Hidden Steel Page 6

  No sign of Anna’s presence. Her quirky vase—a daisy vase with a dozen stem ports and giant, splashy daisies painted in unfired glaze—hadn’t moved since Naia’s last visit to the co-op. It was so Anna, that vase. Even dressed for high society, wrapped in designer gowns with her hair in an up-do and her fingers elegantly be-ringed with her antique jewelry, Anna managed to convey the quirky, impulsive side of her nature. It was something in her smile, Naia had thought from the start. It had been that smile that drew Naia to her friend in the first place. With all the pasted, faked, cultured expressions surrounding her in that party, Anna’s smile had stood out as real—faintly flawed, not quite symmetrical, and genuine.

  Ironic that she, of all people, would eventually recruit Naia to spy on her countrymen.

  Countrymen who are hurting my country, she reminded herself. She signed up for a work time in the next afternoon so she could check the dead-drop. She’d have to come up with a new project concept by then.

  Though if Anna hadn’t picked up her note, faking enthusiasm for a new project would be the least of her worries.

  * * * * *

  Mickey should have known it. Actually, she should have known two things.

  One, that Steve’s lofty apartment would be every bit as neat and organized as the rest of this place. And two—Mickey allowed herself to dance a brief little jig—that he’d pursued his interest in weapons with the same dedicated follow-through. Jackpot. A total glut of weaponry.

  He liked projectile weapons, that was clear enough. Anything but guns. Two competition recurve bows sat in a metal stand with straight-fletch, practice-point arrows. A pistol crossbow in a glass-front corner cabinet along with several braces of throwing knives. To judge from the heavily gouged wood target planks leaning against one painted cinder block wall, Steve really enjoyed the satisfaction of the blade striking home, that feel of metal slipping through fingers, the knowing when the throw was righteous, the sound of it. …

  Mickey looked down at her hand. It twitched, fingers already placed for the throw. I guess he’s not the only one.

  And then she saw the slingshot. A simple thing, really—a folding steel frame with wrist brace and surgical tubing, a box of ammo beside it. Younger sister, acting out at school … surrounded by bullies, coming home with bruises and tears…

  Slingshots were cheap. They were unexpected. And it hadn’t taken much practice. Rotten yewberries, raisins, cat droppings … even those, at short range, went where Mickey sent them; if they didn’t sting, they stunk. And still she’d been able to stay out of sight, to keep her sister’s protection an anonymous thing. An unexpected thing. Until the bullies got the message—mess with this girl, and you never know where, you never know when … and you never know just how disgusting it’s gonna get.

  Memories. True, hard memories. Her memories. No names attached, no locations. Just that feeling of satisfaction … the realization of just how good she was at the game.

  Mickey opened the corner cabinet and gathered up her chosen arsenal. A brace of four small knives, a shoulder harness that looked unused and might even adjust down to fit her, and the slingshot. Both easy to conceal … both utterly familiar to her hand.

  With any luck, it would take a while before he realized they were gone.

  Mickey gave the target wall a wistful glance. Not just the knife planks, but the wide variety of gallery targets. Playing card targets, bottles and cans targets, command training targets … and of course a variety of bulls-eyes. No silhouettes, not human or animal. And the whole doggone wall was lined with home-made archery backdrops—old carpet being a favorite—as well as gypsum board leaning against brick.

  This was one bachelor pad Mickey found she could appreciate.

  The rest of it … also purely Steve, from the faint spicy smell of aftershave to a collection of family portraits by the entry area. Three of the vast brick walls were painted white; the third, over by a queen-sized bed, was natural brick. The bed itself wasn’t closed off by anything other than its position in the corner, and she thought the walled extrusion between the bed and the kitchen was probably the bathroom. Jutting out from the wall and over the bed, a loft pushed into the room, shadowing that whole area. Up above she could see shelves and part of a recliner, but the rest of the loft was a mystery.

  She realized, then, stepping back to take in the big picture with a detail-oriented approach that seemed as much training as impulse, that he’d built this space to his own specs. It had probably been a dance studio, scuffed wooden floors still there, still full of light from the two giant banks of windows along the building’s front wall. And now it was full of Steve, from his hobbies to his penchant for clear space and clean lines.

  And she was stealing from him, and then she was going to run from him.

  Even if she was doing it for him.

  For all of them, actually. The women in the self-defense class below her, street people who would trickle in that afternoon, those in the weight room throughout the day, the kids who came in after school …

  They didn’t need to deal with her—not her mysteries, her vagueries, or her unpredictable reactions.

  They sure didn’t need to deal with people who were looking for her.

  Standing there in the middle of Steve’s very personal domain—stolen goodies in hand, the leftover pizza scavenged from the fridge and a grocery bag full of fruit and protein bars waiting by the door—Mickey had her first serious doubts. Were the memories real—any of them? Right down to those first hazy moments of being handcuffed to a bed? What if she’d just twisted memories of restraint in a real hospital? What if some clinic was frantic, looking for her?

  Very deliberately, she walked to the nook that served as Steve’s personal exercise corner. Television, elliptical trainer, weights. And, of course, the full-length mirror all weight lifters seemed to need; it reflected her in all her glory. There. That’s me. Mickey Finn, a name stolen from the barely remembered conversation of someone who’d kidnapped her for interrogation. Two borrowed layers of tank tops, one tight to make up for the missing bra and the other loose to hide the fact the first one didn’t quite do the job. Old running shorts—no panty lines, because … no panties. She had color in her cheeks, unlike her first view in the “hospital” bathroom. Now her strength showed through … and on her face, determination. “Yeah,” she said. “Me, meet me. Could be crazy. Could be just what Steve thinks. Could be I should just hike straight to the closest cop shop and—”

  No. In the mirror, she frowned back at herself; her eyes seemed unnaturally bright. If I don’t trust myself, I have nothing. If I don’t follow my gut instincts, I have nothing.

  This might be crazy, but at least it was something. Goals. Somewhere to start, while she looked for the rest of it.

  And hoped she could live with what she found.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 6

  Steve practiced the words in his head. Mickey, his internal voice said, I know I said you could stay here. But I know more now, and don’t think it’s safe. Not safe for anyone else here, that was.

  Wuhggh! He landed on his back on the gym mat, blinking painfully up at the wiry black woman who’d put him there.

  She put her hands on her hips and gave him a critical eye. “Mr. Steve, honey, you ain’t payin’ the least attention to this class this morning.”

  “Head in the clouds,” came the murmured agreement from the background.

  “Bet it’s that woman.”

  His ears still rang, but Steve knew that particular comment could only come from the young single mother who’d been trying to catch his attention since she joined the class. Gaynell.

  “How—” he started.

  Dawnisha, the student who’d taken him down, now helped pull him to his feet—as wiry in her strength as Mickey. “What, you think we spend all our time sittin’ in front of soaps when we’re not here? Those kids talk, Mr. Steve. You got some woman stayin’ here, and she knows how to take care of herself
. That’s what we hear.”

  Nods and affirming noises followed this pronouncement. Steve grabbed a moment by brushing himself off, straightening his red Steve’s Gym T-shirt, pushing hair out of his eyes.

  Gaynell came to stand next to Dawnisha. “I think she’s got something to do with those cars cruisin’ this neighborhood yesterday, what do you think?”

  Suddenly Steve was surrounded. Women in brightly colored gym clothes and scarves, too much spandex where there shouldn’t be any at all.

  “I hear she didn’t look good.”

  “I hear she’s fine.”

  “I hear she don’t look like she belongs on the street, no matter how many old clothes you put on her.”

  “I hear she fainted.”

  “Those men don’t belong here, neither. Not in those smooth rides.”

  “My Tajo says you oughta watch it with that one. She trouble.”

  Steve briefly covered his face with his hands. This was a kind of self-defense he’d never mastered. “Air,” he groaned dramatically. “I need air.”

  “There, there,” Dawnisha said. She was the oldest, with four children and a night shift job at the nearest 24-hour walk-in clinic. “You just in over your head, that’s all.”

  Steve widened his fingers just enough to glare at her. When she laughed, he dropped his hands altogether. “Seriously,” he said. “I think she’s in trouble.”

  Someone couldn’t resist a mutter. “I think she is trouble.”

  He wished he could have ignored that. “That’s the problem.” He looked at them all, found them interested … found them concerned. Faces of color, mostly. His own olive complexion wasn’t the lightest here, but it was close. “It’s both. She—” He stopped, beset by the memory of her expression as the letter opener sagged in the wall, by her earlier realization of how close she’d come to hurting Malik. By her struggle to deal with her situation—never answering his questions less than honestly, even if that meant telling him she couldn’t answer them at all. Never veering away from direct eye contact. Not letting her pride get in the way of asking for help.

  “There, you see?” Dawnisha said. “He’s a goner.”

  “I think I have to ask her to leave,” he blurted.

  The general clamor to greet this eloquent declaration gave him just enough time to imagine Mickey’s reaction to such a request—disappointment, maybe fear, but acceptance. No begging or pleading, not after she’d already made her request to stay. She’d just look at him with those bright, direct eyes of hers, and—

  Since when did he think he knew her that well?

  “He’s right,” Gaynell said. “She’s in some kind of big trouble, and that makes her a problem for us. Me, I got enough problems already. This place is the one place we can count on. We send our kids here. Them homeless people … they need this place, too. She get in the way of all that, we don’t watch out for ourselves.”

  Dawnisha turned on her a look of complete understanding—not of the sympathetic sort. “And where would we be, if that’s the way this place was run? Where would our kids be, and the young men Steve is keeping off the streets? They work to pay for their classes—that teaches them something too. And helps pay our bills besides.” She raked Gaynell with a scowl. “You just not wantin’ any competition.”

  “Bitch!” Gaynell gasped, as the other women nodded emphatic and bristly agreement with Dawnisha’s words.

  “Whoa, ladies!” Steve’s panic wasn’t the least faked. He could—and had—handled himself out there on the streets. A few hard knocks in pursuit of his brother had set him on his own path of learning, and eventually led him here. The gym, his work, his life—all built on hard experience.

  But he wanted nothing to do with group of angry women. Not once the bitch word started flying.

  “Chill, woman,” Dawnisha told Gaynell, putting her down with a look that reminded Steve that she, too, had come out of hard days on the street. That and her total lack of concern as she turned her back on the woman and put hands on hips to give Steve a look he’d thought reserved for local teenagers. “You just frightened.”

  “Hey,” he said, dignity wounded.

  “Honey, you ain’t scared for us, you just running scared for your own self. There’s somethin’ about this girl reaches you. Think it don’t show on your face? You chase her off for our sakes, and you don’t got to take any chances.”

  Warmth flooded his face—embarrassment that these women knew him this well, shame that some part of him thought she might be right. “This gym has to stay a safe place.”

  Dawnisha crossed her arms over her thin chest with some finality. “Then you’ll just have to find a way,” she said. “You keep it safe. You let this girl find herself here.”

  At that they let it drop, and he drew them off into play-acting encounters on the street—the wallet throw away. Problem with these ladies wasn’t that they’d panic—problem was that some of them were so tough, they didn’t hit the run away button when needed. So he passed out “wallets” of duct-taped cardboard and they practiced accosting one another, then throwing their wallets for their “muggers” to chase after while they ran away. Steve egged them on into the drama of it, play-acting in high shrieking voices, lots of arm-waving and personal woe. Might as well have fun with the wicked world.

  When class was over, they gathered up the wallets and handed them to Dawnisha, who dumped them on the counter behind the freebies barrel. There Steve had a mini-fridge, and he was stuck in the middle of a long pull on a bottle of water as Dawnisha walked by. Just as well. When she admonished him, “You think on it,” he wouldn’t have had anything to say anyway.

  Because he was thinking on it. Had been thinking on it. Had more than enough time to accept the truth of her words.

  Mickey scared the crap out of him.

  In the middle of her confusion and fear, she’d gone dancing with a broom. She met his gaze without reservation—she sucked him right into her, right through the walls he’d carefully and deliberately built. If she stayed here, it would only continue to happen.

  And yet he knew what she was. What he’d go through if he let her in.

  You just frightened, Dawnisha had told him.

  Terrified, more like it.

  And of course they’d all been right. This place of safety … it had never discriminated. If Mickey lashed out when threatened, then he’d make sure she wasn’t threatened. If there were indeed men cruising the streets in search of her, he’d find out what they wanted—find out if they were on her side, maybe even looking to take her home. He doubted it—he trusted the kids, and his own gut reaction when he’d seen that slowly gliding vehicle—but if they weren’t on her side, then she could hide inside the gym until they gave up.

  It was what he did.

  Frightened or not.

  So he took a deep breath, stuck the water back in the fridge, and went back to see if Mickey was awake. And then he stood in the office door, sledgehammered by what he found.

  Awake, yes.

  Awake, tidied up, and gone.

  He didn’t have to search the back rooms to know that gone was gone. She’d left the sheets neatly piled on the cot to be washed. She’d taken the flannel shirt she’d scrounged the evening before, even though it was another hot day.

  And beyond that, he just knew. She’d seen the look on his face when he’d found the letter opener in the wall. She’d seen his doubt.

  And she’d gone.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 7

  Options.

  Not many of those.

  Mickey pondered them nonetheless.

  There was the library. First she’d have to get there, of course, but once inside … air conditioning, and a week’s worth of papers. She could skim for whatever hadn’t made it onto the web version. Anyone missing a young woman about yay tall?

  But she’d rather get cleaned up first—get herself squared away. And there were other options to ponder. Turning herself into the autho
rities, for one. If they didn’t know who she was, they could probably find out.

  Yeah, and what if you’ve got worse crimes on your rap sheet than knowing all the Barry Manilow hits?

  Which she did, apparently. They’d certainly come to her with ease, humming through her brain as she’d taken back streets and alleys away from Steve’s gym toward the center of town, munching the remains of the pizza.

  She winced at that. Sorry, Steve. I guess that’s what they really call eat and run.

  At least she’d found a trashcan for the pizza box.

  So still no authorities—no more now than when she’d stopped Steve from calling them. Not until she had no choice—until she knew for sure whether she was the cause of Naia’s problem, or her only hope. She had to keep herself footloose and ready to move in case she remembered something.

  She shook off the doubt, and turned her thoughts toward more constructive paths. No cops, no clinic … not yet with the library. Maybe she just needed to take some precious time to scope out some safe places here on the street. To get herself some working funds. Just the rest of the day, that’s all. And then …

  A final option occurred to her, one that slotted neatly after plan number one—scope out a new safe place—and might possibly lead to answers for plan number three.

  Find the building. The place that had been her prison, and held the only for-sure clues to her situation. Possibly still held the people who’d imprisoned her.

  And this time she wasn’t unarmed. Wasn’t sick, wasn’t weak, wasn’t confused. This time she had some idea of her abilities.

  Yeah, when up against a kid and an unresisting wall.

  Still.

  After a moment she realized that the very idea of hunting the place should have surprised her—should have filled her with fear and doubt.

  The very idea didn’t.

  She suspected that imaginary rap sheet might have something to it after all. But as she rose from the cement block in the back corner of a the parking lot that had been her thinking spot, heading for plan number one—scope out a new safe place—she found herself humming Copacabana with a dramatically cheerful air.