I gave it to him, the index card with the address of my old apartment scribbled on it. A useless piece of paper, a misdirection. “Tomorrow night at ten.”
He turned and slipped through the open back door. I locked the door and, just as when he’d left last time, slid down the wall, but this was nothing like last time. He hadn’t touched me—or just barely—and I’d turned the tables on him. And I wasn’t going to let him push me around. If he tried to fuck things up with Colin, I’d deal with it.
A new Allie had emerged, neither slutty nor cowardly. A kick-ass Allie. Or a squeeze-balls Allie, at least. I hadn’t been afraid. All right, I’d been fucking terrified, but I was also angry and powerful and giddy. If only I could start breathing again, I wouldn’t pass out.
I’d figured out over the past couple of sleepless nights that I couldn’t betray Philip. I had no love for the man, none at all, but he was Colin’s brother. If the law came after Philip, they’d come after Colin too. There was no way I could protect Colin against that. Besides, I couldn’t ignore that Philip had helped me with Andrew. Sure, Colin had made him do it, but he’d still helped me. I wouldn’t bite the hand that fed me. These were street rules. Revenge was fair play, but going to the cops was always bad form. Whatever had happened with Tony Yates, I wasn’t going to let it go. I’d find out more and then decide what to do, but it wouldn’t endanger Colin.
Footsteps sounded outside, and I tensed. Shit, I was still on the floor, my teeth rattling like the crappy dryer in the Laundromat.
“Hello?” Linda’s cheery voice preceded the rattling of the locked door.
I let her in, still breathing hard, and the next thing I knew, I was slumped in strong arms and a plush chest.
“Oh dear,” she was saying. “It must be the heat, tiring you out.”
It was a breezy eighty degrees out, I wanted to say, but it didn’t matter. Besides, I rather liked this embrace. So different, so much softer than Colin’s, but just as warm.
She half carried me to the couch. I blinked at the ceiling until it stopped spinning.
I sat up. “I’m sorry.”
She patted my knee. I jumped, unused to touch that wasn’t sexual or violent. I wanted to pull away even as I wanted more. How very perverse of me.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
“Young lady, don’t you apologize to me. I’ll have none of that. Now, you need a drink of water. You sit right there, just sit.”
Sitting sounded great to me.
She disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a mug. I took a sip and spewed cold coffee across the coffee table. The grossest water ever.
“Oh!” she said. “Sorry, dear. I probably should have mentioned I found the coffee in the pot.”
“No,” I told her with a smack of my lips to hide my revulsion. “It was good. I needed a wake-up call.”
She beamed. “That’s what I thought. Where is the little darling?”
“She’s with her aunt.” I took another sip of the coffee and shuddered.
“Good, then.” She settled across from me. “Let me tell you a story.”
Yes, story time. I leaned back and closed my eyes, ready to hear about litter box antics or about an anniversary cruise to Alaska. Anything to distract me.
“When I was a young girl—oh, about ten or so—there was this boy that I liked very much. William was fourteen but small for his age, very quiet. He followed his two older brothers around wherever they went. It was a quiet town, it was, just west of the Adirondacks, and they were the troublemakers.”
This was even better. An honest-to-God, how-they-met story, complete with a happy ending. And a shy, little pseudo bad boy too. My whole body sighed into the cushions.
“The boys were fixing their usual, you know, tormenting this old mountain dog. They’d shove him in an old barrel and roll him down the hill, they did, and it showed. Messed him up in the head. He couldn’t even walk a straight line, and he’d pee himself. It wasn’t right, but who could stop them?”
Jesus Christ. My eyes had popped open over the course of this recitation. No, I hadn’t quite been expecting it. I wanted initials carved into an old oak tree that they later got married under, not psychopathic animal abuse.
“One day I get all riled up,” she continued, “saying how they can’t mess with the dog no more, no sir. Of course, they just pushed me around a bit and got right back to it, but then William let loose the dog and said that no, he wouldn’t let them hurt that dog no more and they couldn’t touch me neither.”
Oh. I sighed again. How romantic. Well, it was sad about the dog, but what a moment.
“You know what they did?” she said. “They put him in the barrel, William, they did, and rolled him down the hill.”
“What? Christ, tell me you’re joking!”