“Come Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,  The ...

She was awakened by a streak of late afternoon sun slanting through the shades and stealing across her pillow. She moved out of its reach and opened her eyes. She was in Joe Trask’s bed, still dressed in what she’d put on after the bath, and entirely alone. No one was watching. No one hovered to stick her with needles or force pills down her throat. No one waited to ask her probing questions.

In a glass by the bed was a single red rose and she remembered Trask had said he was romantic. Probably a ploy. Nothing these people said or did could be trusted. Cautiously, she sat up. The past week had taught her to treat her body gently. A small chorus of pains began singing out their woes, but the world wasn’t filled with the cacophony of her pain.

She limped to the bathroom, her bandages still damp from the night before. On the sink was a vial of pills and a new toothbrush. No fool, she took a pill, brushed her teeth, and attended to the necessities with only the quickest of glimpses in the mirror. The woman she saw was pale and sickly, with grayish skin and deep circles under her eyes. A spidery line of stitches at the hairline. Wild, uncombed hair. A bruised and slightly swollen cheek. She looked an unhealthy, dissolute thirty. He’d left out antiseptic cream and a roll of gauze, but that was more than she was up for. She drank water and limped back to bed, ready for more sleep.

She’d just settled herself and pulled up the covers when the door opened and a man came in with a tray. He looked like Joe Trask—same eyes, same square jaw, and same slightly worried look, but this guy was taller, broader, and younger, with masses of curly hair, an earring, and attitude. “I don’t know if you’d call this breakfast, lunch or dinner,” he said, “but I’ve brought food.”

She realized she was clutching the covers to her chest like a timid virgin. “Who are you?”

“I’m Terry, Joe’s baby brother, assigned to baby-sit you. Joe’s at the hospital with Morrissey.” He slid the tray onto the bedside table beside the rose. “You hungry? Joe said keep it simple and light, so you’ve got scrambled eggs and toast. No butter. And cereal. Not exactly the breakfast of champions, but hey… who really cares that much about being a champion? If you lean forward a sec, I can stick this other pillow behind you. That’ll make it easier to eat.”

Overcome by the barrage of words, she did as she was told, and found herself sitting up with the tray on her lap, staring at the food. Eating seemed like too much trouble.

“You okay?” he asked. “Joe didn’t tell me much, except I wasn’t to let anyone near you. I mean, can you feed yourself or do you, like, need some help? ’Cuz I’d be more than glad to help, if that’s what you need. You look pretty beat up.” He watched her fumble with the fork, then sat heavily on the edge of the bed, took the fork and speared a clump of egg. “Open wide,” he said, and dumped it in her mouth. “Good job.” He speared another clump and did the same thing. “I see you’re hungry.”

She couldn’t talk around the egg, and she was hungry, so instead of answering, she went on eating. It was amusing, in a bizarre way, being hand-fed by a stranger. Especially a sweet-natured one. Sort of Joe Trask Lite.

“Orange juice?” He lifted the glass. “With the added convenience of a straw?”

“Big brother Joe thinks of everything,” he corrected. “He’s a paragon of virtues.”

She refrained from comment, settling back against the pillow and closing her eyes. Thinking about her next move. “Can I get you anything else?” he asked. “More toast? Coffee? Water?”

“Bingo!” he said. “That’s me. Terry Trask. Waiter extraordinaire and occasional musician. So.” He bounced to his feet and picked up the tray in an exhausting display of energy. “You all set?”

She sighed. “Yes. Thank you.” When she was alone, she’d work on her plan. Instead, she fell asleep. She woke because someone was shaking her. “Go away,” she muttered, burrowing into the pillow.

“Rise and shine, sleepy head,” Joe Trask said. He held out a paper bag. “Got some clothes for you.”

“Go away.” She burrowed deeper.

“Come on, Jenny. Wake up. Got to get out of here before the bad guys come.”

Instantly she went from deep sleep to wide-awake panic. “What? Jesus, Joe. Tell me what’s happening.”

“That’s pretty good, the way you go from totally asleep to totally awake,” he said. “You ever consider becoming a cop?”

“Haven’t had good role models,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing yet. But sooner or later, someone will wonder about that bag of guns I put in my trunk. Why it took so long to get to the hospital even if I did have a flat tire. And start asking questions. And there are the bad guys who were trying to shoot you. You should go, before they pop up again.”

“You all do that. Besides, if they keep finding me no matter where I go, what difference does it make where I am?”

“Maybe none.” he said, “It still helps to stay ahead of them.” He shrugged. “And I’d sort of like to keep my job, hard to do if the Governor’s looking all over hell and gone for you, and you turn up in my bed.”

She could imagine Alfonso’s dirty little snicker. First Morrissey, then Trask. The girl’s hopping beds like a lusty cricket. What’s the girl got that’s so special? Who’d wanna screw a gal who looked like she’d run full tilt into a door?

“So what do I do? Walk out the door and hitch a ride to somewhere? I don’t even know where I am.”

She dumped the bag of clothes. A sweatshirt. Some jeans. A pair of socks. Underwear. All she had in the world. None of it really hers. At least the underwear was new. “I don’t even have shoes.”

He turned away. “You think I’d just put you out on the doorstep?”

“My perceptions of what people will and won’t do have been significantly altered in the last week. You seem nice. But this could be another trick. Don’t ask me why or for what. But you have to understand. No matter where I go or what I do, I keep getting caught.”

“And you keep getting away.”

“I keep getting caught,” she repeated, “and I keep getting hurt. So if this is just ‘let Jenny go, see where she runs, and pick her up again,’ I’d rather skip the ‘see where she runs’ part. I feel awful. Everything hurts. I’ve had enough, Joe. I just want this over.”

“Buxton’s people want you and your mother dead.”

“And my Uncle Billy. And they want the video tape. Alfonso wants the tape, too. And me.” She considered her utility to Alfonso. “Does he really need me?”

Trask shrugged. “He might use the story anyway.” Responding to her puzzled look, he added, “Blood tests? Pictures? People you confided in.”

“There are no such people.”

“Jenny. Jenny. This is politics.”

“If he never needed me, why do this?”

“He wanted the diaries. If he couldn’t have them, he wanted you. He wanted your sweet face with Buxton’s blue eyes.” Trask hesitated. “He wanted your blood.”

She looked at the purple bruises on her arms. “It’s ghoulish, you know. Sick. But if Alfonso can use the story without me, then Buxton no longer has any reason to kill me.”

Talking to herself. To her hopes of this being over. Of going home and returning to a normal life. Hope flared up and died as quickly. It wouldn’t end things. Breaking the story would only put her mother and herself in greater jeopardy. The story wouldn’t be much without people to confirm or deny it. Someone for the press to sling their microphones at. It’s hard to make a scandal about something that took place twenty years ago with a woman who’s dead, or to raise a ruckus around a daughter who can’t be found.

There was still the tape. By killing Billy, they probably thought they’d put it beyond reach. But Alfonso’s people, or Buxton’s, could find Jasmine Smith and get Billy’s reassuring message. A few bucks, some booze and cigarettes, Jasmine would tell them she’d delivered Billy’s message to Jenny and they’d be back on her tail again. Alfonso knew about the tape. He just didn’t know what was on it. Probably expected a lurid sex tape.

She was jerked to the present by Trask pulling the tape off her feet. “Ouch!” She glared at him.

“Gotta get you taped up for the race,” he said.

“Race?”

“Gallows humor,” he said. “Race for your life.”

“Sick,” she agreed. “Are they bad?”

“No prettier than the rest of you, but you’ll manage. You’ll need a couple pair of socks to wear Caitlin’s shoes, anyway. You’ve got awfully small feet. Caitlin’s our sister.”

“Older or younger? OUCH!”

“I’m the oldest. Mom and dad wanted a baseball team. They got a basketball team and quit. You have brothers or sisters?”

A painful question, given the recent revelations about her parenthood. Somewhere out there, she had three half-sisters. She’d stick to simple. “I’m an only.”

He smeared the sole with cream and wrapped her foot until she looked like a mummy, then did the other. He looked like he knew what he was doing. “Good. Now get dressed.”

She swung her feet over the side of the bed, seized the jeans, and began carefully threading her feet into the leg, feeling graceful as a baboon putting on pantyhose. “You okay with that?” he asked. “I could help.”

“I’ve had enough strangers’ hands on my body this week.” She stood, gingerly testing her mummified feet while she pulled up the jeans. These hung on her hips, showing a good four inches of purple, yellow and green bruises, and piled up around her feet. “28 x 28,” she said ruefully. “What are you, a race of giants?”

“Guess I blew it, huh?”

“Not if you’ve got scissors and a belt. But Caitlin’s going to have to kiss ’em good-bye.” She pulled the sweatshirt over her head. It came almost to her knees.

“I’ll look again.” After some digging he held up a navy and white hockey shirt. The size was right, but when he turned it over they both said “No.” Across the back it said TRASK. In the end a baby blue hooded sweatshirt emerged. She pulled it on. A few minutes with the scissors, he punched a new hole in the belt, she was done.

She bent to put on her socks. Nope. “You do the socks.”

He bent to the task and she had a flash of a solemn-eyed young Joe putting socks on wiggling little brothers and sisters. He went out and returned with a pair of Dr. Martens. The world’s most ungraceful shoes. He carefully slipped them on her feet and tied the laces. “Now for the test. Can you walk?”

She crossed the room, trying not to wince. “They’re fine. You wouldn’t have an elastic and a spare baseball cap? One that doesn’t say Police Academy?”

“You bet.” He got them both and followed her into the bathroom, watching as she clipped some bangs to cover the stitches, gathered the rest into a ponytail, and put on the baseball cap. “Cute,” he said. “You look like everybody’s kid sister.”

She studied herself in the mirror. Pulled some pieces of hair loose so she didn’t look so neat, and turned to him. “Jacket?”

“Terry’s bringing something.”

“Terry?”

“You met him. My brother. He’s going to Boston with you.”

“I’m going to Boston?”

“Actually, I think you’re going to Maine. But Terry’s going as far as Boston. On the bus.”

“I’m going to Boston on the bus with Terry. I get no choice?”

He shook his head. “No choice. In Boston, you’ll meet a driver from Mason Brothers Trucking. He’ll take you home.”

She turned away from the mirror, not wanting to watch the poor girl cry. It was the word “home” that did it. “I can’t go home. It’s not safe.”

Joe Trask shrugged. “Someone as resourceful as you, you’ll have something figured out by the time you get there. You’ve got hours on the road to think. And this guy. The trucker. He sounded pretty sure he could get you back safely. I figured they’d be less likely to be watching buses, or be looking for two people traveling together.”

The door opened and Terry came in, a very different Terry from the one she’d seen earlier. His hair was washed and moussed, framing his handsome face in a halo of curls. He wore a black leather jacket and black leather pants. Under the jacket was something skintight and black, and some chains. Black boots added a couple inches to his height. He was simply gorgeous. He carried a leather backpack and a guitar case. He grinned and stuck out a hand. “Terry Trask,” he said. “Musician.”

“Hot damn!” She shook her head, and sat down on the bed. She looked too frumpy. The contrast was too great. People would notice.

He studied her critically. “Nice try, bro,” he told Joe, “but she needs a tune-up.” He set the pack on the bed and started pulling things out. A tie-dyed long-sleeved shirt. A long brown crocheted vest. He handed them over and called, “Shireen.” A lanky girl with the trademark Trask eyes stalked in, leaned against the wall, and folded her arms. Posing. Her hair was very long, very straight, very black. She was wearing double-breasted brown leather jacket, like one Jenny’s mother had worn twenty-five years ago, and a brown velvet hat with a tattered pink rose.

Terry grinned wickedly at his sister. “Voila, everything the fashionable musician’s dolly needs, yes?” The girl didn’t moved. “Shireen, the jacket, please. And the hat.” She sighed, removed the jacket off with an irritated wriggle, and handed it over.

Jenny scooped up the clothes and took them into the bathroom. She shook her head at the confused face in the mirror. This seemed unreal and untrustworthy. For now, she’d play along. The shirt smelled of cigarettes and sweat. The vest of mothballs. She tucked the shirt in, put on the vest and jacket, and last of all, the hat. Shadowed by the brim, her face didn’t seem bruised. The look cried out for make-up. She didn’t have any.

She picked up the pills and the toothbrush, went back in the bedroom, and handed them to Terry. “For the pack,” she said. “I hope this works. If not, I hope your family’s willing to die to protect your job.”

“Goes without saying. Trasks stick together.”

Terry look at his watch. “If team Trask doesn’t get rolling, we’ll miss that bus.”

“Bye, Joe. Tell Morrissey bye, too.” Morrissey, about whom she had such conflicting feelings. Unlikely she’d ever see him again. She slipped her arm through Terry’s, her leather creaking pleasantly against his, and they went out into the night.