Where the Heart Chooses Page 32

  “What’s that asshole…?” Gregor’s voice was harsh, and the fact that he made no effort to censor his language told me he was more than irritated by the situation.

  “Gregor?” I was concerned.

  The Lexus swerved to the left, into the merging traffic, and I bit back a gasp.

  “Mother? What’s going on?”

  “You know how it is when it rains, sweetheart.” I kept my voice casual as Gregor wrestled with the steering wheel, succeeding in bringing it under control, narrowly avoiding a collision. “All of a sudden people forget how to drive.”

  But then whoever was tailgating my son’s car slammed into the rear bumper, sending the Lexus fishtailing across three lanes of traffic into the median. Somehow Gregor, swearing steadily now, kept us upright.

  Horns blared, brakes screeched, cars narrowly avoided hitting us.

  “Mother! What’s wrong?”

  We were broadsided—it was inevitable, and the Lexus flipped, bounced, and flipped again…

  * * * *

  Chapter 41

  Someone was holding my hand in both of his, and I felt the stubble on his cheek against my fingers as he turned his head and pressed a kiss to the back of my hand. For a second I thought it was Nigel.

  Am I dead, darling? Have you come for me?

  No, Portia. He stood at my bedside, looking as strong and vibrant as the first time I’d seen him. You have too many people who need you here.

  But I need you.

  And I’ll be waiting for you. Forever. Just…keep yourself open to possibilities.

  Nigel?

  “I’m sorry, Portia. I’m so sorry.” It was Gregor holding my hand. “It’s my fault…” His voice broke in a sob, and teardrops fell to my skin.

  No it isn’t! But I couldn’t get the words past my lips.

  “You never knew why I wouldn’t go to Arlington with you after that first time. You thought it was because I was upset that Nigel was dead, and yes, I was. That man meant more to me than many of my own relatives. I loved him, but it was seeing your name on the other side of his tombstone. Oh, the date wasn’t on it yet, but just knowing that was where you’d be buried almost destroyed me. I’ve…I’ve always lo-” He cradled my hand against his cheek. “I have to go. You’re not supposed to be disturbed. If Quinn comes out of the bathroom and catches me…But I had to see you. Please come back to me…to us.”

  He kissed my hand a final time and put it down at my side, then kissed my cheek. There was a faint thud-step-thud-step, and somehow I knew I was alone.

  * * * *

  My head ached, my hip throbbed, each inhalation burned, and my abdomen felt as if I’d been stitched together by Dr. Frankenstein.

  I hurt, and I was tempted to retreat to the soft cotton wool that had cushioned me.

  “Please, dear God. Don’t let her die. I’ll do anything—”

  Nigel had said people needed me here. I managed to open my eyes enough to see my son sitting at my bedside.

  “Your father always said, ‘Never bargain with the Man Upstairs. It never ends well, no matter what the outcome.’” Was that raspy voice mine?

  “Mother.” His smile was lopsided. “You’re back with us.”

  “Where else would I be, sweetheart?” I raised my hand to touch his cheek.

  “For a while there, I thought…” His voice cracked, and then he bent over me, careful of the tubes, and I stroked his hair and back. His shoulders shook beneath my touch.

  There was a sound at the doorway, but when I looked, no one was there. Then I heard, “Nurse, have you seen Quinn Mann anywhere? Oh, he’s in this room? Thanks.”

  Quinton straightened and surreptitiously scrubbed his cheeks dry.

  “Mann.” Mark stood in the doorway. “How is she?”

  “Conscious.” Quinton cleared his throat and turned to face Mark. “Where have you been?”

  He grinned at my son, crossed the room, and leaned against the side of my bed. “You’ve got a couple of shiners, Mrs. Mann. Real beauts.”

  “I imagine I look like a raccoon. What happened?”

  “What do you remember?”

  I swallowed a smile. It drove Nigel wild when I did that, but even more so my brothers. “Before we go into what I remember, how is Gregor?”

  “Better than you, Mrs. Mann. He’s got a broken collarbone from the airbag, and his ankle is kind of banged up, but otherwise he’s in fairly decent shape. Now that you’re with us again, I imagine he’ll be coming to see for himself how you are.”

  I didn’t say he had already been here. Or had it been another morphine dream? I thought of all the incidents of my life that I’d relived. It didn’t matter. “How badly am I injured?”

  He rattled them off nonchalantly: concussion, bruised ribs, burn from the seat belt, fractured hip they’d repaired with a pin. “You’re going to need a doctor’s note when you fly, Mrs. Mann, or the metal detectors will nab you.”

  Bryan and I will be twins now, I thought giddily, both of us with pins in our hips.

  “Oh, and they had to yank your spleen.”

  So that accounted for the discomfort when I breathed, but not for the soreness in my abdomen. I wondered if they’d had to do exploratory surgery. Oh, dear God, could I have wound up with a colostomy? A child one of my foundations supported had lost almost the entire length of his large intestine when a seatbelt had cut into his abdomen as a result of an exceptionally disastrous automobile accident.

  “Not that, Mother.” Quinton heard my whispered words and took my hand, holding tightly to it. If it hadn’t hurt so badly, I’d have laughed from sheer relief. “Would you like some water?”

  “Please.”

  He held the straw to my lips, and I was able to take a few sips before I grew too tired.

  “Can you tell us what you remember now?”

  “A car hit us. Gregor did his best to…But the car just kept hitting us, and then oncoming traffic did the rest.”

  “It wasn’t an accident, a car hydroplaning on a wet road. It was too deliberate.”

  “What did you find out, Mark?” Quinton’s voice was flat.

  I could see Mark’s face. It didn’t darken; it didn’t really change expression, but suddenly it felt as if the temperature in the room had dropped significantly.

  “That bi- that woman Wexler is married to was pissed that he was paying more attention to your mother than to her. She even started an affair with his aide in hopes Wexler would see it as a wake-up call. The other night—”

  “The other night?”

  Quinton continued to grip my hand. “It’s been a couple of nights since…since you were brought here, Mother.”

  I drew in as deep a breath as I could. “Go on, please, Mark.”

  “The other night was the last straw. She was the one who had the tires on your car slashed. She didn’t know Quinn would offer you his car, or that his car would be shoved across—” He bit back the words. “She told the police about it while the paramedics were trying to get her patched up. Ever see what a smooth, hard piece of wood shaped like an elongated dumb-bell can do to a woman’s face, Quinn?”

  “A kongo?” I mused, needing to verify my suspicion.

  “You’re familiar with it, Mrs. Mann?”

  “That was the weapon of choice of someone with whom I was very close.”

  “Yeah? You know some pretty interesting people. Mrs. Wexler is going to need serious plastic surgery.” Mark placed something in my hand. “I was asked to give you this.”

  I knew without looking what they were. Violets. “Thank you, Mark.”

  “Welcome. I dunno what kind of hospital this is. Doesn’t even have a decent vase. I had to get a cup from the nurses’ station. I’ll put some water in it in a bit.” He scowled. “I’ll be damned if I know how a woman got there before I did,” he groused under his breath, no doubt unaware he spoke aloud. “She was supposed to be dead!”

  “How did you learn Folana was dead, Mark?”

  �
��MI6.”

  “And you took their word for it?” Quinton snorted. “Oh, I am disappointed in you!”

  “Jesus Christ, Quinn! Uh…sorry, Mrs. Mann.”

  “It’s quite all right.” I patted his arm with the hand that wasn’t hooked up to the IV.

  “Thanks.” Mark glared at my son. “Of course I didn’t take their word for it! I hack—” He cleared his throat. “I looked into it. And she was fu-she was dead!”

  “I imagine not,” I murmured.

  “Well, yeah. And some day I want to hear how it is that one of the deadliest women in intelligence calls you her dear friend.”

  “Yes, I’d be interested in hearing that as well, Mother.”

  “Another time.”

  “Mark. Where does Wexler stand in all this?” Quinton asked.

  “It was his aide driving the car that hit your mother and Novotny. He lived long enough to talk. He said the senator wasn’t happy that you kept getting in his way, Quinn. He saw it as a son’s jealousy at the probability of having his father replaced by someone else.”

  “‘Probability’?”

  “I don’t want to be crude about it, but he never doubted he could get in your bed, Mrs. Mann.”

  “Trust me, he would have regretted such a moronic idea for what was left of his pathetic life.” How could he possibly think I would go to him after having loved Nigel Mann?

  “Which wouldn’t be too long?” Mark seemed pleased with that thought.

  “All he had to do was get me out of the way,” Quinton said tightly.

  “Yeah. You were the target, Quinn. You have been for a while.” Now there was ice in Mark’s voice. “Holmes was in on it too. That shi-garbage with your cell phone and all those useless missions? That was to get you to screw up. He had your orders cut and ready to go. Your next assignment was to Paramaribo. Wexler had him in his pocket.”

  “Where is the senator?” My son’s voice was as cold as Mark’s.

  “He’s lying low. The cops brought him in to identify his aide’s body. Wexler professed profound shock when he was told that Lapin had been behind the wheel of the car that drove yours off the road. Said he was devastated to hear you’d been injured.”

  “Explain, if you please,” Quinton demanded.

  “Lapin left a paper trail indicating he was the one who brought the Beemer to the shop and insisted on a speedy repair. The cops followed it.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  “Me? Nope. That was just good, solid police work, baby.” Mark studied his fingernails, apparently unaware of how he’d addressed my son.

  “With a little assist from you.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyway, Wexler fell apart when he learned that you had been in the car, Mrs. Mann. He started to swear that Lapin had acted completely on his own, but the son of a bitch is a politician to the core, and he tap danced his way around that. The cops let him go.”

  Somehow I doubted his ability to tap dance around Mark. “Will it be possible to keep Wexler’s name out of this?”

  “Mrs. Mann, you can’t be willing to let the man get away with this?”

  Oh, how little Mark Vincent knew us. His gaze went from the smile on Quinton’s face, which made it obvious how he’d gotten the nickname Ice Man, to the cold, cold look I knew was on mine.

  “What am I missing?” Mark didn’t sound happy to be in the dark.

  “My uncles are retired CIA, Mark. They may be considered senior citizens, but if they find out that Wexler was personally behind the accident that left my mother in a hospital bed, they’ll go after him themselves.”

  “If?” Mark’s expression became bland.

  Quinton’s brows snapped together in a frown and he spoke more forcefully, intent on getting his reasoning across. “I won’t be able to press criminal charges against Richard Wexler, that would be less than useless, but I fully intend to press civil charges against him. I don’t want you involved.”

  “Here I thought I was almost family.”

  “Mark.” His tone was impatient. “You like my mother. Wexler was the base cause of her injuries. Nothing less than his death will suit you.”

  “Are you calling me uncivilized, Quinn? I’m cut to the quick.”

  “And I’m tired,” I interjected querulously. I never complained, and I regretted this would worry Quinton, but I needed to get him out of the room. “And I hurt.”

  “Mother! What can I do?”

  “Would you mind asking the nurse for some pain medication, Quinton?” I made my voice helpless.

  His gaze was pinned on my face. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Of course, sweetheart.” I waited until he was out of the room, then propped myself up on the arm that had no IV lines in it. “I wanted to talk to you alone, Mark.”

  “Mrs. Mann, you aren’t going to get on my case about not doing anything, are you?”

  “No.” I could see that startled him. “We both know you aren’t going to pay any heed to Quinton in this matter. Just see you don’t get caught.” I drew in a breath. “Richard Wexler engineered the accident that could well have killed my son. If I weren’t confined to this bed, I’d go after him myself.” I gripped his arm, and the sudden pinch of discomfort the movement caused reminded me I was connected to an IV. I dismissed it. “I want him to pay. I don’t want him dead, however. That would be too easy.”

  He looked unbelievably dangerous, but he was gentle in covering my hand with his. “A man who worships power…How would stripping him of his Senate seat do for a start?”

  “For a start.” I lay back on the bed, out of breath in spite of the fact that I hadn’t done anything more than sit up. “Will the police question Quinton?”

  “For?”

  “Don’t be obtuse, Mark. You know I’m talking about Lapin’s death.”

  “Why would they? He’s been here in the hospital since early Sunday morning. Besides, the autopsy report will come back that his blood alcohol level was off the chart. Whether that was because he had a guilty conscience or an alcohol abuse problem, the cops won’t know or care.”

  “You’ll see Quinton is kept safe.”

  “They’ll have to go through me to get to him.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, ma’am.”

  Just then, Quinton returned with a nurse.

  “I’ll take care of these.” Mark gathered the violets, which I’d forgotten about and had let spill over the blanket.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Mann,” the nurse said. “It’s good to have you with us. I just need to check your wristband.” She took my wrist, examined the band to make sure I was who I was supposed to be, checked my vital signs and noted them on my chart. “This will just take a moment, gentlemen.”

  She removed the cap to the syringe, inserted the needle into my IV’s port, and pressed down on the plunger.

  “Done. This is Dilaudid. It will start to work pretty quickly.” She grinned at me. “Good drugs, great dreams.”

  Ah. That explained the visits by Nigel and Gregor.

  “Meanwhile, I’ll let your doctor know you’re with us once more.”

  Quinton sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand. “All the uncles are here. Tony and Bryan flew into Dulles as soon as they got word, and Jeff and Ludo drove in from Shadow Brook. Alyona won’t be able to come down. She’s got a really bad chest cold, but Gregor’s called her every day, and he’ll see her at Thanksgiving…”

  I could feel the narcotic begin to take effect, but there was something I needed to ask.

  “Where are the clothes I wore to the ball?”

  “They’re ruined, Mother. They had to be cut off you.”

  “Even your father’s lynx?” I pressed my fingers into my eyes. “Of course, how foolish of me not to realize.” Most importantly, Quinton hadn’t been in the car, and both Gregor and I were alive.

  I felt lips brush across my forehead.

  “Sleep well, ma’am.”

  Alt
hough I was touched by Mark’s gesture, I knew he wouldn’t appreciate it if I acknowledged it. I would have said, “Didn’t I ask you not to call me ma’am?” but the Dilaudid had me in its grip.

  I sank into the velvety comfort of unconsciousness.

  * * * *

  Chapter 42

  Because I was confined to a hospital bed didn’t mean the world stopped turning.

  Of course the vacation that Quinton and Mark had planned was canceled—if I’d been conscious, I would have insisted they go ahead and take it, after all, I wouldn’t be going anywhere—but I wasn’t conscious. While my son stayed at my bedside, Mark did what he was best at.

  Two weeks after I regained consciousness, he brought in a copy of the Post. “I thought you might be interested in seeing this, ma’am.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “Page seven.”

  I leafed through to that page and found what he was talking about. The article was very small. It mentioned allegations that prior to his fatal motor vehicle accident, Peter Lapin, Senator Richard Wexler’s aide, had been involved in a hit and run that left a man and a woman hospitalized.

  “What did the senator have to say about it?” I asked Mark.

  “It seems he was unavailable for comment.” He smiled, and I understood how he’d gotten the reputation for being a sociopath.

  “Has Quinton seen this?”

  “No clue.”

  I’d have to ask him when I saw him later.

  “That’s a pretty robe,” Mark said, changing the subject.

  “It was a gift from Gregor’s sister.” Gregor had brought a number of items from home, including the blue robe.

  “It goes well with your eyes.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mark smiled faintly and picked up the hook and yarn I’d been given as a form of occupational therapy—annoying hook, annoying yarn, annoying therapy. He shook his head and unraveled the mess I’d made of it.

  “Grandmother Blackburn tried to teach me, but she gave up when I persisted in mixing single, double, and triple crochet stitches all on the same row. I really tried her patience—I would rather have been playing outside with my brothers.”