Читать книгу Man With A Miracle - Muriel Jensen - Страница 8

EVAN CARRIED THE YOUNG WOMAN to the love seat, put two fingertips to her throat, and felt great relief when he sensed the tap of a steady pulse. He retrieved a ratty but clean blanket he kept in the closet. Her skin was icy to the touch. It certainly lent credence to her story that she’d been on the run all night.

Then he reached for the phone to dial 911. But remembering her fear, and her odd remark about the police being in collusion with the killer, he changed his mind.

He couldn’t imagine what had happened to her, but she seemed more genuinely fearful than crazy. Something or someone had driven her to this state. Someone with a red SUV.

He called Randy Sanford, who was an EMT and worked on Whitcomb’s Wonders’ janitorial crew in his spare time. Evan explained briefly about not wanting to call an ambulance.

“My bag’s at Medics Rescue,” Randy said. “You should call—”

“Just come!” Evan demanded. He’d pressed the speaker button so that he had his hands free to make a pot of coffee for the woman. “I don’t think it’s life or death, but please. Just get over here.”

“On my way,” Randy promised.

Once the coffee was dripping, Evan went to see what else he could do to make the woman comfortable. He noticed that her head rested at an odd angle on the pillow he’d propped under her, and tried to readjust it. Then he realized that the problem was a dirty, tattered piece of elasticized fabric wrapped around her hair. He worked gently to remove it, and combed his fingers through the dark burnished mass.

As he wrapped the blanket more tightly around her, he wondered once again what had happened to her. She had a pretty oval face, though even in her unconscious state, she frowned. Her nose was small, her chin slightly pointed, and her long eyelashes were a shade darker than her hair. If she wore makeup, it had worn off in her ordeal, and a spray of freckles stood out on the bridge of her nose and across her cheekbones.

When she stirred fitfully, he put a hand to her shoulder, telling her it was all right, she was safe.

She moaned in response, but her eyes remained closed.

BEAZIE WAS LEANING OVER Gordon in horrified disbelief as his life drained away.

She heard the door of the SUV open. The driver, a young man in a fleece-lined jacket, was about to step out, but the elevator doors parted and a throng of laughing, talking commuters spilled out. As soon as they noticed her sheltering Gordon’s supine body, they hurried toward her, one of them already on his cell phone. A young woman pushed Beazie aside, telling her she was a nurse.

The door closed on the red SUV and it sped away.

The ambulance arrived first, and the paramedics covered Gordon with a sheet. As soon as Beazie saw the police car pull up, she panicked and slipped away unnoticed in the crowd of onlookers that had gathered. Gordon had pleaded “No police!” She couldn’t risk them finding the tape on her.

Once she was out on the main street, she hailed a cab and headed straight for her apartment. Everything there was just as she’d left it that morning, and she experienced a strange feeling of unreality. She had to have imagined the murder of her boss. That kind of thing didn’t happen to a nice, middle-class girl from Buffalo.

Then she found the tape, still clutched so tightly in her hand it left marks. She walked to the window to examine it more closely and see if it was labeled.

Instead, her attention was caught by the bright red SUV parking in front of her building. Three men got out. One stayed with the car while the other two hurried inside.

Her flight-or-fight response kicked in and adrenaline raged through her body as she raced out of her apartment and scrambled down the fire escape. Once on the ground, she fled down an alley to the next block, and kept running as darkness fell.

She was cold, she was hungry. In her panic, she hadn’t thought to grab her purse. How was she going to get to Maple Hill without cash or credit cards? Then she came upon the gaping rear doors of a moving van and heard the driver and his assistant talking about their next stop in Springfield. She remembered from visiting a friend there and antiquing through the area that it was just a short distance from Maple Hill, a quaint little town at the foot of the Berkshires. Without a second’s thought, she climbed into the truck.

For several hours she huddled in the cold darkness of the moving van, wedged between a mattress and an easy chair. When at last they stopped, the assistant opened the doors, and she got ready to do some fast explaining. But the driver shouted a question and the assistant headed back to the cab.

Her body stiff with cold, Beazie struggled down from the van and headed toward the well-lit main street, wondering how on earth she would get to Maple Hill. Down a little side lane she noticed the shipping and receiving doors of a bakery wide-open, so she slipped inside, drawn by the warmth and the light. Beyond a wall of windows, big ovens were being filled with racks of something she couldn’t quite identify.

The aroma was torturous. She’d skipped breakfast, had been too busy for lunch and was now feeling weak and dizzy. Unfortunately, all of the bakery’s product seemed to be on the other side of the window.

She shrank back into the shadows as a tall boy in a white uniform and headphones came out another door carrying a large rack. He walked out in to the lane, headed for a truck with Palermo Bakery emblazoned on the side. After sliding the rack of bread in the back of the truck, he went to the driver’s door and climbed in. Taking her courage in hand, Beazie raced over and asked if he was going anywhere near Maple Hill.

He yanked off the headphones. “What’s that?”

“Are you going anywhere near Maple Hill?” she asked again.

He looked her over and smiled. “Sure am, dudette,” he said. “That’s my first stop. You need a ride?”

She nodded, grateful that he was friendly and amenable, if not the brightest light on the field. She wanted to add, Yes, and a dozen doughnuts, please, but she said instead, “I’m looking for someone named Evans there. Do you know anyone by that name?”

He nodded. “I do. Hop in, time’s a-wastin’.”

She couldn’t believe her good fortune. She closed her eyes against a thumping headache and was mercifully ignored while the young man sang loudly to the tunes from his Walkman. Within half an hour, he pulled off the road and into the parking lot of what looked like an old mill. It was now about four a.m.

“You’ll find him in that office,” he said, pointing to the far end of the building. “But probably not for a couple of hours.”

Beazie was also grateful that the driver’s youth and “duh-ness” prevented him from arguing about leaving her on what was now a dark and lonely road.

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him, and with a heartfelt “thank you” leaped out onto the parking lot and headed straight for a garden bench under a floodlight.

The sign on the building said Trent and Braga Development. Trent and Braga. Beazie turned to the truck, but the driver was already back on the road and almost out of sight.

She hoped this wasn’t simply the boy’s idea of a joke on a disheveled “dudette” and that there really was someone named Evans here.

Tired as she was, she decided to try the windows and was deliriously relieved to find one slightly open. She pushed it open even farther and climbed inside. The smell of sealant was strong, and she imagined that was why the window had been left ajar.

In the glow of the floodlight, the room appeared to be large and empty, and she made her way carefully to a door, which led to a hallway. Every other room along the hallway was also empty, except for one at the end that appeared to be a sort of office-storage area. And it had a sofa!

The room wobbled as she stumbled to the lumpy couch. She would lie down for a minute; then, as soon as the world straightened again, she’d look for something to eat. If this place was used as an office, there might be cookies or chips stashed in a drawer. She closed her eyes, quickly reviewed all the horrible things that had happened to her over the past sixteen hours, and reaffirmed her determination to grant Gordon his dying wish. He’d been a good friend to her, and she felt bound to help him in the only way she had left. She fell asleep with tears on her cheek.

THE WOMAN WAS STILL UNCONSCIOUS five minutes later when Randy arrived, ripping off his jacket. He was tall and dark-featured, with what Evan had heard the Wonders Women, his wife and his friends’ wives, refer to as heartthrob good looks. Randy never seemed to be aware of them himself.

Evan pointed him to the sofa and Randy sat on the edge of it and leaned over the woman, putting his cheek to her mouth and nose to check for breathing.

“What’s her name?” he asked Evan as he straightened up. He put his index and second fingers to the pulse at her throat.

“I don’t know,” Evan replied.

“Pulse is a little thready.” Randy shook her lightly. “Hey, pretty lady. Can you hear me?” he asked loudly. “Hello! Can you hear me? Can you talk?” He gave her another gentle shake. “What did you say happened to her?”

Evan went to the cupboard for coffee cups. “I’m not sure. She said something about seeing her boss killed, then being chased all night long. She started out in Boston.”

“How’d she get here?”

“Don’t know. I unlocked my door to find her threatening me with a bat. She looked pretty desperate.”

“No purse?”

“Uh…don’t think so.” He left the small table with the coffeepot, to check the corners of the office. He searched behind a stack of boxes, then under the love seat. Nothing. “No purse,” he confirmed.

“No coat, either?”

“No.”

The woman stirred as though uncomfortable, then moaned.

Randy lightly placed his hand above her waist. “It’s all right,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

When she didn’t respond, he took one of her hands and rubbed it. “She’s breathing a little fast, but that would be consistent with being frightened. And her pulse isn’t really strong but it’s definitely there.”

He put her hand back under the blanket and rubbed her arms through it. “She wasn’t dressed for a winter night. That coffee ready? That’ll do her the most good. She’s probably just cold and hungry. Not to mention scared and exhausted.”

The woman opened her eyes then, and at the sight of them, tried to propel herself backward on the sofa, looking desperate to escape.

“Whoa,” Randy said, catching her hands. “It’s okay. I’m an emergency medical technician.”

“He’s okay.” Evan came forward and handed her a cup of coffee. “I called him when you fainted. You’re safe. I’m driving a red Jeep, remember, not an SUV. This is Randy Sanford, a friend of mine.”

She studied Randy suspiciously, then looked up at Evan, her suspicion obviously deepening. But she took a sip of the coffee and seemed to relax a little.

“I’d like to take you to the hospital,” Randy said, “just to make sure you’re all right and that you fainted because you’re cold and hungry, not because of something more serious.”

BEAZIE MADE A QUICK DECISION. She could not go to the hospital. Someone would have to take down a lot of information, create a file that could be traced.

“No, thank you,” she said firmly. “I’m fine.”

“You fainted,” the first man reminded her. “Fine people don’t faint.”

“Hungry people do,” she replied. “You don’t have another doughnut, do you?”

He reached for the bag he’d given her earlier and offered it to her. She pulled out the cinnamon twist. “You should go to the hospital.”

She took a big bite of the doughnut, then glanced at him apologetically. “No, thank you. This will put me back on my feet.”

“What are you going to do then?” he asked. “You have no purse or coat.”

Many times during the cold night she had wished she’d handled her escape with more thought, but when she’d seen the red SUV on the street below her apartment, she’d panicked.

It didn’t matter, though. Somehow she was going to find this Evans person and give him the tape Gordon had passed to her with his last breath. He hadn’t deserved to die the way he did.

“I’ll do what I came to do,” she replied with far more conviction than she felt. “I’m looking for a man named Evans. Either of you know him?”

Randy Sanford pointed to his friend. “Your host is Evan Braga. But I don’t know anyone with the last name Evans. What’s your name, by the way?”

She hesitated a moment, then replied, “Beazie Deadham.” There was little point in withholding her name. If the men in the red SUV had been able to find out where she lived, she was sure they also knew her name.

Now that she was seeing more clearly and was more coherent, she realized Evan Braga wasn’t one of the men from the SUV. But Gordon had warned her not to trust anyone, and had directed her to give the tape to someone named Evans, not Evan. At least, she thought he had. His voice had been frail, and the sound in the underground parking lot less than ideal.

“That’s an unusual name,” Randy said.

“My grandmothers were Beatrice and Zoe,” she explained. “I’m Beatrice Zoe. Beazie.”

“Ah.” Randy stood. “I don’t think you need me anymore,” he said, patting her hand.

Evan Braga walked him across the room to the door, where they disappeared behind a stack of boxes.

“Thanks for coming so quickly,” the man named Evan said.

“Sure. Does this square us for last night’s poker game?” Randy asked.

“No, it doesn’t,” Evan replied. “You owe me thirty bucks and you damn well better pay up or I’ll sic my attorney on you.”

Randy laughed. “Bart is into me for forty bucks for hospital benefit tickets. Why don’t you just pay me ten and we’ll call it even?”

She heard a quiet groan. “Did you really think I’d fall for that?”

“It was worth a shot.”

“Randy, listen. Keep this to yourself, okay? If this woman is in danger from whoever’s following her, I don’t want anyone to know how she got here.”

“Sure. I was never here.”

“Thanks.”

Beazie thought that a surprisingly thoughtful request of her host.

There was the sound of a door closing.

When Evan returned, he went to his desk and picked up a small telephone book. “I know a Millie Evans,” he said, handing her the book, “but she’s ninety-three and in a convalescent home.”

She felt an instant’s hope. “Does she have a son? A brother-in-law?”

He shook his head. “Single lady. She used to have a little house on the lake before she had a fall and couldn’t see to herself anymore. I painted it for her.”

Hope died, but her interest in Evan Braga stirred. “You’re a housepainter?”

He nodded.

He couldn’t be the Evans she was after. Why would Gordon want her to take a tape that had cost him his life to a housepainter?

“The man who dropped me here said you owned a development company.”

He nodded. “I do, in partnership with a friend. I used to sell real estate, too, but gave that up when this turned out to be more fun. There’s one more doughnut, and you can have a refill on the coffee.”

“No doughnut, thank you. But the coffee would be nice.”

“This mill is our first project,” he explained as he poured her another cup. “We both work for a business called Whitcomb’s Wonders. It’s a sort of temp agency, but for craftsmen who can’t work full-time because they have other things going in their lives. My friend’s a plumber and getting an MBA from Amherst in his spare time. I paint and wallpaper.”

“And what do you do in your spare time?”

“I’m getting my life together.”

She wondered what that meant. Why wouldn’t a man who appeared to be in his late thirties have his life together? A broken marriage? A financial loss?

As a rule, she found people endlessly fascinating, but she didn’t have time right now for anything more than her own pressing problems.

She flipped open the book and found the E’s. Eaton, Eckert, Egan, Emanuel, Evans… Her heart gave one eager thump, then she read, “Evans, Millie—221 Lake Front Road.”

She closed the book in exasperation. Evan topped up his own cup, then sat on the edge of his desk. “You said someone dropped you here?” he asked.

With a sigh she sank into a corner of the couch and took a sip of the fresh brew. He did make good coffee. “I got a ride on a bakery truck in Springfield,” she explained. “I told the driver I was looking for someone named Evans in Maple Hill.” She smiled wryly. “Apparently, he doesn’t know Millie. He drove me here on his way into town.”

“And why do you want this Evans?”

“I have something for him.” Still uncertain of everyone and everything, she thought it best to keep the tape she’d hidden in her bra a secret.

He looked her over from head to toe. “What would that be?” he asked. “You don’t even have a purse.”

“It’s…a message.”

There’d been something about the once-over he’d given her that was…professional. She didn’t know how else to express it. The same thought had struck her earlier when she’d watched him move around the small office with a curious tension about him, a sharpness in his eyes, a quickness in his tall, powerful body that suggested formal training.

Just so he wouldn’t have the upper hand in this odd encounter, she had to let him know that she had powers of perception, too. Putting down the phone book on the seat beside her, she looked up and met his eyes. She remembered gazing into their soft brown depths as she was passing out.

“Before you were a housepainter,” she said, “you were a soldier.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Close. I was a cop.”

She might have felt apprehensive over that. Gordon had warned her away from the police. But this Braga wasn’t a cop now.

He must have noted her wary expression.

“You asked me not to call the police,” he said. “Are you afraid of them for some reason? Had a bad experience?”

“Gordon told me not to trust them,” she replied. “I can only guess it’s because there’s one involved in his murder.”

“Well, you can relax,” he said. “It wasn’t me.”

She might be naive to believe him, but there was something solid and comforting about him, despite those watchful eyes.

As she studied them now, she thought she saw a sadness behind the vigilance. She was good at reading people. What, she wondered idly, could happen to a cop to make him give up the work for house painting? And had Gordon said Evan, not Evans?

It might take a little time to determine whether this really was the man Gordon meant. And how could she do so, with no place to stay and no money to find one?

“Were you a cop in Maple Hill?” she asked.

He shook his head. “You broke into my place,” he reminded her. “I’m the one with the right to ask questions.”

She had to give him that. “I’m sorry.” But there was a limit to what she could tell him, when she wasn’t sure he was the Evans she was looking for, and she wasn’t entirely sure what had happened herself. Or, at least, what it all meant.

“Someone’s chasing you,” he prodded, when she took a moment to organize her thoughts.

“Yes,” she admitted.

“The person who killed your boss.”

She didn’t quite remember having told him that. She remembered the spots and the way the room had undulated when she wielded her bat at him. “Yes.”

“You know who it is? I mean, by name?”

She shook her head. “There was more than one. I can identify faces, but I don’t know their names.”

“And this happened in Boston.”

“Yes.”

He frowned over that. “How’d you get away?”

She touched briefly on her escape from her apartment and the long, cold night in the back of the moving van.

For the first time, she noticed the condition of her clothes, and could only imagine what her face and hair looked like. She sagged a little into her corner. Things would certainly be simplified for her if he was the Evans she was looking for. Then she could turn over the tape and go back to Boston.

No, she couldn’t go back. Gordon had owned the insurance franchise. A sickening thought struck her. She had been a witness to Gordon’s murder. Until his killers were behind bars, it wouldn’t be safe to return home.

“Now that I’ve answered your questions,” she said, leaning slightly toward him, “can I ask again where you served as a policeman?”

He considered her, evidently as suspicious of her as she was of him. “Boston,” he replied.

She straightened. Could there be some connection between him and Gordon? “Did you know…Gordon Hathaway?”

He frowned again. “I ran across a lot of people, perps and victims, in twelve years. But that name doesn’t mean anything special.”

She sagged against the couch again, suddenly very aware of her exhaustion. But where could she go? All she could think to ask was, “Is there a homeless shelter in town?”

“There’s a new one opening December twenty-third,” he said, putting his cup aside.

A familiar bleak despair threatened to overwhelm her. That always happened when something reminded her of how absolutely alone she was in this world. “But…none now?”

“There are some homeless families staying on cots in the basement of the Catholic church.”

She angled her chin and asked, “Would you take me there?”

He studied her, those eyes roving her completely disreputable appearance, then lingering on her face. It was impossible to tell what he thought, until he leaned forward to take her cup from her and drop it with a bang on his desk.

“No,” he said simply.

EVAN LOOKED into a pair of blue eyes rimmed with exhaustion, and suspected he would hate himself later, but he couldn’t take her to the basement of the church and still live with himself.

He knew many homeless people had once lived productive lives and were victims of fate and circumstance, but there were always those few among them who preyed upon each other and anyone else small or weak enough to be vulnerable.

“I live in a cottage on the other side of town.” He reached toward a wooden coat rack in the corner and grabbed an old down jacket he wore when working outside. It was smeared with paint, but warm. “It has a spare bedroom and a reliable furnace.” He held the jacket out to her. “You can stay with me until you find this Evans guy.”

She stared at him, evaluating the offer. She was desperate for shelter, but not sure she could trust him.

“I have no money,” she said finally, and took the jacket.

“The offer doesn’t require money.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then she asked quietly, carefully, “What does it require?”

He understood her reluctance, but gave her a scolding look, anyway. “Trust,” he replied. “And I can use another hand on a paint roller.”

Her eyes widened slightly, and he guessed he’d surprised her. “Never painted anything?” he asked.

She smiled for the first time since he’d opened the door and found her wielding a bat at him. “My bedroom, a couple of times when I was a teenager, and my friend Horie’s first apartment. Does that count?”

He ignored her question. “Horie?”

She smiled again. It made her even prettier, despite her disheveled appearance. Her teeth were square and very white, the top right one overlapping the front tooth slightly.

“Horatia Metcalf. Her father teaches Greek in a divinity school, hence her name. She’s a little off-the-wall herself. We painted every room a different bright color.”

“Did you do a good job?”

“We thought so. Her landlord wasn’t quite as pleased.”

“Then, you’re hired,” he said. “But I’ll take you home. You can have a couple of days to catch up on your sleep before I put you to work. I, however, have to get with it.”

The suggestion that she was holding up his working day galvanized her into action. She got to her feet and let him help her into the jacket.

As she snapped it closed, he remembered the watch cap in the side pocket and reached in to hand it to her. She pulled it on and stuffed her hair into it.

He looked down worriedly at her holey stockings and low-heeled dress shoes. “Wish I had a spare pair of socks, but I’ll get you some at home.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, then wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes. “I can’t tell you how nice it is to be warm.”

He stood the collar up for her. “The lesson to be learned here is, never run away in December without your coat.”

She nodded wryly. “Or your purse.” She smiled again as he pulled the door open for her. “Of course, that lesson doesn’t apply to you, does it?”

He concentrated on locking the door behind him, afraid of getting hooked on that smile. “No,” he said, pretending to be serious. “It’s hard to decide what color purse to wear with coveralls.”

She laughed as he pointed toward the Jeep. Her smile…with sound. Intriguing. “It’s easy. Just remember that they should match your shoes.”

By the time they reached his cottage on the other side of Maple Hill, he was grateful that he had to leave her for the day. It was as though something had turned her on and she’d acquired a sparkle he hadn’t noticed when they’d interrogated each other over coffee.

A long, tree-lined drive led to his cottage. Snow covered the trees and crunched under the tires as he drove up to the porch. He parked and came around to help her out, sure that the height of the van and dress shoes would make it difficult for her to get down onto the packed and slippery snow.

She’d swung her legs over the side and appeared to be considering how best to approach the leap, when he bracketed her waist and lifted her to the ground. He felt the smallness of her waist even under the thickness of his jacket, and wondered why that should impress itself upon him. He’d known small-waisted women before.

Of course, they weren’t coming to live with him.

“Thank you,” she said cheerfully. “What a pretty place. What grows on that arbor by the garden?” She pointed to a square-topped pergola at the side of the house.

“Clematis,” he replied.

“Pink?”

“Purple.”

“Ah.” She sighed, smiling as though she could envision it. “I love purple. We painted Horie’s kitchen a sort of pale grape color.”

He wondered what that did for guests’ digestion, as he led the way up the porch steps and unlocked the door.

THE FIRST THING Evan did was crank up the thermostat.

Beazie listened attentively as he showed her how to turn it up or down, explaining that he usually lowered it when he left for work.

“I don’t want to waste your oil,” she protested, trying to think about the numbers rather than the herbal fragrance of his cologne. “The thermostat says sixty-two, but that’s still warmer than the back of the moving truck.”

He ignored her and bumped it up to seventy.

“Kitchen’s in here.”

She followed as he led the way through the soft, coffee-with-cream color of the living room and its dark blue and red furniture to an old-fashioned kitchen painted yellow. The appliances were old, but new butcher-block counters had been installed, and a small nook that looked out onto the front of the house had yellow-and-blue curtains patterned with teapots and cups.

“I’ve been slowly buffing up the house,” he said with a disparaging wave at the curtains, “but I haven’t gotten to this room yet. I don’t eat at home that much, so I’ve left it to last.”

She nodded affably, but was secretly happy he hadn’t taken down the curtains. They reminded her of those cozy fifties commercials where women cooked in shirtwaists, high heels and jewelry, while an adoring family awaited mother’s masterpiece.

He opened the door of a very small refrigerator. “Not a lot in here, I’m afraid, unless you like cheese, cola or…” He opened the freezer to reveal one box of frozen Buffalo wings.

She took it from him. “I love these.”

“Good.” He pointed to cupboards across the room. “Crackers, cereal, a few other things in there. Help yourself to whatever you want. I’ll bring some things home tonight.”

“Please don’t go to any trouble. If you usually have dinner out, go ahead. I’ll probably sleep until Monday.” She put the wings back in the freezer, then hurried to follow him as he led the way upstairs.

A small corridor with ivy-patterned wallpaper led into a very large room on the left that was comfortably cluttered. A large blob of multicolored fur lay in the middle of a dark green bedspread.

“That’s Lucinda.”

At the sound of Evan’s voice, the blob rolled onto its back and put four feet up in the air, toes curled in contentment. It was a cat.

“Really.” Beazie took one step toward it, then thought better of walking into Evan’s room. She stayed where she was and commented simply, “Very elegant name.”

“She arrived named,” he said, walking over to ruffle the furry stomach. The cat took it as her due, made a small sound of approval, then curled up again. “She belonged to Millie Evans. She can’t have a cat at the care center, but I take Lucinda to visit every once in a while.”

Beazie entertained that image as he led her across the hall to another large room, this one pink, with a window seat in a bay window and an eclectic collection of furniture. The temperature was chilly, but the warm atmosphere drew her inside.

He went to a heating vent in the floor and kicked it open with his foot. “It’ll take a little while to warm up here. Maybe you want to fix yourself the Buffalo wings first.”

She fell onto the edge of the bed, seduced by the thick soft mattress and the wonderful ambience of the room. All tension and energy escaped her like water down a drain.

“I think I’ll just go right to bed,” she said, the words requiring effort.

He studied her curiously for one moment. She expected him to tell her he’d suddenly changed his mind, but instead he went to the closet, pulled out an extra blanket and dropped it at the foot of the bed. Then he crossed the hall to his room and returned with a pair of thick socks.

“Sleep well,” he said. “See you tonight.” He left the room in an apparent hurry to get to work.

“Evan!” she called.

He reappeared in the doorway. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“Sure.”

He left again, and this time she toed off her shoes, pulled on the socks and got under the blankets, still wearing the coat and hat. She felt her muscles relax one by one as she drifted off to sleep, strangely secure in the unfamiliar surroundings.