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“Yes, poor Tatjana, poor Jeremy, poor Branko Pozderac, poor City of Lakes Art Museum, poor Midwest Farmers Insurance Group, poor who else?”
“Don’t say poor me,” Gillard said. “I’ll get the insurance—eventually, anyway.”
“A lot of people are unhappy that the Lily has gone poof,” Heavenly said.
“You’re going to lose your finder’s fee,” I said.
“Yes. I’m sure you’re all broken up about that.”
“You wound me, Heavenly, to think I’d wish you ill. Especially after all the trouble you went through. And poor Tommy, too.”
Heavenly released my hand, moved around the bed, and settled near the table. Nina did not remove her feet from the chair so she could sit, nor did she offer up any egg rolls.
“The thing is, though—I’m curious,” Heavenly said. “I guess everyone is curious. Why couldn’t they find any sign of the Jade Lily when they examined the wreckage after the bomb blast?”
“You know, Heavenly, Jerry, I’m getting awfully tired. Plus my head hurts and … It was nice of you to come around. I appreciate it.”
Gillard got the hint right away.
“I’m glad you’re more or less intact, McKenzie,” he said. He gave my leg a gentle tap through the blanket. “You take care of yourself. We’ll talk again soon. Don’t forget, we’re going to paint the town when you’re up to it.”
“Sounds like fun,” I said.
Gillard went to the door and paused, waiting for Heavenly. Heavenly took her time, though, rubbing her beautiful face with both hands before moving back to the bed. Her eyes were hard and glistening, and for the first time I understood why some people use the color blue to describe ice. She leaned in like she was going to kiss my cheek. Instead, she whispered in my ear. “I know you have it.” Then, because Nina was watching intently, Heavenly kissed me on the mouth. Afterward, she went through the door that Gillard held open without saying another word.
Nina finished swallowing a mouthful of kung pao chicken before she spoke.
“Glad she was here, were you?” she said.
“It answers a question that has been nagging at me for a couple of days.”
“What question?”
Instead of answering, I went back to work on my beef lo mein. It wasn’t that I wanted to keep things from her; it was just that I thought it was best to wait until I was out of the hospital before I told Nina the truth. She wasn’t pleased, of course, but after four years, three months, and seventeen days, she was starting to get used to me.
“You know before when you said that I liked Heavenly?” Nina said. “It’s not true.”
THIRTEEN
Looking back, they were perhaps the five hardest words I had ever spoken. There she was, looking as beautiful as ever, standing in my empty living room, one of those rolling suitcases that you see people pulling across airport concourses next to her. She had obviously come to stay, and in case I didn’t get the hint, she explained it to me.
“I have to go in every once in a while to check on things—we can have dinner at the club anytime you want,” she said. “Jenness and Monica, I spoke to them, and they’re more than happy to run things while I take time off so, hey, I can stay with you until you heal.”
My first thought was that I could probably arrange it so that I never recovered, keeping her with me more or less forever. Instead of saying that, I looked deep into her silver-blue eyes, brushed her soft cheek with my fingertips, and said, “Nina, you should go home.”
“What?”
“You should go home, now.”
Nina had picked me up at the hospital and had taken me home in my Jeep Cherokee. That hadn’t been the plan. I was going to drive. Unfortunately, opening the driver’s door and then pulling it closed, putting the key in the ignition, firing up the SUV, and attempting to back out of the hospital parking lot had been more than enough to tell me this just wasn’t going to work out. For the first time in my life I knew how it must feel to get old, my body refusing to behave according to my instructions. Driving the Audi would have been even worse—the S5 had a six-speed manual transmission.
“Who’s going to take care of you?” Nina asked.
It was a good question. Getting out of bed that morning—I had slept sitting up—was the start of a long, painful ordeal that turned the simple act of brushing my teeth, shaving, and showering into an exercise in self-torture. By the time I had on underwear, socks, jeans, and shirt, my body was wet with perspiration and shaking. It took ten painful minutes to work myself into the immobilizer—tying my shoes had damn near killed me. I had attempted to put the Kevlar vest on; however, its weight pulled so heavily on my fracture that I almost passed out. It hurt even as I stood there in front of Nina. My right arm was inside the sleeve of my jacket, the back of the jacket draped over my shoulders, my left arm immobilized against my side. I kept pulling in the left side of the jacket to keep it from falling open.