Page 56 of Slow Burn

Mrs. Womack smiled. “Mechanical problems. I don’t think there’s anybody on our trail, ma’am.” Mrs. Womack’s eyes wandered over toward Martin. “He seems like a very nice young man. Interesting. You know, I think he actually considered whacking me over the head and running for it.”

“My god,” Carling said, and laughed. “Bowling over a granny. Marty, you surprise me.”

“Where are we going?” he asked again, plaintively. Mrs. Womack made a right turn and drove at a sensible law-abiding speed.

“We’re going to take the suitcase to the office, where it’ll be secure. Jennings and Mrs. Womack will spend the evening digging up information about the cleaner with the limousine.”

“Cleaner?” he repeated.

Her smile faded. “Assassin, Marty. They were going to kill you.”

He’d been right about her office; thick burgundy carpet, Persian throw rugs, mahogany desks. The air smelled faintly of oranges and fresh roses. Martin sank into a red leather chair and closed his sand-coated eyelids. Carling gave whispered instructions to Jennings and Mendoza. When he woke up again, Mrs. Womack was in front of him, holding out a thin china cup full of coffee. He took a burning sip and swallowed. It tasted like burnt motor oil, but that must have been his exhaustion, because Carling would have had Jamaican Blue Mountain in her private stock, brewed with pure spring water. Brand name filters.

“How do you feel?”

While he’d been staring at the translucent white cup, Womack had vanished and Carling now perched on the edge of a desk, legs crossed. She had a penchant for above-the-knee skirts that cast interesting shadows. Good thighs. He was too tired to wonder how calculated the display was.

“Okay,” he lied. “You didn’t tell me people were trying to kill me.”

“I told you to be careful.” She stretched her legs lazily, smooth as velvet. “I was worried about you. Who’d you talk to?”

“Nobody.” She stared at him until he gave up. “Dr. Westfield. I had to explain why I wanted the raw data. She caught me copying the files.”

Carling nodded without breaking the stare.

“Dr. Westfield,” she repeated. “Jill Westfield. She’s been on your staff for—five years. Right?”

He nodded, mesmerized by the slow circles of her foot, the sensuous rasp in her voice.

“Well, I think we’ll have to assume that Dr. West-field is a bad risk. Anybody else you talked to? The cleaning lady? The nurses at the hospital?”

It was no use wondering how she’d known. He was already convinced that she’d bugged his underwear.

“I told the head nurse that I’d be going to Washington for an extended period of time, and told her I’d call with the number. Look, they had to know. Sally’s condition …”

She let him run out of words, pulled a pad of paper across the desk and wrote, handed it to him. He looked at the number uncomprehendingly.

“That’s a secured beeper. You have them call if there’s an emergency.” Carling held his gaze, and even though her expression hadn’t changed, he felt some connection again, sparking back to life. “How is she?”

“The same,” he said, cleared his throat and corrected himself. “Worse, really. They’re worried about renal failure.”

“How’s her brain function?”

Her eyes were so calm, so remorseless.

“She doesn’t have any. She hasn’t for nearly a year.”

Mrs. Womack rounded the corner and cheerfully held out a silver platter of sandwiches with the edges trimmed away. He chose something that looked like tuna and ate it quickly without much noticing how it tasted. Carling ate, too. Neatly.

“Mrs. Womack,” she said as she swallowed her last bite of sandwich, “take Mr. Grady to the phone room and get him a clear line. He has to make a phone call.”

She hadn’t asked him why he’d kept his daughter alive for so long on the machines; he was grateful for that. Other people asked. People who thought they understood what it was like. She’d been so tanned when it had happened—a long hot Texas summer, hours in the pool. He hardly recognized her now, white and thin, with eyes that sometimes opened but never focused. Her skin felt clammy and cool.

Carling hadn’t asked,How can you force her to live that way?Maybe Carling understood. Maybe.

He had a brief conversation with Nurse Varnas—no, her condition hadn’t changed—yes, they’d beep him immediately if it did. Nurse Varnas had a cool judgemental voice. When he was finished, he sat staring blankly at the squat black phone until Mrs. Womack put a warm hand on his shoulder and reminded him that his presence was needed in the office.

Carling had moved to sit behind her desk. She had on a pair of reading glasses that magnified her eyes. She looked at him over the top of the frames and tossed a red folder across to him. Papers skated over mahogany wood.

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