What happened next was a blur.
Natalie bent forward.
McDougal would never forget either the sound or the smell.
Hissing. A scream of agony and disbelief. Human flesh, puckering raw and angry as it seared.
Natalie had pressed a hot iron to the man’s back, under his sweater.
Suddenly the fingers around McDougal’s neck vanished and the thug screamed curses. He lunged at Natalie, tears of rage and pain streaming down his face.
As Eric lay gasping for a moment on the floor, she held the iron in front of her like the weapon it had become—and even this hardened street scum hesitated.
Not for long, but for long enough.
McDougal vaulted to his feet and used all the power left in his body to knock the thug into the window. There was no Hollywood smash and shower of glass. Instead, the window merely cracked. McDougal grabbed the man by the neck and threw him into it again. This time, the initial crack gave way to the bulk of 240-odd pounds. Thug Boy crashed through the glass and onto the fire escape, where he lay facedown for long enough that McDougal could retrieve his Glock and take aim.
Below, in the street, a couple of passersby had looked up at the noise, then hunched their shoulders and trudged on their way, unwilling to get involved.
In a hoarse voice through what felt like a crushed larynx, McDougal said in Russian, “Who do you work for?”
The man simply moaned.
“Answer me, you son of a bitch!”
Nothing. Eric wanted to kick him off the fire escape and watch him crash to the street below.
Behind him, Natalie sobbed raggedly, still hanging on to the hot iron.
“You want to live?” McDougal rapped out.
A tiny nod of the head.
“Then get the hell up and climb down that fire escape. You stay away from this woman. Do you understand me?”
The man pulled himself up slowly, using the iron bars that surrounded him. “Not . . . me . . . you should worry . . . about.”
“Then who?”
The guy shook his head. “You find out soon.”
“Tell me or I shoot.”
The man turned his head, a ghastly smile on his battered face. He shook his head. “If you want shoot, I be dead when you walk through door.”
Eric narrowed his eyes and kept careful aim.
“Too much noise. And you don’t have necklace.”
“Yeah, so sue me, motherfucker.”
He spit a foreign curse at Eric and started down the fire escape. “We do much worse than that.”
Twenty-seven
Natalie still held the iron with both hands. Her entire body shook. McDougal threw the Glock into his suitcase and rushed to her. He peeled her fingers gently off the iron and set it on the desk before wrapping his arms around her as if he’d never let go. “Oh, God,” he said. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. I thought you’d be safe here.”
Natalie felt catatonic as hotel security stormed the room, about two minutes too late. Uniforms and questions and more uniforms and more questions. Somebody brought her a big terry robe, and Eric wrapped her in it as if she were made of glass. She experienced all of this as if at a great distance. He spoke to her and she saw his mouth moving, but she didn’t take in the words.
Catatonic. Weird word, that one . . . Made her think of cats and tonic water, gin and limes. She wondered vaguely what the etymology of
catatonic
was—her mother would know. Probably wouldn’t even have to look it up.
Her father would know how to say it in Greek. The word had been on an old vocabulary list they’d made up for her to study. She remembered the words before and after it.
Cataplexy
,
catatonic
,
catastrophic
. She couldn’t remember what
cataplexy
meant . . .
She’d committed an act of violence today, her first ever. Nat looked down at her hands, still unable to believe that she’d pressed a hot iron to a man’s flesh and smelled it burn. Heard him scream.
It didn’t really matter that he would have hurt her and had been on the verge of killing Eric. She was horrified at her own actions. Her perception of herself had changed forever. She wanted to be sick, but sheer exhaustion overrode even that basic urge, and while all the uniforms chattered away and fired their questions at Eric, she simply curled into a fetal position on the bed.
A report was filled out. Someone came and taped a tarp over the broken window. Eric picked her up like a baby and moved her into another room while hotel staff followed with their belongings. A bottle of Scotch, an ice bucket, and two glasses magically appeared.
She gazed down at her hands again, seeing the familiar shape of them. They were practical and capable, the skin over them a little dry, the nails short and unpolished. She wore only a simple silver ring on the index finger of her left hand, a gift from a friend.
She used her hands to create art, to restore old treasures. She used them to give, not to punish . . . until today. This afternoon she had grabbed and twisted a man’s testicles in self-defense, and seared his flesh in defense of someone else.
With sudden clarity, she understood the cautionary statement that everyone is capable of violence. She’d always rejected that before. Now she had to accept it.
McDougal finally got rid of all the people surrounding them. He came over, sat on the bed, and said, “You all right?”
She shook her head.
He looked like hell. Mottled bruises rode over his collarbones like an obscene necklace. He was bleeding from a cut to his cheekbone; his shirt was ripped at the collar; his pants were filthy. Adrenaline still pulsed off his body, and his eyes had deepened to an electric shade of blue. His reddish mop stood wildly on end, making him look literally as if his hair were on fire.
He got up and tossed a few ice cubes into each of the two glasses. Then he drowned them in Scotch and handed one of the tumblers to her. “Drink,” he ordered.
She didn’t need to be told twice. It had been one horrible morning. Natalie sat up and drank deeply, feeling the whiskey burn her throat. She downed half the stuff in a single, needy gulp. Then she closed her eyes, thought about the iron on human flesh again, and finished off the rest.
When she opened her eyes again, she found McDougal watching her, no doubt trying to predict whether she’d start bawling.
She wanted to. It got the pressure out, somehow. The ugly, helpless sounds drained the ugly, helpless feelings. But she found herself dry-eyed and dazed.
Eric took the glass out of her numb fingers and poured her another drink. “Take the second one slower,” he advised.
She looked at his own glass, which he’d emptied in record time as well.
“Yeah,” he said. “I will, too.”
They sat for a moment in silence. Then he said, shaking his head in a kind of wonder, “Do you know how brave you were today?”
She held up a hand and shook her head.
“Yes, you were,” he insisted.
The horror rose up in her again. “I burned a man with an iron, Eric. I smelled his skin frying. It was . . .” She shook her head again. “I have no words.”
“You did it in self-defense and in my defense, Natalie. You didn’t do it for fun, okay?”
Perspiration broke out at her hairline, and her stomach heaved. She sprinted for the bathroom and inglori ously upchucked the whiskey.
She got to her feet to find Eric holding out a damp washcloth with an expression of sympathy. “How long have you been there?” she croaked.
He shrugged.
She took the washcloth, mortified. “You watched me puke?”
His lips twitched. “Yeah. You looked hot.”
“You’re a sick twist, McDougal. You know that?”
“I do. It’s part of my raw animal charm.”
She leaned her elbows on the sink vanity and turned on the tap, rinsing the vile taste out of her mouth and then splashing more water onto her face. Then she realized that tears were pouring down her cheeks.
Eric turned off the tap and scooped her into his arms. He walked with her to the bed and sat down with Natalie still curled against his chest. “Shhhhhh, sweetheart. It’s gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.”
“Nothing’s okay.We have to find Nonnie,” she sobbed. “I don’t want her hurt.”
“We’ll find her. I promise we’ll find her.” Eric stroked her hair and her back, his heartbeat strong and steady. He kissed her forehead. She felt cared for, safe, soothed. There was nothing sexual about his tenderness with her as he peeled back the covers on the bed and climbed under them with her still in his arms. He simply held her, his arms tight and secure around her waist, and she eventually slid into a troubled sleep.
McDougal lay wide-awake for two hours with his arms around Natalie, the one underneath her cramped and then eventually numb. He wanted a hot shower, but he wanted to hold her more. He wanted to be there for her. Physically and mentally present. Emotionally present.
He didn’t need to ask whether he was doing things right, because this wasn’t about him. She had relaxed and found some kind of peace in his embrace, and that was all he cared about.
Except for telling the truth.
McDougal let his fantasy fishing boat sail away, past downtown Miami, under the Rickenbacker Causeway, past Key Biscayne, and toward Elliot Key until it vanished. He had to come clean with this woman in his arms. He wasn’t sure what he felt for her, but he did feel. And he couldn’t lie to her any longer, even though he came up with great arguments for doing so.
She’d be furious with him, refuse to have anything to do with him, and he couldn’t blame her. But she was still in great danger, and he had a responsibility to protect her.
Scratch that. It wasn’t an obligation; it was something different, something stronger. It had nothing to do with duty. He couldn’t define it. But he
would
keep her safe, and that became much harder if she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him. He would keep her safe, even if it cost him his job, his pride, his silly bachelor dreams. He’d keep her safe if it cost him his life.
He was appalled. McDougal had always been quite comfortable in his selfishness—it fit him like a second skin. Where all of this self-sacrificing garbage had come from, he didn’t know. Frankly, he didn’t want to give a damn.
But here he was, with his arms around a girl who shouldn’t be anything but another pretty little patsy, inhaling the scent of her shampoo and her sleep-warmed skin. She smelled clean and pure, and he wanted to confess everything so that he could smear some of the sludge off his soul.
As if she could sense the struggle going on inside of him, Natalie opened her eyes.
He kissed her shoulder. “How you doing, kiddo?”
“Okay. You?”
“Me, I’m a hundred percent man. I juggle Russian thugs every morning before breakfast.”
“Stop,” she said. “Don’t make light of what you did.” She rolled over to face him, and he was able to extract his numb arm.
“It’s so odd . . .” she whispered. “All of these terrible things have happened in my life recently, but the best thing in my life has come along at the same time: you.”
He stilled. “I’m—I’m just a guy, Natalie.”
She tilted her head back and looked up at him. She touched his bruised jaw, the marks around his neck. “Always so self-deprecating, Eric. Always so honest.”
He sucked in a breath. “No . . . no, I’m not.”
She laid a finger across his lips. “I don’t care what you do for the government, okay? That’s just your job. I’m talking about you, personally. Your character. It’s sterling.”
“Natalie, honey, you’ve known me for less than a week—”
“And it’s been an illuminating one. You’re kind and intelligent and funny and strong and protective and tender—”
He looked down at her, his eyes troubled. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what? Fall for you?”
He swallowed and looked away.
“It’s too late, you know.” She smiled up at him. “I fell in love with you that night in Reif’s.”
For such a small woman, she sure could wield a wrecking ball. It hit him square in the stomach, and he said absolutely nothing. He couldn’t, even though he knew that it hurt her. He was about to hurt her a lot worse.
“It’s okay, Eric. I know that guys like you don’t end up with girls like me.” She kissed his cheek before rolling away and curling up against the pillows at the head of the bed.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She yawned and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She smiled sadly. “Just that I’m not your type.”
“Really. And what do you imagine to be my type?”
“Oh . . . curvy, scantily clad party girls. Not too bright, because then you might have to engage instead of maintaining a cool distance.”
Heat rose in his cheeks. He slid out of bed and went to pour himself a Scotch. “Party girls—interesting theory. So I like a lot of makeup?”
“No, because you don’t want it smeared on your pillows in the morning.”
His hand froze in midpour. Then he set the bottle down with more force than necessary. “Do I like my women easy, or do I like a challenge?”
She considered the question for a moment. “Depends on your mood. You like them easy, because there’s no guilt involved. But you get bored with that, so alternately, you like a challenge. The only thing that scares you is nice girls. My theory is that you don’t like to
like
your dates, Eric.”
The burn of the Scotch served only to accelerate the burn of recognition, of shock, of sudden shame. “Excuse me? What kind of thing is that to say?”
She shrugged. “It’s that distance thing again. Plus liking a woman probably ruins the sexual tension for you.”
He stared at her and shook his head.
“It’s related to the guilt,” she explained kindly. “What’s the matter, Eric? You look like you just swallowed a fish.”