Susan Krinard - Come the Night

Ross knew that she didn’t have to explain anything to him, but the fact that she was doing so, and asking for his help, meant a lot more to him than he was willing to admit even to himself. He lifted the boy in his arms while Gillian assisted the mother to stand and gave her an arm to lean on. Ross made sure that Toby was following and aimed for a vendor whose booth was fitted out with a wide awning.

Not long after they’d made Bobby comfortable on a blanket provided by the vendor, he began to regain consciousness. Gillian smiled at him and asked him how he was feeling. The boy, obviously confused, tried to answer, but his mother’s weeping distracted him, and Gillian left them alone.

One of the observers returned a few minutes later with a harried, bespectacled man whose day’s amusements had obviously been interrupted. He introduced himself as a doctor and spoke briefly with Gillian, examined the boy and assured himself that someone had summoned an ambulance. As soon as he’d taken charge, Gillian faded into the background.

But she was not to be allowed to resume her anonymity. Several of the men and women who’d followed them to the vendor’s booth gathered around her, exclaiming and congratulating her. She answered rigidly, all the ease she’d shown with the boy instantly gone. Ross wedged himself between her and the man closest to her.

“Give the lady a little room,” he said gruffly. The people retreated, responding to the quiet authority he’d honed to near perfection during his years on the job. Gillian seemed to breathe more easily, though she was much too pale for Ross’s liking.

“Are you all right?” he asked, taking her elbow.

She stared in the direction of the vendor’s stall. “Where is Toby?”

“Here, Mother.” Toby joined them, clutching his bag and grinning up at his mother with obvious pride. “That was smashing, wasn’t it, Father?”

“Yes.” Ross heard the wail of a distant siren. “The ambulance is coming. I think it’s time for us to leave.”

“But there’s a man who wants to talk to Mother. He says he’s a reporter for a newspaper.”

Ross’s neck prickled. “Not today, Toby.”

“But he wants to know about the lady who saved the little boy’s life!”

“I did not save him,” Gillian said faintly. “I merely made him comfortable until he emerged from the seizure.”

“But he could have hurt himself,” Toby said, pugnacious in defense of his mother’s expertise. “Isn’t that right, Father?”

That was probably true, and by the end of the day a lot of people on Coney Island would probably regard the mysterious English lady as a heroine. But one look at Gillian’s face told Ross that she didn’t want anything to do with newspapers or the notoriety they could bring.

He gazed over the heads of the people still hovering nearby. A man was striding toward them at a fast pace, his hat jammed down on his forehead and a notepad clutched in one hand.

His name was O’Grady, and he’d been a gadfly biting at Ross’s heels all during the hearings and even after Ross had been released for lack of evidence. Once he’d recognized his victim, any chance of keeping Gillian and Toby ignorant of the scandal would be over.

“No reporters,” Ross growled. “We’re leaving.”

Toby’s face fell, then brightened again.

“Will we take the subway?” he asked.

The last thing Gillian would want now was to be sandwiched into a subway car jammed with weekend revelers. “We’ll find a taxi,” he said.

But before he got Gillian and Toby moving, O’Grady had caught up with them.

“So this is your mother?” the reporter said loudly, striding alongside Toby while he simultaneously noted Ross’s presence and tipped his hat in Gillian’s direction. “Morning, ma’am. Miles O’Grady, New York Sentinel. ”

“The lady’s got nothing to say to you, O’Grady,” Ross said, keeping his hand firmly on Toby’s shoulder as he hurried Gillian toward a waiting cab. “Get lost.”

O’Grady wasn’t put off. “What’s the lady to you, Kavanagh?” he asked. “Mrs. Delvaux, your boy said.”

Toby was smart enough to recognize the edge of hostility in the reporter’s tone. “She doesn’t want to talk to you,” he said belligerently. “And my—Mr. Kavanagh doesn’t want to talk to you, either.”

Ross cursed under his breath. “Toby,” he said without breaking stride, “you tell the cabbie to take you and your mother to the place where we started. Go back exactly the way we came, okay?”

In answer, Toby hurried to Gillian’s other side and took her hand. Gillian was moving like a sleepwalker, in spite of Toby’s urgent tugging. Ross came to a stop and grabbed O’Grady by the arm to keep him from following.

O’Grady grinned. “Same old Kavanagh,” he said. “Better let me go, or I’ll see you arrested for assault.”

Ross snorted with disgust and released the reporter. “You may think you have friends on the force,” he said, “but they don’t like you any better than they like me.”

“Why not? We’re all on the same side. Trying to bring a killer to justice.” He watched Gillian and Toby as they climbed into the cab. “You know, I didn’t think this would be much of a story. Now…”

“You stay away from them,” Ross snarled.

“Why? I’d be doing her a favor by sticking around. She’s pretty, slender, blond…just like the other one, but with a lot more class. You grazing in richer pastures, Kavanagh?”

Ross could have had the bastard on the ground in two seconds flat, but he knew what would happen if he so much as waved a fist in O’ Grady’s direction.

“I was cleared,” he said. “And when I find the real killer, I’ll make you choke on your newspaper.”

The reporter laughed, but he wasn’t quite as immune to Ross’s anger as he wanted to believe. “Cleared?” he repeated. “You were released for lack of evidence. Not quite the same thing, is it? But who knows? Maybe I can find something nice to say about you if you cooperate.” He slipped a thoroughly chewed pencil from behind his ear and held it poised over the notepad. “Who is she? She’s from England, right? What’s your relationship with her and the kid? Does she realize—”

He grunted in surprise as Ross tore the notepad and pencil from his hands and threw them to the ground. “If you get anywhere near her, I may have to do something stupid,” Ross said.

O’Grady stared at the notebook, its pages splayed and fluttering in the light breeze. “You already have, Kavanagh.”

Ross leaned toward the reporter, his breath stirring O’Grady’s thin reddish hair. “You’re right,” he said softly. “I’d have to have been pretty crazy to murder that girl. And if I’m crazy, why should I stop with her? Why not try something different this time?”

As if compelled by forces beyond his control, O’Grady met Ross’s gaze. He opened his mouth. No sound came out. He took a step backward. He kept up his retreat until he was well out of Ross’s reach.

“I know where you live, Kavanagh!” he said, all bluster again. “I’ll get my story.”

“Leave us alone.”

Gillian had returned. Her voice was clear, sharp and startling, ringing with such natural authority that everyone within hearing distance stopped and stared. She ignored her audience, her attention completely focused on O’Grady.

“No more questions,” she said. “I must take my son home.”

O’Grady made the mistake of thinking he’d found a new opening. “Sure, I understand. Just tell me where you can be reached, and I’ll…”

He trailed off, his bravado crushed by Gillian’s withering stare. When she moved, he jumped like a rabbit. He stayed put as she stalked away, a muscle under his eye twitching frantically.