Strangers in the Night

Chapter Two

“Good night, Connie,” Mr. Mortimer said, holding the door of the pharmacy open to let her pass. “See you tomorrow.”

“Good night,” the woman he knew as Connie Baker echoed softly. She stepped past him onto the rain-slicked street, but try as she might, she couldn’t force herself to repeat the latter sentiment.

She wouldn’t be in to work tomorrow or ever again. By morning, she would be far from Chicago, leaving no trace of her short time here and Mr. Mortimer to wonder what had happened to his young cashier. Connie Baker would cease to exist, just another name to be discarded and never used again, like all the others. Beth Roberts. Lisa Greene. Allie Freeman. Just another woman who disappeared, never to be seen again, while another woman appeared out of nowhere in another place.

She didn’t know why it was so hard to tell one more lie to a man she’d been dishonest with from the beginning. He didn’t know her real name; he didn’t know her past. He knew nothing about her but the carefully crafted story she’d chosen to tell him, and not one bit of it the truth.

Still, there was something about having her final words to him be yet another lie, even if she was the only one who would know. He’d been exceptionally good to her when she’d thought herself hardened against even the slightest human kindness. Louis Mortimer had owned his pharmacy in this neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago for forty years while raising three children here with his late wife, Marie. He’d given her a chance and asked few questions, sensing she was running from something.

It didn’t seem right to leave without saying something. Nothing to tip him off now of course, but something he could consider later and know she hadn’t meant to deceive him.

She started to turn back. “Mr. Mortimer—”

A rumble of thunder, either a remnant of the storm that had passed through that afternoon or a harbinger of a new one moving in, drowned out her words. By the time it passed, he’d already closed the door. One by one the interior lights flickered off, leaving her alone outside in the dark.

A wave of sadness crashed over her. She didn’t know why. He wasn’t the first person she hadn’t had a chance to say a proper goodbye to. She knew better than to think he would be the last.

The thunder came again, far too quickly after the last rumble for comfort’s sake. She lifted her face up to the sky in time to see a jagged bolt of lightning streak across the velvet darkness. There was no mistaking it. Another storm was moving in. Another reason for her to hurry, and she already had enough of those. Pushing her melancholy thoughts to the back of her mind, she began to walk.

Fog rolled across the street, obscuring the other businesses closed for the night. Perfect weather for Halloween, she thought, with the holiday two weeks away. It was less than perfect for her already frayed nerves.

She moved quickly, chased by a cold wind that bit into her too-thin coat and chilled her to the bone. She didn’t worry about bumping into anyone. There were few people on the street at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night. Other than the bar halfway down the block, none of the businesses on the strip were open this late.

Mr. Mortimer had often worried about her walking alone at night and had offered to walk her home. She’d done her best to convince him she’d be fine. She wasn’t worried about being out by herself. With the sheer number of people who were looking for her, the idea that she would fall victim to a simple mugging defied belief.

Tonight, though, she couldn’t help the feeling of unease that clawed up her spine and had her peering through the murky grayness and searching the shadows more thoroughly than usual for any sign of harm. She was more aware of the danger than ever before. It seemed to surround her, closing in like the fog with each passing moment.

She’d been following Chastain’s trial, reading the New York papers at the nearest branch of the Chicago Public Library every couple of days. Just that morning she’d learned that Roy Taylor had skipped town two weeks before the trial was set to begin, and she knew why.

He was coming after her. She doubted he would have taken such a drastic step if he hadn’t picked up her trail. And that meant she had to get out of Chicago ASAP.

She passed the bar, too lost in her thoughts to notice the noise and the lights coming from inside. She should have left as soon as she read the story, which had already been a few days old. She knew that now. At the time the risk of staying one more day had seemed worth it. She needed her last week’s pay. The amount she had tucked away in her apartment would get her out of town, but not far enough that he wouldn’t be able to find her again—and soon. So she’d made the decision to linger just one more night.

She just had to hope it wasn’t a decision she ended up paying for.

She didn’t know exactly what warned her. It could have been a shadow shifting where there should have been nothing, or the soft scrape of shoes against pavement on what should have been a deserted street. All that mattered was that she suddenly knew she wasn’t alone.

Someone was following her.

Her heart lurched in her chest. She forced herself to keep her steps even, as steady as they’d been before that moment of intuition. There was no way to tell how far away he was or where exactly he was lurking. Still, she struggled to listen over the pounding of her heart. Even the slightest sound offered a vital clue to her pursuer’s location.

He was behind her.

How far?

Five feet?

Ten?

It was impossible to tell. He could be on her back in an instant.

The only advantage she had was that he didn’t know she was aware of his presence. He planned to catch her off guard. Her only chance was to do the same to him first.

Her mind raced through every option. Then she remembered. There was an alley up ahead, maybe only fifteen steps away. She couldn’t see it now, hidden in the gloom. But she knew it was there. He didn’t. That would make all the difference.

In her head she ticked off the steps, hoping her count was close. One. Then five. Ten. Only a measure of control she hadn’t known she possessed kept her from running.

She counted the last remaining steps, her breath hitching in her throat. One. Two. Three. Four.

And there it was.

Go!

She cut around the corner and broke into an all-out run.

Almost immediately, she heard the muffled curse, a confused noise, then the sound of someone bursting into the alley behind her.

She didn’t look back or slow for an instant. The alley was dark, dank and cramped, ripe with the odors of garbage and the sewer. She noticed none of it, couldn’t hear him behind her, couldn’t hear anything but the pounding of her shoes on the pavement. The close walls echoed the sound. He wouldn’t be able to tell how near she was or how far.

And there was no way for her to tell where the end of the alley was. The street it intersected was primarily residential, with almost no lights illuminating the road. So she kept running through the darkness, toward the darkness. She didn’t know until she suddenly cleared the smells and felt the open air wash over her that she was free.

And still she didn’t stop. Her apartment building was to the left. She cut right, back toward the well-lit business district she’d left behind. He wouldn’t be expecting her to do that. He’d expect her to head in the direction she’d originally been going. He needed her to. It would be easier for him to take her where there were fewer people, little chance that someone would interfere. That was why he hadn’t taken her on the street, had tried to follow her home. That was exactly why she couldn’t.

She took another right into the next alley, then another, working her way blindly through a network of back streets that should lead her back to the one where she’d begun. There would be people at the bar. If she could just get back there, she would be safe. He wouldn’t dare come after her in there. He didn’t want to involve the police any more than she did. She just had to get to the bar.

And when she finally spotted the phosphorescent glow that signaled the main street was up ahead, she picked up one last burst of speed, running straight for its blessed safety. She reached it within seconds, her heart thudding, nothing but hope and adrenaline coursing through her veins. Breaking through, she darted around the corner.

And straight into a wall.

A blast of cold water couldn’t have been more of a shock. She bounced back, stumbling unevenly, off balance. Hands reached out to grip her forearms.

Startled, scared, she lifted her head and found herself staring into a face that was partially hidden in shadow.

Not a wall.

A man.

Fog billowed around him, rendering him nothing but a menacing silhouette that loomed over her. It didn’t matter. She knew from the unyielding hold he had on her arms that he wasn’t about to let her go.

She should have known Taylor wouldn’t be alone.

He was one of them. He had to be.

Her limbs froze just when she needed them to fight back the most. After running for so long, it seemed impossible to believe the moment of reckoning had arrived.

They’d caught her.

“Y OU JUST MISSED him. Left not ten minutes ago.”

Ross barely heard the bartender over the raucous noise filling the bar, but he got the message loud and clear. He bit back a curse. He couldn’t afford to indulge the instinct, couldn’t risk offending the bartender when the man held information he needed. It wasn’t the man’s fault that he didn’t have the answer Ross wanted to hear. That didn’t make it any easier to take.

He had to wait to question the man further. The bartender turned away to refill the glass of a man at the other end of the bar. The small neighborhood pub was surprisingly crowded for a Tuesday night. The bartender and a single waitress were the only ones working. Ross was lucky to get the man’s attention at all, especially since he wasn’t drinking.

Impatience gnawed at him all the same. It rankled that he’d managed to track Taylor down to this bar, only to miss him by ten minutes.

It had been far easier to find Taylor than he’d expected, so much so the situation made Ross a little uneasy. For someone on the run, Taylor hadn’t done a very good job covering his tracks as he’d cut an uneven path from New York to Chicago. Despite the head start the man had on him, it had only taken Ross a few days to catch up.

The bartender finally swung back in his direction. Ross motioned him over. “How long was this guy in here?” he asked, tapping the photo of Taylor he’d placed on the bar.

The bartender heaved a sigh that sent his belly quaking and considered the question. “Three hours or so. Sat at the table by the window there. Had four beers.”

“Was he alone?”

“Yep. Just sat there. Didn’t talk much. Kept his eyes on that window.”

“He leave alone?”

“I didn’t see him leave. One minute he was there, and the next, when I turned around, he was gone.”

The bartender was eyeing his patrons down the length of the bar, and Ross knew he was about to lose him. Figuring he’d gotten all he was going to out of the man, he pulled a bill out of his wallet and placed it on the counter. The bartender accepted it without a word. Ross moved away from the bar and headed for the door.

Outside, he glanced in both directions down the street, trying to gauge which way Taylor might have gone. There was no one in sight. To the left were a couple of businesses, their windows shuttered, the lights dimmed. There was a laundromat, a drugstore. Nothing he could imagine Taylor being interested in.

To the right lay houses and apartment buildings, what was mainly a residential area. The windows were mostly dark, their inhabitants safe in their beds for the night.

The bartender’s comment that Taylor had stared through a window for hours bothered him. Instead of choosing a more discreet position in the back of the bar where it was unlikely anyone would see him, he’d chosen a seat right in front of the window. Either he really wasn’t worried about being spotted—and Ross knew Taylor was too savvy to be so careless—or he was looking for someone. Undoubtedly the same someone he’d come all this way to find.

At this time of night Ross was inclined to believe someone would be heading home, instead of to any of the closed businesses to his left. He headed right.

Thunder rumbled overhead. Ross flipped up the collar on his leather jacket, but didn’t try to seek cover. He moved quickly. There was the possibility that Taylor had driven off, having completed whatever business had brought him here. Ross refused to consider that yet. He wouldn’t accept that he’d been this close only to lose the man again. He had to be somewhere nearby.

Distracted by his thoughts, Ross heard the running footsteps a heartbeat too late. He took an instinctive step back, but not quickly enough to avoid the person who barreled straight into him from out of nowhere.

Too slow, man.

His hands automatically went up to steady the person. One touch, and he knew it was a woman.

Then she threw her head up, a curtain of ebony hair flying back from her face. The lights were behind him, cutting through the gloom, offering him a clear view of her expression.

Huge, frightened eyes blinked up at him. Sure she was about to bolt, he tightened his hold on her arms.

He quickly took stock of the situation, spotting the alley she’d come out of, the opening so tucked away in the shadows he never would have noticed it.

He could feel her pulse beneath his thumbs, the double-time throb of her heart beneath the thin layers of her clothing. Combined with the look of shock in her eyes, it was obvious she was terrified. Of him?

When she said nothing, he shook her gently. “Lady, are you all right?”

It took a second. Some of the fear in her eyes faded, replaced by confusion. She blinked and shook her head as though trying to clear it. He wondered if she was on drugs, only to dismiss the idea a moment later. Her eyes were clear and unerringly focused on his face. Her gaze was probing, searching his features for something, some semblance of familiarity, he supposed. She wouldn’t find any. He never forgot a face, and he knew they’d never met.

“You’re not one of them,” she murmured, the words little more than a whisper carried on the wind. Still, there was something about her voice…

“One of who?” He regretted asking as soon as the words were out. Whatever this woman was into, he wasn’t interested. He had problems enough of his own without worrying about someone else’s. He needed to extricate himself from her situation, not dig in deeper. With each passing second, Taylor was getting that much farther away.

Before she could answer, the sounds of footsteps pounding down the alley she’d just emerged from reached them. No doubt whoever she was running from coming after her.

They both glanced toward the sound. She whipped her head back to face him a split second later. Steely determination had replaced the fear in her eyes, the transformation so complete she seemed to have become an entirely different person. He stared stupidly at the new stranger she’d become.

“Help me,” she said, her voice as forceful as her expression. “Don’t let him find me.”

She’d managed to surprise him for the second time in half as many seconds. Not because of her demand or the sudden strength of her voice. No, it was her accent, now unmistakable and wholly out of place in this Midwestern city.

She was from New York.

She didn’t give him a chance to process that simple fact. With one more glance over her shoulder, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him flat against her. At the same time, she twisted, throwing them both back into a small recess in the wall, so that he was pinning her against it.

He understood immediately. Anyone who came out of that alley would likely pass by without even knowing they were there.

And if he did…

Her hands wound themselves into his hair, pulling his head close. For a moment, he was sure she was going to kiss him. It was the oldest trick in the book: pretend to be lovers to mislead anyone who was looking for one person, not two. He was almost disappointed she would resort to it.

The rest of him waited for it, remembering just how long it had been since he’d had a woman. His self-imposed solitude had had one major drawback.

It never happened.

She caught him off guard—again. She came close enough that it would look like they were kissing, but far enough that they weren’t. They were enclosed in almost complete darkness, isolated in a cocoon of night. He could only see her eyes. They stared up at him, beseeching, pleading with him not to pull away, not to make a sound, not to reveal their position.

Ross didn’t move.

It wasn’t because of her silent plea. It was because, even now, moments later, the sound of her voice echoed in his ears. Her accent was straight out of the Bronx, if his ear wasn’t too rusty. And he knew, in a flash of knowledge so instinctive he didn’t dare question it, that this was the person Roy Taylor was looking for.

Taylor was the man chasing her.

Immediately the events of the past few minutes began to shift in Ross’s mind, realigning themselves, taking on new, complicated meanings. Suddenly the warm, pliant and frightened woman in his arms was no longer a casual stranger, but someone who had real importance in his life.

If she was running from Taylor, she had reason to be afraid. More than one.

At last someone burst out of the alley and skidded to a halt. Then came a muffled curse, the sound offering the confirmation he needed. He knew that voice.

Taylor.

He must have stiffened in spite of himself, the need to go after the man that keyed into his system. Taylor was just a few feet away, right behind him. He didn’t know Ross was there. All Ross had to do was turn around and he had him.

The woman’s hands tightened in his hair, not enough to hurt but more than enough to let him know she didn’t intend to let him go.

It was the only reminder he needed. Ross stayed where he was, peering down at the woman in the dark. Though he never would have believed it, he had something more important than Taylor. He had something Taylor wanted. And something Taylor was willing to jump bail to pursue had to be very important indeed.

Though she made no sound, her chest rose and fell in a ragged pattern, causing her breasts to rub against his body in an unconsciously erotic fashion. In spite of himself, he felt his groin tighten.

Only the hard-won self-control forged after so many years kept him from moving. He remained pinned against her, feeling every inch of her body pressed against his, her soft, sweet breath brushing his face, until he forgot everything—Taylor, Chastain, everything. There was nothing but him and this woman, a stranger who’d suddenly taken on a vast importance in his life.

He didn’t even know her name.

It wasn’t until it began to rain, fat, wet drops falling heavily on his head, that reality returned. Clarity came, as rude an awakening as the rain.

“Is he gone?”

Her voice contained the slightest tremor. He wasn’t sure of the cause—him or Taylor. Not that it mattered.

He listened carefully, hearing nothing but the patter of rain on the pavement and the echo of thunder in the distance. When he finally pushed away from her, her fingers loosening their hold, the back of his head was drenched.

“Is he gone?” she asked again. She dropped her hands but couldn’t move away. He literally had her up against a wall.

“I think so.”

She nodded quickly, pursing her lips and dropping her head. He could see she was just beginning to notice how vulnerable her position was. There was a distinct wariness in her eyes now. No doubt she was beginning to wonder who the man was she’d just pressed herself against in a darkened street corner, trusting he was less of a danger than the one she was fleeing. Now she had to be wondering whether he was truly a lesser danger.

It was a good question. He doubted she would like the answer.