Undercover Babies. Alice Sharpe
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could be further from the truth. There was always room for interpretation.
But tonight he couldn’t make his eyes focus on the papers. He kept seeing flashes of the woman he’d dubbed Grace. Naked in the shower, her skin and features breathtaking; crying; dripping wet in the alley, looking at him from under the brim of his hat. Her tan lines suggesting recent sunbathing, marriage and happy times.
Her image seemed to fill his mind and even a little corner of his heart. He knew it was foolish and he knew it was dangerous. Not only for him, but for her. He just didn’t know what to do about it.
Rubbing his forehead, he shuffled the papers back into the drawer and thought to walk down the hall to check on Grace. He had every intention of doing this.
Sometime later, he awoke with a start. For a second, he felt confused, wondering why he’d fallen asleep at his desk, his head on his arms.
And then he sat up. The noise that had awakened him finally registered, and he tore off down the hall toward his bedroom.
Breaking glass. That’s what he’d heard. His guest had woken up, panicked and tried to escape. She’d hurt herself if she tried jumping to the sidewalk….
Light from the hall flooded the bedroom as he threw open the door. It twinkled off the shards of glass that littered the floor beneath the only window in the room, one that opened onto the street half a floor up from the sidewalk. A jagged brick lay amid the glass.
Grace had apparently slept right through the mayhem. Sidestepping the worst of the mess, he peered out the window. Sometime during the night, the rain had turned to snow, but not the greeting card variety. Instead of making the city glow, this snow just colored the world in shades of gray.
With a lingering look at Grace’s peaceful form cuddled beneath his down comforter, Mac grabbed a heavy wool sweater from his closet and a flashlight from his bedside drawer. The entryway was as he’d left it, filled with soggy, smelly clothes and puddles of water. He hurried down the steps and along the sidewalk until he was under the window that glowed faintly above his head.
Examining the snow proved pointless. It was sludge at best. There was no hope of discerning a footprint and peering up and down the street, he could see no moving form at all. Mac stared at the distance between himself and the window and gauged how hard it would be for someone to toss a brick through the window. Not that hard.
But why? Without wings or a ladder, no one could use the broken window to get inside. Once again, he scanned the street. Zip.
That left intimidation as a motive and it didn’t take much of an intuitive leap to figure out who might want to intimidate him.
So far, the police harassment had been relatively minor. Parking tickets. Speeding tickets. Hang-up calls. Citations for breaking archaic laws like the size of lettering on his office sign and the potted plant he’d left on a step. But today, he’d testified in court on behalf of a bum accused of shoplifting. Mac knew the poor guy was innocent; he’d been in the store, he’d seen the rich kid who originally took the camera in question and then shoved it into the bum’s hands when it appeared he was going to be caught. It was Mac’s testimony that had swayed the jury to dismiss the charges.
This time, his testimony had counted. A year before, he’d been the only cop to speak out against three officers whose use of excessive force had led to the unnecessary death of an addict.
Bottom line: If not to intimidate, what was the purpose of breaking the window?
It couldn’t have anything to do with Grace. It was just coincidence that she was sleeping in that room. If it wasn’t coincidence, then that would mean someone who knew something about her knew she was here. And cared that she was here.
He walked back inside and down the hall. He found Grace sitting on the side of the bed, staring at the shattered glass, shivering in her robe thanks to the cold air now streaming through the broken window. The thought that the broken window had anything to do with her seemed ludicrous.
“What happened?” she said.
“Nothing to worry about,” he snapped, guessing she wouldn’t question anything too closely and, sure enough, he was right. She rubbed her eyes and closed them again.
“We need to get you back to bed,” he said, his voice brusque to cover the tender feeling he could sense stealing over his heart.
She nodded without opening her eyes.
Stepping around the glass, he leaned down and hoisted her over his shoulder.
She screeched, “Put me down!”
In that heated demand, the woman whose rounded bottom currently rested atop his shoulder and whose head was now upside down facing his back, had packed more passion than he’d so far heard from her and it reassured him. “Can’t have you cutting your feet,” he said as he carried her out of the room and deposited her on the sofa.
She tugged on the robe, the first sign of modesty he’d witnessed, and that, too, reassured him. As she grumbled, he found pillows and blankets in the hall closet. By the time he had made her a new bed and tucked her into it, she was asleep again.
For a while, he stood in the open bedroom doorway, ignoring the ice cold air. He stared at the brick. Should he report the incident to the police? Wouldn’t the jerk who threw it love that! There was no way the brick sported fingerprints. Better to swallow the cost of replacing the window himself than give Chief Barry the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled Mac’s cage.
This was proof, however, that as the months passed and the election neared, the stakes would grow higher.
It was also proof that the only job he’d ever wanted—to be a cop, to make a difference—was lost to him.
The only niggling worry was Grace. If someone had tracked her to his apartment, then she was being watched.
Was she in some kind of danger?
Impossible to speculate on that when he possessed so little information. Reason said no one wanted her, no one had tracked her.
He swept up the mess, closed the bedroom door and sat back down at the desk. Behind him, on the sofa, Grace slept soundly.
SHE AWOKE when the phone rang. She could hear the rumble of a man’s voice. For one blissful moment, she snuggled in the cocoon of warm blankets and thought to herself how nice it was to be warm when the world all around was cold.
Cold?
Grace sat up abruptly. Mac appeared in the kitchen doorway, two coffee mugs gripped in his hands.
“Morning,” he said, handing her one. “How do you feel?”
She’d noticed how big he was the night before. This morning, she added attractive to her observation. He’d changed into jeans and a black cotton shirt, which he wore like a second skin. His dark hair, damp from the shower, fell boyishly over his forehead. The expression in his eyes was cautious. He probably wondered if she was going to flake out on him again, if she needed a hit of some illegal substance or a drink.
The only thing she craved was the caffeine she’d just introduced into her bloodstream via the excellent coffee. She said, “I feel okay.”
“Did you remember anything about yourself?” His face now reflected how anxious he was to hear the right response. Unfortunately, she couldn’t give it to him and she shook her head. The enormity of her situation flooded back. She still had no idea who she was.
For a while there, she’d thought that at least she would be able to think clearly today; the veil of exhaustion seemed to have lifted with the coming of the morning sun. But now, the old confusion was back and she felt tears welling in her eyes. She bent her head to hide them.
Mac moved away as though to give her space. “My wife was about your size,” he said, gesturing at the desktop where he’d placed a modest stack of clothes.
“Won’t she mind—”
“She’s