Nobody's Angel (20 page)

He offered his arm, and Faith accepted it wearily. Her head throbbed and her leg ached. Or maybe it was the other way around. Whichever, the instant she relaxed into the strength of Adrian's support, the aches and pains faded like magic. It felt good not to have to endure this alone.

She was such a damned wimp. She had
liked
being married. She had liked having a husband to share things with. At first, anyway. She had to remember how it had deteriorated into a cage with ever-narrower boundaries. The price of sharing her life was much too high.

“I can create the letterhead,” she offered. It would be a relief to go home. She was grateful he had seen reason. “We'll need some good quality paper. Invent a really officious firm name and use my mail-drop address.”

“Who do you have picking up your mail?” he asked, holding
open the kitchen door for her. “I had friends watching that damned box in hopes of catching you or at least tracing you.”

“I figured Tony would kill me if he found me, so I didn't give them a forwarding address. I bribed one of the mail-drop clerks to open the box from the back once a month. One of the guys in the band has family down here, and they'd stop by and pick it up. I don't receive much mail through it anymore, but it's habit to keep doing things that way.”

Faith took the kitchen stool Adrian offered. She didn't have the strength to stand.

“Simple and devious at the same time. You have a wicked mind, woman.” He reached in the refrigerator for a pitcher of sweet tea. “Can't keep alcohol in a house with teenagers, so this will have to suffice. Let me check on Mama and the kids, and I'll be back in a minute.”

“Give me an onion to chop or something so I'll feel useful.”

“And trust you with a knife?” He grinned and produced a knife and an assortment of vegetables from various hiding places. “I can hear the TV, so the twins are here. We'll need
lots
of everything.”

As he disappeared to check on family, Faith settled in to peel and chop. She'd always wondered what it would be like to be part of a large family. She had hoped by now to have at least a couple of kids of her own. Perhaps she'd been naive to think a close-knit family would be fun and more fulfilling than her empty life. The burden Adrian carried seemed almost crushing, too overwhelming for him to enjoy the company of his family or any of the benefits.

A car door slammed in the drive, and tires squealed as the vehicle backed out again. Faith looked up from her paring as the back door opened and Dolores slouched in.

The sixteen-year-old would be attractive if she hadn't gone overboard on every fashion trend out there. She'd butchered her lovely black hair into a weedy crop that revealed a shaved billboard space at her nape. Her left ear sported more earrings than Faith owned. And she'd encased her full figure in
spandex topped by a man's shirt three sizes too large. The six-inch-high soles of her mules clunked noisily across the worn linoleum.

“You fixing supper?” she asked warily as she watched Faith peel and chop. “I was gonna throw some noodles in a pot.”

“Adrian said he'd fix tacos. I'm just the kitchen help.” She'd not worked much with teenagers, and she eyed Dolores equally warily. Awkwardness welled between them.

“Yeah? Then I guess I'm off the hook. Let me know when it's ready.” She removed the cordless receiver from the wall, sauntered across the kitchen toward the door, and cursed as she hit the Talk button. “He's on the damned phone,” she griped, punching it off again. “Gets out of goddamned prison and acts like he owns the place.”

“Doesn't he?” Faith asked innocently, concentrating on the onion and not the unhappy snarl on the girl's face. She'd pieced together enough knowledge of Adrian and his family to suspect he'd been the one to purchase this fairly spacious ranch house. Even in this blue collar part of town, real estate was exorbitantly expensive. Housing couldn't keep up with Charlotte's booming population.

Dolores shrugged. “Mama's had to make the payments while he was locked up. The rest of us work to pay the bills and buy groceries. That ought to count for something.”

Considering the cost of the jewelry in the girl's ear, Faith suspected her meager earnings were spent on clothes and gold more than bread and milk, but working as well as attending school was a big responsibility for a teenager. She wouldn't argue with her.

“You know Adrian didn't steal that money, don't you?” Faith asked quietly, still concentrating on her chopping.

“He's got you believing that?” Dolores snorted. “The two of you sleeping together or something?”

Faith's stomach clenched but she pretended nonchalance. “No, we're not sleeping together. I know the man who framed Adrian.”

Dolores punched the telephone again, and apparently still finding it occupied, punched it off. “Do tell,” she said snidely.

Suspecting the girl would have slammed out of the room by now if she wasn't interested in hearing proof of her brother's innocence, Faith searched for a path of reason. “His partner in the law firm was living a double life and needed the money,” she said quietly. “Don't you think if Adrian had stolen the money, he would have used it to pay your bills?”

“He was driving a cherry red ’Vette and living in a fancy apartment in SouthPark,” Dolores exploded. “He was shoveling money into that girlfriend of his while we lived in this hovel and wore hand-me-downs.”

“Misty paid for the apartment, and the ’Vette was ten years old.”

Faith nearly bit her tongue as that bitter voice intruded. She looked up to see Adrian in the doorway behind his sister, leaning his forearm against the doorjamb as if he'd been there for a while. The cynical, taut lines of his jaw pulled tighter as he saw Faith watching.

“You're a liar and I hate you,” Dolores shouted, swinging around to aim a fist at his stomach. “I wish you'd never come home!”

Adrian didn't dodge as she slammed her punch home. He didn't even gasp for breath at the impact. “You only hurt yourself when you strike out at others,” he said mildly as she drew back and cradled her hand.

“Bastard,” she spat, before squeezing past him and into the front of the house.

Still slumped against the doorway, Adrian lifted his gaze to Faith. “I am, you know.” At her questioning look, he explained. “A bastard. My father never married my mother. Of course, that makes
him
a bastard in my book.” He lifted himself from the wall and entered the kitchen to examine the contents of the refrigerator.

“Labels don't solve anything.”

“Nope. And ‘bastard’ isn't precise enough to be descriptive except in the one definition. If she'd called me ‘thief,’ you'd have a better picture of my character.”

“But you're not a thief.” Faith figured he was many things, but thief wasn't one of them. She ought to know. She'd lived with the biggest thief of them all, one who stole lives and hope as well as money.

“Fool, maybe, not thief,” he agreed producing an assortment of jars and half a chicken carcass.

He was taking his sister's explosion much too calmly. If she'd learned anything at all about this man, it was that he harbored passions so flammable, it was a wonder he didn't incinerate. Something was wrong.

“Dolores said you were on the phone.”

Adrian reached for a butcher knife and began whacking the chicken into slivers. “We had messages.”

Faith shivered as she waited for further explanation. He sliced viciously at a hunk of meat as if he were disemboweling someone. In a moment, fury would steam out his ears. She worried more about seeing him implode than about whatever bad news had visited them now.

“I'd suggest you spit it out,” she offered conversationally, “or you'll be punching me like Dolores did you. I don't think I have the stomach for it.” She eyed Adrian's flat abdomen speculatively. Dolores hadn't held anything back. He truly must have abs of steel.

His jaw tightened into a flat plane beneath sharp cheekbones as he finally looked up. “Tony didn't hit you, did he?”

“I would have been out of there a lot sooner if he had. I'm not that messed up. Who called?”

“Juan. Annie.” He dumped the slivers of meat and vegetables and the contents of several jars into a large skillet with the ease of experience. “Juan called to say someone broke into your shop before Bill and Pearl arrived.”

The images of her grandmother's precious bowl and her meticulously selected inventory trashed beyond repair flashed through her mind so vividly, she almost moaned.

Fingernails biting into her palms, she tried to sound calm. “The clair de lune?”

“Safe.” He shook the skillet instead of stirring. “They've called the cops and made the report for insurance purposes, but you may have problems collecting.”

Head spinning, Faith clung to the counter and tried to organize her thoughts. “What else? What was stolen if they didn't take the clair de lune? I keep only fifty dollars in the register at night.”

“I don't know if Annie has been making deposits. Pearl couldn't tell. But whoever it was didn't just steal the cash. They ransacked the place. They found the clair de lune lying on the carpet and its pedestal broken open. Anything else that may have held anything was either trashed or on the floor. Apparently the intruder flung around a few curios for good measure.”

The clair de lune was safe. Faith tried to take a deep breath and nearly choked. Her windpipe closed in panic. Breathe easy, she told herself. She was insured. She couldn't possibly have insured her grandmother's bowl for what it was worth to her, but the other things were replaceable. Mostly.

She'd had an alarm installed on the bowl display. Her head shot up. “Why won't the insurance company pay?”

Adrian turned down the stove, leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. “Because the store wasn't broken into. It was unlocked and disarmed with keys.”

When she merely stared at him, open-mouthed, he continued relentlessly. “First, you report your car totaled. Then, you report your store robbed and vandalized. And Juan's already told me what Annie has to report. They've hit your apartment, too.”

She couldn't think of a thing to say. Four years she had lived safely and uneventfully. This couldn't be coincidence.

“They were
all
unlocked with keys,” he said gently. “Whoever stole your purse used your ID to locate your apartment. How many criminals would bother traveling all the way to Knoxville on the off chance the owner of an ancient VW might have something worth stealing?”

“Tony?” she squeaked. Dizziness and lack of air collapsed her head to her arms and she nearly slipped from the stool before Adrian caught her.

Adrian watched Faith all through supper as she pulled together her calm mask, spoke pleasantly with Dolores and Elena, asked questions of the twins, and helped the younger ones with their tacos. Only he knew she was splintering into little pieces inside.

So he watched her carefully as she managed to lay claim to the phone before the teenagers could finish eating. Belinda finally appeared, and Adrian left her to handle the kids while he followed Faith into the other room. She was talking to Annie, and her face was as pale as it had been after the accident.

He'd done that to her.

Beneath that tightly controlled facade she was approaching hysteria and not thinking clearly. He'd have to do the thinking for her until she grasped the full implications of this disaster.

When she hung up the phone, she didn't even look in his direction. She brushed past him, into the kitchen, where she picked up the car keys he'd thrown on the counter. Damn, but the woman didn't miss a thing. At least he still had the bank keys.

He expected her to waltz right out the back door, but he'd forgotten her proper upbringing. One didn't leave without saying farewell to one's hostess. Ignoring her crutch, she limped down the hall to his mother's bedroom.

Adrian didn't feel inclined to listen to what they had to say to each other. He caught Hernando as he raced out of the kitchen, directed him toward the bathroom to wash the sauce off his face, and waited.

Faith emerged from the back hall carrying her box with her few precious possessions a few minutes later. This time she at least acknowledged his presence. “I'm going home,” she announced, before unfastening the front door latch and walking out.

She was making him crazy. He really ought to let the fool woman get herself kidnapped by a professional this time. Maybe Tony really was alive and he'd murder her. Even Faith the Invincible wouldn't have the kind of violent mind necessary to escape from a real criminal. She was tough, but she wasn't that tough.

He didn't want her to be that tough.

With a sigh, Adrian stalked out the front door after her. She was already in the driver's seat of the rental, testing the strength of her injured knee on the brake pedal.

“It won't hold up that mountain,” he warned her. “You'd have to use your left foot. You want to try driving that road at night, with all those semis, working the gas and brake with your left foot?”

“Yes.” Determinedly, she caught the door handle and tried to yank the door shut.

Adrian caught the door top and held it firmly open. “You're not thinking,” he chided her. “You're reacting. Just stop one damned minute and think.”