Tess Gerritsen - Peggy Sue Got Murdered

"You go in there without protection, and they'll have you for an appetizer."

"Then how am I supposed to reach these-people?" he asked, pointing to the folders. "I went through a half-dozen private detectives, trying to trace Maeve. So I don't have a lot of confidence in so-called professionals. I know that some friend of Nicos, or of Xenia Vargas, has to know the answers. You're the one who said it, M. J. If we can't pinpoint how the drug's getting out of Cygnus, perhaps we can figure out whom it's going to. And how he's getting it."

She looked at him in wonder. She used to think he was just a pretty boy in cashmere. He always managed to surprise her.

"Are you sure you really want to find out?" she asked. "What if the answer turns out to be a nasty surprise?"

"You're referring to Maeve?"

"Her name did cross my mind."

He sighed. "It's something I'll… have to face."

"That's why you're doing this yourself, isn't it? Why you don't just hire a PI to do the legwork. You're afraid of what some outsider will find out about your daughter."

He looked away. "You know, I used to think I could protect her. Pull her off the streets and put her in some sort of program. But it's not going to happen. She refuses to be helped. And in the meantime, people are dying, and I don't know if she's the one responsible…"

"You can't protect her, Adam. One of these days, she'll have to face the music."

"Don't you think I know that?" He shook his head in frustration. "All these years, that's exactly what I've been doing! Protecting her, bailing her out. Paying her bills when she bounced her checks. Booking her appointments with therapists. I kept thinking, if she just had enough attention, if I could just do the right thing-whatever that was-that somehow she'd pull out of it. She wouldn't end up like Georgina."

Georgina . She thought of the name she'd seen, inscribed on the plaque in Hancock General. The Georgina Quantrell Wing .

She asked, gently, "How did your wife die?"

He was silent for so long, she thought perhaps he hadn't heard the question. "She died of a lot of things," he said at last. "The official diagnosis was liver cirrhosis. But the illness really went back, to her childhood. A father addicted to martinis and work. A mother addicted to pills and cigarettes. Georgina looked for comfort wherever she could find it. By the time we met, she'd already been through two husbands and Lord knows how many bottles of gin. I was twenty-four at the time. All I saw was this-this absolutely stunning woman with an adorable daughter. Georgina was adept at covering up. If she had to, she could go off the bottle for weeks at a time, and that's what she did before the wedding. But after we got back from the honeymoon, I noticed she was having a few too many highballs, a few too many glasses of wine. Then Thomas found the stash of bottles in the closet. And that's when I realized how far it had gone…" He shook his head and sighed.

"Fourteen years later, she was dead. And I'm still trying to deal with the aftermath. Namely, Maeve."

"You stayed married to her through all that?"

"I felt I didn't have a choice. But then, neither did she. Self-destruction was in her genes, and she didn't have the will to fight. She just wasn't strong enough." He paused, and added quietly, "Unlike you."

He looked at her then, and she found her gaze trapped in the blue-gray spell of his eyes. They reached out to each other across the table and their fingers touched, twined together. That joining of warmth was enough to make her heart sing. They held on, even through the ringing of the doorbell and the sound of Thomas's footsteps crossing the foyer to answer it.

Only the polite clearing of a throat made them finally look up. Thomas was standing in the doorway. "Mr. Q.?" he said. "The wardrobe consultant is here from Neiman-Marcus. I thought perhaps Dr. Novak would like to look over the selections."

" Wardrobe consultant?" said M. J. in surprise. "But all I really need right now is a pair of jeans and a change of underwear."

"You needn't take the consultant's advice," said Thomas. "Although…" He glanced at her bathrobe. "I'm certain she'll have a number of, er, helpful suggestions."

M. J. laughed and pushed back from the table. "Bring her on, then. I guess I need to wear something."

"When you've made your selections, Dr. Novak," said Thomas, "just leave the bathrobe with me. I'll see that it's properly taken care of."

"Whatever you say," said M. J.

"Very good," said Thomas and he turned to leave. As he walked out of the room, he muttered with undisguised glee, "Because I'm going to burn it."

Protection was what they needed in South Lexington. And when it came to hostile territory, M. J. decided, the best to be had was from the natives. So it was to Papa Earl's apartment they went first, to have a talk with his grandson, Anthony. The boy might not hold any real power in the Projects, but he'd know how to reach those who did.

They found the boy slouched in his undershirt, watching Days of Our Lives in the living room.

"Anthony," said Papa Earl. "Mariana wants to talk to you."

Anthony raised the remote control and changed the channel to Jeopardy .

"You listening, boy?" barked Papa Earl.

"What?"

"Mariana and her friend, they come to see you ."

M. J. moved in front of the TV, deliberately blocking Anthony's view. He looked up at her with sullen dark eyes. It was heartbreaking to see how little was left of the child she used to baby-sit. In his place was a tinder-box of rage.

"We want to ask the big man a favor," said M. J.

"What big man you talking about?"

"We're willing to pay up front. Safe passage, that's all we ask. And maybe a friend or two to watch our backs. No cops involved, we swear it."

"What you want safe passage for?"

"Just to talk to some people. About Nicos and Xenia." She paused and added, "And you can tell Maeve we're not after her."

Anthony twitched and looked away. So he was the one who had warned her, she decided.

Anthony was trying in vain to look past her, at the TV. "How much?" he asked.

"A hundred."

"And how much does the big man get?"

The kid was sharp. "Another hundred."

Anthony thought about it a moment. Then he said, "Move outta the way." M. J. stepped aside. He pointed the remote control and switched off the TV. "Wait here," he said. He stood up and walked out of the apartment.

"What do you think?" asked Adam.

"He's either going to come back with our bodyguards," said M. J., "or a hit squad."

"Don't know what I'm gonna do 'bout that boy," said Papa Earl. "I just don't know."

Ten minutes passed. They all sat in the kitchen, where Bella banged pots and pans on the stove. The smell of old cooking grease, of frying sausages and simmering pinto beans, was almost enough to drive them out. Those smells brought back too many memories for M. J., of stifling summer evenings when the smells from her mother's stove would kill whatever appetite she had, when the heat from the kitchen seemed to suck the air out of every room. Now, as she watched young Bella, she saw the ghost of her own mother, squinting into the haze of hot oil.

A door banged shut. Adam and M. J. turned to see Anthony come into the kitchen. With him were two other boys, both about sixteen, both with the cold, flat expressions of foot soldiers.

"You got it," said Anthony. "Just this one day. You want to come back again, you pay again. They'll watch your backs." He collected his two hundred dollars from Adam. "So where do you want to go first?"

"The Biagi flat," said M. J.

Anthony looked at the boys. "Okay. Take 'em there."