Circle of Bones, стр. 60
For the second time since they’d landed, Dig’s satellite phone buzzed. The first time, she’d been struggling to keep up with his long strides and hadn’t heard a word of the conversation. This time when he answered, he said, “Yes. Mm-hm. All right.” She was not able to hear any of the caller’s side of the conversation. Dig pushed a button to end the call, and as he leaned forward to slide the phone back inside his coat pocket, he said, “Your father is home now.”
“What? They’ve already discharged him?”
“Seems so.”
“But I thought he was at death’s door.”
“Riley, you never know how it is with these things. Given his age, they may have sent him home so he’d be more comfortable if there was nothing more they could do for him.”
“I want to talk to his doctors.”
“In good time. Tomorrow.” He stretched his arm out to bare the watch on his wrist. “Or rather, later today. You get cleaned up, get some rest. I’ll come back in a few hours to take you to the hospital.”
The car turned into the familiar street and Riley felt her stomach churn. “I can walk in the morning. It’s not that far.”
“As you wish. I’d be happy to drive you if you want, but I don’t mean to intrude on your life.”
If she hadn’t been so tired, she would have laughed at that.
There were no inside lights visible when they pulled up in front of her father’s brick two-story townhouse, but the dim porch light was lit in the alcove at the top of the steps. As usual, the street was lined with parked cars — they hadn’t built garages in the late 1890’s when these row houses were built. Riley patted her shorts and realized she didn’t have her key with her.
As though he could read her thoughts, Dig said, “Mrs. Wright will let you in. Just tap on the door. She’s awake.”
She wondered how he could be so certain.
Dig reached across her and opened the door. “Hurry,” he said. “Or you’ll freeze.”
Riley climbed out of the car and her sneakers crunched on the thin layer of snow that covered the pavement. The frigid night air stung her bare skin like a thousand icy needles. She trotted across the sidewalk, opened the black iron gate, then rushed up the steps. As she was lifting her hand to knock on the door, she heard the sound of the lock turning, and the door swung open. Riley tilted her head back to look up at Eleanor Wright who filled the doorway in her flower-print robe, a white scarf tied round her head. Behind her the house loomed dark and silent. Weird, Riley thought. All Wright needed was a kerosene lamp in her hand, and she’d look like a king-sized version of the original residents of the house from the turn of the last century.
“Thanks for waiting up for me, Mrs. Wright,” Riley said as she stepped into the dark foyer and closed the door behind her. She stomped her feet on the front door mat and tried to remember where the light switch was.
The older woman looked her up and down in the dim light that shone through the windows from the street, frowning at the way Riley was dressed. She grunted, then turned away, and passed into the kitchen where she turned on a light. “There’s hot tea left in the pot there,” she said, “and you can warm the soup on the stove if you’re hungry.”
In the harsh kitchen fluorescent lights, the ancient appliances and the deeply etched butcher block counter tops were familiar in their shabbiness. Between her father’s postings, they had sometimes returned to Washington for a few months, and her father would allow the children into his personal domain. Her parents divorced after she joined the Corps, and since her mother had moved back to France, whenever Riley returned stateside, her father’s spare bedroom was hers. After her discharge, she had moved in for good.
The housekeeper lifted the heavy lid off a mammoth pot on the stove and swirled the contents with a ladle. Wright always seemed to cook enough to feed an army. She stood nearly half a foot taller than Riley and probably weighed twice what Riley did. She wore no make-up and her cheeks hung down in over-lapping jowls on either side of her thin pursed lips.
The woman had seemed like a godsend when she arrived. Riley had been advertising for a day nurse and the old battle axe had arrived at the door one day, saying she had a recommendation from one of her father’s old school friends. When Wright moved in, Riley was able to move out.
“Thank you, Mrs. Wright, but I’m not hungry. I just want to know about my father. What can you tell me about his condition?” Riley hugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders in spite of the oppressive heat in the house.
The older woman sighed and pressed the knuckles of her right fist into her hip. “You never call him and now you drop in and want to chat at nearly one in the morning? I don’t think so.” She started to turn toward the door.
Riley reached out and grabbed the woman’s arm through her robe. “I know you don’t think I’m much of a daughter, but he is my father. Do you have any idea what it’s like to get the news that your father has had a stroke? How is he? I can’t believe they’ve just sent him home from the hospital to die.”
Wright stared down at Riley’s hand on her arm, then looked up and locked gazes with her.
“Turns out he didn’t have a stroke after all.”
“What?”
“Doctor said it was a problem with his sodium or some damn thing. He drinks too much water. Other than that, there’s been no change in your father’s condition.”
“But he,” Riley pointed toward the front door, “told me you’d been trying to reach me to tell me about the stroke.”
Wright turned and stared at the door for a moment, then shook her head. Turning back to face Riley, she said, “I was wrong, that’s all. Your father is still the same ornery son of a bitch who can’t remember who I am most days or how to find his own goddamn way to the bathroom. Hasn’t left this house in months. Don’t know what they been telling you, but if that’s the only reason you came home, you can call that limo and head back down to the islands.” Eleanor Wright turned and lumbered out of the kitchen leaving Riley stunned, the blanket still draped over her shoulders.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
McLean, Virginia
March 28, 2008
1:50 a.m.
Diggory leaned forward and gave the driver an address on Old Dominion in McLean, Virginia. It wasn’t far outside DC, but he would have enough time to sort through the information he had received and make plans. Back in the airport, he had been surprised when his sat phone rang shortly after landing. He realized then he would need to delay his plans.
He could tell from the echo on the line, they had him on speakerphone, but he didn’t know where they were calling from, nor who all was in the room. They asked about Caliban — said their man in Guadeloupe had gone missing. Beelzebub, the old politico, wanted to know if Dig knew anything about it. Dig, glancing past his shoulder at the blanket-clad girl shuffling beside him, kept to one word answers.
“When did you see him last?”
“Friday.”
“And everything was normal then?”
“Yes.”
“And the target. Has he found anything yet?”
“No.”
“You’ve been watching him?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to have to consult the others. Our methods may have to change. We didn’t think the target had the potential to do damage, but if he is responsible for Caliban’s disappearance, you might have to take him out. Understood?”
“Yes.”
Dig knew what that meant. They had already called a meeting, and he knew where. Once, Dig had driven Yorick to this meeting place. That was ten years ago, but he doubted the location had changed. It was a small British pub not far from Langley, owned by a Bonesman. Because some, like Beelzebub, often had Secret Service escorts, they met early, well before daylight, when only the night shift workers and insomniacs might take note of the collection of limousines parked in the lot of a small pub.