In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance (6 page)

6

Take a Powder, Kid

“
S
he’s going to
be at the clinic about four months,” Will Duane took Leroy into his study a few days after he had gotten back from rescuing Cass. Leroy was staying at Will’s estate in Woodside, with the pack of warriors he had invited to his home after the Meeting.

Leroy glanced at him, and then looked away quickly.

“I’m sorry, son.” Will knew how lousy he looked. “I’m stressed out. I’ve got a lot on my plate. What you did, finding Cass and getting her to safety, was heroic. I’m very grateful. Have a seat by my desk.” Will moved to the gigantic desk in his personal quarters. “The most important problem in my life is solved. You’d think I’d be relieved. Maybe even
happy.”
He chuckled.

“Turns out Cass was the most important problem
last
week. Now, the rest are screaming.” He ran his hand through his hair, as he did when upset. Will was wired and angry and felt like snapping. At least Leroy didn’t ask him why.

“Let’s go over the game plan for Cass. When she’s discharged from the hospital, I’ll move her to the Havertin Institute for treatment of her addictions and mental illness.” Leroy started to object, but Will shut him down.

“Havertin has an impeccable reputation. And they won’t kick her out. They can’t. It’s a locked institution. I’m committing her involuntarily. She won’t be able to get herself kicked out and go back to what she was. None of us want to go through that again.”

“She’s locked in an’ can’t get out?” Leroy said. “What if she
needs
to get out? What if that place isn’t so good as you think? Can you visit her and see? Can I?”

“No. No visitors. I can talk to her shrink, but not her. By cutting the patients off from the outside world, the hospital becomes their universe and they learn how to live in it, something they didn’t do in
this
world. Havertin is a good place.”

“
You don’t know it’s a good place
. How many good places did you put her in before that didn’t work?”

Leroy had challenged him. No one did that.

Will reared back in his chair, ready to blast the kid. But he smiled. “You care about her, I like that.” He fiddled with a paperclip on his desk, thinking.

If Cass lives, this young man will most likely become my son-in-law. He won’t make it at the level of the pond where I swim, but he’s a damn sight better than all of the sleazy shit-heads Cass has brought home. He can do things that no one can. And he’ll be good to her. Maybe I can clean him up a bit.

“Leroy, there’s no sense you hanging around here for months. How would you like to take a vacation?”

“I’d rather see Cass.”

“That’s not going to happen until she completes treatment.” Will shot a look at him. He’d been told people found his dark blue eyes intimidating. He didn’t care. “Where have you been, Leroy? Have you been to Europe?”

“No.”

“How’d you like to see Rome? And Venice? How about London?”

“No, I’m not interested.”

“Everyone wants to see those places.”

“That time I flew back to New York to get Cass with Doug was the only time I’ve been on a plane. I thought I’d die. I’d never have done it except for Cass. I never want to do it again.”

Will smiled. “If we could handle your fear of flying, would you like to see London? Stay in a castle and go foxhunting in England? Eat pasta in Rome?”

“There is nothing that could make me not afraid of flying.”

The phone rang. Will picked it up.

“Duane here,” Will was silent maybe a minute. “What the fuck are you talking about?” He was out of his seat screaming into his receiver.
“No, Ric, it is not OK if you make ‘a few adjustments’ in the new NumoPhone.
Yes, I know it will increase our margins and market share—until our buyers discover that we’ve sold them crap.

“Numenon does not make crap, Ric,
even if you and your friends want to. Numenon is what it is because it creates excellent products that you have to beat to death to break. We care about our customers.” He listened a bit longer.

“Oh, yeah, Ric. You’re right, we could toughen our exchange policies so if our stuff falls apart, our customers are stuck with it. But we’re not going to, because we’re honest and fair.

“You know the most important thing about Numenon as a corporation? We’ve never been whores for profit.

“No cheap crap. No lying. No screwing buyers. We pay our people living wages. That’s how I’ve run this company for forty years.” He slammed the phone down on the receiver, and stood over his desk, wanting to upend it. Will looked around, eyes settling on Leroy.

“I’ve got to get out of here.” He pushed a button and some draperies opened, revealing a wall of glass with a pair of wide sliding doors going out to a huge deck. Fashionable teak furniture arranged in seating groups was spotted around the deck.

Will dashed out of the house like he was on fire. He walked to the far end of the patio, leaned on the railing, and raked his eyes across the view: rolling golden hills dotted with huge oaks. A freeway cut across the left corner of the scene. You couldn’t hear the traffic from inside, but you could outside. Will looked at the rushing cars, laughing bitterly.

“I couldn’t get CalTrans to build that son of a bitch one hill over thirty years ago when they did it. Look what they did. Ruined my view, but mostly raped the most beautiful valley on the planet. Assholes.

“I guess I shouldn’t mind losing. I’ve lost before.” He laughed again, a little hysterical. Will turned and took a step away from the railing. He stumbled and ended up sitting on one of the big lounge chairs. He swore again and slowly bent his body over his knees.

Leroy realized what was happening and ran over to him. “What’s the matter, Mr. Duane?”

Will looked up, tears in his eyes. He took a moment to speak. “They’re going to take Numenon from me. I thought it would happen when I got back from the Meeting, but I’ve held on.” He flashed a glance at Leroy.

“They can take it from you?” Leroy looked mystified.

“Oh, yeah. All it takes is a vote of
my
Board of Directors and I’ll be out. No matter that
I
founded Numenon and made it what it is for over forty years. Jackasses who couldn’t keep a hamburger joint solvent are going to fire
me
.” Will paused, hiding his face with his hands.

“I’ve known it was coming, I just didn’t know how much it would
hurt
 …” Leroy handed him a handkerchief.

“I wrecked my marriage by running around with women, but I wasn’t chasing my dick all the time. I gave every waking hour to Numenon. I gave it my soul, my heart.” He made a pfft! and waved his hands. “And now, I’m going to lose it.

“What’s happening?” Leroy said.

“The bad guys are going to win. You know about Sandy Sydney, don’t you?” Leroy did. Doug had told him about the rogue super-secretary who was not only the most beautiful blonde in existence; she was a fiend and recruiter for the devil. “She fucked every one of my executives. If they weren’t bastards before, they’re demons now. That’s what’s taking over the company I founded. The spawn of the devil.

“Sandy Sydney would have gotten me, too, except I had a feeling about her. One thing screwing as many hookers as I have did for me—I can smell one coming.” He chuckled. His face felt like a plaster casting.

“The Meeting was …” he exhaled. “How can you describe the Meeting? Hell and heaven, back to back. I faced myself and saw what an asshole I had been. But I saw something else, too.” Will raised his head, a little hope coming back. “I experienced the glory of the universe. I discovered that I was a man of God, and I had been all my life. I’ve had visions that guided me all my life.
They
are what made Numenon what it is.”

“When I got back from the Meeting, I wanted to make Numenon into a corporation based on Love. Like your grandfather talks about. Love, respect. Caring for the people and the planet. I sound like a bleeding heart? Don’t I? You know why? I
am
! I always have been. But I was too chicken to come out and be who I really was.

Will looked at him, face haggard again. “Ric Chao and Frank Sauvage will be monsters wearing human flesh by next year. They’ll make my Numenon into an economic rape and pillage machine.

“They’ll discredit everything I’ve done. That’s what I’ll get to live with in my golden years.

“And then Cass on top of it …” He threw up his hands with a hopeless chuckle. “She’s my only family.”

Leroy moved forward. He was going to try to heal him, Will could see. But he wouldn’t let him. He deserved to suffer. Will held up his hand, a stiff smile on his face.

“Hey. I’ll have Doug or someone put an itinerary together for you. Go on a trip, Leroy. Have fun. Someone needs to. And who knows, next trip, maybe it will be you and me and Cass. A family.

“Go.” Will waved him away before Leroy could lessen his pain.

“Will, dear,” the raspy voice of one of his dearest and oldest—in every way—friends assailed Will’s ears through his phone.

“You’re always the harbinger of good news, Vanessa. What do you want to blame me for now?” She could not have chosen a worse time to call.

“Oh, my, aren’t we touchy?”

“I just finished discussing the demise of my professional career with an almost stranger. A cowboy, or Indian. The man who saved Cass. All I needed was a vampire attack”

“I’m not a vampire, Will. My family has never had anything to do with
vampires.
But tell me about Cass. I heard that young man and your other people have found Cass. That’s wonderful.”

“It was nothing short of miraculous, Vanessa. She’s in terrible condition. I’ve put her in a hospital to gain weight and stabilize her physical condition. When she’s healthy enough, I’m moving her to the Havertin Institute in New York to handle her addiction and mental health problems.”

“Why send her so far away, Will? My hospital is at your disposal, both for her physical and mental needs. Do you know how well our facility is rated? My hospital is top rated in every dimension. And we’re thirty minutes from your house. I’ll see that she gets well.”

Will’s jaws clenched. “Vanessa, I put her in your hospital years ago. You know what happened. I walked into your barn three days after she got there and found her fucking my horse trainer and doing coke.

“You can’t handle her. You don’t have the security and you don’t have the experience to deal with someone like Cass. Your nicey-nicey staff, Rudy and the rest of them, don’t know what to do with someone who attacks when she’s threatened and can con you faster than shake your hand.

“What diseases do you treat, anyway?”

“You know what illnesses I treat at our clinic,” Vanessa said stiffly. “My children are bipolar and schizophrenic. You know that. You also know that, in addition to caring for my family, I take other interesting psychiatric cases to keep my psychiatrists busy and myself alive intellectually.”

“What’s your cure rate?”

She bridled. “The diseases we treat are incurable. They are
treatable
. People with the disorders can live healthy, fully functioning lives.”

“How many of your patients have jobs and marriages when you’re done?”

“That’s cruel, Will. You know how ill my family is. The other patients we take are the most difficult cases that exist. Other institutions have not been able to help them. When they leave here, they’re better.” The old lady’s voice was tight with anger.

“Will, I think you’re making a terrible mistake that you’ll regret forever. Why a hospital so far away?

“I’m satisfied with my investigation and …” He depressed the lever on his phone while he was speaking. He smiled. She’d never know he hung up on her.

Will sat at his desk in his home office. He stared at the fine wooden surface spreading out in front of him. The draperies were closed, but he wouldn’t have been distracted by the priceless view of the rolling golden hills of Woodside, one of the most affluent towns in the world.

Why did Vanessa think she had the right to talk to him like that? Cass was his daughter. He had the right to decide what was best for her. He squirmed in his chair. He’d been uneasy since Leroy had come back. She would get well, and they would have the father-daughter relationship he’d dreamed of all of her life.

Leroy had found her, but
he
would save her. He and the hundreds of thousands it would cost to get her through the hospitals. He’d done it so many times before, and he would this time. He would save his daughter as long as she was alive.
He
would do that.

She would not run off with some penniless cowboy whose spelling didn’t make fifth grade. Leroy had written him an email from New York. The man was barely literate. Cass was
his
. His muscles tensed: jaws, shoulders, arms. Thighs, feet. Will didn’t notice.

He was back there again. What had happened last Christmas was live for a moment: his Montana ranch’s log walls glowed. The lights on the pine garlands festooning the great hall twinkled. The tree touched the three story high ceiling, branches weighed down by ornaments.