“I know. Just believe me when I say I'm going to take care of it. I'm going to handle this.”
“Vin—”
“You know I'm right. See you in a bit.” As they ended the call, he prayed she would go with the reasoning— and figured, given the conflict in her voice, that the math was adding up correctly in her mind.
This was good.
Instead of heading downtown to try to find that psychic he'd gone to for help when he was seventeen—which was what he'd intended to do—Vin spent the next hour in the living room, cleaning up pieces of glass and busted leather books and putting the couches and chairs back together. He even got out the vacuum and tried to resuscitate the carpet, making some inroads with the shards and absolutely none with the liquor stains. He had his phone with him the whole time, and when the text came through that Marie-Terese was on her way, he rolled the Dyson into the closet and jogged upstairs to change into a clean silk shirt.
He was almost on the way out of the bedroom when it dawned on him that he was still in the pans' and boxers he'd had on in jail.
Right. Back to the well.
Second trip out into the hall and he had on a sharp-ass pair of black slacks and some black boxer briefs. Changed his socks, too. Shoes were the same Bally loafers he'd been wearing for the past week. Her timing was perfect.
The home phone rang just as he hit the foyer, and he told the front-desk man to let her up. On the way to the door, Vin double-checked in the shattered mirror that he'd tucked his shirt in properly and his hair was looking okay—which was kind of girlie when he thought about it, but whatever.
Out in the corridor, the elevator arrived with a
Oh, man. She was gorgeous. Just in jeans and that deep red fleece, with her hair down and no makeup on, she was total pinup material to him.
“Hi,” he said, like an idiot.
“Hi.” She moved her purse farther up on her shoulder and her eyes shifted around to the open door of the duplex. As she got a load of his golden front hall, her brows lifted slightly.
“You want to come in?” He stepped to the side and motioned with his hand. “Be warned though…the place is a mess after…”
As she moved past him, he breathed in deep. What do you know. The scent of clean laundry was still his favorite perfume.
Vin shut the door, engaged the dead bolt, and put the chain in place. Which didn't seem halfway to safe enough: He had a heebie paranoia about Devina that made him wonder whether that kind of conventional stuff would keep her out of any place she wanted to go.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Not liquor, of course. At least, not in the living room. God knew there was none of it left there.
Marie-Terese headed toward the banks of glass. “This is quite a…” She hesitated as she came across a stain in the carpet and then looked around at the room and less at the view.
“It was even worse before I tried to clean it up a little,” he said. “Christ…I have no idea what happened here.”
“Why would your girlfriend lie?”
“Ex-girlfriend,” he reminded her.
Marie-Terese glanced into the broken mirror to meet his eyes, and the sight of her features all scrambled in the field of cracks freaked his shit out—to the point where he had to go over in hopes of getting her out of its torturous reflection.
As she turned to face him, her eyes were scared. “Vin…that man who was attacked. He was the one I helped in the bathroom—we went in together and talked about this girl he wanted to impress.” She put her hand over her mouth and trembled. “Oh, God…he was with me and then he…”
Vin went over and wrapped his arms around her, holding her closely. As she took a deep breath, he felt it from his thighs to his ribs, and goddamn it if he didn't want to kill to protect her.
“It can't be Mark,” she said into his shirt. “But what if he's sent someone to find me?”
“Come here.” He took her hand and started for the couch. But then, did he really want to talk to her amid the remnants of whatever violence had occurred?
Pausing, he thought about the study…but had memories of being with Devina on that fucking rug. Upstairs… yeah, right, the bedroom was a total no-go, and not just because asking Marie-Terese up there had letch connotations he didn't intend: too much Devina there as well.
Vin settled for the dining room table, walking her over and angling two chairs so that he could face her.
“You know,” she said as she put her purse down and they sat together, “I'm actually a tough cookie.”
He had to smile. “I believe that.”
“You just seem to have come along at a hard time.”
Vin extended his hand and touched one of the curled locks of hair by her face. “I wish I could do something to help.”
“I'm leaving Caldwell.”
His heart stopped. It was on the tip of his tongue to argue with her, but he didn't have that right— not by a long shot. Besides, he was hard-pressed to deny the decision: It was probably for the best. “Where will you go?” he asked.
“Anywhere. I don't know.”
In her lap, her hands tangled and twisted as if they were paralleling the thoughts in her mind. “Do you have enough money?” he asked, even though he knew what she was going to say.
“I'll be okay. Somehow…Robbie and I will be okay.”
“Will you let me help you?”
She shook her head slowly. “I can't do that. I can't…owe anybody else. I'm having a hard enougf time paying off the people I'm in debt to already.”
“How much do you owe them?”
“I have another thirty thousand to go,” she said, her hands stilling. “I started with about a hundred and twenty.”
“What if I gave it to you and you paid it back eventually? I'm sure they're charging interest—”
“A debt is a debt.” She smiled in a sad way. “There was a time when I hoped that some man would come in and rescue me from my life. And one did—except the rescue turned out to be a nightmare. Now I rescue myself— which means I pay my own way. Always.”
But thirty thousand dollars? Christ, that was couch change to him.
And to think she'd been working off all that money doing…
Vin squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Shit, he hated the pictures in his mind—even though they were mere hypotheticals for what she'd forced herself into, they lashed at him. And it would have been so easy for him to make it all go away for her—although he could see where she was coming from: Precisely that kind of savior routine had soured on her big-time, and the lesson had been too hard-learned to let go.
He cleared his throat. “What did the police say when you spoke to them just now?”
“They showed me a picture of the guy, and I told them I'd seen him at the club and talked with him. I was in a panic that some eyewitness had popped out of the bushes and said that they'd seen me going into the bathroom with him, but the cop didn't mention anything like that. And then…”
When there was a long pause, he had a feeling she was trying to choose her words.
He cursed softly. “Tell me you didn't say anything about being with me last night.”
She reached for his hands, holding them tightly. “That's why I'm leaving.”
As his heart seized up, he wondered if he shouldn't tell the thing to quit bothering to beat altogether. “You didn't. Oh, God…you should just stay out of—”
“When they asked me what happened after I talked with the guy, I told them that I left the club with one Vincent diPietro and that you and I were together all night long. From nine thirty to about four a.m.” When he would have jerked his hands back, she held them in place. “Vin, I've done enough in life to be ashamed of. I've let a man abuse me for years…even in front of my son.” Her voice cracked, but then grew strong. “I've whored myself out.
