Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You (v1.2) (5 page)

Shelby looked at the young woman for a long moment, unable to speak. Her parents had never argued. They’d had a few discussions, but those discussions had been more like low, hissing contests of wills, and usually ended with her father going to his club and her mother going to her lover of the month. Dying in the same plane crash was about the only thing they’d done together since Shelby had been conceived.

“I envy you your memories, Susie,” she said at last, walking past her to dump the underwear on her bed. “I’ll start sorting out my toiletries, all right? And remember, this is all our little secret.”

In the end, Shelby had added another full suitcase of clothing to that which Susie had packed, just to be certain she had enough. Traveling with less than five suitcases seemed impossible to Shelby, who at least congratulated herself that she’d forgone the elaborate, custom-made steamer trunk she usually used for trips lasting more than a few days.

She went down to dinner on time, nervously picking her way through three courses as Somerton and Jeremy got into a small spat over Somerton’s preference for very rare steak.

“It’s barbaric,” Jeremy told them all, shuddering. “I expect you to come home at any time, Somerton, panting, your tail wagging, some limp-necked game hanging from your jaws. Vegetarianism, it’s the only healthy way to live.”

“Nonsense, Jeremy,” Somerton countered testily, his nostrils flaring. “I am a carnivore.
You
are a carnivore. You just won’t admit it. And I must say, Jeremy, that I resent your comparing me to an animal. I think you should apologize, frankly.”

Jeremy’s thin, aesthetic face flushed, and a tear came to his eye. “Apologize? Perhaps next week, Somerton, after you’ve dropped dead, your arteries clogged. Have you thought about that, Somerton?” He drew himself up and sniffled. “Have you thought about what would happen to
me
if anything should happen to you? I should think you’d have a little more consideration, Somerton. Really I do.”

“You’d survive,” Somerton snapped right back at him. “You certainly wouldn’t starve. After all, all you’d have to do is go outside and
graze. “

Jeremy gasped, lifted his linen napkin to his lips.

“Now, children,” Uncle Alfred cut in, winking at Shelby . “Somerton, apologize, if you please. You’re a naughty, naughty boy, upsetting the little woman, who only has your best interests at heart. Jeremy?” he then asked, leaning his elbows on the table as he held a glass of wine in both hands, “you’re doing something new with your hair, aren’t you, son? Adorable, really.”

With Somerton still stiff-backed and silently sputtering, and with the easily diverted Jeremy now preening and posturing, Shelby was thankful to be left alone to push candied yams around on her plate and mentally word the note she’d write after dinner.

At nine the next morning, while the rest of the household either slept or breakfasted in their rooms, Jim Helfrich loaded Shelby’s luggage into the back of the limousine and then drove her to the downtown bus station.

Nobody would ever think to look for her at a bus station.

And if anyone asked, and they probably would, Jim could only tell them about the bus station, not her destination.

Hers may have been an impromptu plan, but Shelby believed it had its moments of brilliance. She’d be arriving at the bus station in Allentown before noon , and well on her way to blissful oblivion in East Wapaneken .

She settled back against the plush leather seats of the Mercedes limousine, considering herself to be halfway to freedom.

What Shelby was two hours later was hot, dusty, and stranded outside the Allentown bus terminal. She’d enjoyed the ride, not having ever ridden on a bus before except for the summer she’d spent at horse camp. And the driver had been very nice to her, once she’d handed over a twenty-dollar tip as he glared at the pile of luggage he was expected to load into the compartment beneath the bus.

She’d struck up a conversation with a young woman also traveling to Allentown , heading home from a visit with her boyfriend. Brenda was a bubbly sort, talkative enough for both of them, and Shelby felt she’d handled her end of the conversation very well, including the fib that she was heading to Allentown to start a new job—managing a McDonald’s. Shelby could think of a “normal” sort of employment, but she still thought at management level.

Brenda had been met by her parents, who then drove away, waving good-bye, and Shelby suddenly realized that she was now very much alone in a strange city, in a not-very-nice section of that city.

She walked to the sidewalk and looked up the street— all the way up the street—to the signpost marking the closest LANTA bus stop.

She could have taken a taxi, but taxis could be traced, as anyone who’d ever read a detective novel knew, and Shelby had read her share. A bus, on the odier hand, was completely anonymous, and nobody would remember her.

They might, however, remember her luggage.

All the clothing she’d brought had seemed absolutely necessary at the time but, as she walked back to her luggage, slung bags over her shoulders, tucked another under her arm, and began dragging the other two, she had a sudden flash of insight. Nobody in East Wapaneken could possibly have, or need, such an extensive wardrobe.

Visions of a documentary she’d seen one night on PBS when she couldn’t sleep came back to haunt her as she stepped, dragged, stepped again on her way to the sidewalk. The documentary had depicted a wagon train moving west, the camera panning over the pianos, trunks, and other luggage left behind on the trail as the road got longer, harder.

She was already mentally discarding the suitcase holding her shoes. She could always buy new shoes. She enjoyed buying shoes.

“Need some help, lady?”

“Pardon me?” Shelby, who had been concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, looked up to see a skinny, T-shirted boy of about seventeen standing in front of her, blocking her way.

His brown hair was shaved except for a single two-inch-wide strip running down the center of his skull. His T-shirt fit like a second skin, so that she could actually count his ribs. Faded jeans hung somewhere below his waist, the crotch bagging to his knees, the hems as wide around as any of her ball gowns and dragging on the ground—making him look as if he were standing in a puddle of denim.

And he had a tattoo on his right forearm: the word
Killer,
incongruously surrounded by rosebuds.

Shelby opened her mouth to say thank you very much, but no, then looked toward Hamilton Street once more. Her arms were pulling loose from her shoulders and she still had half a block to go before she made it to the corner.

“Well, actually, I believe I could use some help, thank you,” she told him, her smile rather tremulous as she let the luggage slide to the ground, then searched in her purse for another twenty-dollar bill. “I just need to transport all of this up to that bus stop at the corner. I’d really appreciate—”

The twenty disappeared from her hand. Five seconds later, she watched in horror as all five pieces of her luggage went bounding up the street in the boy’s grasp as she chased after him, not liking the way he seemed to be running away more than he seemed to be transporting her belongings to the bus stop.

When he reached the bus stop and turned the corner, heading down a side street, Shelby broke into a run, unable to think of anything else to yell but “Stop! Thief!”

So trite. So embarrassingly melodramatic.

And yet, she thought thankfully, so very effective.

She rounded the corner in time to see the youth being held by the scruff of his neck, his feet so far off the ground that his jeans no longer dragged on the pavement, her luggage lying in a heap.

“These yours, ma’am?” the boy’s captor was asking, and Shelby blinked, nodded her head a time or two, then stared at the mountain of a man who had rescued her luggage.

No taller than Shelby , he looked to be in his early to mid-thirties and was solid muscle from the neck down: barrel chest, brawny arms, rock-solid thighs beneath tight, faded jeans. His hair was a brown buzz cut that did not flatter his beefy face or jug ears, but his smile was wide, his blue eyes kind. He wore thick work boots, and his T- shirt bore the words
Rainy Day Construction.

The kid still squirming in the man’s one-handed grasp had probably felt he’d run into a brick wall. Twice.

“Yes,” Shelby said, catching her breath. “Yes, that’s my luggage. Thank you so much, sir. Er, I think you might be able to put him down now.”

“You sure? I could call a cop, you know, put this little bas—er, kid in the local lockup. Are you sure you don’t want to press charges?”

“Killer,” who had been squirming in the man’s grip, now went rather slack, looking at Shelby with puppy-dog eyes, pleading with her not to send him to jail. He was “Only funnin’ with you, lady,” and would have turned around, brought the luggage back to her. “Honest to God, lady.”

Now here was a dilemma. Shelby would like nothing more than helping this boy realize that actions had consequences. But if she did that, if she allowed her rescuer to bring the local police into it, her name would be on some police bladder or blotter or whatever, and Somerton would know where she was within the hour, perhaps less.

“I’d like my twenty dollars returned, if you please,” she told the boy, “and then you may be on your way. In fact, give it to this nice man, who has more than earned it.”

The twenty changed hands and Killer took off down the sidewalk, looking as though he had a good chance of breaking the four-minute mile—if he didn’t fall over his pants legs and break his neck instead.

“Thank you again, sir,” Shelby began as the man stepped closer, holding the twenty out in front of him.

“And really, please keep that. You’ve certainly earned it, and much more.”

“Sorry, ma’am, but I can’t do that,” he told her, handing over the bill. “My mother would have my hide if I told her I took money for helping a lady. Now, where were you heading with all this luggage?”

Shelby sort of waved toward the bus stop behind her, then realized that, even if the man helped her to the bus stop, she would have no one to help her get the bags back off the bus once it reached East Wapaneken . “I… I’m not sure,” she said at last, running a hand through her hair, which had fallen into her face as she chased after Killer.

She was overheated, rather hungry, and her legs had begun to feel like rubber. Much of the excitement she’d felt as she left Philadelphia had drained away, leaving her painfully aware of the fact that, in twenty-five years, she had never had to fend for herself, find her own transportation, make her own decisions. It was all very depressing.

“Name’s Mack, ma’am, Gary Mack,” the man said into the sudden silence, rubbing his hand on his pants leg, then extending it outward for Shelby to shake; rather like an overgrown puppy performing a trick. “I don’t mean to be pushy or nothin’, but how’s about we get you a place to sit down for a while, and get you something in your stomach? You’re looking sort of pale, you know.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Mack,” Shelby said, retrieving her hand, which felt as if it had just been crushed in a vise. She had been stupid to trust Killer, but there was something about Gary Mack that told her it wouldn’t be foolhardy to trust him. “That would be lovely, actually. Oh, and I’m Shel—um,
Shelley.
Shelley, um, Smith. I’m very pleased to meet you.”

Shelby was doubly pleased, ten minutes later, to be introduced to Gary’s fiancee, Brandy Wasilkowski. The two had planned to meet for an early lunch close to the employment office where Brandy worked, and Brandy accepted Shelby’s presence with an indulgent smile that told her Gary had brought home strays before, and she was used to it.

Short and pleasantly rounded, Brandy Wasilkowski bounced herself down on the barely padded booth seat in the small restaurant, kissed Gary on the cheek, then beamed across the scarred Formica table at Shelby . Her blue eyes twinkled, her chestnut curls bounced, and her short, upturned nose displayed a dusting of freckles that were more large than cute. She had a rounded chin, wide smile, and an obvious liking for jewelry, as there were rings on every finger—and thumb—of both hands.

She seemed closer to Gary’s age than Shelby ‘s, but her youthful-looking ankle-length flowered dress and sandals told Shelby that, to Brandy, age had nothing to do with her choice of clothes.

“Hi, Shelley,” she said, winking at Shelby . “Did Gary drag you and that mountain of designer luggage in here, or did you come along willingly?”

“Now, hon…” Gary began, but Brandy waved him off, still staring across the table at Shelby , her expression part amusement, part concern.

“ Gary rescued me, and my luggage,” Shelby told her, “and then invited me to lunch. I hope you don’t mind.”

Brandy reached across Gary , snagged one of the menus stuck between a bottle of ketchup and a large container of sugar. She deliberately didn’t look at their luncheon companion, although she’d already seen and heard enough to know that something a litde weird was going on. She’d find out what it was sooner or later, but right now she just wanted to eat. Brandy would rather eat than do pretty much anything else. “Nope. Don’t mind at all. You guys already order?”

Gary removed the menu from her hands. “I ordered yours, too. You’re getting the garden salad, hon, remember? That’s what you told me to order for you, anyway. Although I still say there’s nothing wrong with—”

“Isn’t he sweet?” Brandy said quickly, cutting him off. “He says I’m not fat.” She turned to him, kissed his cheek again. “Liar. I do love you. And if I’m going to fit into my wedding gown I’ve got to lose twenty pounds, minimum. A garden salad, huh? Why do you always pick the wrong times to do what I say? I think I could kill for a cheeseburger.”

Shelby looked at Brandy’s hands, sorted out from the other rings the small diamond on the third finger, left hand. She’d left her own diamond in the jewelry case at home, knowing its two-carat size would make her entirely too memorable if anyone were to begin asking questions about her. “When’s the wedding, Brandy?” she asked as the waitress appeared with garden salads for both of them, and a huge, long roll stuffed with chipped steak and smothered in cheese for Gary .