“Was that why no one would answer me?” Sophie asked aloud.
Isobel didn’t seem confused by the tangential question. “The nurse told me you were asking. They wouldn’t have told you anything while Jack’s condition was uncertain. There are too many legal ramifications to handing over personal information to anyone other than family members.”
“Or people with a power of attorney,” Sophie added bitterly.
“He wanted to see you,” Isobel said. “But time was so very short for him and there were things he had to take care of.” She gave a small grimace. “I’ll be working for years to take care of it all. But that’s beside the point. You were going to be transferred to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center this morning?”
Sophie blinked at the change in direction. “Yes.”
“That won’t happen now.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not going to L.A. County. I’ve been talking to some of the staff doctors here, including Doctor Shaw who treated you when you first came in. About your condition, I mean.”
“Why?”
“Jack asked me to. Has anyone discussed the best alternatives for you, as far as your leg is concerned?”
“I’ve had my options laid out for me.” Basic care. That’s all that the company insurance plan covered, once a huge deductible had come out. The deductible was going to put her in debt for two years, assuming she had a job with which to work it off.
They’d mentioned suing Apex and getting the medical bills she’d run up for more extensive treatment paid by the company that caused the condition in the first place but the idea had left a bad taste in her mouth. Now she just didn’t care. The numbness had deleted it.
Isobel nodded. “Yes, I heard about your options.” Her dry tone told Sophie she held as high an opinion of the available options as Sophie. “Ideally, though, you need an operation, maybe two, to straighten out the breaks. There’s muscle and tendon damage and you’ll need extensive physical therapy afterward.”
“I’ll be a gimp,” Sophie said. “They’ll have to teach me how to walk all over again.”
“The gimp isn’t guaranteed, not if you get better treatment as soon as possible. There’s a specialist at Cedars Sinai, Dr. Harold Diamond, who would like to see you within twenty-four hours.”
“And who gets to wave the magic wand?” She was suddenly tired. Very tired.
“Jack did last night. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Jack…arranged this?”
“No, I arranged it—Jack directed me to, using his power of attorney. While he was in the OR, I ticked off a few doctors by interrupting their dinners and asking a lot of questions. I even spoke to Diamond directly last night. It’s all been arranged, Sophie. The Apex jet is taking you to L.A. but you’ll be transferred directly to Cedars Sinai. Diamond is expecting you.”
Jack. Jack had arranged this for her.
“How come no one would talk to me about Jack’s condition but everyone has opened up for you about my condition?”
Isobel gave a tiny smile. “I can be very persuasive.”
“I’m sure.”
“It helps if you’re the money man, Sophie. If you’re paying the bills, you have a right to know all the facts. They know that.”
“And that’s what you are? Jack is? The money man?”
“Jack wasn’t personally rich but he had unique access to resources. I’m raiding those resources. Also, Apex doesn’t know it yet but they’ll be contributing to the pool too.”
“I don’t want to sue them,” Sophie said sharply.
“Oh, I’m not suggesting it. I want the money this year, not in the next decade or two. I’ll just have a chat with them.”
“In your persuasive way.”
“Something like that.” Isobel stood a little straighter, pulling at her cuffs. Sophie realized then that it was more than likely that she had slept in her clothes, probably curled up on a chair. “I’m assuming you’re happy about these arrangements, then?”
“You must be more than Jack’s lawyer, to go to this effort.”
“There are extraordinary circumstances. Besides, with Jack’s power of attorney, I have a moral, ethical and professional obligation to carry out his wishes and requests to the full extent of my abilities. A power of attorney is not a light thing to carry. For legal purposes, I am Jack. I have to do what I think he would do, if he was here.” Again, the tiny smile. “He wanted whatever it took to give you back your life, Sophie. Sans gimp, sans scars.”
“Why? Why? I don’t understand.”
“He felt…responsible.”
“My fault.” Jack’s guttural, slurred words on that last day. She hadn’t understood them.
“I don’t understand. How can Jack feel responsible for a plane crash?”
“I can’t tell you that. I know you don’t want to hear any more run-around but this time, I mean it. You cannot be told everything. It may leave you confused but there are worse states to be in.”
“I could be dead. That’s a worse state. Jack saved my life. How could he have been responsible?”
Isobel put her fist against her hip, looking down at the floor. Then, “I’ll tell you something now. It’s more than I should say but the power of attorney probably covers me. I want to show you that you really don’t want to know all of it. Okay?”
“If you’re trying to scare me, you’re succeeding,” Sophie said.
“Good.”
“Okay. Tell me.”
“If Jack hadn’t been on that plane, Sophie, it wouldn’t have crashed.”
The implications…oh, the implications in that simple statement. The most obvious one was awful, just on its own. “You mean, someone deliberately made it crash? Why? To get Jack?” She remembered to breathe when the tightness in her chest pushed her into a gasping inhalation. “Who is he? Why would someone do that? That’s…” Appalling. Inhuman. Frightening.
Jack’s gun. She remembered it suddenly. It was locked up in one of the hospital’s property boxes with her name on it. The helicopter pilot hadn’t taken it from her and the state ranger hadn’t had the wherewithal to confiscate it. She’d flown down to Denver with it tucked into her oversized jeans.
“They’ll come for me. They’ll kill you too.” Jack’s voice whispered in her memory.
“Who is it? Who is 'they'?” Sophie demanded.
Isobel nodded. “You see? So many questions now, so many frightening possibilities. If I could tell you more, it would just grow more frightening. Jack wouldn’t want that. He was trying to protect you. Telling you anything else wouldn’t be protecting you.”
“There’ll be an investigation into the crash. They’ll find evidence, proof, it will all come out…”
“It’ll all go away. None of it will ever be made public. The media will report the crash and that two survivors were found. They’ll report that one died later of injuries sustained in the crash and that’s all.”
Sophie stared at the woman who spoke so casually of such enormous power – enough power to control the media and to sweep such terrible affairs under the rug.
“Who are you?” she said at last.
“Jack’s attorney.”
“No, who are you?”
“That’s all you need to know,” Isobel replied. “I’ve already said too much.” She held out her hand. “Good luck, Sophie. Jack would have wanted you to go on and lead a full life. Remember him that way, not shadowed by anything I’ve just told you.”
Sophie took the cool, tiny hand and shook. “Will I see you again?”
“No. Everything has been arranged, or will be in place in the next couple of weeks. You’ll be taken care of. Don’t worry.”
Sophie knew once Isobel left, her last connection to Jack would be gone.
Isobel nodded and walked away.
Remember him that way. The ledge. Five days. A survival situation, where everything got stripped to raw emotions and needs. Five days that had completel
y changed her life. Jack could no more return her to her old life than she could give him his life back, now. But even in death, he was reaching out, protecting her, taking care of her.
You’re going to have to let go the controls this one time, Sophie. Trust me.
And he hadn’t let her down.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, Jack. I’ll let you take care of me.”
It was the only way she could think of to honour his death, to make it worth something.
Ruby came over. “Okay, honey?”
“I’m ready,” Sophie told her.
Chapter Eight
Montana, Ten years later
Martin kept his eyes on the sign, watching the lettering slowly clarify as his long-range vision focused. It was a way of keeping his mind empty, a trick he had learned many years ago as a mental defense against the invasive loneliness of the open road.
Gradually, one footstep at a time, he made out the letters. Serenity Falls. Pop. 1,312.
The sign bordered a narrow road that branched off to the right of the wide, quiet one he was currently tramping down. The smaller road ran between the great soaring firs that could take his breath away with their beauty. Then, the road disappeared around a bend.
Population 1,312. Small town, he automatically catalogued. Small towns meant trouble. He’d learned to steer well clear of them.
He studied the thick shield of Douglas firs mixed with red cedars that marched away from the side of the road he was traveling and thought about how good it would feel to be in among the trees, away from the highway. Then he realized where his thoughts were trailing and clamped his jaw tight.
He was heading for Hungry Horse, he told himself firmly. It was bad enough that he’d succumbed to the need to return to the mountains again but at least he had resisted the old lure enough and headed farther north.
He’d crossed the border into Montana five days ago, somewhere during the night. He’d crossed over so many state lines in the last six years that one more was neither here nor there.
He’d come up this way because there was plenty of seasonal work to be had, he reminded himself.
Who are you trying to fool?
The voice was almost a sneer and he felt his lips twist into a downward grimace. He found himself heading back into the mountains like a migrating goose obeying the call, just like he did every year when the calendar rolled around to October and he was just as helpless to prevent it as the goose was.
He looked at the sign again. It was a lot closer now and he could pick out the cracked paint flaking around the edges. Too many harsh winters, he thought. Serenity Falls. It was a nice sounding name.
Good place to hole up for the winter.
The thought seemed to come from nowhere. More and more, lately, he’d been plagued by these thoughts. Nesting thoughts, he labeled them. Vague ideas of settling down, finding a place to call home. Flash cards passed through his mind too quickly to switch off—images of rooms, glowing fireplaces and comfortable, well-worn chairs. Permanence. And the Holy Grail of a wanderer, books. His own books, on his own bookshelf.
He pulled his shoulders back tightly, straightening himself up stiffly from the easy posture of a man used to walking, feeling the backpack shift awkwardly and rub his shoulder blades in the wrong places. It was an attempt to distract his thoughts.
If Serenity Falls beckoned, then it was even more reason to avoid the place. He couldn’t afford to be seduced by the lure of creature comforts. There were too many scenes of domestic bliss to be found in a town like that and loads of trouble for an itinerant traveler like himself.
He reached the turnoff and looked along the road he was traveling, then down the turn off to Serenity Falls. He stood with his head bowed and his eyes closed and fought temptation, memories and good judgment.
* * * * *
Most evenings when Sophie closed, she was too busy trying to dislodge Cal from his position of propping up the end of the counter to stop to think much about the simple process she went through every night of locking up her café.
But tonight, after pulling Cal’s coffee cup away from him and easing him out the door with a joke or two, she actually paused to rest her hand against the polished brass key-plate and remembered the first day she had opened the café. The mingled pride and fear that had swept through her as she had unlocked the café for business that morning.
There had been few moments in her life when she had felt any prouder.
Sophie grimaced as she turned away from the door, putting the big ring of keys into her coat pocket. She knew why she was flashing back on that first morning—because her business was in trouble. The accountant’s report today hadn’t been exactly glowing.
“You’ve got severe cash flow problems, Sophie. You have to tighten up on your creditors.” Jerry’s tone had been gentle, for Sophie knew the facts as well as he did. “It’s unusual to even have creditors in this sort of trade. Yours aren’t doing you any favours by holding out on you this way.”
“The contracts to supply lunches to the mill and the factory are both extremely lucrative,” Sophie replied. “They’re the backbone of the business. Without it, I’d just be running another struggling small town café.”
“That would work on a cash basis, like any other sensible business,” Jerry shot back. “Sophie, you have to get tougher on them. They’re getting away with nearly a hundred-and-twenty days of interest-free credit, while your bank balance dips further and further into the red.”
Sophie sighed. “It’s a small town, Jerry. If I get tough, I won’t be popular.”
“You don’t go into business to be popular,” Jerry pointed out dryly.
“I know. But my kids live in Serenity too, you know. I’ve been around a small town long enough to know how it works. I don’t want them to suddenly find themselves on the outer among their friends.”
Jerry dropped his nose down and looked at her over the top frame of his glasses. The stare was full of humour. “You’re exaggerating and you know it.”
Sophie nodded and sighed again. “I know, Jerry but you aren’t the one that has to look into their faces and explain why they were the only one in their class not invited to the party or why they missed out on the team.”
“You aren’t demanding millions. I hardly think Ted Albright is going to get narky over a couple of thousand dollars. Besides, this is your livelihood you’re talking about. It’s what allows you to feed and clothe the kids, remember?” Jerry pushed the files across the desk toward Sophie. “Get tough, my girl. Or you’re going to run out of time and the bank will pull the pin.”
Sophie hunched her shoulders inside her coat in reaction to the memory, as she walked slowly up the length of Lake Street toward home. She could just see the little Victorian house at the top of the long sloping hill that led out of town, the white walls almost glowing in the gloom of dusk. The copse of ancient pines that stood guard over it marked it off from its neighbours. There was a warm yellow light coming from the lower windows. Jinni would have the range in the kitchen well stoked by now. Sophie was running late. Peter was probably already there and waiting. He was taking her out to dinner tonight—a rare occasion. He had been campaigning for this dinner for a while. As much as she disliked leaving the kids at night, even though Jinni was there, Peter at his most persistent was often hard to refuse.
Friday night. Payday for the majority of people in Serenity. Already Beany’s Bar, one of two bars on Lake Street, was pumping out a steady murmur of noise. The murmur jumped in decibels each time the double swing doors flapped open and let out a spill of light and sent a current of air redolent of beer and cigarettes out into the crisp night air.
Ahead, a few more people were making their way across the car park toward the squat wide bar. Young, mostly. Probably seasonal workers with money to burn. Most of the industries in and around Serenity attracted a mobile workforce.
There was a man ahead of her, walking along the curb with a backpack over his shou
lder. He looked like he’d only just got into town. He was going to be hard-pressed to find work at this time of the year. Most of the major companies had done their hiring for the season.
His long legs swung easily from lean hips, the boots crunching in the bits of blue metal that had been flung across the sidewalk from the roaring tires of Beany’s customers. For a moment, Sophie thought he was going to keep walking past but at the last moment he turned his head to check the bar out. At the same time, someone climbed the two short steps to the door and pushed one open, while another man inside staggered against the other and slammed it back against the wall. The light spilled out and illuminated the new arrival’s features.
Sophie found her breath catching in her throat, in a painful hitch that coagulated into a hard spike.
Jack?
Then the doors swung shut again and the man’s features were hidden in the thick blackness of the night and all she was left with was a fading afterimage.
She shook her head. No. Jack was dead. This stranger’s cheeks were too thin, the jaw too sharply defined. It was just a similarity in the straight nose that reminded her for a minute…
Face it, Sophie, you do this at least once a quarter. You just delude yourself into thinking you’ve seen him, this time based on a less than passing resemblance of a face seen in profile…in profile!
Without warning, a mental snapshot of Jack came zinging back into her mind. His head had been turned away from her, cocked to listen to a noise that was inaudible to Sophie. His hand had fallen onto her shoulder, to silence her so he could hear properly and the large fingers and square palm were heavy. His entire body had seemed to listen, straining to catch a repeat of the sound that had alerted him.
After a moment he relaxed and turned back to face her again, a rueful smile pulling at his mouth. “So, tell me about Los Angeles,” he’d cajoled gently, picking up the threads of the conversation.
Sophie sighed to herself. Los Angeles was another lifetime ago.
She watched as the man in front of her turned and headed for Beany’s, crunching his way across the parking lot, the backpack making him look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame in the darkness.
Dead Again: A Romantic Thriller Page 9
