LITMIR.BIZ

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the too-pretty face of the flight attendant. But even as he stared at the woman, he found himself struck with a sudden thought. How was Eleanor going to take care of a child? What steps had she taken for the baby’s arrival? It was obvious that Eleanor had adjusted to a life alone, but what about the challenges of caring for an infant as well?

      “Is something wrong?”

      “No, I—”

      The throbbing in his head increased. A tight band of worry tightened around his chest.

      One-Eye touched his arm in concern. “Jack? What is it? You’ve gone as white as a sheet.”

      He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “Nothing, I—”

      But he couldn’t finish the sentence. If he left, he would always wonder about Eleanor and her baby. Hell, he didn’t even know for sure if she was alone. He knew nothing about her other than she lived with two elderly women in an aging brownstone.

      So who was the baby’s father? Had Eleanor been abandoned? Had she been abandoned because of her blindness?

      Nausea gripped his stomach, and his anxiety increased.

      Holding the ticket more firmly, Jack tried to extend it again, but as he did the sickness intensified. The clerk nearly tore it from his fingers, but he barely noticed.

      Dammit all to hell, what was happening to him? He had no business insinuating himself in Eleanor Rappaport’s life.

      The attendant peered at him in concern. “Your friend is right, sir. You do look pale. Are you sure you don’t want me to…”

      The words flowed around him like thick honey, but Jack couldn’t grasp their meaning. Not when he was being flooded with an overwhelming dread. In an instant he knew that if he stepped on that plane, he would be making one of the biggest mistakes in his life.

      “Dammit,” he whispered to himself.

      Go back, a voice whispered inside him. You have to go back to her.

      “No.”

      Too late, he realized he’d spoken the word aloud, because both the flight attendant and One-Eye were studying him strangely.

      Cursing under his breath, Jack turned and strode in the opposite direction.

      “Sir? Your ticket!”

      He didn’t stop. He didn’t pause. Vaguely he heard One-Eye running after him, but all Jack could think about was that he would have to confront Eleanor Rappaport again. Soon.

      JACK HAD ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED that once his decision was made, he would grow comfortable with the thought of seeing Eleanor Rappaport again. But he wasn’t.

      That fact alone was completely unsettling. He was a man who was accustomed to putting his life in danger. He made a living from such a practice. So why should a mere slip of a woman unsettle him so completely?

      Shying away from an answer he sensed he wasn’t quite ready to examine, he vowed to approach this problem in a logical manner. He would plot each angle, investigate every possibility, just as if Eleanor Rappaport were a stunt to be choreographed.

      That planning brought him to a boutique located among the exclusive shops lining Larimer Square.

      Jack sipped from the foam cup of coffee he held and shoved his free hand deeper into his jacket. The sky was overcast and threatened more rain. The air hung thick with the scents of spring—damp earth, new buds and grass. A restlessness was in the air, a thrumming anticipation. As if there were something waiting for him, just out of reach.

      And then he saw her. Eleanor Rappaport.

      She was quite lovely, he had to give her that. She had long, thick hair the color of rich chocolate. Her bone structure was delicate, her carriage ethereal, her body slim and lithe. Even in the last stages of pregnancy, she walked with the grace of a dancer, her hand resting in the crook of her mother’s arm. The two of them were laughing as they came to a stop in front of Regina’s shop. Victoria’s Closet suited them both, with its old-world facade and vintage-style displays.

      Jack slouched a little deeper into the bench where he sat. Pulling the brim of his baseball hat lower over his brow, he remained quiet and still, the coffee forgotten, as the women stopped, bussed each other on either cheek, then said their goodbyes.

      It wasn’t until they’d parted and Eleanor had made her way nearly a block down the street that Jack stood. From the opposite side of the street, he followed her for a hundred yards to where she stopped in front of an ornate movie theater. He saw her take a ring of keys from her pocket and open the door, then enter and lock up again.

      Jack stood there a few minutes more, waiting for the lights to turn on—then realized they wouldn’t be coming on. Why should they? Eleanor Rappaport didn’t need them.

      Drinking the last of the coffee, he tossed the cup into the garbage and retraced his steps. It was time he had some information, personal information, about Eleanor Rappaport.

      “What’s up, boss?”

      Too late he noted that One-Eye had somehow followed him from the hotel and from there to Larimer Square.

      “I thought you were going to sleep in?”

      “You woke me up when you slammed the door.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      One-Eye had the grace to look sheepish, but he quickly turned the tables on Jack. “You’ve seen her again, haven’t you? That blind woman you encountered in the restaurant.”

      Jack didn’t answer. He began moving quickly down the street, already thinking about his next move.

      “Well?” One-Eye demanded, scrambling to catch up.

      “Yes,” Jack confirmed shortly. “I saw her.”

      “So what are you going to do now?”

      “I’m going to rent a car.”

      “What for?”

      “I need to visit her landladies.”

      One-Eye halted in his tracks. “Her landladies! What in heaven’s name for?”

      ELEANOR STOOD IN THE SHADOWS just inside The Flick. The sensation had come again. That strange feeling of being watched. It had begun only a few minutes ago and hadn’t eased until she’d closed herself in the theater.

      Who was watching her? And why?

      Growling to herself in suppressed rage, she stomped into the office, reaching for the tiny cassette recorder that was left there each day. Although she’d begun classes in Braille, Eleanor hadn’t yet mastered the skill of reading the tiny bumps with the tips of her fingers, so she had been forced to find other means to circumvent the lists and books and written words she had taken for granted as a sighted person.

      “Eleanor, it’s Babs.” The familiar, recorded voice spilled into the silence, filling the room with its warmth.

      Barbara Worthington, the owner of The Flick, was a quick-witted, energetic woman who spent her days with her small son, Philip, and her husband, Tom, then worked during the evening hours.

      Five years earlier Barbara had reopened the restored movie house under the guise of providing healthy snacks and even “healthier” movies—the films selected from a variety of classics and modern releases that Babs felt were “art.” Because of her dedication to avant-garde films, original promotional ideas, guest lecturers and community college involvement, Babs’s original idea had developed a cult following. Her devoted customers guaranteed nearly full houses for its evening shows and healthy numbers of customers for the matinees, as well.

      “We’ve got a shipment of canola oil coming just after eleven. Tell them I won’t take that generic stuff they keep trying to foist on us. As far as I’m concerned, it tastes like axle grease. I want the good stuff, just as we advertise. The best they’ve got. After all,

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