they give it to you, and they’re talking jail time, Jane. They want you off their streets. No more Robin Rulz.”
“You talked to the cops about me?” Unbelievable. And he knew about Sandman and the kids? Good God, he was no crush. He was a disaster. “Why in the hell would you do that?”
“You’re in a tough spot. I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. I thought if I knew what was going on with you, I could help. I just didn’t think I’d be getting the chance to talk with you about it tonight.”
Damn him. Mr. Superhero talking to the cops.
“I don’t need your charity.” She dropped the chopsticks and reached for her pack. Before she could take it, he put his hand on top of hers.
“It’s not charity.”
“Then what is it?”
His answer, when it finally came, proved even more unnerving than him talking to the cops. “I don’t know. Probably the same thing that’s been bringing you up to this rooftop almost every night for the last two weeks.”
He’d known she was watching for him?
Now she was really embarrassed.
“Right.” To hell with the backpack. She’d make it up tomorrow.
She started to her feet, but he grabbed her wrist.
“Please,” he said, and carefully, slowly released her. “Don’t go, not yet.”
“It’s late,” she said—and she felt like a fool.
“Can I buy you breakfast, lunch, dinner tomorrow?”
He wanted to see her again?
“Which one?” she asked, skeptical as hell. Maybe he was working for the cops on the side. She knew the Denver Police wanted to clean out her crew. This one cop, Lieutenant Loretta, really had it out for her and Sandman. Social Services was that woman’s answer for everything.
“All three,” he said. “I’m headed out of town at the end of the week, the Army thing, and I don’t know exactly how long I might be gone. I’d like to spend some time with you.”
She didn’t know. Somehow it seemed damned risky, and yet …
“How about just breakfast?” he asked.
Sure. She could agree to breakfast.
“All right,” she said, and then had to fight the stupid grin she felt coming on. She was going to see him again, talk with him. For the first time in a long time, she felt light inside, like all those things that weighed on her every day were lifting a bit.
“Great,” he said, a broad smile spreading across his face. He rose to his feet and reached his hand down to pull her up. “Do you know Duffy’s?”
“The bar on the corner,” she said, accepting his hand and standing up.
“Yeah. They serve breakfast. Can you meet me there at seven tomorrow morning?”
He was still holding on to her hand, and as much as she loved it, she was also unnerved. In her line of work, it was hard to make a living if a person was holding your hand.
“Duffy’s at seven. Sure.” She pulled her hand free and swung her pack over her shoulder.
Good God, she had a date at one of the classiest breakfast joints in Denver. So what in the world was she going to wear?”
A skirt, she remembered. That’s what she’d come up with, a gauzy little ivory-colored summer skirt with black bows at the waist, a pair of pink-and-white striped leggings, and a black tank top, everything scored at a secondhand shop on her way home, a secondhand shop with a broken basement window.
She’d shopped there a lot back in the bad old days.
Still looking down the street, a pained sigh escaped her, echoing the ache in her chest. Why hadn’t she moved faster to stop him?
Shock had held her where she stood, but she should have moved faster. Instinct alone had guided her hand. She’d seen an opportunity, and she’d taken it, but, damn, she wished she’d said something to him.
J. T. Chronopolous—he hadn’t been scarred back then, except for three straight lines he’d had on his upper left arm.
The man on the street had been scarred everywhere, on his hands, his neck, his face—but so help her God, she knew that face.
Looking down, she reached into her zebra purse and flipped open the wallet she’d just lifted off him. It was made out of olive green canvas, heavy-duty, with double-stitched seams, and she’d had to work like light-fingered lightning to slip it out of his back pocket. She was good—for all the good it had done her.
Hell.
Conroy Farrel, that’s what his driver’s license said, the whole of it in Spanish, issued in Paraguay.