The Street Where She Lives

CHAPTER TWENTY

ON TUESDAY, Ben drove them into Los Angeles. Rachel rode shotgun, staring silently out the window. Emily, in the back seat, sat surprisingly quiet as well, a set of headphones on her ears that might have been a brick wall between them for all she even looked at her parents.

The silence stretched, then stretched some more, until the tension in the car became the fourth passenger. Ben knew why Rachel was quiet; there was a whole host of reasons for that. She resented him for leaving, she didn’t want to be here, she didn’t want her daughter to be here.

But Emily, her silence seemed out of character for the preteen who lately had only two gears-fast-asleep and hyperspeed.

“You cool enough?” he asked Rachel, reaching for the air-conditioning.

She didn’t look at him. “Fine.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure Emily’s head was still bopping to the music only she could hear. “Look, Rach, I wish things could be different.”

“Really? What things?”

“Us, damn it. I know there are things about me that…”

“That what, Ben?”

“That scare you.”

Now her eyes frosted over to match her voice. “You don’t scare me.”

“Bullshit.” He checked the rearview mirror again. “Come on, Rach, truth. We don’t enough time left for anything else.”

“Okay.” She took off her sunglasses. “Truth. Because God knows how important the truth is when you’re getting on a plane in a couple of hours.”

“It is important.” He glanced at her, needing her to agree.

“Yeah, okay.” She closed her eyes. “You’re right. It is. And yes, you scare me.”

The victory was hollow. “This is who I am,” he said quietly. “It’s always been who I am. You’re the most important person in my life, you and Emily, and I’d do anything for you. Anything. Except hold back. I’ve tried and I can’t, not even for you.”

Her eyes filled. “I know.” She no longer looked cold and frosty, just…sad. “I know. Ben, let’s just do this, okay? And get it over with.”

Get it over with. The goodbye, she meant. But first they had Emily’s friend Alicia to meet, and suddenly, inexplicably, Ben felt uneasy about that. It made no sense, of course. They’d gone camping, they’d let Emily ride a school bus, they’d lowered their guard all over the place, slowly, gradually.

And Asada was dead.

He glanced at Emily again, his baby, his precious daughter whom he’d spent far too little time with. “God, I have no idea what I was thinking, urging her out of her shell, letting her do this. It’s crazy.”

Rachel sighed. “It’ll be good for her to stretch her boundaries, good for both of us. I’ve kept us so contained, Ben, and all because of my own fears and insecurities.”

He reached for her hand. “It’s not your fault, it’s the way you grew up moving around like a vagabond. You want to stay still now and have a real home. That’s understandable.”

“Well, you didn’t grow up any easier than I did, and you’re-”

“What? Consumed by the opposite need?” he asked wryly. “I guess we’re both screwed up.”

“There’s got to be a happy medium, for Emily.” She squeezed his fingers. “I want to give her that. No more hiding behind my insecurities and fear. If nothing else, you taught me that.”

Unbearably touched, he didn’t know what to say. And as Emily pulled off her headphones, it didn’t matter.

“We there yet?” she asked, scowling when both her parents laughed. “What?”

“The age-old question,” Rachel said, and pulled her hand from Ben’s.

The loss had his smile fading. It was really almost over. Within a couple of hours, he’d have what he’d wanted so badly. His freedom.

Only he couldn’t remember why he’d even wanted it so badly or what he was running to.

EMILY HAD ARRANGED to meet Alicia at five o’clock. It was ten minutes until the hour and Ben circled the block yet again, unable to find a parking spot.

“Let me out,” Emily said from the back seat. “I’ll go get us a table.”

“No way,” Ben said.

“I have to go to the bathroom, Dad!”

“I’ll go with her,” Rachel said to Ben.

“Mom!”

“Either you hold it or you go with your mom.” Ben shocked himself with how much like a father he sounded. He nearly laughed at the thought, except that he liked sounding like a father, and this was his last chance to do it for a while.

After one more circle of the block, Emily was bouncing off the walls in the back seat. “I have to go!”

“Fine.” Stressed out, and with no reason for it, Ben pulled over. He grabbed Rachel’s hand as she left the car. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

He had no idea what the sudden panic was about, but his instincts had saved his life more than once.

“Ben-”

“Just promise me.”

And only when Rachel nodded did he let go of her hand. “I’ll be right there,” he promised, silently vowing to park illegally, ditch the car, whatever it took.

It was still an agonizing five minutes before he ran back to the restaurant, out of breath from adrenaline and anxiety by the time he got there.

Naturally, the place was packed. For a interminably long moment he couldn’t find either Rachel or Emily, and his heart stopped, though he had no idea what he thought could happen in such a busy place.

“Ben.” From behind, Rachel put her hand on her arm. “We’re waiting for a table, the hostess said it’d only be a moment because we had reservations.”

“Emily,” he said hoarsely. “Where’s-”

“Bathroom.”

“Which way?”

She frowned. “Behind the bar, but- Ben?” she called after him as he took off, weaving through the people to get behind the bar.

A waiter with a full tray growled at him when he nearly plowed him over in his haste. Then a three-hundred-pound woman inadvertently blocked his way, and they did a sort of dance trying to get around each other in the narrow hallway. Finally he dived under her arm to get around her.

Rachel did the same. “There,” she said, pointing to the women’s bathroom. “There’s only one stall in there, so she locked the door and I came back to find you.”

Innocent. Easy. So why were his instincts screaming? He tried the door handle, still locked. “Emily?”

To her credit, Rachel didn’t doubt the panic she could no doubt see in his eyes. She knocked on the door. “Emily!” She looked at Ben with her own sudden panic. “Why isn’t she answering?”

Because there was no Alicia. Ben knew that with a sudden, painful clarity. Alicia was Asada, who wasn’t dead at all. Ben should have never believed that without a body. And he’d just hand-delivered his daughter to the man. Using his shoulder, he plowed into the door. The wood jamb started to splinter, and he did it again.

“Hey!” The bartender got a look at what they were doing and started to round the bar. “Get back from there-” he shouted just as the door gave, propelling Ben inside the bathroom.

Emily was on the floor, bound and gagged, with a two-ton goon kneeling at her side shoving a needle into her arm. A second goon had removed the window and was reaching down for Emily’s lifeless body.

Ben lunged for him, and they both went down like a load of concrete to the tile floor. He got one punch in before he was rolled to his back and socked in the head. Stars danced across his vision, cutting off for a new pain when he took another in the gut. Using his knee as effectively as he could from flat on the floor, Ben leveled it into the guy’s crotch, then nearly suffocated when all two hundred pounds of solid muscle landed on him, knocking the air from his lungs. Trying to shove free of the dead weight, he died a thousand deaths at the sound of Rachel’s sudden scream.

The other goon had dropped Emily and turned toward Rachel, knife out, an unholy gleam in his eye.

Rachel lifted something and sprayed. Mace, Ben thought with a surge of pride as the man screamed and dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Rachel looked up at Ben, her eyes dilated. “Ben!”

He whipped around just in time to watch goon number one, still holding his family jewels with one hand, pull a gun from his pocket with the other. “I’m going to shoot yours right off,” he growled, and believing him, Ben took a flying leap at him.

Not quite quick enough though, because a shot rang out. And as things switched to an old silent film, Ben had time to lash himself with guilt.

His fault they were here, he thought as he crashed to the floor, a burning ripping through his upper thigh as the bone shattered under the speeding bullet. His fault Emily had come to any harm.

At least he landed on top of the guy, because the way the goon’s head bounced off that concrete, making the sound of a pumpkin squishing, couldn’t be good. And while getting shot had sent searing agony roaring through every part of Ben, he had to admit to being glad it was his leg and not the promised family jewels.

The other guy was sitting on the floor, screaming about his eyes.

Rachel weaved, then sat down hard, but unharmed.

Emily lay on the ground, facing away from Ben, far too still. He crawled toward her, dragging his bad leg. It took too long, and for a moment he couldn’t remember why the unbelievable agony was accompanying his every breath, until Rachel appeared at his side, touching his thigh, which made more fiery waves of agony go through him. Scooping Emily against his chest, he sank back against the wall and closed his eyes. Sirens sounded in the distance.

Sirens were good. He had Rachel on the floor beside him, teeth chattering, eyes glassy as she clearly went into shock, and Emily in his arms, unconscious and possibly overdosed from God knows what. Oh, and he needed to throw up.

God, he’d screwed up good this time. He might have even said so to Rachel, but damn, he hurt. Beyond the screaming agony in his leg, he could hear her crying, feel her tears soaking through his T-shirt.

Oh, yeah, he’d definitely screwed up. “Rachel,” he said with regret, or tried to, but his vision faded to black.

ASADA GOT THE NEWS on his ham radio. He stared out into the dark night. That’s all he had left now, darkness. No less than he deserved for failing. He was truly all alone, as the last of his two loyal minions had been hauled off to a Southern California jail cell for attempted kidnapping.

Odd, how it felt, to fail. He’d never experienced it before Ben Asher. Desolation, certainly. Sadness. It shouldn’t have come to this, but it had, and now there was only one thing left to do.

With a calm he hadn’t felt in a good, long time, he pulled out his last five-gallon drum of gasoline. Weakened by his exile and circumstance, he had some trouble dragging the thing around the perimeter of the dark, dank cellar he’d been living in, but as the gasoline splashed on the ground, the container became lighter and lighter.

So did his heart.

When he’d completed his large circle, he tossed the container aside and pulled out a lighter. Stepping inside the circle, he bent and lit the gasoline.

And stood tall as he prepared to die.

THREE IN THE MORNING in a hospital, any hospital, was the most unpleasant place in the entire world. For Rachel, who’d spent far too many late nights in a hospital recently, the sensations were the worst. The smell of antiseptic and pain. The sight of white, white and more white. The sounds of hushed murmurs and cries.

The taste of fear and hopelessness.

Thank God the last didn’t apply to her tonight. She sat in a chair by Emily’s bed, holding her daughter’s lax hand. Emily was going to be fine, the tranquilizer that had been shot into her unwilling body had worn off by now. She slept easily and of her own will. Except for her various bumps and bruises from where she’d fought her captors-Rachel’s heart hitched at the thought of what her baby had gone through before they’d broken into the bathroom-she would be fine. She was even being released in the morning.

Ben, however, hadn’t gotten so lucky. He’d come out of surgery with a steel plate in his thigh to hold the shattered bone together, and had required a transfusion of blood to keep him alive.

He would not be released in the morning. Or any time soon.

She lifted her gaze off Emily’s still, pale face and looked at the chair on the other side of the bed, a wheelchair.

The nurses had told him no. The doctors had told him no. Ben had simply gritted his teeth, gotten out of bed and demanded crutches. Worried about his well-being, they’d given in, but after he’d nearly killed himself, they’d taken away the crutches and replaced them with the wheelchair.

The man was a stubborn, idiotic fool.

He was also the most amazing, passionate, heroic, quick-thinking fool she’d ever met. He wore a hospital gown and an IV and nothing else. Slouched in the chair, head twisted at what had to be an uncomfortable angle, his good long leg stretched out next to his wrapped one, he looked…what was it he’d said to her his first day? He looked alive. Even with the tousled hair, the five o’clock shadow along his jaw, the dark circles of pain and exhaustion beneath his eyes…eyes that suddenly were opened and on Emily.

“She’s okay,” she whispered.

“Yeah.” Fierce and protective, he relaxed only when he saw she still slept. “No thanks to me.”

“Ben-”

A slight shake of his head stopped her. His jaw was tight with the pain, but she knew better than to move to his side and offer sympathy. An hour ago she’d tried, and an hour before that as well. Both times he’d refused her touch.

In his head, had he already gone? No, she knew him better than that. In his head he’d put all the blame for what had happened firmly on his own shoulders.

She watched as his eyes grew heavy on his daughter, as slowly the exhaustion and lingering anesthesia from surgery claimed him again. The depth of grief and guilt he felt stunned her. The depth of emotion she felt in return stunned as well. My God, she’d really fallen for him again. Or maybe the word was still.

There was no lingering doubt now. After all these years, she still loved him.

Having to go to him, she rounded the bed, kneeled at his side, all the love she’d just realized she had for him swamping her, needing to spill out.

As if he could read her mind, he lifted his hand and put a finger over her mouth. A grimace crossed his face. “Don’t. Don’t say it.”

She gripped his fingers in hers. “Why not?”

His face twisted in a mask of torment. “Did you somehow miss the part where I nearly got Emily killed today?”

Tears filled her eyes for what seemed the thousandth time that night. “No. That wasn’t you, that was Asada. Ben…don’t take this on yourself.”

“I have to.” He stared at her, his own eyes suspiciously wet. “It was my fault, Rach…all of it. Every single moment of your pain from the moment you were hit by that car, to when I had to darken your doorstep again, to now…” He looked at the very still Emily. “Watching our daughter lie in that hospital bed.”

She cupped his face and waited until his eyes shifted off Emily to hers. His pupils were dilated, his skin hot and dry to the touch. The words she wanted, needed, to tell him backed up in her throat at the heat of him. “My God. You’re burning up.” Surging up, she went behind his wheelchair.

“What are you doing?”

“What I should have done a long time ago,” she said, mirroring his long-ago words to her. “I’m taking you to bed.”