Dear Santa Part 17

"Now, if you're finished asking questions, I have to get back to my work."

She was fairly certain they couldn't force her to give them Vic's name. She hoped they wouldn't ask her too many times because she wasn't sure she could keep on holding out. She thought about telling them she had to call her lawyer. The problem was the only lawyer she'd ever had was the one she'd hired in Chicago to handle her divorce. Fortunately, the police appeared to be giving up on her.

The female officer rose from the chair and tucked the pad down into her shirt pocket while her partner continued to watch Katherine but took a step backward out of her office.

"We may be in touch with you again," the policewoman said. She pulled a business-card case from her coat pocket, took out a card and put it down on the edge of Katherine's desk.

"If you think of something further you'd like to tell us, you can call me at the number on this card."

I'll do that," Katherine said without either picking up the card or looking at it.

She really didn't intend to cooperate, not if cooperation involved jeopardizing Vic. After the police left her office, she watched the parking lot from her window, Waiting for them to emerge from the building and drive away. All the while, she was praying they wouldn't come across Vic on their way out. She hadn't seen him yet. In fact, she'd been wondering earlier why he hadn't called her or stopped in to see her if he'd come into the center. In that note she'd left on her side of the bed this morning, she'd asked him to call her here at the center when he got up.

She was relieved to see the two police officers striding across the parking lot toward their car. Katherine ducked back from her window so they wouldn't catch her in the act of spying on them. She headed out from behind her desk and through the doorway that led to the center's main corridor. She was past the reception office when she saw Vic come out of the gymnasium farther down the hall. A thrill shot through her at the sight of him, and she had to stop herself from calling his name. He had his back to her, and he wasn't alone.

Vic and the man he was with had : their heads together in conversation and didn't appear to notice Katherine. His companion turned, and she saw him more clearly for a moment before he leaned toward Vic again.

In that instant, she dropped her hand and closed her mouth. She also grabbed the doork.n.o.b of the office she'd been about to pa.s.s, turned the k.n.o.b and stepped inside.

She held the door open a crack and peered through the opening to watch Vic and his companion. They Jstill stood in what looked like an intimate conversation down the hall. Vic was doing most of the talking, actually, while the other man nodded and seemed to be listening very carefully. That man's appearance was what had made Katherine want to disappear from view. He was as tall as Vic and almost as broad. He also had similar thick, black hair, but that was where the similarity ended. Vic was handsome and strong-featured. This man had strong features as well, but the impression they left was not an attractive one. From her first glimpse of him, Katherine was certain she was looking at a dangerous man.

She watched from behind the office door and wished she could hear what this man and Vic were saying to each other. She didn't like to think that Vic had such friends. She was telling herself that they could be less than that, maybe only acquaintances, when Vic reached up and patted the other man on the back. In response, he gripped Vic around the shoulders in a friendly bear hug. Katherine sighed. She was about to close the door quietly and wait out of sight till the two had left the corridor. Before she could do that, she saw the large man with Vic look quickly down the corridor just as she eased the door shut.

Katherine pressed her back against the closed door. She was breathing hard all of a sudden, as if she'd run the length of the corridor outside at least a couple of times. She didn't question why she was so winded. She recognized her reaction as fear and shock at what else she'd seen when Vic's companion glanced down the hallway. She'd seen his hand move reflexively inside the front of the long, dark coat he was wearing and onto the hand grip of the gun in a holster he wore underneath his arm.

KATHERINE FELT GUILTY about laying her personal problems on Megan when she was flat on her back in the hospital, but their telephone conversation seemed to gravitate that way without much help from Katherine.

"If they don't let me out of here soon, I'm going to start using bedpans for frisbees," Megan said, sounding every bit her usual, irrepressible self.

"You'd be surprised how close I can get one of those things to somebody's head without actually making contact. There's a floor supervisor here who'd make a perfect target."

Katherine laughed, despite the tension that had her sitting so stiff in her chair the cold outside might have frozen her there.

"I can tell you're definitely on the mend," she said.

"My doctor will be in here this afternoon for one more check before they'll release me."

"I feel just terrible that this happened to you at my place."

That was the absolute truth, too. Katherine hadn't stopped feeling guilty since the moment she found Megan on the floor. It didn't help to know that Megan had stopped by to visit her when she'd happened upon Katherine's in-trader. The attacker had struck too quickly for Megan to get a look at whoever it might have been.

"I feel just terrible that this was probably meant to happen to you instead of me," said Megan in a much more serious tone this time.

Katherine didn't want to dwell on that.

"Do you think the doctor will let you leave when he sees you this afternoon?" she asked.

"He'd better do just that, or I intend to cut a swath through this place wide as Santa's sleigh with all his reindeer attached, including that changeling Rudolf."

Katherine laughed again.

"So tell me what's bugging you," Megan said.

"That laugh of yours sounds about as tinny as me singing "Jingle Bells."

" Katherine hadn't intended to go into detail. She'd counted on Megan's wonderful humor to ease the anxiety all by itself. Now, she found herself pouring out the whole story, including the night at the hotel, though she didn't go into detail there. Megan, who was maybe the most outspoken person Katherine had ever known, remained discreetly without comment on the hotel part of the story.

"What do you mean when you say the guy Vic was talking to looked dangerous?"

Megan asked instead.

"It's hard to answer that in concrete terms. When I saw his face, I got this feeling." She paused to remember that moment.

"His eyes. The feeling I had about him came from seeing his eyes."

"What about his eyes?"

She thought for another moment.

"They had no compa.s.sion in them," she said.

"I hear you." Megan didn't respond with the skepticism Katherine had half expected.

"You say that this guy and Vic looked like they were buddies?"

"They hugged each other."

"I see. Though I actually don't know that I can see Vic Maltese hugging another man. I wouldn't have guessed that was on his macho agenda, if you know what I mean."

"I know what you mean," Katherine replied.

She'd hoped Megan would make the worrisome aspect of Vic's behavior go away. Instead, she was taking the incident in the center corridor as seriously as Katherine had.

"The most effective way to deal with this situation would be to come right out and ask Vic about it," Megan said.

"I don't think that's a very good idea."

Especially not after last night, Katherine added silently. "I figured you'd say that."

Katherine didn't respond. She was wondering what she actually would consider a good idea. As she pondered the answer to that, her gaze wandered to her office window and her view of the parking lot.

"Megan, I'll call you back later," she said hastily.

Megan was asking, "What's going on?" as the telephone receiver dropped back into its cradle and Katherine grabbed her coat and ran for the door.

KATHERINE HAD NEVER tailed anybody through traffic. She was only half convinced she should be doing it now. She'd seen Vic headed for his car and taken out after him more from instinctive impulse than because she'd made a reasoned decision to do so. He'd had his head bent down, almost hunched between his broad shoulders, in a posture she'd never seen on him before. What she knew about him told her he wasn't on his way to pick up a cup of coffee and a doughnut. He had a goal he was after and, in light of what had been going on here lately, Katherine wanted to find out what that goal might be.

They'd spent the night together, and it had seemed wonderful and right and even necessary at the time. But how much did she, in fact, know about Vic?

He dedicated his life to helping kids, especially boys in trouble.

That was certainly admirable, she admitted, keeping the black Trans Am in sight as it turned left from Livingston Avenue onto North Pearl Street. She was also keeping in mind what Megan said about the charitable impulse and how it could sometimes come from a dark place in the psyche. Katherine was well aware that her own similar inclination had a lot to do with her need to heal. She wondered what Vic might have to heal, or to hide.

She glanced to the right toward the brick facade of Hope House. Those words above the door inspired a silent prayer in her heart, except that she wasn't quite sure what she should be praying for. That Vic wouldn't turn out to be a criminal? That she and Vic would. What?

She definitely had no idea how that particular prayer should end.

She'd settle for the catchall plea that everything would come out all right for everybody when all of this was finally finished. She didn't care to think about how real the possibility was that this prayer would not be answered.

She was driving through a street of deserted-looking industrial buildings and vacant lots where the crabgra.s.s was hidden by snow. She watched the Trans Am but kept a safe distance back, with a car and a plumber's van in between. She was glad for the presence of so many four-wheelers like hers on the road. She'd also not taken time to wash the Cherokee lately, so it was covered with a coating of dried mud splashes and road salt. The more nondescript the vehicle, the better. She didn't want Vic seeing her back here. It didn't seem likely he would with the other vehicles between them, especially not on this late morning, which had suddenly turned very gray, but she told herself she needed to have some kind of story fabricated to explain the coincidence if he did spot her.

The Trans Am turned left on Loudonville Road, and Katherine followed.

Where was he going? They were headed out of the city. The wind blew harder as the Cherokee mounted an overpa.s.s, and the tall vehicle shuddered against the blast. She pushed the dashboard heater indicator closer to maximum output and wished she hadn't decided to wear a dress today. She'd done that because she wanted to look more attractive than might have been the case in slacks or a skirt and sweater. She'd done that because of Vic, of course. Even before they went to the hotel, she'd packed this outfit, including her impractical knee-high black suede boots with the too-precarious heels, with Vic in mind. How foolish that seemed now. Something longer, with enough material in it to fall in folds around her ankles and keep her from turning frigid altogether, would have been a much wiser choice.

Vic veered right off Loudonville Road onto the bypa.s.s at the rear of Albany Memorial Hospital. Katherine stayed on his tail, but she was thinking about Megan lying in another hospital on the opposite side of the city. She was going to be all right, but that might not have been the outcome. A blow struck just a little more forcefully and to a slightly different spot could have left her brain damaged, her life drastically changed, the important work she did perhaps ended forever. Could Vic have had anything to do with that attack? Big black cars with scary men in them, professional break-ins, a small boy on the run from what Vic had hinted could be gangsters. And what was his connection to all of that? How much did he know that he wasn't willing to tell anyone, especially not the police he so obviously preferred to avoid? Why had he been behaving so cozily with a man who looked like an outlaw and carried a gun?

Katherine hit the power b.u.t.ton on the car radio in the hope of distracting herself from the troubling questions that had grown to inescapable prominence in her mind. She sighed when Christmas music poured out of the speakers and pushed the b.u.t.ton to turn the radio off again. She couldn't help remembering how she'd been singing along to a Christmas carol at the center such a short time ago. That thought filled her with the sadness of loss, the same kind of loss and sadness she'd vowed to shield herself from, no matter what. She didn't feel strong enough to face an experience that echoed with the suffering she'd gone through when Daniel died, even if those echoes were only a fraction as powerful. Grief was grief, and she'd already dealt with about as much of that as she could stand. Yet, here she was putting herself in the way of more.

Speaking of where she was, what were they doing on their way into Loudonville? She'd followed the Trans Am beyond the Albany city limits toward one of the most exclusive communities in the Capitol District. Large, impressive homes lined the road on either side. She'd a.s.sumed Vic would drive straight on through, toward some less imposing neighborhood beyond this very privileged one. Then, he turned left onto a lane marked Crumitie Road and left again after a few blocks. He wasn't on his way through Loudonville as a shortcut to somewhere else. He was driving into the residential heart of the township.

There was no traffic here, and Katherine had to be more careful than ever to remain undiscovered. She wished her interest in Vic's destination, and his behavior in general, didn't come from such a close and personal place in herself. She wished she didn't care so much about him. Meanwhile, she kept on praying everything would turn out all right, though she wasn't exactly certain what all right might be.

Chapter Nineteen Coyote wasn't sure exactly what made him crawl into the back of Miss Fairchild's car in the first place. The parking lot at the Arbor Hill Center Was cold, and too open to be safe for hiding. He had the idea of waiting near the center till n.o.body was around, then sneaking inside to look for Sprite. School was out today for Christmas. He couldn't find her at Tooley's place, so he thought Sprite might turn up here. He knew he was grabbing at straws, like they say, but he couldn't think what else to do. While he was waiting, he'd ducked down behind Miss Fairchild's car to get out of the wind. That's when he saw a big guy coming out of the center. He wasn't the man Coyote'd been running away from, but in a way this guy reminded Coyote of that man in the black car who'd dumped what could have been a body in the alleyway on Broadway.

They both were big men across the chest and shoulders and looked like they could knock a boy down by just thinking about it. They walked very straight and didn't bend their necks when they turned their heads. They made Coyote think of two blocks of wood. They made him afraid, too. Being scared was probably the real reason he slipped around Miss Fairchild's car right then and tried the back door. He should have guessed she'd leave it open. She'd be the type to trust everybody. He could almost remember when he'd been that type himself.

He could even remember when he wasn't scared of hardly anything.

These days he was afraid pretty much all the time. So he climbed into the back of Miss Fairchild's car and held on to the door without closing it all the way shut because that might make too much noise.

He peeked up and saw the man who looked like a block of wood get into a big, dark car of his own that made Coyote shiver from more than being cold. He ducked his head down then and didn't peek over the bottom of the window of Miss Fairchild's car again till what seemed like a long time later when he heard an engine rumbling.

He saw Mr. Maltese's black sports car back out of his parking place very fast and spin around to leave the parking lot with a squeal of tires. A huge puff of exhaust smoke almost hid the car inside as Mr. Maltese speeded out onto the street. Coyote was so busy watching that he almost didn't notice Miss Fairchild herself on the way to the car where he was hiding. He ducked down onto the floor and dragged the blanket from the seat over him just in time. Good thing he'd pulled the car door shut already, or she might have gotten suspicious and checked the back seat. She didn't do that, though, as far as he could tell. She got in the car and took off out of the parking lot almost as fast as Mr. Maltese had done.

Now, here Coyote was, still under the blanket on the floor between the front and back seats of Miss Fairchild's car. She'd driven a pretty long time over roads that were b.u.mpy sometimes. She'd turned a few corners, and he'd lost track of what direction they must be going after a while. Finally, she pulled over to the side of the road and turned the car off. Coyote waited a couple of minutes after she got out of the car before poking his head up very slowly and carefully from behind the seat. What he saw made him slip back onto the floor again while he tried to figure out where they were.

Coyote was sure he'd never been in this place. He didn't even know where it could be. He didn't think they'd driven far enough to be all the way to another city like Troy, but what he'd seen just nowa"big houses with wide lawns and very tall treesa"sure didn't look like the Albany he was used to. He'd heard about where rich people lived. He hadn't been to any of those places in person, till now. He wasn't going to get out of this car here, that was for sure. He'd be spotted straight off for not belonging. He was in enough trouble already without asking for more.

He did peek up over the bottom of the window again. The car was parked next to a high wall with bare vines all over it. Branches from big trees reached over the wall. Then he saw Miss Fairchild. She was at the far end of the wall from where she'd parked the car. What she was doing made Coyote's eyes open extra wide.

She'd taken hold of one of the tree branches hanging over the wall and was trying to hoist herself up on it by walking her feet from stone to stone. She didn't make it very far before she slipped and b.u.mped into the wall.

Coyote couldn't see her face, but he'd bet it hurt when she hit the stones. He'd just about decided he had to get out of the car and try to help her when he saw somebody come around the corner of the wall.

The man walked up behind Miss Fairchild and grabbed her arm. They talked for a minute, and Coyote saw her try to pull away, but the man didn't let go. He led her away after that, back around the far corner of the wall and out of sight. From the way Miss Fairchild was being pulled along, Coyote could tell she was in trouble. No matter how much he wanted to stay here hiding in the car, he knew he had to do his best to find out where they were and what was happening to this nice lady who did so much to help so many people.

VIc HADN'T BEEN here in a long time. Still, the minute he stepped through the door, he was straight back in the middle of it all again, just as if he'd never left, and wondering if his reason for coming was really important enough to put himself through this. Nothing had changed much, at least not in terms of his feelings about this place and what it stood for as far as he was concerned. Those feelings were as uncomfortable and agitated as ever, especially when the woman he saw in his thoughts every day came hurrying through the double doors from the living room with her arms open wide to embrace him.

"Victor, I am so glad to see you," she said.

The wideness of her smile shone with the truth of her words, and her eyes were bright with tears. Vic kept his gaze level and over her head so he wouldn't have to see the joy in her face as she ran into his arms.

"I'm glad to see you, too, Ma."

He felt tears of his own fill his throat. He hugged his mother until she pushed herself out of his arms and gazed up at him. As he looked at her, he noted with surprise that her blue-gray eyes were almost the same shade as Katherine's.

His thoughts drifted to the evening before and to the sight of Katherine, eyes wide and shining and hair spread out on his pillow.

He smiled to himself, remembering his hurt when he thought she'd left the hotel without a word to him, and then his overwhelming happiness when he'd found her note, which had slipped beneath the edge of the bed. He'd called the center, only to learn she was already in the board meeting, and by the time he'd arrived, she was busy in her office. He'd had the pleasure of watching her unnoticed for a moment, then had headed down the hallway with more energy than usual as he went to work.

He hoped his mother, who was still gazing at him, couldn't read his mind.

"You are so very handsome, my son," she was saying with such obvious pride Vic was afraid she'd have him blushing soon.

"I've missed you."

She said that simply, without any accusation in her voice.

He felt a pang of guilt all the same.

"I've missed you, too, Ma."

She could have jumped on that with both feet just by asking why, if he missed her so much, he didn't ever come to see her. She didn't do that. She wasn't the kind of mother who tried to make her children feel bad. She also wasn't the kind of woman who whined or complained.

Katherine was like his mother in that way, too.

"Your father also misses you."

Whatever softness and sentiment Vic had begun to feel cut off sharply when his mother said that.

"I don't miss him," he said.

His mother closed her eyes for a moment, probably because his words had hurt her. He'd had to say them anyway.

"Still, you've come here to ask him for something," his mother said.

Her manner was more subdued now than when she first came hurrying toward Vic.

"What makes you think that?" he asked.

"You always hold your head a certain way when you are going to ask your father for something. You have a defiant expression on your face. It has always been the same."

"I've hardly ever asked him for anything."

Vic heard himself sounding like every belligerent, rebellious kid there ever was. He wanted her to understand he was more than that, but he didn't know quite how to do it.

"I know all too well that you have come to your father for very little in your life, which makes those occasions all the more vivid to me," she said.