Chapter 16
Arnold Koslovski died two days after I brought Jake home from the hospital. He slipped away in the early-morning hours, holding Aunt Lucy’s hand and listening to her whispered reassurances that he should “Go on now, honey. Let go and rest.”
In the few days after Arnold’s death, we all watched Aunt Lucy very closely, waiting to see if the loss of yet another love sent her once again over the edge, but she surprised us. It was as if this expected passing, done right, set her free from the doubt and agony that surrounded my uncle’s death. And besides, Aunt Lucy had another patient to tend to.
We returned from burying Arnie and found Lloyd in a near panic. As soon as she came through the door, Lloyd grabbed the hem of Aunt Lucy’s black silk dress and tugged urgently.
“What is it, Benito?” she murmured, following the dog as he tugged her toward the basement. “Is it time?”
Nina, Spike and I followed the pair down into the basement where we discovered Fang, nestled on Uncle Benny’s ancient sofa, giving birth to her second of five pups.
“Oh, puppies!” Nina cried. “Look!”
Lloyd, reassured now that Aunt Lucy was on the scene and in charge, relaxed into proud-papa mode and seemed to puff his chest out with canine pride in his accomplishment.
Later, when I sat beside Jake on the downstairs guest room bed, telling him about it all, he laughed. “Poor guy, he has no idea what he’s in for!”
“What do you mean by that? All Lloyd has to do is run around preening,” I said. “It’s poor Fang who’ll be doing all the work!”
Jake, realizing too late that he’d stumbled into dangerous territory, backed up. “Well, I didn’t mean…I mean, his life is going to change, that’s all!”
“And that would be a bad thing?” I asked.
Jake shook his head. “Poor baby,” he said, pulling me down next to him. “Always on the defensive! Of course it’s not a bad thing. Children are wonderful but they are also exhausting and they change your life forever…wonderfully, but forever.”
I was going to argue with him, but Shelia Martin’s appearance in the doorway, accompanied by Spike, put a halt to our discussion.
“So, you’re better,” she said softly. She was carrying a basket filled with movies, sports magazines and junk food snacks. Just the sorts of manly items Jake loved, damn her!
“Yeah, I’m almost ready to get back to work,” he said.
Shelia nodded. “I figured you two might like a progress report,” she said, acknowledging my presence for the first time since her arrival. “We recovered the microchip from the necklace, but for some reason it was corrupted.”
“Corrupted?” I echoed. “You mean there wasn’t anything on it?”
Shelia smiled. “Oh there was plenty on it, but it was in bits and pieces of jumbled data. When Mrs. Blankenship was in cardiac arrest and shocked with the defibrillator, we think the chip was compromised. However, we were able to recover enough to realize what Bitsy had stolen from David that was worth so much to the Ukrainians though.”
Shelia’s smile vanished as her expression grew grim.
“Bitsy had stolen a list of every CIA operative in both the Ukraine and Belarus. If that had fallen into their hands, there’s no telling how many lives would’ve been lost or what it would’ve done to our country’s relationships with the eastern European countries who stood by us when we denied actively planning a regime change.”
“There was no formula for a biochemical weapon?” I asked.
Shelia shrugged. “We’re not sure. The bits of text we’ve recovered indicate that it is work involving cold fusion and Chaos Theory as it applies to the development of nuclear technology. If Professor Ryzhov had developed this into something quantifiable, it would’ve been invaluable to the U.S. and deadly in the wrong hands. That’s what your friend, Bitsy, was banking on.”
Jake shook his head. “I can’t believe she thought she could elude the Ukrainians and the CIA long enough to engage them in a bidding war. What was she thinking?”
I listened to the two of them and I tried to imagine myself in Bitsy’s place. Her father had disgraced the family, leaving Bitsy to grow up surrounded by shame and secrecy. Her mother made sure Bitsy had the trappings necessary to perpetuate the illusion, but when your life is a sham, how secure can you really feel?
“Bitsy wasn’t always like she is now,” I said. “Jake, didn’t you tell me you worked with her once and that she was a good agent?”
Jake nodded, frowning. “I wonder what happened?”
“Maybe Bitsy got disillusioned,” I said. “Maybe she found out her country didn’t always play by the rules, so why should she?”
Shelia had grown very quiet, listening as we tried to sort out Bitsy’s tangled thought process.
“Well,” she said finally. “I think there might be one more factor at play here.”
Jake smiled up at her. “What’s that?”
“Bitsy had a miscarriage shortly after she and David returned from Slovenia.”
I frowned. “I thought she and David were a couple in name only?” As quickly as I said this, my memory brought up the photographs of Bitsy and Gregor that Nina had found. I remembered the way she’d smiled up at him and how her eyes had filled with tears when she told us he’d been killed trying to leave the country.
“Oh, damn! That’s why she did it. She blamed David and the agency for failing to get Gregor out of the country.”
Shelia shrugged again. “I’m not sure. She hasn’t told us everything, but I’m guessing that’s one of the reasons she shot David, in addition to not wanting him to find her. Anyway, I’ve got to go. One of our people caught up with a young, female Ukrainian agent and I need to interview her. She was posing as an aide at the nursing home.”
Aida. I thought, but didn’t have time to ask.
Shelia stood up from the wing chair where she’d been sitting and put the basket she carried down on the seat behind her.
“I just wanted to make sure you were on the mend and give you what little bit of information I had. Maybe we’ll do lunch when I’m in Philadelphia next month.”
Shelia was only looking at Jake as she spoke, and the clueless goon seemed oblivious to the intent behind Shelia’s casual offer.
“Sure, that’ll be good,” he said. He smiled at her, and she licked her lips like a hungry alley cat.
“Bye, now,” she said. “You take care!”
I watched her go, waited until I heard the front door close behind her and then whirled around to find Jake silently laughing at me.
“You are so clueless!” I cried. “You don’t even see what she’s doing, do you?”
Jake’s eyebrows lifted into two amused question marks. “Don’t I?”
“Jake, she’s playing you! If she were a caveman, she’d clobber you over the head and drag you off to her cave! She wants you!”
Jake nodded, still grinning. “Yeah, I know.” He grabbed me, pulled me back down beside him and rolled over on his side to face me. “The question is,” he said, bending his head to kiss me. “What do you want?”
“What do I want?”
Jake feigned frustration as he lifted his head to look around the small bedroom. “Is there an echo in here, Stel? All I hear when I ask a question is you repeating it back to me. Yes, Stella, I asked you what you want. What do you want from me? Do you want to keep on doing the dance or do you want to settle down and get serious about us? Do you want what I have to offer or should I keep on looking?”
The room was suddenly still. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest I was certain he could hear it, but if he did, he was doing a good job of ignoring it. I had the urge to say, “Did you just ask me if I wanted to settle down?” but knew I couldn’t. Jake was ready for answers, not more questions.
I felt light-headed and realized I’d forgotten to breathe. I gasped, drew in a deep breath of cool air and looked up at him.
“I love you, Jake Carpenter, with all my hea
rt,” I said.
Jake’s expression didn’t change. “That’s not enough, Stella. I’m asking you if you’re ready to make a commitment to me and I don’t mean a business partnership, either. I want it all. I want you day in and day out, in the morning, all through the night, when it’s good and when it’s awful. I want you in my bed, in my arms and in my life, Stella. I want babies and meat loaf and dirty dishes in the sink. I want you on family vacations and when the kids are carsick. I want you watching my back and I want you needy and vulnerable. Do you understand what I’m saying here, Stel? I want a life with you.”
At some point I felt the tears begin and knew they were streaming down my face even as I was laughing and crying, “Yes, Jake, yes! I want you! I want my life with you!”
“I want you when you’re stupid,” I said, “and I want you when you’re stronger than me. I want you today, now, yes, Jake, yes, I want you!”
“You’re sure, then?” he said, pulling me close and kissing me softly.
“Oh, yes, Jake,” I said, feeling it bubble up from the very depths of my soul. “I want you!”
“Good,” he said, running his thumb along the line of my jaw. “Then get up and close the door. I don’t know about you, but I’m not getting any younger.”
When I’d not only closed the door but locked it as well, I turned around and walked back over to his bedside, careful to stay just out of his reach. Slowly, ever so slowly, I started taking off my clothes, one piece at a time, teasing him with a provocative smile that let him know just what he was in for when the last item fell to join the others on the floor.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5770-6
WHAT STELLA WANTS
Copyright © 2006 by Nancy Bartholomew
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*stories featuring P.I. Stella Valocchi
*stories featuring P.I. Stella Valocchi
*stories featuring P.I. Stella Valocchi
What Stella Wants Page 26
