A Younger Woman

“Because I’m taking you to Charity Hospital.”

Margo’s eyes widened. She had no intention of going to the hospital. Gunshot wounds had to be reported. There would be a dozen questions to answer; a report would be filed. And what if the men chasing Blu were checking out the hospitals?

“No doctor. I won’t go!”

The quicksilver change in his eyes told Margo her hasty words had triggered his suspicion. “Why no doctor, Margo?”

She didn’t answer.

“Come on, baby. Why no doctor?”

Margo cleared her throat, and this time she was careful with her tone, as well as her choice of words. “I hate men in white coats, that’s why. They smell too clean and smile too much when there’s nothing to smile about. I don’t feel like playing twenty questions, either. The man who shot me is long gone by now.”

“Tell me about him.” It wasn’t a request, but a solid demand.

Margo raised her chin. “I didn’t get a good look at him. He wore an oversize hat that hid his face. I shouldn’t have fought with him. I know that now, but when I saw the gun I just reacted. I’ve been walking home every night since I started working at the Toucan. I guess a year without a confrontation made me careless.”

“So you were attacked? Mugged?”

“Yes.” Margo slipped into the lie easily. As often as Blu had schooled her in the art of swimming and fishing, he had lectured her on the value of a failsafe lie. That didn’t mean she enjoyed lying, or that she did it on a regular basis. But she was confident that, in the right situation, she could keep her eyes from blinking and her voice rock steady while she attempted to cheat the truth. “He wanted my purse. Ah…my money.”

“Where did this happen?”

“Near my apartment.”

“One block? Two?”

“Does it matter?”

He raised his thick brows. “You worked tonight, right?”

Margo hesitated. Ry hung out at the Toucan on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. This was Wednesday. Feeling confident, she said, “Yes, I just said so, didn’t I?”

He stared at her a long minute. “So this happened walking home from work around ten?”

“Are you losing your hearing? I just told you that.”

He ignored her smart remark. “So it was ten o’clock when you left work?”

Margo glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Quickly calculating the hours, she said, “I guess so.”

“And you were shot within fifteen minutes of leaving the Toucan? Or was it more like twenty-five? Could it have been forty minutes? Fifty?”

Annoyed by his relentless questions, Margo said, “I didn’t get up, look at my watch and say, oh my, I’ve been mugged at 10:20.”

“Was it 10:20?”

Margo rolled her eyes. “No, I think it was 10:23.”

“Dammit, Margo, this is important!”

“I don’t know the time, all right!” Margo’s voice wasn’t as loud as his, but just as angry.

“Well, then, what the hell do you know?”

“That I’m going to have a headache if you keep badgering me like I’m the criminal here.”

He stood and buried his hands deep in the hip pockets of his jeans. He appeared almost telepathic, Margo thought, as he stared down at her. Did he know something she didn’t? As quickly as she asked herself the question, she reminded herself to stick with her story. Ry couldn’t disprove a word she’d said, not unless he knew for a fact that she’d asked for the night off. And he wouldn’t know that unless he’d questioned Tony, which she was pretty certain he wouldn’t do—Ry was no gentleman, but he had kept their brief affair quiet. The only people who knew about it were her own family members and a few close friends.

“Why didn’t you call Blu? Or Hewitt?”

“Brodie?”

“Come on, Margo. I know you’ve been seeing him.”

Margo didn’t disagree. Let him think whatever he wanted to. She said, “I couldn’t get a hold of either of them.”

“But you tried?”

“Yes, I tried.”

“You really need to move out of that damn neighborhood. It makes no sense you living in that dump and surrounding yourself with those kind of people.”

It made perfect sense to Margo, and because it did, she felt like arguing. “It’s close to work, and ‘those kind’ of people are my kind of people.”

“That’s crap. You have a job, take a bath regularly and don’t sleep with a bottle. I hardly think they’re your kind of people. What you mean is, they’re Blu’s kind of people.”

“The rent’s cheap.” Margo refused to let him win a single round. He had won far too much from her already.

“So the rumors are true, then. You’re giving half of every dime you make to Blu so he can throw it away on that worthless fishing fleet your father left him.”

“The fleet isn’t worthless. How dare you call it that!” Furious, Margo fisted the bed with her good hand, then gritted her teeth as a sharp pain shot into her injured arm. Gasping for air, she said, “The fleet was my daddy’s whole life. And Blu wants it to be his. One day it’ll be back to being the best fleet on the Gulf. It was once, it can be again.”

“Take it easy. You’re going to start bleeding again.”

Margo leaned back and rested her head on the headboard and closed her eyes.

“You should be more concerned with your own life. Your own future, not Blu’s.”

“My life’s perfect.”

“This is perfect?”

Margo opened her eyes. “This could have happened to anyone, anywhere in this city. Where have you been? The crime rate here is double to anywhere else, maybe triple. Now, are you going to sew me up or not?”

He made a rude snort, then crossed his arms over his bare chest. “That’s the favor? Stitch you up?”

“I haven’t asked anything of you. Nothing since…” The words lodged in Margo’s throat. She tried again. “This isn’t a whole lot worse than the time I got that fishhook in my leg. You cut the hook out and sewed me up, remember? Good as new, is what Mama said when she inspected the job you’d done. Don’t pretend you can’t sew me back together because I know different.”