Intimate Exposure

She didn’t even glance in his direction. Her determined mouth barely moved as she told him, “Then I better get to walking.” A stiff, late-September wind stirred her hair. She didn’t have a coat on, and that dress of hers, what passed for a dress, barely brushed the tops of her thighs.

Elliot watched as she hurried away, her hips rolling in her haste, legs moving swiftly past each other. Seeing a mother so concerned for her child’s well-being that she was willing to trot across town on heels too high for waitressing stirred something in him. “Shani, wait!”

She half turned, frowning at him for interrupting her pace.

He ran down the path, grasping her by the arms.

“Wait.”

She looked down at the hands he’d placed on her, brows together, and when he read on her face the indignation at being restrained by a second Bookman in one night, he let go. The lady had already proved she didn’t mind biting—and not in a good way.

“I have … to get … to my daughter,” she explained carefully. “Fast.”

The fear in her eyes made his heart constrict. “It’s too late. Too cold.”

“I don’t have a choice.” She resumed walking as though her pace had never been interrupted.

He wasn’t explaining himself right, dammit! “Wait!” As he stopped her again, she sucked in a breath. He was sure she was about to scream, so he talked fast. “Just give me ten seconds, all right?”

“Why?”

“I’ll take you.”

“What?”

He left her standing there and sprinted back to the kitchen. The Triumph wasn’t the best mode of transport for what he had in mind. He snagged his father’s car keys without a second thought and darted back outside.

The burgundy Lexus chirped a friendly welcome as he unlocked it. He rammed the keys into the ignition with less respect than such a machine deserved and, not even bothering to let it warm up, slammed it into gear and nosed it down to where she was waiting. As he drew alongside, her already-arched brows lifted just so much higher. He leaped out, opened the passenger door and bundled her in. She complied, more bewildered than anything else, letting him click her seat belt into place before he leaped back into his seat again and hit the gas.

She was staring at his face, still puzzled. “Why’re you doing this?”

Why, indeed? “Just trying to help,” he explained lamely. “I’d hate to know a child was sick and I didn’t do anything about it.”

“Oh.” She was still examining his face, but whether she was looking for an ulterior motive or asking herself what she’d done to deserve the random kindness of a stranger, he couldn’t tell. “Thank you.”

Again, that strange ache inside him, for her. What kind of sad creature was this, so unaccustomed to receiving kindness that it took her by surprise when she found it? And where was her husband, anyway? Shouldn’t he be doing this? “Besides,” he added, joking to relieve his tension, and hers, “I need brownie points in heaven. God knows I’ve racked up enough for the other team.”

She smiled weakly and relaxed into her seat. “Thank you,” she said again. It came from somewhere deep inside her.

“So, where to?” “Catarina.”

He nodded. They were already approaching Ventura, a pleasant neighborhood that formed a buffer between the genteel suburbs and the busy city. From there it was just a minute or two to the highway on-ramp. On an ordinary day, it would take maybe forty minutes to get to the heart of Santa Amata. But it was well after midnight on a Saturday, and, after all, this was a Lexus, not a station wagon. They made it in twenty.

He looked covertly over at her. Her eyes were taking in every detail of the custom interior of the vehicle, the lovingly polished wood finishing, the muted glow of the array of dials and screens that illuminated her face. He saw her extend one finger and slowly stroke the leather on which she was sitting, and he smiled. It gave him an irrational, childish pleasure to share this little luxury with her. He had a feeling her life wasn’t filled with much of that.

She spoke only to give directions, and he was grateful. Sometimes when you offered a person a ride, they felt obligated to make conversation, to fill the air with irrelevant chatter. She wasn’t the type to indulge in that nonsense, and he liked her for that.

Catarina was on the other side of Santa Amata, a slightly … more lived-in side of town. A few blocks beyond Independence Avenue, the city’s main artery, the streets grew narrower, the buildings just a shade shabbier. It was chilly—which reminded Elliot he didn’t have his coat on, either—but many of the bars had their doors thrown open, and he could hear music spilling out. Trees were beginning to shed their leaves; the wind danced with them in the street as cars swooshed past.

“Left on Bagley,” she told him, and he turned onto the street without a word. It was lined with brownstones and shop fronts. Most of the houses had small family businesses downstairs, with living quarters upstairs. The occasional building that rose past three or four floors looked out of place next to the squat two-story houses beside them.

“Here.” She pointed, and he pulled smoothly to the curb in front of one of the older buildings on the street. The bottom floor was occupied by a restaurant that was still open. A flickering sign above the door said Old Seoul in English, and, presumably, the same thing in Korean. The clinking of glasses and the sound of laughter spilled through the doors and open windows, and the scents of hot oil, fish and spicy meat reminded him that he’d turned up five hours late for dinner, more out of a desire to get on his father’s nerves than anything else. He was beginning to regret that decision.

Shani took out a bunch of large, cumbersome metal keys and unlocked a gate that was barely visible at the side of the restaurant. She let herself through it without a word to him, but he followed closely, up a flight of stairs that would have been better lit, if he’d had anything to say about it. They’d barely reached the first landing when there was a shout from below.

She stopped so fast he almost stumbled into her from behind.

“Shani!” The voice was below them but coming up fast. Elliot stopped shoulder to shoulder with Shani as she leaned over the rusting banister to see a small Asian man taking the stairs two by two. He was dressed in a colorful embroidered tunic with long square sleeves, way too elaborate for someone who was just kicking it on a Saturday night, so he guessed the man worked in, or more likely owned, the restaurant downstairs. “Special Delivery letter for you!”

She looked puzzled, and for a few moments she didn’t hold out her hand to take the proffered letter. She eventually did, turning it over so she could see the return address … and then the night went quiet. He knew that, logically, the music, laughter and chatter were still rising from downstairs. He knew the night owls were still hooting and cars were still rumbling past, but he couldn’t hear them. Because for the second time in less than an hour, he was seeing the blood leech out from under this sad woman’s dusky skin, and he didn’t like it.

The middle-aged man standing two steps below squinted at her through thick glasses. “You well?”

She nodded, but just barely. “I’m fine, Mr. Pak. Thank you.”

The man waited, Elliot waited, for her to tear open the envelope, to do something, but she held it in both hands and stared at it, weighed it, ran her fingers along the address label as if they were sensitive enough to feel the indentations of the printed letters, but she didn’t open it.

Eventually, Mr. Pak nodded and returned downstairs. After he was long gone … it could have been seconds, it could have been minutes … Shani still hadn’t made any move. Elliot watched her, not even pretending not to stare, taking full advantage of the fact that she was barely aware of his presence. Her dark skin had that mellow smoothness that came from good genes, although he could tell, too, that she groomed herself carefully. He was sure she did everything carefully.

She’d nervously licked off most of the frosty lipstick she’d been wearing, leaving her lips bare. The lower one was full, almost pouty, making him think of moist fruit. Her dark, straight hair had been neatly pinned up at the start of the evening, he guessed. Now it fell in wisps about her face. He found himself wanting to reach out, wind it up at the crown of her head and pin it back into place for her. He had to put his hands into his pockets to quell the impulse.

He brought his head close, stifling his curiosity to read the envelope that so mesmerized her, more interested in reading her eyes. But in them, he could see nothing. Gently, he called her name.

She looked up, startled to find him still there. “Huh?”

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

“Open what?”

He tapped the heavy paper object in her hands. “Your letter.”

She looked down at it again, contemplatively, and then shook her head. “I don’t have to. It’s from my attorney. I know what it says.”

Why was it that letters from attorneys never bore good news? How come nobody ever got a letter from an attorney saying congratulations, you just inherited three million dollars from an uncle you never knew you had?

He asked with a chill of anticipation, “What’s it say, then?”

Her eyes held his, and the agony in them kept him riveted. “It says I.” She tried again. “It says my divorce is final. My marriage is over.”

Chapter 3

No job. Sick daughter. And now … this. Shani read and reread the names and addresses on the envelope, both hers on the front and her attorney’s on the back. Inside it were the shredded, tattered, decomposing remnants of the past five years of her life. Knowing it was coming didn’t soften the blow any.

And a blow it was; a sucker punch to the gut that obliterated any fancified notions she might still be holding about Christophe and the love she’d had for him. Where was he anyway? Back home in Martinique, most likely. And, if she knew him—and she did—out celebrating his freedom in a Fort-de-France bar, or in the bed of some young Martiniquaise with more libido than sense.

She felt the cold rails of the balcony under her fingers, steadying her as she swayed. Aching so deep inside she wished she could reach in and tear out the organ that was causing her so much hurt. Her wedding band, a little loose these days since she’d lost a few pounds, constricted. If the vein in the fourth finger led directly to the heart, as the ancients believed, she wouldn’t need to rip her heart out. It would shrivel and die all on its own for lack of blood flow.

There was a movement next to her, a light hand on her forearm and a voice in her ear. “Shani.”