“Yes.”
“Good. How about a cup of very strong coffee?”
“Bacon? Eggs? Toast?”
He said easily, “No, not if I’m going running with you, but thanks for the gracious offer.”
“Go change,” she said. “All right, I’m sorry for being rude.”
They took a taxi to Central Park South and spent the next hour running at an easy pace. He’d found out she always ran the other end of the park, around the reservoir, and told her that predictability was something to avoid from now on. They’d start from here and stay on the southern end of the park. Taylor’s shoulder holster was strapped down tight beneath a loose sweat-top. He wondered if she could see the bulge. He found its weight soothing. He kept to the inside of her, closest to any hidden spots where someone might be lying in wait. He was pleased at her endurance. He didn’t have to particularly slow himself down. It wasn’t a vigorous workout for him, but on the other hand, it wasn’t a piece of cake either. He’d seen no one suspicious lurking around. He recognized several questionable characters from his days as a cop, but didn’t worry about them. One of them, an old buzzard with no teeth, even waved at him, grinning widely.
She was wearing iridescent orange shorts, a loose green top, ratty running shoes, and a bright pink headband. She was sweating, her hair matted to her head, all the thick deep waves pulled back in a severe ponytail. Her face was clean of makeup. She was heaving, and there was a long sweat stain from her throat down between her breasts.
And all of a sudden he realized he wanted to kiss her, all over, everywhere, not miss a single patch, which would take a good amount of sweet time because her legs were longer than a man’s dreams. He pulled back, tossing her a towel.
She grabbed the towel and wiped her face as she said, “You’re barely sweating, you pig.”
“I’m a man,” he said, and to his astonishment, she stilled, withdrawing as she had the day before. He chose to ignore it, adding easily, “Like I said, I’m a man, not some sort of girly girl who can barely do a ten-yard dash. Besides, I thought the myth was that females didn’t sweat, they glowed or something like that. I just might have to turn you in.”
She came back, softly, slowly, but finally she was there again, the wariness, the stillness, quashed for the moment. But always there, always hovering near. What the hell was wrong with her? Maybe it was this threat business, nothing more. Yeah, maybe that was it. But he didn’t think so.
No, it was him as a man that scared her.
12
Taylor / Eden
Lindsay always shopped at the Challed grocery market on the corner. Taylor had her write out a list for him. They’d taken enough risks today.
“It’s a habit,” he said. “Habits we break, all of them. We either go together, which isn’t smart, or I go alone.”
She gave him a list and he whistled as he added cookies, wine, beer, chips, and cold cuts to the grocery cart. He felt like hardening a few arteries. Maybe he could even talk her into eating a Frito.
She ate a sandwich with no mayo, no butter, and one slice of nearly fat-free honey ham and a glass of Diet Coke. He felt like a junk-food pig, his plate loaded with chips and two salami-and-ham sandwiches, mustard oozing over the sides, a cold Amstel close to his hand.
“You want to see that movie tonight—Black Prince?”
She was delighted and again he marveled at the simple joyousness his suggestion brought her. He wanted to tell her it was just a movie, nothing more, but her obvious pleasure kept him silent.
Having been a cop, Taylor found the movie unbelievable, downright silly in places, but nevertheless he enjoyed himself. Eden was finally relaxing with him. They came out, he looking about methodically at the crowd of people pressing near them, at people’s hands mainly, and she talking a blue streak about the male lead and how he couldn’t be blamed for believing his brother had betrayed him to the drug lords, how he had really been working undercover for the DEA.
Yeah, right, Taylor thought. He made appropriate noises, keeping her close, keeping her to the inside, his place always slightly ahead of hers. If she was aware of his actions, she gave no sign of it.
It took a while to get a taxi and it made him nervous. It would have been brighter not to have brought her out tonight. But no one followed, he was certain, and he breathed easier. When they got to her apartment, Taylor checked every room thoroughly, gave her both his cell phone number and his apartment phone number, and said as he was turning to leave, “Thanks for a fun evening, Eden. I enjoyed it, job or not. Remember everything I told you.”
After he’d gone, after she had herself double-checked all her locks, Lindsay made herself a cup of tea and adjourned to her living room. She nestled in among her cushions on the sofa. She wasn’t at all tired. In fact, she felt wired, restless, bedeviled by a fit of nerves, as her grandmother was wont to say. She picked up a historical romance but couldn’t get herself settled into the novel. She prowled a bit, frowning at herself. Some ten minutes later, as she was showering for bed, she realized what was wrong. It wasn’t the threat; it was Taylor. She could see him so clearly, right now, in her mind, smiling at her. She liked him. She’d been sorry to see him leave tonight. She hadn’t wanted him to go. A man, and she actually liked him. More than that, she trusted him. At least she trusted him to keep her safe.
On Sunday night, after a day spent watching professional football games on TV, Taylor left, repeating his same instructions, his same admonitions. Lindsay showered and put on her nightgown, then straightened the devastation in her living room, listening with only half an ear to the ten-o’clock news. She dropped the bowl that had held a gallon of popcorn during the second half of the game between the 49ers and the Giants. She whirled around and stared at the TV. The director of the commercial shot on Friday morning in Central Park, George Hudson, age thirty-six, had been badly beaten and locked in the trunk of his car in a long-term parking lot near the Lincoln Tunnel. He was alive but in guarded condition at St. Vincent’s Hospital. He suffered broken ribs, injuries to his spleen and liver. His face had been severely beaten. He had a concussion. Police were, for the moment, calling it a vicious mugging or a gang attack, although they couldn’t explain why muggers or a gang would leave over two hundred dollars in Hudson’s wallet. Drug dealing was speculated upon. But that sounded farfetched. There were as yet no clues, no suspects. Hudson had been able to tell police just moments ago that he’d been attacked in the parking lot some three hours earlier by two masked assailants. He knew nothing more. They hadn’t said anything, just beaten him senseless.
The moment the newscaster moved on, Lindsay’s phone rang. She lurched up to answer it, then remembered. She waited, her hand out, for the answering machine to kick in. It did, and she heard Taylor’s voice. She picked up the phone immediately. Before she could say a word, he said very calmly, his voice pitched low, “I know. I just saw it. Stay put. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t move, Eden.”
He arrived in eight minutes. Taylor looked at her white face and very slowly put out his arms. Very slowly he drew her against him. “It’s all right. It’s all right. You’re safe.”
The phone rang shrilly.
Taylor motioned her to a chair, noticing for the first time that she was wearing a voluminous white nightgown that covered her from throat to toes, and answered the phone himself. It was Demos and he was terrified and babbling.