“Liar,” Ainsley repeated, taking another bite. “Your big corporate developers probably have very little to say about my organization, and anything they do say doesn’t come close to wonderful.”
Elizabeth laid her fork down. “Quit calling me a liar.”
“Well, quit lying. Look me straight in the eye, Elizabeth, and tell me why you give a rat’s rear end about what we’re doing. Does this have anything to do with your father’s death?” Her voice lost a bit of its belligerence. “I was very sad to hear about that, by the way. Your father was a great man.”
“Leave my father out of this,” Elizabeth said through her gritted teeth.
“Down, girl. Down. I wasn’t trying to offend you, just trying to get you to be honest with yourself.”
Keep calm, Elizabeth reminded herself. Remember the goal of all this. “Okay, you want me to be honest. It actually was my father’s death that got me thinking.” That much, at least, was true.
She had Ainsley’s full attention now. The woman stopped eating, placed her elbows on the table, and settled her chin in her hands.
It was working. Elizabeth’s composure returned. “I know that my father’s organization has done some work with yours. I’ve heard how well you lead your team.” She swallowed down the bile that threatened to come up. “I’m considering what I’m going to do at this point, whether to stay in the line of law I’m in or possibly return to my father’s company.”
Now, that was a bald-faced lie, but Ainsley didn’t bite. “Anyway, I think it would be good to take a mental break from all of it,” Elizabeth continued. “Get into something new and completely different; find out what I really want to spend the rest of my life doing. Your area is so diametrically opposed to mine, and I find it extremely fascinating.”
She stopped. She had almost convinced herself.
Ainsley wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “I don’t buy it, Elizabeth. We don’t make your kind of money, so this has to be about something else. You in trouble with the IRS?”
“It has nothing to do with money, Ainsley. I don’t need the money.” She paused for dramatic effect. “You want me to prove that my intentions are pure? Fine. I am willing to spend the next year working for you for free.”
Ainsley picked up her wine glass and sipped slowly. She said nothing. She simply stared at Elizabeth. Elizabeth stared back.
At last Ainsley spoke. “We’ve got an amazing program, Elizabeth. And we’ve got a great team. Frankly, I have suspicions about this sudden interest of yours, but I don’t really have to know why you’re considering this. I’ll let you have a job with us for a year. If nothing else, I’ll enjoy watching you be tortured for twelve months. Because I’m certain that if you actually make it through a year, the truth behind your motives will reveal itself.”
She pushed her plate back and leaned in toward Elizabeth. “But what I won’t tolerate is someone coming into this wonderful organization with a bad attitude, thinking they can restructure our program or change the way we do things. It’s working and working well. Let me be completely honest, since no one else at this booth wants to be. Unless you can find an ounce of decency in you to actually care for someone other than yourself, I don’t want you anywhere near my company. We have to fight enough external battles. We don’t need internal wars as well. But I’m too ornery to walk away from a challenge.”
Elizabeth breathed in deeply. “Are you saying you’ll let me spend a year with you?”
“I’m saying you can stay until you give me reason to fire you. That could just as easily happen on your first day.”
Elizabeth felt her brow furrow. Her father’s will had mentioned no provision in case of firing. She wasn’t sure she was that good of an actress. “I’d like to start on Monday.”
The waiter offered dessert. Ainsley graciously declined. He brought the check, and Elizabeth reached for it.
Ainsley pushed her hand away. “This one is on me, Elizabeth. Even God’s money needs to take a vacation every now and then.”
As they walked out into the sticky August afternoon, Ainsley turned in Elizabeth’s direction. “I’m giving you one last chance to change your mind. Because I really don’t think this is what you want. But if you show up, you will work and you will work hard.”
“Hard work has never scared me.”
“No, I never believed that work was the ghost that haunted you. But whatever it is, you apparently have yet to shake it.” Ainsley grabbed her and hugged her again, never saying another word as she left Elizabeth on the sidewalk in front of the holly tree.
chapter nine
Dr. Rajesh Nadu had been chief of Restorative Surgery at the Medical University in Charleston since shortly after Jeffrey’s residency. Dr. Nadu specialized in birth deformities, burns, and reconstruction after severe trauma or cancer. His medical expertise and his humanitarianism had been touted in so many medical journals and honored so often that Jeffrey almost regretted having chosen him. He didn’t want all of Dr. Nadu’s fame and respect to overshadow the press and prestige that Pamela was planning for him.
As Jeffrey walked through the hospital corridors, the heavy odor of antiseptic and illness assaulted him. He hated hospitals. He might have to visit one every now and then, but he didn’t want to be there every day.
Jeffrey found Nadu’s office in the far wing of the hospital on the seventh floor. An attractive nurse, a redhead, greeted him as he walked into the waiting room.
“New patient?”
“Actually, I have an appointment with Dr. Nadu.”
“May I have your name?”
“Jeffrey Wilcott. Dr. Jeffrey Wilcott.”
“Well, Dr. Jeffrey Wilcott, I’ll tell him you’re here.”
In a few minutes the same red-headed flame led him down a corridor and into a rather sparse office. “He’ll be with you in a few minutes.” She smiled at him coyly.
Jeffrey knew he was in bad shape when he couldn’t even return the smile. He hadn’t been himself since the kidnapping, although he was apparently still enough of himself to attract the usual female attention.
The receptionist closed the door, leaving him alone. A smoky scent, like a recently snuffed candle, lingered in the air, and the sounds of some orchestrated piano music filtered through the room. The furnishings were spare and a bit shabby, nothing like the elegance of Jeffrey’s own office. “Obviously trauma doesn’t pay like elective,” he muttered under his breath.
On the far wall, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase was filled to over-flowing. He ran one hand along the spines. Many of them had nothing to do with medicine. Clearly, if the man had read half of these, he had never discovered golf.
The remaining walls were adorned not with tasteful artwork but with photographs—most of them pictures of Dr. Nadu himself. Jeffrey gazed at the dark chocolate features of the Indian doctor as he smiled from each picture. A seemingly genuine smile, showing real care for each child, each man, each woman in the photographs with him. Jeffrey leaned in closer. He could see no duty. Only pleasure. Authentic pleasure of a kind totally foreign to his experience.
The door opened behind him. “Dr. Wilcott, welcome,” Dr. Nadu said. His accent was heavy but precise. Nadu placed an arm-load of files on the desk and extended his hand.
Jeffrey shook it. “Um, yes, sir. I appreciate your being willing to see me on such short notice.”
He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and stared directly at Jeffrey. “How may I be of service?”
“Oh, well—” Jeffrey hesitated. “I’m just . . . just figuring out exactly what it is you do.”
“I see you have looked at the pictures. It should be quite clear.” Nadu seated himself in his scarred black leather chair and motioned for Jeffrey to take the chair in front of him. “We give to people what they wouldn’t have otherwise, Dr. Wilcott. We mend their broken places, so to speak. It truly is a rather enjoyable job, I must say.”
“You must get tired of always seeing such pathetic people.” Jeffrey laugh
ed nervously.
“Obviously you and I have different perspectives of what constitutes pathetic.”
Jeffrey suspected it wasn’t a compliment.
Nadu went on. “Dr. Wilcott, I am aware of your reputation around Charleston. I hear you are quite a good plastic surgeon, but I am not altogether certain I understand the nature of this visit. Do you need my help in some way?”
Jeffrey felt the pulsing in his jaw. “No, actually I came here to offer you my services.”
Dr. Nadu’s expression never changed. “And how is that?”
“Well, I have to, ah—to be honest, I’ve been thinking through exactly what I want to accomplish this next year in my life. I feel that there is a part of me that’s just not—” He paused for dramatic effect.
“Not completely fulfilled doing what I’m doing. I have a great practice. I really do. But there is the possibility of learning more. And with my gifts and training, there is also much I can offer. I want—” He paused, groping for words. “I want to give something back. So I would like to offer you my services for the next year. Free.”
Dr. Nadu laid his glasses on the top of the desk. “You want to work with me. For a year. For free.”
Jeffrey swallowed. Loudly. “Yes. I honestly think I could fill in some of your cracks. Offer you my expertise. Think of it like this: with you and me working together, we would pretty much make up the ultimate plastic surgeon.”
“The ultimate plastic surgeon,” Nadu repeated.
Jeffrey licked his lips. “Yes, that is what I honestly believe. I could start on Monday. Together we could accomplish things in the coming year that would turn this city on its ear.”
Dr. Nadu rose from his chair. He was a small man, but his presence seemed larger than his stature, and Jeffrey felt uneasy. His father was the only other man that had ever made him feel that way. “I’ve never really had a desire to—what was your phrase? Turn this city on its ear? All I have ever wished to do is accomplish what you see in those pictures up there. Do you understand what I’m saying, Jeffrey?”
“Of course. You want to reach as many people as you possibly can. That’s every doctor’s goal. We want maximum impact.”
Dr. Nadu came around to sit on the edge of his desk. He leaned in closer to Jeffrey. “No. Not every doctor. Not me. My only ambition is to make one person smile. At the end of the day, that is all that I am after. One person.” He waved a square brown hand in the direction of the photographs. “If I never touched anyone else other than the people on that wall, it would be enough. Because my purpose for being a doctor was accomplished in each life. Each one.”
Jeffrey stared at him. False humility was the last thing he had expected from a doctor of Nadu’s reputation. It wasn’t exceptionally attractive on him.
“You do not believe me.”
Jeffrey said nothing.
Nadu smiled as if absorbed in some private joke. “Well, Dr. Wilcott, I do not believe you either. I suspect that coming to work for me was not your idea at all.”
Nadu might be a fool, Jeffrey thought, but he was perceptive. He scrambled to regroup. “Dr. Nadu, I have a very well-established practice already. Coming here would be a sacrifice for me and for my clients. But it is a sacrifice that I believe—”
“Then why come? Why get your hands dirty with, ah—how did you put it? Pathetic people?”
“I didn’t really mean pathetic. I just meant . . . challenged.”
“The same question applies. Why leave your world to come work with challenged people?”
Jeffrey shifted in his seat nervously. The Executor had not specified whether he could tell anyone about his father’s challenge. He judged it might not be such a good idea. “Let’s just say it creates a rare opportunity.”
“And you are looking for rare opportunities?”
Lord have mercy, this man asked a lot of questions. “I’m just wondering if it might not be a good idea for my future and the future of plastic surgery in Charleston as a whole if two of its most renowned surgeons come together and increase the . . . the smiles.”
Jeffrey stumbled into silence, and for a long time neither of them spoke. Dr. Nadu returned to his desk chair and sat there, pressing his fingers to his lips and gazing at the photographs that lined his wall. At last, as if he had been in deep conversation with someone Jeffrey couldn’t see, he gave a resigned sigh, shut his eyes, and murmured, “All right.”
Finally, he looked up. “Dr. Wilcott, taking you on for a year might possibly be one of the most reckless things I have ever considered. And I am not a reckless man. I do, however, take risks. Every day when I place that scalpel between my fingers, I take a risk. I—what is the American idiom? I trust my gut.” He raised an eyebrow and stared Jeffrey down. Jeffrey squirmed slightly in his seat. “You may come to work with me.”
Jeffrey rose. “Thank you, Dr. Nadu. I—”
Nadu cut him off. “Dr. Wilcott, let me be perfectly clear. Our patients come first. If anything in your behavior or attitude leads me to believe you have not represented yourself candidly, you will be released. Immediately. I am not a man to make veiled threats, nor do I endure deception or arrogance. Do we understand one another?”
“Perfectly.”
“Then I will expect to see you tomorrow.”
Jeffrey stood up, about to protest.
“You will start tomorrow, or you will not start at all. That will be all, Dr. Wilcott.”
Jeffrey Wilcott had been dismissed.
Jeffrey snatched his phone from his suit coat pocket as he made his way to his car, fuming as he went. He had missed three calls, the first one from his private investigator. He didn’t even listen to the message but dialed him back immediately.
“Frank Littleton. “
“Frank, it’s Jeffrey Wilcott. Tell me what you know or I’m going to have to fire you, because there is no way I am going to start working for that pompous—”
“Did you listen to my message?”
“Tell me what it said.”
“Well, I think I’ve gotten a lead on our elusive Executor.”
“What kind of lead?”
“We’ve been doing some digging on your wife, and—”
“My wife? First of all, I never even told you I was married.”
“Dr. Wilcott, you are paying us to be investigators, aren’t you? We’ve been on this case twenty-four hours. If you want us to be good at our job, then you should hope we know everything about you by now.”
Jeffrey stopped in the middle of the parking lot. He couldn’t be angry at the guy for doing what he had paid him to do. He rubbed his temples as he continued on to his car. “If you’d met my wife, you’d know she isn’t smart enough to come up with something like this.”
“Well, no, but you’d be surprised how many times in situations like this—”
“I highly doubt you’ve ever had a situation like this. Get to the point.”
“Well, there are multiple phone calls to an overseas number. We’re looking into those now.”
Jeffrey climbed into his car and leaned his head on his steering wheel. “This is crazy. She was probably ordering something off an infomercial. What about my sister?”
“We have begun an initial search into her as well, starting with her bank records. That will be most telling.”
“If you don’t give me something concrete by morning, the medical practice I’ve spent years building will be history. Do you understand that?”
“Sir, I understand you were kidnapped by men smart enough not to leave a trace of themselves in your parking garage or on any surveillance camera within a fifty-mile radius of your office. The only other thing that could track them would be the CIA and satellites. If you have that kind of money, more power to you. If not, then you are going to have to do whatever you have to do tomorrow and smile. Because this is going to take longer than a day.”
Jeffrey hung up the phone. He’d do the dismissing this time.
chapter ten
Visiting the Middleton Place Plantation—though still in Charleston and so not technically “traveling”—had been just the reprieve Mary Catherine needed. She sat on the first of five rolling levels that led down to two mirroring lakes framed by lush green grass—the Butterfly Lakes, they were called, because they had the look of butterfly wings. Beyond the lakes lay the scenic Ashley River.
It had been a wonderful day. She’d had lunch at the Middleton Place Restaurant, serving the Southern fare that she loved most: collard greens, Hoppin’ John, she-crab soup. Now she looked out over the peaceful river that during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had served as the “main highway” to the plantation.
She lay back on the smooth, manicured lawn, turning her head slightly so she could smell the freshness of the grass She had toured most of the sixty-five acres of landscaped havens, walked, kayaked, sat by the river—in short, spent the entire day trying to force the looming dread of tomorrow out of her mind.
A tiny face peered over hers. “What you thinkin’ ’bout, lady?”
Mary Catherine jumped up.
The little boy’s mother retrieved him quickly. “Sorry about that. He doesn’t meet many strangers. Which might be a good thing. ”
Mary Catherine smiled. “No, it’s a nice diversion.”
“So, what you thinkin’?” the boy repeated.
“I’m thinking there’s too much to do around here for just one day. I’m pooped.”
“I poop too!” The little freckle-faced toddler giggled and clapped his hands.
Mary Catherine felt her face flush. His mother laughed.
“No, I meant I’m tired.”
“You want to take a nap?”
“I think I might go home and do just that.”
“I hate naps. They’re for sissies,” he informed her.
“That’s not nice,” his mother scolded.
“Sometimes they’re for old people too,” Mary Catherine said.
The little boy peered into her face. “Are you old?”
“Ancient.”
And with that he tossed his tiny hand in front of her and took off toward some man Mary Catherine only hoped was his father.
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