Not For Sale by Sandra Marton Page B

sound of the male voice. Every muscle in his body went on alert—but the source of the voice was a uniformed police officer, emerging from a doorway to the left. A second, shorter officer stood just behind him.
    The cops from the patrol car.
    His blood became a river of ice.
    “What happened here?” he demanded.
    The first officer took a step forward.
    “Sir? Please identify yourself.”
    What he wanted to do was sweep Caroline into his arms and take her from this place, to turn back the clock so that it was still Thursday night and she was safe in his bed.
    “Sir?”
    Lucas nodded as he curved his arm around Caroline and drew her to his side.
    “I am Lucas Vieira. And I asked you a question.”
    “Are you a friend of Ms. Hamilton’s, Mr. Vieira?”
    Caroline turned against him and buried her face in his shoulder. Lucas nodded again.
    “I am a very good friend of Ms. Hamilton’s, Officer.”
    “And you’re here because…?”
    “I’ve answered all the questions I intend to answer until you tell me what happened.”
    “Someone broke into Ms. Hamilton’s apartment.”
    The other policeman stepped aside, revealing what had been a window and was now an empty frame for the rusted iron fire escape that clung to the building’s exterior wall.
    Glass littered the linoleum floor.
    Lucas’s vision reddened, narrowed until he could see only the broken window. He felt rage like none he had ever known before.
    “Caroline.” He clasped her shoulders and looked at her pale face. “Tell me who did this.”
    She shook her head. “I never saw the man before.”
    “What did he do to you?” She didn’t answer and he knew he was nearer the total loss of the civilized man he was supposed to have become than he had ever been in his entire life. “Sweetheart.
Querida,
did he hurt you?”
    She drew a long, tremulous breath.
    “No.”
    “Are you sure? Because if he did—”
    “He didn’t—he didn’t touch me. I screamed and—and—”
    Her breath hitched. Her face was turned up to his; her lips were parted. He fought back the desire to gather her against him and kiss away the terror in her eyes.
    “I was—I was just coming out of the shower. I thought I heard something break. Glass, I thought. In the kitchen.”
    She nodded toward a wall where a refrigerator that would have looked at home in one of the better Rio
favelas
leaned drunkenly against an ancient stove.
    “So—so I came out of the bathroom. I wasn’t expecting to see anything but broken glass on the floor, you know, something the cat knocked over, and—”
    “The cat,” Lucas said, because he had to grab on tosomething simple or the fury inside him inside him would surely explode.
    “Yes. My cat. Well, he’s my cat now. I mean, I found him yesterday. Sunday, when I went down to get the paper, just sitting huddled by the stoop, and—”
    “Caroline.” Lucas cleared his throat. “What happened?”
    “I saw the broken glass on the floor. And—and I saw the man. He was coming through the window. I screamed. And it must have been a really loud scream because Mr. Witkin, who lives next door, he banged on the wall the way he does if I play my CDs too loud except I don’t, I don’t ever play them loud at all—”
    She began to weep. Soundlessly, shoulders shaking, which somehow turned Lucas’s hot rage to icy fear. He gathered her into his arms again and held her close.
    “The intruder took off. Ms. Hamilton phoned 911,” the taller cop said.
    “The police came right away,” Caroline whispered.
    Lucas looked at the two officers. “Thank you,” he said, and meant it. “Thank you for everything.”
    Both of them nodded.
    “Yeah. We just wish we could have caught the bas—the guy.”
    Lucas would have preferred catching the bastard himself, but he thought it best not to say so.
    “There’s been a rash of break-ins on this street the last couple of weeks,” the smaller policeman said. “Same M.O. Guy breaks a window, comes in, takes