Sherryl Woods - Twilight

He found her resolve chilling, but it bolstered his own commitment to salvage Yo, Amigo, at any cost. “Oh, but I can. These kids need a safe haven. They need one person who believes in them. That’s me. They had Ken, too, but he’s gone now.”

“Because of you,” she accused bitterly.

“Not because of me or these kids,” Rick insisted. “I’d stake my life on that.”

“Then you’re a blind fool,” she said. “He was here, in this neighborhood, because of you. Week after week, he risked his life by coming here. Eventually the odds caught up with him.” That said, she turned her back on him and headed for the door.

Rick couldn’t let her go, not like this. “Dana?”

Her determined footsteps faltered, but she didn’t look back.

“I will do anything to help you find Ken’s killer, but I will not let you destroy Yo, Amigo. There’s too much at stake.”

“You can’t stop me,” she said again.

“I’ll report what happened here tonight, if I have to,” he said, catching her attention. Her eyes blazed when she turned to face him. He went on with his warning, hoping to scare some sense into her. “I will let the police know that you’re on a vigilante’s mission. They’ll stop you.”

She choked back what sounded like a sob, but her voice was steady when she said, “Do what you have to do, Mr. Sanchez. And I will do what I have to do.”

Before he could think of anything to say to that, she slipped out into the night and vanished even more quietly than she had arrived.

More shaken than he’d ever been by an encounter with a rival gang, Rick sighed at her leaving. She was a handful, all right, everything Ken had ever described her as being.

And he had a terrible feeling that tonight had just been the first skirmish in what was likely to turn into all-out war.

* * *

Dana climbed into her car a half block from Yo, Amigo and leaned back against the seat. Her whole body was shaking, not from the very real danger that existed all around her in this neighborhood, but from that face-to-face confrontation with Rick Sanchez.

How could she have been so stupid, so careless? Obviously she’d lost not only her mind, but her touch. She’d been so anxious to begin her search for answers, so determined not to stay away from the boys one second longer than necessary, that she’d gotten off the plane and plunged ahead on her first night back in Chicago. She’d done it without thinking things through, without so much as a day’s surveillance of how the stupid program operated or who was likely to be in the building. She’d just assumed it would be empty at night. Assumptions had been the downfall of more than one private eye. She knew that, and she’d acted impetuously anyway.

Now Sanchez knew she was after him or, if not him directly, then one of those precious criminals he defended so arduously.

“Blast it all,” she muttered, hugging herself to ward off the chill that came from getting caught on her very first attempt to gather information.

She drew in a deep breath and made a promise to herself that tonight’s foolishness would be the very last mistake she’d make. She couldn’t afford another one, not with a man like Rick Sanchez. Ken wouldn’t have admired him so if he’d been anything less than brilliant and committed. That meant he would be every bit as passionate in his defense of his boys and his program as she would be in her search for the killer.

His offer to help echoed in her head. Of course he wanted to help. He wanted to steer her as far from Yo, Amigo as he possibly could. She couldn’t afford to be taken in by the compassion or the sorrow he’d expressed. He had his own agenda and it was not the same as hers. Far from it, in fact.

For a moment she allowed herself to wish it were otherwise. The next days and weeks promised to be lonely, albeit frantically busy. It would have been nice to have someone with whom to share theories, as she once would have with Ken.

But Rick Sanchez was not that man. She thought of the powerful, barely leashed strength he’d radiated, the taunting arrogance as he’d held her down before he’d learned who she was. The memory made her shiver, this time with unwanted awareness of just how dangerous a man he was.

She shook off the sensation that she was flirting with disaster. She couldn’t afford to be scared off now. Tomorrow, when she’d had some rest, had a chance to compose herself, she would plot out her strategy. And no one—not even the formidable Rick Sanchez—would stand in her way.

2

The greatest act of courage Dana had ever performed wasn’t breaking into Yo, Amigo. It wasn’t fighting off an assailant that had turned out to be the man she held responsible for her husband’s death. It was walking back into the house she and Ken had shared for most of their marriage.

With her heart thudding dully, she hesitated on the tiny cement stoop, unable to push the key into the lock. Her fingers, so nimble earlier, felt stiff and awkward now. Her key ring seemed to have tripled in weight, as if every key had been coated with lead.

“Come on, Dana, it’s just a house,” she told herself sternly. “A few walls, a roof, some putrid gold carpeting you never liked anyway. How can you be scared to face that?”

Because with Ken there, it had been home. It was as simple as that, proof positive that it wasn’t the appearance of a place that turned it into a home, but love. She had felt it every time she had walked through the front door.

Now she faced only emptiness. For one brief second she regretted leaving the boys in Florida. They would have filled the place with noise and laughter. Their presence would have kept loneliness at bay, at least until the darkest hours of the night.

How pitiful was that? she thought ruefully. How pitiful was it to even consider using her kids to buffer the pain? Besides, she had come home for one reason and one reason only: to find Ken’s murderer. That was the best thing she could do for all of them, the only thing that would give them any peace. She couldn’t afford any distractions if she intended to solve things quickly so that they could move on with their lives.

That reminder was enough to stiffen her resolve. Revenge is a powerful motivator. Even though her hand shook, she managed this time to get the key into the lock, even to walk through the front door.

Perhaps it was better that it was the middle of a moonless night, pitch-dark so that she couldn’t see the collection of family photographs sitting on top of the upright piano that Ken had played with more enthusiasm than skill, couldn’t see the eclectic stack of books beside his favorite chair, or the notes he had been making for his last sermon, still scattered across his desk.

But even though the room was cast in shadows, she could imagine it all, could visualize it as clearly as if every light blazed. It was as if he had just stepped away for a moment or an hour, not forever.

She dropped her luggage inside the door, tossed aside her jacket. Guided by pure instinct, she made her way to his chair, the overstuffed one where she had often sat cradled in his lap, content just to be held as the strains of Brahms or Beethoven surrounded them at the end of a long day.

She reached out, traced the butter-soft leather, and smiled at the memory of how appalled he’d been by the indulgence when there were so many more practical things they could have used. It had gone against his frugal nature to waste money on luxuries. But even as he’d protested, he had settled into the chair, sinking into the deep cushions, caressing the leather as sensuously as he might have traced the curve of her hip or the weight of her breast. He had fallen in love with it, just as she’d known he would.

It was a wonderful memory, one to cherish, she thought as she plucked an afghan from the back of the nearby sofa and settled into the chair. The coldness of the leather was a shock, snapping her back to reality like a slap. Even this, it seemed, would never be the same. The warmth was gone.