"What do you mean?" Stripped to her panties and bra, Tannis stepped out of the heavy, oversized shoes, then bent over to peel off three layers of mismatched socks. Holding them fastidiously by thumbs and forefingers, she dropped them on top of the mountain of clothing that had grown atop the shopping cart. Feeling lighter by about a thousand pounds, she closed her eyes, lifted her arms high, and dropped her head back, letting her hair swing free across her shoulder blades. "Oh Lord, how marvelous that feels!"

With curiosity rather than judgment in her tone, Lisa said, "Isn’t it a little like putting on a blindfold to see what it’s like to be blind? Or sitting in a wheelchair to feel what it must be like to be paralyzed? I mean, you know you can always take off the blindfold or get up out of the chair."

"It isn’t the same thing," Tannis said, frowning. "I’m not doing this to see what it’s like. I’m doing it to find out what
they’re
like." She jerked her head toward the kitchen. "Uh—who’s in there? Is it okay if I—"

"It’s just me and Josh. Parade on through." Lisa swung the door open for her. "Richard’s flight got grounded in Boston. He won’t be back until this weekend at the earliest."

Tannis poked her head cautiously into the kitchen. Her nephew was sitting on the kitchen table, swinging his feet. His small shoulders were hunched, and there were suspicious smears across both cheeks.

"HI, Josh," she said softly. "What’s the matter?"

The little boy’s expression was woebegone but stoic. He straightened his shoulders gamely, gave a prolonged sniff, and said dolefully, "Oh, I just fell off my bike. I skinned my knee, see?" he held it up for her inspection.

"Ouch," Tannis said, impressed. "That smarts. Oh, well, some antibiotic ointment will make it feel better."

"And a Band–Aid," Josh said firmly. The deal had obviously already been struck.

"And a kiss." Tannis planted a noisy one on her nephew’s smudged cheek and got a gratified sniff in response. "Better now?"

Josh nodded. She ruffled his hair and went on through the sprawling house to her room.

As she stripped off her bra and panties and stepped into the shower, she was frowning. It
isn’t
the same thing, she told herself, but what her sister had said bothered her anyway. Even though her reasons for doing what she was doing might be different, it was true that she could take off the blindfold whenever the going got too tough. She could jump from the wheelchair on two good legs if her life and health were at risk. She’d been living on the streets for weeks; she almost felt like one of them now—the legions of the lost, the faceless, the homeless, the ones who’d somehow slipped through the cracks of a system that prided itself on its benevolence.

But I’m not really one of them. When I get cold or hungry, I can go home.

Or frightened.

Even with hot water sluicing over her body, her skin prickled and tingled with a rush of gooseflesh. That wino she’d met today— She’d thought about it all the way home, and she still didn’t know what it was about him that was so different. Partly, she knew, it was the man’s eyes. Most of the time they had been in shadow, but the one clear glimpse she’d had of them, there beside Gunner’s newsstand, had completely unnerved her. There had been intelligence there, and complete awareness. The man had acted drunk, but his eyes hadn’t looked drunk. One could be faked; the other couldn’t. Why had he pretended to be drunk when he wasn’t? It was a puzzle.

When Tannis finally emerged from the bathroom, she found her sister sitting on the bed, scraping at her nails with an emery board and frowning.

"Josh is watching Sesame Street," Lisa said, tossing the nail file into the drawer of the bedside table and dusting her hands. "While we have some privacy, I want you to tell me what’s wrong."

"What makes you think something’s wrong?" Despite her denial, Tannis knew perfectly well it was pointless. Lisa was nothing if not tenacious.

Sure enough, the little crease between her sister’s eyes only deepened. "Why did you decide to come home?"

Tannis bent forward at the waist, toweling her hair. "Nothing’s wrong," she said as she rubbed with unnecessary vigor at her scalp. "I told you—I just got tired of being itchy and filthy—"

"Bull pucky," her sister said primly.

"Bull what?" Laughing, Tannis straightened to give her trim, fastidious, suburban–housewife and perfect–mother sister a look of astonishment. Lisa returned it with one of complete aplomb. Still chuckling, Tannis said, "Look, Lisa, I know you always think—"

"And I’m always right, aren’t I? I always know when something’s bothering you that you don’t want anyone to know about. Remember the time you got in trouble at school for putting chocolate milk in a water pistol and shooting the substitute teacher with it? And then you forged the note from Mom to the principal, telling him she couldn’t come to the conference because she was in the hospital having her appendix out?"

"There’s a lot to be said," Tannis remarked darkly, "for being an only child."

"Yeah, well, there’s a lot to be said for brothers and sisters too. How about that big kid from—I forget—Chicago, or someplace—who decided to collect a toll in the rest room? You were afraid to tell anyone, but I got it out of you and told Mike and Jerry. Didn’t you love the look on that girl’s face when all four of us showed up in the girl’s bathroom? And remember the time in eighth grade, when you were stringing those two guys along because you couldn’t decide which one you liked best, and It was eating you alive—remember?"

"I remember," Tannis said softly.

"I got that out of you too," Lisa said.