by Gayle Wilson
“It doesn’t matter,” Raine said. “I just thought he might have mentioned me.”
Claire’s lips parted as if she wanted to continue her questions. Before she did, however, she glanced at Griff. The small negative movement of his head caused her to close her mouth without another comment.
Ethan wondered which of them Griff was trying to protect—his wife or Raine or maybe even Ethan’s investigation. He couldn’t believe the very pragmatic head of the Phoenix actually thought Raine McAllister might make a difference in the investigation, so Griff’s decision to put an end to this increasingly awkward conversation must have been personal rather than professional.
“I’d like to see him.” Raine’s voice was properly subdued, considering the circumstances, but she sounded as if she thought that request to be reasonable.
“You want to see my grandfather?” Claire obviously couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “Do you have any idea—”
“He’s only allowed one visitor per hour. On the hour,” Griff intervened. “And for only ten minutes.”
“That would be more than enough time,” Raine said. “Any time at all, actually—”
“Only family is allowed in the room,” Claire snapped, making no pretense of politeness this time.
Raine smiled at her, apparently willing to overlook her rudeness. “You’ve had him your entire life, Claire. Surely you can spare me ten minutes.”
“Just who the hell do you think you are?” Claire finally exploded, her face flushed and angry.
“His daughter,” Raine said.
THE CALM BEEP of the monitors and the low light of the glass-walled cubicle were soothing after the tenseness of the scene in the waiting room. She should have been able to handle that better, Raine thought. Despite the number of times she had tried to imagine a meeting with her father’s family, nothing had gone as she’d expected.
She was genuinely sorry to have caused Claire more distress, but she hadn’t seen any other way to respond to what she believed was her father’s convoluted method of reaching out to her.
When it had become clear Claire was determined to keep someone who had been a mere employee from seeing her grandfather, Raine had felt she had no other choice than to claim her rightful place at his side. And, of course, it would all have to come out eventually.
She supposed she should be thankful Claire’s mother hadn’t been here. If it was that difficult to learn that you had an aunt you’d never known about, how much more startling would it be to discover the existence of a half sister? One that no one had bothered to tell you about. Not even your father.
She forced her eyes away from the digital display to watch the even rise and fall of Montgomery Gardner’s chest. The ventilator breathed for him, its slow rhythm almost mesmerizing.
She stepped nearer the bed as the nurse pulled the curtain closed to give them a modicum of privacy. For a moment the features of the man in the narrow, railed bed were unfamiliar. Almost alien.
Not only were the tubes and wires distracting, the signs of the attack he’d suffered were brutally clear. Blood had pooled beneath the thin skin under his eyes, blackening both of them. The gash on his forehead had been neatly stitched, but it was long and swollen.
She resisted the urge to touch his cheek, putting her hand on the top of his wrist instead. His skin was cool and dry.
Too cool? she wondered, but the steady blip of the monitor reassured that sudden fear.
He was holding his own, Cabot had said. And he would, as long as he has to, his granddaughter had added.
In spite of those determinedly optimistic evaluations, the old man’s strength was nearly at an end. Raine had known that, as far away as she had been. Throughout today’s journey she had sensed that he was almost too tired to fight anymore. So very tired of it all, she thought, running her fingers along his forearm, which was nothing but skin and bones.
Maybe that’s why he had sent for her after all these years. Because he was tired of seeing everything he had devoted his life to endangered. He wouldn’t have told them that, of course. He would never reveal that much of himself or his feelings.
Instead, he had dispatched Ethan Snow with the suggestion that she could help if they would contact her. And at one time that might even have been true. Now, however…
“Why didn’t you send for me before?” she whispered, bending to put her mouth near his ear.
There was no reaction. His eyelids, their thin blue veins visible beneath the fragile skin, never moved.
All these years she had waited, respecting his wishes. Until today she had never demanded his attention, never approached any member of his family, never interfered with their lives in any way.
For a year after his wife’s death, which she had read about in the papers, she had waited for him to call, believing that now he would finally acknowledge her existence. Apparently he’d decided that would still be too traumatic for the remaining members of his family. Judging by Claire’s reaction, he had been right.
She was sorry she’d broken the news so abruptly. Cruelly, she admitted, but she truly believed her father wanted to see her. If he hadn’t, why would he have given Ethan Snow her name?
Besides, if she hadn’t revealed their relationship, his family would never have allowed her into this room. If the doctors were right, and there really was so little time…
She bent closer, her lips parted to speak to him again, and discovered she didn’t know what to call him. She had never called him “Father.” Not aloud. Yet to call him “Mr. Gardner” seemed a denial of all that he had meant in her life.
“I don’t know that I can help your friends. So many things have happened…” She hesitated. That wasn’t something she wanted to share with him. Not now. “But I’ll try.”
For a moment Ethan Snow’s face was in her mind’s eye, his voice passionate, touchingly sincere, as he talked about protecting his country.
Her father shared that same patriotism and dedication. That’s what he had asked of her before. That’s all he was asking now. And she would do the very best she could, despite what had happened in the past.
“I promise you I’ll try.”
This time she leaned forward to press her lips against the undamaged side of his forehead. As soon as they made contact with the old man’s skin, the nearly electric force that had caused the statue of the runner to morph into something else jolted through her consciousness again.
The image was exactly the same. Dark water. Cold and deep and still. And somehow deadly.
Aware this time of what might happen, she instantly began to fight against its pull. She jerked her eyes open and stumbled backwards, bumping into a monitor and sending it rolling away from the bed.
It had been attached to one of the myriad wires, of course. As the connection was disrupted, an alarm sounded, loud and demanding in the quietness.
The curtain behind her was thrown open, and two nurses rushed in. One of them began to adjust the monitor she’d stumbled into, thankfully silencing the alarm, while the other went over to examine their patient.
“I’m sorry,” Raine said. “I backed into one of the machines, and it went off. Nothing’s wrong with my father. It was just an accident.”
The nurse by the bed looked over her shoulder. “You’ll have to leave.”
“But I told you—”
“I’m sorry. You can wait in the waiting room. Someone will call you.”
The nurse who had readjusted the monitor took her by the elbow, directing her toward the curtain.
“Come on, my dear. Better to get out of the way so we can make sure everything is all right.”
She wanted that, of course, but she had the feeling that if she let them send her away, she would never be allowed to return. There were too many things left unsaid.
And too many years during which they might have been said. On both sides.
The drape was pulled closed behind her, and Raine found herself standing alone in fron
t of the cubicle. She thought about waiting out here until they were through, but one of the other RNs from the nurses’ station rose and started toward her.
Raine put her purse over her shoulder and looked at the glass door leading out of the ICU unit. A man waited beside it, his eyes directed not inside, but at the white tile wall opposite him. He stood with his arms crossed in front of his body, the left holding the wrist of the right.
He wore a gray, three-button suit over a white dress shirt and blue tie. His salt-and-pepper hair had been cut almost militarily short, and he was clean shaven. Although she had never seen him before, the look was one she instantly rec ognized, despite the passage of years. Perhaps the style of the suit had changed, but the way he was dressed was what she had once considered to be the agency’s unofficial uniform.
Another of Cabot’s men? Assigned to protect her father? Or assigned to watch her?
That was possible. Cabot and Ethan Snow were probably already in the process of trying to verify her claim.
Other than asking the man in the cubicle behind her, she wasn’t sure how they would do that. Monty Gardner was far too adept at keeping secrets. After all, he had had more than forty years with the CIA to perfect the art.
“I think it would be better if you go back to the waiting room now,” the nurse from the station said.
Startled from her contemplation of the man outside, Raine turned to smile at her. “Of course. You will send for me when they’ve checked out the equipment, won’t you? I wasn’t in there but a minute or two. I’d really appreciate another chance to talk to my father.”
The nurse looked slightly taken aback, perhaps because of Gardner’s physical condition. It was obvious that any conversation wouldn’t be two-way.
“I’m sure there’ll be other opportunities,” she said. “Now, if you don’t mind…” The nurse gestured toward the exit to the unit.
Given no choice, Raine walked across the room and pushed the bar that would release the door. As it opened with a pneumatic hiss, the eyes of the man who had been waiting outside met hers.
“Ms. McAllister?”
He had obviously been given her description. Maybe he had a message from Ethan or the Cabots.
“Yes?”
“If you’d come with me, ma’am.” He took a step along the corridor as if her consent would be automatic.
“Come with you where?”
He turned back, smiling at her. Although it was an attractive smile, it didn’t quite reach his eyes, which she saw were an unusual shade of brown, so light they were almost gold.
“To rejoin your party, of course.”
Ethan? Or the Cabots?
The latter seemed unlikely, given Claire’s reaction. Maybe Ethan had arranged for her to be escorted to somewhere besides the waiting room, so that she and Claire wouldn’t meet again.
“And I need an escort to do that?” she asked.
The man’s smile widened before it became a soft chuckle. Even his laughter didn’t change the amber eyes.
“I’m just following orders, Ms. McAllister.”
That, too, was something she remembered from when she was a child. That’s what they all said. All those hard men had always just been following orders.
All but my father, who gave them.
As the charge nurse had done inside the ICU, her escort put out his hand, gesturing down the hallway. Raine glanced back through the glass door, but the curtain around her father’s cubicle was still closed.
They had said they’d send for her, but they would assume she had returned to the waiting room. If Ethan were waiting for her somewhere else and she allowed this man to take her there, they wouldn’t know where to find her.
“I’ll have to tell the nurses where I’ll be.”
When she turned back, the man was no longer smiling. His eyes seemed even more golden. Lighter. Colder.
Colder?
“I’ll send someone to tell them,” he said, taking her arm.
She was getting tired of people doing that, she realized. As if they thought she wasn’t capable of making up her own mind about where she wanted to go. She pulled against his hold, but instead of releasing her, his fingers tightened painfully around her elbow.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
She hadn’t finished the sentence before he’d pulled her against him, her back to his chest. Something hard was pressed into the base of her spine. For a second or two she didn’t understand its significance. Not until he put his cheek next to hers, his mouth close to her ear.
“Walk,” he said. “Don’t look back. Don’t talk. Just walk. I’ll tell you where.”
When she didn’t move, more out of shock than from any intention to resist, the object in her back, which she now realized must be the muzzle of a gun, ground into her backbone. He closed the distance between them, which had the effect of both hiding the weapon and, at the same time, urging her forward.
“I don’t know how much you know about firearms, Ms. McAllister, but the one at your back is a 9 mm. Trust me when I tell you it will blow a very big hole in your spine.”
She did trust what he’d just said. Just as she knew he would have no compunction in pulling the trigger.
It was damned late to be getting that kind of clear message about what was happening, she thought. Far too late to do her any good.
From the first she had tried to tell Ethan Snow that she couldn’t help him, but he hadn’t listened. And then when she had heard Monty Gardner was involved, she had put her doubts aside in order to make this journey.
One that was a waste of everyone’s time. Because now she had absolute proof that she couldn’t even use her gift to help herself.
Chapter Four
“She said nothing about Gardner being her father, I swear to you,” Ethan said for the second or third time. “She told me she’d worked for him. That he’d paid for her to go to school—a finishing school of some kind—and then to college. If I’d had any idea that she would say something like that to Claire, I swear I’d never have brought her here.”
In all the years that Ethan had known him, he’d seen very few things rattle Griff Cabot. Anything that affected the well-being of his family was obviously one of them.
Although he hadn’t been in on the action, Ethan knew that the Phoenix had been born out of a dangerous operation Griff’s former External Security Team members had undertaken, at Cabot’s request, to rescue his daughter from a kidnapper. The fact that Griff had blown the cover the CIA had arranged for him in order to carry out that mission indicated exactly where his priorities lay.
“I think she’s lying,” Cabot said curtly. “I’ve known Monty Gardner a long time, both before and after I met Claire. There’s never been a man more devoted to his family.”
“Maybe after his wife died—”
“He’s been a widower for less than seven years. It won’t wash, Ethan. Whatever Raine McAllister is selling, I’m not buying.”
Despite his sympathy for Claire, who had clearly been distraught, for some reason Ethan felt compelled to defend Raine against that characterization.
“I’m not sure she’s selling anything. She hasn’t made any claims on Gardner’s estate or on the family. At least, not yet. I think she just wanted to see the old man again. It may be that when she was told visitation was for family only—”
“She dreamed up that story about being his daughter?” Griff interrupted. “That’s even more unforgivable. Besides, a claim like that is too easy to disprove. She has to know she can’t get away with this.”
“Maybe she only needed to get away with it tonight.”
“You think she wants access to his room to do him harm?”
As the thought occurred to him, Griff started toward the corridor leading to the ICU. And considering the seemingly inexplicable attack on Gardner, that suspicion wasn’t as farfetched as it normally would have been.
Ethan grabbed his arm, forcibly restraining him. “I’m not sugge
sting anything like that. We’ve all been afraid he won’t make it. She was, too. She wanted to see him before it was too late. Maybe she was desperate enough to come up with that story.”
Claire had vehemently denied her claim, but Raine had been resolute that she was Gardner’s daughter. And equally resolute in her demand that she be allowed to see her grandfather. She hadn’t wavered from either position, not even in the face of Claire’s escalating anger. When Griff had taken his wife out of the waiting room to calm down, Raine had taken the opportunity to present herself to the ICU staff as Gardner’s daughter, newly arrived from out of town.
Given the Cabots’ explanation about the manner under which the unit allowed visitation, Ethan had expected her request to see him to be turned down. It hadn’t been. She’d been ushered inside the ICU unit before Griff’s return.
At least Claire had no idea as yet that Raine had been allowed in to see her grandfather. As exhausted and as anxious as she was, that would probably have been the last straw.
“I don’t care how desperate she is,” Griff said. “I won’t have her adding to his family’s stress.”
“Gardner gave us her name. That means there’s some—”
“He provided her name as someone who could help the investigation. Not as his illegitimate daughter.”
“Maybe not, but there’s some bond between them that’s important to them both. After all, he paid for her education. And that’s the only reason she let me in, by the way. Because I told her Gardner was a mutual friend.”
“I’m willing to believe she cares for him. About him,” Griff amended. “The other, however—”
“Mr. Gardner’s daughter? You may come back to the ICU now.”
They turned to find the nurse who’d just made that announcement standing in the door of the waiting room.