Eve - Iris Johansen [8]
“Please, Eve,” Rosa whispered.
She should go on to work. She’d probably lose her job. Then she looked at Rosa and nodded resignedly. If Mr. Kimble fired her, she’d find another job. “I’ll go with her. What else can I do?”
John Gallo smiled. “That’s how I felt when I saw them hurting you. What else could I do? Sometimes you just have to do what you feel is right.”
And right for him had been breaking bones and coming close to killing Larazo.
And saving her from being raped and maybe murdered.
“Thanks,” she said awkwardly. She knew she should be grateful, but she wasn’t accustomed to anyone stepping in to help her. “You didn’t have to do that for me. I’d have found a way out.”
“I bet you would. You were really something. Hell, maybe you wouldn’t have needed me at all.” He started to dial the phone. “That’s what I kept telling myself while I was watching you take them all on. Don’t get caught up in this mess. It’s not your business. She might be okay. You’ll end up in jail or the hospital.” He looked over the phone at her, and his eyes held hers. “It didn’t do any good. I had to do it anyway.” He began to speak into the phone as the operator answered.
She gazed at him while he spoke, watching the play of expressions on his face. Why couldn’t she take her eyes off him? He was just a guy. Yeah, good-looking and kind of … different, but that shouldn’t matter.
Why couldn’t she stop looking at him?
Grady Hospital
Three hours later
“They say Manuel is going to be all right, Eve.” Rosa’s face was wreathed in smiles as she hurried down the corridor to the waiting room, where she’d left Eve. “They said it was a minor bump, a possible concussion or something, but he’s going to be fine.”
“Great. When can we take him home?”
“When my papa comes. They won’t let him go with me. They say they need to ask him questions.” Her expression clouded. “He’s going to be mad at me. He said I could only keep the baby if he didn’t cause trouble.” She frowned. “And those doctors were asking me all kinds of funny questions. If I ever shook Manuel or maybe threw him in his bed when I got mad at him for crying.”
“You told him about Larazo and the others?”
She nodded. “But none of them were still there when the ambulance came. The police said none of the neighbors had seen anything.”
Of course they hadn’t, Eve thought bitterly. It would make them targets of Larazo and his gang. “Well, your papa will tell them how well you treat Manuel.”
“He’s never home. He works all the time. He might tell them he doesn’t know.” She moistened her lips. “And he doesn’t really want me to keep Manuel. He doesn’t like babies. They cry too much. But I know after Manuel gets a little older, he’ll like him much more.”
Providing Rosa got to keep her son, Eve thought. DEFACS sometimes yanked a kid at the first sign of abuse. Though she’d seen them give the child back with equal speed if their budget was cut.
But Rosa didn’t deserve this kind of hassle. She was a good mother and loved that baby. “Talk to your papa as soon as he gets here. Tell him what happened.”
Rosa nodded doubtfully. “But how can I prove it? They won’t believe me. They’ll say I made it up.”
“Tell them to ask me.”
“But you’re my friend.” She paused. “And you’re the same age as me. They won’t believe you, either.”
Eve knew that was true. Not only was she sixteen, but a check would show that her mother was on drugs. She’d be tarred with the same brush. “Then we’ll find another way to convince them. I’ll go to every apartment in the development and talk to the tenants. Someone will be willing to tell the cops the truth.”
“Will you do that?” Rosa’s face lit like a sunrise. “You’ll keep them from taking my baby?”
Eve gazed at her helplessly. Simple question from a simple, loving girl. But nothing was simple in the slums where they had been born and raised. Sometimes the people who were trying to help blundered and managed to