Twisted Genius

by Patricia Rice

  Unless the police were involved, hospitals had no reason to be suspicious of visitors bearing stuffed animals. Once I asked after Nadia Kaminsky and her children, the information desk told me how to find the pediatric ward but didn’t mention ICU.

  They didn’t want me seeing Nadia. My throat closed, but I nodded, and headed for the elevators—and intensive care. All the way up, I fretted over those two beautiful children having to grow up without a mother because some asshat with a two-ton mobile weapon thought all life was expendable.

  I wasn’t the praying sort, but when I stepped out of the elevator into the formidable ICU floor, I tried to think positive thoughts.

  There was only one patient behind the window, and all the nurses were in there with her. An urgent Code Red blared overhead. From what I could see, I was watching Nadia succumb to her extensive injuries. Her head was buried in bandages. More bandages covered her upper body. The nurses could do little more than check IV lines.

  This was when prayer might help, if I believed in it. Still, with tears in my eyes, I whispered Fight, Nadia, fight, and hoped that would reach her.

  Then, as I had much too often, I hardened my heart against death and went in search of terrified children.

  I returned to the elevator and took it to the pediatric floor. For whatever reason, hospitals made me belligerent. My shields went up, and my obnoxious came out. But usually, I was visiting suspected villains. This time, the patients were innocent victims, and I was walking on quicksand.

  My brother Nick was mixed up with a radical flake with a target on his back and whose partner was dying. And said flake was now responsible for two young children, which meant my brother was the next best thing to a father. I think my brain exploded.

  The nurses on the pediatric floor were overworked and overwhelmed, but they took time to sympathize and hug me when I asked after the children—which meant they knew Nadia was dying or already dead. I didn’t like strangers in my personal space, but I endured for the sake of my cover. It wasn’t difficult to summon tears.

  I’d come a long way from the agoraphobic nerd I’d been six months ago. I was still a nerd, but I was developing a shell that allowed me to function in public without the use of knives or fists—most of the time. Tears were new. I swiped them away as I reached the room to which I’d been directed.

  Vincent and Anika were watching a cartoon on TV. Looking at them lying pale and listless against the pillows, I sure hoped Nadia had had an insurance card in her purse and the hospital had found it. I wanted Scion Pharmaceuticals paying for this. Vincent’s leg had been plastered past his knee, and it was being held up in an uncomfortable-looking contraption to reduce the swelling. He wasn’t laughing at the cartoon. He had gorgeous dark curls, much like Guy’s, and huge brown eyes.

  Anika had a big fat bandage on her forehead and part of her lovely dark hair shaved. But she was sitting cross-legged on the bed and sucking her thumb when I entered with the nurse. She looked at me suspiciously, but she studied the stuffed animals with interest.

  Here was the hard part—passing myself off as an aunt they didn’t know.

  “Uncle Kiwi told me you were here,” I said in a tone I hoped wasn’t frightening. “He can’t come right now, but he’ll be there when I take you home.” I turned to the nurse. “How soon can they leave?”

  “If all goes well, in the morning, when the doctor signs off,” she said, checking charts and pulses. “We need to keep an eye on them for swelling and signs of any internal injuries. But it looks like they should be just fine.” Her voice oozed sympathy, knowing their lives had been turned upside-down.

  “I want the shark,” Vincent said grumpily.

  I raised my eyebrows in my best maternal manner. “Is this how you ask for a gift?”

  “I want Mama,” Anika said defiantly. Nadia hadn’t raised weepy wimps, thank heavens.

  That was the cue for the nurse to run, as I’d hoped. She closed the door behind her.

  Taking a deep breath, I bopped sulky Vincent on the head with the shark. “Give me a please.”

  He looked truculent, as only a tired, frightened six-year old can do. I’d seen my siblings look like that often enough growing up, and I really didn’t want to deal with any more of the kind of life-changing disasters that had caused that look. But I wasn’t in a war zone this time, I told myself.

  When he didn’t respond, I held out the monkey to Anika. “Your mama can’t come right now. That’s why Uncle Kiwi sent me. I’m Ana.” I held up the photo he’d given me. “Want to send him more pictures? I think he’d like that.”

  “Thank you,” she said politely, taking the monkey and hugging it, but still looking suspicious as she examined the photo. “That’s me as a baby!”

  That was her maybe a year ago.

  “Let me see,” Vincent demanded.

  I applauded his suspicion. I needed to demand his respect. I turned and lifted one eyebrow again—it’s a good intimidating trick. Kids were usually fascinated. My siblings had tried to imitate the arch. Only Nick came close, but he’s fair and I’m dark, and I fancy my quirk is better than his.

  I waited. The boy squirmed. With a huge sigh, he finally said, “Please.”

  Nadia had taught them good manners. I approved. I handed over the picture and the shark as a reward.

  He hugged the shark and sniffed it, then examined the photo. “That’s my Orioles cap! I lost it.”

  “You’ve grown since then,” I sympathized. “You probably need a bigger one.”

  Male ego—they’re all the same. He puffed up and nodded importantly. But then he turned those too-wise brown eyes on me and asked, “When can we see Mama?”

  I wasn’t much on euphemisms, but these were little kids in a strange place occupied by strangers. Hysteria would not be conducive to healing was what I told myself. “She was hurt pretty bad,” I warned them. Not a lie, you’ll notice.

  “Like us?” Anika sniffed, on the verge of weary tears.

  “Even badder,” I told them. “That’s why your Uncle Guy can’t be here right now.” Now I was lying and committing grammatical homicide as well.

  To be honest, I wasn’t totally certain how I got through the next hours. I think I burned up the burner phone’s minutes sending pics to Guy so he could send silly videos back to them. They didn’t like hospital food, and I was hungry, so we ordered pizzas. Eventually, they fell asleep, and I collapsed in the lounge chair provided for tired parents.

  I am a virtual assistant, not a babysitter. I wanted to be tracking the monsters who had probably tried to murder Nadia and blow up Nick and Guy. But I simply couldn’t abandon two children to the nightmares they were facing. So while they slept, I employed my regular phone to arrange what I could.

  I was slipping into an exhausted doze when a figure dressed in black slid into the room. I reached into my jacket for my knuckle dusters and truncheon, but her perfume gave her away. My mother, the Hungarian Princess, Magda the Mysterious, and a thorn I couldn’t remove from my side.

  “Visiting hours are over,” I informed her, wishing for a nice cup of tea to endure whatever insanity she was about to perpetrate. “I thought you would have left the country by now.”

  Don’t get me wrong. Magda is probably an intelligence genius—aka spy. I was pretty sure she’d blown up a weapons warehouse and an illegal arsenal before Christmas. But she’d risked her children one too many times, and I’d lost patience with her single-minded superwoman sense of justice.

  “No, I can’t leave now, not with Nick involved,” she murmured, perching on the edge of Anika’s bed. “They’re desperate if they took out a powerless chemist like Nadia. The final game is in play. I want you and Nick out of it.”

  As usual, I had to read between the lines. I didn’t know the they she was stalking, but I could take a wild guess. As Max’s daughter, Magda had grown up around the powerful men of the Top Hat cabal. After a lifetime of lies, Magda seldom said what she meant—but she knew Nadia. I figured t
hat was a bad omen for Guy.

  “Now is a fine time to start worrying about your children,” I said in scorn. “Nick is an adult. He makes his own choices.”

  “Pursuing Scion is a wrong one,” Magda said in disapproval. “Nick almost died today. That should be enough to convince him. Let him play house with his boyfriend. Don’t help him investigate.”

  Coming from Magda, that was truly ominous. But I was operating on fumes and didn’t have the strength to dig into her rationale. “If Scion was involved, he’s going down,” I informed her. “Give us a better way to do it.”

  “People like that don’t play with fire. I just don’t want you involved, understand? Stay home and take care of the children.” Magda didn’t wait to see if I agreed. She produced two small, neatly wrapped gifts from the pocket of her fur coat, set them on the nightstand, and walked out.

  Stay home and take care of the children? She’d gone completely bonkers.

  Graham watched the security monitor as the fur-coated shadow slipped out of the hospital exit and slid into a waiting car. He shot a rubber band at the screen. Magda. Why had she been antagonizing Ana this time?

  He understood why Ana was babysitting two scared children instead of returning to his bed. Ana had a mean streak a mile long, but when it came to the helpless, she put that streak to good use. She was sitting there, loaded for bear, should anyone try to harm those kids.

  If Ana hadn’t taken up guard dog position at Nadia’s feet, it meant she didn’t expect Nadia to live. Neither did the physicians, as far as he’d been able to ascertain. While Nadia was in ICU, she should be safely surrounded by nurses and interns. He’d order a watch on her if she survived the night.

  Nick and the other whistleblower were safely ensconced in their hidden apartment and didn’t need his help at the moment.

  So to amuse himself and keep Ana occupied, he one-upped Ana’s twisted genius of a mother. He punched his keyboard and sent Ana a copy of the document Nadia had risked her life for. The congressional committee had buried it, but it was available for those who looked. He’d leave it to Ana to decide what to do with it. He was an observer and sometimes a guardian. He did not interfere unless asked—although he knew perfectly well what Ana’s reaction to the document would be.

  So, sometimes, he was an instigator.

  He’d given up self-analysis long ago. He’d surrendered common sense when Ana had invaded his territory. But the upside was that life was no longer tedious.

  Ana texted a string of exclamation points and question marks Graham didn’t attempt to answer. It was enough to know she’d received the document. She’d be asleep before she dug three pages in.

  His computer security alarm sounded—one he seldom heard, for good reason. He frowned and diverted his attention to the suspicious activity battering his dedicated server.

  Who the hell would try to crack his network? He wasn’t a major player like Sony or WordPress or Boeing. Hackers had no good way to know that he existed. And even if someone stumbled on him, his defenses were top of the line, better than the Defense Department’s. But other than swatting spam, they had never been truly tested.

  As a precaution, he shot a cyber block at Tudor’s ISP. Ana’s computer genius sibling knew about the network and was capable of testing his defenses for reasons unknown. It had to be early morning in the UK. Teens generally weren’t up at this hour. He got back a robo-response equivalent to a snarl. Kid wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t online either.

  The attack continued. Alarms flared, and his IT people had been jarred awake and were frantically shutting down to prevent any damage.

  This had to be a deliberate, targeted attack. By whom? And why?

  He’d have to sort through his recent cases and see who might need his information most.

  In the meantime—if the hacker wanted war, he’d give the bastard a dose of his own medicine. Graham typed Code Orange and watched his bots eat theirs like an ancient Pacman game.

  Given that he’d just sent Ana a copy of a report that had got a parking garage blown up, he hunted an interior security camera in the hospital to keep a closer eye on Ana. He knew he’d cleaned the file he’d sent her, but if someone was after it, had he just sent her an explosive booby trap?

  Chapter 4

  “Graham did what?” I asked from the hospital corridor as doctors examined the kids in their room. I was pretty exhausted from sleeping in a chair all night and not certain I was hearing right.

  “He’s had Nadia’s house swept from top to bottom for bugs. There aren’t any. If her accident was deliberate, the killers were only interested in taking out her, not whatever might be in her house.” Nick sounded equally puzzled. “Guy has ordered security cameras outside. We probably need to update the burglar alarm; it’s antiquated. But Guy wants to take the kids home, to their familiar surroundings.”

  “I’m still wrapping my head around Graham getting involved,” I admitted. “If he thinks the house is safe, then let’s go for it. You don’t want to be confined to a room for long. We just need to make arrangements so that no one knows Guy is living there.”

  “From what we can tell, it should be easy. There’s an attached garage. Nadia’s car won’t be in it. We just come and go through the garage. As long as they don’t realize Guy is alive and believe Nadia is out of the picture, the killers have to think their job is done.”

  I was uneasy about him hanging around a man with a target on his back, but we all had to live in our own comfort zones. “The kids need their own rooms and they need Guy, so I guess this sort of makes sense. I don’t like it, but Guy’s the guardian. Get that burglar alarm updated pronto. Just because no one tried to break in before doesn’t mean they won’t try now.”

  “We’re on it. Weekends just aren’t the best time for ordering anything. First thing Monday, I promise. Do you think they’ll be releasing the kids today?”

  “I’m clueless. I’ll text you when I know.”

  “Have Sam drive them in a car with tinted windows.”

  I grimaced and agreed. Safety was paramount, but transporting kids in casts would be a bear. And it looked like it was up to me to handle it—Guy couldn’t appear in a public place. “Guy will have to fax the hospital office with his credentials,” I warned. “I can’t bust them out.”

  “Then we’d better pray our killers aren’t smart enough to check the hospital billing office to see who’s taking the kids, and the hospital doesn’t know they’re talking to a man who is presumed dead,” Nick said ominously before signing off.

  He had the British embassy to verify anything he wanted. I wouldn’t worry about details—the big things were overwhelming enough.

  Machines were keeping Nadia alive. She was still in a coma and not expected to live. Watching the kids struggling to dress after the doctor approved their release, I gritted my teeth against the anger boiling beneath my surface calm. I had too much to do to explode, so I applied my energy to tasks I could actually perform.

  For now, my main task was overseeing transportation. I’d once disapproved of the conspicuous consumption of Graham’s limo service, if only for the danger of a licensed car being easily tracked. I’d since learned that Sam, his driver, could be creative.

  The kids transformed from whiny, fretting little monsters the moment the nurses wheeled them out to the tinted-window, long black Lincoln waiting at the curb. Even little kids can be impressed by cars. I was impressed that Sam had summoned a vehicle with no identification other than a license plate from Colorado. My don’t ask, don’t tell policy kicked in.

  Sam and the nurses got them strapped into the back seat along with all their gifts. Magda, the ultimate gift-giver, had provided them with hand-held game boxes. They’d been chasing the equivalent of Pac-men and Tweety birds all morning. Right now, though, they clung to their stuffed animals and watched me with huge eyes. I prayed they wouldn’t ask about their mother.

  While Sam loaded the wheelchair Vincent would need, I climbed int
o the rear-facing seat. The kids didn’t look entirely reassured. Since I was still wearing yesterday’s clothes and not my happiest smile, that was understandable.

  But as the car pulled away and the shield between front and back seats opened, they transformed into beaming, bouncing normality.

  “Unca Kiwi!” Anika cried.

  Vincent was a little more circumspect, but he relaxed and held up his shark for inspection.

  I didn’t know how Nick would handle this new development in his life, but I was good with it. Let the guardian guard. It was better than holing up in a safe house—and it got me off the hook.

  Stay home with the kids, indeed! My mother had mincemeat for brains. Someone had almost killed my brother. That someone was going down.

  Guy had dark circles under his eyes, and his smile looked strained, but he told the kids that they were going home, and yes, they could have peanut butter and apples. When they asked about their mother, I was afraid he’d pass out.

  He just said they’d talk about her when they got home and asked them questions about school. Excellent save. He’d be a good parent.

  Guy had the remote to Nadia’s garage. Sam pulled the limo inside, and we closed the door before letting the kids out. Keeping neighborly questions down was a good idea. Unless Guy had notified someone, no one had a reason to know the kids had been hurt. The parking garage explosion filled the local headlines. I didn’t think Nadia’s condition had made any news reports yet. One traffic accident out of hundreds every day might make a back page, if the police made a big deal of the hit-and-run aspect.

  Until then, we didn’t need nosy neighbors stopping by with tuna fish casseroles. As long as the bad guys thought everyone was dead, Guy and Nick should be safe. How long would that last?

  Sam set up the wheelchair, and I let Guy take the children inside to have The Talk. I took the coward’s way out and holed up in Nadia’s office with her computer. I’m not a tech geek like Graham or Tudor, but I work with computers and know how to back up files. I’d had Guy bring me the biggest thumb drive he could find, and I copied everything I could for my own curiosity. Then I called Graham so he could do his magic trick by downloading an app and slurping up the insides.