Malcolm and Ives 02 - Trouble With Air and Magic (24 page)

The physician didn’t look any older than Conan. He brusquely introduced himself as Phil Felts and asked to see the patient. Conan led him back to the bedroom, where Dorrie sat guard.

Amy looked better than earlier.

“I’ll ask both of you to leave while I examine the patient,” Dr. Felts said firmly. “It will be easier for me to be objective without your observations.”

Conan frowned and looked to Dorrie for confirmation that this was safe. And then he realized what he was doing. He was actually relying on her weird theories about sensing a person’s energy, for no real reason except he’d slept with her.
Not objective, dummy
.

She waited for him to explain rather than surrendering her sister-in-law to a male stranger. He liked that. Maybe they were finally establishing some kind of odd rapport.

“Oz told him tall tales,” he said. “The doc wants to make certain she’s here of her own free will.”

Dorrie gave a small snort of amusement. “Your brother needs a few chunks of conceit knocked out of him. I think I’ll stay with Amy.”

Dr. Felts narrowed his eyes at the conversation, but continued his examination of the wound.

Duty done, and oddly relieved that—unlike most women—Dorrie shared his opinion of charismatic Oz, Conan returned to the front room. He still didn’t have his equipment and was forced to rely on Dorrie’s netbook and the kids’ laptop.

By the time he’d worked his way through his email—the government contract was almost in his hands—the doctor returned, giving quiet instructions to Dorrie, who had followed him out.

“The wound is deep but the stitches should help. She should have a doctor look at it in a few days. I’ll give her some antibiotics.” He scribbled on a prescription pad.

He handed over the paper. “Give her vitamins with iron, too, she’s looking stressed and exhausted.” He glanced at Conan. “And tell your brother next time he needs me to just offer double my usual fee, and he won’t have to tell tall tales.”

“Let him have his fun, doc,” Conan said, taking the prescription and tucking it into his shirt pocket. “It’s boring living up in these hills and he needs entertainment. I’ll hack his computer and put up a pornographic screen saver next time so he won’t be as inclined to lie.”

The good doctor shook Dorrie’s hand. “Get out while you can, Miss Franklin. I’ve known the Oswins since college. Counteroffensives only escalate the war.”

“But you have to admit,” she said with laughter, “they could be more amusing than any show currently playing at the theater. And without them, people die, so I have to excuse their childish forms of entertainment.”

“I hope he understands that I still have to report gunshot wounds to the police. Good day.” He let himself out on that ominous note.

“Childish entertainment, hmm?” Conan asked, grabbing Dorrie and hugging her tightly, unconcerned by the police at this point. “Do you know how many heart attacks I had today?”

“Two, you said.” Then she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him and he was prepared to suffer two more if necessary to keep holding her like this.

He was a doomed man.

The family reunion brought tears to Dorrie’s eyes. Amy smoothed her children’s hair, crushed their fingers, and watched with relief as they bounced on her bed.

Dorrie left them all chattering happily. They really, really needed Bo. He should never have abandoned them for the damned military. Should a miracle happen and they found her brother, she would kick him back to his senses. She should have done that a year ago, but she was only now coming out from under her father’s warped perspectives.

“Now what?” she whispered to Conan, backing out of the room and leaving the little family alone. “Have any of your fancy investigators found anything?”

He steered her toward the front room and onto the floral couch, before taking a seat at his computer. “Yeah, they discovered all your clients are working happily and had no idea they were still receiving checks from the Foundation…or not receiving them, as the case might be. And the Foundation’s money is being sent to the Cayman Islands.”

“What?” She almost came up off of her seat, except Conan waved her back, and she realized she had nowhere else to go. Toto sat at her feet, begging to be picked up, and she obliged. “Cayman Islands?” she asked in incredulity. “The Foundation’s money is being sent to the Caribbean?”

“Offshore, anyway. I haven’t had time to trace it. The cops can’t without a warrant, and even then, they need Homeland Security’s approval because the banks down there aren’t hospitable to our tampering. But that’s not my concern right now. My concern is that
every one of your clients is doing well.
”

“That bothers you?” she asked in genuine puzzlement. “That’s the whole point of the foundation, you realize, to help our clients over hard places so they can eventually make a living and support their families.”

He rubbed his brow, glared at the computer screen, and finally swung around to face her. “I ran the stats on your clientele for the past year. The foundation’s clients have a fifty-percent recovery rate. Half of them return to work and give up their checks within a year. The other half fails. They’re either still struggling on foundation money, they’re in jail, they’re on welfare, or they’ve been deported.
Except for the ones you approve.
Your clients
always
return to work and usually in less than half the time of others.”

Dorrie shrugged. “I usually don’t get involved so my list is far more limited than anyone else’s.”

He glared. “
All
of your clients have had their money diverted after they reported they didn’t need it anymore, whereas only those who are genuinely deceased or missing are diverted on the other client lists.”

“Really?” She tried to puzzle that out, but it made no sense. “Someone is diverting money from deceased clients? Not recording their deaths? But we have checks and balances to prevent that kind of theft,” she cried. “I can’t believe any of our workers would do that. They’re underpaid and overworked like any other social worker, but they believe in what they do. They wouldn’t steal!”

Conan glared at her. “You’re deliberately not listening to me.”

Dorrie hugged Toto and glared back. “Because you don’t believe me when I tell you that I can sense
chi.
So what do you want me to say?”

“You’re telling me you pick clients by the color of their chee?” he asked in incredulity.

“See, I told you that you wouldn’t believe me. And color has nothing to do with energy. Most of the clients I approve are ones my employees are on the fence about. They want to help them but figure they’re beyond the foundation’s ability to serve. I make the decision in those cases. I interview those clients and base my decision on their
chi.
Losers, ones who won’t work to help themselves, have negative energy.”

She didn’t bother holding her breath in anticipation of Conan’s acceptance. He needed facts and she couldn’t give them. His frown wasn’t unexpected. His response was.

“Amy told me that after Brandon kicked the would-be kidnapper, your nephew collapsed, which sounds like what you do when you expend too much energy,” he said.

Tensing, wondering if he was starting to believe her or just leading her on, Dorrie hugged Toto and carefully considered her answer. She’d learned today that Brandon was a little more like Bo than his siblings in more ways than looks. He was developing a strong
other
energy. She hoped it was more Bo’s abilities than hers.

If she could really convince Conan of what she could do… the knowledge was dangerous.

Which was why he had to know the whole truth now, as incredible as it would seem to him.

“What are you asking?” She thought she knew, but she wanted him to say it first.

He looked frustrated. “I don’t know what I’m asking. I’m just saying your clients seem to be different. You say you choose them because of their… energy. Are your clients’
chi
different from other people? Do your brother’s kids have that energy?”

He almost made it sound like an accusation. Dorrie pondered where he was going with this, but she answered to the best of her ability. “Sort of. Everyone has
chi
energy. What I look for, I call
other
energy. It’s not as if my ability is a science or that anyone has taught me to use it. My mother might have if she’d lived, but I have to work things out on my own. I have no way of explaining
other
energy. You have it to a small degree. Your sister-in-law has a frighteningly strong version. Your brother might, but his
chi
is so complex that it’s hard to interpret.”

“Pippa has it?” he asked in suspicion.

She nodded. “Very strong and straightforward. Yours is more zigzag, very odd. I think it’s more the pattern of
chi
that I’m sensing in
other
energy, the way the various energies intertwine. But I have no means of interpreting it. I’ve just learned to trust in the strength of character of people who have that pattern. The clients I choose have it to some degree.”

He rubbed his hand over his face as if he could erase what she’d just said. “I wish I knew if you had Malcolms on your family tree.”

She couldn’t let this opening pass, even if she had no idea why he kept asking about Malcolms. She’d hoped to put this off, but she’d done nothing but think about it all day. It was time. “I don’t know Malcolms, but it may be time to bring in my family. You can ask them.”

His head shot up. “Your uncomfortably overbearing family?” he asked warily. “Why?”

It was her turn to massage her brow. “Maybe we could just send Amy and the kids to San Francisco. It would be a lot simpler. Then I could hide here and wait to see what happens. But I have this notion that Bo and your brother may be at the bottom of this, and I simply cannot bear to let them down if there is any slim hope that they’re really alive and out there somewhere.”

The commotion in the other room and Conan’s wary expression warned there wasn’t enough time for explanations before they’d be interrupted. “Do you think my family is safe here?” Dorrie asked before he could start interrogating her. “Could you and I go somewhere else?”

He punched a number on his cell and spoke into it curtly. “We have a full house,” he told the person on the other end. “You have any more spare space we can borrow?”

Dorrie stood up to gather her things and to let Amy know she was moving on. She wished she could say something reassuring, but she didn’t like to lie.

The children had apparently run out of tales to tell, and Amy was looking exhausted. “I’ve decided to call Grandmother Ling,” Dorrie said the moment she entered the bedroom.

Amy looked puzzled. “I’ve only met her a few times. What can she do?”

“She can do magic, if she’s so inclined. I think she will be. And then I’m calling my father to tell him his grandkids need help. It will give him something to do. I won’t tell him where you are, but I can give him your cell phone number if you want any say-so in what happens after that.”

“I don’t want charity,” Amy said fretfully. “I just want to go back to work.”

“Dad can arrange things with your employer or he can find you a better job. I’ll threaten to quit if he doesn’t.” She turned to the kids. “Go fix some soup and sandwiches for your supper. Your mother needs to rest.”

Alexis bobbed up to do as told. The boys wiggled and glared but Dorrie pointed her finger, and they reluctantly followed.

“You’ll be good with kids someday,” Amy said with a faint smile. “I just hope you’re as good with your father. He’s scary.”

“Not as much anymore. He needs to start thinking of someone besides himself and his damned foundation. We’re not a family good with relationships, but there’s still time. You have absolutely brilliant kids, and I want to know them better.”

Should they all survive whatever was ahead. Just the idea of threatening her father gave her hives, but for the kids, she’d do it.

It was the unknown and unexpected that truly scared her. It always had from the day her mother had died in front of her.

***

Conan had the minivan packed by the time Dorrie finished helping the children pour the soup and set the sandwiches on trays. He needed to be at his computers, digging deeper into Adams Engineering, if that was the incident that had set off this chain of events.

But he needed to know more, and Dorrie had the answers. He couldn’t imagine how Magnus could be alive, but Conan wanted that scenario so badly, he’d even learn to develop an imagination, if that’s what it took to believe Dorrie’s story.

She kissed the kids, shouted farewells, and took his hand as he led her through the garden. Looking wistful, she caressed a rosemary hedge and lifted her hand to sniff the pungent scent.

He didn’t need imagination to know she wanted to stay.

“Oz says his Mcmansion is complete enough to live in,” he told her, placing a hand at her back and urging her on. “They’re out of the RV and we can have it. It’s not much, but it’s quiet. I don’t want to take you back to L.A. until I know the shooter is caught.” He helped her into the van.

He hadn’t closed the door before she replied. “The police probably won’t catch the man who shot me,” she said quietly, “because he’ll die before they know who he is.”

His drama queen didn’t make pronouncements quietly, not like this. Conan froze with his hand on the door. “Why do you say that?”

“Long story,” she said, mimicking him. “It will wait.”

Not for any damned much longer. He climbed in behind the wheel and steered down the narrow lane, back to the main drag and the other side of town, to Oz’s place. Beside him, his petite companion looked exhausted, fragile, and gorgeous all in one.

He wanted the woman who kicked elevators back. He had to do something to prove that she’d be safe.

Oz’s giant sardine can was parked behind the walled mansion, at the trailhead that marked the path to Pippa’s studio cottage. Conan figured his brother had security guards posted all over the place by now, so even sardine cans were safe. For now.