Retribution (16 page)

They had been over that before, the two of them, off and on for years. Wade rubbed his hands together now, unwilling to get back into the discussion as to why the removal of the tumor had disrupted Charlie's creative ability as well as motor ability. Right side versus left side— there should have been no correlation. But this was not the concern now. The fact that she had missed her checkup was.

"No one called to reschedule her appointment because the folder was in your department."

Elyse nodded. She passed the folder over wordlessly.

Wade accepted it, flipped it open, laid it out, and glanced over it. The days seemed to go by in a blur now. He could have sworn it had not been so long since he had seen Charlie, but it had, and then some. This was his fault, too, as much as it was Roseburg's clerical staff, but he would not admit that. Could not. He considered the chart in front of him. He would have Sunrise fax whatever they had on her, unwilling to wait and see if there were reports floating around downstairs in someone's in-box waiting for the folder to turn up. He inclined his head slightly and rubbed at his tired eyes again.

Elyse smiled kindly. "Time to get those reading glasses?"

He stared at her. "Really trying to get on my good side, aren't you?"

She leaned forward in her chair. "And how do you feel about that, Dr. Clarkson?"

"Like calling your husband, taking him golfing, humiliating him for eighteen holes, then letting him go home to take it out on you."

Elyse let out a peal of laughter. "Son of a bitch, you would, wouldn't you?" She added kindly, "For what it's worth, she doesn't seem to be at risk any more."

"True," Wade responded. "Until last Sunday. She collapsed at a benefit. I'll have to get her in here as soon as possible."

"Oh, no."

"George Laverman just phoned me to see what the prognosis was. Imagine my embarrassment to be totally in the dark."

She pointed to the open doorway. "If you can ever forgive me, I'd like to see the file again when it's updated. In the meantime, I have another file to review before the victim… patient… gets here."

He nodded and stood. There was more that he wanted to say— to rage about— but this was a colleague, and he did not make a habit of burning bridges. She knew that her slip was only one in a chain of them. Still, he hesitated, to give her an opening to say something.

Elyse paused as if she had read his mind. "Wade. I owe you and your staff an apology. I hope that nothing we did kept Charlie from getting treated promptly."

"Me, too," he answered as he went out the door. It was not good enough, but it was something.

He resettled at his desk after leaving word that he wanted all records forwarded to him ASAP, and that Sunrise was to fax him copies at his personal number, even though his secretary was still away from her desk. He went into his office, and sat down, and looked at the painting, shutting himself away with his memories of Abby and a child prodigy and a tumor.

By three-thirty the installation was finished as promised, and Charlie stood wearily, leaning against the framing for an office doorway, appraising it. Lunch with Grant and her mother had been hurried and strained, with Mary watching every bite she took as if she could blame nutrition for failing her. In truth, Charlie could scarcely remember what she'd eaten, though it sat uneasily in her stomach now. She'd been working nonstop since returning, directing the workmen, making sure the appropriate dye lots went to the proper stories for installation.

She made a mental note that the Caribbean colors needed to be warmed a little more for future runs, if she sold the design and scheme to WindRiver. Of course, that was part of the illusion of the textile, to cool the body through the mind and vision, saving a little on air-conditioning costs. Even a degree or two made a big difference in a commercial office building, and it had been proved that colors could affect body temperature as well as mood.

Her leg ached. She bent over and rubbed it, knowing that she should start wearing her brace again. It was light-weight aluminum, velcroed shut, a far cry from the appliance she'd first worn years ago. She did not like to wear it now, but understood that the leg had an inherent weakness and even with constant exercise, it might never carry its share of the strain of supporting her body and walking. The alternative to wearing the brace when she needed to was having the leg break under stress, and that would hamper her even further.

If only wearing leg braces were as fashionable as eyeglasses and teeth braces seemed to have become.

Charlie let out a wry laugh, interrupted by the vibration at her waist of her beeper. She reached for it, and read that her bank wanted a call or personal visit as soon as possible. She blinked at that. Perhaps she had forgotten to roll a CD when it had matured. She thumped back a yes in response to the page and straightened, signaling Jagger. Harry Ramirez, engrossed as he was in getting his crew to clean up, leaving the area impeccable at the other end of the corridor, saw her movement.

He lifted his head. "Leaving now, Miz Saunders?"

"Yes, Harry. It looks wonderful."

"Thank you. I'll tell my boys that." He waved his hand, followed by a few lilting words in Spanish, and the workmen nearest her lifted their faces and beamed at her.

Charlie gave a last brush of her hand as she entered the elevator. She stopped at the central floor where Kensington had been installed since the building was first even barely habitable, disregarding the havoc of the continuing building and customization around him, or the noise of the crane layering and finishing up the floors above him. Jagger pulled her out eagerly as soon as the elevator doors opened once more.

The contrast between the Kensington-occupied part of the wing and the rest of the floors was incredible, like seeing a portal into the future open when all this space would be filled, painted, papered, rugs and tile laid down, furniture arranged, and most importantly, peopled. She had not had a hand in it, of course, but she'd seen the conceptual printouts from the designer and thought that her wave runner textile would fit in, and now that it was installed, she felt a burn of triumph that she had been correct.

The receptionist lifted a finger, smiling, even as she spoke into the headwrap microphone, and pointed toward Grant's half-open office door. Taking that as a signal to go on in, though she usually met him in the conference room across the lobby, she went in the direction of what Jagger had already recognized as her mother's voice, who had obviously not left the building yet, no doubt gently bullying Kensington into underwriting as many of her charity projects as she could cajole him into.

Across the office threshold, she limped to a halt, then, stunned, felt Jagger pull his harness out of her grasp. Her mother shifted weight in a wing-back chair to face her, and Grant Kensington slowly swung about in a massive high-backed leather chair to smile at her also. Beyond him was a window she recognized from her preliminary sketches; the view below of the palm tree lined drive heading into the complex dropped away below the road to the Laguna shores. Charlie blinked, dismayed by both the likeness and wrongness of her drawing.

Her mother petted Jagger as the dog thrust his head into her lap. "I was just telling Grant what plants he should have on that window ledge."

Charlie remembered to breathe again. The ledge, so lushly inhabited in her vision, sat bare and open.

Grant smiled. He'd taken off his cashmere coat, and loosened his tie, his collar open at his heavy throat. "Actually, she was insulting me, I think. She told me this looked like the office of a stodgy old tax attorney."

Mary laughed. "Sometimes the truth hurts."

Kensington raised an eyebrow. "Does it?" He looked at Charlie.

The built-in bookcase that dominated one wall of the room, the window, all, all as she had seen… but no sofa, no blooming plants on the sill. Charlie caught herself frowning slightly. "The truth? It does, I think." She tried to let out a slight laugh, was not sure if she succeeded or failed. She glanced at her mother. "Mother, I've had a call from the bank and they'd like to see me as soon as possible. I'm really tired…"

Mary got to her feet immediately. "I'll drive. We'll have your car picked up." She leaned across the desk and took Grant's hand. "I took up far too much of your time, but I think you'll be pleased with what we're going to achieve."

"The achievement, Mrs. Saunders, is all yours. All I have to do is sit back and reap the goodwill. Are you sure I can't do anything else for you?"

Her mother's face creased in an expression which Charlie knew well, one of humor and pleasure. "That's part of my talent, Grant, to make you think you're doing none of the work! I'll fax your secretary a timetable by the end of next week, so you will know where you stand."

Grant chuckled and would have given her another rejoinder, but his inner office phone line buzzed. Mary took Charlie's arm and the opportunity to retreat gracefully, as Grant picked up the receiver and swung about in his great chair. Jagger trailed along behind them, his ears and harness flopping about him.

"I can tell you're still tired," her mother said brightly. "You look as if you had seen a ghost."

"Sorry. I promise to go home and rest, but the bank sounded anxious."

"What is it?"

"I didn't call them, they just paged, and I sent back an affirmative." She checked her watch. "I'll need to call from the car, they should be closing in minutes."

Her mother drove a Catera, and Jagger had to sit in the back. Mary took a folded up towel from under the front seat and put it down for him. The dog sniffed at it with scorn, but he sat on it as directed. Charlie could not help laughing.

"He won't stay on there, Mom."

"Oh, yes, he will," Mary answered with the authority and experience of motherhood.

Charlie had the bank on the cell phone before her mother pulled out of the driveway, passing the last of the WindRiver trucks.

"This is Charlotte Saunders, responding to a page."

"Oh, yes! Bev Ackerman wanted to have a word with you. Can you hold a moment?"

Charlie responded, then listened to the hum of the line. She had dealt with several vice presidents over the last few years; the branch of the bank she used seemed to be a training ground, but Beverly had been there for two years now, a near record. She sounded tense when she answered.

"Is it possible for you to come down here, Miss Saunders? I'll have the doors opened for you."

"Is there a problem?"

"We are not… sure. I'd rather discuss this in person."

"I'm driving down now."

"Thank you, Miss Saunders, I'll be waiting for you."

Charlie disconnected, puzzled. She looked at her mother and shrugged. "They'll keep the doors open for us. She wouldn't say anything over the phone."

Mary frowned. "I can't think of anything they might be worried about."

Charlie sat back in the bucket seat, more tired than she wished to admit, and was glad to be a passenger. She looked out the window at the quiet streets and storefront facades of Laguna as her mother drove. It was a comforting thing sometimes to relinquish control. Sounds came from the backseat of Jagger scratching at his towel and then lying down with a doggish grumble.

"I didn't mean to spend nearly the whole day with Grant," he mother remarked, slowing the car.

"Is he underwriting what you'd hoped?"

"That and more." Mary glanced at her, and smiled. "He has a very keen sense of finances. He knows that he is buying advertising as well as goodwill and tax write-offs. Gets it from his father."

Charlie nodded. She did not ask, because the memories still brought pain to her mother's face, but she watched the streets go by again, and wondered where her talent came from, what twist in the DNA strand gave her the need to create. She no longer remembered her father, though sometimes in dreams she thought she might. It was not natural that she did not remember him, she had been eight or nine when he died. It was as though her memories were too painful and she'd shut everything away, all the good as well as the shock of his sudden death. She let out a small sigh.

Mary patted her knee. "Your father had not an artistic bone in him," she remarked.

Charlie tried not to startle; her mother had a way of doing that, and she supposed the train of her thoughts must have been obvious anyway. She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "Then, where do you think—"

"I have no idea. Some things are just buried inside of us, and sometimes they are never allowed to bloom."

"Then you don't know… you don't know what might have been inside him."

Mary's expression creased thoughtfully. Reluctantly, she said, "True. I have always thought I knew him well— certainly better than anyone else in his family— but we had such a short time together, really. He worked so hard all the time I don't think he did anything to relax but watch TV. He would hold you, put you up to his shoulder and just sit, unmoving. Sometimes I wondered who was comforting who. He'd stay like that for hours, and I didn't have the heart to get mad at him for spoiling you. He always told me, you can't spoil a child by loving it. Not the kind of love you give with material things, but the love you give by holding and being there."

Charlie saw the bright sparkle in her mother's eyes and realized she was on the verge of tears, and looked away, her throat aching.

Her mother skillfully pulled into the bank parking lot. Charlie had to coax Jagger out of the backseat and he shook himself vigorously, harness flapping about him, after he jumped down to the asphalt. She wished she could shake off her weariness as she palmed the grip on his lead.

The shadow of the bank manager wavered at the door as they approached and Charlie knew Beverly Ackerman had been waiting for them. Keys scritched in the lock and she let them in, her long face creased and her mouth tight, scanning the parking lot quickly before closing and locking the doors behind them. The harshness of her dark navy business suit did nothing to ease the paleness of her face or soften her angular body.