Return to Sender (7 page)

“I’m impressed,” Lin said. “Just don’t overdo it. I need your help now more than ever.”

“Not to worry. There’s plenty of me to spare. I’ll call you tonight.”

“Thanks, Sally. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Sally pulled out of the driveway, waving as she turned onto the street. Lin really didn’t know what she’d do without Sally. She was the big sister she never had.

For that alone, she was beyond thankful.

It had taken a full week before Nicholas Pemberton could get an appointment with Dr. Reeves, and by the time the day of the appointment arrived, he had no patience left. To make matters worse, he’d already been in Evan Reeves’s office for two hours without seeing the great man himself.

They’d taken numerous blood samples, asked every medical question known to man, then asked him to wait. He did not like waiting. Especially in a cubicle the size of his clothes closet.

In an hour he had another Friday meeting with his staff. If Dr. Reeves didn’t make an appearance by then, he would have to come to Nick. Nick glanced at his Rolex for the tenth time. As he was about to leave, the door opened.

Dr. Reeves was not what Nick had expected. He was in his mid-to late thirties, was deeply tanned, and had longish blond hair. Wide shoulders tapered to a narrow waist.
He must work out,
Nick thought. In fact, he looked more like a beach bum than a doctor. Women would certainly find him attractive.

“Mr. Pemberton”—the doctor held out a hand—“I’m Evan Reeves.

Sorry we kept you waiting so long. Dr. Warner asked that we wait for the results of your blood work.”

Nick leaned against an examining table. “And?” he inquired impatiently.

“He was right to be concerned.” Dr. Reeves took a deep breath.

“Let’s go to my office. These rooms are too small to breathe in.”

Maybe the guy wasn’t so bad, after all.

“Yes, they are.”

Nick followed him down a narrow hall. At the end, Dr. Reeves opened a door to his left, stood back, and motioned for Nick to come inside.

“Please, have a seat.”

Nick sat down in an awkward plastic chair, one of those modern-looking things that was supposed to be comfortable. “So, am I going to die?” Nick didn’t want to waste time on idle chatter. He had things to do.

Dr. Reeves sat at his desk. He picked up a sheet of paper and scanned the results. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep you from dying, Mr. Pemberton.”

Nick’s pulse rate increased. He raked a hand through his hair and felt his hand tremble. “This is serious, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Give it to me straight up. I don’t want the sugarcoated version.”

Nick jammed both hands in his pockets to hide his tremors. He did not want to appear vulnerable or afraid to the doctor.

Dr. Reeves swiped a dark hand through his messy hair. “Okay. I think you have leukemia. We’ll need to do a bone-marrow test to confirm my findings, but at this point, I think I’m on the money. I see this every day.”

It took Nick several minutes to absorb the doctor’s words. He didn’t interrupt him, and for that Nick was grateful. A deep breath didn’t help at all. Chelsea swore by them, but he thought her stupid. What did she know?

“Then let’s do this test. I want to be one hundred percent sure.”

“All right. You’ll have to be hospitalized—”

“Are you serious? For a goddamn test? I have a meeting in less than an hour!”

“Mr. Pemberton, this is very serious. It can be life threatening. If my suspicion is correct, you don’t have time to worry about meetings. This disease can be devastating in its swiftness. Sometimes we have only a matter of weeks to treat leukemia.”

A thousand thoughts surged through Nick’s mind. He could die. Soon, according to the doctor. Maybe he should get another opinion. But Reeves was the best in his field; he’d gained that much information from Vinery before firing him. He
was
the second opinion.

“Then let’s not waste time. Set the test up now. I’ll make a few phone calls to clear my schedule.”

“Of course.” Dr. Reeves picked up the phone on his desk, swiveled around in his chair, facing the bookshelves behind his desk. He spoke quietly into the phone. Turning around, he got up and walked to the door. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll have my staff take care of your admission. There’s a bit of paperwork involved.” The doctor paused before leaving him in the hands of his staff. “Is there someone you’d like to call? Maybe I can make a call for you?”

Nick was touched by the doctor’s kindness, and it surprised him. Normally, he was not a sentimental man, yet it wasn’t every day he was told he had a serious, possibly fatal illness. “I’ll call my office. They can take care of rescheduling.”

“Good. Then let’s get this paperwork started. I don’t know what the world is coming to when it takes longer to fill out the forms than it does to do the actual procedure itself,” Dr. Reeves commented with a trace of ridicule for the system of which he was an integral part.

“If you’ll have a seat,” said a young woman, motioning, “we’ll get through this as quickly as possible.”

Nick nodded, gave the young woman his insurance card and driver’s license before taking a seat opposite her. Nick took his cell phone from his jacket pocket. He dialed Rosa’s direct number. She answered immediately.

“Rosa, I want you to cancel all my meetings and appointments for the next…” He paused, unsure of how long. He wasn’t even sure how long he would live at this point. “Cancel everything for the next two weeks. Something’s come up, and I cannot work around it. Have Gerald take some of my appointments. Cancel the trip to China. It can wait. Call Chelsea. Ask her to meet me at Presbyterian Hospital. Tell her to pack an overnight bag and bring it with her. And, Rosa, if I hear of one single word of this conversation floating around the office, I’ll fire the entire staff. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Mr. Pemberton. Sir, I…uh, hope you’ll be fine.”

“Trust me, I will. I’ll call you first thing in the morning. And remember, not a word to anyone.” He flipped his cell phone off, not giving Rosa a chance to say anything else. Nick didn’t want her concern or her pity. He would be fine. He would accept nothing less. Pemberton men lived long, illustrious lives. His father had been eighty-nine when he died. Nick expected to beat the old bastard by at least a year. No way was his old man going to greet him at the gates of hell anytime in the near future.

It took over an hour to fill out the paperwork, or rather it took the young woman behind the computer that long to type it into the computer system. Nick would never tolerate such inadequacy.

“You’ll need to sign these papers now. It’ll save you from doing it when you’re uncomfortable right before the marrow extraction.” The young lady slid a stack of papers across the desk.

“What is that supposed to mean? Dr. Reeves didn’t explain anything about being uncomfortable.” He sounded like a whiny child, not the chief executive officer of a multibillion-dollar corporation.

“I’m sorry. I thought he did. I’ll be right back,” the woman said vaguely.

Ten minutes later Dr. Reeves sat across from Nick in the same seat his secretary, or whatever the hell she was, had just vacated. “I apologize. I was hoping to get back to you before we got this far. The procedure is quite simple actually. First, we’ll numb a small area of skin. Then we use a Jamshidi needle. It’s a long, hollow needle that’s inserted into your hip bone. We’ll withdraw samples of blood, bone, and, of course, your bone marrow. From there I’ll send them to the pathologist, who will examine them under a microscope. After I get the results, you and I will discuss a treatment plan.”

“If this is so simple, why bother admitting me? Can’t this be done as an outpatient?” Nick said.

“Sure, it can. However, if the results are positive, and you’re already in the hospital, we can begin treatment right away.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Nick agreed.

“I’ll have more answers as soon as we complete the test.”

Nick nodded. “I’ll see you at the hospital, then.”

Dr. Reeves placed a comforting arm on Nick’s shoulder. “You’re gonna have a hell of a fight on your hands, but something tells me you won’t be defeated.”

“Thank you.” Nick felt humbled, and it pissed him off. He didn’t like the feeling. Damn it to hell, he didn’t like
feeling.

Almost a week later Lin was too keyed up to even think about going to bed. It was too early, anyway. She made a pot of herbal tea to take into her office. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Nicholas Pemberton, about what she wanted to do to him. Lin wanted him to suffer in the way she’d suffered, but realized time and circumstances had changed since that fateful week of their romance. His suffering would be on a different level. She smiled at the mere thought.

Lin sat at the Victorian mahogany twin-pedestal desk that she’d bought the previous year as a birthday gift to herself. She opened her laptop, clicked onto the Internet. Having given herself time to see if she really wanted to go through with shafting Nick, she decided it was time to start. No time like the present, as Irma would say.

Clicking onto Google, she typed in Nicholas Pemberton’s name. There were more than three hundred thousand hits. Starting with the first one, she was directed to the home page of Pemberton Transport. She skimmed through a brief history of the company, where she noted that Nick’s father, Nicholas Pemberton Sr., had passed away two years ago. Nick was now CEO. She read through a few more paragraphs, learned there were hundreds of employees. Most important, the company was financially sound. Lin hadn’t a clue how to wreck Pemberton Transport’s finances directly, but she vowed if she couldn’t, then she’d find someone who would.

She Googled top private detectives in the United States. There were gazillions. Lin thought it best to hire one located in New York City, thinking expenses would be less. She scrolled through dozens of names, then stopped when she saw JV Investigations. It was located in the Empire State Building, the same building that housed Pemberton Transport’s main offices. JV Investigations’ Web site revealed that its clients were primarily large corporations, and the services offered included vetting potential employees and consultants, as well as protecting the secrecy of proprietary corporate information. Wouldn’t it be interesting if she could hire a detective agency that operated right under Nick Pemberton’s nose, so to speak? She clicked the
PRINT
button. She would tell Sally about JV Investigations later on since she wanted her opinion.

Her computer zinged, letting her know she’d received an e-mail. Her local humane society. How could she have forgotten? Lin sometimes volunteered as a “foster parent” to care for pets until a decent home could be found. She’d had Scruffy for seventeen years. She’d promised herself she’d adopt a dog and maybe a cat or two as soon as the remodeling on the diner was complete.

They were checking in to see when she would be able to start serving as a foster parent. Typing a quick e-mail to Evelyn, the coordinator for the foster program, she replied that she thought that she would be able to serve in two or three weeks, depending upon how long some important matters took to be settled.

Continuing to research Nick, she opened a page from the
New York Times.
A photograph of a much younger Nick and a beautiful young woman wearing their finest. The article said the couple had announced their engagement. The wedding date was set for early June, just a couple of months after she’d had her spring fling with him. She read further. Apparently, she wasn’t the first woman Nick had been engaged to. A New York gossip columnist had questioned the seriousness of his current engagement since he’d recently broken off with Cathryn Carlyle, to whom he’d been engaged for four years.

Lin clicked onto yet another page, one featuring an article about Pemberton Transport’s humanitarian acts. That page showed a much older version of Nick and his wife, Chelsea.
What a prissy name,
she thought. He deserved to be married to someone named Chelsea. Lin smiled at her own wickedness. They were being honored for donating five million dollars to an upscale children’s home.

Stunned, Lin read the entire article. Then read it a second time to make sure she hadn’t misread anything. Fuming, Lin clicked the
PRINT
button again. Sally had to see this to believe it. Five million dollars. Just like that. According to the article, Pemberton Transport gave large sums of money to the orphanage every year. Nick was quoted in the article as saying, “It makes me feel good to give to kids in need. All children need to feel safe and secure.”

What a crock! Maybe that was Nick’s way of assuaging his guilt. But then Lin remembered that, as far as Nick was concerned, he had nothing to feel guilty about. He didn’t know he had a son. Maybe he didn’t even remember their weeklong fling.
No matter,
she thought. Nicholas Pemberton’s world was about to be turned topsy-turvy in the worst possible way.

“N
urse,” Chelsea shouted into the handheld intercom beside Nick’s bed, “see to it that these sheets are changed immediately. And he will not wear that horrid hospital gown.” She tossed the portable intercom aside, managing to tangle it with the tubes and wires connected to her husband. “I’m sorry you have to stay here. This is terrible. Why can’t they treat you at home? I think you should tell that…doctor that you want to leave. Are you sure he even has a medical degree? Besides, I can’t stay here all day. I have a dozen things going right now. I just don’t believe what they’re saying. You don’t look sick at all. Just tired. You spend too much time working.”

“And if I didn’t, I suppose you’d get off your ass and find a job. Damn, I forgot. You’re not qualified to do anything except
spend
my money,” Nick said hatefully.

“Why do you always have to remind me of my lack of education? You didn’t seem to mind when we first met. I should divorce you. Wouldn’t that give the business world a wonderful opportunity? Pemberton Transport up for grabs. Your poor father, God rest his soul. He didn’t care if I drew another breath while he was alive, but in dying, the dear old buzzard saw to it that I’d be taken care of for the rest of my life. I think I’ll call the florist and take flowers to the cemetery. I’m going to order the most expensive arrangement money can buy. Your father would want that, Nick. After all, it’s his money. Don’t forget.”

“Get out, Chelsea. Go the fuck home before I have security toss you out on your ass. You’re no more concerned about my health than Rosa is. Actually, I believe she
was
concerned when I called her earlier. I’m going to give her a big raise. Hell, I think I’ll send her and her family to Hawaii for Christmas this year. Since it’s the old man’s money, he’d want me to do that. Makes a good impression, don’t you think?” Nick raked his gaze over his wife. Black Chanel skirt and jacket that had cost him thousands. Blond hair bleached to look as though she had been born with it. He could only imagine what the upkeep was on that. Didn’t she tell him once her hair-dresser did Oprah’s hair? Only the best for his wife. She’d had her eyes done, a neck lift, a mini face-lift. Her lips were so thick from collagen injections that sometimes her words came out garbled when she spoke. To think she was only forty-one years old. Diamonds glistened from her ears and fingers. Her high-maintenance lifestyle was about to stop. As soon as he was up and about, he would cut off her lines of credit at all those designer shops she was so fond of and her credit cards as well.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Chelsea quickly removed a solid gold compact from her Chanel bag. She looked at herself and apparently liked what she saw, because she snapped the compact shut, returning it to the designer bag.

“I want you out of here now. As a matter of fact, I don’t want you coming back. I’ll call Rosa if I need anything. Now leave,” Nick snarled.

“You make me sick, you know that? Of course you do.” She smirked. “But not enough to divorce me. I hope you die, Nick. I truly do. As a matter of fact, as soon as I leave the flowers on your father’s grave, I’m going to Mass. I’m going to light as many of those tacky candles as possible and pray that you leave this hospital in a body bag.”

Nick flung the sheets aside and started to leap off the bed, until he remembered the tubes in his body. “Get out!” he screamed loudly and with such force that the nurse came running into the room.

“What’s going on? Mr. Pemberton, you can’t sit up so quickly. You need to lie still until the anesthetic wears off.” The nurse pushed him back on the bed. “Ma’am, is there something you wanted? I was the nurse who took your call. I had a minor emergency with another patient.” She smoothed over the sheets and untangled the mess Nick and Chelsea had made of the tubes and wires.

Chelsea looked at her as though she were nothing more than dirt beneath her fingernails. “I thought my husband might like softer sheets and his own pajamas, but he’s just convinced me that he doesn’t need me for anything.”

“Good night, Chelsea,” Nick said between clenched teeth.

“
Good-bye,
Nicholas.” She swaggered out of the room as though she were royalty.

Nick really hated her at times. All she did was spend his money. There had to be a way around his father’s will. The son of a bitch had controlled him his entire life. If only he’d had a son or a daughter, he could have divorced her, as he had intended to do until his father told him about the contents of the will. Just the thought made him smile. While he was thinking about it, he removed the cell phone he’d hidden beneath his pillow and dialed Rosa’s private number. Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue were about to lose one of their best clients. No more Chanel, Gucci, or Christian Dior for Chelsea. She’d be lucky if he allowed her to shop at Wal-Mart.

“Pemberton Transport,” Rosa said loud and clear.

“Rosa, I need a favor.”

“Of course, Mr. Pemberton. What can I do?”

“I want you to close all of Mrs. Pemberton’s lines of credit and credit-card accounts today.”

“Yes, sir. Will there be anything else?” she asked.

Yes, but the rest he’d have to do himself as soon as he was out of the hospital. “No, that will be all. If Mrs. Pemberton comes to the office, whatever you do, do not allow her to enter my private office. Is that understood, Rosa?”

“Absolutely, sir,” she replied.

“All right then. Good-bye.” He punched the
END
button with a smirk on his face. He wished he could see the look on Chelsea’s face when she realized her accounts were no longer active. Her embarrassment alone would be priceless.

Dr. Reeves entered the room, forcing him to put all thoughts of Chelsea aside.

The doctor spoke in a somber voice. “I’ve just gotten the results of your test.”

“They aren’t good, are they?” Nick asked.

“No, Mr. Pemberton, they are not good. It’s what I expected. Remember, I see this day in and day out,” Dr. Reeves explained.

“Give it to me straight so I can work this into my schedule,” Nick said, as though he were working around an unplanned vacation.

“Let me explain a few things about the disease. That will help you understand what you’re going through.”

“All right,” Nick said.

“Leukemia is cancer of blood-forming tissue, like bone marrow. Types of leukemia are grouped by the type of cell affected and by the rate of cell growth. Leukemia is either acute or chronic.”

“And which kind do I have?” Nick asked.

“Chronic lymphocytic leukemia. It’s most common in adults between the ages of forty and seventy. Reading your test results, I determined that you have a very fast-moving form of the disease. We’ll start with chemotherapy, maybe even some radiation. You can do this on an outpatient basis after your initial treatment. Then we’ll have you come in every few days for a treatment and to check your progress.”

“What happens if that doesn’t work?”

“Then you may have to consider a bone-marrow transplant. Of course, that depends on finding a suitable match. Your children or siblings should provide a match, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Nick’s blood pressure soared. “I don’t have any children or siblings!”

Dr. Reeves took a deep breath. “First, we don’t know that we’ll even need to go that far, and secondly, we have other tests we can do that will determine how far your leukemia will progress. Special tests are done on the blood and bone-marrow cells to look at characteristics of the leukemic cells. The tests used include something called a FISH test. This is used to determine the presence of chromosomal abnormalities. There is an immunoglobulin gene mutation status, known as IgVH. It can help us predict a more aggressive course of treatment if not mutated and also a more favorable course if mutated.

“I know this is a lot to swallow right now. My best advice, do what we suggest. There will be times when you won’t feel ill and will want to overdo it. Then there’ll be other times that you’ll be so wiped out from the chemo, you won’t have the strength to move. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you have to trust me and let me do my job.”

As hard as it was to relinquish control, Nick knew that if he were to beat the leukemia, and he had all the confidence in the world that he would, he would have to do exactly as the doctor ordered.

“I understand. So, when do we get started?”

“First thing tomorrow morning. We’ll be doing more blood work throughout the day. It won’t be fun, but we’ve got a great staff.

They’ll get you anything you need.”

Nick nodded and wondered if the staff would be willing to donate material for a bone-marrow transplant if it came down to that.

Somehow, he thought not.

Ten days after she had first come across the reference to JV Investigations, Lin heard the phone ringing after midnight and grabbed the cordless phone from the end table. “Hello.” She’d fallen asleep on the love seat in her office.

“I told you I’d call. The restaurant was swamped tonight. Sorry it’s so late,” Sally said.

“It’s okay. I was just dozing on the sofa. I’m still in my office,” Lin said, now wide awake. “You want to stop by or wait until tomorrow?”

“I’m too wired for bed. Put on a pot of coffee. I’ll stop at Krispy Kreme for doughnuts,” Sally suggested.

“Deal.”

Twenty minutes later both women were sitting in Lin’s homey kitchen, munching on doughnuts and swigging coffee like they were doing shots.

“I still can’t believe the bastard donated five million dollars to an orphanage. Can you imagine the kind of life you and Will would’ve had if he’d just done the right thing and helped you out?”

“If he’d been a part of it, I suspect we would’ve been nothing more than a piece of property to him. From the looks of what I’ve read, he’s all about money and making big impressions.”

“Phony as a three-dollar bill,” Sally added.

Lin got up to make a second pot of coffee. “Yeah, but I almost feel sorry for his wife.”

“I don’t. I’m sure she knew what she was getting into when they married. Most likely she married him for his money.”

“From all the articles I’ve read about her, she can’t be all that bad. Says she’s on the board of directors for several different charities.”

“And you’re too naive. Women like her want to be on those boards. It makes them look good.”

“Maybe. I just hope there’s a trace of decency in her.”

Sally laughed loudly. “You’re too damn nice, you know that?”

Lin raised her brow. “You think so? Wait and remind me when I’m knee deep in the dark stuff I’m about to shovel in Nick Pemberton’s backyard. I’ll need some encouragement then.”

“I will. We need to plan. We’ve already talked this thing to death, Lin. Now we need something concrete, a starting point.”

“After a lot of thinking, I agree with you about hiring a private detective.” Lin had already told Sally earlier in the week about JV Investigations and the kind of corporate work they did. “I’m going to call them first thing in the morning. I may have to make another trip to the city, but I won’t know until I speak with the head of the agency.” Lin glanced at the clock. “It’s three in the morning. Why don’t you stay in the guest room tonight?”

“I think I will. There’s nothing at the house that needs my immediate attention. I’m sure Clovis is out prowling and whoring around tonight.” Clovis was a male cat Sally had adopted when Lizzie went away to college. Since day one she’d never been able to keep him inside at night.

“At least we know someone who’s getting laid,” Lin teased.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Lin. Clovis has been fixed—he just likes to scope out his options.”

“You’re the one who said he was whoring. There’s a nightshirt in the bottom drawer, the one with Tinker Bell on it. Same one you wore last time. You know where everything is. We should’ve built our houses next door to each other, instead of down the street.”

“We’d be at each other’s houses all the time, then. I like living three blocks away from you,” Sally said with a huge grin.

“It does work, doesn’t it?” Lin added. “I’m gonna call it a night. I’ll see you in the morning.” Lin rinsed their mugs and turned off the coffeemaker before heading down the hall to her bedroom. She heard Sally’s “night night” and smiled. She couldn’t have picked a more compatible friend if she’d tried. They were as close as two women could be. Sisters most of the time, and occasionally they mothered one another when the situation called for it.

In her bedroom Lin removed her jeans and blouse, slipped into a silky red sleep shirt, and crawled beneath the covers, suddenly glad she’d splurged on the thousand-count Egyptian linens. Within minutes she drifted off to sleep.

Sun trickled in through the slats as dust motes flitted through the air like tiny stars dancing in space. Lin cracked one eye open and looked at the clock. Ten o’clock. Damn! She never slept this late. Jumping out of the bed, she raced down the hall to the guest room, where Sally was curled up in a ball in the center of the bed.

“Get up!” Lin called as she yanked the covers off her friend.

“What the heck!” Sally muttered as she inched up against the headboard. “Are you nuts?”

“Yes. I mean no. It’s ten in the morning. Someone needs to open the diner.”

“Haven’t you learned by now that I cover our asses when needed?” Sally asked.

“Yes, I have. You didn’t mention anything last night.”

“Kelly Ann promised to open since I covered for her last night. There’s a full crew until this evening. Since you woke me up, you’re going to have to make a pot of coffee before I go home.”

“Not a problem, but first I’m going to call JV Investigations.” Lin swirled out of the bedroom to her office. She found the paper with the number on it and, before she could change her mind or think of an excuse not to do what she was about to do, dialed the number.

“JV Investigations,” a deep male voice boomed over the wire.

Lin’s throat closed up. She swallowed before she could utter a single word. This wasn’t as easy as she’d thought. “I…I would like to hire an investigator.” There. She’d said it.