In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [100]
He grinned, remembering the story about W. C. Fields, the famous comic actor and well-known atheist. Fields had been told he was dying, and a friend came by to visit. He found him reading the Bible. “What on earth are you doing?” the friend asked, stunned. “Looking for loopholes,” Fields replied.
The story had always struck Camelia as funny, and he wondered if that was what Artenski/ Aramanov was doing now. Looking for loopholes, a way out of the mess he had created. He did not wish him luck.
A limo was waiting when they landed at tiny Santa Monica Airport, and they drove immediately to the safe house where Riley was being cared for by social workers.
She flung herself into her mother’s arms, but there was no gappy smile this time. “Oh, Mommy,” she gasped, “he was so awful. He hit Harriet and he almost killed Lola, and he kicked me. . . .”
“I know, I know, honey.” Mel stroked her daughter’s curls back from her teary face. “It’s okay now, though. I’m here.”
The power of a mother’s love, Camelia thought, remembering Claudia and his own brood. How she had cared for them, protected them, on those long days and nights when he was working twenty-four/seven on a case, leaving all the responsibility to her. What would the world be without a mother’s love? he wondered. He guessed it would produce men like Gus Aramanov.
Riley went with them in the limo to the USC Medical Center. Harriet was sitting up, looking alert, though with a bandage wrapped around her head.
“Glamorous, huh?” she said by way of greeting. “I can always get a job as an extra on E.R. The one they wheel in on the gurney on the verge of expiring. At least I look the part.”
“Oh, stop it, Harr.” Mel smiled through her tears. “This was no joke. You were in terrible danger. And all because of me.”
“True,” Harriet agreed equably. “I’ll probably have to call Johnnie Cochran and sue you.”
They hugged each other, and Riley climbed onto the bed next to her.
“You saved our lives, kiddo,” Harriet said proudly. “Tackled that big bag of lard like a football pro. Couldn’t have done it better myself.” She saw Camelia outside the door, head down, hands behind his back, pacing, immaculate in steel-gray from head to toe. His brow was furrowed, his black hair sleeked back, and he looked somehow familiar.
“You’ve brought the mafia with you,” she said loudly. “Or else he’s from central casting.”
Mel’s laugh rang out, and Camelia glanced up. Thank God, there was laughter again.
Mel waved him into the room. “Detective Marco Camelia, this is my friend Harriet.”
As he shook Harriet’s hand, he thought, surprised, how petite she was. Somehow, her being in the moving business, he had expected a strapping woman, capable of lifting and carrying. She didn’t look as though she could lift a cup of coffee. He knew he was wrong, though, when he felt her grip, and he guessed it was a question of mind over matter.
“You look pretty good, considering,” he said, smiling.
“So do you, considering you’ve had to put up with Mel these last few weeks.”
Mel liked it that they grinned at each other; she could tell they were on the same wavelength. She liked her friends to like each other. Meanwhile, she wasn’t about to let Harriet or Riley out of her sight.
“When are they letting you out of here?” she demanded. “I’ve got a private jet waiting at Santa Monica Airport to take us all to New York.”
Riley’s eyes popped. “Wow, a private jet.” She had rarely traveled on a regular flight, and that only in coach. “And New York!” She had never been there. Suddenly the world seemed a pretty good place again.
“A private jet?” Harriet repeated.
Mel nodded. “A Gulfstream IV.”
“I’m out of here,” Harriet said with a huge grin.
They picked up Lola from the vet en route to the airport. Like Harriet, the dog’s head was bandaged, and she wore one of those big circular plastic collars that made her look like a mutt from an Elizabethan painting. They didn’t even bother going