Читать книгу Deep Cover - Sandra Orchard - Страница 10

Caught between duty and fleeing as far from Rick as she could get, Ginny stayed in the car while Mom led the way to the front door of their bungalow under the protection of Rick’s umbrella. Mom had a way of being happily oblivious to the peeled paint on the windowsills, the split in the porch step and the grass long enough to feed a flock of sheep. But if Ginny followed them inside, she’d be all but laying out the welcome mat for Rick to retrample her heart.

“Coming?” Mom called.

Ginny hit the automatic switch for the window. The gears whirred to no effect. She toggled the switch and the window lurched, stopping three inches from the top.

Leaning over, Ginny pitched her voice through the opening. “I thought I’d pick up groceries. Maybe stop by Uncle Emile’s. There’s something important I need to discuss with him.”

“Nonsense, you can do that tomorrow.” Mom and Lori disappeared into the house.

No such luck with Rick. He hunched next to her window until their eyes were level. “I can fix that switch if you like.”

Rain dribbled off his umbrella and found its way through the gap in the window.

She rammed her thumb onto the button, but the window wouldn’t budge. Not up. Not down. Why couldn’t he just go away?

Rick opened the car door and offered her a hand. “You go in and dish up the pie Lori promised me, and I’ll take care of this window.” Humor lit his eyes, and was that a … a …?

“Are you laughing?” Laughing? “Oh, you have some nerve, pal. If you knew what kind of month I’ve had, you wouldn’t be laughing. I can’t afford any more car repairs.” Not when she needed every spare dime to pay for Mom’s medicine.

“Lucky for you I want to help then.”

“Hello? I—don’t—want—your—help! I want you gone.”

She reached for the handle, but Rick hunkered between the door and her seat, blocking her attempt to shut him out. He covered her hand with his, and for one second, maybe two, she lost herself in the warmth. Forgetting the rain. Forgetting her mom and sister waiting inside. Forgetting why she shouldn’t lean into his embrace.

Then she remembered who he was, or rather wasn’t, and snatched her hand away. Everything he did was an act to get what he wanted.

He stepped back and held the door open. “We need to talk before you have that conversation with your uncle, so how about some hot chocolate to go with that pie?”

“Oh sure, that’s exactly what I should give you—like a stray puppy, so you’ll stick around. Pul-lease.”

A full-blown grin dimpled his cheeks and Ginny bolted for the covered porch before he obliterated her resolve.

On the street, a boxy gray car—like the one she’d noticed trolling the neighborhood earlier tonight—slowed. Come to think of it, the car looked a lot like the one that had been idling outside the town hall. She leaned over the porch rail for a better look and the car raced off.

Suddenly grateful for Rick’s solid presence, Ginny glanced toward her car.

Inside, Rick had settled into the driver’s seat and his fingers grazed the dove ornament dangling from the rearview mirror, his touch almost reverent. Was he remembering the day he gave it to her?

A soaring dove to remind you God is watching over you when I can’t be, he’d said.

How she’d cherished his words. Maybe he did know how special he’d once made her feel. With him, her words sparkled, her dreams grew vivid, her hopes became tangible.

He made her believe she could be more than …

“Ginny?” Lori’s frantic call cut through the brick and glass.

Ginny trudged inside and hung her wet jacket on the coat tree.

The sweet smell of hot chocolate hung in the air, and Ginny didn’t know why she was surprised. Mom had always had a chameleonlike ability to transform from a wasted alcoholic to Suzie Homemaker in the time it took a social worker to get from the driveway to the door.

Ginny hurried to the kitchen, picking up scattered socks and shoes along the way.

Lori was digging through the freezer and Mom stood at the stove stirring a pot of hot chocolate. But neither had noticed the crumbs and ketchup smeared across the vinyl tablecloth.

Ginny grabbed a wet rag. Appliances and abandoned mail cluttered the countertops, and thanks to the ripped screen in the window above the sink, the fly strip hanging over the table had no vacancies.

“Where’s Rick?” Mom chirped.

“His name is Duke.” Ginny traded the dishrag for a knife and jabbed the center of the pie her friend Kim’s mom had given them. “How can you trust a guy who changes his name for no good reason?”

“I’m sure he has a reasonable explanation. Why don’t you ask him? He’ll tell you.”

“What makes you think I want an explanation?” Ginny snapped as her insides crumbled like the pastry under her knife. She’d waited for months, hoping he’d come back, but he hadn’t, which only proved she hadn’t meant as much to him as he had to her. Another reason she needed him off this project.

Rick stood on the Bryson porch waiting to be let in. His damp clothes clung to him like the doubts Ginny had dredged up. Perhaps he could finesse his way into Mrs. Bryson’s good graces. She might be just the ally he needed to convince Ginny to trust him.

The Bryson’s front door burst open and Lori tugged him into the living room.

The place hadn’t changed much. The bright orange globe suspended from the ceiling cast a cheerful glow over the room. Tattered love seats sat kitty-corner to one another, facing the picture window on one side and a blazing gas fireplace on the other. Homey. Lived in. A haven.

“Rick. Play checkers,” Lori pleaded.

In the flowery skirt and snug sweater, she looked like a woman, but inside, she was still the fun-loving girl he remembered. “Call me Duke, okay?”

She pushed out her lips and scrutinized him like he’d grown a second nose instead of a moustache. “You Rick.” The wide space between her eyes crumpled, and his conscience took another beating.

“Yes, my name is Rick, but it’s fun to pretend. Remember when you used to pretend you were a princess? Well, a duke is like a prince.” He took her hand and bowed. “You can be a princess, and I’ll be Duke.”

As though the orange globe had transformed into a glittering chandelier, Lori’s eyes lit and she twirled around the coffee table like a princess in a flowing gown. “Okay, Duke.”

Mrs. Bryson watched him with guarded eyes. She’d become a mere ghost of the woman he’d once known, and the yellow cast to her complexion had nothing to do with the funky orange light shade. He should’ve been here for them.

She must’ve sensed his concern because her reserve mellowed. “It’s cancer.” She dropped her gaze. “I am getting better.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Lori elbowed between them and tugged Rick toward the sofa. “Date Ginny?”

“I don’t think Ginny wants me back, sweetie.”

“Yes, do. She your picture. Me show.” Lori skipped down the hallway. Before he could relish her enlightening bit of news, Mrs. Bryson took over the interrogation.

“Why did you change your name?”

“I wanted a fresh start.”

“Why are you back here then?”

“It wasn’t intentional.”

“So you didn’t come back for Ginny?”

“I …” No. He gulped in a breath. He should’ve come back months ago. Apologized. Explained.

“I don’t want to see my daughters hurt again,” Mrs. Bryson said.

“Trust me. Neither do I.”

She studied him in skeptical silence; his hope that she’d prove an ally dimmed. “Perhaps you should help Ginny serve the dessert before my princess finds that picture.”

Buoyed by the reprieve, Rick paused at the entrance to the kitchen and watched Ginny eviscerate the promised pie. “Your window works.”

She spun around, knife raised, blood-red cherry juice dripping over her fingers.

He held up his hands in mock horror. “I come in peace.”

She looked from him to the knife, then dropped it into the sink. A faint “I doubt that” vibrated beneath the clatter of metal on metal. She swiped her hands on her apron, leaving red juice smeared across her belly.

“I’m sorry about your mom.”

Ginny offered a silent nod and scooped ice cream.

“She told me she’s getting better.”

“Well, you of all people should know you can’t always believe what people tell you.”

Ouch. She still knew how to deliver the blindside punch.

Add to that the tears in her eyes, and he ached like she’d twisted that knife into his chest.

She shoved a tray into his hands, barricading herself behind four bowls of mutilated pie and ice cream. “Go,” she said in the same dismissive tone she’d used that night outside the restaurant.

He set the tray on the table. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She yanked mugs from the cupboard and busied herself ladling hot chocolate into them. “I can’t do this again. I’m grateful that you won over the town council, but I won’t keep your secret any longer.”

“Your uncle knows.”

Ginny’s arm jerked and hot chocolate spilled over the side of the mug.

“I told him yesterday.” With Ginny’s safety in jeopardy, confessing had seemed more prudent than waiting for her to act. He told Laud they’d been close. He told him about his gang affiliations and how Ginny had stormed out of his life when she found out. He told him how he’d moved and changed his name, hoping for a second chance, but that Ginny turned him down. Then he’d handed her uncle a written resignation. Thankfully, Laud refused.

Ginny glared at him with enough firepower to take out a small country. “He knows what? That your real name is Rick? Does he know you were in a gang, too, or did you leave out that part?”

“I’m sorry I let you believe that.”

“Let me believe? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The Python member who bumped into me was the kind of guy who’d kill his own mother for selling him out. After the way he leered at you, I was afraid he’d use you to get to me. It was safer to let you go.”

“Wow, the story sounds so noble the way you tell it. So let me get this straight. You were in a gang, but you intended to sell them out. And you were afraid I’d get caught in the cross fire. Which makes you a hero instead of a liar?”

“More or less, yes.” Only he didn’t feel so heroic. “You have to understand that it can be a long, hard road escaping from one’s past.”

A fact.

The hallmark of a successful undercover cop was stating facts that led a person to the most expedient assumptions.

“Have you escaped?” The soft question reflected the heart of the Ginny he remembered.

“I’m working on it,” he muttered. Sometimes he hated this job.

“Look, Rick. Duke. Whatever you want me to call you. I’m glad you’re turning your life around. But if you truly cared about me, you would have quit this job when I asked, not manipulated your way into my uncle’s confidence.”

“Ginny, I—”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses. If my uncle hasn’t seen fit to fire you, I won’t try to change his mind. But … if you do anything to train-wreck this project, I will never forgive you. Never.”

At the thought of the inevitable fallout following Laud’s arrest, Rick’s insides piled up like colliding boxcars. “I promise you, your uncle has nothing on me that will derail this project.”

Glass exploded into the room.

Rick shoved Ginny down and shielded her body with his. Heart drumming, he scanned the debris. Seeing a rock, he shot to his feet and glimpsed a youth—baggy pants, dark hoodie pulled low over his head—running through the neighbor’s backyard. “Stay down,” Rick shouted, sprinting outside. He chased the kid for half a block. Then the kid just disappeared.

Rick braced his hands on his knees until he caught his breath. The adrenaline shooting through his body took longer to tame.

From all appearances, the vandalism had been a cheap shot by a bored kid out for some kicks. At least that’s what Rick kept telling himself as he walked back to the house. One glimpse at the three Bryson women huddled inside the door, their faces pale, told him he wasn’t the only one who needed to be convinced.

“I saw the kid, but he got away,” Rick said, stepping inside. “I’ll clean up this mess and replace the window for you first thing in the—”

Ginny’s horrified gaze dropped to a piece of paper crumpled in her hand. Rick swallowed the last of his words.

This was no prank.