“I hear that.” Troy grinned.
Jillian relaxed. He was going to be okay.
HE SILENTLY PULLED THE DOOR SHUT behind him and crept out of the shadowed hallway into the lobby, his senses finely tuned to the sweet scent of Jillian Masterson, despite the ammonia odor of soured kitty litter that left his eyes watering.
A terrible sense of right and wrong burned through his belly. What he’d just overheard had been wrong. All wrong.
He needed to make it right.
The old woman in apartment 102 had generously opened her door to give him directions to Troy Anthony’s place. It had probably been more foolish than generous for the old cat freak to unlock her door to a stranger—but not as foolish as the woman who’d just reamed Jillian up one side and down the other for no good reason. Grandma Anthony’s harsh words had upset Jillian, he could tell. She was worried about the boy, too.
She smiled and tried to apologize, even joked with the kid afterward, but he could tell.
Nobody upset his sweet Jillian.
And got away with it.
JILLIAN SWALLOWED THE LAST BITE of the rich chocolate chip cookie and laughed as the two Anthony brothers dutifully closed the cookie jar and reached for their dinner plates to cut up their chicken. Dessert first had lightened Troy’s mood, the sun was setting and it was time for Jillian to say her goodbyes and go home.
She plucked a stray cookie crumb from the sleeve of her jacket and popped it into her mouth before pushing her chair away from the kitchen table. “Don’t forget to study for your GED, Troy.” She winked at his younger brother. “You’ll have to have Dex help you with the math.”
Dexter laughed. “I will if you teach me how to dunk.”
Troy rolled his eyes and put his big hand over Dexter’s face, pushing the grin aside in a timeless gesture of brotherly annoyance.
Good. LaKeytah’s lecture, the resulting guilt and the challenges of coping with his disability had all receded to manageable levels for Troy, and his attitude seemed fixed firmly back in the positive position. Jillian had trouble masking her own smile at his resiliency. Everything in Troy’s apartment seemed clean, relatively clear of obstacles to his wheelchair and safe. He would be okay. “Call me if you need something. Otherwise, I’ll see you Monday at the clinic.”
“I’ll get the door,” Troy answered, angling his chair to follow her. “See ya.”
Jillian waited to hear the door lock behind her before she went back to the elevator and pushed the call button. The doors opened immediately. She pulled her keys from her pocket and stepped into the empty car with a weary sigh. Short temper and paranoia aside, LaKeytah Anthony was to be commended for keeping her home in such good shape, and for putting square meals and a strong set of values on the table every day.
As she rode the elevator down, the musty odor of age and neglect screamed for some antiseptic and air freshener. But when she stepped out into the lobby, the smell turned more perfumey, more musky, like the scent of cologne on a man.
The subtle sweetness in the air was enough to pull Jillian up short and tighten her lips into a wary frown. She turned to her right, turned to her left—held her ground as the security light over the super’s door blinked on again. “Hello?”
Her breathing quickened a notch. Of course, no one would answer. The elevator had still been on the fifth floor where she and Troy had gotten out. There was no one in this lobby, no sounds beyond the usual creaks and moans of the old building, no reason for that little shiver of awareness to creep along her spine.
Get over it, girl. No one is in here spying on you.
“Right,” she agreed out loud, fighting to strengthen her resolve. Seeing nothing and no one, Jillian clutched her keys like claws between her fingers, pushed open the double glass doors and hurried straight down the steps.
Long shadows cast by the high-rise buildings cooled the sidewalk as she lengthened her stride to reach her SUV. The chattering girls from the stoop across the street had gone inside. The bus stop was clear. Traffic had trickled down to a few cars. Still, that buzz of hyperawareness refused to dissipate.
She was being watched.
Whether it was idle curiosity, or something much more focused and sinister, didn’t matter. Jillian tilted her head to check the windows of the apartments and businesses on either side of the street. Nothing but curtains and blinds and emptiness. It was more night than dusk now, yet she still peered into the alley across the way, looked through the windshields of the parked cars she passed. No one.
Those stupid letters had her rattled, that was all. Shivering, despite the decent warmth of the early spring evening, she jogged the last few steps to her car.
She’d just beeped the lock open when a beige Cadillac Escalade whipped around the corner and screeched to a stop beside her car, blocking her in. Instinctively on guard, Jillian drifted back a step. Had this guy been waiting for her to come out of the building?
The driver’s-side window lowered and her shoulders stiffened with a flash of remembrance. And not a good one. Big black man. Shaved bald head. Muscular. Silent. Sure to be armed.
Known to her simply as Mr. Lynch.
As if she wanted to visit with a face from her past.
Get in the car!
Jillian turned and plowed right into the shoulder of a man she had even less desire to see.
“Easy, babe.”
Isaac Rush.
As the whiskey-scented breath of one of Kansas City’s most wily and successful drug dealers washed over her, Jillian swallowed a curse and backed away. His handsome, biracial face didn’t make him charming. His tailored suit didn’t make him sophisticated. The tight fingers that clamped around her elbow did make him dangerous, however.
She yanked her sleeve from his grip. “Don’t call me that.”
Now the big Cadillac with the armed chauffeur made sense. Jillian glanced over her shoulder and exchanged a silent nod with the big man. Lynch wasn’t what she would call a friend, certainly not someone she would ever want to hang out with or run into in a dark alley, given that his job for Isaac involved guns and fists and breaking client’s fingers. But, for whatever reason, the imposing, unsmiling brute had rescued her one night, a lifetime ago…from the very man who was sliding his fingers over Jillian’s and the door handle right now.
But Lynch wasn’t helping her tonight.
“Need something I can hook you up with, sugar?”
As if sugar was any better than babe, coming from this lowlife. Jillian snatched her hand away from the smarmy touch and stood tall. She’d be taller than Isaac if she’d been wearing heels instead of running shoes, but she doubted even that would intimidate him. “There’s a reason you haven’t seen me for ten years. I don’t do that anymore. You have nothing I want. I was just giving a friend a ride home. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
Still, with money and Lynch and control of these streets to back him up, Isaac didn’t give up easily. He leaned against the door, putting his body between her and getting in. “Somebody making trouble for you around here? Maybe I can help.”
“You’re the only trouble I see.”
“Tough talk, Jilly. You know, I always liked you. And now that you’re a full-grown woman, we can do something about it.” Liar! Being seventeen hadn’t stopped him from trying to do something about his attraction to her all those years ago. Maybe she should be grateful that his attempted rape had finally driven her to that lowest point where she could agree to entering rehab at the Boatman Clinic. But Isaac was still trying to make his role as her onetime supplier sound like something romantic had passed between them. He brushed his fingertips across the back of her