The Green And The Gray Page 4

  "Do you have any bread?" Melantha asked.

  "Sure," Roger said. He had settled in at the spot where Caroline had been cutting the cheese earlier, his back to the counter as he faced the girl. Keeping his eyes on her, he pulled open the bread drawer and snagged a bag of dinner rolls. "Why did you leave?" he asked as he handed them over.

  For a half second Melantha looked up at him. Roger gave her a smile—a forced smile, Caroline could tell, but a smile nonetheless. "I was afraid," she said, dropping her gaze back to the table and undoing the twist tie on the rolls. "I heard voices."

  "That was just the police," Roger told her. "They were here to help."

  "Someone attacked you," Caroline said, carrying the glass of juice to the table. "Do you remember that? Someone tried to..."

  She trailed off, staring at Melantha's throat. The dark bruises that had been there the night before were now barely visible. "Someone tried to strangle you," she continued slowly, touching the girl's throat gently with her fingertips.

  Melantha twitched away from her touch. "I know," she said.

  "Who did it?" Roger asked. "The man with the gun?"

  "No," she said firmly. "He was... trying to help."

  "Then who?" Roger demanded.

  Melantha flinched. "I don't know."

  Roger looked at Caroline. Liar, his expression said. "What about your family?" Caroline asked, deciding to try that approach again. "Is there someone we should contact, to tell them you're all right?"

  A shiver ran through the girl. "No," she said, biting hungrily into one of the dinner rolls and following it with a mouthful of cheese.

  Caroline looked at Roger. He shrugged microscopically; reluctantly, Caroline nodded agreement.

  Whatever the girl knew, she wasn't ready to talk about it.

  They watched in silence as Melantha finished off the rest of the sliced cheese and two more rolls.

  "That was good," she said, draining her glass. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome," Caroline said. "Do you understand that we want to help you?"

  Melantha stared down at her empty plate. "Yes," she said.

  "Then tell us what happened," Caroline urged. "You can trust us."

  Melantha's eyes were still on the empty plate, but Caroline could see her lips making uncertain little movements. As if she was trying to think, or about to cry. "Melantha?" she prompted.

  "Because if you don't," Roger added, "we'll just have to call the police again."

  It was probably the worst thing he could have said. Melantha's thin shoulders abruptly tightened, her wavering emotional barriers suddenly slamming up full strength again. "I'm real tired," she said, all the emotion abruptly gone from her voice. The barriers there had gone back up, too. "Is there someplace I could lie down for awhile?"

  "Certainly," Caroline said, throwing a frustrated glare at Roger and getting a puzzled look in return.

  Clearly, he didn't even realize what he'd done. "Would you prefer the couch or the bed?"

  "The couch is fine," Melantha said, staggering slightly as she stood up. "No, that's okay—I can get there by myself," she added as Caroline took a step toward her. "Thank you."

  She left the kitchen. A moment later, Caroline heard the faint but unmistakable sound of couch springs settling under a load. "Well, that was brilliant," she muttered to Roger, keeping her voice low. "Did it ever occur to you that it might have been the police she's afraid of?"

  "So?" Roger countered, pitching his voice equally low. "You want to sugar-coat it, or you want to give her reality? If she doesn't let us help her, then she has to go to the police. Unless you want to throw her back out into the street."

  "She's scared, Roger," Caroline said with exaggerated patience. "And you towering over her like that doesn't help any."

  "Maybe not," Roger said, half turning and picking up the knife Caroline had been using to cut the cheese. "But it didn't seem smart to give her a clear shot at grabbing this."

  "That's ridiculous," Caroline insisted. Still, she felt an unpleasant shiver run down her back as she eyed the knife. "She's the one who's in danger."

  "Desperate people sometimes do desperate things," Roger reminded her, setting the knife back onto the counter. "Look, I know how gaga you get when there's an underdog involved—"

  "That's not fair."

  "—but the fact is that we don't know the first thing about this girl," Roger plowed on over her protest. "And even if she isn't a threat to us herself, she could still be putting us in danger just by being here."

  He gestured toward the living room. "Like if whoever started that job decides to come by and finish it."

  Caroline shook her head. "I think it has to do with her family," she said. "Domestic violence, probably from a father or stepfather."

  Roger frowned. "How do you figure that?"

  "That look she gave you in the living room, for one thing, when I first asked about her family,"

  Caroline said. "She's nervous in your presence."

  "Interesting theory," Roger murmured. "Problem is, she wasn't looking at me."

  It was Caroline's turn to frown. "Are you sure?"

  "Positive," he said. "Because at first I thought the same thing you did. What she was doing was making sure I'd locked the door, then doing a quick scan of the balcony itself."

  "Of the balcony?"

  Roger shrugged. "She came in that way," he pointed out. "If she can, why can't someone else? And don't forget our husky friend with the handy Broadway dimmer switch. If this is a case of family violence, we're talking one very weird family."

  "You're right," Caroline sighed, conceding the point. "So what do we do?"

  "Good question," Roger said, tracing a finger along the edge of the knife handle. "We can't call anyone; cops or Children and Family Services. She'd just disappear again. And we can't throw her out, either, not in the middle of the night."

  "So she stays here?" Caroline asked.

  "At least for tonight," he said, not sounding very happy about it. "Maybe tomorrow she'll be more willing to talk."

  "And if she isn't?"

  Roger exhaled noisily. "Let's just hope she is."

  Dinner that evening was a quiet and rather strained affair, at least on Roger's part. He was fine when talking to Caroline about the details of her day, or discussing the latest political scandal from upstate.

  But all his conversational gambits with Melantha fell as flat as last year's campaign promises. Maybe Caroline was right; maybe the girl was afraid of him.

  Caroline did a little better. She was able to get Melantha talking about her hobbies, her favorite foods, and her taste in music. The first centered around painting and gardening; the second included Greek and Moroccan cuisine and any kind of seafood; the third ran to current preteen heart throbs, most of whom Roger had never heard of.

  But all attempts to draw her out on what had happened the previous evening brought either silence or a quick change of topic.

  Still, the girl was polite enough, and had the table manners of someone who'd been properly brought up. She was also quick to praise the simple macaroni-cheese-tomato casserole he and Caroline had thrown together.

  Neither of which meant she might not murder them in their sleep, of course. As they loaded the plates into the dishwasher, he made a mental note to move the sharp knives into their bedroom before they turned in for the night.

  Once the table was clear and they moved into the living room, things picked up a little. Caroline produced a deck of cards, and Melantha quickly joined into the games with an eagerness that for the first time made her seem like a genuine twelve-year-old.

  But her strangeness continued to peek through. She used odd terms for some of the card combinations, and occasionally would make an exclamation in a foreign language Roger couldn't identify. Even more telling, after they had run through Caroline's repertoire of hearts, Crazy Eights, Go Fish, and Kings-in-the-Corner, Melantha taught them a new game, one neither he nor Caroline had ever heard o
f before.

  Exuberant card player or not, though, she was clearly still running at half speed. At nine o'clock, as they watched her eyelids drooping, Caroline called a halt.

  "Time for bed, Melantha," she said, collecting the cards and putting them back into their box. "We have to get up early for work, and you look like you could use a good night's sleep, too."

  "Yes." Melantha hesitated. "I—maybe I'd better—I should probably go now."

  "You'll do no such thing," Caroline said firmly, standing up and collecting the throw pillows from the couch. "Let me go get a sheet, some blankets, and a pillow and we'll set you up right here."

  "Unless you'd rather we take you someplace," Roger suggested. "Do you have any family you could go to?"

  Melantha lowered her eyes; and suddenly the relaxed, card-playing twelve-year-old was gone. "No," she said. "Not... no."

  "Then it's settled," Caroline said cheerfully, as if she hadn't even noticed the awkward transition.

  "Let me get that bedding and find you a toothbrush."

  Fifteen minutes later, they had her settled in on the couch. Roger confirmed that the balcony door was locked and that the broomstick was in its groove and drew the curtains. "All safe and sound," he announced as Caroline turned out the lights. "Sleep well."

  " 'Night," Melantha said, her voice already fading.

  Caroline headed to the bedroom. Roger double-checked the locks on the front door, then followed.

  "What do you think?" he asked as he closed the bedroom door behind them.

  "She's scared, and she's on the run," Caroline said, pulling her nightshirt from beneath her pillow.

  "And I still think it has something to do with her family."

  "I think you're right," Roger agreed as he unbuttoned his shirt. "I'm not sure I buy the abuse angle, though. Aside from those bruises on her throat, she seems healthy and well cared-for."

  "I suppose," Caroline said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and starting to pull off her shoes. She was tired, Roger could tell, far more tired than she should have been for nine-thirty on a Thursday night. This business with Melantha must really be getting to her. "Speaking of bruises," she added,

  "did you notice they're almost gone?"

  "Yeah, I did," Roger said. "Fast healer?"

  "I don't know," Caroline sighed, pulling on her nightshirt. "So what do we do now?"

  "You got me," he admitted. "All I can suggest is that we try the police again in the morning."

  "She didn't want to see them last night," Caroline pointed out, making a face as she climbed under the comforter and blankets and hit the chilly sheets. "I doubt she'll want to see them tomorrow, either."

  "Then she has to tell us what's going on," Roger said firmly. "She tells us, or she tells the cops."

  "Or she does her disappearing act again."

  "Maybe by morning she'll trust us a little more," Roger said, climbing into bed beside her. "Pleasant dreams."

  "You, too," she said, rolling half over to give him a kiss.

  He turned off the bedside light and nestled down under the comforter, shivering against the cold sheets. At least Caroline seemed to have forgiven him for whatever it was he'd done wrong earlier in the evening.

  It had been a long twenty-four hours, and he was deathly tired. But perversely, sleep refused to come. He lay quietly beside Caroline, listening to her slow breathing, staring at the edges of the sliding door where the glow of the city seeped in around the light-blocking drapes. Over and over again he played back the incident in the alley, trying to remember every word the man had said, every nuance of his tone or body language, every unusual thing or event that had happened before or after he'd shoved that gun into Roger's hand. But the mystery remained as tangled as ever.

  And it was way beyond people like him and Caroline. In the morning, he decided firmly, they would give Melantha one last chance to come clean; and after that it was the cops, whether she liked it or not. And as for her disappearing act, this time he would sit on the girl to make sure she stayed put.

  Literally, if it came to that.

  And then, from somewhere on the outside wall, he heard a soft thump.

  He froze, straining his ears. Had he imagined the sound? Or could it have just been Melantha tossing in her sleep?

  The sound came again. Definitely from the outside wall, and definitely near the bedroom door.

  Someone was on their balcony.

  4

  He slid his legs out from under the comforter, a sudden fury burning inside him. So Melantha wasn't even going to wait until morning before pulling her vanishing trick again.

  Like hell.

  It took only a few seconds to retrieve his workout sweats from the laundry hamper and pull them on.

  Easing the bedroom door open, he slipped out.

  His bare feet seemed to shrink as they hit the cold hardwood of the hallway. But he didn't care. She was not, repeat not, going to get away with this two nights running. He rounded the corner into the living room—

  And came to a sudden stop. The curtains here weren't the same heavy-duty ones as in the bedroom, and enough light was pressing its way through to clearly show Melantha still wrapped in her blankets on the couch.

  There was more than enough to show the silhouette of someone on the balcony.

  Call 911! was his first reflexive impulse. But an instant later he realized that would be a useless gesture. By the time the cops arrived, the intruder would be long gone. Or would have broken in and murdered all three of them.

  And Roger had nothing to defend them with except a few carving knives and a stupid little toy gun.

  A toy gun which nevertheless looked very real.

  The shadow shifted as the intruder moved stealthily across the balcony. Easing his way back into the kitchen, Roger went to the junk drawer and dug beneath Caroline's latch-hook stuff.

  The gun was gone.

  For a long moment his fingers scrabbled frantically among the collected odds and ends. It couldn't be gone. He'd put it right here only yesterday.

  In the living room, Melantha stirred beneath her blankets, and he grimaced. Of course—the girl had taken it. She'd searched through the drawers after he and Caroline had gone to bed and retrieved it.

  He stepped back out of the kitchen. The shadow had disappeared, but he could hear a faint scratching sound. Was the intruder trying to find a way through the doors?

  Most of the kitchen knives were down the hall in the bedroom, where he'd taken them while Caroline was hunting up a spare toothbrush. But the one he'd left on the knickknack shelf last night when the cops arrived was still there. Sliding it out from behind the plate, he wrapped it in a firm grip and started across the living room.

  The twenty-foot walk seemed to take forever. Reaching the curtains, he crouched down and silently rolled the broomstick up out of the track onto the carpet. Then, straightening up again, he stepped to the other end of the door and slid his hand around the edge of the curtain. Taking a deep breath, he popped the latch, shoved the door to the side, and leaped out onto the balcony, knife at the ready.

  There was no one there.

  He looked back and forth twice. There was nobody skulking in a corner; no ropes hanging down from above; no grappling hooks on the balcony wall leading up from below. Nothing but Caroline's stupid dwarf orange trees.

  But someone had been there. He hadn't dreamed the sound or the moving shadow. He shifted his attention to his left, wondering if someone could have leaped across from the next balcony.

  And there, sixty feet away at the far corner of the building, was the silhouetted figure of a man.

  Hanging onto the outside wall like a human fly.

  Roger stared, a creeping sensation twisting through his stomach. The man wasn't standing on a ladder, his eyes and brain noted mechanically: he was on a section of the wall between balconies, with no place for a ladder to be braced. He wasn't hanging from a rope or trapeze: the roof overhang would have left him dangli
ng a couple of feet out from the wall, and he was instead snugged right up against the stone facing.

  And then, as Roger watched, he began to climb. Not like people climbed walls in movies, where there was always just that little bit of something wrong in balance or flow or movement that betrayed the presence of the hidden wires. The man's hands reached up one at a time, pressing against the wall and pulling as the alternate foot lifted and pushed. He moved as casually as if he were walking down the street; but at the same time, Roger could sense the genuine exertion of muscles working at their task. It looked real.

  It was real.

  The figure angled across the wall between two floors and disappeared around the corner to the other side of the building. Roger stared after him, part of him hoping the man would come back, most of him fervently hoping he wouldn't.

  "Roger?" Caroline whispered.

  He jumped, the sound of her voice jarring him back to reality. She was standing in the balcony doorway, her robe clutched tightly around her. "What is it?" she hissed.

  Roger threw a last glance at the corner and took a deep breath....

  And then, behind Caroline, he saw Melantha sitting up on the couch, her eyes wide, her face taut.

  "Nothing," he told Caroline, trying to keep his voice casual. "I thought I heard something, that's all.

  Must have been dreaming."

  "Oh," Caroline said, and he wished he had enough light to read her expression. "Well, you'd better come in before you freeze to death."

  "Yeah," he said, shivering as he followed her inside.

  He made sure he locked the balcony door solidly behind him.

  He waited until they were back in bed, with the lights off and the door closed between them and Melantha, and then told her the whole story. "You're sure you weren't dreaming?" she asked when he had finished.

  "I don't end up on the balcony in bare feet when I dream," Roger pointed out, annoyed in spite of himself. Yes, it sounded impossible. But she was his wife, damn it. She was supposed to believe him when he told her something.

  "I'm not saying you were," Caroline hastened to assure him. "I'm just trying to cover all the possibilities."