Protect Me, Love Page 15

  Her fingers touched the lump and circled it carefully. She was so intent on checking for any break in the skin or sign of blood and so relieved to find none that she didn’t notice right away how tenderly he was smiling down at her. His dark hair was tousled from her pulling his cap off, and a thick lock had fallen across his forehead. Her fingers moved from behind his ear to lift that lock and smooth it gently back into place. He smiled more tenderly still, and she felt herself drifting into the spell of that smile.

  “Welcome to Kavehaz,” a friendly voice said from just beyond the soft cloud of Delia’s reverie. “May I take your things?”

  She turned slowly toward the young man in black who stood smiling expectantly next to them. What things could he be talking about, and why would he want to take them? Fortunately, Nick was apparently less entranced than she. He’d already begun unwinding her scarf Delia came back to her senses enough to help out by removing her other glove, stuffing it into her pocket and unbuttoning her coat. Her cap was the last to come off. She’d had her hair tucked up underneath. It tumbled free now, dampened into wavy strands around her face, oblivious to how hard she’d worked over the years to tame it straight and smooth. Nick was still beaming down at her. He’d taken off his own gloves by now and reached up to touch her cheek.

  “You are absolutely beautiful,” he said.

  Delia forgot all about the waiter then and gazed up into Nick’s ruddy, handsome face and glowing eyes.

  “So are you,” she whispered.

  The waiter cleared his throat, but when Delia recalled his presence enough to glance his way he didn’t look the least bit impatient. He was still smiling. She glanced around the restaurant, as well. Nobody was watching, and if they had been, Delia suspected they’d be smiling, too. This was Soho, after all, perhaps more amenable than places farther uptown to unorthodox behavior, such as lovers lost in gazing into each other’s eyes even before they’d taken off their coats. Delia liked this place already, even before she looked around farther and saw how pleasant it was.

  What caught her attention first was the art on the walls, paintings and photographs so well executed and interesting that she was tempted to walk over and look at then more closely. However, Nick had taken her arm and was guiding her along in the waiter’s wake. Comfortable-looking couches faced each other across a long coffee table in the front of the room. A young woman with blond, straight hair down her back sat on one of the couches sketching on a large pad, a glass of wine on the coffee table in front of her. Delia was fascinated. She would have liked to peek to see what the artist was working on, but the waiter had already led them beyond the couches to a cozy, marble-topped table near the wall.

  After being seated, Delia took a moment to settle into the charm of the place—soft lighting over the bar, another grouping of couches toward the back of the café where several people, all fashionably dressed in lowkeyed downtown style, chatted among themselves. White pinlights here and there were a subtle but cheerful reminder of the holiday season. Delia allowed herself to relax for what felt like the first time in almost forever. She almost forgot about being a fugitive from a former life, and about being stalked. She even almost forgot what she’d been so eager to tell Nick before they’d collided in front of the Tivoli.

  “Oh, yes,” she exclaimed. “You’ll never guess what happened.”

  She was only partly aware of gushing somewhat girlishly or of how incongruous that was with what she had to say. Meanwhile, Nick was still smiling at her across the candlelit table.

  “I think I know who put that guy on my tail last night,” she continued. “I just saw her down at the Seaport.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nick stared at her across the narrow table. He’d put out of his mind for a while how mad she’d made him by slipping off on her own. Now that tight, hot feeling was right under his surface again. He vowed to keep it there.

  “The Seaport? Are you talking about South Street Seaport? What were you doing down there on a night like this? The place must have been completely deserted.”

  “It was. The snow made it look like a white desert on a riverbank.”

  Nick ignored the poetic description. “Delia, you know better than this. A deserted spot is the most dangerous place of all for you to be.”

  “I know that, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

  Worry was too small a word for what she’d put him through. And, once again, he found himself doubting her words. She knew exactly how he’d react to knowing she was off somewhere in the night by herself. She knew that would drive him crazy, and he had a hard time believing she hadn’t meant it to happen. He wondered, as he had too many times before, just how much truth there was in some of the things she said to him.

  “So, what were you doing down there? Thinking about taking a boat tour of the harbor?” He couldn’t help the sarcasm.

  She looked at him in that studying way she had. She was doing it again, he could tell, deciding how much of the real story she wanted to tell him. He sighed and let his exasperation be tempered by how beautiful she was with her hair a halo of candlelight and her cheeks still rosy from her trek through the snow. She looked up then at the waiter hovering nearby. Nick had been gazing directly into her eyes. He was relieved to have the spell of that gaze broken for a moment. He found it difficult to think sensibly around her too much of the time, and sensible thinking had to be top priority here.

  “Let’s order,” he said, picking up the menu.

  Whatever she was or wasn’t going to tell him wouldn’t change in the few minutes it took to satisfy the waiter and send him on his way. Besides, Nick was hungry. He was a hearty eater most of the time, and meals had been few and far between since he hooked up with Delia. He was surprised at how little that had bothered him. He must have been living on something else besides food. He wasn’t yet ready to think about exactly what that something might be.

  “The cooking’s good here,” he said.

  She nodded as she read through the menu one item at a time.

  “I feel like I’m having my first meal after a long fast, and I have to be very particular about what I choose,” she said.

  He didn’t answer though he felt a little of that himself. He guessed her real priority was to divert his attention from the Seaport question for as long as possible. He ordered fast as a signal he wasn’t about to be taken in by that tactic.

  “I’ll take the grilled chicken,” he said.

  The waiters here usually spieled off a list of specials at about this time, including just about every ingredient used in preparing each dish. Something in Nick’s attitude must have alerted their waiter against doing that, because he simply jotted down Nick’s order on a pad then turned toward Delia.

  “What’s on the pâté plate?” she asked.

  Nick sat on his impatience the best he could while the waiter described the mixed salad, special mustard and whatever else came with the damned pâté. Why would she want to eat liver on a night like this, anyway?

  “That sounds fine,” she said at last. “I’ll have the pâté plate.”

  She handed her menu to the waiter then turned back to Nick. Her smile seemed to brighten the candlelight and almost threw him off course in his determination to get this conversation back on track.

  “I wanted to order something I don’t often have because this feels like such a special night.” Her smile beamed even brighter.

  She’s good, Nick thought. She has the makings of a first-class con artist.

  Of course, that’s pretty much what she’d been these past five years. He didn’t like to admit to himself what pretending on a full-time basis could have done to her basic sense of honesty. Unfortunately, he had to remain aware of exactly that and not forget it for a minute. Keeping her alive could depend on figuring out the difference between her truths and her not-so-truths. Whatever else about himself might be affected by whether or not he could trust her was yet another area he wasn’t ready to get
into.

  “Do you come here much?” she was asking.

  Nick almost didn’t answer. He could cut her off instead. The abruptness of his response all but did that.

  “Once in a while but not too often,” he said. “I go everywhere once in a while but not too often.”

  “Is that your habit with relationships, too?”

  He’d been about to snap her back to her Seaport story, but her question and the sincere way she asked it took him totally by surprise.

  “I don’t have any relationships,” he said before he could think if he really wanted to be that candid, or sound that pathetic, either.

  She reached across the table, past the bud vase of fresh flowers and the glassware twinkling with reflections of candle flame. She took his hand, and Nick was lost. His barrier of determination began to dissolve as surely as sugar would dissolve in the Ceylon tea she’d ordered to go with her pâté. She didn’t say anything for a while. She just sat there with her hand gently covering his. She wasn’t looking at him, only into the candle flame. Finally she spoke in a voice barely loud enough for him to hear.

  “I know you want to talk about where I went tonight and why I went there. I’m going to tell you all of that now.”

  Nick almost turned his hand over to grab hers, but he understood he mustn’t disturb the delicacy of this moment. He also understood that she’d made her decision. He could only hope that decision was to trust him. As for himself, her closeness and the touch of her hand was having such a profound effect on him that he had to concentrate on not leaping up from his chair to take her in his arms. His heart was slamming so hard in his chest he wondered if she could hear it.

  “I received a message earlier, when I picked up my mail,” she began.

  Nick forced himself not to jump in with the many questions that came to mind.

  “It was an invitation to a meeting tonight at the Seaport. It wasn’t signed.”

  And you went anyway? Nick wanted to shout, but he didn’t.

  “I know it seems crazy for me to have run off down there by myself on the strength of that alone,” she said, as if she might have read his mind. “But the card in my mail referred to me by a nickname only my father used. A private name between just the two of us.”

  “But your father’s dead.” The words popped out before Nick could stop them.

  “Not for me,” she said even more quickly. “In my heart, he’s still very much alive. That’s what I found out last night when I got the glass angel as a gift. It’s so like one he gave me when I was a little girl.”

  Again, Nick wanted to bolt out of his seat and embrace away the sadness that was so audible even in her very quiet voice.

  “Don’t be sad for me,” she said, once more as if she’d divined his thoughts. “It’s a good thing really, in a way. I’d kept myself from thinking about my father for so long that I’d all but lost him. I feel like I’ve got him back again.”

  Nick did turn his hand over now. He closed her smaller hand gently into his larger one, and she let him do so. The candlelight glistened in what might have been tears at the corners of her eyes. He wished he didn’t have to press her further.

  “But it wasn’t your father at the Seaport, was it?” he asked as tenderly as he could.

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Then who was it? You said you recognized somebody there.”

  Delia sighed and pulled her fingers away from his. All of a sudden, his hand had never felt so empty before.

  “There were two people actually,” she said, “but I only saw one of them clearly. The first was just a reflection in the front of a telephone. I’m only certain it was a man. Maybe it was the guy from the Waldorf, maybe not. He ran away when he saw the other one coming across the street toward us.”

  “What other one?”

  “The woman.”

  Nick couldn’t help being impatient for the details. What woman? What woman? he wanted to shout. Delia’s subdued manner kept him from speaking. She’d been so bright and buoyant when they arrived here. She’d lost that brightness now. Nick wished he could carry her back to those elated moments and rearrange the world so she could stay there. Unfortunately, all he could do was listen and allow her to tell her story at her own pace.

  “The woman was Penelope Wren,” Delia said next. “Did you know her?”

  “From Denver?” Nick searched his memory. The name did sound familiar.

  Delia nodded. “She was Tobias Wren’s wife.”

  “I remember now. I dealt with Tobias, but I didn’t have much to do with her. That’s why I didn’t recognize the name right off.”

  The Wrens had been the caretaker couple at the Lester estate. As Nick recalled, Tobias was in charge of the grounds, and his wife was in charge of the house. They’d taken charge of Rebecca, as well, after her father and stepmother were killed. Edward Lester’s will provided for the Wrens to do that.

  “Are you sure it was her?” Nick asked.

  “Absolutely positive. I saw her face very clearly. She looked exactly the same, and I have my reasons for not forgetting what she looked like.”

  “What reasons?”

  Nick had to wait for his answer till after the waiter, who had just returned, set their plates down in front of them.

  “I’ll never forget Penelope Wren or mistake somebody else for her,” Delia said when they were alone again, “because I’ve always suspected she and Tobias might have had something to do with framing me for Morty Lancer’s murder.”

  “Are you thinking the Wrens killed him?”

  “Not on their own, but they could have been paid by someone else to help out somehow, especially with making it look like I was the killer. The Wrens had copies of all the keys and free access to the house, more so than just about anybody else.”

  “I see.” That sounded a little more possible to Nick. As he remembered it, she was right about that unlimited access. “Didn’t they have a kid with medical problems that cost them a lot of money?” He was already thinking in terms of motive.

  Delia nodded with renewed vigor. “Exactly. And there’s something else I remember, too.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Penelope Wren is a small woman with very small hands, just like the ones that left prints on my windowsill.”

  “You’re right. She was very small.” Nick knew he had to be careful not to jump to conclusions, but this was the first real lead they’d had.

  “Unfortunately, I have no idea how to go about finding her again,” Delia said.

  “Well, first of all, we can assume she chose the Seaport as a meeting place because she knows the vicinity.” This was Nick’s area of expertise. Even though he was a bodyguard now, not a detective, he still thought like one. “She may live or work near there.”

  “That doesn’t narrow it down much. The Seaport is only blocks away from the financial district and hundreds of companies she could be working for.”

  “It’s not very likely that she’s a broker or a trader. We could try to track her down by way of what she might be instead, but before we do that there’s a much simpler place to begin. Come with me?”

  Nick got up from the table. Delia hesitated before following while she looked longingly at her dinner plate.

  “We’ll be right back,” Nick said. “We’re only going to the telephone.”

  She did follow him then, out of the table area, past the bar to an alcove between the dining room and rest rooms. There was a pay phone on the wall. Unfortunately, there was no phone book, as is so often the case with New York City public telephones. Nick picked up the receiver. When he heard the tone begin, he dialled 4-1-1 and waited till the Information operator answered.

  “Do you have a Penelope Wren in Manhattan, possibly in Lower Manhattan? And if she isn’t listed, could you please check for Tobias Wren?”

  Nick spelled out the last name then said what amounted to a silent prayer for the result they needed. Maybe it was the prayer that did the trick bec
ause when the operator came back on the line she said there was, in fact, a Penelope Wren listed on Water Street.

  “What street number would that be?” he asked.

  Sometimes Manhattan operators got impatient with being used as an address service. Sometimes they even refused to give out that information, but Nick’s prayer was apparently still in effect because this operator passed on the number he needed without so much as a hint of exasperation in her voice. Nick committed the address to memory along with the phone number that followed, from a recorded voice this time.

  “Bingo,” he said to Delia after he’d hung up the phone. “We’ve got her, and she does live in the Seaport neighborhood.”

  Delia smiled and nodded. “So, can we eat first before we go after her? I’m starved.”

  “We can definitely eat first,” Nick said.

  He was also thinking about some other things they could do first, when they got back to his hotel room, though he knew he shouldn’t be. As he watched the dance of candlelight in Delia’s eyes, Nick wondered if the search for Penelope Wren couldn’t wait until tomorrow. Delia’s slow smile made him wonder further if she might be feeling the same.

  EVEN BEFORE they left the café, Delia had begun to think about how much she wanted to touch him. She ate much faster than was usually her habit. Of course, usually she’d be eating alone and did so slowly to stretch out the time. She did that to make each meal feel at least a little like the social event it couldn’t be. Tonight was different. She cut the paté wedges with her fork and slipped them into her mouth almost one after the other. She tasted their deep, interesting flavor only slightly. She’d ordered this dish in an automatic throwback to times past, when she’d try to eat something out of the ordinary at a meal marking a special occasion, as if that would make the experience stand out even more in her mind. Tonight, however, her special delicacy turned out to be nothing but an obstacle between herself and the delicacy she really most wanted—a private place with Nick by her side.