London from My Windows (4 page)

CHAPTER 4

Ava was perched at her kitchen table, working on a cartoon strip about young lovers scaling Mount Kilimanjaro, when the doorbell rang.
Oh no. No, no, no.
Unexpected guests could poison her entire day. The doorbell rang again. She'd been just about to sketch the lovers reaching the peak, a triumphant feat to be celebrated, until it's discovered that one of them, probably the man, left the camera at base camp and it snowballs into their first big fight. That was the part she was looking forward to the most. Love didn't count until you'd survived that first big fight. The doorbell rang for the third time.
Leave me alone; I'm on a mountaintop.

Ava picked up the remote and aimed it at the monitor hanging in the upper corner of the room. It flickered to life, illuminating the unwelcome guests as two uniformed police officers. Cliff, her boss in a way, and the one she was sleeping with, and most likely his partner, Joe. They looked funny together. Joe was a tall beanpole. Cliff was handsome all right, dark good looks and so muscular, but let's face it—he was short. Still, he was sexy. He had that gruff Napoléon thing going on, and he was good in bed. Not that Ava had anyone to compare it with. Unbeknownst to him, Cliff was her first. It was hard to play the field when you were afraid of the field itself. Cliff cupped his hand over his eyes and tried to peer into her windows. “Amateur,” she said. Her windows were sealed with black sheets. He knew that.

Given the presence of his partner, Cliff wasn't here for a lunch-hour quickie. Too bad; sex with Cliff was always a nice distraction. Ava turned up the volume on the monitor. She could hear them conferring but couldn't make out the words. It was her day off. What did they want?

Ava stood and moved along the wall. Despite the black sheets, she didn't want to take the chance that Cliff could sense her movements. Why hadn't he called first? She'd wait them out. They'd leave eventually.

“Ava,” Cliff said. “I know you're in there.” His voice would carry down the block. To the neighbors. Of course he knew she was in here. She was always in here.

“It's my day off,” Ava said. She was in her pajamas even though it was only two in the afternoon. There were very few perks to being an agoraphobic. Wearing your pajamas at two in the afternoon was one of them.

“It's a work emergency,” Cliff said.

“Do you have a client with you?” She didn't want to sketch criminals today, only lovers.

“Open up,” Cliff said. “You know I hate talking through the door.”

“I'm not dressed,” Ava said.

“I'm going to put the siren on.”

That would draw the attention of the neighbors. Cliff knew just how to push her buttons. “Dammit.” Ava opened the door. “Hurry,” she said. Cliff and Joe stepped inside and Ava shut and locked the door behind them. Three locks. She checked them twice. Joe glanced at the locks, then at her horse pajamas, and then looked away. Cliff stared openmouthed at her pj's. “It's my day off,” Ava said.

“We need you to do a sketch,” Cliff said.

Ava sighed. “Why doesn't the department just switch to computer sketches like every other police department in the country?”

“Because we've got you.”

Flattery wasn't going to work. The department was cheap, and old-fashioned. That was the real reason. Not that Ava was complaining. It paid the bills. “She or he?” Probably a she. It was normally a she.

“It's a girl.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“How can I sketch her now? I don't see her here.” She smiled so that Joe wouldn't sense her hostility and figure out that she and Cliff were lovers. Ava watched Joe take in the black sheets hanging over her windows.

“Is this a bad time?” he asked politely.

“Yes,” Ava said.

Joe put his hand over his heart. “I'm so sorry. Who died?”
Poor guy.
Ava bet his daughters ran right over him.

“My father,” Ava said.

“Oh my God,” Joe said. “We're so sorry to bother you. Our condolences.” He tipped his hat and headed for the door.

“Nineteen years ago,” Cliff said.

Joe stopped before his hand reached the doorknob. “Pardon?”

“Ava's father died nineteen years ago,” Cliff said.

Joe frowned, then shook his finger at Ava as if he'd just figured out her secret. “Are you on a stakeout?”

“A stakeout?” Cliff said. He gestured to the black sheets. “She can't see out the windows. How could she be on a stakeout?”

“You're close, Jim,” Ava said.

“It's Joe.”

“Right, sorry. I forget that some people get to be called by their real names.”

“Their real names?” Joe said.

“We don't have time for this,” Cliff said.

“I had to change my name when I went into hiding,” Ava said.

Cliff shook his head. “Cut it out.”

Joe straightened up, hooked his thumbs into his pants. “You can trust me.”

“I'm in witness protection.”

“Holy shit. I knew it. I knew there was something . . . about you.” He paused in the place where Ava was sure he wanted to say “odd.”

“Seriously?” Cliff said.

“Please, don't blow my cover.”

“Holy shit,” Joe said. He took a step forward and lowered his chin. “Mob?”

“Would I be wearing horse pajamas if it
wasn't
the Mob, Joe?” Ava said deadpan. Joe squinted and considered her question. Ava should behave; she really should. But when you stayed in all the time, your pent-up energy had to go somewhere. It was too fun messing with people like Joe. And there was no real harm done.

“Get dressed!” Cliff said. “You're coming to the station.”
The station?
Ava never went to the station. Never. “If I have to put you over my shoulder and carry you out covered in asses—”

“Asses?”

He glanced at her pajamas. “Mules, ponies, whatever.”

“They're horses. Racehorses.” It was her day off. She could wear whatever freaking pajamas she wanted to wear.

“It's the mayor's daughter,” Cliff said.

“Emma?” Everyone knew the mayor's only daughter, Emma. Everyone loved Emma. A blond angel. A total sweetheart. She was just about to celebrate her sweet sixteen. A party for the ages. “Is she all right?”

“It was an attempted kidnapping. A man grabbed her just outside the mayoral home. She screamed and bit him. Bodyguards came running.”

“Oh my God.”

“You don't want him to get away, do you?”

Ava glanced at Joe, who became intensely interested in a porcelain cat on the windowsill. He reached out as if to pet it.

“Don't touch that,” Ava said to Joe. “It's bugged.” He jerked his hand away. God, Ava was an awful person. He was just too easy. Ava stepped closer to Cliff. “Bring her here,” Ava said.

“High profile. Can't bend the rules on this one.”

“I'm not prepared,” Ava said. “You know I have to prepare.”

“You don't have a choice. Not if you want to keep your job.”

“Call Gary Vance.” He wasn't as good as Ava, but then again, he also wasn't afraid of showing up to work.

“The mayor requested a female sketch artist. He requested you.”

“By name?”

“Yes.”

“The mayor knows my name?”

“Of course he knows your name. Your sketches have led to ten apprehensions in three years. Makes him look good. Like it or not, people know your name.”

“But not your real name,” Joe said. “Right?”

Cliff shot Joe a look. “What's it going to be? Either you come with me or you resign.”

Shit.
Ava couldn't lose her job. If she lost her job she'd lose her home. It was only a rental, but it was safe. But she wasn't prepared. She wasn't prepared. Did she have any Xanax in the medicine cabinet? “I'll get dressed.” Ava hurried into her room. Getting dressed was easy. She didn't have very many outfits. She threw on black pants and a black top. She grabbed a blindfold from her top dresser drawer. She grabbed her cell phone and pushed the speed-dial button for her therapist, Diana. While it rang she hurried into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. She rifled through the contents. No Xanax. She'd had no reason to refill the prescription. Cliff didn't mind hanging out at her place. He brought all her clients here. She could get everything she wanted delivered. Her mother stopped pushing her years ago.
Why did it have to be Emma? Poor, sweet Emma.

Ava reached Diana's voice mail. Nobody was ever home. How easy it was for most people to go places, do things. Ava would kill to feel so free. She hung up and ran into the living room. “You're going to need to blindfold me,” she told Cliff. “Carry me out to the car. You're also going to have to talk the entire time. I don't care what you talk about; just don't stop talking. And Xanax. You're going to have to find me some Xanax.”

 

Ava and Emma sat in a back room of the police station. As requested, the windows were covered in Ava's black sheets. Ava was going to get through this, and she was going to help catch the man who tried to kidnap the mayor's daughter. Two bodyguards stood by the door, Cliff was in the left corner behind Ava, and the mayor's wife, Mrs. Rhodes, sat next to her daughter, holding her hand.

“Why the sheets?” Mrs. Rhodes asked.

Cliff stepped forward. “To protect Emma's identity.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you,
Ava thought. He wasn't the best boyfriend in the world, but at that moment he really came through. She was going to owe him one.

“We just paraded through the entire precinct,” Mrs. Rhodes said. “Take them off. They're morbid.”

Cliff glanced at Ava, then nodded. He strode to the windows and took off the first sheet. Then the second, and the third. Ava could feel the open space behind them. Endless, open space. Eyeballs staring at them.

Ava slid down in her seat and hid behind her sketch pad as Emma described her attacker. “He was tall and strong. And his face was kind of puffy.”

Pillsbury Doughboy meets the Hulk,
Ava thought to herself. It helped her sketches if she related them to characters. Ava worked quickly and lightly, asking, as she sketched, the usual questions about the perpetrator's eyes, and forehead, and nose, and the shape of the chin. Why did Cliff have to take off the sheets? They were gone. Gone, gone, gone.

“He had a really big nose,” Emma said. She sounded chipper. Ava expected her to cry, or sound afraid. She was very poised. Children of politicians were probably raised that way.

Ava nodded. “Lips?” She wished Cliff would just throw the sheet over her head. If she sat under the table to sketch would anyone say anything?

“I don't know,” Emma said. “It happened so fast.”

“It's okay. Just say whatever you feel.”

“Thin. I feel his lips were thin.”

“Good.” He should have made up another reason they had to keep the sheets up. Or Ava should have said they were hers. She was the artist; the room should be set up the way she needed. “Okay. When you're ready, open your eyes and I'll show you the picture. Remember, you're safe now.” Emma nodded. Then, her eyes opened. Ava turned the sketch toward her.

Emma frowned. She cocked her head. Then, she shook it. Nobody had ever done this before. Normally they gasped in recognition. Was Emma in shock? “It's not him,” Emma said.

She was in denial. Ava wasn't going to correct her. She more than anyone understood how powerful denial could be. “Okay, we'll work on it,” Ava said. “Which part doesn't look like him?”

“Every part,” Emma said.

Emma's mother glanced at Cliff. “This isn't working. We'll have to reschedule.” With another sketch artist, she meant.

It was her fault for insisting they remove the sheets. Who did she think she was? Would she walk into Ava's home and insist she take the sheets off there as well? “Let's start over.” Ava ripped the sketch out and set it on the table. She turned to a fresh sheet. “Start at the beginning—”

Mrs. Rhodes stood. “We're done here.”

“Sometimes when a person is in shock—” Ava began.

“Does Emma look like she's in shock?” She had a point. Emma did not look like she was in shock. And Ava found that very troubling. Emma had almost been kidnapped.

“Emma, you have been very, very brave,” Ava said. “But you don't have to pretend. Not with me.”

“Pretend what?” Emma cocked her head.

“Yes, pretend what?” Mrs. Rhodes said.

Ava was upsetting them both. She was only trying to help. “Please, let's try this again.”

Cliff put his arm on Ava's shoulder. “They have somewhere to be.”

“What could be more important than this?”

“Somebody has a sixteenth birthday party,” Mrs. Rhodes said. She shared a grin with Emma.

“You can't go on with the party.” The words tumbled out of Ava's mouth before she could stop them.

“Ava?” Cliff said. Ava never interjected any personal conversation into her work. Cliff looked mortified. Mrs. Rhodes looked furious. Emma was simply watching Ava with open curiosity.

Ava shot out of her chair. “You have to cancel it.”

“Why on earth would we—” Mrs. Rhodes started to say.

“At least postpone it.”

“Do you want to come?” Emma asked. “You could sketch my friends.”