Catherine Coulter - Eleventh Hour

“Another word about me, and, believe this-I’m gone. You have no right to question me, no right at all. No more, Agent Carver. No more.”

He didn’t want to drop it, but he knew he had to. They needed her. Dane sighed. “There just isn’t anything easy in this life, you know? Why couldn’t you have sold lingerie at Macy’s? Something nice and normal?”

“I was nice and normal,” she said, realized she’d let something out, and seamed her lips together.

“Oh? Maybe you were in real estate? Advertising? Maybe you were married and your old man knocked you around? All right, you got it, there won’t be another word out of me.”

“You’ve got words just waiting to spill out of you. Forget it.” She leaned down and bit his hand, hard.

Dane yelled, just couldn’t help himself. There were a good dozen folks on them then, half of them cops. She was homeless. There was no question who the good guy was. One uniformed officer grabbed her hair and yanked her head back.

The officer said, “She didn’t draw blood, but it was close. You want some help here?”

“Yeah, could I have a pair of cuffs?”

The officer handed them over without even asking for an ID and Dane knew it wasn’t because they were careless. He looked like a cop. He pulled her arms behind her and cuffed her wrists. “There,” he said. “Now my body parts are safe. Thank you, ah, Officer, ah, Gordon. I’ll leave the cuffs with Inspector Delion, up on four.”

“No problem. You gotta watch yourself with these people. You might want your hand checked out, you never know what diseases she might be carrying around.”

“Yeah, thanks, I will.”

He barely understood Nick say “bastard” she had her jaw locked so tight.

“I’m not a bastard. I’ve got a pedigree. Now, what are we going to do with you?”

“Let me leave. I’ll come back, I swear it.”

“Nope. Let it go, Ms. Jones. You’re with me now. Think of me as your own personal bodyguard. Just let it go. Can you do that?”

As he spoke he turned her around to face him. There was a line of freckles across her nose he hadn’t noticed before, quite visible since she was so pale. But what he really saw, and hated, was defeat. She looked crushed, flattened.

He clasped her upper arms and shook her slightly. “Listen to me. I won’t let anyone hurt you, I promise.”

“You look so much like him.”

“Yes, I know, but my brother and I were very different people. Very different. Well, not in all things, but in many.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “Maybe not. He promised he wouldn’t let anyone hurt me either.” She bit her lip. “But he’s dead. Please, I wasn’t responsible for his death, was I?”

She stood there, her arms pulled behind her, her wrists handcuffed, tears streaking down her cheeks.

“No,” Dane said. “You weren’t responsible. I do know one thing for certain-Michael’s murder had nothing at all to do with you. Believe it.”

“Oh shit,” Delion said, coming to a dead stop about three feet from them. “I don’t need this.”

“What size do you wear?”

“I don’t want any new clothes. Listen to me, Agent Carver, I just want to stay the way I am now. I have to, don’t you understand?”

“You’re going to be safer if you look like a reasonably dressed woman rather than a bag lady. This is a very ordinary, inexpensive store, Inspector Bates told me. She said we could get you a couple of things here that look like what everyone else is wearing. Don’t give me any more trouble, Ms. Jones. I’m so tired I could sleep leaning against that taxi sign, and I know all the way to my wing tips that I need your help. Don’t think of it as a favor to the cops. Think of it as a favor to my brother, you know, the man you really liked and admired. I need you to help me catch his killer.”

He knew then that, finally, he’d touched her. He’d made her feel guilty, made her feel beyond selfish if she ran away. She wanted to catch the monster who murdered his brother. Good, whatever worked. It had taken him long enough. Maybe it would help her get over the idea that she was responsible.

What made it even better was that it was only the truth. He did need her.

“All right. Let’s get some inexpensive things, then.”

“And then some better things.”

“I thought you said you were really tired.”

“I am. But I’m staying at a good hotel, the Bennington, just off Union Square. I’d like to remain low profile. Having a bag lady on my arm would make everyone think I was some sort of pervert.”

“They’d think you didn’t have much money, that’s for sure.”

Dane didn’t know where it came from, but he smiled.

Thirty minutes later, they walked out of The Rag Bag, a woman’s retread clothes store just off Taylor and Post, not far from the Bennington Hotel. Of course in San Francisco, nothing was very far from anything else. She was wearing a decent pair of jeans, a white blouse, and a dark blue pullover V-necked sweater. The cap was gone from her head, her hair ruthlessly brushed back and clipped at the back of her neck.

They didn’t get a single look from any of the tourists or staff at the Bennington. Once they were in Dane’s room on the fourth floor, he said, “You still don’t look like you’re quite up to snuff. But better, much better. Would you like to shower and wash your hair or have an early dinner first?”

No big surprise. She opted for dinner. When it arrived twenty minutes later, he waved her to the small circular table with its two chairs and the room-service dinner he’d ordered up for them.

She said, “I look fine, really. No one noticed me at all. I’ll just wear these clothes until you can catch this guy.”

“Oh? And then you’re going to trot back to the shelter? Or maybe panhandle on Union Square?”

“Yes. Whatever.”

“I threw away your homeless clothes.”

She gave him a long, emotionless look. “I wish you hadn’t done that. They were all I had.”

“When this is all over, you’re not going back to a homeless shelter.” He took a bite of his BLT, sat back, looked at her thoughtfully, and said, “No, you weren’t going to do that in any case, were you? You’re planning to hotfoot it out of town once this is over, aren’t you?”

She didn’t raise her head, just slowly and steadily ate her way through the pile of french fries on her plate. They were well done, brown and crispy, just the way she liked them.

She said, “You’re right, yes. When this is over, I’m gone. I’m thinking about the Southwest. It’s really warm there during the winter months.”

“At least you’re telling me some of the truth now. Hey, you like french fries.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve had any. They’re wonderful.”

“Michael loved french fries, too, claimed they helped him concentrate better on the football field and made girls think he was wearing a really nice aftershave lotion. Who knows?”

She raised her head. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom now?”

He nodded, took another bite of his sandwich, watched her eat one more fry, sigh, and push the plate away. She looked like she wanted to cry. “They’re so good, but I just don’t have any more room. I didn’t know Father Michael Joseph liked french fries. It never came up.”

“No, it probably wouldn’t have. Do you want to go back to the shelter? Do you have anything there you need?”

“No, thank you. The fact is, if someone does have anything of value, they learn to strap it to their bodies or it’s gone in five minutes.”

“Sort of like car parts in a bad part of town?”

He wondered what she had strapped to her middle. Papers that would tell him who she was? What or who she was running from?