by D. S. Ryelle
Peter gave her an odd look. “I just want to end this fight before it begins!”
“Then you should have never involved yourself with House Osborn!”
Ophelia swooped lower and her opponent heard a hydraulic hiss.
“I believe I have an old friend of yours.”
Peter cursed as the razor bats unfolded their wings. He made a neat flip to avoid them, but also made the error of spinning directly into Ophelia’s zipline.
“Come, Parker!” she said, leaning into the wind. “We have only just begun!”
After more than an hour of fighting, Peter was worse for wear. He noted with some interest, however, that Ophelia’s super armor appeared to repel more than bullets—with the exception of blood spatter, the woman was spotless.
“Please…let’s end this…” Peter sank against one of the walls of the hospital that had survived the fight with her father. “You have the wrong idea!”
Ophelia unsheathed her sword. “I have no desire to hear a sob story of my father’s death…some fairytale to placate me, though everyone who bears the noble blood of the House of Osborn knows of his true end!”
Peter was too weak to laugh at her regal exclamation. “It was an accident. Your father was trying to kill me…he was pretending to have a lucid moment so that I would agree to end the fight. Still in the grip of the Green Goblin, your father attempted to impale me with his glider—I moved just in time.”
A scolding sound came from a wall behind Ophelia.
“He’s still alive?” Harry asked as he swept into view.
“Parker has been distracting me with mealy-mouthed excuses,” his sister snapped. “But you may keep him occupied while I finish the job.”
“The duty is mine, the kill is mine.”
“As the matriarch of the Osborn line, I am responsible for annihilating our enemies!”
Peter watched the Osborns, utterly bewildered. Were they so at odds that they could not commit a single murder? When the first pumpkin bomb flew, Peter disappeared.
Fifteen
David had been lurking in the library for nearly half an hour when a window shattered. A black-clad figure tumbled into the room and David found himself sprinting to catch the intruder.
“Stop struggling!”
He tried to grab the figure in a bear hug, but the intruder did its best to break free, causing the two of them to topple back to the floor. David quickly grew frustrated with his inability to gain the upper hand, which caused the fight to become more violent. They wrestled for what seemed to be an eternity, only pausing long enough for David to discover that his assailant appeared to be unarmed. After taking a roundhouse to the left cheek, the bodyguard managed to strip the intruder of its helmet.
The stranger’s momentary shock of adjusting to the light of the library was all David needed. He pounced and landed on his opponent’s chest, only to find himself reeling a moment later. Although the lower half of her face was covered in a skintight black mask, David had the feeling that he knew those gray eyes…that he had seen the wavy hair somewhere in the back of his mind. Hesitating only a moment, the bodyguard revealed her identity.
Time seemed to slow, then, as the light went out of the woman’s eyes. Her hair fell more softly about her shoulders and after a moment, she closed her eyes. David glanced away long enough to see whether she’d been severely injured and when he looked back, his worst fears were confirmed.
It was Ophelia.
Half tempted to roll her onto her back, David stopped himself when he recalled his first aid training. He waited a moment to see if she was still breathing before he stroked her cheek.
“Lia?”
He accompanied this with a little Irish, but she did not stir. Feeling a little more frantic, David searched the detritus of the room, but failed to come up with a flashlight. Cursing, the bodyguard lifted her eyelids and examined her pupils.
“Eduardo! Get up!”
David did not wait for a response before bursting into the master bedroom. “Ophelia is home and she’s been badly hurt!”
“What happened? Did you call the paramedics?
“I—”
The younger man snatched the phone from the opposite side of the bed and spoke rapidly to a dispatcher. After a moment, Eduardo dropped the phone and rounded on the bodyguard.
“Where is she?”
“On the floor of the library. I didn’t move her in case of a back or neck injury.” David hesitated. “She’s not conscious.”
Eduardo gave him a sharp look. “You haven’t told me what happened. She certainly didn’t do this to herself…I would have heard her!”
The bodyguard headed for the door. “I’ll check on her and go down to meet the ambulance.”
“You’ll go nowhere near her! It’s much too early to call Wahim…wake Bernard and then meet the ambulance. I’m sure Ophelia won’t mind if you two take the Lexus, but don’t touch my Porsche!”
~*~
After nearly an hour of angry silence—in which the attending physician promised to send in the neurologist as soon as possible—Eduardo was ready to explode. The bodyguard snapped first.
“I hope you’re ready to deal with her for the next eight to ten hours,” David growled. “She’s going to start crying at some point.”
“My wife rarely cries…why would the sudden change?”
“Think, if you will, of what it would be like if you hadn’t slept in a while, that you were so very tired…but you were told that you had to stay awake for at least another eight hours or risk death. Wouldn’t you cry, eventually?”
“Fine,” Eduardo said bitterly. “I’ll console her and try to keep her awake when she comes to.” A malicious smile spread across his face a moment later. “Right after you explain to both of us what happened.”
“If she can’t remember, she doesn’t need to know.”
“You’re going to have to explain this to the police sometime.”
As if he had summoned her, a young woman stuck her head into the cubicle.
“Dr. Washington. The police are extremely busy this evening and asked me to take a statement.”
“Which I will be glad to assist you with, as soon as Mr. Miraz leaves.”
The doctor raised her eyebrow as she glanced between David and Eduardo, but the younger man finally complied, flipping the bodyguard an obscene gesture on the way out.
“You witnessed the incident?”
David suddenly became interested in the wall above the doctor’s shoulder.
“You were involved.” She glanced down and noticed the protective way he was holding his left arm. “Definitely involved,” Washington murmured.
“Mister…?”
“Westbrooke.”
“Mr. Westbrooke, if you’re injured, why haven’t you been treated?”
“My priority is to protect Ms. Osborn.”
Dr. Washington made an impatient noise and rang for a nurse.
More than an hour later, David had been x-rayed and stitched up, his broken ulna set. Upon his insistence, the two of them had chivvied Eduardo from Ophelia’s cubicle yet again and settled in to record the incident.
“What happened with Ms. Osborn that required fifteen sutures, several contusions and your left arm to be put into a cast?”
“I thought she was an intruder. We fought.”
“How long have you worked for Ms. Osborn?
“If you’re trying to plumb the line between an honest mistake and absolute stupidity, let me assure you that she was dressed in an unusual fashion and her identity was obscured.”
Dr. Washington involuntarily glanced toward the bed, but a patient care technician had changed Ophelia into a hospital gown as soon as the attending physician had announced that she was stable.
“Instead of outlining the incident, perhaps you’d better tell me the entire story.”
“I woke up at 2:30 and found myself tempted to go up to the library.”
“I assume you live with Ms. Osbo
rn?” the doctor interrupted.
“Since she left Ireland at the age of fourteen,” David explained. “Before that, I lived in an apartment about ten minutes away from Ophelia’s mother and stepfather.”
“Where is your room in relation to the library?”
“On the first floor, across the hall from the butler. The library is directly above our rooms and the master suite is on the opposite end of the house.”
“How long had you been in the library at the time Ms. Osborn arrived?”
“About a half hour. I was thinking of going back to bed when one of the windows overlooking the balcony exploded.”
“Was it rigged with charges or anything of that sort?”
“Not to my knowledge. As far as I could tell, the window shattered when the intruder—Ophelia—tumbled through it.”
“The attending physician didn’t find any glass in Ms. Osborn’s skin or any in her hair,” Dr. Washington replied. “What was she wearing that made her impervious to such wounds?”
David described Ophelia’s armor, then added, “She was a clothing designer before she inherited Osborn Scientific…I have no doubt it was something she invented.”
“What happened after Ms. Osborn dove through the window?”
“I tackled the intruder with the intention of dispatching her before Ophelia or her husband awoke.”
The doctor wrote in silence for a few minutes before she asked, “Tell me the nature of your relationship with Mr. Miraz.”
“Affable. Eduardo was the perfect gentleman when they first met, but he has been…out of sorts…since Ophelia left Australia.”
“Out of sorts how?”
“He has been prone to extreme bouts of jealousy and wildly unsubstantiated claims,” David replied. “Eduardo’s most unrealistic theory centered on Ophelia and I ‘fleeing’ Australia to elope.”
“You do not have romantic feelings for Ms. Osborn?”
“I have known Ophelia Rhiannon Osborn since she was six years old, Dr. Washington,” David said icily. “She is young enough to be the daughter I never had, and I have always thought of her as such.”
“Be that as it may, the police will think that Ms. Osborn was planning to kill Mr. Miraz when they learn that he accused her of having an affair with you.”
“If Ophelia intended to kill Eduardo, why didn’t she break a window in the master bedroom?”
“Coming in the library window makes it appear that the incident was a failed attempt at robbery.” Washington was smug. “But if these ideas come so easily to you, perhaps the altercation was staged? Your broken arm merely a result of ‘going too far’?”
“May I remind you that you are merely a doctor and not an officer of the law,” David’s voice was soft, with a ruthless edge. “You will leave the accusations to those who are actually in law enforcement and concentrate on saving Ophelia’s life.”
~*~
Ophelia did not wake for three days; and when she returned to consciousness, she had no memory of the episode in the library. Harry visited a few times, but it was primarily Eduardo and David who took it in turns to keep her company. Indeed, Ophelia did not see her brother at length until after she was released from the hospital.
“I do not recall inviting you to dinner.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t remember,” Harry grumbled.
“If I were not preparing for a charity event, I would slap that fork out of your hand and escort you to the street myself, never mind David!”
Her brother chewed in silence for a moment. “What happened to that other guy? Drew or whatever his name was?”
“Mr Whitaker was terminated when he took too many liberties with my safety.”
Her emphasis on “terminated” made Harry slightly nervous, but he didn’t say anything as he refilled his wine glass. His sister watched him as she put in her right earring, but he failed to notice until she caressed his scarred cheek.
“You should get a poultice for that…I am sure there is a herbalist in the Village.”
“Stop touching my cheek!”
Ophelia continued to observe him as she sank into a chair.
“This is not about your cheek, is it?”
“Since when is ‘stop touching my cheek!’ not about touching my cheek?”
“When it is about brooding over Bernard’s story of the night our father died.”
Harry stiffened. “How did you know he told me?”
“It is the same story I listened to long ago. I knew he had told you when your demeanour suddenly changed.”
He considered this for several minutes. “Do you believe him?”
“Edmund Bernard has not told me a lie since I returned from Australia five years ago; I do not believe he has told one since the moment I was born,” Ophelia said.
When Harry didn’t respond, she added,
“If your best friend requires your assistance, provide it. Do not let animosity stand in the way.”
Sixteen
Ophelia teetered on the edge of her bed, feeling for all the world like gravity was going to reach out a giant hand and pull her to the floor. Her cell phone slipped out of nerveless fingers and fell to the floor with a soft tinkle of plastic. The sound of her phone breaking brought Ophelia back to reality long enough to slide off the bed and go after it, but the pieces were becoming difficult to see as tears flooded her eyes.
“No!” she howled. Ophelia pounded the plastic shards, heedless of the fact that she was drawing blood. “NO!”
The woman dissolved into a blaze of languages that sound like neither Irish nor Spanish. She opened her mouth to punctuate this with a lung-jarring scream; but her stomach churned and Ophelia found herself scrambling toward the bathroom on her hands and knees.
~*~
“Are you going to be okay?”
A murmur brought Ophelia out of her nauseated reverie and she realized that someone was holding her hair back as she maintained a death-grip on the toilet.
“Eduardo?”
“No.” The voice was a little clearer this time. “David. How did this happen?”
“Hang on…”
Ophelia leaned over the bowl a second time, but her stomach was already empty. David handed her a tissue and rubbed her back as she took a few moments to catch her breath. When she realized that her stomach was settled, she sat back.
“Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“No,” Ophelia said faintly. “It is only stress…and perhaps a little too much to drink.”
This evoked a fresh wave of tears, causing Ophelia to turn and grab her bodyguard in a crushing hug.
“Take your time,” he murmured, smoothing her hair.
“Hospital…called…” Ophelia choked on the next word. “Harry…”
“Is he all right?”
David didn’t think it was possible for her to squeeze any harder until she nearly yelled in his ear.
“Harry is DEAD!”
He was glad that she couldn’t see his expression as he closed his eyes and returned the embrace. Ophelia hadn’t had a moment’s peace since her father died and they could only hope that her brother’s death wouldn’t bring more of the same.
“Is there anything we need to do?”
“…the morgue…”
“Where is your husband?”
“He stayed behind when I left the benefit,” she whispered.
“My stepdaughter received a call about an hour ago,” David announced, blatantly lying in Ophelia’s hearing. “The caller said they thought her brother was here.”
The attendant bent down to peer at Ophelia, who was leaning heavily on her stepfather’s arm.
“Is she okay?”
“The news of her brother’s death hit her rather hard.”
“Decedent’s name?”
“Harry Osborn.”
“Harold Ambrose Osborn,” Ophelia corrected in a weak voice.
The attendant slid her glasses down her nose. “She doesn’t look like yo
u.”
“I said I was her stepfather,” David retorted. “This is Ophelia Rhiannon Osborn…the late Dr. Osborn’s daughter.”
“I’m going to need to see some identification. From both of you.”
Ophelia fumbled for her driver’s license, slightly hindered by her bodyguard’s solicitousness. When the attendant had examined both licenses, she passed them back with a glare.
“Who are you trying to fool, Mr. Westbrooke?”
“I have spent more than half my life on the opposite side of the world from my biological father,” Ophelia interrupted, standing up a little straighter. “My legal stepfather has spent the last twenty-one years treating me more like his niece than his daughter. Conversely, David James Westbrooke has scarcely left my side since I was six; if he wishes to call himself my father, there are few in the world who would deny him that privilege.”
The attendant’s gaze lingered on them a moment longer before she glanced up at the clock. “The pathologist will be here in twenty minutes.”
“The pathologist is here now!”
A tall, stern-looking gentleman swept into view and immediately seized Ophelia’s hand.
“Ms. Osborn? Dr. Carpenter. I knew your father.”
They briskly shook hands.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“Harry was killed last night,” David interrupted before Ophelia’s voice had the chance to catch or wobble.
Carpenter glanced at the woman. “May I assume you desire an autopsy, Ms. Osborn?”
Ophelia nodded her assent and the doctor began taking information. After a few minutes, Dr. Carpenter wrote a number on a slip of paper and led the way into the morgue.
“Are you prepared to identify your brother?”
“I am.”