HARRY
38-year-old, newly-hired chief of security at Fletcher Memorial. Recently earned an MBA in security management.
. . . He had a prizefighter's face—jutting cheekbones, broken nose, and long permanent folds on either side of this mouth . . . He had the kind of man's facet that typically repelled her—coarse and unintellectual. But there was something else, something out of place. His eyes. She glanced several times at his caramel-colored eyes, mobile and perceptive, spoked at the corners by creases that hinted at gentle humor and even sympathy. Because of his eyes she wasn't sure what to make of him.
He came up through life the hard way, having had to help raise his brother and sisters after his alcoholic father became disabled. He is plain-spoken and outwardly unassuming. But he won't duck from a fight. And woe to anyone who underestimates him . . .
Kevin: "Lewton only looked like a dumb shit-kicker. He had grown up in Southwest Houston, a gang-infested neighborhood where smarts were something you kept in reserve, like a switchblade in your boot."
He started out as a police officer in Nacogdoches, Texas, but his promising career was derailed by the tragic outcome of a standoff with a drunken, hostage-taking father who had barricaded himself in a bungalow on the edge of town . . .
Harry: "I was the second coming of Wyatt Earp . . . But, in the blink of an eye, Wyatt Earp turned into John Wilkes Booth—a guy who had traded the lives of two sweet kids for a louse who had no future ahead of him except death row."
His outside-the-box style has led him into a lingering feud with Special Agent Raymond Lee, from the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group.
. . . Lee did not like to be questioned, and if you forgot that, he would use all his logical and rhetorical skill to flay you alive. Only a stubborn Texan would come back for a second or third helping of that picallili . . . But in those days, when he was still young and cocky, Harry's favorite pastime was teaching bullies a lesson . . . When he marched into Lee's office and triumphantly presented him with that briefcase full of fake cocaine, Lee scoffed at first. Not believing his own eyes, he dragged Harry back to the trailer for a look. There was the hole, like a humongous mouth laughing Lee in the face. Words cannot describe the shade of red he turned . . . And from the look on Lee's face today, Harry could tell that Lee had not let it go.
His mother, who suffers from advanced Parkinson's disease, is a patient at Fletcher Memorial.
. . . He had underestimated how difficult it was for his mother to feed herself or even to drink. Several days ago, she had had a bad choking episode which led to pneumonia . . . Harry couldn't help but feel responsible. Sure, he pulled strings to make sure she got a private room and the best doctors in the city, but that didn't erase the fact that in the name of pride and honor and even love he had played roulette with his mother's life.
In the short time Harry has been on the job, Ali has caught his eye as she moved on her rounds through the hospital.
Harry was intrigued by her, by her bashfulness, which struck him as a paradox that needed explanation. She paws the ground like a scared kitten, he thought. But she's a panther, no kitten. If she wanted to, she could eat you for breakfast. You or any man. Just look at those eyes.
