Hidden Steel Read Online Free PDF

for his class. It’d give her time.
    Give her the chance to figure out what was really going on. Who she was.
    Who wanted to get their hands on her.

    * * * * *

    Only after she’d wolfed down Steve’s lunch did she offer her name. “Mickey,” she told him, halfway through the apple. “My name is Mickey. Mickey Finn.”
    For the first time, she startled him. “You’re kidding,” he said, and instantly wished he could take the words back. Those with reality issues had enough of people disbelieving them. Patronizing them. It didn’t matter whether what they saw or heard was real to him—it was real to them.
    But she didn’t take it amiss. “Not kidding,” she told him. “It’s the only name I know.”
    “Come on out to the gym,” he said. “Grab some soap from the freebies barrel—there’s a shower in the locker room. I ought to have some clothes that will fit better than those, too.” He always had such things on hand—donations or culled from the thrift store. And he couldn’t help but eye the blood splattered on her oversized scrubs.
    “You’re just dying to ask, aren’t you?” She said it with a smile at the very corners of her mouth, nibbling the apple right down to the seeds. She looked better with the food hitting her system; she seemed clearer.
    It happened that way all the time. Moments of clarity, and then back into their own little worlds … “I’m worried,” he said, having long ago learned that simple truthfulness was best. “If you’ve been off your meds long, there’s a chance you could have done something you didn’t mean to do.” And then he said what he always said. “If you need anything, I can recommend a good clinic.”
    Those bright, strong eyes shuttered, then cleared with sudden understanding. “Oh,” she said. “I’m fine, really. I got these—” but she stopped, assessing him with quick skill that somehow seemed totally out of place, her gaze flicking from his casual gym wear to his oh-so-Greek features, and then around the office. Whatever she’d been about to say, she didn’t. She shook her head, and explained simply, “The clothes came this way. They’re scrubs; they were used. Doesn’t seem like a big mystery to me.” She plucked at the scrub shirt. “I couldn’t be more grateful for a shower, though.”
    “With the offshore flow driving the temps up, you’re not alone.” He shifted to get up, to show her the way to the showers, but something on her face stopped him. A softness … no, more than that. She saw him as a person, not a vague figurehead. She responded to him as a person. He couldn’t stop his mouth from saying, “What?”
    “Just … thank you.” She tossed the apple core toward the wastebasket, got it in one. “A shower, and then I need to—” But apparently she wasn’t going to say that out loud. She finished, “Looks like I stumbled into the right place.”
    “I hope so,” he said, not expecting the fervency of it—or the sudden doubt that he could do right by this woman … that she wasn’t his average needy visitor. He wondered, with more than the usual curiosity, what those unspoken words had been.
    But she just grinned at him, unfolding from the bed with the grace of a petite cat. Also not expected, given that she was nearly as tall as his five-nine, but there all the same.
    He tabled his curiosity and led her to the freebies barrel and then along the back hallway—let’s face it, a crummy back hallway no matter how he threw disinfectant around—and to the showers. He showed her the facilities, and headed back out to the gym. The kids would be trickling in soon, drawn to this safe place. Here, they could shoot a few hoops without being hassled or getting caught up in someone else’s conflict. San Jose wasn’t big on drive-by shootings, but in this area … the kids didn’t take anything for granted. They noticed everything that happened, they kept an eye on the intrusions from other, even less savory