Trouble With Harry (18 page)

“What the hell? Edie?” Frank Ragsdale stopped just inside the door and scanned the living room’s wrecked interior. “Edie!”

“In here, Dad! Hurry!” she cried out, her words nothing but a loud moan. Edie was touched by the worried expression evident on his face. She didn’t think he cared enough about her to be worried. She bumped her head against the headboard to make sure he heard her. As many times as she’d done it in the past hour, she was surprised she wasn’t unconscious. She’d have a dozen goose eggs to show for her efforts. Just wait until she got a hold of Harry.

“Edie?” Her father leapt across the overturned coffee table and hurried toward the bedroom door. “Oh my God, Edie.” When he saw her state of undress, his eyes widened and his face flushed bright red. But he raced in—averting his eyes from her body—to untie her arms. “Edie, Edie. What happened? Who did this to you?”

As soon as her arms were free, she yanked the tape from her mouth and yelled. “Ouch!” Maybe yanking the tape hadn’t been such a good idea. That hurt a lot more than she thought it would. Her face burned where the tape had probably ripped the outer layer of skin off. Harry would have hell to pay.

“Was it that strange man you brought home? Did he do this to you? Did he…rape you?” Tears welled in her father’s eyes. “I’ll kill him if he did.”

“No, Dad, he didn’t rape me.” She leaped to her feet, shaking feeling back into her numb hands.

“Then what happened?” He leaned forward and retrieved her robe from the floor handing it behind him to avoid glancing at her nakedness.

“I’m all right, Dad.” She snatched the scrap of silk from his hands. “No one raped me.”

“How can you explain this mess? Did he tie you up and rob you blind? That’s what happens when you let strange men into your home. You can never be too careful.”

“No, Dad.” Edie slipped into the robe and raced for her closet and something more substantial to wear. At times like this, she wished she had a Kevlar vest in her wardrobe. “Harry only tied me up to keep me from following him. He wanted to protect me.”

“So he tied you up?” Frank Ragsdale strode across the floor and grabbed her shoulders. “I knew you were making a mistake when you let that man into your apartment. Don’t you know the dangers a lone woman faces in this city? Do you want to end up like your mother?”

Always, her father compared her to her mother. Edie had had enough. She spun, knocking her father’s hands from her shoulders. “Yes, I want to be like Mother if it means feeling loved and beautiful. Yes!”

Her father dug his hands into his pockets. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I know what you meant, Dad. I just can’t go around hiding behind ugly clothes, afraid to date because I might attract the wrong man who’ll murder me in a back alley.”

Her father winced, his eyes still as haunted as the day the police told him his wife had been found raped and murdered in a dirty alley in the city she’d loved and thrived in.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry Mom died and I’m sorry you’re alone. But I can’t go on living like I have, afraid to get out, afraid no man will find me attractive. I want someone to think I’m beautiful, and to love me because I’m me, not my mother.”

“I love you, Edie.” Her father sank onto the side of the bed. “I’ve always loved you.”

“You never tell me.” Edie sat next to him, anxious to find Harry, but unwilling to leave her father like this. “Instead, you tell me I’ll never be as pretty as her. No man will find me attractive.”

“I loved your mother and what did it get me.” He buried his face in his hands. “She’s dead. She’s never coming back.”

Edie’s chest tightened around the pain her father still carried. With a sigh, she slid an arm around his shoulders. “That was a long time ago, Dad. You have to get on with life. And so do I.”

“But it’s so dangerous out there.” He gripped her hand in his and squeezed so hard he practically crushed her fingers. “Men are predators, they prey on unsuspecting beautiful women.”

“Like Mom?” she whispered.

His hand went slack and his shoulders sagged against Edie’s arm. “Yeah, like your mother.”

“Is that why you wanted me to be ugly and unattractive?”

Her father looked up, his face seemed to have aged ten years. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“But you did.” She swallowed the lump choking her throat and forced herself to hold back the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. “All the times you made me feel ugly. They hurt.”

“I’m sorry, Edie. I just didn’t want you to end up like your mother. I couldn’t stand to lose you, too.”

“Oh, Dad. You have to take chances in life. Sometimes they don’t work out, but if you live in fear, you’ll never learn to love again. Do you think Mom would be happy knowing you stopped living when she died?”

Frank Ragsdale stared into his daughter’s face and slowly shook his head. “She was so alive. So happy with her life and living.”

“Yeah, and she wanted everyone around her to be happy, too.” Edith gave him a quick hug. “Look, Dad, I have to do something important or I’d stay and talk some more.” She grabbed a pair of jeans from the mess on her closet floor. “This conversation isn’t over.”

“Are you going to that man?” Her father’s brows furrowed into a fierce frown.

Edie pulled her jeans up around her waist and zipped. “That man’s name is Harry. And yes.”

“Are you sure he’s the right man for you, Edie?” Her father glanced at the silk pajamas still tied to her headboard. “His methods are a bit unorthodox and, I gotta say, I’m not so sure I like it.”

Unorthodox was putting it mildly, considering all that had occurred in the past two days. Edie smiled and turned her back to her father to slip into a black turtleneck sweater. “I think I love him, Daddy.” Did she really say she loved Harry? She pushed the thought aside. It was too new to her. She didn’t want to poke and prod at it. Not yet. No use getting mired in speculation about Harry.

And how long had it been since she’d called her father Daddy? Since before her mother died. Edie’s heart swelled in her chest. She’d needed this talk with her father. And apparently he’d needed it to. For the first time in fourteen years, she felt like her father was back. The father she’d known before her mother’s tragic murder.

“The man tied you up for heaven’s sake. Are you sure you want to go after him?” The look he gave her made Edie think he didn’t want her to be sure. He wanted her to change her mind and give up on Harry.

“I’m as sure as I can be in this crazy world.” She strode over to where he still sat on the bed and kissed the top of his graying head. “Now, I really have to go.”

“What about this?” He waved his hand encompassing the disaster of her apartment.

“It’ll wait. Harry needs me now.” Edie headed for the door grabbing her purse from the floor on the way out. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Be careful, sweetheart. I love you.”

Edie turned back and blew a kiss to her father like she used to when she was small. “I love you too, Daddy.”

As soon as she stepped out the apartment door, she closed her eyes and said aloud, “I wish I was with Harry.” She’d waited to make her wish out of her father’s sight. Already ten minutes after eleven, there was no telling what could be happening to Harry and Mitch and she didn’t have time to explain anything to her father.

Edie waited, and wasn’t disappointed by the ensuing rumble of thunder. She hoped Harry was all right and that she wasn’t going to put him in danger by appearing when she did. But she couldn’t stand by and do nothing. She had to know what was happening and help Harry in any way possible. Despite the stubborn, old-fashioned jerk Harry was for tying her to the bedposts, Edie loved him. Not that she wouldn’t give him a good piece of her mind when this was all over.

When the floor trembled beneath her feet, Edie braced herself for the transfer and whatever awaited her wherever Harry was.

Chapter Twelve

“Shoot him!” The blonde woman screamed. “Don’t let him get away! I want that stone!”

Harry hit the man in the gut with his best football tackle and as much force as he could muster in the short distance.

The man’s gun went off, the shot angling wide, ricocheting off the building’s brick exterior.

Momentum carried Harry and the bad guy three feet further before they crashed to the pavement, the foreigner taking the brunt of the impact.

Harry had the advantage of being on top of the struggle, but the other guy had a gun and he wasn’t letting it loose. All Harry’s focus was on making sure that gun didn’t go off in his own face. “Drop it!” He grabbed the man’s wrist in both his hands and slammed it, gun and all, against the pavement. “Drop it!”

The foreigner grunted but refused to release the weapon, bucking beneath Harry trying to dislodge him.

Harry spared a glance at Mitch who straddled the other guy, pummeling his face like there was no tomorrow. At least he didn’t have to worry about Edie’s friend while he struggled for his own life.

“Let go—” Harry slammed the hand against the pavement, “of the damned—” On the fifth slam, the pistol sailed out of the man’s hand. “—gun!”

In the midst of Harry’s sigh of relief, he felt cool metal press against his forehead.

“Move and you die.” A steely feminine voice warned him.

Harry froze, his hands still gripping the now empty hand of the guy beneath him.

Slim fingers slipped inside his pocket and snatched the stone. When she had it in her hand, Danorah quickly backed away from Harry holding the 9mm revolver trained at his head. “Now that I’ve got what I came for, I don’t need any of you anymore.”

She lowered the weapon to point at Harry’s heart.

The low rumble of thunder echoed off the buildings of the alley.

Oh, no! Harry lunged forward grasping for the gun he’d shaken loose from the other man’s hand.

Just as Danorah pulled the trigger, the ground shook and she teetered on her shiny, black stiletto heels.

Bang!

The shot missed Harry, but hit Danorah’s hired thug. He grunted and clutched the hole in his chest as blood oozed out staining the white shirt beneath his black jacket.

Harry missed the gun and rolled to his back to face his attacker while reaching his hand out for the weapon.

When the earth steadied, the blonde aimed for Harry’s chest.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” Edie stood behind Danorah, holding something up against the woman’s temple.

Harry couldn’t see what Edie held in her hand, but it didn’t look like a gun. “Edie, be careful, she’s got a gun!”

“Drop it, bitch or I’ll shoot.” Edie’s voice held quiet determination.

The hammer clicked.

Edie jerked her hand in front of the blonde’s face and a shooshing, spraying sound erupted.

Danorah dropped her weapon but not the stone. With her empty hand, she clawed her eyes screaming at the top of her lungs. “What have you done to me? I can’t see! I can’t see!”

Edie kicked the weapon into the shadows and then turned toward the disoriented woman. “Then you won’t be needing this.” She grabbed for the black stone.

But Danorah wouldn’t release it. Tears streaming from eyes squeezed tightly shut she held on with all her might, shoving against Edie, beating her back with the stone in her hand.

“Edie, look out!” Mitch yelled.

Danorah raised the stone and smacked the side of Edie’s cheek.

Staggering backward, Edie fell to the ground, her head bouncing off the pavement. She lay as still as death.

Anger swelled in Harry’s chest. Was she all right? He couldn’t see her well enough to know whether or not she was breathing.

His anger boiled up into rage. Danorah’s greed could have caused Edie’s death for all Harry knew. Now, he was okay with being shot at, beat up and tormented, but when it came to Edie—enough was enough. Danorah would pay.

Harry threw himself at the blonde, knocking her to the ground. The stone flew out of her hand and through the air.

Mitch made a flying leap to catch it before it hit the ground.

“No, Mitch!” Harry yelled.

Too late.

Mitch made a clean catch and stood with the stone in his hands, a grin on his face. “Don’t worry, Harry. I caught it. The stone’s okay.”

The ground rumbled.

“Hey, my hands are tingling.” Mitch looked up at Harry and Edie, the smile slipping from his face to be replaced by a frown. “What the hell’s happening?”

“You shouldn’t have touched it, Mitch.” Harry stood with his hands at his sides. He could do nothing to stop what was about to happen to his new friend.

“But Danorah touched it and nothing happened,” Mitch said. “Oh God. I feel like I’m on fire!”

“Danorah’s a woman.” Harry shook his head. “If a man touches the stone, he disappears into a bottle.”

“Holy shit! My entire body feels numb.” He reached out with both arms toward Edie. “Edie?”

Edie lunged for Mitch grasping for his hand only for hers to pass through him. “Mitch!” She caught the stone as it dropped from his fingers and Mitch disappeared. “Mitch!”

The bad guy Mitch had been fighting lurched to his feet and dove toward the car, taking Danorah with him. He shoved the blonde woman into the backseat, slamming the door without checking to see if she’d cleared. Then he jumped into the driver’s seat. The car leapt to life and spun away from the alley in a spew of loose gravel.

“She’s getting away!” Edie cried.

“Let her go. We have bigger problems.”

Edie stood next to Harry, the stone in her hand. The only thing left as a reminder Mitch had been there were a pair khaki slacks and a pullover shirt, pooled in the spot where he’d disappeared.

Harry shook his head. “I came to save Mitch, and now he’s gone too.”

Gathering up the clothing, Edie asked, “What are we going to do?”

“Not we. Me.” Harry sighed. He had to undo this mess he’d started back in 1924. But he didn’t want Edie in the middle of it getting hurt. But how could he break it to her that he was going and she wasn’t? “Let’s go to your place.”

* * * * *

A glance at Harry’s face sent a lump plummeting to Edie’s belly. Not we? Was this it? Was this the end? She didn’t have the heart to take the subway back to her place. Her gut feel said, Harry’s time with her had come to an end and she didn’t want it to. “I wish we were back at my place.”