In Harm's Way Read Online Free PDF Page A

evenings and then checked on the girls.
    He found Lisa asleep atop Nikki’s bed covers, a book in her lap. In her late thirties, Lisa still had the look of a woman much younger, and the energy to go with it. Catching her in a catnap was a rarity. He gently shook her awake, the intimacy of the moment not escaping him. He hadn’t felt the warmth of a sleeping woman in a very long time.
    Walt nearly gave Nikki a goodnight kiss, but decided against it as she was such a light sleeper. He turned around and instead planted a kiss onto Emily’s cheek. She could sleep through an earthquake. Lisa hopped up and adjusted the blinds and shut the door as they left together.
    “Any problems?” Walt asked.
    “Smooth as silk.”
    “Did Nikki say anything about Gail?”
    “Didn’t mention her. Not to me.”
    That was a first. Nikki was obsessed with using their marriage separation as an excuse. “Then you should be around more often,” he said, realizing too late a man didn’t say that to a happily married woman.
    “It takes time.”
    “They’ll never get over it. Nikki, she may not even get past it.”
    “Sure she will.”
    “Maybe Em’s hiding it all, but she doesn’t seem affected. She’s moved on, I think.”
    “Nikki’s the one to watch, for sure. What’s the schedule this week?”
    “There’s a city council thing on Wednesday,” he said, “and a Search and Rescue exercise on Thursday. A Chamber event on Friday night that I’m hoping to duck.”
    “Wednesday and Thursday are no problem and I’ll keep Friday open just in case.” She paused. “Listen, Walt, I have a favor to ask.”
    “Name it,” he said.
    “It’s a big favor,” she cautioned.
    “Let me be the judge of that,” he said.
    “My neighbor’s daughter. She’s fifteen. Eight weeks pregnant. She’s blaming it, or attributing it, or whatever, to her boyfriend. I don’t know the boy, but I’ve seen him and he looks like a decent kid.”
    “It happens. Do you want to make sure he steps up?” Walt offered.
    He wasn’t familiar with the look on her face. She’d been helping with the girls since just after their birth, well before the separation. She’d learned to read his moods, knew when to keep her distance, when to try to get him talking; he’d learned that nothing ruffled Lisa, that she was one of those people who moved from good to better and back to good. She didn’t complain. She didn’t back down. But somehow she kept herself and everyone around her on an even keel. Her current expression of perplexity, concern, and fear was something new to him.
    “Or maybe not,” he said, when she failed to speak.
    “I think it’s the stepfather’s.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes, her vision locked onto his neck.
    “Oh . . . damn.”
    Lisa nodded gravely. “We have cats,” she said, as if that explained something. “One of them . . . this is a long time ago . . . last summer sometime . . . wouldn’t come in one night, and I spotted her next door and went over to get her. It was very late. Well past midnight. I heard the girl . . . her voice for sure, not her mother’s . . . engaged ? Is that how you put it? In the act, and not happy about it. My kitty was under that window, as if she . . . as if that voice, that girl’s voice wouldn’t let her leave. I didn’t mean to stay. I wanted to pick up Clawsy and get out of there, but something wouldn’t let me leave. Not voyeuristic! I don’t mean that. But a need to help. He covered her cries. Tried to keep her voice down. Don’t look at me like that: a woman knows the difference, believe me. I couldn’t see in the window, and the curtain was pulled. But in between her sobs— rhythmic sobs—a hand smacked up onto the glass. A big hand. A man’s hand. A hand wearing a wedding ring. It was not the hand of an eighteen-year-old boy.”
    The look had not left her face, but her eyes had teared up and presently she pursed her lips and dried her eyes on her shoulders.
    “And she’s