In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance (23 page)

28

OK. So He Didn’t M
ake It Through the Night

“
W
ill? I want
to know where Cass is and how she’s doing.” The words shot out of Leroy’s mouth. His interaction with his father had wound him up enough to take Will on.

“She’s fine, Leroy.” Will’s voice was too smooth.

“Fine, like fine, or fine, like not dead?”

“I’m getting good reports from the Institute. She’s settling in and adjusting to their regimen.”

“She’s at that Institute? Why didn’t you tell me you’d moved her?”

“I wasn’t aware that I
had
to tell you anything.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“I have not talked to her. I’ve talked to the director and her psychiatrist. The Institute has a very effective treatment program.

“The patients are denied access to the outside world. They have to learn to cope inside the hospital culture and learn healthy ways of living. Remember, they’re addicts with severe mental disorders and criminals. It’s the only way they can heal, Leroy.”

“That is not the only way they can heal. My grandfather could have healed her in two days. It might take me three. She doesn’t have to be there. She’s there because you don’t trust me.

“I haven’t seen her since we rescued her on March 23rd. It’s October 26th. That’s
seven
months. I figured you’d moved her to that other place. But when? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“That is my business as much as yours.” Leroy could feel himself lean into it. “I am going to marry her. Cass matters to me. And you’re lying. There’s something you’re not telling me.

The moment he said “lying,” he could feel Will change, like popping a grenade.

“You’re calling me a
liar
? You’re a two-bit pretty boy. All you can do is drum and spend my money.”

“I thought you didn’t care what you spent on me. You were bringing me into the family.
I’m Cass’s soul mate.”
Leroy had had enough. Sarcasm permeated his words. “Tell me what you’re keeping from me or I’ll fly home
now
and drag it out of you.”

Big pause on Will’s end. The grenade was ticking. “She’s brain-damaged. Apparently when you
saved
her, you let her die a few times too. And waited too long to bring her back. She’s brain-damaged. Now are you happy?”

Leroy couldn’t move. Speak. Breathe. “She’s brain-damaged?”

“Yes. Fruit of your healing. If you …”

“I can’t bring anyone back from the dead. If she came back, she did it herself. Are those doctors sure? Half the time their tests are wrong …”

“They’re sure.” Will’s voice was clipped.

“How bad is it? Can she talk?”

“She sounds fine when I talk to her on the phone. They say her IQ has dropped significantly, but that will just make you a better couple.”

“
What
?”

“I’ve had you investigated. You barely got out of high school. I saw your records, Leroy. Six years to graduate from a lousy reservation high school with a D average.”

“You think I let Cass die and get brain-damaged? But that doesn’t matter because I’m so dumb, we’ll make a better match now?” Will meant that exactly; Leroy felt him breathing it in and breathing it out.

“I saved your life in Paris. I prayed for you all night. I watched your back and covered your ass in that meeting.

“And you lie to me, and blame me, and hold all this shit about me for months and months and never say a thing. You really are an asshole.” Leroy quivered as he spoke.

Leroy could feel Will suck in air, maybe all the air in the universe. “YOU UNGRATEFUL SON OF A BITCH!” Will exploded. “All you’re good for is playing drums and dancing with little girls. I know about you. I had you
investigated. Watched, Leroy! I’ve had you watched every minute you’ve been over there!

“WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO OFFER ME
FOR WHAT I’VE DONE FOR YOU?”
Will stopped. Leroy could hear him breathing, panting as he thought up more insults. Time seemed to pause and then Leroy fired back.

“Never speak to me like that. Never speak to
anyone
like that.” Leroy’s voice was low and very intense. He hung up. The fury he’d felt after talking to his dad was not even a fly-speck on the surface of the cosmos to what he felt then.

He took off into the night, running along the deserted sidewalk. He wanted thugs to show up so he could kill them. Demons. Will. He could disembowel Will a dozen times before feeling satisfied. Two dozen.

Another man would have gone to a bar and gotten drunk. Leroy kept running and hoping Enzo
and
Diego Donatore would show up so he could tear them apart.

Asshole
. What Will had said hurt. He didn’t know what Leroy was in training to be.
My grandpa was in a trance for twenty years when he was becoming a holy man. I did it in six.

His ribs heaved in and out. Cass wasn’t safe. She was in a very bad place. Her father was an asshole. No wonder she was so sick. What did Will say to Cass about
her
grades?

29

Daddy’s Little Girl

W
ill dropped the
smoking shards of his phone, backing away from his desk. The phone had exploded when Leroy spoke those quiet but charged words. The part that didn’t explode melted. Electrical energy surged out of the telephone, fried the line, went into the wall, and kept going. He could see charred lines along the floor where the phone’s power went. It probably burned all the way out of the house to the telephone pole.

“Are you all right, Mr. Duane?” One of his operatives was at his door. They were back in force. When he moved Cass to the Institute and didn’t tell Leroy, Carl refused to work for him. He cooked, that was it. Hannah’s people were the top dogs in security again, crawling all over in their black clothes. “We lost the power in the house for a second. Are you OK?”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

Jesus Christ, Will gasped. That kid blew up a bull. He kills demons. He’d saved Will’s life.
What the fuck are you screwing with him for?

“Don’t talk to me that way. Don’t talk to anyone that way.” Remembering Leroy’s words made Will’s guts shiver. The remains of the phone wiggled too.

He
was
a foul-mouthed, bad-tempered old man with no sense of propriety when he was angry. How did he know what Leroy’s high school was like? Out on a reservation? Maybe they’d didn’t have books. Maybe he was dyslexic or had an attention deficit. He’d proven he could outperform anybody, anywhere. What he’d said to Leroy was
so
rude.

Oh, shit. He cleared the rubble of the phone away and leaned his forehead on his hand. Something
was f
ishy about that Havertin Institute. Why did he defend it so? Because of a corporate buddy who wasn’t even a good friend? Because he didn’t think Cass could be saved? Because he wanted to punish her for what she’d said to him last Christmas and for years before?

Or was it what Leroy said, he didn’t trust him? Will didn’t trust anyone. If something awful happened and he needed help, would Leroy come after what he said?

His cell phone rang—he could hear it in his bedroom. He ran to get it, thinking it was Leroy calling back.

“I’m sorry …”

“Well, good Will. I’m sure that you have lots to be sorry about.” The dry old voice was like a rasp on his already shredded nerves. It was Vanessa Schierman. Dr. Vanessa Schierman. “Do you want to tell me what it is?”

“No.”

“I figured not. Probably would be good for your soul if you did.”

“I lost my temper and mouthed off at Ashley’s fiancé.” The words came out: Ashley, fiancé.

“I didn’t know she was engaged. I thought you put her in jail.”

“Vanessa, she is not in jail, she is in a very fine mental hospital.”

“
I
run a fine mental hospital.
Cass—
or does she like Ashley now?
—
is in jail. Probably a medieval type one where they torture people.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Months ago, when Cass was rescued and you announced your plans for her, I looked up the Havertin Institute on my Numenon Ranger. That new Internet is handy. They have a very nice website laying out their treatment program and introducing their staff.

“I talked to Rudy about the place. Have you met him, my Chief of Psychiatry? Brilliant and with the credentials of God. He knew the director and key staff personally and felt they were highly qualified. Rudy didn’t like their prohibition of family and patient contact, but he said it fit with their therapeutic modality and wasn’t bad for a mid-term program. He said that the hospital should try to reintegrate the patient with the family and rebuild the family structure, but that was a long-term goal.

“Rudy was satisfied, so I was satisfied, for the moment.

“I looked up Havertin again today and couldn’t believe my eyes. New director, almost all new staff. Rudy’s never heard of any of them. He’s investigating them now. Same treatment program, though it looked as though they simply hadn’t changed that portion of their website. Did they contact you to tell you this?”

“Yes, Vanessa, they did. It was a corporate buy-out. A larger medical group now owns Havertin. The director of the overarching corporation is also a friend of mine. Cass has her existing psychiatrist and counseling team, though they have changed some players at the administrative level. And I’ve talked with her psychiatrist. Cass is fine. Does that satisfy you?”

“No, Will, it doesn’t. Given Cass’s propensity to attract demons, I’d be very suspicious of any staff changes, anywhere in the organization. Why don’t you have your famous lawyers check them out? I’ll let Rudy continue researching their shrinks. Why don’t you hop on a plane and demand to see her and meet her doctors? I know you’re assertive enough to manage that.” He was silent. Why
didn’t
he do that?

“Will, I don’t understand why any hospital would prohibit the patients from contact with their families? If their families are also their drug dealers, I can see it, but you? Have they involved you in any of her therapy?”

“No.”

“There’s a big mistake. You’re at least as crazy as she is. I’m sure half of what’s wrong with her is due to you.”

“Did you call to insult me, Vanessa, or was something on your mind?”

“I called to invite you to Christmas dinner.”

“Christmas dinner. Just like that? Out of the blue?”

“Yes. I had to find out about Cass first. The dinner is on Christmas Day. In a couple of months. I know I’m early, but I forget everything even with my staff to help. I’ll probably call and invite you again. I wanted to make sure I got on your busy social calendar. Three o’clock sharp. You’re coming, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Do you need Driver to pick you up?”

“No. I have my own driver.”

He shivered when he hung up. God, that old woman scared him. She was a witch, he knew it. Her house was way up on the top of Skyline Boulevard in the middle of the redwoods. Looked like a haunted house. It had to be a haunted house. The stone gargoyles on the walls moved. The carvings on the wood paneling winked. Ancestor portraits circled the staircase, going up four stories. They winked, and waved.

Why did he say he’d go? The mental hospital portion of her property was so much more normal than the rest of the estate. What could Christmas be like up there? Why did she even celebrate Christmas? She couldn’t possibly believe in it.

But it was months away. Plenty of time to think of an excuse. Plenty of time to calm down from Leroy’s attack. Plenty of time to forget what he had said. All the time he needed to adjust to the fact that the Native Americans he had brought home from the Meeting had announced that they would be leaving. Leroy hadn’t called them and told them about their fight and what Will had said; Carl made the announcement before he and Leroy fought.

He’d asked Carl why they were leaving. “‘Ain’t workin’ for us here. We can’t help you anymore.”

This Christmas, he’d be alone in his luxurious mansion on his expansive estate that could hold all those people without much fuss, really. Once he got used to being around people everything was fine. The children would be gone and the baby. Bud and Bert let him hold the baby whenever he wanted. He had bright brown eyes and glossy black hair. Four new teeth! And the two little ones would be gone. He was going to get Junior a puppy for Christmas. He was having a hard time adjusting to Woodside. Tore at Will’s heart to see Junior’s sad brown eyes.

They would all be gone. The estate would be silent. He would be alone. He’d been alone most of his life. What was the problem? If he was lonely, he could go to the ranch in Montana and have his cook make a fabulous spread for him and the ranch hands. Or dig up some corporate party. How about having Frank Sauvage and his family over? Hysteria tinged his short laugh.

Will struggled, chest heaving. He would go to Vanessa’s for Christmas and he knew it. Why? Because she was more a mother to him than his real mother could have been if she’d gone to therapy every day of her life. Vanessa knew everything about him and accepted him.

Her voice was gruff and so was she, but that was a front, just like her crazy mansion. She made him feel good, and safe, and at home. She loved him. He’d go to Christmas at her house when the day came. If it came.