Alice Sharpe - Undercover Babies

And then he moved off toward the coveted light at the end of the alley. Shivering as rivulets of freezing water found their way between her shoulder blades, she fled in the other direction, toward the dark end of the alley, toward an obscurity as far-reaching as the vacuum inside her head.

TRAVIS H. MACBETH, known to everyone but his favorite aunt as Mac, was sick of the rain. The fact that the new year had just begun and the bulk of winter lay ahead didn’t help. Welcome to Billington, Indiana, January-style.

He should be home tallying up nice, dry numbers and sipping something hot and fortifying instead of slogging through the wet, cold evening.

It had all started out so straightforward. Help an old friend’s father collect data in his bid for the next mayoral race. Maybe do some good, maybe shake up the status quo, maybe, if he was really lucky, help give the boot to both the current mayor and Police Chief Barry.

What Mac hadn’t figured on were his own compulsions.

At thirty-seven, a private detective with at least two careers behind him, shouldn’t he be wise enough to avoid situations like this one?

As he sloshed through the sludge, the answer was clear—apparently not.

Of course, he didn’t need to make the rounds of Billington’s less desirable localities. No one made him walk this dusk patrol and, in fact, he’d been warned by his former partner on the police force that his presence down here annoyed the hell out of the reigning powers that be. Of course, he already knew this. He had the citations for breaking laws no one else even knew existed to prove it.

As for the street people he encountered? Night after night, the same weary faces regarded him with the same indifference. His presence here warmed no one’s heart, least of all his own.

He knew it, he just couldn’t seem to stop himself.

As he approached the alley right before Broadhurst, he slowed his pace. Inside a soggy paper sack, he carried a giant roast beef and Swiss cheese hoagie. He wondered if Jake would be waiting for his sandwich in such horrible weather. On the other hand, where else did the old man have to go? Jake wasn’t a homeless shelter kind of guy.

So every night on his walk, Mac made it a point to mosey this direction and bring the old boozer a sandwich, one packed with as much protein and as many calories as possible. Jake seemed to appreciate the gesture, so there went Mac’s earlier speculation that no one cared if he patrolled these back streets.

Jake cared. Well, probably.

A man had to settle for what he could get.

From his peripheral vision, Mac saw a dark shape charge from the mouth of the heavily shadowed alley. He braced himself for an attempted mugging, then he recognized Jake’s coat, a red-and-black hunters plaid that always looked out of place buried in the city. He relaxed. Big mistake. The old man plowed into him so hard it rocked Mac on his feet.

“Damn it, Jake, what in the hell’s going on?” Mac growled as he grabbed bony shoulders and twisted the slight figure away from him. The deli sack bounced against the old man’s chest as Jake wrapped a muscular arm around his attacker’s throat, tight enough to stop further aggression, not so tight as to hurt him. “Since when do you assault people? And jeez, man, what in the world did you tangle with? No offense, but you stink.”

As he spoke, he moved the two of them into the weak light of a street lamp and was surprised to see how dark the top of Jake’s gray head looked. From the front it had always appeared so gray.

Jake went slack.

“That’s better,” Mac said. If turned loose, would Jake attack the next passerby? Mac looked up and down the abandoned street and admitted there likely wouldn’t be a next passerby, not on this wild winter night.

Old Jake suddenly grumbled a half dozen words in a voice that shook Mac down to his shoes.

“Jake? Is that my name? Jake?”

Mac withdrew his arm as he backed away. That wasn’t Jake’s alcohol-soaked slur.

He found himself staring into the dazed eyes of a young woman in her early twenties. Short black hair lay plastered against her head. Large blue eyes dominated her face though high cheekbones and a surprisingly sensual mouth demanded their share of attention, as well. She seemed half child, half woman, a rather beguiling combination marred only by blue-tinged lips and the aura of fear mingled with shock that hovered around her like the wavering halo around a winter moon.

She was also wearing Jake’s coat and what looked like his boots.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

She blinked. She looked confused and miserable, and he wished he had an umbrella to offer her.

“Is Jake my name?” she repeated.

“You don’t know your name?”

As she shook her head, his heart sank. She had to be homeless, penniless, adrift in a fog of drugs or booze or mental illness. She had to be someone’s daughter, someone’s lover, a beauty faded before it blossomed with such a shocked look in her eyes that it brought to mind a small animal trapped by a larger one.

Eyes like his mother’s eyes, so many years ago.

He resisted the urge to turn away from her but it was there, growing more pronounced by the moment—the desire to turn away, to shield himself from her raw pain and the subsequent feeling of helplessness it engendered in his soul.

She rubbed her throat where he’d manhandled her.

“Sorry about that,” he said and, as an act of penance, took off his favorite gray felt hat and pushed it down on her head.

Engulfed by the hat, she stared at him still, her eyes glittering slits beneath the brim. “Do you know me?” she insisted.

He shook his head. “No.”

Her voice turned to a pathetic squeak as she mumbled, “I’m not Jake?”

“No, but you seem to be wearing his clothes. Where is he?”

She managed to look even more bewildered and he knew she didn’t have an answer. He also knew he couldn’t leave her like this, nor could he call the cops and risk their sometimes heavy-handed treatment with the down and out, not when it was so obvious she struggled just to stay on her feet. It also wouldn’t help her win hearts if the cops found her with him. There was a shelter within walking distance, one run by two ex-nuns with medical training. He’d take her there.

But first, he’d make sure she hadn’t clubbed old Jake and stolen his clothes. “Come with me,” he demanded, moving toward the alley.

She stood her ground, if that teetering sway could be called standing.

Opening the sack, he produced the hoagie. “Hungry?”

She stared at the sandwich for a moment before nodding.

“Then come with me. You can eat while we take a shortcut through this alley.”

Still, she hesitated though her gaze never left the tightly wrapped hoagie he offered as bait.

“Listen,” he said, suddenly impatient. It was cold and his head was wet, thanks to the impetuous gift of his hat. He was worried about Jake. He’d testified in court that day and thus wore a suit under his raincoat, which meant he also wore his good shoes that might never recover from standing around in this torrential downpour. The day had been long and arduous, and he still had paperwork to do.

Taking a couple of powerful steps toward her, wincing as his approach caused her to shrink inside her pilfered clothes, he said, “If I’d wanted to hurt you, I’d have already pulled you into the alley. I wouldn’t have waited around risking pneumonia and I wouldn’t have offered you a perfectly good sandwich. Come with me or stay here, it’s your call.”

“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded, suddenly straightening her slender body and, for a moment, transcending her environment. She wiped the rain from her face and extended a hand. “Please,” she added.