Rapture

Chapter Twenty-two

When the phone rang about a half hour later, Matthias just stared at the thing. Had to be Mels getting back to him.

Damn it, this was a mess….

After Jim had taken off to go do breakfast or errands or some shit, naturally, the first thing he’d done when he was alone was call Mels and try to find out if that story was true about the father and the son up in Boston. It hadn’t dawned on him that she’d have heard about what went down in the basement, but come on, sloppy thinking much? It was all over the cocksucking news. Even nonreporters who didn’t keep up with that kind of shit knew.

The phone stopped its electronic ringing. But she was going to redial.

God, her voice when they’d spoken. She’d sounded suspicious, and in so many ways that was the best thing for her. Yet it killed him.

When the phone started going off again, he couldn’t stand it. Grabbing his cane, he walked out the door of his room and headed blindly for the elevator. As he took it down, he had no clue where he was going. Maybe breakfast.

Yeah, breakfast.

It was what people did at nine a.m. all over the country.

Annnnnd, of course, the only restaurant that was open for business was the one he’d gotten to know intimately the night before—and as he walked past the colored glass wall, he decided to go off Marriott property to—

“Matthias?”

At the female voice, he pivoted around. It was the nurse from the hospital, the one who’d given him a helping hand, so to speak. Outside of work, she was fresh as a daisy, with her dark hair loose around her shoulders and a pale dress hanging below her knees.

She kind of looked like a bride.

“What are you doing here?” she said as she came over. “I thought you’d be home recovering.”

As people walked by her, they all stared, men with hot speculation in their eyes, women with varying degrees of envy and dislike. Then again, she was stupidly beautiful.

“I’m okay.” He tried not to stare at her. It was like looking into the sun, painful on the eyes. “How about yourself?”

“My mom’s come into town. Or rather, she was supposed to be here by now. Her flight was due in a half hour ago, but it got delayed in Cincinnati because of storms. I’ve been debating whether to wait or go home—we were going to have breakfast. Is that where you’re headed now?”

“Ah, yeah.”

“Well, then, how about we go dutch. I’m starved.”

Her black eyes positively sparkled, to the point where they made him think about the night sky. But it wasn’t enough to make him want to cop a squat in the—

“Okay,” he heard himself say, like some third party had taken over his mouth.

Together, they walked over to the maître d’s stand.

“Two,” Matthias said as the man did a double take at the nurse, and then froze like a deer in the headlights, apparently struck stupid by all the lovely.

“I’d like a window seat,” she said, smiling slowly at the guy. “Perhaps over…”

Not the window he jumped out of, Matthias thought.

“…there.”

Bing-fucking-o.

“Oh, yes, sorry, right away.” The maître d’ got with the program, snagging a couple of leather-bound books and leading the way. “But there are some better views across the room, overlooking the gardens?”

“We don’t want the sun to be too bright.” She put her hand on Matthias’s arm and gave him a little squeeze, as if she wanted him to know she was watching out for his bad eyesight.

Man, he really didn’t like her touching him.

As they walked across the room, the nurse created a total stir, men peering over the tops of their Wall Street Journals and their coffee cups and sometimes their wives’ heads. She took it all in stride, like it was just the normal course of things.

After they sat down in front of the window he’d violated with Jim, coffee materialized, and they mulled over the menus. The civilized bullshitting that came with picking and choosing among the fifty different plates of good-morning got on his nerves. And he didn’t want to eat with her, although to be fair, he didn’t want to eat with anybody.

The stuff with Mels was the problem. Yeah, he’d called her with that info search, but the bigger truth was, he’d just wanted to hear her voice.

He’d missed her through the night—

“Penny for your thoughts?” the nurse said softly.

Matthias looked out the window at the building across the alley. “I just realized—I don’t know your name.”

“Oh, sorry. I thought it was on the whiteboard in your room.”

“Probably was, but it could have been in neon lights and I don’t know if I’d have noticed.”

This was a lie, of course. In fact, there hadn’t been a nurse listed, just a doctor, and there hadn’t been a name tag on her scrubs.

Which seemed a little strange, come to think about it….

She took an elegant hand and laid it on her breastbone—which seemed like an invitation to check out her cleavage. “You can call me Dee.”

He stuck with her eyes. “As in Deidre?”

“As in Devina.” She glanced away, as if she didn’t want to go into it. “My mother has always been a godly woman.”

“Which explains your dress.”

Dee shook her head ruefully and smoothed the skirt. “How did you know this getup isn’t me?”

“Well, for one thing, it looks like it belongs on a forty-year-old. The jeans and parka are more your age.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Twenty-five-ish.” And maybe that was why he didn’t like her touching him. She was so young, too young for someone like him.

“Twenty-four, as a matter of fact. It’s why my mom’s in town, actually.” She touched her sternum again. “Birthday girl.”

“Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

“Your father coming in, too?”

“Oh…yeah. No.” Now, she closed up completely. “No, he’s not coming.”

Damn it, the last thing he needed was to get all into her personal shit. “Why not.”

She fiddled with her coffee cup in its saucer, turning it back and forth. “You are so odd.”

“Why.”

“I don’t like to talk about myself, but here I am babbling away.”

“You haven’t told me much, if that makes you feel better.”

“But…I want to.” For a split second her eyes dipped to his lips, like she was wondering things about him she really, really didn’t need to. “I want to.”

Nope. Not going there, he thought.

Especially not after Mels.

Dee leaned in, those breasts threatening to break out of that dress. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

Great. Wonderful. Fucking perfect.

In the tense quiet, Matthias briefly eyed the big window next to them. He’d already been out the thing once.

If things got awkward, he could do it again.

Mels hung up her office phone and leaned back in her chair. As the squeak sounded, she made a new tune out of it, rocking back and forth.

For some reason, her eyes locked on that coffee mug that had been left behind by the other reporter.

When her cell phone went off, she jumped and fumbled with the thing. Quick check of the screen and she wanted to curse—not because of who it was, but because of who it wasn’t.

Maybe Matthias was in the shower.

People took showers in the mornings.

Yeah, for, like, a half hour, though? She’d been calling every five minutes.

“Hello?” she demanded.

“Hey, Carmichael.” It was Monty the Mouth; she could tell by the cracking of his gum. “It’s me.”

Well, at least she did want to hear from the guy. “Good morning.”

“I got something.” His voice dropped, all secret-agent style. “It’s explosive.”

Mels sat up, but didn’t get too excited. With her luck, “explosive” was more hyperbole than H-bomb. “Oh, really?”

“Someone tampered with the body.”

“Excuse me?”

“Like I told you, I was first on scene, and I snapped some photographs—you know, in an official capacity.” There was a rustling over the connection, and then a muffled conversation, like he was talking to someone and had covered up the receiver. “Sorry. I’m at the station house. Let me get out of here and call you back.”

He hung up before she could say anything, and she had images of him dodging fellow officers on his way to the parking lot like he was one of Eli Manning’s receivers.

Sure enough, when he called back, he was out of breath. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I got you.”

“So my photographs of the body have something on them the official ones don’t.”

That was her cue to OMG, and in this case, she didn’t have to fake it. “What’s the difference?”

“Meet me and I’ll show you.”

“Where and when.”

After she hung up, she checked her watch and dialed Matthias’s room phone again. No answer.

“Hey, Tony,” she said, leaning into the aisle between their cubicles. “Can I borrow your—”

The guy tossed the keys without missing a beat with whoever he was talking to on the phone. As she blew him a kiss, he covered his heart and gave her a little swoon.

Striding out of the newsroom, she got in Tony’s Toy and headed across town, using a route that just happened to…well, what do you know, it was the Marriott hotel.

And she was a good half an hour early for her meeting with the Mouth.

By crazy luck, she found an open, metered parking spot just across from the lobby entrance—except it took her two tries to get the car in place, her parallel-parking skills rusty from her using too many garages since she’d moved back to Caldwell.

Plus, feeling like a stalker didn’t help her at the wheel.

As she walked into the lobby, she felt like someone from security should stop her and turn her away, but no one paid her any attention—which left her wondering exactly how many other people were to’ing or fro’ing over things they felt icky about.

At the elevators, she hopped a ride to the sixth floor along with a businessman whose wilted attire and red eyes suggested he’d flown in the night before from somewhere far away.

Maybe even flapping his own arms.

Stepping free, she hung a right and went down the carpeted hall. Room service trays were set out next to doors, treacherous welcome mats with their smudged plates, half-empty coffee cups, and stained napkins. At the far end, a maid’s cart was parked in front of an open room, the light from inside spilling into the corridor and highlighting fresh toilet paper rolls, folded towels, and a lineup of spray bottles.

Matthias’s door still had the Do Not Disturb sign on it, and she took that to mean he hadn’t checked out. Putting her ear to the panels, she sent up a quick prayer that he wouldn’t pick this moment to open up.

No running water. No muttering from the TV. No deep voice on the phone.

She knocked. Knocked a little louder.

“Matthias,” she said to the door. “It’s me. Open up.”

As she waited for a response that didn’t come, she glanced over at the maid who had come out with a plastic bag full of trash. For a split second, she considered playing the whole I-forgot-my-key-card thing, but in post-9/11 Caldwell, she had a feeling that wasn’t going to work—and might end up with her getting tossed out on her hey-nanny-nanny.

Well, wasn’t this a credit to her character: The invasion of his privacy wasn’t even on her no-go radar; it was the fear of getting caught that stopped her.

Disgusted with herself, and pissed off at him, Mels hit the elevator again, and when she got to the first floor, she intended to march out to Tony’s car, get in the damn thing, and be wicked early for her meeting with Monty and his flapping gums.

Instead, she casualed her way around the lobby, peeking into the gift shop, wandering down to the spa…

Yeah, ’cuz of course he’d be buying bathrobes and getting a cucumber wrap on his face. Right.

When she came up to the main restaurant that was open, she nearly abandoned the wild-goose chase, but it only took a moment to peer in—

On the other side of the tables of diners, sitting at a window, Matthias was eating with a brunette woman in a limoncello-colored dress.

Who was she—

Was that the nurse? From the hospital?

“Would you like a table for one?” the maître d’ asked.

Ah, yeah, that would be a negative—unless the thing came equipped with an airsick bag. “No, thanks.”

Across the way, the brunette started to laugh, throwing her head back so that her hair flowed all around. She was so perfectly beautiful, it was as if she were a moving photograph that had been touched up in all the right places.

As Matthias sat accross from her, he was hard to read, and in an absurd moment of possessiveness, Mels was glad he was wearing her sunglasses. Like that was the equivalent of her pissing on his fence post.

“Are you meeting someone, then?” the maître d’ asked.

“No,” she replied. “I do believe he’s busy.”