The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [73]
“I’ve tried to be with somebody a few times since the accident,” Stefanovitch said. As he spoke, he watched children playing in the surf. “One time it was the woman I mentioned meeting in Gramercy Square Park, a nurse named Pat Beccaccio. I wanted to get close to her. There was this ache inside me. I was afraid, Sarah. The more I needed somebody, the more afraid I got.
“I’d go over to Gramercy Park, hoping she’d be there after work. I’d think about her a lot during the day. If I saw some tall woman with dark hair in the neighborhood, my heart would start to slam around, thinking it might be her. If she wasn’t at the park, I’d be incredibly disappointed and hurt…
“I’d imagine that she didn’t come because she didn’t want to see me, didn’t want to stop and have to talk to some cripple. I decided she was avoiding the park, so she wouldn’t have to see me.”
Sarah felt she was getting closer to whoever John Stefanovitch really was. For better or worse, Stef had this old-fashioned code of honor. It was stuck like a broken record in his thick skull. He would probably have it for the rest of his life.
There are features I like besides his eyes, she was thinking as she listened to him talk. Like a scar that ran like the serrated edge of a knife over one of his eyelids. It made the eye sag a little, which gave his face more character. He’d been bitten. In a high school basketball game, he’d told her. She could understand how someone might want to bite him sometimes.
“I don’t know if you can understand any of what I’m saying, Sarah? I couldn’t bring myself to call Pat Beccaccio and-make a date. Sometimes, I’d be in my apartment at night, with my hand right on the phone receiver. I couldn’t make myself call. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I don’t feel sorry for myself. I just want you to know what’s been building up inside me for a long time.”
“I understand a little,” Sarah finally said. She wanted to reach out for him suddenly, to hold him and be held, but she didn’t. She listened. She let him talk.
“This may not sound like a cop talking, but I was afraid. Afraid of you. I was scared you might reject me, right when I was starting to feel something.”
“Maybe that’s okay. Maybe you’re getting back in touch with something important?”
Finally, Sarah came closer. He could smell her perfume, which was light and flowery. The whole thing had an extraordinary this-isn’t-happening aura. It fit with a lot of other experiences lately.
It was Sarah’s turn to be confused, though; time for her head to be whirling. She wasn’t sure exactly who started it…
They began to kiss. The kiss was sweet, more tender, gentler, than she would have expected it could be. That was the thing. Stefanovitch was always full of surprises.
She wasn’t sure whether this was the right thing, or absolutely the wrong thing for them. Sarah wasn’t sure how she felt about anything right now. Her mind was reeling a little. No, her mind was reeling a lot. She knew just one thing for certain: she wanted to kiss Stefanovitch. She needed to be held by him, and to hold him back. Beyond that, she wasn’t sure of anything.
Suddenly, Sarah kissed him hard, their teeth hitting. She sucked at his mouth and squeezed his body as tightly as she could.
“I guess this breaks the ice a little more.” He finally was able to speak again.
“Now you know how I feel, at least. No more guessing games. I like you so much, Stef.” Sarah smiled. “I have from that first day at Police Plaza.”
71
The Midnight Club; New York City
AT A FEW minutes before eight, Alexandre St.-Germain arrived inside Tower Two of the World Trade Center. Some of the most powerful men and women in the world had journeyed to New York to meet with him that morning. They were congregated upstairs, in a plush suite of business offices on the eighty-sixth floor.
The crime syndicate was about to begin operations. Except that it really wasn’t a crime syndicate anymore; it was a federation of business, government, and political figures.
…With the power of influence.