Love Story (15 page)

“Oh, wow,” one of the kids quipped after a half hour.

Nick turned. Sammy approached them, carrying a cake. On it was written Welcome Back, Elizabeita.

What the hell?

The kids commented.

“She wasn’t even gone that long, dude.”

“Hey, man, this is ice. But you got some serious crush on our lady?”

Sammy had eyes for only her. “Maybe I do.”

He stayed in the room the entire time.

He watched Elizabeita like a hawk.

And someone
else watched him. The one girl, Brandi. Who Elizabeita clearly favored.

When the two-hour session ended, Sammy picked up the books for her as the kids said goodbye. “Want to take the cake home?” he asked after they left.

“I can’t. I didn’t drive here.” Nick had. “Let the staff enjoy it.”

“I could come with you, carry it for you.”

“No thanks, Sammy. I have plans.”

“With him?”

“Yes. I’ll see you in a few days.”

Nick and Elizabeita headed out together, and when they got on the street, she leaned into him, a reaction as normal as the sun rising every day. “Whew! I’m tired. And I wonder what was going on with Sammy.”

“He acted strange, honey. Really strange.”

And Nick intended to have Will check him out. Just as he’d suggested they should look into Marianne
in more depth. Maybe he should add her doorman Eddie to the list, too. Hell, suspects were coming out of the woodwork, and for a minute, Nick wondered if the possibility of so many perpetrators was all in his mind because of his feelings for her.

They started down the street to the parking space he’d found and had gotten about a block away from the center when someone jumped out of the bushes.
Nick leapt in front of Elizabeita to shield her and went for his gun, which he’d started to carry under his shirt.

“Hold on, dude. It’s me, Brandi.”

Elizabeita let out a heavy breath. “Brandi, you scared us to death.”

“What are you doing jumping out of bushes?” Nick asked sternly. “I had to talk to Ms. Ludzecky about something.”

“Why didn’t you ask her at the center?”

“Because
I didn’t want Sammy to hear.”

Finally, the place closed. He hid until the others locked up, then went down to the basement. He’d sleep here tonight. He had a lot of thinking to do.

Once inside his cave, he got a beer out of the cooler and lay down. There they were again, his pictures of Elizabeita Ludzecky, his queen, smiling down on him. He’d photographed her as she came
out of the Met, as she sat in the corner of the Baden Street rec room and talked to those brats. As she entered the bathroom to take a pee.

He imagined her going in the stall. Pulling down her pants. It made him hard, so he unzipped his and put his hand down there. Afterward, he fell asleep. Thinking of her.

He woke to noise. Had he left the radio on? Sometimes he played love songs for
her. Then the door burst open.

“On your feet, man.”

A cop. Fuck! “Okay, okay. Okay.”

“Sammy Mills. You’re under arrest.”

“Captain Morris, over here.” They turned toward the wall, and Sammy knew he was caught.

Around ten that night, Elizabeita cuddled into Nick on her bed. She was shaken by the horrible news Brandi had given them about Sammy. One night, she
and Marco had followed him to the cellar and saw him go into a little room. They’d left then because they hadn’t wanted him to know they were there. But Brandi showed up at the center the next day, when he wasn’t working, and went back into the damp and dark basement. She’d found pictures of Elizabeita pasted on the wall of what he’d carved out as his own private space.

Elizabeita dozed, then
stirred. “Any news?”

“Not yet.” He held her close. “But they’ll get him.”

“Maybe he’s just obsessed with me. Maybe he’s not the emailer. It isn’t a crime to collect pictures of someone, is it?”

Nick’s phone rang and he sat up. “We’ll find out.” He picked up the cell. “Yeah, Davidson….” A pause. He nodded to Elizabeita. “They got him.”

He turned back to the phone, “Do you have the
whole story?” More waiting. “Let me know after he’s interrogated.”

Clicking off, Nick faced her. “They arrested him as a person of interest in the Met emails and threats. They’ve confiscated his computer and will get to the bottom of this tonight.”

Her body started to shake again. “You’ll stay, right?”

“For as long as it takes. Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you if there’s news.”

She was asleep in seconds.

Restless, Nick climbed off the bed and went to the john off her room. Maybe he’d stay up and see if he could find anything in the NYPD data base about Sammy Mills. After he did his business, he noticed a box had fallen down behind the toilet. It must have missed the basket. Angie had always teased him about being a neat freak, which he was, so he bent down, pulled
it out…

…and got a glimpse of the writing.

Oh, my God.

Elizabeita awoke to sunlight. She was alone in bed and lay there thinking back to last night. It boggled her mind that Sammy could be the perpetrator in all this. Taking a deep breath, she got up, went to the bathroom, then headed out to the kitchen, still wearing her pajamas

Nick was sipping coffee, and just
the smell made her stomach turn. “Good morning.” He glanced at the clock. “Sleepyhead.”

“Good morning. I zonked out a long time.”

“Yeah, you’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

“Hmm.” She went to make herself some tea.

“No coffee?”

“No. Did anything happen while I slept?”

“Sammy’s the emailer, honey.”

She spun around and grasped the edges of the counter.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m dizzy again.”

“Like on the roller coaster. Be careful, you might faint. You did after the slingshot ride.”

Her gaze narrowed on him. “Tell me about Sam.”

“He’s been obsessed with you right from the time you started at Baden Street.”

“That was months ago.” She frowned. “The emails started coming not long after.”

“And we were right about the obsession carrying over to
crazy thinking. They found diary entries on his computer, along with a record of the emails to the Met.”

“What did the diary entries say?”

“He wanted to make you notice him. Get your attention.”

“How could I notice him when I didn’t know who he was?”

“Mentally ill people aren’t rational. He’d been scoping out the Met for months. Initially, he had some vague plan of doing something
to save the day, to impress you. It crystalized when he found out about the Dali/Picasso exhibit you were in charge of. He’d already laid the groundwork that insured people knew something was going on with an emailer/hacker. He was going to be at the exhibit, deface one of the paintings and pretend to have stopped the perpetrator from doing more, then say the guy got away. We’d believe him because
of the emails and threats.”

“That’s bizarre.”

“Obsession always is.”

“So, it’s over.”

“
That
is.”

Uh-oh. Another bad feeling. “What do you mean?”

From under the placemat, he pulled a box. “Now, we have to talk about this.”

Nick watched her face. It was so expressive, so revealing. He wondered how he hadn’t realized before she was pregnant, or at least
that something was going on with her physically.

She stared at him.

So he began. “We’ve only been together for a few weeks. I guess it would be too soon to tell if it’s mine.” But he wanted it to be his.

She held his gaze. “It is soon to know, but possible. You’re the father. I haven’t been with any other man in a long time.”

“Thank God.”

Her dark blond brows knitted. “Do you
think this changes things between us?”

“It certainly does.”

“No, it doesn’t. Maybe it’s even less likely we can be together. I’ll need to protect the child.”

“From me?” For a moment, he was speechless. “You can say that to me after meeting Mellie?”

Her whole body softened. “No, that was stupid. You’ve surprised me. I can see you’re a wonderful father.” She glanced out the window
and watched a bird flit around a tree. “If you want, you can have parental rights, but you and me?” She shrugged a shoulder. “I just don’t see it happening.”

Anger, quick and potent, rose inside of him. “Because I fucked up once? Because I was trying to protect a whole group of people, who are your friends, by the way? Now you’re just being stubborn.”

“Look, you’re a good man and you did
a good thing. For your whole career, you’ve been helping people, protecting them. But I’m entitled to my feelings of betrayal.”

It was an awful word to use, but apt, he guessed. He’d told a lot of lies.

“Come sit with me.” He led her to the sunny breakfast nook. “Honey, you’ve got to think about us having a relationship now. We have reason to work out what’s between us.”

“Nick, I can’t
be because of the baby.”

That stopped him for a minute. “Is that what you think? I asked for a second chance when you found out I was undercover. Before I knew about the child.”

“That’s true. But I’m not in love with you.” She sighed. “And you’re not in love with me.
Christ
, we’ve only known each other for three weeks.”

“I care about you, Elizabeita. That’s enough to see where our
relationship goes.”

Her shoulders sagged. Nick prayed for some scrap of hope. “All right. Just give me some time. I can’t make this decision now. Too much has happened in the last twenty-four hours.”

That was true. And fair.

“I can give you time. I won’t be at the Met anymore, though.”

She was disappointed, he could tell. But she said finally, “Maybe that’s for the best.”

“How long do you need?”

“I don’t know.”

“All right, you’re entitled to digest everything. Maybe then you’ll think more clearly.” He stood. “I’m not happy about this, but I’ll abide by your wishes.” Leaning over, he kissed her hard on the mouth. “That’s a reminder that it’s not just the baby between us.”

“I am getting married.”

The Ludzecky siblings were gathered in the dining room of the home where they grew up. Luke had made a special trip down for this family meeting. It had been almost a week since Sammy was caught and since Nick found out about her pregnancy.

Elizabeita watched the faces of every single one of her siblings: joy, confusion, skepticism.

Matka
laughed at them. “I do have a life outside of my children, you know.”

Rising first, Elizabeita circled to her mother and hugged her. “
Gratulacje
.”

The other girls followed and gave their congratulations, too. But Luke stayed where he was. Elizabeita saw him wink at
Matka
.

Magdalena made a disgusted sound when she realized her brother hadn’t gotten up. “Geez, Lukasz, you aren’t
going to pull this on
Matka
, too, are you?”

“Pull what?”

“The beleaguered man in the family who wasn’t asked for permission to marry?”

Eyebrows raised innocently. “Who says I wasn’t asked?”

“Seriously?” Magdalena was rarely shocked.

“Gerald asked you?” This from Ana.

Sofia practically squealed with delight. “When?”

“Last weekend. He and
Matka
drove up to see us.”

“No fair.”

But the childish quip was not made by Elizabeita, playing the baby of the family. She was done with that. Something had happened to her after the ordeal with the Met. And because of the absence of Nick from her life, which caused a gaping painful hole in her stomach. No, it was the twins, who said the words together.

“Of course it’s fair,” Luke pronounced. “And I’m givin’ her
away.”

“When’s the wedding?” Sofia asked. “We can move ours if you want.” Sofia and Max were planning a Christmas wedding at a Zen Center in Queens. It would be a unique ritual.

“Us, too. We can regroup.” Nia and Rafe were having their own nuptials on New Year’s Day in a small, informal ceremony.

“No one has to change anything. We would like to be married on Thanksgiving Day.”

“How sweet,
Matka
.” Magdalena beamed. “I can plan it.”

“Thank you,
kochanie
, but we would like to do it.”

Luke left the room and returned with champagne. When it was popped and poured, there were toasts—
Na zdrowie!
—all around. Everyone was happy, and Elizabeita tried to be joyful as she pretended to sip the bubbly.

“How did you decide?” Sofia wanted to know.

“I am afraid I did not.
Gerald did.” She frowned. “Donuta”–she lowered her voice and made it stern—“marry me, or I won’t see you anymore.”
Matka
focused on Elizabeita. “Sometimes, it is best to go along with the man you love.”

A few days after
Matka’s
big announcement, Elizabeita was finishing the details on the sensors to be placed on paintings in the Dali/Picasso exhibit. The Met was back to normal,
though she would never forget what had happened to her. Whenever she got depressed and lonely, though, she’d concentrate on the child in her womb. It had been almost two weeks since she’d seen Nick. He never came back to work at the museum, and the story was he’d quit because he’d gotten another job. Only Elizabeita and Will Davidson knew the truth. However, she’d see him today.

At noon, she
left work and took a cab to the office of Ana’s OB-GYN. She’d had no idea when she’d been here with her sister a few weeks ago that she’d be returning for herself.

She saw Nick waiting outside the office in the early October sunlight. Her knees nearly buckled. As she got closer, she drank in details: his hair was cut shorter, his face was rested and he wore a beautiful herringbone blazer and
a light blue shirt with dark pants.

“Hi,” she said when she reached him. By then, she could talk.

He apparently couldn’t. He swallowed hard and looked away. Then back to her. “Hi.” The word came out hoarse. “Thanks for letting me come.”