Retribution (15 page)

She took a step back in shock as the jolt hit her.

* * *

Jagger barked, his voice shrill in canine warning, as Charlie buckled, falling half on him and onto one knee. Mary pitched forward and immediately pulled her daughter into her arms, smoothing Charlie's hair from her face.

Her daughter had gone incredibly pale and though her eyelids fluttered open, there was no recognition in her eyes. "Charlie!" Mary cried. She shook her daughter gently.

Charlie took a deep, shuddering breath, her eyelids moving again, and then she looked at her mother blearily. "What time is it?" she asked shakily.

"Don't be ridiculous. I was up half the night worried about this installation…." Charlie's voice faded away and she looked glancingly at her mother. She could not keep her eyes steady on her mother's face, and she could not look at Kensington at all, still shaken from the vision of his face contorted with primitive emotion. "There's no reason to send for paramedics."

Mary responded, "Charlie, you can't go on like this."

Grant had propped her back up against that huge, towering, blank wall and squatted near the two of them, one knee of his buff-coated suit touching the concrete flooring, almost a part of their group yet not quite, as if wishing to yield some personal space to them. Jagger lay quietly against her legs, but his caramel eyes stayed alert, watching. Mary's mouth pinched slightly and she added, "Charlie, this is serious. We both know it."

"I did not pass out. I just got very disoriented."

"You didn't stay on your feet." Mary Saunders straightened, walked to the bank of windows across the corridor, looked out them wordlessly for a moment.

Charlie took the respite for what it was and inhaled deeply a couple of times to steady herself. She exchanged a look, but no words with Grant whose face had returned to that studied neutral expression he had worn earlier, a kind of businessman's poker face. The contrast to the raw emotions she'd envisioned made her tremble. She brushed her palm over Jagger's flanks. Instead of responding warmly, the dog flinched as if something unpleasant shivered down his body. Puzzled, Charlie drew her hand away.

Mary returned. "We'll talk about this later." The line of her mouth pressed tiny wrinkles into her face, creases which Charlie suddenly realized had been there for some time, were etched there, and which she had never noticed before.

Charlie started to get to her feet. Grant rose and offered his broad-palmed hand. She took it, his warmth such a contrast to her chilled fingers that it almost felt as if he burned her. Jagger got up, too, and shook himself vigorously, his vest and harness flapping about him. She looked at her watch. "Let me go down and check on the installation. I should be ready for lunch in about an hour."

"Good," Mary said lifelessly. "That will get us in before the crowds." She sounded as though she did not really care, but responded automatically, having gone through a lifetime of planning lunches to a business world's schedule.

Charlie went to the elevator. Grant's shoulder brushed against hers. The touch shocked through her like a static discharge, vision swirling in her mind, a palette of emotions and colors. She said quietly, pitching her voice so that her mother could not possibly hear her. "You meant this wing for Michaeljohn, not me."

He shot a glance at her. His expression stayed casual, but this time with great effort. "How do you know that?"

"It's enough that I know, isn't it? Anyway, you're miserable without him."

Kensington frowned. "What makes you think that?"

"You're not?"

He shuffled his feet. "Charlie, this is not the kind of thing I would discuss with anybody."

"I'm not asking you to discuss it. Just observing. That floor space and the loft— it's not my career you're interested in— it's his. And I think you should tell him that."

Grant pressed the signal buttons for her. "Is this common gossip?"

"Of course not!" She took a breath to steady herself. "You laid this wing out long before you hired me to design textiles for it."

He nodded then, as the faint vibration of the upward moving elevator became apparent. "I see. And this is your advice?"

"My advice is never to do anything you regret."

A very slight smile curved his mouth for a moment. He inclined his head. "Sounds… profound and practical." He added, "I should come down with you, but I have a call to make, and," he murmured apologetically, "I'd like to show your mother the rest of the floor. There is a corner office, not as spacious or grand… which you might consider?"

"Of course." Charlie nodded and let out a grateful breath as the elevator door opened in almost immediate response. "I'll meet you at your office."

"If there's any problem—"

"There won't be," she returned briskly and entered the elevator. She studied the elevator floor, unwilling to see her mother, and waited for the doors to close and the vehicle to carry her away. Jagger strained at his harness, pulling toward the exit anxiously.

"It's all right, boy," she said soothingly.

His tail dropped unhappy. She rubbed the back of his ear. For a second or two he ignored that comfort, than gave a low whuff and leaned into her fingers, eyes closing for just a moment in enjoyment. "What an attention span you have," Charlie kidded him. The tail lifted till nearly level with his back and waved briefly.

When the elevator stopped, she could already smell the adhesive though it was faint and not too objectionable. As she stepped through the doors, the sight and sound of the installation met her eyes.

She had designed the textile to be installed as a runner, framed top and bottom. The bottom board was being put in now along this section of the wall and she got her first chance to truly see the finished work.

Against cream-colored walls which held the very faintest tint of sea foam green, her work ran like curling waves, an ocean current that carried with it serenity and strength, pierced now and then by an aquatic form or sometimes driftwood or other vague shapes of flotsam. It cooled the eyes to look at it, broke over the senses as she hoped it would, and made her yearn to touch it, to see if it was yarn or water which filled the wall.

Charlie's face warmed with pleasure and satisfaction. She paced down the corridor, Ramirez's workmen busy, hardly turning their heads to notice her, as they stretched and hung the design. Staple guns and the sound of the compressor powering them hummed loudly, punctuated by sharp grunts of effort and the occasional rapid-fire comment in Spanish, some of which she could interpret and most of which she could not. This ocean wave theme would be repeated throughout the building, although the coloration was different for each level. Down here, on the main floor, the ocean was at its deepest, most commandingly blue. It would warm as the floors ascended, until the top floor was the color of the intriguing waters of the Caribbean, blue-green and inviting. At night when the building depended on artificial lighting, the walls themselves would have a more perceptible greenish tint, soothing, she hoped.

Charlie crossed her arms over her chest to stand and watch. The chair rail baseboard went in smoothly and any paintwork which needed to be done would be done by hand with a detailing brush, just as she had planned. The top railing framing the covering looked as if it would go in as smoothly.

It filled her senses to stand there and look upon it, and made her proud to see it even better than she had imagined it. Looking at it that way for the first time, she realized why WindRiver had asked her if they could buy the design from her and offer it as part of their line. It was both highly commercial and highly decorative. She would have to consider the mill's offer more seriously. But in the meantime, to look at it, experience it, consumed her. This was fulfillment and this was, in spite of what Valdor thought, art. It was as full of conceptualization, movement, color, and texture as any Rembrandt or Monet or Dali. Though he'd grown up in it and made his living by it, nothing filled Valdor that she could see, except his hunger for gambling.

The thought of Valdor hounding her again troubled her slightly, and the temporary peace she'd gained looking at the walls fled.

Charlie frowned.

* * *

Wade Clarkson settled into his leather chair, chafing his hands together lightly, still smelling of the antiseptic soaps from scrubs, his shoulders slowly loosening from the tension of the operation, his mind readjusting to the pace. He was done for the day except to finish his dictation and look over some charts. A vague restlessness swept over him. He decided to handle his voice mail before dictation.

He picked up his fountain pen and made notes on the calls before he heard George Laverman say briskly, "Give me a call back."

Wade smiled to himself. Old George must already be noodling on the wager set up for their next golfing date. He couldn't blame him really, a grand was stiff, but the proceeds would all go to the same charity the tourney had been set up for. He needed some amusement and decided to yank George Laverman's chain. He dialed the number.

"In chambers, Laverman here."

Without preamble, Wade said, "If a grand is too much, we'll knock it down to a hundred."

George laughed. "No, a grand donation is acceptable. Just be prepared to write that check." The judge paused a moment and said, "Actually, I called about Charlie Saunders… wanted to know how she is."

"Charlie? Haven't seen her in months. Fine, as far as I know." Wade rocked back in his chair and rolled his shoulders to ease his neck a little and shifted his attention to the painting on his left wall, the one real artifact Abigail had left to him, the painting both she and he had enjoyed so much, a painting which might now be worth more than a quarter of a million dollars and which he would unthinkingly swap for her life if such a swap could be made. He had never expected her to will him anything at all, her trust set up to benefit the hospital and other charities, and the painting had been both a shock… and a poignant declaration. Abby, sick and in pain as she was, had taken the time to alter her legal papers so that he might have it. He swallowed tightly.

"You didn't hear then? She collapsed at the art auction down here Sunday night."

Wade sat up. "What happened?"

"I was hoping you knew. They took her to Sunrise Hospital."

He scrubbed his jaw. "Let me check around. Hospitals don't always share their information, but I should have been notified." Inwardly, his gut recoiled. The distance between Los Angeles County and Orange County might as well be measured in continents, and the exclusive Scripps Hospital complex down in San Diego County was just as uncommunicative. He made a note to call Quentin Saunders as soon as he found out what Sunrise had to say. The family should know that he'd heard, and he wanted Charlie in as soon as possible. "She fell or what?"

"She got a little confused and then fainted."

He exhaled. "I'll get back to you, George."

"Do that."

His secretary had gone to lunch, so he dialed for records and asked for Charlotte Saunders' file. After long moments, in which he heard inane chatter and background noise, the clerk came back to the phone line. "She's in the computer, but the physical file isn't here, it's been checked out."

"All right, then, who has it?"

"Looks like psychiatric."

He muffled his reaction before thanking the clerk.

"Should we call it in, Doctor?"

"No. I'll get it myself."

Wade disconnected, lurched to his feet, and made his way to the wing holding the psych offices.

Elyse Roseburg looked up as he knocked on the doorjamb to the inner office. "Hey ho," she said, as he leaned partway in, and grumbled good-naturedly, "I thought I had a guard out there."

"She went to lunch. Real people do that." He looked at the doctor as he stepped in, her lips as thin and sculpted as her eyebrows, the only thin part about her somewhat rumpled body in a dark, pinstriped woman's version of a power suit. She had just taken her glasses off, their imprint still on the bridge of her nose, a single folder in her hands as she crossed her legs and sat back.

"The implication is that I am not real." Elyse smiled. "Is that how you feel about what I said?"

He laughed. "Is it possible to have a genuine conversation with you, Dr. Roseburg?"

Her face warmed. "Of course it is." She chuckled. "To what do I owe this invasion?"

"Somebody in your office has Charlotte Saunders' file."

Elyse tapped a manilla folder on her desk, her manicured nails glittering. "As a matter of fact, I do."

"Good. Open it up and tell me what Sunrise Hospital may or may not have sent me." He took the big barrel chair opposite her desk and settled into it.

Elyse arched her razor-thin brows and opened the folder. "Nothing here…"

"Probably because someone downstairs is looking for that." Wade smiled thinly. "It's like pulling teeth to get these smaller hospitals to share information with us. They are always afraid we are on an ego trip about our patients—"

"And we're not?"

"It's not ego. It's a matter of funding, as you are well aware." He put a hand out for the folder.

Elyse closed it, handing it over. "Do you know when she was due for her checkup?"

Wade considered Roseburg, thinking. "Should be soon. Why?"

"Her annual was scheduled nearly four months ago. She called and canceled it, and hasn't rescheduled."

"What?" He leaned forward so abruptly in his chair that he nearly lost his hold on the file. "Why didn't someone notify me? Isn't there a flag on that file?"

"Yes. The file's been in my department because I review Charlie's case once in a while…" and pale, tailored Elyse Roseburg had the grace to blush slightly. "She's an incredible case study of artistic creativity and actual brain function… if only I could understand why she no longer paints."