A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

What would you do?

His father broke off his conversation with Ted and Katherine as Harry walked into the living room, his body stiff as wood, the letter he'd intended to leave for them clutched in his hand,

"I sent Mother home," his father said.

Harry nodded stiffly and cleared his throat. "That's good." For a moment, he twisted the letter he'd written to them in his hands, then he thrust it at him. When he took it and opened it, holding it out so Ted could read it, too, he added, "I was ... was leaving to join him... Zayn, tomorrow."

Ted's eyes snapped to his, narrowing in furious disapproval.

"It's true," he said before he could speak.

Harry watched him move towards him, but he jerked away when Ted reached for his arm, "Don't touch me!" he warned hysterically, clutching the back of a chair. "Don't touch me." Switching his gaze to his father's grim, hurt face, Harry watched him finish the letter, drop it on the table, and stand up. "Help me," Harry told him brokenly. "Please help me. You always know what's right. I have to do what's right. Somebody help me," he cried to Katherine, who was blinking back tears, and then to Ted.

Suddenly he was pulled into his father's arms and clutched tightly to him, his hand soothing Harry's back as he'd done when he was a little crying over a minor hurt. "You already know what you have to do," he said gruffly. "The man has to be caught and stopped. Ted," he said sounding shaken, but taking over, "you're the lawyer. What's the best way to handle this without further incriminating Harry?"

After a moment of silence, Ted said, "Louis Tomlinson is our best bet. I could call him and try to make a deal with him. Harry turns Malik in and he holds Harry blameless. No questions asked."

The word questions jerked Harry out of his tortured stupor. His voice vibrating with wild alarm, Harry warned, "Tell Louis I won't answer any questions about how I know where Zayn is going to be!" Harry thought of Liam and Meredith Payne and the laughing young man who'd brought him a car to drive—all of them loyal to a man who'd betrayed their trust because he was sick. Because he couldn't help himself. "If you call him," Harry repeated, trying to keep his voice steady, "he has to agree that I won't be expected to tell him anything except where Zayn is going to be tomorrow night. I won't involve anyone else in this, I mean it!"

"You're up to your neck in illegal intrigue and you're worried about protecting somebody else!" Ted bit out. "Do you realize what Tomlinson could do to you? He could haul you out of here in leg irons tonight!"

Harry started to answer, but the restraint he'd been exerting was collapsing, and he turned on his heel instead. Walking into the kitchen, he sank down into a chair at the table, because that was as far as he could possibly get from the phone call that was going to betray his lover. His shoulders shaking with silent sobs, he covered his face with his hands, and the tears he'd been fighting streamed in hot torrents down his cheeks. "I'm sorry, darling," he wept brokenly, "I'm so sorry..."

Katherine pressed a handkerchief into his hand a few minutes later, then sat down across from him, lending silent support.

By the time Ted walked into the kitchen, Harry had managed to get himself under a semblance of control.

"Tomlinson will take the deal," he said. "He'll be here in three hours." He turned as the telephone rang on the kitchen wall and yanked the receiver out of the cradle. "Yes," he said, "he's here, but he's not taking calls—" He frowned and paused, then he covered the mouthpiece and said to Harry, "This is someone named Margaret Stanhope. She says it's urgent."

Harry nodded, swallowed, and reached his hand out for the phone. "Have you called to gloat, Mrs. Stanhope?" Harry asked bitterly.

"No," Zayn's grandmother replied. "I have called to ask you, to plead with you, to turn him in if you know where he is before another innocent human is murdered."

"His name is Zayn!" Harry choked fiercely. "Stop calling your own grandson 'him'!"

The other woman drew in a sharp breath and when she spoke again, she sounded almost as tormented as Harry felt. "If you know where Zayn is," she pleaded, "if you know where my grandson is," she added, "please, for the love of God, stop him,"

Harry's animosity dissolved when he heard the anguish in that proud voice. "I will," he whispered.