Extreme Danger (McClouds & Friends #5)(102)

“That girl…her eyes…” Diana faltered. “She looked so desperate. She tried to speak to me, Richie. She asked for help.”

“And then she attacked you, remember?” He thought of Henry Metgers, who had already paid fifteen million dollars for his sixteen-year-old daughter’s new heart, and decided it was time to try a new tack.

“The Metgers girl is an artistic genius,” he said. “A budding concert pianist. With her rare blood type, it could be months before a match became available through normal channels. She doesn’t have months, Diana. She will die in a matter of days without that heart.”

“I know, I know,” Diana whispered.

“And you would deny her that?” He pounded away at her, ruthlessly. “Edeline Metgers barely has the strength to speak. She’s a lovely, gifted child. She deserves to live. Doesn’t she?”





“Of course she does, but Richie, I—”

“Life is like that, Diana. I’m sorry, but it is. Either this brilliant child lives and shares her incredible talent with all humanity, or she goes out like a candle. And for what? For the continued existence of a stunted, mentally deficient girl, destined to huddle in a locked room for her entire meaningless existence?”

“Richie, it was her eyes,” Diana wailed. “You don’t understand!”

He cut off his tirade, which was wasted on her anyway, and pulled up to the curb, a block away from Diana’s bungalow.

“Try not to think about it,” he suggested, forcing a gentleness into his voice that he did not feel. “Go on home.” He reached into the back seat for his briefcase, rummaged through the contents until he found the right bottle, and shook four pills out into his hand.

There was a small bottle of mineral water in the seat. He held them out to her. “Take these,” he urged. “By the time you get to bed, you’ll already be feeling calmer. You’re exhausted. Get some rest.”

She hesitated for a moment, but he held them out again, and she tossed them into her mouth and gulped them down. He began to relax.

She took a deep breath, let out a shuddering sigh. “Richie, there’s something else.”

He felt his skull throb again, from the teeth-gritting. “And that is?”

“I think someone was watching me last night,” she whispered, after a nervous pause. “I think I was followed.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Diana,” he snapped. “That’s ridiculous. Of all times to start having paranoid delusions—”

“Really! When I got back to the hotel, my key card didn’t work. When I went down to get another, they told me I’d been there five minutes before to get a key redone! Someone who looked like me pretended to be me, and searched my room. I know it sounds crazy.”

Mathes stared into her wide, wet, mascara-ringed eyes, wondering if this went deeper than a simple nervous breakdown. Perhaps Diana was having bona fide hallucinations.

It hardly mattered. The outcome for her was the same.

“Richie, I’m so sorry about all this,” she said brokenly.

He found the pack of tissues in the center console, pulled one out with slow, deliberate care and forced himself to wipe away the blood drying on her chin. He tried to pat down that wayward crest of hair.

“Don’t cry,” he said. “You’re more tenderhearted than you knew. But you’re misplacing your compassion. Save it for those who deserve it. Those who can benefit from it. Otherwise, what’s it worth? Who benefits?” He stroked her sticky cheek.

“Come up with me,” she pleaded, her long red nails digging into his forearm. “I need you. Please, Richie.”

Her bleating whine grated on his raw nerves. He clamped down on the urge to shake her off. Apart from the fact that she could never arouse him in this condition, he also thought it unwise to let himself be seen by her neighbors entering her house. Much less filling any of her orifices with his genetic material. Considering.

He touched her face with manufactured gentleness. “I can’t. I’m overbooked already. Helen and the girls are furious with me. And besides, you never get any rest when I’m with you. You need your rest.”

She blinked, and then her eyes narrowed as if she were squinting into bright sunshine. “Why are you being so nice?”

He was alarmed by the question. “Good God, Diana.”

“It just seemed strange, that’s all,” she said softly. “You don’t have a nice bone in your body.”

He tried to smile. “I’m not comfortable with it, either. So hurry and get back in top form, so I can be my nasty familiar self again.”

She tried to smile with her swollen mouth. The results were painful. She got out of the car, teetering her unsteady way up the street.

Hurry, hurry, he urged her mentally. He didn’t want anyone to notice how she looked or ask her if she’d been mugged. If she needed help. Or God forbid, the police.

She went up her porch steps, and entered the house without encountering anyone. He pulled out into the street and dialed a number on the dedicated cell phone he had been given at the island.

Zhoglo answered. “Dr. Mathes? Is there a problem?”

He suppressed the unfamiliar nervousness the man’s baritone voice provoked in him. It was unacceptable that this man should actually intimidate him. He was beyond all that.