Chapter Eight
“Lesley.” Cole shot into the apartment, nearly knocking her off her feet as he pulled her into his arms.
He stopped abruptly and looked around at the horrible mess that lay scattered before them. “How could they do this?” he muttered
in a low, disbelieving voice.
The room was in shambles. Furniture was overturned. Photos of family and friends had been hurled across the room. Drawers
were emptied and their contents spilled onto the floor. Lesley felt like screaming and weeping all at the same moment. But
the only sound that came from her throat was an anguished cry like that of an animal caught in a hunter’s trap. Her life lay
sprawled before her. She felt vulnerable, as if she’d been violated.
Cole turned her into his arms, his hand at the back of her head holding it against the muscular cushion of his chest. “I’m
so sorry,” he murmured over and over again. “I never dreamed they’d do this to you.”
Lesley welcomed the comfort offered in his embrace. It helped lessen the shock.
“Here.” Cole cleared a path for her and righted the chair before sitting her down. “Let me get you something to drink.”
Numbly Lesley shook her head. “No, I’m fine.” This was a nightmare, some horrible dream that would vanish in the morning.
She closed and opened her eyes, hoping the scene would miraculously disappear. But reality faced her. She couldn’t sit idle
while her home lay in shambles. Yet as hard as she tried to force herself to stand, she couldn’t.
Cole was kneeling at her side, his look troubled and tender. “Are you all right?” He smoothed the hair back from her temple.
“You’re so pale.”
“I’m fine,” she murmured and brushed his restraining hands aside as she stood with trembling resolve. The first thing she
picked up was the small Bible she used for devotions. Checking the inside flap, she noted that the contents had been undisturbed.
It was ironic, since it seemed everything else had been destroyed.
The destruction in her half of the duplex wasn’t nearly as extensive as in Cole’s. It looked as if someone had come through
her quarters searching for something. Drawers were opened and left dangling after their contents had been carelessly tossed
aside. The scene was the same in the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom.
Cole set the furniture upright and bent over to pick up the broken pieces of glass that had once been her lamp.
Wordlessly Lesley wandered from room to room, surveying the extent of the damage. Hot color invaded her face at the thought
of someone entering her bedroom and sorting through her personal items. With practiced care she carefully folded each piece
and returned it to her drawers. Next she straightened the mattress on her bed and pulled back the covers and bedspread. The
contents of her closet had been tossed on the floor. After examining each dress, blouse and skirt for damage, she replaced
them one by one.
When she returned to the living room, Cole had finished cleaning as best he could and glanced up guiltily.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said with a tight, pinched look about his handsome face. “Scream, yell, do whatever will
make you feel better.”
Lesley lowered her eyes and shook her head. What good would screaming do now?
The teakettle whistled, its shrillness piercing the heavy silence that filled the room. Without a word she moved into the
kitchen and took the kettle off the burner. The whistle petered out to a soft whine.
Her hands shaking, Lesley brought down the instant coffee. She poured the boiling water into ceramic mugs and added sugar.
Normally she didn’t use the sweetener, but she felt she needed it now.
Cole accepted the cup from her and sat at the opposite side of the room watching her. A muscle worked in his jaw while his
eyes were more narrowed and determined than she could ever remember seeing them.
“I want you to know I’ll pay for everything.”
Lesley looked up at him blankly. “Why?” she asked in a breathless voice that sounded strange even to her own ears. “You didn’t
do this.”
“No.” His fingers tightened around the handle of the mug. “But it’s my fault. None of this would have happened if it hadn’t
been for me.”
“I don’t blame you.” Lesley didn’t know how she could be so calm, but she was amazingly so. She took a sip of the steaming
liquid, and when she looked at Cole she was again jarred by the hate that seemed to exude from him.
“It might be a good idea if you moved in with your sister until after the holiday,” Cole said, the words brittle.
“No,” she answered forcefully. “I’m staying here. This is my home, and I’m not about to let a bunch of hoodlums dictate my life.”
“These men play for keeps, Lesley. This isn’t the time to stand on principle.”
“I don’t care,” she shot back hotly.
“Honey, I know how you feel.”
“You know how I feel?” She echoed his words in a low, taunting voice and laughed sarcastically. “If you knew how I felt you’d
be screaming. You ask me to trust you. This isn’t any of my business. But you made it mine the minute you moved next door.
You could be anyone, or anything, but I don’t have the right to question you. Now”—she inhaled a deep breath—“Now you want
to send me away? Is it for my own safety or because you’re afraid of what I’ll do once I discover why you’re hiding?”
Cole set his mug aside and stood. Lesley watched him as he strode back and forth across the floor. Pacing was something he’d
done a lot in recent months. Lesley knew: she’d heard him.
“You know I’m an engineer,” he said without looking at her.
“Yes.”
“For years the idea of finding an effective and affordable method of manufacturing air bags has nagged at the back of my mind.
I spent two difficult years of my life trying to come up with an idea that would work. Six months ago, I did it.”
“That’s wonderful, Cole.” He didn’t look as if he was pleased with his discovery.
He offered her a strange smile. “It’s simple, really. The air bag fits into the car’s steering wheel and is programmed so
that at the moment of impact—” He stopped. “That’s neither here nor there. You get the picture.”
Lesley did and thought the idea was amazingly simple. “How soon will it be available in cars?”
“That depends. The patent is pending now. Two patents.” The words were heavy and dark. He turned to glance at her then, and the tormented look was in his eyes again. “Two patents from two different men, both claiming to have come up with the identical idea.”
Lesley didn’t need to hear the other man’s name. “It’s Jennings, isn’t it?”
Thoughtfully Cole nodded, his brow marred by thick, creasing lines. “Yes, Jennings.”
“But how?”
“Jennings was a friend. He knew about my idea, and once I got the prototype working and the bugs out of the system, I showed
him. I was enthusiastic.” He paused and wiped a hand over his face. “No, stupid,” he corrected. “Jennings was smart, I’ll
say that for him. He waited until I’d figured a way to produce the air bags before taking everything. But I trusted him. We’d
worked together for years, and I considered him a friend. He’d been having financial problems, but I never would have guessed
he’d stoop this low. He stole my work and two years of my life.”
“But surely you can prove it was you.”
“It’s not that easy,” Cole ground out and clenched his hands together. “Jennings took all my papers and my notes. I’ve reconstructed
everything as best I can, but as it stands now, it’s my word against his.”
“What about the man who came here? What’s he got to do with this?”
“That’s Peter Lansky.”
“Friend?”
“I have no friends,” Cole returned forcefully. Lesley wondered how he thought of her, but didn’t voice her question.
“Lansky’s my attorney,” Cole supplied. “It was his idea to have me go into hiding until I could reproduce the evidence that
would prove I was the inventor.”
“But the check you came into the bank with was issued from Indiana.”
“That was another of Lansky’s ideas. He insisted I use the phony name and had the funds available from Indiana as a precautionary
method.”
“Against Jennings,” Lesley muttered to herself.
“Right.”
“But Jennings knows you’re here if today is any indication.”
“He knows,” Cole reiterated.
“Then why didn’t he . . .”
“Finish me off?” Cole completed the horrible thought for her. “I don’t know. There was ample opportunity.”
“They were looking for the report or whatever it was you gave Lansky?”
“It’s the only thing they could be after, with one exception.”
“What?” Lesley asked with a puzzled frown.
Cole straightened, his demeanor distant. “Me.”
Lesley bit into the soft flesh in her inner cheek to keep from crying out. She couldn’t bear to lose Cole. If Jennings were
to hurt Cole, a part of herself would shrivel up and die with him.
“Now do you understand why it’s so important for you to leave? It won’t be long, I promise.”
“Cole,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to go. You know I’d go crazy every minute of every day wondering what was happening to
you.”
“This isn’t your battle,” he returned forcefully.
“But I’m making it mine. We’re in this together,” she argued with him on a breathless note. If it wasn’t safe here, they could
leave, find someplace that was.
“Lesley.” He came to kneel in front of her, taking her soft hands in his and raising them to his mouth. “Thank you. But I
can’t put you in any danger.”
“But I’ll be with you.”
“That’s the worst place you could be.”
“I’ll go crazy not knowing—”
“Only until after Thanksgiving. If I haven’t heard anything by then, you can come back.” He was coaxing and gentle, and Lesley
doubted that there was anything she could refuse him.
“I don’t like this.”
“I know you don’t, and to be honest, I’m not that excited about it either. There’s a certain amount of comfort having you
around.”
“It’s my four karate lessons, right?”
“Right,” he chuckled, and kissed her briefly on her cheek. “Come on, I’ll help you pack.”
Lesley pulled the suitcase out from her closet. Ironically, it was one she had replaced only a half hour earlier. Cole sat