Claire said, “I take it, it wasn’t love at first sight.”
“Not at all. The man is so stuck on himself, he could be patented as the new wonder glue. Anyway, we’d just left the restaurant, thankfully, and I was looking for a cab, when we saw these two overgrown adolescents mugging and beating this old man. I tried to get Jonathan to go with me to help them, but he refused! He went back into the restaurant, he later said to get help, while I called the police and screamed for them to stop.”
“And then you waited from a safe distance?” The question was full of hope, but Claire’s expression said she already knew the answer.
“No, I ran toward them, shouting at them. They were kicking him and pounding him—I had to make them quit.”
Claire took one of Stephanie’s hands in hers. “You’ve got to stop trying to be a hero, honey. You can’t save all of them, you know that.”
Stephanie looked down at Claire’s dainty little wrinkled hand, covering hers. Claire wore several rings of various shapes and sizes. Stephanie focused on a bright topaz pinkie ring, unable to look at her friend’s face. “But I could see it in my mind, Claire. I could see my father all over again.”
“What happened to your father was a tragedy, Stef, but that doesn’t mean you have to throw yourself into every crime that’s committed on the streets of Atlanta. One day, something terrible might happen to you, and then what would your mother do?”
“I know, I know,” Stephanie said, her bagel cold in her hand. “And I’m careful—you know that. I did call the police last night, but I just couldn’t let it happen again. Not to that helpless old man.”
Claire patted her hand, then let go. “Okay, so what happened? Did you stop it, or did the police get there in time?”
Stephanie chewed another bit of bagel, then sipped her lukewarm latte. “That’s when he came out of the shadows, like some caped avenger.” Shaking her head, she looked up at Claire at last. “I tell you, Claire, I’d never seen anything like it. He reminded me of my father—Daddy would have done exactly the same thing.”
“Who? Who helped you last night?”
Stephanie threw down the leftover half of her bagel, then pushed both hands through her unruly hair. “His name is Derek Kane. He’s a man—”
“I gathered that much,” Claire said, a wry smile moving across her freckled face. “And apparently he came to your rescue?”
“He did,” Stephanie admitted, bobbing her head again. “He just stepped out of the shadows and told the muggers he was going to stop them and then…well, after talking to them didn’t work, he rushed one of them and sent him flying. Then he turned around and kicked the other one right in the stomach. The whole exchange lasted less than a minute, and then he had them up against the wall.”
Claire blew a breath up on her spiky bangs, causing them to flutter across her forehead. “Okay, so you two played Starsky and Hutch? So why aren’t you writing the story for the noon news?”
“Because Mr. Kane refused to be interviewed.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“He made it very clear. The man doesn’t want to be bothered.”
“Like I said, that’s never stopped you before.”
Stephanie shot her friend a grin then. “No, it hasn’t. That’s why I’m putting together the story, with an anonymous hero as my focus. I hope we can run it tonight at six and eleven. And in the meantime, I’ve got research digging to find all the Derek Kanes listed in Atlanta and the surrounding vicinity. I intend to track him down and find out why he doesn’t want to be in the limelight.”
“Intriguing,” Claire said, maneuvering her chair back to the desk across from Stephanie’s. “A man with something to hide is forced into the role of a Good Samaritan, huh?”
“I’m beginning to think that,” Stephanie replied. “And if Derek Kane is hiding something, I intend to be the one to find out what it is.”
“Tell me something, kid,” Claire said, leaning a hip against the corner of Stephanie’s desk. “Was this Derek Kane young and attractive, or old and feeble?”
“He was…gorgeous,” Stephanie blurted out before she could catch herself. Quickly she added, “Of course, it was dark and he stayed in the shadows for the most part, but—”
“But you’re interested?”
“No, no. Not in him as a man. He was too snarly, too…” She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something awfully familiar about Derek Kane, besides the way his actions had reminded her of her sweet father. And that something had been eluding her all night and morning. Maybe that was why she had such an incredible urge to find the man and get to the bottom of his story.
“So what did he look like?”
Stephanie crossed a long navy-stockinged leg, then watched the wide pleats of her matching skirt settle over her knee. “Dark hair—kind of shaggy, leather jacket, cowboy boots, jeans…and from what I could tell…the most incredible gray eyes—deep gray.”
“Wow.” Claire stared down at her, her green eyes shifting like a cursor on a computer screen. “Our man Kane does sound intriguing. Maybe he’s a movie extra or stunt man, or maybe even a movie star. Hollywood is always making films on the streets of Atlanta.”
Stephanie shook her head. “Oh, no. This man definitely shuns the spotlight. I doubt he has anything to do with Hollywood. Maybe…maybe he’s a detective! He did say he’d been to a lawyer’s office nearby.”
“Honey, from your description, I’d say he’s dangerous, at any rate.”
“Yes, you can be sure of that,” Stephanie told her boss as she uncrossed her legs and pushed her chair back from her desk.
“Too dangerous?” Claire asked, rising to get on with her busy day. “I mean, too dangerous to consider getting to know on a personal level, of course.”
“Yes. Tall, dark and definitely dangerous. And not my type.”
“Sounds exactly like your type.” Claire threw the comment over her shoulder as she waved. “Keep me posted—on the story, that is.”
“I will,” Stephanie promised, ignoring Claire’s suggestive look. And I will find Derek Kane and I will find out what he’s hiding.
She told herself it was all about getting the story. That was her goal, after all. To get the story, find out the truth, expose corruption, save the day.
But you couldn’t save your father, could you, Stef?
No, because she’d been too young to understand how to save him, to even to begin to understand his death.
Putting those thoughts out of her mind, Stephanie looked at the Bible verse her mother, Vanessa, had cross-stitched for her the Christmas after her father had died.
“The just shall live by faith.”
Romans,
