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  Nick was silent for a while. “Look,” he said finally. “If it’s that important to you, I’ll help.”

  Tess blinked at him. “What about the contract?”

  Nick shrugged. “I need to know everything I can about this damn book if I get the contract. And if he really has plagiarized, I need to know.” Nick stopped for a moment, trying to imagine the horror that a real plagiarism suit could turn out to be. Maybe he should be grateful to Tess for discovering this early, while he could handle it. “So here’s the deal. I’ll help you when you need help, and I’ll stay out of your way the rest of the time so you can do this your way. Okay?”

  She didn’t say anything, and he stole a look at her. “Tess?”

  “It’s more than okay,” she said. “I keep forgetting you can be like this. I get so upset over the press-for-success part of you that I forget about this part.”

  “That’s me, a man of many parts,” Nick said.

  “Thank you,” Tess said. “Thank you very much.”

  “Sure,” Nick said. “Think of it as a goodbye gift.”

  They finished the drive deep in their own thoughts, and Nick had almost reconciled himself to never being with her again. It was the only logical plan. In fact, it was so obviously logical, he wasn’t sure why he was trying to find a hole in it.

  By the time they were on the third flight of stairs to her apartment, he was convinced he was doing the right thing. Just drop off her stuff and escape. Just walk right on out.

  “Listen, I can’t stay…” he began, as they neared the top of the flight to her floor.

  “You certainly can’t,” Tess said as she reached the landing. “I’m grateful to you for offering to help, but we’re never going to—”

  He bumped into her from behind when she froze at the top of the stairs. Then he peered around her.

  Her apartment door had been kicked in.

  Seven

  “Oh, no,” Tess said, and went to look through the remains of the door.

  Nick grabbed her arm to stop her. “Let me go first.”

  The neighbor across the hall opened his door, clutching his beer can with one hand and scratching the strip of belly his T-shirt couldn’t stretch to cover with his other. “Your apartment got hit,” he said to Tess with a total lack of interest. “Last night. I called the police. You’re supposed to call ’em.”

  “Thank you very much.” Nick pushed past Tess to stand in the doorway. “That’s very helpful.”

  Tess said, “Thank you, Stanley,” a little dazedly, and then followed Nick to peer in behind him.

  The place had been tossed and trashed. Drawers were upended, furniture overturned, and all the furniture cushions were slashed and bleeding stuffing on the floor.

  “Oh, no,” Tess said again, her voice little more than a sigh.

  “You have any enemies?” Nick asked.

  Tess shook her head. “It’s not personal. This has happened before to other people in the building. It’s not me.”

  “It’s happened before and you didn’t tell me?”

  “We weren’t speaking,” Tess flared. “And I was handling it. I reported the landlord.”

  Nick surveyed the ruined door. “Oh, yeah, you were handling it.” He shook his head. “Well, from now on, I’m handling it.”

  “Excuse me, I don’t think so—” Tess began.

  “They did the same thing to the apartment one floor down last week,” Stanley volunteered. “Just kids looking for cash.”

  “Just kids,” Nick said. “Little rascals.” He turned to Tess. “Pack up anything you want to keep. You’re coming home with me. No arguments.”

  Tess set her jaw, prepared to fight. “I thought you couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

  “Well, yes, but I meant out of my life, not out of life in general,” Nick said, ignoring her to peer through the door. “You are not staying here. If you’d rather stay with Gina, fine, but you’re not staying here.”

  “Gina has one room, an efficiency,” Tess said. “She couldn’t squeeze Angela in, let alone me.” She stopped suddenly.

  “Fine,” Nick said, oblivious to her silence. “Then you’re staying at my place. There’s a guest bedroom. Your virtue is safe.” He turned and saw her face, white with fear. “What’s wrong?”

  “Angela,” Tess said, and bit her lip. “I don’t see Angela.”

  Nick moved to put his arms around her, and she leaned against him gratefully. “Angela is not a stupid cat,” he said into her hair. “When the Brady Bunch showed up, she probably went out the window.” He tightened his arms around her and then said, “Come on. Let’s get your stuff and go.”

  Tess nodded, and Nick moved cautiously ahead of her into the apartment. He checked her bedroom before she could, to make sure Angela wasn’t bleeding into the bedspread. Not only was there no Angela, there was no bedspread. The bedroom was as ransacked as the rest of the apartment. He turned back to Tess. “Pack.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, and he overrode her. “Look, you want to find a new place tomorrow, no problem. But you can’t stay here. Not ever again. I’d never sleep again waiting for these guys to come back and do to you what they did to the couch.”

  “Okay,” Tess said. “All right.”

  Nick watched her rescue what she could from the place, brushing off her mismatched sofa pillows and picking up odds and ends of God knew what. And while he watched, he tried a little deep breathing to calm the fear and rage that were making him insane. If he hadn’t dragged her off to Kentucky, she could have been here, in this dump. Pure luck of the draw. The thought of losing her in any way made him cold, but losing her like this would have been—

  “I’m all right,” Tess said, and he looked up to see her standing in the doorway with a laundry basket full of clothes. “I know you’re upset, but I’m all right and I’m leaving with you and I’m not coming back. I promise.”

  “Thank you,” Nick said. “Is there anything you want in the kitchen?”

  “Yes,” Tess said. “But I don’t suppose it’s in one piece anymore. Did you look in there?”

  “It’s not good,” Nick said. “Come on. I’ll help.”

  They managed to rescue a few odd pieces of china and glassware.

  “Was this stuff your mother’s?” Nick asked, and Tess looked at him oddly.

  “Elise doesn’t have stuff,” she said. “This is just stuff I found in thrift stores that I liked.” She gazed at it sadly. “Maybe I liked it because it’s the kind of stuff that mothers are supposed to give to their daughters. That’s pathetic.” She stood up, leaving the china on the floor. “I don’t want it. All I want is Angela.”

  “I’ll work on it,” Nick said. “Get your things together, and I’ll take the first load down to the car.”

  He took the laundry basket out on the landing and knocked on the door across the hall. The neighbor looked out. “Yeah?”

  “You know that big black cat that belongs to Tess?” Nick said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ll give you a hundred bucks if I can pick up that cat tomorrow.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to get that cat back?” Stanley whined.

  “Well, if I were you, I’d buy about ten cans of cat food and sit over there until the cat comes back,” Nick said.

  “That could be hours.”

  “That’s what I’m paying for,” Nick said, handing over his business card. “Take it or leave it.”

  Tess came to the door carrying her duffel bag and Nick’s suitcase. “This is everything.”

  “Great,” Nick said. “Let’s go.”

  TESS SAT LOST in thought on the way to Nick’s, grateful for the silence he gave her, trying to figure out why she felt so torn. It wasn’t that she loved her apartment; she hated it. Nothing ever worked right, and the street was noisy, full of shouting and squealing brakes, and even now and then a gunshot. But it had been hers, and now she was going to Nick’s, and she was pretty sure that wherever Nick’s wa