He just never should've had children.
'I'm tired,' I said, suddenly feeling even older than his 61 years. 'I'm working on a big account and it's got me on edge. Evie's call knocked me over that edge and now you're catching the fallout.'
It wasn't an apology. He didn't deserve one and he knew it.
'I'll call the doctor this morning,' he said. I guess if I could make concessions, so could he.
'Good. I'll call you when I find a new nurse.'
'Okay.'
Another awkward silence. This was the point at which many fathers and daughters would exchange little affectionate phrases like 'I love you' and 'I miss you.' We knew that. We just had no way to get there from here.
'So… I'll talk to you later,' I said.
'Okay. Bye.'
'Bye.'
Beep. I found it terribly ironic that lately all my conversations with family members ended in a high, annoying sound.
I threw the phone on my bed, dropped down beside it. Before other things demanded my attention I picked up the phone, dialed Evie's number and left a message for her to get me the number of the nursing pool we'd drawn the last woman from. Hopefully I could hire one who hadn't yet talked to his old nurse and learned what an ass Albert could be.
Chapter Seven
I woke to the sound of a doorbell.
'Hey,' I told the clock, which was blinking 1:00 p.m. at me, 'I went back to sleep. How cool is that?' Even better was the total lack of nightmares. I started to bounce out of bed, but my ribs turned it into more of a slow roll. Grief accompanied me to the door. Vayl had taped a note there.
I looked through the peephole. Nobody. And the only inhabitant of the hall, when I opened the door, was a serving cart full of covered dishes. I imagined the waiter dashing back to the elevator after he'd rung so I wouldn't catch a glimpse of him and think,
I uncovered the lids to each dish one by one, offering each plate a round of applause as it appeared. Number one plate held three small pancakes, a slab of butter and a mini-pitcher of syrup. A mushroom omelet spread itself across plate number two and plate number three held four slices of extra crispy bacon. Vayl had also ordered coffee and a big glass of orange juice. I saluted his closed door with my mug and said, 'To you, Boss. May you never realize how much I truly like you.'
Which brought up toe-tingling memories of last night. You know what, best to leave those alone. Write the whole thing off to delayed reaction due to surviving a car wreck and an assassination attempt and ignore the fact that it had never happened before despite some close brushes with death on our previous missions together. Stuff those uncomfortably exciting feelings in a manila folder and lock them in one of Pete's black metal file cabinets. Case closed.
As I ate the most delicious breakfast I'd consumed in months, I planned my afternoon. Since anything to do with Assan fell under Vayl's domain, I tabled the whole issue and moved on to our more immediate problem. Four fairly well-informed killers disguised as religious fanatics did not just materialize and try to eliminate two Central Intelligence Agency employees. I wasn't sure how they'd even found us on that highway, but I did have a theory. Someone must have told them we were after Assan, so they had probably watched his house until we showed up. That someone had taken a big risk too, because only a handful of people even knew we existed. That included Pete, the three senators on our department's oversight committee, Bergman, and the woman I was about to call.
Our secure phone sat where we'd left it last night, beside the laptop in front of the unoccupied chair at my breakfast table. I swallowed my last bite and used that phone to call Martha. She answered on the first ring.
'Demlock Pharmaceuticals,' she said in her gravelly baritone. She hadn't smoked a day in her life, but you'd never know it by her voice.
'I need to establish an order.'
'Hold, please.'
Moments later Martha was back on a line that was now secure from her end as well as mine.
'What do you need, hon?'
My secretary called me 'hon.' How cool was that? Of course, she could pretty much do as she liked. She might be a 4'8' granny with mocha skin and whipped cream hair, but she could nail your ass to the floor with a single look. I asked her about it one time. She said it was the result of raising seven children, every one of whom still wilted beneath The Look like old lettuce. Never mind the only one of her kids without a Ph.D. was an M.D. All of them acknowledged her as the Supreme Leader of the Evans clan. Luckily she had her soft-spoken hubby, Lawrence, around to make sure her rule didn't run to fascism. Lawrence spent his weekdays teaching at the Southern Baptist Seminary and his weekends saving souls at Hope Baptist just down the street from my apartment. What a sweet man. And generous too, unlike some guys I was about to name.
'Hey Martha, I need to talk to Pete. Um, how is he feeling today?' As Pete's secretary (and Vayl's—we're big on sharing at the C.I.A., just ask the F.B.I.) she was in the best position to know.
