couldn’t.’’ Ian felt the washcloth settle against his neck, the water cool and soothing against the wound. ‘‘Your sister is in protective custody.’’
The light touch of the cloth against his skin abruptly ceased once again, and he glanced up to find Rosie’s dark eyes wide with apprehension.
‘‘She witnessed a murder.’’
Rosie shook her head in denial. The washcloth slid off his shoulder and plopped to the floor. Ian reached out to touch her, and very deliberately she stepped beyond his reach.
‘‘How…when? Is she okay?’’
‘‘She’s fine,’’ he assured her, picking up the washcloth and tossing it back in the sink. ‘‘Or at least, as okay as she can be, under the circumstances.’’
Rosie swirled the cloth through the water, then rung it out again. Ian waited for her to look back at him before continuing.
‘‘A year ago, give or take, she was on her way home from work and had the bad luck to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.’’
‘‘Lily witnessed a murder a year ago, and none of us knew about it?’’ Rosie asked, her voice sharp.
‘‘Nobody knew,’’ he answered, his irritation about that instantly at the surface. He’d grown up on mean streets where murder was common—one should never have happened in Lily’s world. ‘‘Hell, I didn’t even know. Her identity had been kept secret to ensure her safety. She didn’t tell anybody.’’
A spasm of pain crossed over Rosie’s features, and she pressed her lips together, her brows knit. ‘‘So why bring Annmarie here?’’
‘‘Lily didn’t want her to feel confined. She thought Annmarie would be safe here.’’
‘‘But she’s not, is she?’’
With that single question, Rosie showed that she understood the gravity of their situation in a way that Lily hadn’t been able to. She might look like her sister, but unlike Lily, Rosie saw the shadow world where danger lurked.
Rosie added, ‘‘And the man who called, reporting her missing—’’
‘‘Probably a guy named Marco—’’
‘‘If he got hold of Annmarie—’’
‘‘He would use your niece to ensure that Lily won’t testify.’’
Rosie dabbed at the crusted blood on his shoulder again.
‘‘You were lucky,’’ she said. ‘‘Just grazed the top of your shoulder.’’ She dipped the washcloth in the sink again, then touched it to his neck, gently wiping away the blood without disturbing the wound at all.
Ian didn’t know what he had been expecting, but her comment about his shoulder wasn’t it. Her hands trembled slightly, and he had the urge to take them within his and tell her everything would be okay. Only, things were seldom okay and she had made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t to touch her. He couldn’t really blame her. He had manhandled her, threatened her and brought her the worst kind of news.
‘‘Another inch and you wouldn’t be walking around at all,’’ she said.
‘‘Damn,’’ he muttered. He could have done a lot to reassure her, and he hadn’t. Not a single, blessed thing. Not then and not now. ‘‘So you understand why you can’t report that you’ve found Annmarie.’’
She didn’t answer, and he raised his eyes to look at her. She patted at his shoulder without meeting his gaze, then rinsed the washcloth.
He lifted a hand to touch her, and as she had last time, she deliberately stepped beyond his reach.
‘‘Finished,’’ she said, opening the medicine cabinet door and pressing a bottle of aspirin into his hand.
He stood and examined the wound in the medicine cabinet mirror. All in all it wasn’t nearly as bad as he had expected.
‘‘Rosie.’’
She paused at the door, her hand on the crystal doorknob.
‘‘I have her number. Lily’s, that is. You can call her.’’
She nodded before returning to the kitchen.
Ian shook a couple of tablets into his hand and swallowed them without water. She talked to him as though he was something foul the dog had dragged in. But her touch…that was a whole different matter.
He could hear her in the other room, talking…on the phone.
He rushed from the bathroom, heard her concisely describe his injury. He snatched the telephone from her and yanked the cord from the wall.
‘‘Damn, don’t you get it?’’ He shook the end of the phone line in her face. ‘‘This isn’t a game.’’
‘‘I didn’t think it was.’’ Calmly she replaced the receiver in the cradle, took the cord from him and plugged it back into the socket. In the next instant the phone rang.
Not taking her eyes from him, Rosie picked up the receiver. ‘‘Sorry about that, Hilda,’’ she said. ‘‘Now, like I was saying, I found that hiker you called me about earlier, and he needs a little first aid. If you’d like to bring the kids out for a visit that would be good, too…. I knew you’d understand…. Yeah, that’sright. See you in a bit.’’ She replaced the receiver, then said, ‘‘Do you want eggs with your pancakes?’’
‘‘You’re nuts,’’ he responded. ‘‘You can’t just—’’
‘‘The eggs, Mr. Ian,’’ she interrupted, the steel in her voice matching her posture. ‘‘How do you want them?’’
‘‘Over easy,’’ he snapped. ‘‘Three, if you have enough.’’
‘‘No problem.’’ She made a point of looking at his bare chest, then added, ‘‘I’ve got a sweatshirt that will probably fit you if you don’t want to put that bloody shirt back on.’’
‘‘I don’t,’’ he said.
She half turned, then caught his glance once again. ‘‘What happened to your luggage?’’
‘‘We had to leave it on the ferry,’’ he answered.
She gave him another thorough glance, then moved to the refrigerator, where she took out a carton of eggs. Ian watched her move around the kitchen, her expression softening when she looked at her niece.
He hoped the aspirin would kick in soon. His head pounded worse than a hangover from a three-day drinking binge. His groin was killing him, and his shoulder hurt like fire. Worse, he had completely lost control of the situation. To regain it, he needed to start thinking like the men chasing them—that was the key to a good, flexible plan that would put them a step or two ahead of the criminals that Lily was testifying against.
Rosie,
