Page 68 of Nash Falls

She nodded and took another sip of her tea, fortifying herself. Steers had noted that the man had touched neither the tea nor the water. A careful person.

As he started to rise she discovered the courage to ask the question. “And my mother?”

He sat back down. “Yes?”

“Is she… well?”

“As well as the last time you asked. But future responses may differ from past ones. It all depends on you, Ms. Steers. All on you. You recognize this, do you not?”

She nodded. “Is there the possibility of me speaking with her?”

“You bring the Walter Nash matter to a successful conclusion and I will do better than that. You will be able toseeher. At my discretion and on my timeline, of course.”

Steers’s eyes widened slightly at this offered treasure. “I will have an excellent plan to you in one week for your approval.”

“You will have it to me in twenty-four hours.”

She nodded.

“And this isnotfor distribution to the Temples.”

She nodded once more and watched him stroll out like he owned her and her plane.

And in all significant ways, he did.

After he and his motorcade were gone, her jet turned around and taxied to the runway. A few minutes later Steers was soaring upward toward an altitude of forty-one thousand feet, where she would sail along, with a vigorous tailwind, at nearly seven hundred miles an hour.

The woman closed her eyes, and as the jet hit pockets of turbulence during its ascent, her fingers closed around the sturdy arms of her chair. Though she routinely flew all over the world, Steers did not enjoy air travel and for a very simple reason. She had been on a plane that had crashed, killing her father and four other people, including the pilots. The fact of the crash and her father’s death had been kept completely secret.

The stench of spilled jet fuel and smoke, the screams of the dying, and the bite of the flames invading her body would never leave Steers. She had seen her father perish right in front of her, his head crushed to pulp by the violent propulsion of a section of the plane’s interior, a fate that had narrowly missed her.

She lifted the sleeve of her robe and studied the damaged skinthere from burns suffered during the crash and its aftermath. The marks were not simply on one arm.

She had refused all entreaties to have the burned flesh surgically repaired using skin grafts and other plastic surgery measures. Instead, she had done the minimum required to avoid infections and restricted movement. Steers wanted it as a reminder that every day could be her last.

As the air smoothed out, she looked out the window. In her mind’s eye she saw her father’s image, and then her mother’s. And after she erased both from her brain, she saw the image of a man who looked like millions of other men.

She did not know Walter Nash personally. Steers knew if she did she would find him distinctly uninteresting. However, to destroy a man you needed to know what he held important.

Steers had endured misery and physical agony at the hands of her siblings. She now stood alone, towering over their vanquished bodies where they rested in fragments in unknown and forgotten graves. She had not asked to be placed into such a life-and-death struggle, but she had been. And, to her, survival was a goal above all others.

I count on myself.

Ten hours later, after receiving some intel from various sources, she settled upon her plan, beating the twenty-four-hour deadline by an impressive margin. She instinctively knew it would be acceptable to the man who had walked off her jet and traveled back to a world where he reigned head and shoulders above almost all others.

And I will be able to see my mother. If he keeps his word.

She closed her eyes, squeezing the lids tight and thereby seeing only blackness. “Goodbye, Walter Nash.”

CHAPTER

33

HEY, WALT, GOT A MINUTE, my office?”

Nash looked up from his desk to see Rhett staring at him from the width of the doorway. It bothered Nash that Rhett could sneak up on him with such ease.

“Sure, Rhett, what’s up?”