Torn. Part 6

The air-conditioning raised sudden goose b.u.mps on my arms. "That's crazy. n.o.body cares about me."

"I do. Your mother does."

"I mean n.o.body . . ." I gestured helplessly. "n.o.body bad."

"It's common sense. I made a promise to your parents and I'll not go back on my word, Mo. Whether you like it or not, I have an obligation to protect you." He raised a hand, beckoned toward the counter for a fresh cup of coffee.

"Protect me how?" I set my gla.s.s down and folded my arms across my chest.

The guy from the bar appeared silently at Uncle Billy's side, his expression cool and steady. He nodded at me once, and turned to my uncle. Seeing him face-to-face, I knew, absolutely, he wasn't just a regular customer. He was a complication. A big one.

"Mo, meet Colin Donnelly. Your bodyguard."

CHAPTER 7.

"Close your mouth, Mo. Something will fly in there." I pressed my lips together and glared at Uncle Billy, at the guy, and back at my uncle again.

"For your own protection," he said soothingly.

I slumped down, unimpressed. I'd barely noticed the guy when I came in. If he was going to protect me, he could at least bother to look intimidating instead of bored. Handsome, in a rough, hardened way, but definitely bored, with a hint of cranky. His light brown hair was cut close, and his eyes, dark and hard, took my measure and seemed to find me insignificant. Even in the heat, he wore cargo pants and a white cotton shirt, untucked, with the sleeves rolled up.

"I don't need protection. I'm starting school again. What's he going to do, follow me around St. Brigid's? He looks a little old for AP Chem." I narrowed my eyes. College chem, or even grad school, maybe. But something in the way he stood, watchful and perfectly still, told me he'd learned from experience, not books.

I studied him, the carved look of the muscles in his forearms and the way the shirt strained slightly across his shoulders. His hands were large and capable looking, nicked and scarred. He met my eyes, and my cheeks heated. Maybe I'd underestimated him.

Uncle Billy nodded. "You can go about your normal life, Mo. He'll take you to school and work, drive you home, and keep an eye on you until you're tucked in for the night."

The blush spread. "n.o.body's tucked me in for years."

"Regardless. It's just for when you're out and about. Maybe if you'd had Donnelly with you . . ." He didn't finish the sentence, and I didn't correct him, even though my fingers clenched the gla.s.s until my knuckles turned white.

"This is silly," I said. My voice sounded desperate, even to my own ears. "n.o.body's after me. It's a waste of time and money. Everyone's going to notice him! How do I explain it to people at school?"

"You don't. Hold your head up and go about your business." He eyed me with the same calculating look he used on horses at the track. "Your name might be Fitzgerald, but you're a Grady underneath, and we don't explain." He was getting the look, the one that sent braver souls than me running for cover.

"What about my privacy? I don't want someone following me-"

"Enough." Uncle Billy slapped his open hand on the table, making the silverware jump and his coffee cup rattle in its saucer. "Your mother is terrified, Maura Kathleen, and you disappearing at the funeral was the last straw. I won't allow my sister to spend her days waiting for the call to come and identify what is left of your body. Until I say otherwise, Donnelly is watching out for you. Not another word on the matter."

Something was off. Uncle Billy was controlling, but this seemed a little over-the-top, even for him. My uncle was used to my mom's overreactions. But he usually talked her down, rea.s.sured her-which is the only way I'd been able to go to junior prom last year. If Uncle Billy was hiring someone to watch me, it wasn't because my mom was worried. He had reasons of his own. And I'd bet a summer's worth of tips he wouldn't tell me.

Throughout Uncle Billy's tirade, Colin stood, hands behind his back, eyes fixed on the table between us.

"Now. Shake hands and say h.e.l.lo like the polite young lady you were raised to be."

I was nearly vibrating with fury and humiliation. How dare he treat me like a five-year-old in front of this guy. But I stuck out my hand, and Colin took it for an instant. His skin rasped against mine, calloused and rough. The contact was over before I finished stammering, "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise." The slightest grimace ghosted the corner of his mouth, and it hit me-Colin no more wanted to guard me than I wanted to be guarded. No doubt watching out for a Catholic schoolgirl from the South Side ranked pretty low on the bodyguard totem pole.

I slid out of the booth. "I need to go," I said. "Errands."

"We'll take my truck," said Colin.

"They're close. I can walk."

He shrugged. "We can walk."

Uncle Billy stood and gave me a hug and quick kiss on the cheek, his way of letting me know the storm was over. "It's for the best, love," he whispered.

Outside, the heat and light slammed into me like a wall, but I didn't slow down.

Colin kept pace with me, wordlessly.

"I don't need a babysitter," I tossed out as we pa.s.sed the dry cleaner's on the corner.

"And I don't need the att.i.tude. Listen, kid, I'm not here to make you miserable. Go to the mall, get your nails done, spend six bucks on a cup of coffee, whatever it is you do. I'll stay out of the way. You won't even know I'm there."

Right. n.o.body would notice the hot guy with the permanent scowl following my every move. Business as usual.

"I don't go to the mall," I snapped. "And you don't get to call me kid. How old are you, anyway? Twenty-two?"

"Old enough to know it's pointless arguing with your uncle about this. In case you haven't noticed, Billy tends to get what he wants."

"And what I want doesn't matter."

"Depends on what you want, I guess." He glanced behind us as we walked. "Seems like personal safety should be pretty high on your list right now."

Should be, but wasn't. Finding Verity's killers was the highest thing on the list. Everything else was a very, very distant second. I didn't bother to explain that to Colin, though. "And for the record? I don't drink lattes. Or get my nails done."

Colin looked at me for a moment before nodding. It struck me that the people I seemed to be spending the most time with lately were either family or on Uncle Billy's payroll. The thought made me feel even more sullen.

"So this is what you do?" I asked, injecting as much condescension into my voice as I could manage. "Play bodyguard?"

He stepped in front of me, blocking my path, and walked slowly toward me, face darkening. I took an involuntary step back, and another. And another. He kept coming until I was pressed against the wall of the auto parts shop. "I'm not playing. You might be a smart-a.s.s kid, but your uncle's worried about you. Do you really think he'd hire someone who was only playing?"

I swallowed and stared at the collar of his shirt, the pulse beating at his throat. If I'd thought before that he was harmless or average, clearly I was delusional, or he was a h.e.l.l of a poker player. He zeroed in on me with an intensity that made me forget how to breathe. A spark of fear, and something else, ignited in my chest.

"No."

"d.a.m.n straight." He stepped back, and I gulped down air.

He gestured toward the bank. "After you."

We started off again, and I discreetly wiped my damp palms on my skirt.

"I work construction for your uncle," he said after a minute, easy and conversational. "Carpentry. When I'm not babysitting."

I tried to match his tone. "Which one is your real job?"

"Whichever one pays the bills at the end of the month." He shrugged a little. "Your uncle's been good to me. He needed help, and I was happy to step up."

Yeah. He seemed thrilled. I wanted to ask how, precisely, Uncle Billy had been good to him, but we'd arrived at the bank. He waved me toward the ATM line. "See you when you're done."

I waited my turn in line, sneaking glances at Colin every now and then. He leaned against a nearby bus shelter, holding an open copy of the Sun-Times as his eyes swept the street, pretty much nonstop. I could almost feel his gaze slide over me, but he never made eye contact. I had to admit it-he was un.o.btrusive.

He followed me through the grocery store but stayed far enough back that I only spotted him when I really looked. By the time I was done, he was already outside again, reading the sports section.

"Here." I thrust the heaviest of the bags at him.

"Not in my job description."

"I can't carry all of them," I said. "If someone tries to kill me, I give you permission to drop the bag."

He snorted. "We done yet?"

I nodded.

"Back to the truck." He jerked his head toward the diner, and I went, handing him two bags as I did.

I'm pretty sure I managed to keep the smirk off my face, at least until he couldn't see me. For a moment, it felt as if light had broken through the sticky layers of grief and anger suffocating me, like I was a normal girl, joking with a cute boy on a summer afternoon. And then the light vanished, because how could I feel that way with Verity gone?

Colin walked next to me the entire way back to the diner, silent and watchful. He was a problem. How could I track down Verity's killers if he was always two feet away? He'd tell my uncle, and then I wouldn't need a bodyguard, because I'd be locked in my room. Yeah, definitely a problem.

We arrived at the truck, a dented and rusting red Ford, and Colin dumped the groceries in the back, next to a gleaming steel toolbox with a lock the size of my fist. Whatever Uncle Billy was paying him, it wasn't in the same league as Elsa. Apparently keeping me out of jail was more important than keeping me alive. It was a b.i.t.c.hy thing to think, much less say, so I pressed my lips together and clambered into the cab. It was smaller than I expected, and the bench seat was covered with gray cloth. The interior smelled like coffee and wood shavings. On the seat lay a battered copy of a Steinbeck novel.

Colin climbed in a moment later and angled forward, pulling a gun out from the small of his back, under his shirt.

For the second time since I'd met him, my jaw dropped. He did something to the handle of the gun and tucked it into the glove compartment. Settling back in his seat, he put the key into the ignition and pinned me with eyes so dark they looked like obsidian.

"Don't. Touch," he growled. "Got it?"

I very carefully didn't move.

"I'll take that as a yes." He started the truck.

"You have a gun?" Stupid question. It was sitting six inches away from me on the other side of a flimsy piece of plastic. I pressed farther back into the seat. He didn't answer.

"Does my uncle know?" His look clearly implied that if I were this dumb, it might be better to let the bad guys get me.

"Of course he does," I said, answering my own question. "Handguns are illegal in the city, you know."

Colin took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel, no doubt to keep from strangling me. I tried again. "Guns are dangerous."

"That's the point. It'll be better if you don't mention this to your mom."

"You think?" I snarked. "You know how to use it, right?"

"I've got a pretty good idea." He twisted the key in the ignition, a little more forcefully than necessary.

"Have you ever shot anyone?"

A muscle in his jaw jumped. He didn't answer, which was not comforting. Then again, a gun might be handy when I found Verity's killers. For protection.

I eyed the glove compartment. "Will you teach me how to shoot it?"

"No."

"If people are after me, I should be able to defend myself."

"No."

"But I-"

"Mo." We stopped at a light and he glanced over at me. "If someone gets close enough that you need a gun to defend yourself, they will have gotten past me. And if they've gotten past me, a gun isn't going to help you." His expression was serious but not worried, as if something like that occurring were an impossibility.

The thing was, I'd seen enough impossibilities recently to not feel rea.s.sured. The light changed, and he turned instead of going straight.

"You're going the wrong way," I said. "It's faster to take Western to 91st."

He checked the mirrors. "I know."

"Aren't we going home?" I was kind of eager to escape all the coiled-up tension in the car.

"We're taking a different route."

"Why?"

"You take the same way home every day, don't you?"

"I take the bus. I'm kind of stuck."

"You're done with the bus," he said. "And we're going to vary your routes, keep your movements unpredictable."

"You don't know me very well, do you?" I was pretty much the definition of predictable-or I had been, anyway.

"Nope." He smiled thinly as we pulled up in front of the house. "But I'm going to."

I reached for the door handle, unsure how to respond. "Thanks for the ride," I said, when it looked like he was getting out. "I can get the groceries in."

"I need to see the house," he replied.