The Ugly Duckling (9 page)

He moistened his lips. “I’d carve him to pieces.”

Gardeaux shuddered. “Hand weapons are so brutal. That’s why I prefer the grace and romance of a sword. I often think I must be the reincarnation of a Medici. I fear I was never meant for this age.” He smiled at Maritz. “And neither were you. I see you riding behind Attila the Hun.”

Maritz was vaguely aware this was an insult, but he was too relieved to complain. He had seen what Pietro had done to the last man Gardeaux had ordered him to fight. “I’ll find him.”

“I know you will. I trust you, Paul. All you needed was a little clarification.”

“And I’ll go after Tanek too.”

“No! How many times must I tell you that Tanek isn’t to be touched?”

“He gets in your way,” Maritz said sulkily. “He causes you trouble.”

“And will be disposed of in time. My time. You’ll not touch him. Do you—”

“Daddy, look what Mama gave me.” Gardeaux’s youngest daughter ran out on the terrace, waving a pin-wheel. “The wind turns it and it goes faster and faster.”

“I see, Jeanne.” Gardeaux lifted the six-year-old to his lap. “And did she give one to René as well?”

“No, René got a puppet.” She nestled closer. “Isn’t it pretty, Daddy.”

“Almost as pretty as you,
ma chou
.” He set the pin-wheel spinning.

The little girl had shining brown hair and looked a little like Nell Calder’s daughter, Maritz thought. But then, most kids looked alike to him.

“Go away, Paul,” Gardeaux said without looking at him. “I’ve already robbed my wife and children of too much time. Come back when you can give me good news.”

Maritz nodded. “Soon. I promise you.” He ran down the steps that led to the garden. Gardeaux never liked them to go through the house. He was afraid they would run into his wife or children and dirty them, he thought sourly. In fact, he never liked them to come to Bellevigne at all except as security during one of his highfalutin parties. That was why Maritz had been surprised
when Gardeaux had called him when he had returned from Medas and told him to come.

Surprised and frightened.

He crossed the drawbridge and looked back at the chateau. He didn’t like being scared. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt that panicky terror. When he was a kid, maybe. Before he’d found his talent, before he found the knife. After that, everyone had been afraid of
him
.

They were still afraid of him. The woman had been afraid. She had fought but she had been terrified.

The woman. He would have another chance at her, a chance to do something that would put him back in Gardeaux’s good graces.

He was being like all the rest, he realized in disgust. Crawling, whining, afraid that Gardeaux would raise his hand against him.

He crossed the drawbridge and looked back at the chateau. A king in his castle. Sometime he’d like to see if the king could be toppled.

A shiver went through him as he remembered Gardeaux’s eyes when he had threatened him with Pietro. It wasn’t Pietro, it was the sword that chilled his blood.

His pace quickened as he headed for his car. First the informant, and then the woman. That would make everything all right with Gardeaux.

“G
et here.
Now
,” Joel said.

Nicholas flinched as the phone was crashed down at the other end. He turned to Jamie.

“I have to go to Woodsdale. Something’s wrong.”

“I thought you said Lieber told you the operation went well,” Jamie said. “It’s been over a week, too long for a relapse, right?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” He pulled on his suit jacket
and closed the new dossier Jamie had gathered on Nell. He had been going over it when Joel called. “Anyway, I have to go. Want to come along?”

“Why not? I haven’t seen Junot in a long time.” Jamie rose to his feet. “Did you know that I offered him a job as a bouncer in my pub when you broke up the network?”

“Big mistake.”

“I always liked Junot.” He followed Nicholas from the hotel room. “But he’s better off at Woodsdale. Less chance of confrontation.”

“I thought so.”

J
unot met them at the gate that led to the underground parking garage at Woodsdale. He was not wearing a uniform. Nicholas had persuaded Joel it would not be needed.

“I’ll park the car. Dr. Lieber wants you to go right up. Fourth floor.” Junot smiled slightly as he saw Jamie. “How you doing?”

“Good enough. Thought I’d let you show me the grounds while Nicholas was busy.”

“Great alarm system. You’ll be impressed. Even you’d have trouble.”

“Ah, stabbed to the heart. You doubt me?”

Nicholas left them and strode quickly down the ramp. The front entrance of Woodsdale was located in the concrete bunker of the parking garage. Totally secure and private so that no celebrity would be seen entering or leaving after they had surgery.

Joel met him as he exited the elevator on the fourth floor a few minutes later.

“She’s your responsibility,” Joel said grimly. “Fix it.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s been wrong all along. She’s withdrawing more and more every day. I’ve had a battery of psychiatrists in there with her. I even called in a priest. Nothing does any good. She doesn’t eat. She doesn’t talk. I started intravenous feeding yesterday.”

“Are you saying she’s going to die?”

“I think she’s willing herself to die, and she has a surprisingly strong will. I can probably keep her alive if I put her on machines.”

Nicholas had a sudden memory of Terence begging him to turn off the respirator. “No machines.”

“Then you find a solution.” He gestured. “Third room on your left.”

Nicholas moved down the corridor.

“Tania says she needs a purpose,” Joel called after him.

“And I’m supposed to supply it.”

“You’re supposed to make her want to live so that all my work won’t be wasted.”

“You may not like my methods.”

“I won’t like it if she dies or has to be institutionalized either,” Joel said. “As long as you don’t escalate either of those possibilities, you’ll get no argument from me. I’ve done everything I can.”

And Nicholas was supposed to perform the miracle Joel couldn’t. Great. He pushed open the door.

Nell’s face was still bandaged, and she looked smaller, slighter than when he had last seen her. She stared straight ahead and gave no sign she was aware that he had come into the room.

Purpose.

Oh, yes, he knew all about that subject. He could give her purpose.

N
icholas Tanek.

She had thought he had gone from her life, Nell thought dully. She wanted him gone. He was the one who had told her about Jill.…

She tried to block his presence from her mind; she had grown very good at that. No, he was too strong. Her uneasiness increased. She quickly closed her eyes.

“Stop pretending. You’re not asleep,” he said coldly. “Just gutless.”

A ripple of shock went through her.

“Are you enjoying yourself lying there, pitying yourself?”

He didn’t understand. She wasn’t pitying herself. She just wanted everyone to go away.

“I’m not surprised. You’ve caved in and run away from everything all your life. You wanted to be an artist and your parents snapped their fingers and you dropped everything and came running. Your husband molded you into what he wanted and you let him do it.”

He was talking about Richard. Cruel. Richard was dead. You didn’t talk ill of the dead.

“Did anyone tell you how Jill died?”

Her lids flew open. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear it. Go away.”

“She was stabbed.”

The knife. Oh, God, the knife.

“He enjoyed doing it. He always enjoys it.”

Yes, he enjoyed it. She remembered the smile behind the mask as he had stabbed at her.

“He’s out there, free. He took away her life, all the joy, all the things you planned for her. You let him steal that from her.”

“No! I tried to stop him. I drew him out to the balcony and—”

“But she’s dead and he’s free. He’s walking around remembering how he killed her. It’s so easy to kill a child.”

“Stop it.” His words were ripping, tearing at her. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? She had not imagined anyone could be this brutal. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I don’t care if you’re suffering or not. She’s dead and you’re betraying her. You’re going to lie down and let this roll over you just as you’ve done everything else your entire life. She was a nice kid, she deserves better than a mother who won’t even rouse herself to wonder if the man who killed her would be punished for it.”

“She’s dead. Nothing I could do would—”

“Excuses, qualifications. Don’t you get sick of backing away from life? No, I guess not.” He leaned forward, his gaze boring into hers. “Here’s something to remember while you’re lying here, thinking about your daughter. She didn’t die easily. He never lets them die easily.”

She felt something explode inside her. “
Damn
you.”

“But I guess you don’t care about that. You’d rather go back to sleep and forget all this unpleasantness.” He stood up and moved toward the door. “Well, go ahead. You probably couldn’t do anything about it anyway. You’ve never taken an effective action in your entire life.”

Her voice vibrated with intensity. “I hate you.”

He looked at her without expression. “Yes, I know.”

He left the room.

Her nails dug into her palms as her hands clenched into fists. She wanted him back so that she could strike at him as he had struck at her. Cruel. She had never known anyone so cruel.

Except the man who had killed Jill. The monster.

He never lets them die easily
.

The words stabbed through her with more pain than the knife that had ended Jill’s life. She had not allowed herself to think of Jill suffering, Jill dying. She had thought only of the loss, the emptiness of life.

Life would not have been empty for Jill. She was a child who loved every facet of life. She would have run toward it with both arms opened wide.

And she had been cheated of it by a monster who killed helpless children.

The knowledge was twisting, hurting, burning inside her. He was out there, free, while Jill was dead.

“No.” She wouldn’t have it. She felt as if the thought were searing away the past, the present, the future.

You’ve never taken an effective action in your entire life
.

Lies.

No, truth.

It was so easy to see the truth now that none of it mattered.

Do what I say or I won’t love you anymore
.

The unspoken threat had always been there. First with her parents, and then Richard, and she had scurried to obey in terror of losing that love.

But now the fear was gone because there was nothing to lose. Everything of importance was already lost.

Except the memory of Jill.

And the man who had killed her.

“W
ell?” Joel asked as Nicholas walked out of the room.

“I don’t know. Have everyone stay away from her for a while and let it simmer.”

“Let what simmer?”

“She had an open wound and I cauterized it with a red-hot poker.” He added, “And without anesthesia.”

“I’m not even going to ask what you mean.”

“I wouldn’t. You’d disapprove.” He moved down the hall toward the elevators. “But I think I can go back to Idaho for a while. There’s no question she’ll want to see me after this. Call me when you think she’s semi-normal again. I need to ask her a few questions.”

N
ell did not sleep that night. She stared into the darkness while Tanek’s words pounded at her.

Jill.

Growing up, going to school, first party, first dates, first child. So many firsts she’d never know.

Robbed. Robbed of life, robbed of all those experiences.

Nell’s loss was nothing compared to what the monster had stolen from Jill.

And she was lying here, doing nothing about it.

Rage.

Burning, destroying, clarifying rage.

T
he crystal vase of tiger lilies the young man was carrying should have looked absurd in his big hands, but somehow it didn’t. He was vaguely familiar; he had been there during that period of shadows. She searched for a name. “You’re Phil Johnson,” Nell said slowly.

He whirled to face her. “Hey, you remember me.” He moved eagerly toward the bed. “How you doing? Can I get you anything? How about some orange juice?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you. Not now.” She looked down at her arm. She was surprised it was still in a cast. It seemed a hundred years since she had awakened that first time to find Tanek sitting by her bed. Tanek. She stifled a rush of blinding anger. Tanek
didn’t matter. She had to be calm and think clearly. “How long have I been here? And where is here?”

“Ten days at Woodsdale.”

“Woodsdale?” She dimly remembered Dr. Lieber mentioning moving her to his clinic.

Phil nodded. “Do you remember the operation?”

She reached up and touched her face. Bandages.

“Dr. Lieber wants them on until you’re fully healed. There are always bruises with plastic surgery, and he thinks you’ve had enough shocks to—” He broke off and then said, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t supposed to talk to you about anything that could upset—” He made a face. “Here I go again. Foot in mouth. Should I go away?”

She shook her head. “I feel very weak. Am I going to be in this bed a long time?”

“You’ll have to ask Dr. Lieber. But you’d probably get stronger if you’d eat.” He smiled coaxingly. “Those IVs in your arm can’t be much fun.”

“I’ll eat,” she said. “I have to speak to Dr. Lieber. Will you ask him to come to see me?”

“Sure. He’s at the hospital in the city this morning, but he should be here soon.” He nodded at the flowers on the table. “Pretty. Do you want me to check and see who they’re from?”

They’re pretty, Mama
, Jill had said.
Prettier than when they were in the garden
.

Pain twisted through her, intense, taking her breath. Block it. She couldn’t function if she let pain blind her like this.

“You okay?” Phil asked, concerned.