Cain (5 page)

“
For what?” Julie snapped
to attention. “If you think I’m riding in one of those suckers, you
can just think again. There isn’t any way in hell—”

Cain cut Julie off. “Ride or stay. It’s
entirely up to you. Hospital policy states you leave in one.” He
grinned at her.

“
And I suppose you always
follow the rules?” she asked through her clenched teeth.

“
When it suits me. Now, it
does.” Cain had no idea why he was baiting her so much. Julie
practically vibrated with anger. When Molly laughed behind him, he
smiled more. Cain found himself wondering if Julie would put this
much passion into their love-making. And that thought brought him
up short. Sex with Julie? Yes, he thought, that was something he’d
like to pursue.

The wheelchair ride was made in
silence. Cain wasn’t sure what was going on in Julie’s head, but he
was sure it didn’t bode well for him. He found he didn’t care, was
in fact looking forward to bantering with her more. This was as
much fun as he’d had as a kid with his sisters, only much more
enjoyable.

Cain made a mental note to himself that
he needed to warn his sisters that their father was back in town.
He also needed to let them know that their mother was aiding and
abetting him in his schemes to see them. All five of his sisters
had suffered at their parents’ stupidity, but not anymore. Not
while he could care for them, they wouldn’t.

When they pulled up in front of the
cemetery, there were about seventy cars already there. And there
were several cruisers lined up along the side of the road close to
the grave where people were milling about. Molly looked as confused
as both Julie and he were. It wasn’t until Cait Grant came toward
them that things started to fall into place.

“
Rodney was one of ours,”
Cait said when asked about the people there. “He may have been out
of touch for a while, but we never leave a cop on his own at a time
like this. I understood him to be a great man. And I’m very sorry
for your loss.”

“
Yes. Yes, he was. He
just...he had a lot of his own demons that got the better of him.
He just couldn’t seem to...he had a hard time forgetting.” Molly
wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “Thank you for this, Captain
Grant.”

“
It was our pleasure. And
please, call me Cait. Captain Grant sounds like I should be old and
carrying a large cane. If you will all come this way.”

The graveside funeral was with full
police honor. The twenty-one gun salute made Julie jump with each
firing of the rifles, but Cain folded her into his body and held
her. The flag was presented to Molly, who was openly crying as she
accepted it. Cain, too, was moved by the ceremony.

Cain drove Molly’s car to her house.
Cait had also arranged for food and beer to be taken to the house
so that people could meet there and talk about their friend. The
beer, Cain had been told, was for the cops, old and new, to drink
to one of their fallen comrades.

Cain kept an eye on Julie for most of
the afternoon. She was starting to fade just after the toast. When
she disappeared, he went to find her and found Molly
instead.

“
She went to lie down in
my son’s old room. My granddaughter Shannon is in there with her.
She’s a nurse. Julie will be fine, Cain. You worry too much. How
much trouble can she get in as hurt as she is?”

Cain didn’t bother answering the last
part. Plenty, he was sure. “I should get her. I don’t know where
she’s going from here, do you? And the things at the hospital, what
happens to those?” Cain needed to talk to Julie, he realized. She
couldn’t go back on the streets. Not now.

“
Julie had me take the
fruit to the VA hospital along with the flowers. I gave her back
her clothes yesterday, cleaned and pressed. Was there anything else
that you were wondering about? I mean, I didn’t see any meds for
her or prescriptions now that I think about it.” He had given her
two, one for pain and the other vitamins. “And as for where she’s
staying...I’m sorry, I just assumed after seeing the two of you
together that she...that the two of you, well, I thought you two
were seeing each other.”

“
No, we…we hadn’t gotten
that far. I mean she’s...shit! She drives me nuts, but I still find
myself wanting to be with her. I even find myself aggravating her
just to see her temper flare. How stupid is that?”

Molly laughed. “Well, you do flare her
up. And of course you want to be with her.” She patted his cheek.
“Oh look, there’s Shannon now. Perhaps she can tell you how Julie
is doing.”

Cain didn’t think so. He could tell by
the look on the girl’s face that something had happened. Somehow,
he knew that Julie was no longer in the house.

“
Is Julie out here? I just
stepped out to go to the bathroom and Dan’s window was opened and
she wasn’t in there anymore.”

Cain wanted to howl out his
frustrations. But first, he had a woman to hunt down, and heaven
help her when he found her. He was going to lay down some rules as
soon as he did. If he found her.

~CHAPTER SIX~

Julie moved along the “homes” of her
buddies. They weren’t friends, not really. They’d as soon stick a
knife in someone’s back as to look at them. Some were all right,
though. Moon and Toby were two of those she trusted to an
extent.

“
Miss Rocky, you shouldn’t
be wandering around this late. Get yourself a corner and stay
there,” Moon whispered harshly at her. She hadn’t even seen him
inside of his shelter.

Julie was relieved. After Rodney, she
didn’t want to lose anyone else. “I got you something. But you have
to promise me you won’t share or let anyone else know you have it.”
She handed him a shiny apple from the fruit basket she’d
gotten.

“
Oh Miss Rocky! This is a
treat. Yes, it is. An apple, a whole apple. I gotta share with my
man Toby. He likes them too, he does.”

Julie pulled out a second one and
handed it to Moon. “I got one for him too. Plus, an orange each.
Don’t go telling anyone. You know what will happen if you do. I
don’t want anything happening to you.”

“
Yes, ma’am, they’ll steal
it. Right outta my hand, they will.” He smelled the fruit as though
it was manna to him, then looked up at her. “You didn’t steal this
from someone, did you? They won’t be coming after old Moon for it
back, will they?”

“
No, Moon. It’s yours fair
and square.” She watched as he sniffed it again. “Moon, do you
think I could bed down close to here tonight? My place is
gone.”

Julie stayed with Rodney most nights.
They hadn’t slept together, but they had protected each other. She
wasn’t even sure she could go back to their place now. Not yet
anyway.

“
Yeah. Heard about old
Rodney. Police had us all moved around that day. That butthole
Sherman had me so mad that Toby had to hold me back some. Wouldn’t
let us pay our respects or nothing. Shame, that. He was a good man,
that Rodney. You stay here with me and Toby. We got us a new house
just last week.”

Julie looked at his new “home.” Someone
nearby must have gotten themselves a new freezer and Toby and Moon
ended up with a new house out of the deal. She was just getting
settled when Toby showed up. He’d gone on for twenty minutes about
the apple and orange. When they offered her the whole house in
exchange for the fruit, she’d told them it was a gift and not a
trade, but thanked them anyway. At sometime well after midnight,
they settled down to sleep.

Julie thought about leaving Molly’s
home. She’d felt bad that she hadn’t thanked her. She decided to go
by the hospital next week and tell her so. Julie was sure that had
she stayed, Dr. Waite would have found a way to keep her from where
she needed to be. She couldn’t do that, not now, not
ever.

The envelope that Rodney had given
Molly was a surprise. Not only had Rodney found out who she was,
but had also kept tabs on Julie’s family. They were still searching
for her. Even after all this time.

Alyssa Howard was an heiress. Not just
an heiress, but one with a brain. That was what the papers had
called her when she’d graduated from Yale at fifteen with a
business degree. She’d gone on to Brown University as well. She now
had three degrees under her real name and had planned to use them
running her daddy’s company for him.

Alyssa’s father had been grooming her
to run the company’s holdings when he retired. Howard Incorporated
bought companies and buildings, revamped them, then sold them for a
profit. They also had several hotels all over the world that
catered to the rich, famous, and the small families. When Nathan
Howard died suddenly when Alyssa was seventeen, he’d left her
everything—over eleven billion dollars in company assets alone.
Personal accounts and monies added another five billion, making
Alyssa the youngest billionaire in the world.

Alyssa’s brothers, Nathan the forth and
Robert, both older than her, and their mother, had gotten an
allowance. And Shannon and her sons were not happy about it. They
were to get just over four hundred thousand a year that they would
divide between them. And Alyssa held the purse strings. Samuel, her
father’s brother, too, was on an allowance, but his had
stipulations. Stipulations that he wasn’t happy about
either.

So when they approached her with their
“plan,” Alyssa ran. The plan was sick and perverted. Their plan
made Alyssa Howard become a nothing.

The clippings that Rodney had saved for
her said that there was a reward for anyone knowing about her,
living or dead. She didn’t have to wonder why Rodney hadn’t turned
her in for the money. Two million dollars would have gone a long
way to comfort most people. But Rodney had been her friend, almost
like her father had been to her. Julie wondered what her family
would think if they knew their missing daughter slept most nights
under their noses.

Looking across the parking lot from
where she slept most nights Julie watched the guard walk the
perimeter of the Howard Building, not knowing that less than fifty
yards away, their boss slept. Julie snuggled down on the cardboard
sheet that Toby had found for her and pulled her coat tighter
around her. That’s when she thought of Dr. Cain Waite.

Cain had kissed her. She’d been kissed
before, she’d even had sex a couple of times when in a night of
loneliness and stupidity, she’d had a classmate “do her.” Julie
doubted that Cain would “do her” in quite the same way, neither
would it be as clumsy and unsatisfying.

Cain was gorgeous, sweet, and polite.
Well, not to her really, but she had seen him around others and
knew that he could be. To her, he was bossy, rude, and...well,
really bossy. But he had also called her lovely. No one had called
her that since her father.

Julie rolled to her back, wincing at
the pain. Cain was going to be so pissed when he figured out she
had left. Even more so when he figured out where she’d gone.
Smiling, she kind of wished she could see the look on his face when
he did. Well, she thought, he’d forget about her soon enough. She
was where she wanted to be, where she needed to be.

~~~

Cain wasn’t mad at Julie, he was
furious. The little twit was gone. And not only was she gone, but
she was hurt too. When he found her, and he had no doubt that he
would, he decided that he was going to paddle her backside but
good, then he was going to make love to her until she was too
sated, too relaxed to leave him again.

“
You know that if she
doesn’t want to be found, you won’t find her, don’t you? She has
more aliases than I have ever heard. Half the people we talk to
won’t answer us; the other half have no clue who she is,” the cop,
Neil James, mused. Cait had assigned him to help Cain look for
Julie and he was, frankly, driving Cain nuts.

“
I’m going to find her,”
Cain growled for the third time in the last twenty minutes. “Have
you asked those people over there? I’m going to ask them; you go
over there and ask.”

“
Who should I tell ‘em
we’re looking for? I got no idea what to call the stupid girl. Why
she’d be out in this sort of weather is beyond me. I’d want to be
in my…”

Cain tuned him out. If he didn’t, he
might choke the life out of the cop. How a person got through life
as negative as Neil was beyond Cain. He walked up to the next
“house” and knocked on the top.

Cain looked around the area. There were
perhaps twenty men and women staying in this area of Columbus.
Their homes varied as much as the people living here. Boxes from
large appliances, sheets pulled over strings. Two people he’d seen
so far were living in a car, the front wheels gone and the back
ones flat. Most of the people were dirty and had smelled so bad
that Cain was thankful they were out of doors. But others were
clean, if not a little worn down.

Cait had told him not to wear nice
clothes when coming down here. He’d already figured that out, but
he was sure her reasons were vastly different than his had been. He
needed to blend in and his suit pants wouldn’t have done that.
She’d also told him not to take out his cell phone or his wallet,
and under no circumstances was he to give anyone money. He‘d be
killed in a quick breath of air if he did.