to show, if necessary. The wearable weaponry pieces were kept in the safes camo’d into the walls.
Tam juggled, coaxed, and vainly cuddled Rachel while the two policemen poked around her laboratory. They squinted at the dummy pieces laid out on the display table for their benefit, poking gingerly as if they expected them to bite, and examined the heavy equipment, looking bewildered. Men usually were when they dealt with her. What a bore.
They were soon ready to leave, having found no plastic bags filled with pills or powder, no bricks of hashish or explosives. Just a working studio. She politely gave each of them one of her Deadly Beauty business cards. Meechum stared at it.
“Why the ‘deadly’ part?” he demanded.
She gave him her most mysterious, lash-fluttering smile. “Oh, that’s just a little inside joke I had with an old lover, years ago,” she said, throatily. “It was his nickname for me.”
Licht chortled a little too loudly. “Must’ve been a real interesting relationship,” he blurted.
She turned a wide-open, limpid gaze on him. “Oh, yes. It was.”
He blushed, and started the squirrely eye dance again. She had to force herself not to groan and roll her eyes. Callow twit.
“Hmph. Well, then. Please don’t take any long trips. You’ll be hearing from us again, Ms. Steele,” Meechum said.
“I’m looking forward to it,” she said.
She and Rachel saw them out. The men climbed into their squad car with an air of relief. Thrilled to get away from the human ambulance siren, Tam reflected glumly as she watched their taillights recede into the night. Lucky them.
It took the better part of an hour to get Rachel calmed down, into pajamas and cuddled to sleep. At that point, she was too tired even to work up another fit of righteous anger at Janos’s malicious meddling.
What a cruel joke. Whenever she let down her guard, she got screwed. But did she learn? Never.
Seldom did any of her lovers crack through her armor and startle her into genuine excitement—and not surprisingly, every single time it had happened, it had proven to be a disaster.
The last time had been with Victor Lazar, Raine’s uncle. He’d at least been as fucked up as she herself, and every bit as shady, but so strong. He had radiated strength…like Janos did. That was the attraction, she reflected. Janos was right. She liked strength. A lot.
But Lazar had gotten himself killed before she even had a chance to enjoy him. Deservedly so, but still, it hurt. She’d wanted to punish his killer. Which was what had gotten her mixed up with Kurt Novak.
She shuddered. She’d considered herself up for anything, but that guy had been way over her head. Brilliant, sadistic, psychotic. Then there was Georg to add yet another flesh-creeping element to the mix.
Stop. She had more than enough fodder for nightmares in her head without dwelling on those guys.
She went down to the kitchen with a vague plan to stare out the window at the dark while sipping a shot of single malt when she noticed the light flashing on the answering machine. A rare occurrence, considering how few people had the number. She stabbed “play.”
“Ms. Steele? This is Emma Carew from the adoption agency. There’s been a hitch in the adoption proceedings. We really must talk about this in person, but I’m afraid that we may have to review the case. I’m not sure I should be calling you like this, but after all our conversations, I feel I owe you a personal explanation before we have to…well, this is terribly embarrassing, but we’ve received some alarming information regarding possible criminal activity in your household, and, er, your own unstable psychological condition. It may be necessary for us to take Rachel into protective custody pending a full investigation and psych evaluation for you, just until we can clarify that this—”
Rip. Tam yanked the machine right out of the wall. She flung it at the blank brick wall across the room. Crash, it fell to the ground in pieces. She stared at it, face red, heart revving.
Yes, very nice, Tamar. Lovely demonstration of your maturity, your fitness for parenting, lectured a dry, academic voice in her head. All ready for your psych evaluation, aren’t you?
It was her mother’s voice. It gave her a pang. She hadn’t thought or even dreamed in that language for years. Hadn’t known that she still remembered the sound of it. She hadn’t heard it since she was fifteen.
Certainly not. How could you, knowing exactly what I would say about your carryings-on? For the love of God, Tamar. Really.
Oh, shut up, she silently said back. The voice did. Another one of her mother’s dirty tricks. Haughty retreat. The silent treatment.
She instantly regretted having banished the internalized ghost, snippy though it was. The room seemed so empty without it.
She’d never suffered from loneliness before. She’d never minded solitude at all. On the contrary, aloneness meant safety, quiet, peace from the greedy, grabbing demands of other people. Aloneness meant cleanliness, freedom. She craved it.
That was why she loved working with metal and gemstones, beyond the natural love she had inherited from her goldsmith father. They were hard, shining, nonporous substances, impervious to stain. They did not absorb filth, they did not rot or corrupt. They were clean, stark, inviolable. She loved that. Longed for it.
Janos had guessed it. He’d put his finger right on it. And yet, he was the one who they sent to pimp her out to that scum Georg. He was the one charged with the task of throwing her back into the sewer.
Bastard. Putting Rachel’s safety at risk. She would pulverize him, eviscerate him, iron-maiden him. She punched in his number.
He picked up swiftly, even at this late hour. “Ms. Steele?”
“Don’t you Ms. Steele me, you stinking turd,” she hissed in Italian. “How dare you?”
“Ms. Steele.” The velvety amusement in his voice infuriated her. “I’m pleased to hear from you again so soon—”
“Shut up,” she snarled. “Mess with me and my daughter again, and I will annihilate you.”
A thoughtful pause on the other end. “Try to calm down,” he said gently in Italian. “Let’s meet and talk about this like two reasonable—”
“Fuck you,” she snarled. “You make me sick.”
She hung up on him and burst into tears.
Chapter
9
Tam raced feverishly through the house. No time for blubbering or second thoughts. She’d practiced this routine in her mind hundreds of times until it was as automatic as a martial arts kata.
First, the big suitcase that was always packed, and updated every single week on Sunday evening after Rachel was in bed, inventoried to make sure it was up to date on Rachel’s constantly changing survival gear. The nose aspirator, the aerosol machine, the cortisone drops, the emergency antibiotics, the Tylenol syrup, the allergy ointments, the wipes, soaps, and anti-allergenic toiletries. Changes
