Heidelberg Effect (7 page)

Before lunch hour was over, her cellphone
buzzed. As she dug it out of her purse she found herself hoping it
was Rowan although he hadn’t called in weeks and never called in
the day. It was her father.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hi, sweetie, can you talk?”

Her guard went up instantly. For her father
not to bother with weather forecasts or questions about her life in
Heidelberg meant he was calling with a purpose.

“What’s up?”

“Just wondering how my Number One daughter
is doing.”

Ella frowned and looked at
the digital clock on her computer.
Had he
been drinking?

“I’m fine,” she said.

“So, did your investigations prove
fruitful?”

Okay now she really did think her dad was
totally losing it. He must be driving Susie crazy

“My investigations?”

“About your mother’s family.”

As soon as the words were
out of his mouth, she knew that the need for an important
conversation with him had been in the back of her mind ever since
she first learned about Vogel. There was no question about him not
knowing. The CIA would have cleared her mother early on so
that
little secret would
have been long out. Unfortunately, now was not a good time to talk
about it.

“Not fruitful, really,” she said. “But if
you could give me any leads, that would be great.”

“Okay,” he said.

She waited but her father didn’t speak.

Now wasn’t a good time anyway, she reminded
herself. “How’s Susie?” she asked.

“Good, good,” he said. “She’s taking up
pottery. She really loves it.”

“
That’s nice,” she said.
“Good for her. Well, Dad? I’m right in the middle of my work
day…”

“Of course, sweetheart,” he said. “Still
carry your Taser?”

For the love of God…

“You know I do,” she said, watching her
supervisor walk past her frowning. “Gotta go, Dad,” she said.

That night she didn’t bother going home to
change first. She and Heidi went straight out to dinner and the
clubs. They were at a table in a noisy club with music and dancing.
They had left their dinner wines far behind and were forgetting the
strains of the day to the tune of Absolut martinis straight up.
They both smoked and Ella thought that Heidi was just about the
best accessory a single girl could have. She was so effortlessly
elegant—kind of like a German Grace Kelly—that she brought up
Ella’s game, too. Or at least that’s the way Ella saw it. She
examined the pink lipstick stain on the filter of her Marlboro
Light. What goes around comes around, she thought. Smoking is cool
again.

“I was afraid Frau Imlereich was going to
fire me today,” Heidi said, as she sipped her drink. “I am always
late back from lunch. I couldn’t bear it if we were not together at
work, Ella.”

Ella grinned. With all the friends that
Heidi had—including in the office—it pleased Ella that she would be
missed by her friend.

“I know, me, too,” Ella said. “But honestly,
Heidi, how do you stand being on the front desk? It must be so
boring! I mean, even with my job there’s never a concrete result
that you can point to and say, ‘there, I did that. There is the
result of my eight hours at this desk.’ You know?”

Heidi laughed. “You are so funny, Ella!” she
said.

“I know, right? Thinking I could find
fulfillment in my employment? But you don’t mind it? The work?”

Heidi shrugged. “One has to work.” Heidi
didn’t normally drink as much as they were drinking tonight. Ella
noticed that she was definitely loosening up.

“We should go shopping together,” Heidi said
and waved to get the waiter’s attention to refresh their drinks.
“And spend our money before our husbands tell us we cannot.” Heidi
made a face and Ella laughed.

“The husbands we haven’t met yet,” Ella
said.

“Our work tonight is to find out why we
haven’t met them yet,” Heidi said, “and why Hugo still has not made
his move for you!”

“Is he here tonight?” Ella asked, twisting
in her seat to scan the other diners at the club.

“Everyone in Heidelberg is here tonight!”
Heidi said a little too loudly.

A rush of sisterly concern flooded Ella and
she reached over and took her friend’s hand. It was hard to believe
that the happy and laughing Heidi had any problems. It was too easy
to accept the façade as the truth and to ignore the sadness that
might lay just below the surface.

“I have an idea,” Ella
said. “Let’s take the horse and carriage home through
Altstadt
to my place.
You can spend the night since tomorrow’s Saturday. I’ll make you
pancakes in the morning.”

Heidi laughed, the sound a tinkle of genuine
pleasure to Ella’s ears.

“Nein
, Ella,” she said, wagging a finger at her drunkenly. “I have
a cheer-you-up present for you tonight. I have been waiting all day
to spring it at you.”

“Should I be worried?” Ella watched her
friend with a combination of amusement, curiosity and mild
trepidation. She really did look like she was going over the top
tonight.

“Only if hot sex and strong arms to hold you
is a worry for you.”

“Okay, now I’m really confused.”

“Guess who?” A pair of warm hands covered
her eyes from behind and Ella jumped and found herself resisting
the powerful urge to judo chop her assailant to gain release. Just
as well, she thought, when he dropped his hands and spun her around
to face him. Her judo chopping skills were largely textbook, having
had no real opportunity to ever practice them.

“Hey, Hugo,” she said. “What a surprise.”
She looked over her shoulder at Heidi who was snuggling up to a man
Ella had never seen before who was obviously with Hugo. “My
surprise tonight, I deduce.”

“Happy birthday, Ella!” Heidi said too
loudly.

“Mein
Gott
!” Hugo said, running a hand down
Ella’s arm in a proprietary way. She could smell the alcohol
wafting off of him. Obviously the party had started much earlier
than dinner. “It is your birthday?”

Ella shook her head. “No,” she said.
“Heidi’s being witty, is all.”

“Well, happy
birthday,
liebling
,” Hugo said, ignoring her words. “We’ll have to celebrate
tonight!”

“Yes! Yes!” Heidi said, clinging to Hugo’s
friend. “Let’s celebrate.”

Hugo picked up the check from the table and,
over Ella’s protestations, threw down enough Euros to cover their
meal.

“I am buying you your birthday meal,” he
said, happily. “Now, where to?”

Heidi jumped up and grabbed her coat.

“Erik and I are going back to my place,” she
said, looking at Ella. “Pancakes another time, Ella?”

Whoa. Things were happening fast.

“How long have you known Erik?” Ella blurted
the words before she knew they were forming in her head.

Both Heidi and Hugo laughed. Erik looked
like he didn’t understand English. A tall, lanky young man with
sallow skin, he waited patiently for Heidi to extricate herself
from the group. He stood apart, as if ready to drag her out of the
restaurant if things took too long.

“I love Americans,” Heidi said, swooping in
and giving Ella a kiss on both cheeks. “Do not worry about me, my
friend,” she said. “I have known Erik long enough to know him.” She
giggled at her own nonsense and then turned to stumble into Erik’s
waiting arms. She waved as he escorted her out. “See her safe home,
Hugo!” she called before disappearing into the crowd.

Ella looked at Hugo. “That’s not necessary,”
she said quickly.

“Few things in life are,” he said smiling
enigmatically.

The walk was slow and
unhurried. When they arrived at her apartment, Ella had already
decided she would allow him up for one drink as a thank-you for the
escort home. She had to admit he was supremely gorgeous in that
very blond
Hitlerjugend
sort of way. Like the messenger boy in
The Sound of Music
who’s
so cute and fresh before he goes all Nazi on poor Elsa or whatever
the girl’s name was. The fact was, it had been a horrible day and
Ella wasn’t ready to be alone. She was absolutely sure she could
manage things so they didn’t get out of hand. Just watching Hugo
walk her to her apartment convinced her he was probably too smashed
to even get it up.

Once in the apartment, she poured them both
wine from a bottle she had opened the night before. He offered her
a cigarette and she decided to join him on the balcony where the
two of them sat smoking and drinking and talking until one glass of
wine turned into three and she was looking through her cabinets to
find the Wild Turkey she thought she still had. She took her shoes
off and loosened her hair so it fell down around her shoulders.
When they ran out of matches, they lit their cigarettes off each
other’s and giggled and talked about nothing until the streets
outside her apartment were as quiet as death.

She noticed he hadn’t mentioned the Vogel
connection. Probably assumed she would just as soon forget it. He
was right.

“It’s getting chilly,” he said. “Shall we go
in?”

“I hate to,” Ella said, feeling woozy and
high but better than she’d felt in days. “But you’re right.” She
gathered up the bourbon bottle and the ashtray while he picked up
the two drinking glasses.

As they settled on her couch in the living
room, he made his move, totally surprising her. He slid next to her
and grabbed her hips with his hands and pulled her to him where he
planted a very wet and somewhat sloppy kiss on her laughing
mouth.

“Oh, stop, you’re making me dizzy,” Ella
said, giggling. When she reached up to wipe some of the slobber off
her mouth, the gesture so tickled her that she started laughing
like she couldn’t stop.

“It is very funny.” Hugo said as he watched
her try to get control of her laughter. Just the way he said it set
her off again.

“I’m sorry, Hugo,” she
said, still laughing. “I’m not laughing
at
you, I’m just—” but she couldn’t
get the rest of the sentence out because she was so definitely
laughing at his patient expression.

Hugo pulled back, frowning and watching her.
When she finally stopped laughing, he reached into his pocket and
pulled out what looked like a small block of white cheese.

“You see what I have here?” he said, holding
the white block up for her to see.

She wiped her eyes and squinted at it.
“Looks like…tofu?” she grinned like she was going to start laughing
again but he spoke quickly.

“C-4,” he said.

She wasn’t laughing now. She looked at the
tofu-like block.

“C-4 as in
explosive
?” she
said.

He nodded. “I am using it in my job,” he
said.

Ella shook her head and tried to remember
what his job was.

“My
job
,” he said, as if hurt that she
didn’t instantly know, as if she must have been thinking of him all
these weeks as he was thinking of her.

“Your job as a…”

“I am a building demolition contractor. My
firm dismantles buildings.” He waved the block in her face.

“I’m impressed,” Ella said, feeling more
sober by the moment. “You bring your work home with you?”

Hugo shrugged. “It’s controlled,” he said.
“To be certified to handle C-4 speaks to my ability as a
contractor.”

“What does it say about you that you would
bring it on a date?” Ella asked.

He grinned, tossed it in the air and caught
it.

“That I want to impress my date, of course,”
he said. “Did it work? I have the blasting caps, too. Want to
see?”

“Sure.” Ella was starting
to talk to him as she would a crazy person.
Don’t upset him. Don’t let on he’s upsetting you.

He pulled out three long metal tubes with
wires attached to the ends.

“I carry them around like most men carry car
keys!” He placed them on the coffee table with the C-4 and then
turned to Ella. His grin was so genuine and playful that Ella’s
suspicions fell away. He was just a big doofus trying to impress a
girl, she thought. In a really bizarre fashion. The interesting
thing? It sort of worked. Ella found herself fascinated with the
items on the coffee table.

Hugo scooted back over to her and slipped
his arms around her to hoist her up onto his lap. She was so
surprised at the move that she let him do it. He held up a finger
in front of her face in a mock scold.

“No laughing,” he said, which made her
smile.

When he kissed her, she turned in his arms
until she was straddling him on the couch. Within seconds, his
hands were under her blouse and bra and cupping her naked breasts.
She gasped at how fast she had gotten to this position. What he was
doing felt amazing but a creeping feeling told her that there was
something not right. Then it came to her: All the night’s alcohol
and all the exquisite sensuous throbbing in all the right places
couldn’t hide the fact that he wasn’t Rowan. As soon as the thought
formed in her head, the wonderful feelings above and below the
waist faded to nothing.

She pushed away from him and pulled his
hands from her breasts. “Hugo,” she said.

“No, you are not going to stop us,” he said,
nuzzling her breasts through her blouse.

“Yes, I am,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m
drunk. You’re drunk…”

“Not that drunk. I can still perform if
that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Hugo,” she said, moving off his lap. “I
can’t do this. I’m sorry.” She moved out of his reach and
rearranged her blouse. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll make us some
coffee.”