Finding Mary Blaine by Jodi Thomas

Author:Jodi Thomas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: AcM
ISBN: 9780778320647
Publisher: Mira
Published: 2004-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-One

Blaine saw Shakespeare standing deep in the shadows of the abandoned café’s threshold, watching people run along the walk. Every few seconds, almost as though he thought he might get caught, he raised a bottle wrapped in a paper bag to his lips and gulped once, then lowered it.

Ignoring the rain blurring her vision, she tried to focus on Shakespeare as she stumbled toward him. She bumped into one man and he mumbled an apology. When she collided with the next stranger, he muttered an oath. Blaine tried to concentrate on reaching the old man in the doorway before the blackness creeping over her mind as thick as ink covered all thought.

Car lights and stoplights reflected off the water that dripped from the building’s roof like multicolored strands of beads blocking the entrance to the spot the old man called home.

She almost knocked Shakespeare over when she finally staggered in from the rain. She thought he’d seen her coming then realized too late that he hadn’t.

Frightened, bloodshot eyes glared at her.

Shakespeare’s bottle hit the concrete and shattered as he grabbed her, trying to steady her.

“Now hold on!” he yelled, then softened as recognition crossed his face. “What be this tragedy, my fair Mary?” His words slurred. “Come through the depths of hell this wicked night.”

“Help me,” she whispered. “Please, help me. I need to find Miller.”

He looked down at his broken bottle, then at her.

“I’m sorry.” She fought the urge to cry. Just when Blaine thought nothing in this world could make things worse, life proved her wrong. She’d broken the one thing Shakespeare cared about more than life and she did not even have the money to repay him. “I may have been followed. I need a place to hide. Help me.”

To her surprise Shakespeare looked as if he cared. “I’ve heard talk of your plight, my child. Gossip’s cloth doth blow lightly in the wind.” He pulled his hand away from her waist and stared at the blood that covered his dirty fingers.

“You’re hurt.” For once he forgot to color his words. “How badly?”

Blaine lifted the end of her sweatshirt. Just above the band of her jogging pants ran a crimson line. The flesh gaped open for several inches. A thin waterfall of blood dripped down her flesh to soak into the thick cotton of her waistband.

The clouds grew darker. The world circled around her. She was hot and cold at the same time. She wanted to be home and all this to be only a dream.

She fought to clear her head, but the clouds moved in fast. “Mark,” she whispered as Shakespeare lowered her to the ground. “Oh, Mark, I’m sorry, so sorry.”

She closed her eyes, feeling the broken pieces of the whiskey bottle cut into her back and the smell of cheap liquor pollute the air. But it didn’t matter. Blaine no longer cared about anything but hiding in the darkness that closed in around her. She was a little girl again hiding in the closet, closing out everything.

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