Moonlight Over Manhattan(82)

He stared at the drink and realized his hand was shaking. Dr. Tough? Not so much. Maybe he had more feelings left than he’d thought. “It’s caffeine. It will do the job.”

“Of poisoning you? If it’s caffeine you need, I can do better.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a flask. The liquid she poured into the cup was strong and black and tasted like heaven.

“What did you put in this? I’ve never tasted anything like it before.”

“It’s coffee. Real coffee. I grind the beans fresh. I thought you might need it.”

He did.

He drank two cups and felt the caffeine kick through his veins, firing him up. Maybe he should grind his own coffee beans too, if this was how the finished product tasted.

Unfortunately the sudden energy boost also kick-started his brain. He should have seen it coming. The moment the man had appeared in the door with his eyes glittering like LED lights, he should have got Susan out of the room. He should have moved faster. He should have called security straight off, but the whole incident had taken—what? Less than thirty seconds he was guessing. How the man had smuggled a knife past security he had no idea.

“How serious is it?”

“Too soon to say. The wound was pretty deep and it was close to some vital organs.” And he didn’t want to think about the possibilities or he’d drive himself insane. He was about to ask if there was any more coffee in her flask when she took the cup from his hand and topped it up.

He wondered how it was that she always seemed to know exactly what he needed.

She put the flask back in her bag. “When did you last eat?”

“I don’t know. Lunch?” His memory of the day was cloudy. The last hour had eclipsed everything. “In fact I think I missed lunch. I had caffeine at some point.” One hastily drunk cup of disgusting hospital coffee that had scalded his tongue and made him question his choices.

Harriet reached into her bag again and this time put a food container on his lap. “If we’re going to be here all night, you’re going to need to eat. You fainting from hunger won’t help Susan.”

He thought back to the first night she’d cooked for him in his apartment. Before he’d known better, he’d thought it was a romantic gesture. Now he understood that, for Harriet, cooking wasn’t a gesture of romantic interest but of comfort. That first night she’d been stressed and comforting herself by cooking, but she also comforted others. Chicken soup for him. Same for Susan when she’d visited. Cookies to Glenys. The sandwich she’d brought him wasn’t her making a point that he’d ruined dinner. It wasn’t her trying to win his heart. It was her trying to make things better. “I’m not hungry. Will you be offended if I don’t eat it?”

“No, but maybe take one bite.” Her tone was soft and coaxing. “It’s duck. The bread is from a sourdough loaf I made this morning. You couldn’t make it to dinner, so I brought dinner to you although not quite in the format originally planned.”

He took one bite to please her, but after one bite he discovered he was starving. And having eaten, he felt better.

The bread was the best sourdough he’d tasted outside of San Francisco. A perfect crust and chewy center.

He glanced along the corridor, knowing it would be a while until they had news of any sort. “This is a restricted area. I’m surprised they didn’t try and stop you.”

“They did.” Her cheeks turned pink. “I may have told a lie.”

“I thought you were no good at lying?”

“Apparently I’m getting better. I said I was Susan’s cousin and that you’d called me.”

He could imagine her standing there, channeling all her energies into telling a lie. Challenge Harriet. “In that case you’ve definitely earned bad-girl status.”

“I think so.”

“There’s only one problem—Susan doesn’t have any family.”

Harriet folded her hands in her lap and didn’t move from her chair. “She does now.”

Something sprang to life inside him, something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“You’re a good person, Harriet Knight.”

“I think what you meant to say was that I’m a badass, kick-ass serious piece of work.”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed. Out loud. Here in the stark hospital corridor, where the air seemed to be filled with nothing but tension. “If you’re going to say those words, you need to have an expression that matches it.”

“At least I didn’t stammer. Lucky for me, badass isn’t a word I stammer over. I think it might spoil the effect. Can you imagine? B-b-badass doesn’t sound right, does it?”

He was still smiling when she covered his hand with hers.

“They told me you were hurt too. Are you in a lot of pain?”

He’d barely thought about his arm. At some point someone had checked it and dressed it. “It’s a scratch, that’s all. I was trying to stop him getting to Susan. I still can’t quite work out how he did.”

“And because he did, you’re blaming yourself.”

“It was my fault.” He ran his hand over his face. “I should have anticipated it. Should have stopped it.”

“How? Are you a mind reader? Bad things happen, Ethan. It’s life.”