“Douglas?” She sounded lost and helpless. “Oh God, Douglas, you came!”
She was up and running into his arms. He met her halfway, folding her tightly in his embrace and simply hanging on. He didn’t know who was clinging more tightly or who needed comfort more. He knew he sure as hell needed the contact to make sure she was physically okay, safe.
Hearing his voice, her face had changed. ’Til his dying day, he would never forget the look on her face when she knew he’d come for her. Through her fear and despair, there had been a sudden surge of hope and joy and—yes—love. For him. He would never forget that moment as long as he lived.
And through his own terror and panic, the love and joy he felt for her filled his heart. This was his woman. He would pay any price to keep her safe and happy.
But first he had to calm her down.
Allegra was shaking in his arms, terrified and panicked. She was mumbling something in a high-pitched keening wail. It took him a minute to decipher the words, she was trembling so hard her voice shook.
“He was here, Douglas, he was here, he was here,” she chanted, breathless. A violent shudder. “Oh God, he touched me. He was here! Keep him away from me!”
She was talking about Sanderson. Somehow Corey Sanderson had escaped from prison and had come after her. The fucker had touched her, terrified her. If he had come after her, it was to finish the job he’d begun five months earlier. Corey Sanderson was a dead man walking.
“He was here, I heard him, right here.” Allegra’s voice rose with the rough notes of hysteria. Her arms squeezed desperately around him, seeking shelter. “Keep him away from me! Oh, God, I’m so scared.”
Behind her, Suzanne watched somberly. When Kowalski looked at her, she shook her head in a slow negation. “Corey Sanderson wasn’t there.” She kept her voice low, but Allegra heard.
“Yes he was, yes he was! Why won’t anyone believe me?”
Allegra was in full-blown hysteria now, a freakish mix of present fear and flashback. Kowalski wrapped one arm around her waist and covered the back of her head with his hand. Symbolically, he was offering her what soldiers went into battle with—Kevlar body armor and helmet. The soft viscera and the head were the most vulnerable points of the human body. The human animal knows this at a level almost deeper than instinct. It is in the DNA. Holding her like this, protecting her vital organs and head, was the only thing that could calm her down, penetrate the fog of hysteria.
She was so scared she couldn’t think. Right now it was pointless trying to coax her down from the ledge of utter terror she teetered on.
At a level deeper than words, deeper even than rational thought, his body was telling hers that no harm could come to her as long as he was alive and holding her.
Kowalski needed to climb down from utter panic, too, freakish as that sounded. He was known for his calm under fire. But in those first moments, clinging to Allegra, his heart had pounded and his brain had gone blank with panic. Under his winter clothes, he was sweating like a pig, the smelly sweat of fear. A slithery hollow terror he’d never felt before.
Finally, they both started calming down. Allegra’s keening stopped, her tight hold eased slightly. The trip-hammer heartbeat visible in her temples slowed, as did his. His tunnel vision dissipated and he was able to take in his surroundings. Lifting his head, he looked around and saw Midnight with an arm around Suzanne.
She was coatless and for the first time, Kowalski noticed that Allegra had on her own coat and what must be Suzanne’s, as well. Smart Suzanne had instinctively known that the first treatment for shock is warmth.
Seeing that Allegra was calming down, Suzanne approached, John by her side, an arm around her shoulders.
“What happened?” Kowalski asked quietly.
Suzanne looked troubled and pale. “We were outside. I left Allegra just outside the entrance to the restaurant and went to get my car. I came back to find her—” She bit her lip not to say “hysterical.” “I found her badly upset. She said that Corey Sanderson spoke to her and—”
“He touched me.” Kowalski looked down at Allegra, their position mirroring that of Midnight and Suzanne’s, his arm around her shoulders. She was leaning heavily into him. Her voice had quieted, sounding dull and lifeless. Her eyes were dry but her cheeks were still wet with tears of fright. “I know you don’t believe me, Suzanne, but I heard Corey. His voice is unmistakable. And he touched me.” She shivered, pulling Suzanne’s coat more tightly around her.
Suzanne reached out to gently touch her shoulder, looking troubled. “Oh honey. I don’t know what happened, but it wasn’t Corey. He simply wasn’t there. I would have seen him. Someone might have almost tripped and grabbed onto you by mistake. But I swear to you, it wasn’t Corey Sanderson who touched you. I would have seen him.” Suzanne’s eyes welled as she had to say the words, the harsh, cruel words. Allegra was the one who was mistaken because she couldn’t see, and Suzanne could.
Suzanne looked up at Kowalski. “Corey Sanderson is in a psychiatric institute for felons. He hasn’t been released. I know that for a fact. I made one of the police officers following the case promise that he would call me the minute there was any change in status.” Her jaws clenched. On her it looked pretty. “That man is never getting within a mile of Allegra ever again, I’ll make sure of it.”
At that moment, Kowalski loved Suzanne and if Midnight weren’t around, he’d have kissed her right on the mouth, a big fat thank-you smack. She cared deeply for Allegra, was willing to take measures to protect her. Kowalski loved Suzanne for that.
He nodded. Under his arm, Allegra straightened. “I know you all think I’m crazy,” she said, her lovely voice clear and distinct. “But I know what I heard and what I heard was Corey Sanderson’s voice saying, ‘You little bitch. You’re going to get what’s coming to you. I’m going to see you dead and then you’ll roast in hell’.”
Her voice changed pitch. Kowalski assumed she was imitating this Sanderson. It was eerie and scary, as if she were channeling someone else. For a second he believed her, then glanced at Suzanne. Tears in her eyes, she was shaking her head no.
“Allegra was out of my sight for just a moment. The car was just around the corner. There were people on the sidewalk, coming in and going out from The Garden, but not many and none of them was Corey Sanderson. Believe me, I’d have recognized him. Corey Sanderson wasn’t here today. I can assure you of that.”
Flashbacks. It was the only explanation. Still, Kowalski wasn’t going to take any chances. He knew what he had to do.
“Come on, honey.” Kowalski tightened his arm around Allegra’s shoulders. “I think I know what’s happening. I want to get you home. Suzanne, Midnight, we’ll call you later, okay?”
Suzanne opened her mouth, then closed it when she saw his face, and the grim expression on Midnight’s. She sighed, leaning forward to give Allegra a gentle kiss on the cheek. “We’ll talk later, sweetie, okay?”
“It was him. It was Corey. I know you don’t believe me, but it was him. I’d recognize his voice anywhere.” Allegra’s voice was low and sad. She didn’t protest when Kowalski took her arm to guide her outside, moving slowly in a defeated shuffle.
Midnight opened the passenger door of Suzanne’s car, settling his wife in. Kowalski met his eyes over the roof of her car. Midnight looked as troubled as Suzanne as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
Kowalski settled his own woman into his SUV. As he’d done on Saturday night, he covered Allegra with the blanket he kept in the backseat. “There you go. The heat will be on in just a second.” He called Jacko on his cell while circling the SUV, then climbed in.
Kowalski drove for ten minutes in silence. Allegra’s face was slightly averted. She looked hollowed out by sadness and misery. Kowalski’s heart ached for her. It was bad enough having flashbacks—sensory ones that felt real to her. Added to that was the horror of feeling that no one believed her.
Kowalski wasn’t good at beating around the bu
sh, so he just leaped in. “I just found out today how you lost your sight, Allegra. It wasn’t an accident, like you told me. This Sanderson fuck beat you up and killed your father. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think you’d lost your sight in an accident?”
Allegra sat quietly without answering.
“Honey?”
Allegra stared down, sightlessly, at her hands, twisting and turning in her lap in a physical manifestation of the misery she felt inside. When she spoke her voice was quiet, without inflection. “I didn’t tell you because—because I don’t remember anything. It isn’t real to me in any way. The last thing I remember was the day after my summer tour ended. The tour lasted ten weeks, I’d played in twenty-five cities and it had been just awful. I was so exhausted and depressed. Everything about the tour was painful—from the music Corey chose for me to play, to the interviews I had to give, to the increasingly empty concert halls. Apart from everything else, I also found out I hated touring. I hated bouncing from one city and one hotel room to another, I hated the stress and the lack of privacy. I hated the huge stadiums and concert halls, which aren’t suited to my voice or my music. Whatever happens to me in the future as a musician, I know that I don’t want to tour. I want to do some studio recording and play in small events in the Portland area and—and have a life. Corey was already planning another big tour for the spring and I just knew I’d hate it. I was continually arguing with Corey about everything—about the type of music he was scheduling, about the photo ops he planned—he’d actually promised a gossip magazine a series of photographs of me topless with Dagda, can you imagine? We had a big fight over that one when I said no, because he’d already hired this expensive fashion photographer for the shoot. That was in Chicago, just at the end of the summer tour.”
Kowalski’s hands tightened on the wheel. Good thing he hadn’t known Allegra then. He’d have smashed Sanderson’s face in for even suggesting it.
“What kind of fights were you having? Knock-down, drag-out?” He kept his voice even. No sense overwhelming her with his own emotions.
“No, no, not at all. Just strong differences of opinion. I mean, he couldn’t very well force me to pose in the nude, could he?”
Not and live, Kowalski thought. “So what happened at the end of the tour?”
She lifted her hands from her lap and let them drop. “I don’t have the faintest idea. I remember absolutely nothing. The last thing I remember was unpacking my bags the evening I got back from the last concert. That was the 2nd of September. The next thing I remember, I woke up in the hospital almost two months later, on the 24th of October. My father was long dead and buried. I was blind, I couldn’t speak and I was in constant pain.”
Oh, honey, Kowalski thought. He could just imagine what it had been like to wake up to darkness and grief.
“You know what happened the night you went to get out of your contract with Sanderson?” Kowalski asked, his voice harsh.
“Yes, of course.” She frowned. “I mean, I was told what happened, first by the nurses, then by Suzanne and Claire. But it’s abstract. I don’t remember anything at all. It’s as if they were telling me the plot of a movie or a novel. Suzanne says I told her I wanted to break my contract and she found a clause I could use, but I don’t even remember that. I don’t feel it, you know what I mean? All I know is I woke up and my father was dead and I was blind, with a broken jaw.” She turned to him, her lovely face earnest. “You know, Douglas, I still have problems believing it. I mean, okay, Corey’s a bit of a megalomaniac and a control freak, but—violence? He’s such a…a fop, you know? He won’t even go to scary movies because the violence bothers him. Suzanne is absolutely convinced he killed my father and beat me up, but somehow, it just doesn’t…doesn’t compute. I believe it in my head because it happened, but not in my heart.”
Kowalski didn’t find it hard to believe at all. Now that he thought about it, Corey Sanderson hadn’t been in the news since around—what? 1998? So this guy, who was used to being treated like the Sun King, complete with millions and groupies and absolute power in the glittering music world, was on the slippery slope toward being a has-been. The music business was brutal, full of sharks who can scent blood ten miles away. This Sanderson fuck had obviously latched onto Allegra to make his comeback, but she wasn’t cooperating and he’d flipped. Allegra might think he was a dandy, some soft guy who wasn’t prone to violence, but to get as far as he did in the competitive world of popular music there had to be a core of steel in Sanderson.
Kowalski knew what had gone down—Allegra and her father had wanted to break her contract with Sanderson, a contract Sanderson clearly saw as his lifeline to a comeback, and he’d lost control.
The flashbacks Allegra was having were of the real Corey Sanderson—cruel and violent. She’d been terrified when she thought she’d heard his voice. Her body knew exactly how dangerous Sanderson was, even if her head had lost that knowledge.
Well, Sanderson wasn’t ever going to touch Allegra again, that was for sure.
“You thought you heard Sanderson yesterday, too, didn’t you? In Lawrence Square.”
Allegra nodded. “Yes. I was so sure…and yet you didn’t see anyone who matched his description.”
Kowalski didn’t answer. The truth was there between them, stark and leaden. He hadn’t seen Sanderson or anyone who remotely looked like him, unless this Sanderson was a master of disguise. He turned onto Allegra’s street.
“We’re here, honey.” Kowalski brought his SUV to a halt right in front of Allegra’s house. Jacko was already parked across the street, and was out of his car and crossing the street by the time Kowalski opened the driver’s door.
Good man.
For the first time, Kowalski was glad Allegra was blind. She would have flipped at the sight of Jacko. He looked like a lethal street punk, with his shaved head, grungy clothes and piercings. At least he’d put on a parka over the torn sweatshirt, though Kowalski knew it wasn’t because of the cold. Jacko never felt the cold. He’d put it on to cover the shoulder holster and its lethal cargo.
Kowalski helped Allegra down and turned her slightly. “Honey, I want you to meet—” For just a second Kowalski pulled a blank. What the hell was Jacko’s real name? Something totally incongruous, that he knew. Jacko had once had a fight with a jarhead who’d called him by it.
“Morton,” Jacko said, in his deep drawl. He’d moved around a lot but his early years had been spent in a trailer park in the Texas panhandle, and he’d never gotten the Texas out of his voice. “Morton Jackman. Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
Allegra looked puzzled, but held out her hand. Kowalski wondered what she would have thought, seeing her hand engulfed in Jacko’s paw, with its barbed wire tattoos and big silver skull ring. Jacko held her hand for a second, then dropped it.
“Pleased to meet you too, Mr. Jackman.” She shivered with the cold. “Ahm, if you’ll excuse us now, we have to get inside.”
“He’s coming with us, honey.” Kowalski put his arm around her waist and walked her up the porch stairs into the house. Jacko followed.
If Jacko was curious about the fact that Kowalski had the key to the front door, or about Allegra’s house with the harp in the corner of the living room, he didn’t show it. He simply stood, in a modified parade rest, and awaited orders. Good man, Kowalski thought again.
Kowalski helped Allegra get her coat off, then sat her down on the couch. He sat next to her, holding her hand. “Listen to me, honey. I’m going to be gone for a couple of hours. I really need to find out where this Sanderson guy is.”
Her hand jumped in his.
“Oh my God, Douglas!” her expression was stricken. “Be careful!”
Not violent my eye, he thought. This was Allegra’s gut instinct, that Sanderson was dangerous. He wasn’t half as dangerous as Kowalski, who was going to bring the sick fuck down.
“I’ll be careful, don’t worry about that. I know how to handle myself. Listen to me, thou
gh.” She was focused on him, hand tightly holding on to his. “If you heard Sanderson this afternoon, that must mean he’s somehow gotten out of prison. I need to track him down, but I can’t do anything if I’m worried about your safety. So Morton here—we call him Jacko—is staying with you until I get back. You’ll be safe with him, honey.”
Kowalski glanced sharply at Jacko. Jacko understood perfectly well that if anything happened to Allegra on his watch, he was a dead man.
You carrying? Kowalski mouthed, just to be on the safe side. Jacko gave him a get real look and shifted the parka so Kowalski could see the big butt of his weapon. He’d have a backup weapon in an ankle holster and his big folder knife in his jeans pocket.
Yeah, Allegra would be okay. Jacko was as careful as he was. No one would get past him.
“I don’t know…” Allegra sounded worried.
Jacko walked silently until he was in front of her. He hunkered down so that she wouldn’t hear his voice above her head. “Don’t worry about me, ma’am,” he drawled. “You just go ahead and do whatever you’d normally do and pretend I’m not here. I’ll just sit here until the Senior gets back. I won’t bother you at all.”
“Okay, Mr. Jackman.”
“Just Jacko is fine, ma’am.”
“Okay…Jacko. Would you mind if I play my harp? It always settles my nerves.”
“No ma’am, that’s fine.”
Jacko—whose idea of classical music was ZZ Top—rolled his eyes. Kowalski grinned and slapped Jacko on the back on his way out.
Chapter Sixteen
“What do you know about Corey Sanderson, and where’s the fucker right now?” Kowalski grabbed the only chair in the hospital room, turned it around and straddled it.
He’d met Claire just outside the door and had sent her out for coffee. She’d looked harassed and grateful to be leaving Bud to someone else. Bud had tubes with fluids running in and out of him, and was wearing one of those awful hospitals gowns and a scowl.
Kowalski didn’t even want to think about what the tubes were for or where they went. Doctors and hospitals gave him a queasy feeling.