AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What the fuck did you do to your hair?” he blurted.
When the great C.P. Phalen didn’t answer him, he glanced over his shoulder and then backed the woman up. Closing them in together, he took her forearms in gentle hands and eased her over to the sofa in the sitting area. When they got within range of those black cushions, he released his hold—but she just stood there, staring at him like she wasn’t seeing him.
“Hello?” He waved a hand in front of her face. “Okay, so aliens are real and you’ve just come back from an abduction.”
In the past three years, since he’d come on board and started developing Vita, the woman had been all about her buttoned-up, ultra-professional, ice-madam bullshit: Hair in place, black-suit-wearin’, high-heeled, whatever. But here she was with her hair hanging in her face like she’d been trying to pull it out of her skull, her shoes off, her jacket opened like she’d needed more air than there was around her.
“Sit down,” he said gently.
Second time today he’d told a woman he respected to do that. Maybe he needed to add the skill to his résumé.
As C.P. did what he told her to, she nodded, like she was a child following the orders of a teacher in school.
“What’s going on?” he said as he sat down as well and brushed the blond out of her eyes. “Talk to me.”
Her stare took its time focusing on him, and for a moment, she didn’t seem to recognize him—to the point where he almost took out his badge and flashed his ID at her.
“Gus?” Then she shook herself. “Gus, I mean.”
Right about the time he started thinking he needed to do a medical assessment, he caught sight of the closed bathroom door over her shoulder.
What a fucking idiot he was. He knew damn well who was in there, and that she wasn’t in crisis. Her polish had been fucked out of her.
Gus got to his feet in a rush, jacking up his jeans, slapping the simp out of himself.
“You asked me to come up?” he demanded.
There was another pause and then she snapped back into place—or seemed to try to—her manicured hands going to her mop of hair like if she could just get the shit back into order, magically she wouldn’t look like she’d just been fucked twelve ways to Sunday.
Losing patience with the bullshit, he marched over to the bathroom, ripped the door open, and got ready to take the fucking guard to church. They had better things to be doing than—
No one was in the bathroom.
He looked back across the room. C.P. was eighty percent put-together, that hair in a better semblance of order, her jacket rebuttoned, but the undone was still graffiti all over her aura.
“Did you get my email?” she asked in a low voice.
“Yeah, I did. That’s why I’m here. So you’ve found our patient one?”
When she didn’t continue, he returned to the sofa. Sat next to her again. Frowned. “What’s the problem.”
“Did you review the medical record I sent you?” C.P. cleared her throat. “Actually, before you answer that, would—I’m sorry, could you get me a little seltzer?”
With a shrug, he got back up and headed for the bar. When he pulled up to the display, she said, “Actually, I think I’d like a gin and tonic if you don’t mind.”
He lifted an eyebrow. Then shrugged again. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t recommend drinking on the job or starting this early in the day. Somehow, this seems like an exception.”
Making fast with the bottles and the glasses, he got a Coke for himself and brought the tumbler over to the woman. With a wobbly hand, C.P. took the libation and downed half of the Beefeater in a swallow.
“Thirsty, huh,” he said as he sat back and braced himself for whatever was coming.
“My real name is Catherine.”
“I know.” When she glanced over at him, he shrugged. “What, you think I haven’t read your Wikipedia page? Come on.”
“I was Cathy when I was growing up.” As she circled the ice in her tall glass, he wondered what she was really looking at—what part of her past, that was. “I, ah, I used to be her.”
The silence in the study was resonant, which was what happened when the walls were insulated against fire and explosions—and so was the glass. It was so quiet that the cubes he’d made the drink with sounded loud as she took another sip.
