Renegade

Rory was laughing. “Really?”

“She wasn’t really cut out for police work,” he said. “She couldn’t talk on the phone and type at the same time, so she didn’t do much typing.”

“Why…?” Tippy fished.

“…did she empty a trash can on me?” he finished for her.

“Damned if I know! I told her not to force the lock on my filing cabinet, but she wouldn’t listen. Is it my fault my baby python, Mikey, jumped out of the drawer at her? She scared him. He has a nervous condition.”

They’d both stopped now and were staring at him.

He sighed. “Isn’t it strange how snakes make some people nervous?” he asked philosophically.

“You have a snake named Mikey?” Tippy exclaimed.

“Cag Hart had an albino python that he gave to a breeder after he got married. The python’s mate had a litter of the cute little things, and I asked for one. The day he gave me Mikey, I didn’t have time to take him home so I put him in the filing cabinet, temporarily, in a little plastic aquarium with water and a limb to climb. It was working very nicely until my secretary jimmied the lock. Sadly, Mikey had escaped and was sitting on top of the files in the filing cabinet drawer.”

“What did she do?” Rory asked.

He scowled. “She scared the poor little thing half to death,” he muttered. “I’m sure he’s going to have psychological problems for the rest of his…”

“Afterward!” Rory interrupted.

His dark eyebrows rose. “After she screamed bloody murder and threw my spare handcuffs at me, you mean?”

Tippy just stared at him, her green eyes twinkling.

“That was when she dumped my trash can over my head. It was almost worth it. She had a spike haircut and black lipstick and nail polish, and body piercings with little silver rings all over visible space. Mikey’s slowly getting over the trauma. He’s living in my house now.”

Tippy was laughing too hard to talk at all.

Rory shook his head. “I almost had a snake once.”

“What happened to it?” Cash asked.

“She wouldn’t let me out of the pet shop with it,” Rory sighed, pointing at his sister.

“Doesn’t like snakes, hmm?” he drawled with a wicked glance at Tippy.

“It wasn’t because I was afraid of it, it was because he couldn’t take it to school with him and I’m not home long enough to take care of a pet. But if you really need a secretary, as soon as I finish this movie, I’ll have my nose pierced and my hair spiked, first thing,” she said, tongue in cheek.

Cash’s perfect white teeth flashed at her. “I don’t know. Can you type and chew gum at the same time?”

“She can’t type a word. And she is scared of snakes…” Rory began enthusiastically.

“Stop right there,” Tippy murmured with a quick look at her brother. “And don’t you let him corrupt you,” she cautioned. “Unless you want me to tell him your fatal weakness!”

Rory held up both hands. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Honest.”

She pursed her full lips. “Okay.”

“Look! There’s the guy with the bagpipes! Give me a twenty, sis, would you?” Rory exclaimed, nodding to ward a man in a kilt standing just outside a hotel near the park with a set of bagpipes. He was playing “Amazing Grace.”

Tippy pulled a large bill from her fanny pack and handed it to Rory. “Here you go. We’ll wait here for you,” she said with an indulgent smile.

Cash watched him go, his eyes sliding to the bag piper. “He plays well,” Cash said.

“Rory wants a set of bagpipes, but I doubt the commandant would be inclined to let him practice in his dorm.”

“I agree.” Cash smiled wistfully as he listened to the haunting melody. “Is he here often?” he asked her.

“We see him all around the neighborhood,” Tippy replied lazily. “He’s one of the nicer street people. Homeless, of course. I slip him some money whenever I have a little extra, so he’ll be able to buy a blanket or a hot cup of coffee. A lot of us around here indulge him. He has a gift, don’t you think?”

“He does. Know anything about him?” he added, impressed by her concern for a stranger.

“Not much. They say his whole family died, but not how or when…or even why. He doesn’t talk to people much,” she murmured, watching Rory hand him the bill and receive a faint smile for it as the piper halted for a moment. “New York is full of street people. Most of them have some talent or other, some way to make a little cash. You can see them sleeping in cardboard boxes, going through Dumpsters for odds and ends.” She shook her head. “And we’re supposed to be the richest country on earth.”

“You’d be amazed at how people live in third world countries,” he remarked.

She looked up at him. “I had a photo shoot in Jamaica, near Montego Bay,” she recalled. “There was a five-star hotel on a hill, with parrots in cages and a huge swimming pool and every convenience known to man. Just down the hill, a few hundred feet away, was a small village of corrugated tin houses sitting in mud, where people actually lived.”

His dark eyes narrowed. He nodded slowly. “I’ve been to the Middle East. Many people there live in adobe houses with no electricity, no running water, no indoor facilities. They make their own clothing, and they travel in pony carts pulled by donkeys. Our standard of living would shock them speechless.”

Her breath drew in sharply. “I had no idea.”

He looked around the city. “Everywhere I went, I was made welcome. The poorest families were eager to share the little they had with me. They’re mostly good people. Kind people.” He glanced at her. “But they make bad enemies.”

Tippy was looking at the scars on his lean, strong face. “Rory’s commandant said that they tortured you,” she recalled softly.

He nodded and his dark eyes searched her light ones. “I don’t talk about it. I still have nightmares, after all these years.”

She studied him curiously. “I have nightmares, too,” she said absently.

His eyes probed hers, seeking answers to the puzzle she represented. “You lived for a long time with an older actor who was known publicly as the most licentious man in Hollywood,” he said bluntly.

She glanced toward Rory, who was sitting on a bench, listening as the bagpiper started playing again. She wrapped her arms close around her chest and wouldn’t look up.

Cash moved in front of her, very close. Strangely, it didn’t frighten her. She met his searching gaze. It almost winded her with its intensity.

“Tell me,” he said softly.

That softness was irresistible. She took a deep breath and plowed ahead. “I ran away from home when I was twelve. They were going to put me in foster care, and I was terrified that my mother might be able to get me out again—for revenge because I called the police on her and her boyfriend after he…” She hesitated.

“Come on,” he prompted.

“After he raped me repeatedly,” she bit off, and couldn’t look at him then. “I wouldn’t have gone back to her, not if it meant starving. So I went on the streets in Atlanta, because I had no way to earn money for food.” Her face clenched as she remembered it. Cash’s expression was like stone. He’d suspected something like that, from the bits and pieces of her life that he’d ferreted out.

She continued quietly, “The first man who came up to me was handsome and dashing. He wanted to take me home.” Her eyes closed. “I was hungry and cold and scared to death. I didn’t want to go with him. But he had the kindest eyes…” She swallowed the lump in her throat.