LITMIR.BIZ

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      “He’s generous, then.”

      Maggie looked puzzled for a moment. “Yes, in that way, I suppose you’re right. And we’re glad to have him, really. That old garage had been empty a long time before he came. It’s wonderful not to have to drive twenty miles to have work done, or pay to have your car towed.” She smiled slightly. “Mr. MacKay makes house calls. He doesn’t even seem to mind, no matter what time it is.”

       He doesn’t care enough about anything to mind.

      The instinctive knowledge leapt into her mind fully formed, making her wonder if the bosses had developed some new way of sending information. But they would hardly be sending her anything on Dalton MacKay, so she didn’t know where this was coming from.

      It wasn’t until the woman had gone to serve a late customer that Evangeline realized that once again she’d been diverted, that when she’d meant to find out more about Jimmy, she’d wound up spending almost the entire time talking about Dalton MacKay.

      * * *

      “Jimmy? Can I see you for a minute after class?”

      The boy turned red at the chorus of hoots and howls that met her request. But he stayed behind as the rest of the students filed out. They’d had a raucous day; their role-playing as the rebels and Tories of the American Revolution had been lively enough, but when she had stopped the debate and made everyone switch sides, things had nearly gotten out of hand because the two sides knew each other’s position well enough to attack with devastating accuracy.

      It had taken her nearly the whole class period to get them to see they also knew each other’s position well enough to understand each other. In the end, she’d gotten her point across; knowledge was power, however you used it, and neither side was fully right or fully wrong.

      “You didn’t seem to be with us today, Jimmy,” she said after the others had gone, hurrying now that classes were over for the day.

      The boy shrugged carelessly. For the past two days—ever since the morning after she’d gone by the garage, in fact—he’d slipped back into his old ways, his attitude bitter, his answers sarcastic and his expression sullen. He was hurting; she didn’t need any special powers to see that. He was also tired, yawning throughout the class, and she sensed he was back to sneaking out with his friends at night.

      She sat back in her chair, studying him for a moment.

      “What is it, Jimmy?” she asked gently.

      “Nothin’.”

      She reached out to him. “You’re obviously upset—”

      “I’m not,” he snapped, backing away.

      “All right,” she said after a moment. Then she stood to gather her things. Jimmy lingered, as if uncertain whether or not he was free to leave. Or as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to. As she picked up her jacket, she asked, “Can I give you a ride to the garage? I have to stop at the drugstore on my way home.”

      His eyes lit up at the thought of a ride in her car, but an instant later the sullen expression was back.

      “Nah. I got my bike. Besides, I don’t hang around there anymore. It’s stupid.”

      Stupid. It had been the only bright spot in his young life two days ago, but now it was stupid.

      “Mr. MacKay will miss you, don’t you think?”

      Jimmy swore out a negative answer, a crude oath that she sensed came more from pain than the usual teenage desire to shock. “He’s the one who threw me out.”

      Evangeline blinked. Dalton had thrown the boy out? That didn’t fit at all with what she’d picked up during that brief but unforgettable contact.

      “Jimmy, are you sure?”

      He snorted. “He told me to leave him the hell alone. Yeah, I’m sure.”

      “Maybe he just...”

      Her voice trailed away as she realized the boy wasn’t hearing her. She probed gently, and although his protective walls were substantial—not nearly as tough as Dalton’s, however—she finally got it. He’d expected this. To him, everyone in his young life had rejected him sooner or later, his parents by dying, then his grandmother, who had also died shortly after rather dutifully taking him in, and then his other foster homes, by sending him back because he was too much trouble.

      And she also got the memory of last night’s activities, and had the answer to the graffiti that had appeared overnight on the gymnasium wall.

      “I gotta go now, okay?”

      It was a measure of respect, she supposed, that he had asked rather than just gone. She had sensed, too, that she was the one remaining light flickering in a world that was rapidly going dark for Jimmy Sawyer.

      As the boy walked away, swaggering the moment he got through the door and out where others could see him, Evangeline felt an odd tightening in her midsection. It took her a moment to recognize it, it had been so long. Fear. Astonished, she sank back down in her chair. She was afraid. Afraid she wasn’t up to this. Afraid she would let Jimmy down, that she wouldn’t be able to turn his life around.

      She wasn’t supposed to be afraid. Or confused. Or anything else. Even in her disagreements with the bosses she had never been afraid. Nor had she ever been on any of her assignments, even that one with the pilot who had wanted to take himself out and didn’t much care if he took his planeload of passengers with him. This kind of work would be near to impossible without an unshakable confidence and utter lack of anxiety. Purposely put in situations of great stress, operatives would be worn out in weeks if they had to go through the ups and downs of normal human emotions.

      Nor had she ever doubted that she would succeed in her task, only that she would manage to irritate her bosses in the process. She supposed they had given her that, along with everything else. So why had they apparently taken away that insulation now?

      Her hand rose to the pendant at her throat. She hesitated, loathe to subject herself to another lecture on Dalton MacKay. Especially when she’d been behaving herself, staying away from him, and trying very, very hard not to think about him. But how was she supposed to get this job done without thinking about him, when he seemed to be smack in the middle of it? At first she’d thought him an ally, but now that he’d destroyed what little enthusiasm Jimmy had for anything, he was hardly that.

      The more she thought about it, the madder she got. In some distant part of her mind she acknowledged that she wasn’t supposed to be feeling anger, either, except that which the bosses had finally had to concede went hand in hand with the sense of justice. But that expression on Jimmy’s face made her furious at the man who had put it there. Her hand moved away from the pendant and she quickly stood, picked up her books and papers, and strode purposefully out of the classroom.

      * * *

      Dalton heard the rumble of the car long before it pulled into the driveway. He knew who it was; the tap-tap of solid lifters was distinctive. He didn’t look up, didn’t even move when the car door slammed, just continued to fiddle with the butterfly on the old carburetor that sat in the pan on his workbench.

      Swift footsteps approached him. The feminine sound of high heels echoed oddly in the cavernous garage. High heels. He knew he didn’t want to look up now; the memory of her legs, exquisitely long and curved, was emblazoned too vividly in his mind. It’s your imagination, she’s too small to have legs that long, he’d told himself over and over again.

      “Just what the hell is your problem?”

      It wasn’t the opening he’d expected, and his head came up sharply as he looked at her in surprise. And knew immediately he’d been right to be wary; the skirt of her yellow linen suit, which beautifully set off her burnished hair and the golden gleam of that pendant she wore, was shorter than the one she’d worn the other day. Short enough to show shapely knees and tease him with a glimpse of equally shapely thighs.

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