Footsteps (10 page)

Her clinical detachment from the developing
reality that James had nefarious plans for her continued. She
honestly did not much care. But when she’d seen the Escalade
outside the church, as she walked away from Carlo and his family,
she’d felt a small frisson of fear.

It wasn’t guilt—she hadn’t done anything out
of the ordinary when she’d stopped and spoken to Carlo and met his
family. Even that she’d been to church at all didn’t scare her.
James would be deeply displeased and, if she ever saw him again, he
would take his displeasure out in the way he saw fit, but she was
used to that.

The little twitch of fear she’d felt, she
thought, was about the reason the Escalade was there. Perhaps she
wasn’t quite as ready to die as she’d thought.

And that, she knew, was because of Carlo
Pagano. She was incensed with herself. After the life she’d had
since she’d met James Auberon, she, more than most, should have
been well trained to stay away from men who made her heart flutter.
To turn her attention, and perhaps her affection, onto a man she’d
only just met, and to let her mind take hold of him? In her
circumstances? It was folly.

But he’d touched her last night with such
gentle kindness that she’d wept. What he’d been doing should have
hurt, even through no fault of his, but he’d been so tender with
her that he hadn’t hurt her at all. In her entire adult life, she
had never been touched by a man so tenderly, and with no purpose
but to give her balm.

It had taken her breath away. And,
apparently, her sense had left with her breath.

But
, a wee voice in her head
whispered,
if James is going to kill you, what harm could it do?
To know tenderness before you die?

As she’d lain in bed last night, she’d tried
to focus her mind away from the memory of Carlo’s touch on her by
listing the ways pursuing this folly could cause harm, and not to
herself only. To Carlo, too. Yes, he was a Pagano. But James was
the
Auberon. And if James felt something of his had been
taken or tainted, he would salt the earth.

That white Escalade made it clear that
whatever happened in this week, James would know about it. For all
Sabina knew, Carlo was already in danger, because he’d walked her
home and had come into James’s house. Because she’d invited him
in.

As that thought finally became full, Sabina
closed her book. If James knew that Carlo had come into the house
late last night…it wouldn’t matter that James no longer wanted her,
or that Carlo’s intentions were good. She had to warn him. But
how?

Sitting on the veranda as the afternoon aged
into its warmest hour and the sun moved behind the house, making
long shadows over the dunes, Sabina considered her options. She
didn’t know his phone number, and he lived in Providence, not here.
She didn’t know where his father lived. She knew where his sister
lived, but going to her house, or their father’s for that matter,
would probably only compound the problem.

Finally, she went into the house and opened
a drawer in a shabby-chic chest in the living room. She pulled out
the area phone book. She could have used her phone or her laptop to
look up a phone number, but James tracked her usage, and she never
felt comfortable with the notion that she could sufficiently erase
her tracks. So she leafed through the paper phone book to the Ps,
not sure she’d find anything, but without another option she could
see.

Carlo Pagano, Sr. was listed. He had a house
on Caravel Road. She lifted the receiver on the landline phone—her
knowledge of technology was only adequate for her own use, but she
thought that a landline would be safer—and dialed the number.
Still, what if James had the line tapped as a matter of course? The
phone was ringing, though, so she put that worry aside. That was
too paranoid. Wasn’t it?

A young, feminine voice answered,
“Hello?”

Sabina felt her tongue clinging to the
bottom of her mouth, but she forced words out. “Yes, good
afternoon. I am not bothering you, please, but I may speak with
Carlo? Sorry, Carlo Jr.? He is there, please?”

She could hear the words coming out oddly,
the syntax wrong for English and not entirely right for Spanish,
either, some bizarre syntactical hybrid, but she was nervous, and
that happened more when she was.

A few seconds of quiet greeted her request.
“Um…who should I say is calling?”

“This is Sabina? We met this morning, yes?
You are…Rosa?” She took a guess; Carmen lived elsewhere.

“Yes. Hi. Um. He’s here. Just a sec.”

In the ensuing pause, Sabina almost hung up.
Was this a thing that could be said through plastic in someone’s
ear? Indecision tore at her. But then his voice was there, deep and
reassuring. And a little confused.

“Hello? Bina?”

“Yes. Carlo. Hello. I…I…” Refusing to let
words fail her now, she took a breath and started again. “I need to
speak with you. The phone maybe is wrong for this. I would like to
meet. Will you? For a few minutes only?”

“Bina, are you all right?”

She wasn’t asked that question often,
because there weren’t people in her life who had that kind of
concern for her. But Carlo had asked it before anything else. She
should say yes.
Yes, I’m fine
was the correct answer. But it
was not a true answer, and it wouldn’t come out of her mouth.
Finally, she simply reiterated her question. “Will you meet? Is
there someplace?”

After a pause, Carlo answered, “Yes. Of
course. Do you know Quinn’s? It’s a pub on Gannet Street. It’s not
fancy at all, but there’s a patio out back. I can meet you there
in…half an hour?”

“Yes. Yes, thank you. I’ll not be long with
you.”

“It’s all right, Bina, if you need help.
I’ll see you there.”

He hung up before she could say more.

~oOo~

She didn’t change her clothes to go to this
Quinn’s pub; she thought it would be better if she looked like
she’d gone out to run errands, in case the Escalade was still
nearby. She left her sweater and shorts on and put her sore feet
into a pair of no-show sport socks and her white Keds. Those felt
much better than the boots she’d worn to Mass. Dressed this way,
and with the cover-up makeup she’d used on her wrists this morning
worn away, all of her recent hurts showed—her wrapped ankle, her
scabbed knees, her bruised wrists. She thought long and hard about
changing into clothes that made her less…exposed, but in the end
held to her idea that she should not look as if she expected to
meet anyone who would remark on her condition.

And the Escalade was, in fact, parked just
around the corner from her house. Still the large man behind the
wheel. Either he was not very adept at surveillance, or James
wanted her to know he was watching. James would never hire anyone
who wasn’t the best in his profession. So she was supposed to
notice the Escalade. Why? To keep her in line? That was too passive
for a man like her husband.

He wanted her to be afraid.

And then the next thought chilled her. James
wanted her to call him about it. He wanted a record that someone
was following her, and that she had called him to get his help. He
was setting the stage for her demise and for his alibi. He would
probably make some show about asking someone to check in on
her.

Thinking it through, she actually smiled. He
was brilliant. Truly brilliant.

What would he do, though, if she didn’t call
him? If she pretended she hadn’t noticed? She thought it would be
interesting to find out.

~oOo~

Quinn’s was in the middle of a block, right
down in the main part of the Quiet Cove shopping and entertainment
district—such as it was. She was pleased, though, to see that the
entrance was down a little colonnade and not visible from the
street. The driver of the Escalade would not be sure, from his seat
behind the wheel, into which business she’d gone.

Sabina passed it and parked in the lot at
the end of the block, then walked back and turned down the
colonnade. She pulled open a padded red vinyl door beside which the
name QUINN’S glowed in neon, and she went into her first pub.

Dark, low-ceilinged, and dingy, it was not a
place Sabina would ever have gone into had she not been invited
there. It seemed uniquely designed for men—and men of a certain
type. All over the walls were framed photographs of boxers and race
car drivers and boxers and more boxers. Lots of old fight posters,
too. There were three large televisions anchored near the ceiling
in corners of the room. All were muted and each was playing a
different sporting event.

At this hour on a Sunday, before dusk, there
were a few people there, enough to fill about a quarter of the
booths and low tables, and three people at the bar. The old
jukebox—the kind with the colored liquid bubbling through it—played
a song she knew, and she tried to place it. She’d liked it when she
was young. By Bon Jovi, maybe? She listened more closely and made
out a few lines and thought yes, that was Bon Jovi. The song had
been popular the summer she’d been brought to the States to live
with Tia Valeria. She’d been eight years old. Mother Mary, she
hadn’t thought of music like this in forever. Or anything else
about those years.

Sabina scanned the bar but did not see
Carlo. She felt awkward and out of place here, and it was making
her anxious. However, the bartender, a brawny man about forty years
old, with brown hair, a full beard, and tattoos covering his arms,
waved her to the bar.

“You’re too damn beautiful to be in here
without a good reason, darlin’. You looking for Carlo?”

Sabina nodded. “Yes. Yes, please.”

“He’s out back—down that little hall and
through the door at the end. Past the johns. I’m Hugh. You need a
drink to take back with you?”

“No, thank you…Hugh.” She smiled.

He slapped his hand, its knuckles big and
scarred, over his heart. “Damn. An accent, too. You need anything,
you let me know.”

She nodded and followed his directions out
to the patio.

The patio was much nicer than the bar. The
seating was picnic tables painted a bright, cheery green and topped
with assorted sun umbrellas advertising beer and liquor. White
mini-lights were strung all along the tall wood fence that made the
perimeter. They glowed weakly in the waning daylight.

A few of the tables were occupied. Sitting
alone at one of them was Carlo.

When he saw her, he stood. This evening, he
was dressed in jeans and a white button-down shirt, its tails left
loose. The top two buttons were undone, and she could see dark hair
on his chest. She’d noticed that last night, too—not too much hair,
but not scraggly, either. The right amount. His hair had that same
wild, swept-back look; it was becoming obvious that there was
nothing more to be done with that mop. But she liked it. Neither
too long nor too short, not so wild as to appear unkempt, it suited
him. He smiled broadly as she approached. That suited him, too. He
smiled all the way to his light brown eyes.

But then he took her appearance in, and the
smile faded when he got to her legs. “Bina. You’re so hurt.”

“No. Not so much hurt. May we sit?”

“Yes. Of course.” He turned and gestured to
the seat opposite where he’d been sitting. After she sat, he did.
There was a half-finished beer in a glass near his place. “I’m
sorry. I needed a drink. I would have ordered you something, but I
wasn’t sure…”

Sabina didn’t drink. James did not allow her
to take anything that might alter her mind in any way. When she’d
had surgery, he’d taken her pain meds away at his earliest
opportunity.

“That is beer?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“I will take one. Thank you.”

With a series of gestures made to someone
behind Sabina’s back, Carlo conveyed that she would like one of
what he was having, and that he would like another. Then he focused
on her. “What did you need to talk about?”

How did she explain to him that he might be
in trouble, perhaps even danger, because he had been kind to her?
How to make him understand? She had no idea.

Sabina had not had a confidant since she was
eighteen years old, when her aunt died. But all she could think now
was to confide in Carlo. A little bit. Enough so he would know to
stay away, and that she was sorry.

A cute waitress in a small denim skirt and a
tight, red t-shirt with the name QUINN’S in bold yellow letters
across the chest brought her a beer and Carlo another. Carlo nodded
his thanks, and she left.

“Bina?”

To hear him use that name did something
strange inside her chest. She’d told him to call her that, of
course. Last night. She didn’t know why. Only one other person in
the world had ever called her Bina. James. She’d hated it when he’d
first started, and she’d even, very early on, asked him not to.
He’d only smiled and said he enjoyed having a name for her that was
his only. At the time, she’d found it romantically possessive.
She’d quickly, but yet too late, learned better.