Authors: Shannon McKenna
The bus lumbered on, dragging them through space and time toward that wall, but he wasn’t thinking about it, or letting her think about it, either. They floated in their magic bubble of ideal perfection, and he wasn’t going to let anybody take this away from him.
Not even himself.
Stimulating, Oleg reflected, to do for himself a task that he would ordinarily have delegated. He gazed around the bust -
ling waiting room of the OHSU OB/GYN unit. It was physically taxing, yes. Flying to Portland on short notice with health issues like his was not easy. But there were certain things that had to be done by himself, alone.
He sensed urgency, in this hunt. He had no proof that there was a ticking clock, yet he heard the ticking, and he paid attention to it. That was what set him apart from other men. It had made him Vor, made him filthy rich, and kept him alive. So far.
He pressed his hand against his liver, ravaged by cancer, surgery, and cirrhosis, peeking with a pang of longing at the Starbucks cup of the woman across from him. Hot, black, strong coffee, just as he liked it. But coffee was forbidden now.
He saw his targets the instant they emerged from the corridor.
It would have been impossible to miss them. A tall young man with dark curly hair and dimples holding his curly-headed, shrieking son under his arm. The jowly, rectangular woman in hot pink who dragged a wiggling girl alongside her, the girl a female version of the boy. The old woman was haranguing the man in a dialect that sounded Italian.
The man rolled his eyes. “Get it through your head, Zia. She doesn’t like boiled fish and baked apples, so there’s no point in you dragging them in here for her. She wants a chicken sandwich with pesto and a fresh fruit salad from the cafeteria, OK? The pregnant lady gets what she wants,
capisce?
So stop throwing your weight around!”
“I’m thinkin’ about the baby!” The woman looked hurt.
“Looks like I’m the only one, eh? Chicken and pesto, pah!”
“Chicken and pesto will nourish the baby just fine, Zia.”
The woman hefted a heavily loaded plastic bag, and dropped it into the trash receptacle next to Oleg. She met Oleg’s eyes.
“Puo fare che cazzo vuole,”
she said belligerently.
“Me ne frego un
cazzo di niente.”
Oleg dragged the remnants of his Italian up out of his head.
“Giovani di oggi,”
he offered sympathetically.
“Non capiscono
niente.”
Young people these days. Haven’t got a clue.
She gave him a grateful look and took off after the little girl who had disappeared around a corner and into one of the medical suites. “Lena!” the lady shrieked, thudding heavily along.
“Torna
qua!
Lena!”
Meanwhile, the man was doing the same thing, running after the scampering boy. Shrill laughter and bellows retreated into the distance.
Oleg got up, folded a magazine, and strolled in the direction from which they’d come. As a distraction, he could ask for nothing better than the Ranieri family. Noise, bombast, color. Constantly moving parts. Perfect. He scanned room numbers. He knew Lily Parr’s room, the details of her health, the health of her unborn child. He knew everything in the hospital database, and everything in various other databases. Colorful past. Couldn’t wait to meet her.
He turned the knob, and went in.
Lily Parr was curled up on her side, hugging her very pregnant belly with one arm, and tapping a message into her cell phone with the other. She glanced up at him, jerking up onto her elbow.
She was very pretty, even eight months pregnant, disheveled and clad in a baggy nightgown. She pushed a hank of wavy red-blonde hair from her eyes.
“Hello?” she said cautiously. “And you are?”
Oleg smiled. Her face paled. “A friend,” he said gently.
“Friend to who?”
“You, I hope. If all goes well. Don’t touch that button, Ms.
Parr.”
Lily Parr’s hand froze as she groped for the call button. Her eyes went wide, and her throat worked as she tried to speak, but he clamped down and simply held her still. “Give me your telephone, Ms. Parr.”
She resisted, but she was too inexperienced to be effective at it. Soon her hand began to extend, shaking with terror and tension. Her breath sawed in and out of her mouth. No doubt her heart was racing triple time. Her forehead shone. Her powerless-ness terrified her.
He was sorry to upset a lovely pregnant girl. Women were to be cherished, coddled, enjoyed. Particularly beautiful ones, like this one. A juicy, succulent piece of strawberry tart. He’d always liked it when they were ripe with child. He found it stirring. But there was no alternative.
He plucked the phone from her hand, and toggled the display back into the outbox, to read the message that she had just sent.
Yo, Miles. Aaro needs u 2 stop at a drugstore
when u get 2 spruce ridge. Get electric hair
clippers, razors and shaving gear, black hairpins
for Nina, some sparkly jewelry, rhinestones,
maybe, 4 hanging out with fat cats. + following
makeup, just give the list 2 the salesgirl.
Lipstick-Lucia Magarelli, long lasting glow,
#3245 Autumn Wine. Foundation, also LM, ivory
and alabaster, #149 . . .
The list was long and extensive. Eyeliner, four different colors of foundation, concealer stick of three different types, brow en-hancers, highlighters, moisturizers, under-eye creams, and things he’d never heard of. Women’s tricks. Bless them.
“Miles,” he murmured. “Joining Aaro and Nina in a place called Spruce Ridge. Where exactly is Spruce Ridge, Lily? I can call you Lily, no? I feel as if I know you, after reading that long, thick file. Fascinating life you have led. And your man, too. That incredible business last year, my goodness. Shocking stuff. Congratulations on surviving. And on your impending nuptials. All the best. But we digress. Spruce Ridge?”
A small, defiant head shake was her answer, but he leaned closer, smiling. Clamping down, squeezing. Hard.
She let out a tiny, creaking sound. Tears leaked from her eyes.
He put his hand on her swollen belly, and her muscles twitched. That was all the movement permitted to her. “You need to tell me the location of Spruce Ridge,” he said. “If you care about your little son.”
Her eyes widened still more, horrified.
He clucked his tongue. “Oh, dear, have I made a gaffe? Yes, I saw the ultrasound reports. Had you requested not to be told the child’s sex? Spilled the beans, did I? I’m devastated. Spoiled the surprise for you. Oh!” He gasped, chuckling. “He kicked me! Already defending his mamma. Such a brave, good boy.”
She struggled to speak, and to her credit, got enough traction against his mental pressure to do so. “Fuck . . . off,” she ground out, tonelessly. “Don’t . . . touch . . . my . . . baby.”
“I don’t want to hurt your son.” He plugged the key words
Spruce Ridge
into his phone, and surveyed the results. “Hmm.
California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado. Help me narrow it down, my dear. This is too much territory for one tired old man to cover.”
She shook her head again.
“Denying me is not an option,” he said. “I’m afraid I must insist.”
Her soft lips pursed. She was wondering if she could stall him until her family got back with her chicken pesto sandwhich.
Which they well might, if he did not speed things up. He pulled the video stills from his coat, taken from the hospice. One of Sasha, one of his lady friend.
Lily Parr had neither talent nor training in hiding her feelings.
She recognized both pictures, and her reaction was strong, and visible.
“You know these two?” He petted her belly, freezing her impulse to slap his hand away before her muscles could do more than jerk.
“You see, I understand how you feel about your son,” he told her. “Because this, see . . .” He held up Sasha’s picture. “This is my son.”
Her eyes fixed on the photo, then on his face. To catalog his features: eyes, mouth, jaw, ear, hairline. It was quite a job of forensic excavation, to find the resemblance the young, handsome Sasha bore to him, in his current age and disease-ravaged state, but it was there.
He studied her SMS. “Aaro,” he murmured. “My first wife’s great-great-uncle from Minsk bore that name. Does he use it as a surname?”
The stress of resisting hurt her, and might very well hurt her baby. Stupid girl didn’t know what was good for her. He clicked through her other messages. “Ah, look at this,” he murmured.
“From a Davy McCloud, two hours ago. ‘Sean arr. Denver eight ten rent car, will be there ASAP, attached aerial view of Greaves Convention Center. Working on floor plan.’ My, my! Let me see what happens when I plug Spruce Ridge and Greaves Convention Center into the same search, hmm?”
Tears of helpless rage flashed down Lily Parr’s cheeks.
He hit gold instantly. A gala event, to raise funds for the future Greaves Institute, Spruce Ridge, Colorado. He glanced at the map.
“Colorado,” he said, staring at Lily. Her eyelids twitched, and his heart exulted. Twenty-one years he’ d waited. “Everyone is converging upon Spruce Ridge. Miles, Aaro, Nina, Sean? Glittering earrings to dazzle the fat cats? Makeup, hair trimmer? To clean up for the party?”
She gasped for breath. He put his hand on her belly again.
“You did not tell me the name my son is using, Lily,” he said softly. “Give me my son . . . and I will give you yours.”
Her eyes blazed. He didn’t genuinely need to push her any farther, but her defiance reminded him of Sasha’s. He pulled her onto her feet. Grabbed her upper arms, and clamped down.
Harder . . .
She shuddered, doubled over, and a rush of blood-tinged water flooded down her legs, over her feet, spreading around his shoes.
He stepped back, dismayed. Oh, for God’s sake. She’d broken her water and probably gone into premature labor, the stupid bitch. Just didn’t know when to give in. An epidemic of poor judgment going around.
Lily slid to the ground, sagged onto her side. Fainted. Maybe the child had shifted down in her womb, with the rush of water.
Damn.
It didn’t happen often, but Oleg knew defeat when he saw it.
He took a moment to pop her SIM card out, wipe her phone down and toss it back on her bed, and walked briskly out, leaving the door ajar.
He hobbled down the hall, considering his next dilemma. It was not unlike the one he had faced in the hospice. But he was not as angry at Lily Parr as he had been at Tonya. And he did not want to deprive the world of a luscious strawberry tart, or her little son.
At reception, he put on a concerned expression. “Excuse me, nurse?” he said, to a snub-nosed brunette in flower-spattered scrubs. “I think the lady in the room second from the end of the hall needs help. I saw her through the door, and it looked as if she’d fainted.”
“Thanks for saying something, sir! I’ll have someone check it out!”
Oleg smiled his thanks, and forgot Lily as he hurried to the elevator, his mind buzzing with plans. Obtain a tuxedo, donate money to the Greaves Institute, and organize the flight plan to land his private jet as close to Spruce Ridge, Colorado, as possible.
Thaddeus Greaves leaned and looked at the detail of the architectural model of the proposed Greaves Institute that Rudd had brought. Rudd forced himself not to swallow nervously as he watched the man do so. If he did say so himself, the model was stunning. Twelve feet square and three feet high, from the mas-314
sive, knee-height display table. Every detail picked out. God knows the thing had cost enough.
Rudd watched Greaves pluck a tiny fir tree out of a grove that straddled a greensward, the one that led up Library Hill. He peered at it, heavy dark brows beetling. Greaves was in his early fifties, but looked younger. A fine figure of a man, tall, trim, powerfully built, with olive skin and a shock of gleaming hair that shone a snowy white.
Anabel’s moist, mooning gaze annoyed Rudd. That innocent, milkmaid glow made him twitch. Rudd didn’t like to imagine what was going on in her fertile, self-serving brain. She was under orders to keep her mouth shut unless directly addressed.
So far, she had obeyed. But Anabel was always Anabel.
Greaves peered through his reading glasses at the small tree, and put the pushpin base back, in exactly the tiny hole from which he had taken it. “Pretty. A lovely thought, Harold. Amazing detail. We’ll display it in the Great Hall, under the chandelier. It’ll look great as a foreground while I make the fawning speeches tonight.”
“Yes, the detail really struck me,” Rudd said. “This artist specializes in incredibly detailed models. I’m a firm believer in the magic of visualization, and what could be a more potent way to manifest such a magnificent new reality then a facsimile of the new Institute . . . ah . . . Mr. Greaves? Those buildings are glued down. They don’t come loose.”
“No? Don’t they?”
Pop,
Greaves cracked loose and lifted an exquisitely perfect model of what would eventually be the Swayne Chapel. White, simple colonial style. A sharp and perfect steeple.
“Ah, yes, that will need to be glued down again,” Rudd said nervously. “They’re quite delicate, and if you . . . uh . . .”
His voice trailed off, as the chapel crumpled in Greaves’s fisted hand, collapsing into a handful of sharp, painted splinters.
The small bell tower snapped off, and fell to the Aubusson carpet.
Greaves placed his heel upon the tiny steeple, bore down.
Crunch.
“Yes,” he said. “Quite delicate, Harold. Just as you said.”
Rudd stared at the fragments on the carpet. “Ah . . . if you don’t like the model, I can take it back.”
“Not at all, Harold! I like it very much!” Greaves assured him.
“Even without the chapel, it’s a lovely thing. It’s a perfect visual focus for this event. Brilliant idea, really. I just wanted to make a point, you see. A large enterprise can function even if a key element is removed. The model is still beautiful. I will still display it, and only the donors who . . . now who is it who donated the money for the chapel?”