“How much older than you, Hannah?” I asked in an even voice.
“He’s twenty-seven,” she said, plunking down her water glass on the imitation granite counter. “But Randy says age doesn’t mean anything! Randy says he and I knew each other in a previous life. He says we’re destined to be together—”
“Hannah,” I said in a hard voice. “You are fifteen. He is twelve years older than you are. His having a sexual relationship with you is actually illegal.”
“Randy says the laws of man don’t recognize a love that is as true as ours—”
“Hannah,” I said. “If you tell me one more thing Randy says, I am going to smack you back into last week. Do you understand?”
She blinked at me, a little taken aback, but mostly still defiant. At least she was meeting my gaze now, though.
I leaned on one hip and said, “Look. You aren’t stupid. You can’t be, because you’re related to Rob. So why are you acting like such a world-class sap?”
Her mouth fell open to reply, but I cut her off.
“You know all that stuff about the two of you meeting in another life is a load of bull. You know this Randy guy is after you for one thing. That’s why your mom didn’t approve, because she knew it, too. And you know the only reason you like Randy back is because he buys you things and pays attention to you and lets you live in this cool apartment where you can watch TV all day. Speaking of which, it’s a beautiful day outside. Why aren’t you at the pool?”
“Randy says—”
“Randy told you not to go to the pool, because someone might see you and start asking questions. Right? Doesn’t that tell you something right there, Hannah? If this Randy guy really loved you, he’d have tried to get in good with your mom, not steal you from her. He’d have waited for you until you were legal, then asked you out, not hide you away in some apartment his dad’s paying for. Sure, things are great right now. You can lounge around and do whatever you want. But what about when school starts in the fall? Are you just going to drop out? Be Randy’s love slave for the rest of your life? That’s a worthy aspiration for a girl of your intelligence.”
She raised her chin at my sneering tone. She had spunk, anyway. I’d give her that.
“I hate high school,” she said sullenly. “Everyone there is such a phony. Randy said he’d help me get my GED online—”
“Oh, right. And then what? Online college?”
“Randy says—”
“Oh, listen to yourself,” I snapped. “Randy says this, Randy says that. Don’t you have a mind of your own? Or do you just automatically do whatever Randy says?”
“Yes,” Hannah said. She was crying openly now. And not from fear or frustration.
“Yes, you have a mind of your own? Or yes, you automatically do what Randy says?”
“I can see why my brother broke up with you,” Hannah said with sudden venom. “You’re really mean!”
“Oh,” I said, smiling. “You think this is mean? I haven’t even gotten STARTED yet. Get your stuff. Now. We’re leaving.”
She stared at me, dumbfounded. “What?”
“Get your stuff,” I said. “I’m taking you back to your brother’s house. And then I’m calling your mother, and we’re all going to have a little talk about what is REALLY going on back at her house. And I’m betting she’s going to say none of her exes ever hit on you. And guess what? I believe her.”
Hannah looked about as shocked as a person who has grown totally used to getting her own way could look, upon suddenly finding things not going her way.
“I—I’m not going anywhere,” she cried. “You try to drag me out of here and Randy—Randy will kill you!”
“Hannah,” I said. “Let me tell you something. I just spent a year working with U.S. Marines, whose only job was to track down and detain men who’d trained at terrorist death camps. Compared to that, some twenty-seven-year-old pimp named Randy who doesn’t even own his apartment is NOTHING to me. Do you understand? NOTHING.”
Hannah’s lower lip quivered. Her gaze darted around the apartment, as if she were looking for something to throw at me. I regarded her calmly, however, from the front doorway, which I was guarding in case the ever-fabulous Randy happened to come in unexpectedly.
“Randy’s not a pimp” was all she could come up with.
“Not yet,” I said. “Give him time. I’m sure, with the love of a girl like you behind him, he’ll live up to his potential.”
“I—I HATE you!” Hannah screamed at me. “You are such a BITCH! My brother is so WRONG about you! He goes on about you like you’re some kind of PRINCESS. Did you know he keeps a SCRAPBOOK about you? Yeah, he does. Every time anything about you appears in the paper or some magazine, he clips it out and SAVES it. He’s got like ten thousand pictures of you—God, he never even misses an episode of that STUPID TV show about you. He even made ME sit and watch it. All he ever talks about is how great and brave and smart and funny you are. I wasdying to meet you someday, even though you totally ripped out his heart and stomped on it. And now I finally do meet you, and I find out you’re nothing but a huge, giant, überbitch!”
I could only blink at her, stunned not so much by her outburst—okay, not at ALL stunned by the outburst—but by its content. Rob keepsscrapbooks about me? Rob watches the TV show about me? Rob thinks I’m brave and smart and funny? She thinks I broke ROB’S heart?
Boy, had she ever gotten THAT one wrong.
Could she possibly have been telling the truth? Could any of that stuff be even remotely—
“I HATE YOU!”
I ducked just as the lamp whizzed past my head.
Good thing, too, since the thing was made of brass, and ended up denting the cheap drywall, instead of my skull.
I straightened and glared at her with narrowed eyes.
“Okay,” I said, “that’s it. You don’t get to pack your stuff. You’re coming with me now, just as you are.”
And I reached out and grabbed her by her ear.
Sure, it’s an age-old technique, used by mothers worldwide to control fractious offspring.
But did you know the U.S. Marines use it occasionally as well, to quell a recalcitrant suspect? They do, actually.
Because it not only works, but it doesn’t leave a mark. On the victim, I mean.
Oh, yeah. I learned a lot of useful stuff like that while I was overseas.
Hannah balked at first over being dragged by her ear from her boyfriend’s cushy apartment to my motorcycle. But, as I explained to her, it was either that or I called the cops, and Randy got an extra-nice surprise when he got home from work that night, in the form of an arrest for statutory rape.
She finally gave in, but not exactly what you’d call graciously. I was strapping my helmet on her—I didn’t have a spare, so I was going to have to risk my precious cranium to transport the little brat home—when she stiffened.
I knew without even glancing over my shoulder what she was looking at.
“Where is he?” I asked evenly. “And don’t get any ideas about calling him over here. I can dial nine-one-one faster than anybody you’ve ever seen.”
“He’s getting out of his car,” Hannah said, her gaze devouring the object of her affections the way Ruth devours éclairs—or would if she went off her no-flour-or-sugar diet. “He’s going to be really upset when he sees I’m gone.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, “I bet five dollars you never hear from him again.”
“Are you kidding?” Hannah shook her head. “He’ll go to the ends of the earth looking for me if he has to. He told me. We’re soul mates.”