CHAPTER FOURTEEN
VIVIAN SMILED when she pulled into the small parking area behind Helping Hands and saw Rafael waiting for her. She hoped he didn’t have anything planned for the evening, because she wanted to celebrate. She figured they’d stop by Diego’s hospital room with dinner, and then maybe she’d talk Rafael into taking her dancing. Normally she wasn’t big on the whole club scene, but she was so revved from her victory at work that she needed a way to burn off the excess energy.
Of course, if Rafael wanted to stay in to burn off that energy, then who was she to argue? She climbed out of the car with a big grin on her face, but the second she saw his face she faltered. “What is it?” she asked as she rushed to him. “What’s wrong?”
“Diego’s missing again.”
“What do you mean, he’s missing? You hired someone to guard him in the hospital.”
“Yeah, well, I forgot to tell him to guard Diego from himself. The kid ripped out his IV and basically made a run for it during his afternoon walk.” Rafael glanced past her. “So now he’s out there alone, unprotected. What if the cops find him before we do? What if Esme’s brothers do?”
“Where do we start searching for him?”
The look he shot her was dark and distant and so reminiscent of the old Rafael that it had panic skating down her spine. “We start by you going home. I know the neighborhood. If he’s here, I’ll find him.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You can’t do this alone!”
“And I won’t do it with you, so just go home. You’re wasting time I could be using to find Diego.”
Hurt shot through her. She tried to tell herself that he was just upset about Diego, that he didn’t mean for things to come out the way they sounded, but even as she told herself that, she knew it wasn’t the truth. Sucking in a breath she asked, “Why are you doing this? Why are you being like this?”
For a moment she thought she saw a flash in Rafael’s eyes, but it was gone before she could figure out what it was. Pain? Derision? Fury? She didn’t know, any more than she knew why he was pushing her away, when not so long ago he’d sounded so incredibly loving.
But she wasn’t going to stand for it, wasn’t going to put up with him throwing walls between them. Not now when she’d finally found someone she could connect with. Not now when a young boy desperately needed their help.
Clearing her throat, she straightened her shoulders and pushed the hurt to the back of her mind. She’d examine it later.
“Have you called his friends?” she demanded as she walked past Rafael into the welcoming warmth of the teen center. “Have you talked to his father? Have you asked around to see if any of the kids here have seen him? With his bruises and broken bones, he’s not exactly inconspicuous.”
“What are you doing?” Rafael followed her down the hallway. “I told you I would handle this.”
“And I told you that was ridiculous. There’s no way I’m going to go hide at home while you deal with the hard stuff, so get over it, tough guy, and tell me what you want me to do.”
Rafael stared at her for long seconds, his eyes blacker than she had ever seen them. But he must have come to some sort of a decision because he finally nodded toward the rec room. “Ask the kids if they’ve heard from him, while I call Diego’s father. Hopefully something will pop.”
Unfortunately, nothing did, and ten minutes later they were back where they’d started—with absolutely nothing. Rafael stared out into the streets that were slowly beginning to darken. “I have to go look for him.”
“We’ll split up—we can cover more ground that way.”
“Are you kidding me?” he growled as he pulled her against him. “Do you really think I’m going to let you wander the Tenderloin alone? At night? We’ve already seen how well that works out for you.”
For the first time since she’d arrived at the shelter, Vivian could feel a little of the tension inside of her ease. Pressed up against him, listening to his surly voice, she could almost pretend things were normal between them.
“Then let me come with you.” He started to argue but she cut him off. “Please, don’t tell me to go home again. It will just make me angry and then we’ll have to argue, and we don’t have time for that right now.”
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t think.” She put a finger over his lips to quiet him, and then jumped when he nipped at it. “Now, is there anyone you can call to help us out? Anywhere you think we should start?”
“I’ve already called Miguel, Gabe and Jose. I e-mailed Diego’s picture to my brothers. They’re going to start at the north end and work their way south.”
“So that means we’ll start down near Market,” she said with a grimace. “Way to call the good area there, Rafael.”
“I never expected you to come with me.”
“Yeah, well, that just means you’re a lot stupider than I gave you credit for.” She headed toward the front door. “Now let’s go.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He grabbed a recent photo of Diego from the picture collage on the rec room’s back wall before following her out into the street. They headed south at a fast clip, showing Diego’s picture to everyone who would look, but when they got to Market they had nothing to show for it except for some inventive new curse words they’d picked up from people who hadn’t wanted to be bothered.
“You know, there’s no guarantee he’s even here,” she said as they started to comb though the small ethnic restaurants and secondhand stores that made up this part of the Tenderloin. “San Francisco’s a big place.”
“If he hasn’t gotten picked up by the cops or anyone else, then he’s definitely here. He doesn’t know anyplace else.”
“And if he did?” she asked, voicing the fear that had been inside of her from the moment she’d first heard Diego had gone missing.
“If he did, then I don’t know where to start or what to do. It’s much better to hope that he’s hiding somewhere familiar.”
“But you don’t believe that.” She kept pace with Rafael’s measured strides easily, knew that despite the precariousness of the situation he was trying to make her comfortable.
“I don’t know what to believe and I won’t know until I find Diego.”
They combed the streets for hours, until well past midnight, but no one admitted to seeing him. She had to believe they would have spoken up if they had; almost everyone knew Rafael by sight and were a lot more forthcoming because of it. Most people in the neighborhood had a lot of respect for Rafael, and it showed.
Tired, defeated, they walked up the alley that ran behind Helping Hands. Rafael had his arm around her shoulders and was bolstering Vivian. After the emotional roller coaster of the day she was more exhausted than she had imagined it possible to be.
All she wanted was a bed and a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, but when Rafael stiffened beside her she had a sick feeling that she would get neither.
With a muttered curse, he shoved her behind him. “What’s wrong?” She pushed at him, trying to see what had him so upset, but he used his height to his advantage and refused to let her look.
“Come on, we’re going in the front door.” Grabbing her arm, he forced her to turn and began half running, half carrying her down the alley.
“Rafael!” She tried to dig in her heels, but he just pulled harder. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“What kind of answer is that?” she demanded as she raced to keep up with him. It was either that or be dragged.
She heard an engine roar to life behind her, heard tires squeal as a car peeled out. She tried to turn, but Rafael’s grip on her elbow was untenable. “Look out,” he yelled as he yanked her in front of him.
As the car drew closer, the driver gunned the engine, and it wasn’t until she glimpsed the headlights headed straight for them that she began to understand the situation.
By then, everything was happening in slow motion. She and Rafael were running, but for those few moments, as the car barreled down on them, it felt as if they were slogging through quicksand.
Part of her recognized that Rafael had positioned himself behind her to take the impact of the car, and she wanted to protest, to scream at him to take care of himself. But her vocal cords had frozen up and all she could do was silently pray.
At the last possible second the car swerved and missed them. They stopped dead, and watched in relief as it careened past them. But before she could register what was happening, someone leaned out the window.
Rafael cursed and tried to yank her behind him, but a series of quick pops sounded, followed by a searing pain in her left thigh. Her leg went out from under her and she hit the ground, hard.
“Rafael?” Her voice was shaky, so high-pitched it was almost unrecognizable to her. “What’s happening?” She clutched at him with trembling hands.
He was already shrugging out of his T-shirt as he dropped to the ground beside her. “You’ve been shot.”
To her everlasting shame, those were the last words she heard before she passed out.
* * *
RAFAEL DIALED 911 with one hand while he pressed his shirt to the wound on Vivian’s leg with the other. He sure as hell hoped he was putting pressure on the right spot. All but one of the lights in the alley had been broken, and he couldn’t see.
But he could feel the blood seeping from the wound—thick and warm, it coated his fingers and struck fear into his heart. He didn’t think the shooter had hit an artery—the blood was flowing too slowly for that—but there was still a lot of it. More than he’d ever imagined possible.
His shirt slipped off her leg and he realized it was already saturated with blood. Damn it. Maybe he’d been wrong, maybe the bullet had hit an artery.
Where the hell was the 911 operator?
Just then an impersonal female voice came on the line, saying, “911.”
“A woman’s been shot in the alley behind 1055 Ellis Street. She’s bleeding a lot and it’s so dark I can’t see how bad the injury is.”
Part of him wanted to move Vivian, to pick her up and carry her inside the center, where she’d be safe. But the other half was falling back on the first-aid training he’d learned in his certification class each year, and he knew better than to move a shooting victim.
He continued to answer the operator’s questions even as he felt beneath the T-shirt for a wound. He finally found one—big enough that he knew the bastards had been firing some pretty heavy-duty bullets. The intent hadn’t been to wound. It had been to kill.
Finally, after what seemed like hours but had probably been only two or three minutes, he heard sirens in the distance. With each second that passed, they grew closer, and he found himself praying for them to hurry up with each breath he took.
“Vivian.” He called her name, his voice hoarse with panic. She’d been out a good three or four minutes and showed no signs of coming around. He had no idea if she’d simply passed out at the idea of being shot or if the loss of blood had caused it. The first seemed completely out of character, and it was too dark to see whether the second was a viable conclusion.
Damn those bastards. He’d give anything to go back ten minutes and take the turn onto Ellis instead of continuing into this godforsaken alley.
He’d known within seconds of stepping down it that something wasn’t right, but he’d been so wrapped up in his worry over Diego and his feelings for Vivian that he hadn’t figured out what it was until too late. Hadn’t been able to register that the alley he usually kept lit up like the Fourth of July was entirely too dark.
“Come on, Vivian, talk to me.” He reached up with the hand that still clutched his cell phone, and stroked his fingers softly down her face. “Sweetheart, please, let me see those gorgeous eyes of yours. Open up and look at me. Vivian, please.”
The sirens were very loud now and he gave thanks for the surprisingly quick response. Shootings in the Tenderloin had grown common enough that on busy nights it took longer than it should to get help.
He looked up just in time to see an ambulance and two police cars turn into the alley. Thank God. Between their headlights and the red and blue strobe lights that flashed on their roofs, he got his first good look at Vivian since they’d turned into the alley.
What he saw was far from reassuring. She was pale—paler than he’d ever seen her—and blood was everywhere. On her jeans, on him, on the ground around them, and he cursed himself as the paramedics pushed him to the side. He’d thought he was protecting her, thought that the threat was from the car itself, when the bastards had had something else planned all along.
He should have known something like this was coming, should have anticipated the attack after Vivian had succeeded in getting the case moved to juvenile court. Should have protected her better.
“Did he hit an artery?” he demanded as the paramedics started to work on her. “She’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Let them do their work, Rafa.” A heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and he glanced up to find Jose and his brothers standing next to him. It seemed like days since he’d talked to them, instead of only a few hours. Seemed like months since he’d asked Jose to scare the shit out of Nacho and his friends after they’d attacked Vivian, instead of a little more than a week.
As he watched the blood slowly leak from his lover’s body, Rafael couldn’t help resenting the fact that he’d let Nacho go with a warning. He’d thought he’d been protecting Vivian on the street that day, thought he’d been protecting a couple of teenage boys who didn’t know any better than to act like animals.
But that hadn’t been the case—he knew that now. Just as he knew that he was at fault. He was the one who had placed Vivian in this situation, and he was the one who had let her get hurt, who had stood by as she was threatened again and again.
No more. He was done with it. He’d thought that watching her fall after the bullet struck her was the most painful experience of his life. Even worse than being accused of rape. Even worse than going to prison for a crime he hadn’t committed.
He’d been wrong. Watching the car drive away, getting a good look at the kid wielding the gun, had been worse. Because as he stared into Nacho’s smug, high-as-a-kite eyes, he’d realized something else. He’d had it within his power to stop this all those days ago and he hadn’t done it.
He’d been so blinded by his past—and his desire to keep innocent kids out of jail—that he’d let one who was far from innocent get away with harassment and assault, and now it appeared he had escalated to attempted murder. That Rafael had thought Nacho and his friends were harmless didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except that Vivian and Diego were the ones paying the price for his stupidity.
“So, man, I know we can talk about this later.” Jose’s voice sound muffled, faraway, as Rafael looked down at the blood on his hands.
“Hey, man, are you with me?” Jose’s hand on his shoulder got firmer, as if the cop was worried he might pass out or something.
“Is she going to be okay?” He watched the paramedics as they worked on Vivian—setting up an IV, trying to stop the bleeding. His whole world had narrowed down to this one moment, and he realized, with his typical bad timing, that he loved her.
That all the feelings that had been jumping around in him for days—admiration, desire, irritation at her for putting herself at risk, fear of rejection because of his past—added up to more than lust, more than friendship. He was in love with Vivian Wentworth.
He felt his knees go weak at his mistake, but he locked them in place.
“Hey, man.” This time it was Miguel who got in his face. “Are you sure you didn’t get hit? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine.” He pushed his brother aside so he could keep Vivian in view. The paramedics had shifted her to a stretcher and were moving her to the ambulance with an urgency that didn’t look good. He moved closer to the vehicle, angling himself to climb in when they were done getting her situated.
There was no way he was being left behind.
“I’m going with her,” he told the paramedics as they started to close the bay doors.
“I need to talk to you about what happened.” Jose’s tone was adamant.
Ignoring him—and the hand his longtime friend held out to him—Rafael climbed into back of the ambulance. Vivian still hadn’t come around.
“Pick up Nacho Soren.” Their eyes locked. “I don’t know who else was in the car, but he was the one with the gun.”
Jose looked poleaxed. “Are you sure?”
Rafael nodded. “When he leaned out of the car to shoot her, he was right under that streetlamp.” He pointed to the only one that still had a working bulb. “I saw one other kid and he looked familiar, but I don’t know why. I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out.”
Jose was already reaching for his radio when the ambulance doors closed. Desperate, furious, terrified, Rafael looked over at the paramedics and asked the only question that mattered. “Is she going to be all right?”