To receive a week’s worth made him feel something he’d never experienced before. He felt humbled. Felt a pricking at the back of his eyes. It was the champagne bubbles.
The sobering effect of the thought didn’t go unnoticed.
‘Hey.’ She clinked glasses. ‘What’s wrong?’
He shook his head but she wouldn’t let it drop and so he told her what he was thinking.
‘I don’t feel like I deserve it.’
‘Don’t be stupid. If you hadn’t found me, who knows what might have happened? The company might have gone to somebody who took a look at the numbers and thought, okay, let’s start by cutting all that aid.’
She didn’t know how right she was. If McIntyre or Vasiliev had got their hands on it, that would have been the least of the company’s woes. It wasn’t the time to tell her either. However, it was the time to bring up one sobering issue.
‘The will is likely to be contested. Your grandfather knew that so he left DNA samples with me. We’ll need to take yours too.’
She nodded, no problem.
‘If you open your mouth, I’ll do it now.’
Inside his own mouth, his tongue was ready to do the honors if they couldn’t find a swab.
She sat up straight and then grinned at him. He was only joking. He was joking, wasn’t he? There must have been something in the way he licked his lips told her what he was thinking.
‘You know, if you weren’t so old I might take you up on that. You’re not bad for an old guy.’
That made the bubbles go up his nose.
They sat for a while in an easy silence, her last remark bouncing around in his head, her head full of other sorts of possibilities.
‘When I told grandpa I wanted to work as a volunteer for Médecins Sans Frontières, he was furious. He thinks the whole reason you spend a ton of money and all that time and hard work training to be a doctor is so you can make even more money yourself. Nothing to do with helping people. And now I’ve ended up with more money than he could ever imagine.’
She picked up a paper serviette and started to tear strips off it, her hair falling forward, covering her face. He guessed the implications and maybe the responsibilities were beginning to sink in.
‘What will you do?’
She shook her head.
‘There are so many things going around in my head, I don’t know where to start. Build a medical center, set up a foundation, I don’t know. I’ll call it Sterling Health.’
She repeated it, trying the name out. She rocked her head from side to side, not convinced, her mouth twisted to the side. Evan was about to offer to help get it straight again—he felt his own lips twitch at the thought—when she laughed suddenly.
‘Or Yates Health. That’d stop grandpa going to the country club all the time. His head would swell up so big, he’d never get through the door.’
Evan gave himself a mental slap, told himself to ignore any provocative words she might utter.
‘Was he the one encouraged you to become a doctor?’
‘Yes. I’ve got him to thank for that.’
‘Even if it was for the wrong reasons.’
She gave a soft shrug.
‘Looks like it worked out in the end.’
She took another sip of her drink, put the glass carefully on the counter, next to the little pile of ripped serviette.
‘Que sera, sera,’ Evan said.
She looked up sharply, fixing him with her gaze, the other-worldly dreaminess gone from her eyes, replaced by something more intense. A single thought filled his mind—if her grandmother Margarita had been as beautiful as she was, no wonder Frank Hanna had carried the memories with him his whole life. He could easily imagine a lifetime of regrets, catching you unawares when you least expect it, haunting you in the small hours of the night.
The remark had sparked off similar thoughts in her mind although he was sure she didn’t have the whole story, if any at all.
‘I know I’ve been fortunate. My mother died when I was a baby’—she paused, the fact that he’d tracked her down registering—‘do you know all this?’
He nodded.
More than I’m ever likely to tell.
‘I had a very privileged upbringing thanks to grandpa’s money. That’s not how it was meant to be. My mother was blond, blue eyes, fair skin. Look at me.’
She presented herself full-on to him, sat up straight. He didn’t need to be told twice. He admired the smooth, slightly olive skin, the dark eyes with a certain je ne sais quoi behind them, the mane of dark hair, flecked with a hint of red. He’d happily have done it all day. He wanted to ask if he was allowed to touch as well, just to make sure. Maybe taste too?
‘I’m half Latino. Things might have been very different if my mother had lived. I don’t know anything about my father, apart from the fact that he’s dead too. If he’d lived or my mother had lived, I wouldn’t have had the privileged upbringing I did. I might have ended up living in some run-down ... listen to me, I sound like grandpa. The point is, two people died for me to enjoy—’
He put a hand on her arm to head off what was clearly a well-worn guilt trip.
‘It’s not your fault.’
She smiled sadly, the sort of smile that said better men than you have tried to put a stop to this, but thank-you for trying.
‘I’m just trying to explain why I want to give something back. And now this has happened, I intend to spread that good fortune around.’
He knew all about guilt, imagined how she must feel about the prospect of banishing it from her life, or at least assuaging it. Then she asked him what he’d hoped she wouldn’t.
‘Do you know the background to all this?’
He nodded, holding her eyes.
‘Not a good time?’ she said.
‘No. It’s a very sad story. I’ll tell you anything you want to know—just not today.’
‘Okay.’
The silence became a little uncomfortable. She finished her drink, then laughed, a small, sharp sound like a cat’s sneeze.
‘What?’
‘I’m not fishing for you to tell me’—she put her hand on his arm to reassure him of her sincerity, which only made him ready to tell her anything—‘but I’ve always known there was something unusual about my background.’
‘Unusual?’ He nodded a couple times. ‘Yup, I’ll give you that. What makes you think it?’
She shrugged, a little embarrassed now to mention it. He felt a worm of excitement wriggle in his gut. He knew what was coming, had a good idea anyway.
‘Every year I receive a card on the anniversary of my mother’s death. It’s always the same card. Sometimes there’s nothing written inside, sometimes it’s something like be safe.’
‘Signed?’
‘Never.’
‘What’s on the front?’
She hesitated. She’d reached the part she felt silly talking about.
‘I think it’s meant to be a guardian angel’—she held his eyes, maybe looking for confirmation from him—‘looking over me.’
His mouth was suddenly dry, his glass empty when he picked it up. He put it down, didn’t make a move to refill it for fear of breaking the moment. He was hard pressed to keep himself from telling her she’d got an angel alright, but it sure as hell wasn’t of the guardian variety.
An avenging angel was what she had watching over her.
‘Why do you say meant to be?’
‘Because sometimes it doesn’t look like my idea of an angel at all.’ She smiled, showing perfect teeth. ‘With these big wings spread, sometimes it looks like—’
‘A crow.’
Her mouth clamped shut, opened again.
‘How did you know?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘It’s not you sending them, is it?’
How did he know? He almost laughed out loud as he thought about Elwood Crow’s answer to that same question when he told the police where to find the man who killed her mother.
A little bi
rdie told me.
‘No. I’m very’—he put a lot of emphasis on the word—‘sorry to say, I didn’t even know of your existence until a few days ago.’
A delicate pink flush rose up her cheeks. She looked down for a long moment. He was sure he felt the heat coming off her face.
‘Okay, Mr Silver Tongue, how did you know?’
He lifted his hands, beats me.
‘Maybe that’s one of the benefits of being old’—he made quotes in the air with his fingers as he said it—‘you develop a sixth sense.’
She nodded enthusiastically like she believed a word of it.
‘Is that so? There’s something else I heard about older men. They’re meant to be very attentive to a lady’s needs.’
She rattled her empty glass on the bar top.
He kept his mind in check, on the straight and narrow, didn’t let it go anywhere near what sort of needs a lady might have. He started to pour, slowly, letting the froth settle, doing the same for himself.
Then she took the conversation off on another tangent. With so many things to take in at once, it wasn’t surprising if thoughts just popped out at random.
‘How did he die?’
He hesitated, pretended to concentrate on not spilling the champagne.
‘He was at home, fell down the stairs and broke his neck.’
Her mouth opened, her hand covering it immediately.
‘That’s terrible.’
‘No, not really. It was a mercy. He had terminal cancer. At least this way it was quick and painless. I never asked him, but he seemed like the sort of guy who wouldn’t want to spend the end of his days in a hospital bed with tubes and ...’ He waved the depressing thought off. ‘You’re a doctor, you know what I mean.’
They were both silent a minute, watching the froth in her glass rise almost to the lip and fall back again as he carefully topped off her glass. Perfectly judged. If only he could say the same about every aspect of his life.
‘What was he like?’
He closed his eyes, tried to think, to picture the man. Nothing came, beyond what he’d already said or everyday platitudes. And Evan didn’t do platitudes. He didn’t reckon Hanna did either.
‘I don’t really know. I only met him a couple times.’
She breathed in deeply through her nose, let it out slowly. If you can read anything into the simple act of breathing, that long slow exhale asked why does one door have to close in order for another to open?
‘Now I’ll never know. I’d love to know what drove him. What made him so generous, give so much.’
That was something Evan could have told her—although he wasn’t about to.
He shook his head.
‘No idea.’
He handed the glass to her, picked up his own and held it towards her.
‘Here’s to him, whatever it was that drove him.’
She clinked his glass and sipped, blissfully unaware of what she was drinking to.
Atonement for the Sins of the Father.
Epilogue
SHEILA WALSH LOOKED DOWN at the empty husk of a man lying in his bed and felt the urge again. Because he was an empty husk—not just empty physically as his body slowly shrivelled away, but empty morally because he was a monster. She couldn’t begin to count the number of times she’d thought about pulling the plug, ripping away all the tubes and everything else that kept this evil man alive. Every time it happened, the feeling was stronger, more insistent. Forget her job, her career, it would be worth it. But already she heard Father John’s faintly disappointed voice—the one that made her want to slap him—from the other side of the metal grille when she next confessed her sins.
Ten Hail Marys or not, it wasn’t right.
If half the things she’d read and heard about him were true, he didn’t deserve to live—not that you’d call what he was doing living. It wasn’t up to her, more’s the pity. The Lord would take him when he was good and ready and not before.
Great, she thought to herself bitterly as she tucked in the covers, looks like I’ll be cleaning up after you for some years to come.
She’d heard some of the so-called experts say you should talk to a person in a coma. They can hear you, can understand. It comforts them, maybe even helps with their recovery. Which is why she’d never breathed so much as a word in all the time she’d been caring—she almost choked on the word—for this patient.
Tonight, she couldn’t help herself.
Sheila looked out through the window into the main ward. Everything was quiet at this time of day, getting settled for the long night. Nobody was paying her any attention. She hesitated, a small thrill of apprehension in her stomach. What to say? She leaned over the bed, put her lips close to his ear, even though it made her skin crawl to be so close, so intimate.
I hope you rot in hell.
She stood up quickly feeling like a naughty schoolgirl who’s just got away with ... she couldn’t think what, she’d never done a thing wrong in her life. She smoothed the front of her uniform flat, her palms moist, thinking maybe she’d say something nasty every day. Perhaps help him on his way. On his way downstairs. She crossed herself quickly, the smile still on her face as she left the room and closed the door quietly behind her.
Sheila was leaving early tonight—only ten minutes—but ten minutes can make all the difference. If her husband Peter hadn’t been taking her for a special meal on this, their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, she would still have been in the room, not dabbing at her eyes and fluffing up her hair, making last-minute adjustments to her makeup in the ladies’ bathroom.
Who knows, it might have been at the exact moment she put her lips to his ear and whispered I hope you rot in hell that Jack Adamson had opened his eyes for the first time since he was brought in.
Now that would have put the fear of God in her.
THE END
Copyright © 2017
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This is a work of fiction. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
NO REST FOR THE WICKED
EVAN BUCKLEY THRILLERS #4
Chapter 1
THE LIQUOR STORE MANAGER had a death wish. Why else would you reach for the secret alarm when a guy in a rabbit’s head mask was pointing his sawed-off shotgun in your face? It wasn’t worth playing hero and dying to save your own money, let alone for some rich guy who didn’t know you from Adam and barely paid you minimum wage.
But he went for it nonetheless.
Luckily for him, Todd Hollis, the guy with the sawed-off didn’t see him do it. He was too busy watching the clerk stuff great wads of cash into the bag he’d thrown at her.
Unfortunately for him, Todd’s half-wit cousin, Sonny, the one in the Ronald Reagan mask, did. A lot of people said Sonny didn’t make it all the way to the end of the production line, there were important parts of him missing, but his finger wasn’t one of them. It worked just fine. He squeezed the trigger on his nine-mil automatic twice in quick succession, throwing the manager backwards, knocking him away from the panic button before he even got close.
The guy slammed into the back wall, a red stain spreading across his chest, blossoming out from under his black clip-on tie, as he slid slowly down the wall and settled into a twitching heap on the floor.
Sonny only meant to do it once, just to wound the guy—in the chest?—but he was so fired up and twitchy he’d pulled the trigger twice before he knew it.
‘What the fuck?’ Todd shouted, his voice drowned out by the clerk’s scream.
He
spun around, saw the not-quite-sane glint in his half-wit cousin’s eye and knew there was a sick smile hiding there behind Ronnie’s inane grin.
‘What the fuck! I said nobody gets hurt.’
‘He was going for the panic button.’
‘So what’s wrong with shouting at him, telling him to back off, shooting into the ceiling? Jesus Christ.’
Behind them the door to the store’s office flew open. They both spun around, guns raised. Mason King, Todd’s long-time partner, saw the guns come up and dropped to a crouch behind a stack of wine cases.
‘Whoa, it’s me. What the hell’s going on?’
He stood up slowly now that they’d seen him but Sonny’s gun was still pointing at him. He called across to Todd.
‘Hey, get that retard to point his gun someplace else. What part of nobody gets hurt doesn’t he understand anyway?’
Sonny took a step forward.
‘Who you calling a retard? Shit-for-brains.’
Todd put a hand on Sonny’s arm, pushed it down until the gun was pointing at the floor.
‘Take it easy you two.’
Behind them the clerk’s scream had subsided into a high-pitch, keening wail, the noise escaping from behind the hand that covered her mouth. Todd turned and took a step towards her. Her hand almost disappeared into her mouth, her eyes stretched wide.
‘Will you quit making that god-awful noise?’
He raised his gun as he said it without thinking, as if he was waving his hand, like he’d forgotten he was holding it. The clerk shrieked louder.
Behind Todd, Mason squared up to Sonny. He was a lot older, in his mid-forties, and getting heavy around the middle, but he carried himself with the same kind of quiet violence you see in grizzly bears.
‘Did you just call me shit-for-brains?’
Todd whirled back towards them, in time to see Sonny reach up and rip his mask off. He stuck his face into Mason’s personal space, so close they could’ve kissed if Mason had been stupid enough to pull his Tricky Dicky mask off.
The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets) Page 88