Page 29 of Bringing Chelsea Home

“He won’t remember me,” Marty replied woodenly.

“Dogs don’t forget,” Elaine told him. “He’d know you in a heartbeat.”

“Bullshit!” Marty threw the phone at her. She ducked and it hit the floor as he surged to his feet and grabbed his chair, holding it in front of him as if holding back an enemy.

“Just tell me where Chelsea is,” Eliane pleaded as the door behind her swung open. “Please.”

“Go away! Just leave me the fuck alone, will ya? Stop playing therapist with me!”

He raised the chair, but Griff vaulted over the table and tackled him, taking them both to the ground, the chair breaking beneath them. Miller was right behind and pulled the sobbing Marty up and cuffed him. A grim-faced Griff stood, kicked aside the pieces of the chair, his breathing ragged. “You little prick,” he growled.

“That just got you an assault charge,” Miller promised through gritted teeth, his arms secure around Marty’s thin chest. “Raises your bail considerably. Let’s see if your boss, if you have one, has come to pay it yet.”

“Go to hell!” Marty sobbed, squirming against Miller’s grip but he was no match for the man’s strength. The sergeant half-dragged, half carried him from the room.

“Wow,” Elaine exclaimed. “That was some tackle. Did you play intervarsity football as well as baseball?”

“All four years,” he gasped, coming to sit on the table’s edge and massage his knee. “Study load was too demanding for the real thing, and I preferred playing for fun anyway. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I ducked in time.

But then she found she was trembling, and Griff reached for her hand, gently helping her to her feet.

“C’mon,” he whispered. “There’s a chapel down the hall. “Let’s go sit there and talk.”

He wrapped his arm around her waist, but it took a moment for him to steady himself. “Are you sure you can walk?” she ventured to tease. “That was a hell of a tackle.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, but his mouth set in a tight line, suggested otherwise. “Let’s go.”

At the chapel door, he turned theopensign around to show it was occupied,led her in and closed the door.

“Why wouldn’t he talk to me?” she sighed as they sat in the nearest pew. “I just wanted to know where Chelsea was. I wasn’t judging him, was I?”

“He’s hard, Elaine,” Griff said. “You’re probably the first person who’s been nice to him in God knows how long.”

“I should have known he’d be defensive and surly,” Elaine argued. “I’m trained to know that. To know how to talk to victimized kids like him.”

“He’s not a kid anymore and hasn’t been one for a long time,” Griff reminded her. “Who knows what hell he’s been through? He probably knows every trick in the book if you’ll pardon the obvious analogy. Unless there’s something in it for him, he’s not going to tell us jack shit. He was going tohurtyou.”

“He was such a happy-go-lucky kid,” Elaine blinked hard, determined not to cry. “Always hanging out at Chelsea’s house with Frosty, crazy about hip-hop, reggae, jazz dancing, and thanks to her parents, ’60’s rock and roll. He and Chelsea were more best buds than sweethearts.”

She propped her elbows on the pew in front of her and buried her face in her hands. “I just want to find Chelsea,” she said. “Bring her and those other girls home.”

“And we will,” he whispered, leaning forward to brush his lips against her hair. “We’re getting close to finding them.”

She lifted her head and he dabbed at her tear-bright eyes with his fingers while fumbling inside his jacket pocket with his other hand. “Crap,” he muttered. Did it again.”

“What?” Seated this close, she could breathe in the marvelous scent of him. “You didn’t–?”

“Forgot my handkerchief,” he admitted ruefully but there were the beginnings of a twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, well. In the Marines they always taught us to use what we have.”

His mouth moving along her eyes was a soft brushing sensation. She slid her arms up his back as his lips moved around her face.

“Did anyone ever tell you,” he murmured, “that your tears taste good?”

“I’m not crying,” she said solemnly. “But tell me anyway. What do they taste like?”

“Sweet,” he said, his lips continuing their exploration. “But a little tart, like flowered honey.”

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