Dr. Levenstein took the papers the woman had in her hands and reviewed them quickly. “Uninsured.”
He passed the papers back to the woman with such an abrupt gesture that she ducked, thinking he was going to hit her. “Refer him to Dr. Clayton.”
Stunned, the woman blinked rapidly. “To the hospice team? But his daughter says you told her he has a curable lymphoma.”
Dr. Levenstein’s smile was cynical. “Don’t worry. As usual, the sucker Patch Adams will rush to find him a loser oncologist who’s willing to treat him for free.” He chuckled and added, “If she believes she’s earning heaven when she does that, let her have it. He wins, and she wins. And if she gets pissed enough to call me on the phone, even if only to yell at me, I win too!”
Richard looked at him in disbelief. “I think you’re right in wanting to reinforce your protection, Dr. Levenstein. There must be many people around who want to see you dead.”
* * *
A few hours later, Richard sat in the media office in front of a TV monitor and rubbed his tired eyes. Out of other ideas, he’d decided to follow Ms. Bonas’s advice and review some of the video recordings of interviews he’d conducted over the past weeks.
He started with Stephen Fox. As usual, the man appeared annoyed to be interrogated.
Richard fast-forwarded to the part when he’d showed him the pictures of the Lords of the Universe coins.
“Mr. Fox, are you completely sure you’ve never seen this before?”
“No, I haven’t. Listen, Mr. Fields, my patience has a limit. It’s bad enough that all of you have been unable to find out who the people are that threaten my safety. But having me come here to be interrogated for the third time in three months? That’s too much! Michael wasn’t worth this much trouble!”
“I thought you were his friend.”
“No, I was his campaign manager. I told you I didn’t care much for him.”
“I thought that to be somebody’s campaign manager, you need to have faith in the person, to believe the product you are selling is good.”
“The guy was good-looking, charming, and knew how to speak. He had a beautiful wife and a clean record. You can make a president out of that.”
Richard stopped the recording and thought for a moment. The man was always in a hurry to end the conversation. Maybe he did have something to hide.
The next interview was Charles Clark. Richard fast-forwarded to the part when he showed him the pictures.
“Mr. Clark, have you seen this before?”
The man blinked quickly three times. His voice was extremely calm when he answered, “No.”
Richard made a note in his pad. The blinking had been subtle, and he’d missed it in the interview. It could mean he was lying. He definitely needed to interview him again. He continued watching.
“So, Mr. Clark, in your last interview, you were telling me about how terrible it had been losing O’Hara, your best friend.”
“It was. The worst part was knowing those poor children were left fatherless. Can you imagine what Joy went through, being left on her own with three kids?”
“Have you kept in contact with her and the children?”
Richard knew the answer was no, as he’d never seen him around for the weeks Joy Clayton had been under monitoring. He was probing him.
He answered, “I admit that I’ve gotten disconnected from them since Michael’s death. I could try to justify myself and say that it’s due to how demanding my new position on the Healthcare Advisory Board is; but the truth is, it’s too painful to see them and remember him.”
Richard stopped the playback and went to the next interview. It was Samantha McKinney, Michael O’Hara’s PR representative.
He watched the video of her last interview again, now looking for nonverbal cues that she might’ve been lying. He paid extra attention to the moment when he showed her the picture of the coin.
“Have you ever seen this?” She had a completely blank expression. “No.”
“Were you having an affair with Michael O’Hara?” He was abrupt on purpose.
Her voice was cold. “No. It was more of a brother-sister type of love.”
Richard chuckled. “Yeah, right. I’ve heard that before.”
She didn’t seem worried. Her voice was serious when she said, “My relationship with Michael was entirely platonic. Even if I’d ever felt attracted to him, I never would’ve done anything hurtful against his wife, Joy. Mrs. O’Hara has been one of the few people in my life who’s truly cared for me. She deserves all my respect and my loyalty.”
Did all of them agree together to talk about Joy today?
Richard stopped the recording. Wasn’t McKinney supposed to display more emotion than she was showing? Did it mean she was faking indifference and he should re-interview her, too?
Richard exited out of the file. This had been useless in helping him narrow his list of suspects. Some days he felt as if he was losing his skills.
He noticed another file in the memory stick but had no idea what it was. He must have saved it long ago. He played it.
His heart skipped a beat, and all his muscles tensed up. It was Joy. It was that last video recorded at her house before the monitoring cameras were turned off.
He looked at her, so beautiful, so joyful, chatting with her sister on her couch. He’d been doing such a good job for the past couple months not thinking about her, and there she was, darn it!
He heard Joy’s sister say the last words he’d heard the last time he watched those scenes. “What’s your problem, woman? Don’t you miss it? It must be ages since you’ve had sex.”
Shaking himself, Richard was about to turn it off when he heard Joy’s musical laughter.
“Oh, Hope, you obviously don’t have kids. By the time my day is over, all I want to do is crawl into bed. My libido is dead. I am dead.”
Hope shook her head. “I refuse to believe that. Your libido’s not dead; it’s buried alive. All you need is one brave man to ignore your repelling signals, push you against a wall, and remind you of what you’ve been missing!”
Grunting, Joy replied, “Oh, please! A man would need to be crazy to go after me. You do realize that I don’t come alone? I’m a full package that includes three kids. You only have a vague idea of how terrible these kids are. You have no clue of the embarrassment I went through the other day when Arthur threw one of his tantrums in front of this friend of mine. Ugh, I still want to bury my head in the ground when I see him!”
She shrank in her seat. Richard couldn’t help smiling, realizing she was talking about him. He continued watching.
Hope straightened up. “Wait, is that the guy Donna mentioned? The hot cop?”
Joy raised a hand. “Stop right there, Hope. He has a girlfriend.”
Sighing deeply, Hope replied, “Of course he does! You wouldn’t let a straight man within a mile of you otherwise.”
Gasping, Joy asked, “What do you mean?”
Narrowing her eyes, Hope crossed her arms and tilted her head. “That you run away from available men as if they had the plague. You’re scared of dating. I’m starting to think you’re scared of having sex again.”
Joy chuckled. “No, Hope, I’m not scared. I am terrified, frozen in fear, paralyzed in terror.”
Silence fell. Sighing, Joy continued with a weak voice. “You know I’ve never been with anybody but Michael. I have no idea what to expect with another man. I have no idea what would be expected of me. I feel so lost.”
Hope nodded, looking at her with loving eyes. “It’s as if you’re a virgin again.”
Joy laughed. “I’m a thirty-five-year-old virgin mother of three. What a nightmare.”
Shaking her head, Hope asked, “What do you think is the worst thing that could happen if you decide to be with a man?”
Joy pondered. “He’d be disappointed. Disappointed with my performance, with my body.”
Hope rubbed her sister’s arm. Exhaustion showed in Joy’s fa
ce. “It’s so frightening that I’d rather not even try. Trust me, sweetie; I’m fine the way I am now.”
Richard looked at her on the screen with compassion. Laura Bonas had been right. It wasn’t about him. She hadn’t pushed him away. She’d run away, in terror.
Turning off the monitors, he remained still for a long time, thinking. He then looked at the time on his phone.
He didn’t feel like hitting the bar tonight. He’d rather go to the only place where he felt comfortable and relatively in peace lately. He dialed Carl’s number.
* * *
“Have you ever heard from Joy?”
Stopping the cup of green tea midway to his lips, Richard stared at Carl in disbelief. He was looking at him candidly from the black leather chair in his living room while sipping his own cup.
Richard put the cup down on the glass table and spoke with anger. “You have to be kidding me. Is the whole world conspiring against me? Damn it! Have all of you agreed to talk about her just to torture me?”
Carl raised his eyebrows.
“All day I’ve been running into people talking about her everywhere. Your crazy friend Laura Bonas, the bastard Dr. Levenstein, all these people in the random videos I picked to watch . . . then it was this other video I found with her on it. Damn it! Leave me alone!”
Smiling, Carl observed him in silence for a while before speaking. “Richard, do you realize that you are causing all this? That it’s not that you’re thinking about her because people mention her, but people are mentioning her because you’re thinking about her?”
Puzzled, Richard frowned at him. “I don’t understand.”
Carl leaned forward. “Richard, this is the key to unleash the power of manufacturing miracles. It’s the main premise of the book I haven’t introduced you to yet. You’re not yet ready for it, but I guess I can spoon-feed you some of the concepts that are yet to come, right?”
Richard couldn’t believe that he was about to receive his first lesson on the power of the Co-creators. His heart beat faster in anticipation.
Slowly, Carl explained. “Your power starts with your thoughts. When you think about something, you immediately start turning the gadgets of the Universe to attract it, to deliver it to you. That’s the way to achieve what other people would consider impossible: to want it passionately, to give it all your attention, your thoughts.”
Richard felt disappointed; he expected something more transcendental than that.
“That’s too fairy tale for me to believe.”
“Have you ever said, for example, ‘I’m going to buy a red compact car,’ and suddenly you’re finding that type of car everywhere you go?” Carl asked.
Smiling, Richard nodded. Carl said, “You’re causing that. You’re attracting those things your way with your thoughts.”
Richard shook his head. “But my life is full of examples of wanting something obsessively and still not getting it. How do you explain that?”
“Because most of the time you aren’t thinking about what you want, but about what you don’t want. And because your thoughts will be useless if you’re sabotaging yourself by constantly telling yourself that what you want is impossible, that it’s out of your reach or out of your league, or if you don’t consider yourself deserving of it.”
Still skeptical, Richard pondered.
Carl added, “There lies the importance of the fourth principle we’ve worked so hard on in the past few months. Until you work on your self-esteem and get rid of the limiting voices in your head that tell you what you’re able to do or not—what you’re allowed to have or not—you’ll sabotage yourself and block yourself from achieving what your attention is on.”
Richard mulled over the words. “So that’s why you have me doing all this written work about the voices in my head.”
Carl assented. “And that’s why I insist on getting you to work on your childhood memories, even if you dread it. Until you free yourself from those unresolved issues that are the foundation of your poor self-image, you won’t be ready to master your power.”
Chapter 21
It was Monday. Richard sat in his office in front of his computer, rubbing his tired eyes and feeling another migraine building. He’d been researching mechanisms of death for hours, looking for a reasonable theory for how O’Hara and the other three politicians had been killed. Sometimes, he was ready to believe that they’d received the order to die, but his search about death by suggestion didn’t return anything sensible.
The burner cell phone he used for undercover missions—lying on the charging pad at his office, untouched for the past two months—rang.
Richard blinked rapidly. Carl had his real number now. He could think of only one person who’d call that phone.
Cautious, he picked up. “Hello?”
“Richard?”
His heart dropped an inch. Yes, it was her.
“It’s me, Joy. I’m sorry to bother you, but I didn’t know who else to call with this.”
Richard’s heart started pounding. He made an effort to sound natural. “What’s the matter?”
Her voice sounded nervous. “I’m at the car shop. They’re telling me they found something strange. Any way you could come take a look at something real quick?”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Richard parked his car in front of the car shop. As he walked toward the building, his heart was racing. He’d sworn that if he ever heard back from Joy he’d ignore her. And now there he was, shaking in anticipation of seeing her again. He kept reminding himself that, as a matter of pride, the least he could do was treat her with coldness.
He opened the door of the shop and saw her facing away, talking to someone behind a counter. As if she’d felt his presence, she suddenly turned around and gasped.
“Richard! Thank God, you’re here!”
She ran to him and hugged him, and all his defenses melted away.
As he held her in his arms, smelling her and touching her hair with the tip of his fingers, he felt as if he’d made it home. Her sole presence filled him with peace and optimism. It was as if every cell of his body felt more alive. God, he’d missed her!
He enjoyed the feeling for a few seconds and then made an effort to softly push her away to ask, “What’s going on?”
“Come with me.” She took his wrist and walked him outside to where her van was. A man in his twenties was standing in front of it and a middle-aged man sat inside.
“My friend’s a policeman. Can you please explain to him what you told me?”
The older man signaled Richard to get closer to the van and showed him a few nickel-sized metal pieces under the steering wheel.
“These are tracking devices, microphones, and GPS. Somebody has been spying on her.”
Richard recognized the devices immediately. They were part of the monitoring tools he had his team install a few months back. He kept a blank expression. Joy’s voice was weak as she asked, “What do you think, Richard?”
“I’m not sure. I’d need to have somebody else take a look at it.”
The younger auto-mechanic intervened. “I know they’re microphones. You should let me check your other car and then take me to your house so I can review it too.”
Richard hid his unsettling. If they looked at Joy’s house, they’d find not only plenty of microphones but also the hidden surveillance cameras. They were disconnected but still there.
“No, sir, that would be detrimental. It would make it impossible to collect evidence, including fingerprints and DNA samples.”
The man seemed impressed. Taking Joy by her arm, Richard excused himself and walked her back into the building.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” He thought quickly. He needed to look in charge of the situation and sound convincing if he wanted to make sure she wouldn’t look for explanations elsewhere. “This is what we’ll do. I’ll call somebody to come pick up both the van and your car and review them thoroughly. You call your
office and cancel the rest of your day.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. You’re coming with me to the police station, and we’ll open an official investigation. You’re the widow of a public figure, and we can’t ignore this.”
Joy nodded.
She was buying the story, so he ran with it. “Until they give us an answer, I don’t want to take any risks. That’s why I don’t want you to go back to work today. I don’t want you taking the same routes you usually take, and I don’t want you talking to anybody about this.”
Joy nodded again. She looked like a scared little girl.
They walked in silence to his SUV, and he helped Joy get in before getting in the driver’s seat. She used her cell phone to tell her shocked secretary that she had to cancel work.
As they were leaving the parking lot, she hung up and grunted. “There’s going to be an angry mob at the Healing Center today! This is a nightmare. Just the idea that someone can be listening to your conversations, invading your privacy . . . It feels like such a violation.”
Richard didn’t answer. It wasn’t going to do her any good to know the extent of the monitoring she’d been under.
“Richard, I’m very sorry for turning your day upside down. I didn’t know who else to call. I knew that you’d have a good idea about what to do.”
“Don’t worry, Joy. You did the right thing.”
Quietness filled the car.
“How’s Ray doing?”
“He’s fine.”
Silence.
She talked again. “How’s Nana doing? We miss her at the Hospice House.”
Richard couldn’t believe it. There she was, talking with him like nothing had ever happened between them. Like Donna said, ignoring his advances, hoping he’d get tired and quit.
“She’s excited about the new great-granddaughter. Her granddaughter got induced two weeks early to make sure Nana was there. Now it’s been over a month, and she’s still here and looking great.”
“That’s great to hear! Please tell her that I send my love.”
He decided to play along. “How about you? What’s new?”
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