Twilight. Sherryl Woods

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СКАЧАТЬ Yo, Amigo was all about taking a moral stance and teaching values. Accepting stolen property would pretty much defeat the very message he was trying to send out.

      Exhausted but wide awake, he closed his eyes and tried counting confiscated weapons instead of sheep. He’d turned over a dozen to the police two days earlier, another seven the week before. It was a drop in the bucket, but each gun or knife he managed to get out of gang hands and off the streets was a small victory.

      Rather than putting him to sleep, though, the mental game left him more alert than ever. Images of boys killing boys, of babies being shot by accident in a violent turf war crowded into his head. He wondered despondently if the program he’d founded would ever be more than a tiny, ineffective bandage on the huge problem.

      Such thoughts led inevitably to memories of Ken Miller, the decent, caring man who had been his friend and, some said, had lost his life because of it. Rick knew he would never have a moment’s peace again if he allowed himself to share that conviction. His conscience, which already carried a heavy enough burden of guilt from the sins of his youth, would destroy him, if even indirect responsibility for Ken’s death were added to the list.

      He shifted positions and felt the sharp jab of a metal spring in the middle of his back. He muttered a harsh expletive under his breath and sat up.

      Just as he did, he thought he heard a faint whisper of sound, an almost imperceptible scratching from the back of the old brick firetrap that had been condemned until he took it over and began restoring it room by room with the help of the boys in his program. He went perfectly still and listened intently.

      The second subtle scrape of metal against metal had him on his feet in an instant. He grabbed the baseball bat he’d kept by the door and eased from the office.

      Slipping quietly through the shadowy rooms toward the increasingly persistent sound, he wished for a moment that he hadn’t sworn off guns. He also wished the budget had been large enough to pay for a cell phone, rather than the lone, ancient phone that suddenly seemed very far away on his desk. He might as well have wished for a fleet of shiny new vans to transport the teens to the job assignments that were a part of the program. All were out of reach on the shoestring Yo, Amigo budget.

      Just as he closed in on the back door, he heard the heavy-duty lock give. Whoever had conquered it was skilled with lock-picking tools, he concluded with grudging admiration. It hardly narrowed the field, since most of the kids he knew had been breaking and entering since they could reach a door handle or heave a rock through a window. Most, however, didn’t have the finesse or patience to work at a lock with the tedious determination that this person had.

      The heavy steel door inched open silently on its well-oiled hinges. Pressed against a wall, Rick waited in the shadows. There was no point in risking his neck until he knew exactly what he was up against. One thief. Two. Or a whole gang, in which case his goose was cooked and he could kiss the TV and DVD player goodbye.

      To his relief, the lone person who slipped inside was slightly built and dressed in black from head to toe. Black baseball cap, long-sleeved black T-shirt, trim black pants, even black sneakers. Vaguely taken aback, he concluded it was the working gear of a pro, not some daring kid intent on mischief. The kids he knew wore the baggy clothes and colors of their gangs. Solid, formfitting black like this would have appalled them.

      More on edge than ever, and itching for action, he studied the person creeping slowly and unwittingly toward him in the narrow hallway. Rick figured he easily had a fifty-pound advantage over the intruder, plus several inches in height. Even so, he forced himself to wait patiently and watch for accomplices.

      When none appeared, he bit back a sigh of relief and considered his options. The bat seemed unnecessary. He propped it cautiously against the wall. Then he slipped up behind the increasingly confident and fast-moving thief and, without uttering a word, slammed the jerk onto the hardwood floor in a full-body tackle that knocked the breath out of both of them.

      Rick recovered from the fall first, latched on to a pair of skinny wrists and brutally wrenched the would-be thief’s arms behind him.

      He received a blistering earful of curses for his trouble. The words didn’t shock him. He’d heard far worse. Used far worse, for that matter.

      What flat-out stunned him, though, was the fact that the voice uttering such foulmouthed language was so evidently and self-righteously outraged. More startling yet, it was also very clearly feminine.

      “If you don’t let me up right this instant, I will slap you with a lawsuit that will take away this building and every dime you have to your name,” the woman vowed furiously.

      Rick was intrigued despite himself. Not intrigued enough to let her go, but fascinated enough to pursue the conversational direction for a bit.

      “Is that so?” he asked, unexpectedly amused by her gambit. “And how do you figure you’re the injured party here?”

      “Because I’ve been attacked by an idiot with more muscle than sense. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if half my ribs were cracked.”

      “You did break into private property,” he reminded her.

      “A technicality,” she insisted.

      “Some technicality. You a lawyer?”

      “Sweet heavens, no,” she said with such heartfelt distaste that Rick grinned.

      “I’m not overly fond of them myself. I guess that gives us something in common, doll face.”

      “Doll face?” she repeated with more of that misplaced indignant outrage. “No one calls me doll face or honey or sweetheart.”

      “Too bad,” Rick said sympathetically. He decided he could really enjoy deliberately aggravating this woman. “Mind telling me why you dropped by, doll face? Since you chose not to use the front door or to come during business hours, I have to assume your mission is less than legal.”

      “That’s not true,” she said.

      “The facts say otherwise.”

      “To hell with your so-called facts. Are you going to let me up or not?”

      “Not just yet,” he said, wondering abruptly if the decision was the security precaution he wanted to believe or merely an attempt to prolong the distinctly provocative contact. Worry over his motives kept him silent for so long that his captive jumped back in with her two cents.

      “If you’re figuring on copping a feel, you’d better think again,” she said in that imperious way that amused him so. “I’ll slap you with sexual battery charges while I’m at it.”

      Rick chuckled. “Doll face, I do not need to get my kicks from accosting total strangers. In case you’ve missed the point, I am subduing a thief who broke into this building. I’m within my rights, believe me.”

      “I am not a thief,” she retorted.

      “Maybe not technically, since you never got a chance to lay your hands on anything of value,” he agreed. “But you seem to be in deep denial of the seriousness of your position. Now, how about giving me some answers?”

      She hesitated for a very long time, probably evaluating her alternatives, before asking, “Such as?”

      “Who are you and what are you doing СКАЧАТЬ