Extreme Danger (McClouds & Friends #5)(101)

He gathered his energy. “Something’s come up,” he said. “A medical emergency. I can’t take Chloe to the party.”

Helen’s eyes went blank for a moment, and then the lower lids quivered and crept up, as they always did when she was angry with him. Which was to say, every instant of every goddamn day.

“You’re lying. Of course.” Her voice had that low tremor of martyrdom that made him want to wrap his fingers around that slender white throat and squeeze until her blue eyes popped. “You’re going to play with one of your whores, I imagine.”

He grabbed his briefcase, which was always at the ready near the door. “It’s work, Helen,” he said, with steely patience.

“Isn’t it always?” She folded her arms across her chest. “Well then, why not take Chloe on your way? The Zimmers are en route to your office. Which I assume is the site of your, ah, medical emergency?” Her voice rang with righteous challenge.

He thought of Diana, sweating and sobbing outside in his car, and silently cursed her for being so weak. Falling apart on him like a wet paper bag just when things got critical. “I do not have time to swing by the Zimmers. Just as I do not have time for this conversation.”

“Daddy?” Chloe appeared on the stairs. His daughter had inherited her mother’s spectacularly bad timing. She gave him a dewylashed look of desperate entreaty. “If I have to wait for Mom to take Libby to GianPiero’s, I’ll miss the party! I swear, you just have to drop me off, it’s not like you have to go in and chat, and I—”

“No!” he bellowed. “God, how many times do I have to say it?”

Chloe jerked back, mouth quivering, and ran up the stairs.

Mathes beat a hasty retreat, so he wouldn’t have to look at Helen’s thunderous face. God, a man got no peace in his own home.

All this family drama sweetened his mood nicely for when he slid into the driver’s seat of the car. Diana was sitting up again, to his extreme irritation. He seized a handful of her hair and yanked it down. Her face whacked the plastic cupholder on the fold-down center console. That was going to leave a bruise, he thought. The next thought came quickly, resolute and cold.

It doesn’t matter now.

He grimly wrapped his mind around the idea as he put some distance between them and his own neighborhood. If Diana was so far gone that she would accost him at his own home, she had become dangerously unpredictable. A security liability. He suppressed a pang of melancholy, let anger well up to replace it. This was going to be embarrassing and reflect very badly upon him with Zhoglo. And her whimpering was driving him crazy.

“Shut up,” he said.

She did, touching her face with the tips of her fingers. “Can I sit up now?”

“Yes.”

He saw a crimson flash of blood out of the corner of his eye, and slanted a look. He’d given her a split lip. Her face was distorted by the silent weeping.

“I am interested to know exactly what you think could justify a crazy stunt like this,” he said. “Last night’s spectacle was bad enough.”

She put her hand over her mouth and made a visible effort to compose herself.

“Did you get the samples?” he demanded.

“I delivered them directly to the lab,” she quavered. “I got there around three in the morning and left them with Jankins. And I specified that the older girl’s samples were a rush job.”

“Good. Then why are you falling apart?”

Her shoulders convulsed. He realized with a grinding sense of dismay that she was starting to cry again.

“Richie, it was horrible,” she forced out. “They looked just terrible, for one thing—all of them are so thin and starved-looking, and they have so many bruises. Somebody should fire those horrible people who are watching them. And the little ones screamed and cried, and the oldest girl—oh, God, Richie, she kept trying and trying to talk to me, and then she…she attacked me!”

He waited, a measured pause. “It doesn’t seem as if she injured you too badly. We discussed this, Diana. At length. You told me you could handle it. That you were good at compartmentalizing feelings.”

“After all these years with you? Of course I’m good at it,” she said, with a sudden flare of heat. “But I wasn’t expecting…I didn’t think they would be so—”

“Those children are refuse from the worst orphanages in the world,” he lectured. “They were abandoned and raised in institutions that drastically inhibited their cognitive development. What they have lost can never be regained and they are irreparably damaged. They will never lead normal lives. Never have fulfilling relationships. Never be contributing members of society.”

“But Richie—”

“And we have been through this! It’s a difficult ethical decision, but we made it together! The time for philosophical debate is past!”

He abandoned his harangue. She was sobbing too hard to hear it.

He wondered why he bothered. Habit, maybe. He should have realized at the banquet that she was breaking down, but the time crunch had stressed him, Helen had been chewing his ass all evening, and he hadn’t been able to think of an alternative plan on the spot. Besides, he shouldn’t stop scolding too soon. Diana may be going to rack and ruin, but she was an intelligent ruin. When she cared to be.