Hello, Gorgeous!

by MaryJanice Davidson

  “Besides you,” Dr. Balta prompted.

  “Well, yeah. Except, I know I didn’t do it.”

  “You seem very angry with the O.S.F. You claim they ruined your life.”

  “Well, yeah. But I wouldn’t, like, kill the egghead team. They were just following orders… I guess. Buncha dorks.”

  “The Boss’s orders.”

  “Well, yeah. Him I wouldn’t mind killing. Except, I can prove I haven’t because he’s still alive. Ta-dah!”

  “Good work,” Dr. Balta said, looking more confused by the second.

  “Which brings us back to your son.”

  “Er… what?”

  “You know, I was told I was the only cybernetically enhanced person on the planet.”

  “Really?”

  “Actually, what he said was ‘You are the first of your kind, a fully functioning cybernetic organism who has retained your humanity.’ Except that’s not true, right? Because there’s Dmitri.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe the Boss meant that Dmitri hadn’t retained his humanity?”

  Nothing from Dr. Balta.

  “Because that would be kind of an interesting, what do you call it… observation. Right?”

  Silence.

  “Hellooooooo?”

  “Why would you think that?” she asked at last.

  “I dunno. He seemed like kind of a cold one to me.”

  “Not everyone has your gifts, Caitlyn.”

  “Gifts? Me? Really? Cool. But don’t distract me with flattery. It works, but only for a few seconds.”

  “I apologize,” Dr. Balta said, smothering a smile.

  “So, what happened to him? Are you allowed to tell me?”

  “Yes. Dmitri has instructed me to answer any of your questions.”

  “Instructs his mom, huh?”

  “He does sign my paycheck,” Dr. Balta pointed out.

  “So, you have to answer all my questions? That would have been nice to know an hour ago.”

  “And in response, I can tell you—“

  “That he’s six foot four, with the blackest hair and the bluest eyes? And totally strapping and yummy? Even if he’s chilly and distant? It’s all right though. He can ride that whole ‘phenomenal good looks’ thing for years if he needs to.”

  “I was going to say, he was infected with nanobytes during a Russian/American cooperative venture… this was right after the Berlin Wall was taken down. He was sent in to defuse a bomb and, unfortunately, didn’t get clear fast enough. The resulting injuries were… massive.”

  “Oh. Uh, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  “It happened years ago,” Dr. Balta said, expressionless, which wasn’t exactly the same thing as “Aw, no biggie, I don’t mind.”

  “Like you, he resented what had been done to him in the name of science, went rogue, and then the project fell apart. However, it was revived by the man you know as the Boss, just last year. They didn’t have to wait very long before you came along, no?”

  “No,” she said glumly. “Poor Dmitri. Believe me, I know exactly how he feels. The Boss is lucky the Wolf didn’t pop his head off his neck like a boil.”

  “I have had thoughts in that direction myself,” Dr. Balta admitted.

  “Popping the head off? Or being glad your kid didn’t do it?”

  “We’re getting off the topic.”

  “So what?”

  “I have nothing to say in response to that,” Dr. Balta admitted.

  “Let me sum up the problem for the studio audience. Dmitri thinks I’m the killer. And much as I like his broad, broad shoulders, I can’t entirely rule him out either. So, what do we do now? And by we I mean me, of course.”

  “Perhaps we should take a break,” Dr. Balta said.

  “Okay.” Privately, Caitlyn thought, If someone else on the Wagner team turns up dead, then he’ll know it wasn’t me, and I’ll know it wasn’t him. But if nobody else dies, that doesn’t prove anything. Shit. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  End session number one.

  Chapter 21

  “What’s the matter?” Stacy asked. “You haven’t touched your Rusty Nail. Although it’s beyond me how anyone can smell one, much less drink one.” She tapped her margarita glass. “Take it from me: if you don’t need a blender to make a drink, it ain’t a drink.”

  “It’s… work. I apologize.” The Boss forced a smile. “I had been… um… looking forward to this evening. I don’t mean to… uh… what’s the colloquialism? Bring you down?”

  “More like harsh my buzz. Don’t worry about it. Hey, if you’re having a bad day, we can bag the date. There’s always the weekend.”

  “No, no. I enjoyed our time together last night and wanted to see you again.”

  Stacy smiled at that. “Awww. You say the sweetest things. I, too, enjoyed our frantic anonymous sex.”

  The Boss laughed out loud. “Stacy, for the love of—“

  “Is it something you can tell me about?” There was a long pause, followed by “It’s Caitlyn .” The smile dropped away. “Oh. Well, good luck with that.”

  “Yes, I imagine you don’t want to get in the middle. Unless…” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “That’s not why you’re here, is it? To perhaps influence my handling of your friend?”

  “Influence your handling? Ewwwww! God, I’m gonna need five more ‘ritas just to get that mental picture out of my head.”

  The Boss smiled. “I apologize.”

  “Seriously, don’t do that! Yech. Besides, I’m here because I’m hoping to get more good lovin’, like last night.”

  “Oh.”

  “So there it is.”

  “All right.”

  “Also, I really like your suit. Do you have, like, fifty of them at home?”

  “Trade secret.”

  “Uh-huh.” She peered at him, then took a bite of her flounder and another sip of her drink. “Frankly, I don’t know what it is. You could not be less my type.”

  “Too old?”

  “Too white, pal. But there’s something about you… I just like being with you. I mean, the sex was great—“

  “It was.”

  “—but I liked the talking afterward just as much. And that’s, like, not very common with me.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because most men start to snore about ten seconds after they come. So it kind of cuts the conversations down a little.”

  “Men your age,” he said.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I normally don’t have time for romantic assignations,” he admitted. “So to meet someone I wish to see again is a rare and wonderful thing.”

  “What’s an assignation? Because it sounds scarily like assassination.”

  “Tryst. Rendezvous.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s okay. Maybe we should make a rule. We can talk about work but not about Caitlyn.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Although I will give you one piece of advice. Try backing off her. It works a lot better than the muscle, believe me.”

  “All right.”

  “And trust her. She’s really smart. She was the smartest person I ever met, before I met you.”

  “Oh? I don’t know whether to be flattered or horrified.”

  “Be flattered. But not too flattered. Don’t, like, let it go to your head or anything.”

  “No, I won’t do that.” Pause. “She’s always done well with conventional testing.”

  “Oh, yeah. Straight A’s in school, without hardly trying. So annoying. And she reads, like, all the time. And she’s, what d’you call it… eclectic! One time she came back from the library—it was so weird, I’ll never forget it—anyway, she had a true crime book, the latest Harry Potter book, something by Shakespeare, and Vogue.”

  “That’s eclectic all right.”

  “Yeah, anyway. Enough about her. We promised not to talk about her, right? Right. So, you’re just picking at that. I’ve got nacho
s and a bottle of twenty-year-old Scotch back at my place. Let’s book.”

  The Boss laughed and tossed his napkin on the table. “Madam, I am at your disposal.”

  Chapter 22

  “So, your mom seems nice.”

  Dmitri looked up from the computer monitor. One of six, she noticed, on his desk, which was made of mahogany and a mere seven feet wide. Damn thing looked more like a moat than a piece of office furniture. “Oh, you’re done for the day? Very well. I’ll show you to your quarters.”

  “I’d rather have a tour of the Novakov family compound.”

  “You would? All right. Come along, then.” He clicked a few keys, got up, and walked over to her. Once again, she was forced to control her drooling. God, had she ever seen a better-looking guy? And he even smelled great, he was wearing some sort of Stud-of-the-Month aftershave, something that smelled like cloves. Mmm… cloves…

  “… your session?”

  “What?”

  “I said, did you enjoy your session?”

  “Oh, sure. Your mom’s an okay lady. I mean, as okay as a prying head-peeper can be.”

  “Thank you,” he said dryly.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out before she told me. You guys look a lot alike. Same coloring.”

  “Yes, I have the Dauksa looks. The Novakovs tend to be short and blond.”

  Caitlyn thanked God for the Dauksas, whoever they were. “Yeah, I look like my mom too.”

  “Did she have the same eyes? I must confess,” he confessed, leading her down a hallway, “I’ve never seen eyes that color before.”

  “Oh, chlorine-pool-colored?”

  “Ah… yes, I suppose so. I was thinking more like the sky on the first day of spring.”

  “Nope. Chlorine pool. So, listen, she told me how you got the ‘bytes. The bomb and all.”

  Dmitri’s face was expressionless as he replied, “All right.”

  “That was probably a pretty bad scene. I just got cracked up in a limo accident.”

  “Quite a bad one, I understand.”

  “Yeah, it would have squished me good, normally,” she said cheerfully. “By the way, you speak English great. I mean, I thought it was a little clipped, kind of British but not quite, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on your accent. Not that you have much of one.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Hello? The nanobytes in your ears take the day off, or what?”

  He smiled at her. She nearly gasped. Had she thought he’d been great-looking before? Oh, Christ. I am in huge trouble. “You didn’t ask me a question,” he explained, “so I didn’t respond.”

  “Well, excuuuuuuuse me. So, you speak, like, a bunch of languages? Did you know how to do that before the O.S.F. jammed all those nanos in your system?”

  He paused, held open a door for her, then carefully replied, “I could speak English and Japanese before the… accident. Afterward, I could pick up languages much quicker.”

  “Because you don’t forget anything.”

  “Yes.”

  “You got a chip in your head too? Mine talks to me. Bosses me around mostly. Drives me nuts. It’s like having a voice in your head… one that’s always right.”

  He burst out laughing, and she whimpered.

  He had dimples.

  “I am glad you decided to come back with me,” he said when he finished his yuk-fest.

  “Yeah, well. There wasn’t anything good on TV tonight anyway.”

  Dmitri’s admiration for Caitlyn James was growing by the moment. Her spur-of-the-moment decision to join him was looking less and less spur and more genius. Not that he’d ever had any doubts about her intelligence, because the O.S.F. did not hire idiots. But this!

  He had the transcript of the session between her and his mother, and Caitlyn had done a pretty fair debriefing… a good trick, considering she had been the subject, not his mother. Now she was getting a good look at his home, and if she still meant to serve him to Gregory Hamlin on a plate, she was getting plenty of information on how to make that come about.

  But through it all, she remained brightly cheerful, charming, and inquisitive, asking questions and often answering them herself. She was even able to talk about the bomb without him tightening up. He knew it was stupid and, worse, illogical, but he didn’t like to talk about what had happened. With anyone. But somehow, with Caitlyn, it wasn’t so bad.

  You would have thought she was exactly as she seemed: a young woman without a care in the world, enjoying her first trip to Europe. Instead of what she was: a highly trained government assassin capable of breaking bones and smashing skulls to get what she needed.

  “Why do you have black streaks in your hair?” he asked because he couldn’t resist. Her hair was glorious, white blond and thick and almost perfectly straight, falling like a curtain to her shoulder blades. After he had knocked her out in the motel room, it had taken much of his self-control not to plunge his hands into it. “It would be so pretty if you were to let it be.”

  “Oh, it was a very serious day,” she told him. “I had to go kick the jerk’s ass first thing this morning. That called for black. You might have liked it better yesterday. Red highlights.”

  “Oh,” he said, because it was, swear to God, all he could think of. Women—and there had been damned few of them since the accident—had always been a mystery to him. Then, “Here is my workout facility.”

  “Whoa,” she responded, walking ahead of him as he held the door for her.

  He tried to see the room—large as a gymnasium—through her eyes. Several dozen free weights, several machines, and three high-powered treadmills, a German brand that wouldn’t burn out until he’d used them for at least eight months. The pool. The ropes.

  “You can work out?” she asked. “I mean, I knew you didn’t get that body eating Ho Ho’s and drinking Kool-Aid and—“

  “What is a Ho Ho?”

  “Heaven on earth is what that is. But anyway, how can you use these machines? Don’t they break?”

  “They are specially designed for me,” he explained. “It takes much longer to wear them out. If you’re having trouble, you might try swimming laps. You can go as quickly as you like and you certainly won’t hurt a pool.”

  “Huh. Cool. I never thought of that.” She ran her hand over one of the free weights—fifty pounds—absently lifted it out of the way with one hand, then said, “I haven’t been able to really work out for a while. I shudder to imagine the cellulite encroaching on my thighs.”

  He willed himself not to look at her legs, which was difficult, as her black leggings left little to the imagination. “You seem fine to me.”

  She grinned at him and patted the treadmill. “Shall we see?”

  Chapter 23

  “Okay, okay, I give up! Enough!” Caitlyn allowed the treadmill to spit her onto the floor like an olive pit, and she collapsed to the gym mats. “Gripes! You’re a machine! Uh, no offense.”

  Dmitri smirked down at her from his own treadmill. Damn. There was that dimple again, flickering at her from his left cheek… and gone just as quickly. “Do you need some water? Possibly a transfusion?”

  “Ha fucking ha. No need to be such a smug bastard about it.”

  “Ah, but several people would tell you I am a smug bastard.” He hit the button to slow the machine down, and the speed dropped from one hundred kilometers to eighty. His face was lightly sheened with sweat, but the crumb wasn’t even out of breath. “I do apologize. I admit, I was curious… you’re the, uh, what’s the phrase? Newer model? I had doubts about my ability to keep up with you, frankly.”

  She shook her head. “Well, lay them to rest, big guy. I can hit your speed, but I can’t keep it up as long as you can. Here I thought I was the only one in the world who could run as fast as a Ford Mustang.”

  “Sorry,” he said smugly.

  “Yeah, well, how are you behind the shampoo chair? Probably not too great. Yeah! It’s rinse, then repeat, by the way.�
�

  He slowed to sixty kilometers. “You did quite well. You looked… impressive.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere. After I pass out on this floor for a few hours, I’ll make you buy me supper. You know,” she said boldly, “we’d make a helluva team.”

  He looked straight at her. “I’ve had thoughts,” he said without a trace of a dimple, “in that direction myself.”

  “Oooh, how… weird and unsettling. But in a nice way,” she added hastily. “So. When’s dinner in this joint?”

  Chapter 24

  “Mother, I just want to know one thing. Is she the killer?”

  “I can’t tell you that, son. Not without more sessions. And possibly not even then, unless she obligingly kills someone in front of me. That would help us narrow it down,” Elena Balta added thoughtfully.

  They were in the library, drinking cognac by the fireplace. They spoke in their mother tongue, Lithuanian, a rich and comforting sound to Dmitri’s ears. And, more important, if the lovely Caitlyn were eavesdropping—if she were anything like him she could overhear a conversation from a floor away—she wouldn’t know what they were saying. Nothing in her file suggested she could speak Lithuanian.

  “When I’m with her, it’s difficult to imagine her capable of cold-blooded murder, no matter what the provocation,” he said. “But when I read the file… when I consider the facts… she’s the prime suspect.”

  “But that would be in keeping with sociopathy,” his mother pointed out. “They can be tremendously charismatic individuals. I admit I felt the force of her personality during our session. And while we’re talking… I didn’t have the chance to discuss this with you earlier—“

  Uh-oh. “Yes?”

  “Son, what is she doing here? What were you thinking? I can’t even remember the last time you brought a woman here.”

  “You can’t remember?”

  “Hush. You left to put a stop to the murders, to clear your own name—it’s no surprise the O.S.F. suspects you. But then you returned with… with…”

  “She wanted to come,” he said defensively. He got out of his chair and started running his hands over the collection of first editions on the east wall. “And I admit to curiosity. I’ve never met anyone else in my… my situation before. I was curious about other attributes she might have, ways she might be different from me in addition to the same. I—“