Chapter Fourteen
When Zack was eight, he’d run away.
It was Thanksgiving Day, and he’d broken a dish (while running through the house again) that belonged to Foster Mom Number Four’s mother-in-law—an ugly, misshapen glass bowl with painted flowers on it he’d later learned was called a gravy boat.
A fancy dish for gravy?
Stupid.
The sentiment was something he’d felt compelled to say aloud and earned him “ten licks” from Foster Dad Number Four. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so angry—which was saying something for a kid who was always angry. He’d taken the second-story window to the fire escape, down the ladder, and quickly along the sidewalk to the subway while everyone else was preoccupied with champagne and trying to outdo each other’s thankfulness.
Assholes.
He still remembered his excitement when the subway doors opened at Times Square, and the circus that greeted him as he took the stairs two at a time and stood gawking at his first glimpse of Broadway and Forty-Second Street. Balloons the size of Godzilla, floats carrying his favorite heroes, and laughing, deliriously happy people had filled the streets for blocks and blocks. The sky opened up and rained down streamers and confetti. Police rode horses in this magical place, and everywhere he turned, another vendor sold a new, mouth-watering treat. His eyelids had stuck open like window shutters.
It was exactly as he’d imagined.
The fact he was escorted back to Foster Home Number Four in the back of a police cruiser instead of on horseback, and the wonder of Broadway had been slightly over-sold by the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, was inconsequential. He’d been bitten by the theater bug, and it was a malady of the incurable kind.
He would never be able to recreate the exhilaration he’d felt that first time, but damned if stepping into the theater to rehearse his first musical on Broadway wasn’t a near-perfect second.
The theater was an absolute circus by the time Zack arrived well after two o’clock. Members of the chorus line were doing vocal warm-ups in the wings, filling the air with a blur of idiotic sound. Some principals were bouncing stage banter off one another in the aisles, quick on the draw with one-liners and exaggerated expressions, their obnoxious voices mixing with the vocal warm-ups to form a sound like a swarm of mosquitos in the amplified space.
He grinned, feeling the familiar rush in his veins. It was glorious.
“On eight!” called Will, the assistant choreographer.
Like little marionettes, dancers who’d been slouching against each other and gossiping in low tones snapped to attention. They moved into position, risking life and limb on a floor glossy with sweat, waiting for the count. It came, and with the music, they sprang to life. This was his tribe, a sentimental pack of theater fanatics trapped in eternal childhood. It was a quality he looked for in every cast and crew member, from stagehand to star.
Speaking of… He studied the slight figure lifted precariously over his understudy’s head. Where is my star?
The young lady was about the same build as Mina, her hair pulled into the same neat bun, and her skin glowing like the moon on a clear night. Pretty, but his leading Lady in Red looked more amber beneath the stage lights.
Dammit.
He’d anticipated some distance from her once they’d left their bubble of euphoria and re-entered the real world. He was prepared to be hit with her metaphorical emotional wall.
Or her literal hand.
But not showing up at all?
Unacceptable.
It’s not that he couldn’t empathize with a healthy melodramatic freak-out. He’d been caught up in his own version of it for two days. Like now, for example:
The two actors in the aisles with their animated expressions and body language looked like live-action Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Working with Pete to tweak the script last night (again), and polishing the choreography (again), and consulting with the costume and stage designers over the last two days, had been more of the same.
It was his trustee childhood defense mechanism springing to action, his brain transforming his retinas into fantasy lenses. He could escape into the fantasy for hours and still be aware of the real world around him. It was like…sleep walking. But the fantasy wasn’t enough to suppress the little thud his heart did when he thought of her. Yet, he was here. It was a trick of the trade to be able to multitask, and he expected it—demanded it—of his people, too. No excuses.
Two days. He missed her. And now he had the added pleasure of being annoyed.
Professional annoyance. Not the deeply personal kind.
Right.
He cursed.
“You’ll have to snarl a little louder,” Faye said from his left side, handing him a cellophane-wrapped turkey sandwich and a bottled water. “My ears are still ringing from the vocal warm-ups.”
Relief flooded his veins.
Turkey sandwich on wheat.
Making a grateful noise from the back of his throat, he ripped open the sandwich and tucked into one of its diagonally-cut halves. “I know why my understudy is up there,” he said between chews, “but barring a natural disaster—which I can categorically dismiss—or broken legs, Mina should be the one with her ass in mid-air right now.”
Faye angled her head and stared at him blankly. “I take it tea time with Norma was unpleasant?”
He scowled, taking another bite and scanning the theater again. In case she’s hiding in the orchestra pit? For fuck’s sake…
“On the contrary,” he grumbled through another mouthful. “Vera bought a theater.”
“Huh.” Incredibly, Faye didn’t bat an eyelash.
“My exact response.”
“Did it come with a unicorn or a two-headed dragon?”
“Not that I recall, but I’m sure there’s still time to put in a request.”
“Slow news day, then.” Dramatic pause, and then, “Interesting read-through earlier. Can’t say I’ve ever done it without the two leads in attendance before.”
Zack tried to smile.
“Yikes.” Faye grimaced. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human’s lips curl back like that—like a dog baring his teeth.”
Grunting, he polished off the rest of the sandwich.
She lifted her hands, palms-out. “Okay, fine. Let’s play Where’s Wilhelmina, shall we?” Sticking two fingers into her mouth, she whistled loudly. Several heads snapped up. “You.” She waved over one of the dancers who’d been breathing through a take five. Then to Zack, “I’ve seen Mina with this one a few times, maybe she knows something.”
The quick-witted principal dancer with a gymnast’s body sprinted over, then put her hands on her hips to open her chest a little more. A few seconds later, her breaths came easier, deeper.
“Kyoko,” said Faye. “Have you heard from Mina today?”
Kyoko seemed suspiciously uncomfortable.
“At ease, cadet.” Zack joked. She obviously knew something but coming in too hot would get him nowhere. “No one’s in trouble. But if something’s up, I need to know.”
Kyoko swallowed, her uncertain gaze flitting between him and Faye. “That’s the thing, I haven’t heard from her all day. We were supposed to meet up for brunch and come here together.”
“Where and when?” Zack asked.
“On Eighth, like eleven o’clock.”
“Cross street?”
“Between Forty-Eighth and Forty-Ninth.”
“Maybe something came up?” asked Faye.
“Nah, you don’t understand.” Kyoko shook her head emphatically. “Mina might be the most anal chick I’ve ever met. She’s never late for anything, not even eggs. She would have called.”
Zack nodded. Anal was an understatement. Death could call her up with a date and time and Mina would show up five minutes early. He tried to ignore the distinct drop his heart made to his stomach. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” Faye nudged him, and he tried again. “Did you try to contact her?”
“Four times, but it went straight to voicemail.” Doubling over, she moved her hands to her knees.
Zack’s brow ticked. “When’s the last time you ate?”
“Yesterday.”
He bit back a scolding remark. “Get out of here. Eat something.”
“But—”
“See you tomorrow, Kyoko,” Faye said firmly, but gave her a reassuring smile. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
Zack pulled out his phone and quick-dialed, ignoring Faye’s penetrating look. It didn’t ring even once before Mina’s softly accented voice asked him to leave a message. Cursing, he hung up and tried another number.
“Who’s up next?” Faye pulled out her own cell.
“Physical therapy.”
She nodded. “I’ll try Perez. Mina’s usually up last for vocal training, but it’s worth a shot.”
Fifteen minutes later, calls to Mina’s apartment building, gym, the studio where she took classes, and the costume department proved fruitless. Zack’s hackles were way up by the time he called Alex and the man hadn’t seen her, either.
“Fuck me.” He turned on his heel and left the auditorium.
Faye followed behind him to the lobby, not saying a word as he tapped out the last number anyone wanted to dial. Her eyes matched his thoughts exactly:
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
The line clicked, and a deep, authoritative voice sounded on the other end. “N.Y.P.D.”
Ten minutes further, and the end of Zack’s rope had unraveled, caught fire, and disintegrated to a steaming pile of ash. “What the hell do you mean you can’t do anything for twenty-four hours? Have you checked emergency dispatch again? I’ve been on hold for five minutes!”
Pacing in front of the glass doors, he absently watched the sprinkle of rain pick up to a steady stream. Faye had already wrapped rehearsal, and the only remaining personnel besides the two of them were cleaning the theater. He turned away from the doors to throw a homicidal look at the janitor who chose that exact moment to switch on the vacuum.
Faye scurried to shut the theater doors, and Zack snapped into his phone. “I told you, she did not run away. She has no family in the area. She isn’t seeing anyone, abusive or otherwise. She keeps to a schedule like a clock, generally within a five-mile radius. She’s ten pounds soaking wet, but she’s kinda hard to miss. There are thirty thousand of you. I’m pretty sure you can spare two to patrol the goddamn radius!”
“Zack,” Faye said tentatively.
“Do not put me on hold again!”
“Zack!”
“What?”
Faye nodded toward the entrance. “Ten pounds, soaking wet.”
Three things happened when Mina walked through the doors of the theater.
First, Zack’s expression went from livid, to shocked, to wild-eyed concern. It was like watching a silent film. Well, almost. For some reason, sound reached her ears like it was traveling through Jell-O.
Second, his eyes ran through an impressive color spectrum. Forest pine, maybe? Then emerald, then that cloudy sea glass that reminded her of holidays lounging on the beach in Nice, and swimming in the warmth of the Mediterranean Sea. The memory made her smile, just before the third thing, when her heart sped up like she’d been running a triathlon, and everything went hot and fuzzy.
“Jesus,” he said.
Then the world went black.
“Pulse is coming in strong, but she’s dehydrated,” a sharp, feminine voice said. “Get me a—wait, there she is. Pupils look good. I need an oral rehydration solution. Help me sit her up.”
“Nnnaagragh.” Mina tried to speak, but her brain was slow to catch up and her tongue felt thick.
The calm, reassuring face of a medic came into clarity—and so did Zack’s deep, measured voice from somewhere outside the ambulance.
“Is it standard practice to put people on hold, or is that unique to your precinct?”
“I apologize for the inconvenience-”
“Incompetence.”
“Mr. Coen, if I could just ask a few questions…”
Then Faye’s soft, “She’s awake now.”
Mina shivered. She was soaked in rain and sweat, which formed an uncomfortable film over her skin. It had been so hot outside, but it was a refrigerator in the back of the ambulance, and the lights made her headache feel like her brain’s hemispheres were trying to split from each other.
Merde.
Squeezing her eyes shut, her sense of smell sharpened. She desperately needed a shower.
“Mina, right?” said the blond medic, draping a small blanket around Mina’s shoulders. She didn’t look much older than her. “I’m Tara. You were out for a few minutes. Your vitals are good, but you’re dehydrated, so we’ve administered an IV.”
Mina looked down at the tiny tube that narrowed into a not-so-tiny needle and disappeared into the back of her hand. Heat rushed to her cheeks, and moisture filled her mouth. “I-”
“Bucket.”
A small blue basin was held under her chin, and she retched and retched, until her abs constricted painfully, and her heaves came up dry.
“Jesus.”
“Sir…”
“Is she okay?”
“I’m still checking her, but it looks like she’s gonna be fine…”
There was some commotion, and then Tara blew a resigned sigh, shifting to her left to continue her examination. The ambulance shook a bit, then shrank to the size of a shoe box as Zack’s athletic frame filled the limited space. He came to a squat in front of her, his eyes glued to her face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m-” Mina tried, then winced. She sounded like she’d been out of it three years instead of minutes, her voice small and hoarse.
“Drink this.” Tara handed her a pouch with a straw. “Deep breath…”
Mina winced again as the medic’s expert hands reached her shoulder, then obediently sipped, aware of Zack’s sharp eyes moving over her face and body, then back up to her shaking hands. Acute humiliation at him seeing her so haggard brought a new kind of heat to her face. Enfin… he wasn’t exactly Fred Astaire, either. There were shadows under his eyes, and his hair stuck out in places it usually lay smooth, like he’d run his fingers through it more than once. His jaw was so tense, it could have been made of steel and bolts.
But more than any of that, was the way his body filled the space. He wasn’t threatening—not to her. He was like the swan, she realized. Raising his wings, spreading his feathers. Protecting her. She felt a lump in her throat. After feeling so small and scared and powerless, she welcomed the flood of relief in her body at the sight of him. Despite her earlier resolve to end things before they began, she found herself fighting the urge to throw her arms around his neck and squeeze.
“I’m…” She almost said, I’m fine, but that wasn’t true. She’d never been a good liar, and she was so tired. “I… don’t know.”
“What happened, petite? Where were you?”
“In a minute,” Tara’s voice was kind, but firm. “Almost done, Mina. When was the last time you ate or drank?”
Mina shifted her eyes to the left, away from Zack’s penetrating stare, to the back of the ambulance where Faye and two officers were observing quietly. Faye looked particularly rapt, her gaze going back and forth between Mina and Zack like a ping pong ball.
Merde.
“Eh, this morning.” She forced her attention back to Tara. “It was early. I… think I had a banana before the gym…and a green juice a-after pointe class.”
“Do you remember what time it was?”
Mina still felt a little shaky and sipped the salty-sweet concoction in the pouch again. “Nine hours.”
“Nine o’clock?”
“Oui. Sorry. Yes, nine o’clock.”
Tara glanced at her watch and marked something on a clipboard. “Good. That’s very good, Mina.”
“What time is it now, s’il vous plaît?”
“About two-thirty. We’re treating you for heat exhaustion, exercise-related collapse, and dehydration.”
Another medic—male, about the same age, handed something to Tara, and the crackle of plastic filled the ambulance.
“Your shoulder’s a little tender,” she said, gently. “Is it an old injury, or relatively new?”
Ice cold met her shoulder and Mina jerked, then relaxed, hazarding a glance at Zack. She was pretty sure he hadn’t blinked since he’d entered the ambulance. “New,” she said quietly, and the clamp on her finger began to beep in time with her quickening pulse. “I was—it happened so fast. He took my bag. He pulled so hard—”
“What?” Zack boomed.
Mina flinched. He filled her vision completely, his hands on her knees. “You’re saying you were mugged? Jesus, are you ok?” His frantic eyes moved over her face, her hairline (which probably looked like the matted fur of a black sheep) and trailed her body again. “For Christ’s sake, why didn’t you lead with that?”
“Just grasping at straws here,” said Faye, “but this might be why.”
He ignored her. “Did you see the guy? Where were you? Did he hurt you?”
“We’ll get to that,” Tara snapped, waving him out of the way. “I think we should get you to the hospital for an x-ray—”
“Non!” Mina was exhausted. She couldn’t stand much more poking and prodding. Besides, she didn’t need x-ray confirmation. She was certain her shoulder was sprained. It was nothing. She’d had much worse.
Tara’s expression softened. “You aren’t the first stubborn dancer I’ve treated. Let’s make a deal,” she said to both Mina and Zack. “You need to rest. Forty-eight hours, minimum.”
Mina gasped.
“Forty-eight hours, no hospital. I’ll send you home with some ice packs, which you can use as-needed. Make sure you get plenty of fluids, and…” she directed her scowl at Zack “…try and keep the stress to a minimum.”
Unfazed, Zack looked Mina over again, then nodded, as if assuring himself she was whole. “I’ll be right outside, okay? I’m right here.”
Giving her knee a squeeze, he ducked from the ambulance.
“Mina?”
Mina watched until he stepped out of view with the officers again. Faye gave her a sympathetic smile and followed suit. Seconds later, muffled voices filtered into the air, blending with the surrounding noise of the city.
“Mina,” Tara said again. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Other than your shoulder?”
Mina trembled at the horror of the underlying question. “N-non. Just my shoulder. He took my bag and then he ran.”
Tara clasped Mina’s shaky hands. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You were lucky, you know. This is one of the hottest summers on record. We treated a couple of two-hundred-pound marathon runners last week who weren’t so lucky.” She patted her hands and signed another form. “I’m clearing you to go home. You okay to give the police your statement?”
“Oui, I can do that.”
“Good.” She smiled, handing off her clipboard to the other medic.
Sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of the ambulance, taking unenthused nips at a peanut butter protein bar, Mina answered the officer’s questions. There was no ignoring Zack’s imposing presence, and honestly, his ticks were fascinating. She recorded each one in her mind, stowing them to obsess over later.
“What is your full name?”
“Wilhelmina Fiona Allende.”
Curious left brow.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Jaw muscle tick.
“Where were you?”
“Central Park.”
“Were you alone?”
“Oui.”
Jaw muscle. Vein in left temple.
“Walk me through. What brought you to the park? What were you doing when you were attacked?”
“I had to get out of my apartment. I… I needed to get away from…myself. I didn’t want to be alone.”
Adam’s apple. Jaw muscle. Left brow.
The officer scratched his jaw. “So, you were meeting someone at the park?”
“Non. I went to see the swans. I… needed to think.”
Knowing, all-pervading stare.
Merde.
“I see. You went to the lake, near the Conservatory Gardens.”
“Oui.”
“About what time was that?”
“Half past ten.”
“Did you notice anything strange before the attack?”
“I—I had a strange feeling…like I was being watched. It’s—stupide.”
“It might not be. Most of these cases are crimes of opportunity, but people who stick to a predictable routine make easy targets.”
Tightened jaw. Thin lips. Green eyes cooling to black.
She looked away. “The park isn’t part of my usual routine.”
The officer scribbled some notes. Zack stared a hole into the side of her face.
“How long have you had this feeling?”
“A couple of days, I think. I don’t know…” She bit her bottom lip. “I’m a private person, so it may be my anxiety about being recognized.”
“Let’s not rule it out. Can you remember what your attacker looked like?… About how old was he?… What race?… Any identifying marks or tattoos?”
She couldn’t help herself. She looked at Zack again.
Brows, lips, jaw, Adam’s apple…clenched fists.
She sighed. The rest of her statement took twenty minutes.
“And you walked here, without stopping anywhere else, from the Conservatory Gardens to Times Square?”
“Oui. I had no keys, no phone, no money.” She didn’t look at Zack this time. The hopelessness in the aftermath of the moment caved in on her, and she swallowed down a sob.
“How long did that take?”
“Almost two hours. I-I got lost a-a few times.”
Muffled curses.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?” The officer was no longer looking down at his notebook.
Mina hesitated.
“It’s alright, take your time.”
“His eyes were—he looked scared to me. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s almost like…he didn’t want to do it. He said please. What kind of thief says please?”
“You said he was young. It might have been his first time.”
She nodded, eager to accept the first logical explanation, even as her stomach lurched in apprehension. Her entire body sagged, and she buried her face in her hands.
“Is that enough?” Zack asked, but it sounded more like, That’s enough.
“I think we have what we need for now.” The officer nodded once at his partner to confirm. “I suggest you cancel your credit cards and get new locks. Try not to go anywhere secluded alone.”