“Now get into bed,” he said, and she giggled. The bandage on her arm looked enormous on her thin arm, and there was still blood seeping through, and it was starting to hurt. The anesthetic had worn off. She slid into her bed between the sheets, and he sat down on the bed next to her and stroked her hair, and then he bent down and kissed her gently on the lips. She was startled but it felt natural and right to her. The effect on him was searing, but he had no intention of following through now. The night had been too traumatic, for her, worrying about the store, and for him, terrified she would be killed once he knew where she was. “That’s all you get tonight,” he said with a smile, as she smiled up at him. “You’re an amazing woman. But you can’t do it all yourself. We’ll talk about everything tomorrow.” He kissed her again, and then he went to sit in a chair, before he could do something he might regret later, and stretched his legs out ahead of him to watch her sleep. He didn’t want to leave her and she didn’t mind his being there. She liked it. She opened her eyes once or twice to make sure he was still there. He didn’t say anything, he just watched her as she drifted back to sleep and he sat in the chair to be sure she was all right, and eventually he dozed off too, exhausted after the traumatic evening, and worried about her.
Mike woke up with a start with the sun streaming into the room, and a little blond boy in pajamas staring at him. Mike smiled at him, and whispered to him so they didn’t wake Spencer, who was sleeping soundly.
“Hi, I’m Mike. I’m a friend of your mom’s.”
“I’m Axel. Do you like pancakes?” Mike followed him out of the room, so they didn’t disturb his mother, and Axel’s identical twin was waiting for him on the stairs. Mike went down to the kitchen with them, where Francine was making pancakes and looked at Mike in surprise. She didn’t question who he was but could guess his presence was related to the shooting. She had assumed that Spencer had gone to meet with police once she knew she was out.
“Did everything turn out okay last night?” she asked Mike. She had seen the news on the TV in her room but it wasn’t over yet when she turned it off.
“Relatively. It was quite a scene.” He didn’t want to go into detail in front of the boys. “I’m Mike, by the way.” The boys chattered all through breakfast, and showed him their car collection, and he tried hard but couldn’t tell them apart. He wrote Spencer a note, peeked into her room, saw that she was still asleep, and left it next to her bed. He said goodbye to Francine and the boys and took a cab back to his apartment. It was still early, and Zack was still asleep. Mike showered and dressed and left for the office. He knew Zack could get up by himself now. He kept thinking about Spencer, braving the scene last night. He didn’t know how he would do it, but he had to find a deal that worked for her, at least to help her move the store to a safer location. He couldn’t let go of wanting to protect her. He had no idea how he’d do it, but he had to. And as he took a cab to his office, the one thing he knew was that when he kissed her the night before, he meant it. He wanted to do that since the first trip he’d met her. And he’d been so relieved that she had survived the night before that he didn’t hold back anymore.
Chapter 13
The aftermath of the drug war on the Brooke’s doorstep was much more complicated to deal with than the results of the fire. When Spencer woke up, the boys had already left for school. She read the note Mike had left on her night table. All it said was “Please take it easy today. Love, Mike.” She called Marcy as soon as she was awake enough to ask what was happening.
“We closed the store. We got a company in that specializes in cleaning up crime scenes. Five men died on the main floor last night, and one made it up the stairs and died in Men’s Shoes. The carpet there is shot.”
“I was there right after they took out the bodies,” Spencer said calmly.
“How did you get in?”
“Through the windows. I went down there while they were still shooting. I went in right after, but the police wouldn’t let me stay.” She didn’t tell Marcy she’d been injured. “I’m sorry I overslept today. What are you doing about the windows?”
“Having them replaced. It’ll take a week, so they’re boarding them up now. Paul wants a meeting,” she said ominously. “Are you coming in?”
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” Spencer promised. She was surprised to find that her legs were shaky as she took a shower and dressed, and she felt weak. The night had taken more of a toll than she expected. And her arm was throbbing. She’d had to keep it out of the shower because of the stitches. She texted Mike on her way to work and thanked him for staying with her the night before.
When she got to the store, it was eerily quiet. The special cleaning crew was hard at work, cleaning up the bloodstains, another crew was cleaning up the broken glass, and store employees were collecting the ruined merchandise. Paul and Marcy were waiting for her in Paul’s office. Paul looked acutely worried.
“We have some decisions to make,” he said, as soon as she sat down. She had worn a long-sleeve sweater, so they didn’t see her bandage. She had had to throw the denim jacket away at the hospital. The nurses had cut it to shreds, and it was stained with blood. “It’s not a conversation anymore. We have to give up this location. It’s done. I know you love it, Spencer, but it’s not safe anymore. No one will come here after last night.” She didn’t argue with him. She knew he was right. “For now, we need to find a temporary location. Marcy has been researching it this morning. It’s going to be costly, but we don’t have a choice. Even though Brooke’s had nothing to do with the shooting, we’ll be associated with it, and men died in the building. That’s the kiss of death to any store, especially one like ours.” Spencer nodded again.
“I know none of us want to, but I think we need to sell the building. We can stay in a temporary location until then, use the money from the sale, and borrow the rest to buy a new building. I think it’s the only way we can manage it. With luck, we’ll find something with personality and charm. But I think even your grandfather would have agreed, this location is finished for us. Competing in retail is hard enough today, staying in a dangerous place is suicide. If the gangs are moving in here, and apparently they are, we’re done.” Paul looked somber as he said it.
“I think the plan makes sense,” Spencer said quietly. Both of them were surprised that she put up no resistance. She knew when they’d been beaten by events. “How fast do you think we’ll find a temporary location?”
“I don’t know. Marcy and I called every commercial realtor in the city this morning. There’s one possibility in Soho on lower Broadway. There’s nothing uptown right now. And downtown is more expensive, it’s in higher demand. Given who our customers are, we’ll be better off uptown. They’ve been coming downtown for years. Maybe it’s time we make things easier for them, and it will bring a flock of new customers.”
“How much do you think we’ll have to borrow?” she asked Paul.
“It depends on what we find. But it’ll cost us a lot.”
“Can we afford it?”
“We’ll have to. If we open our online shopping soon, and broaden our client base with a new location, then we can. In a way, this location has been holding us back.”
“We have an appointment to see the location on Broadway this afternoon,” Marcy told her. “I’ll go with you.”
When they went to see it, it was brutally ugly, in need of repairs, poorly located, too small, and shockingly expensive.
Mike called her when she got back to the office. Sounding discouraged, she told him about the temporary store they’d just seen and how bad it was, and how expensive.
“I called some people too,” Mike said. “It seems as though there’s nothing available right now. I only inquired about uptown.”
“We asked about both. Paul wants to put our building on the market. I hate to sell it. And it will be harder to sell now, except for some other purpose. He doesn’t think we have a choice.”
“You don’t.” Mike sounded sympathetic.
“I want to go over the numbers of your offer with you again,” she said somberly. She sounded as though she was walking to the guillotine, and he felt terrible about it.
“Don’t do that if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t, but I have no choice, do I? We’re going to have to buy an expensive building, and probably won’t get a lot for ours. Having a bunch of drug dealers shoot each other right in our store doesn’t exactly increase the value of the real estate. We have to be realistic if we want Brooke’s to survive,” she said. He could hear the sadness in her voice.
“Why don’t you take a few days and let the dust settle before we talk numbers again,” he said. “Keep looking at temporary locations. And I’ll see what turns up at my end. I’ll ask my father. Sometimes he knows about some interesting deals. Between the two of us we know all the big commercial real estate brokers. Something will turn up. Are you going to reopen downtown in the meantime?”