Angel Falling Softly (8 page)

Troy Ellis asked, “You need any help giving Andy a blessing, Bishop?”

The bishop gave Troy a pat on the shoulder. “Tom’s going to follow us down. He can assist us there.” Between Troy and Bill Garner, the news would get out, a mostly correct version. “He’s going to be okay,” the bishop said again.

The ambulance roared off. The police officer waited while David loaded the Millingtons into Rachel’s Odyssey, and then he escorted them to the Alta View ER.

The small crowd dispersed.

Rachel took a breath, exhaled. “Well,” she said without any irony, “that was interesting.” Her nose caught the sour smell of bile. “Oh, Milada, your clothing—”

Milada glanced down. “Most of it’s on my jacket,” she said, as if that was a good thing. She scraped a spot of vomit from her thigh with the side of her hand and flicked it off.

“For heaven’s sakes. Come inside. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

In the kitchen they daubed off the puke with paper towels. The foul odor remained. “I’ll have to soak that,” Rachel said. “You know, we’re about the same size, Milada. Why don’t I give you an old sweat suit to change into? I’ll take care of the cleaning.”

“I think I can make it home in one piece.”

“No, no. I insist.”

She steered Milada up the stairs to the master bedroom. Milada disrobed. Rachel carefully set aside her jacket, blouse, and slacks. “The bathroom’s right through there.”

Rachel dug out her old BYU top and drawstring bottoms. The water stopped running, and Milada came out. She wore a sheer white chemise and panties cut high on the thigh. Rachel felt the bite of envy. The chemise hung short over a flat stomach that showed only the hint of a belly. She looked like she’d modeled for the sculptor of those ancient Roman statues, the women with the perfect round breasts, skin polished smooth as glass—women who, after two thousand years, still looked great.

Oh, to have the body I had at twenty.
The body she married David with. She wondered if her husband missed that body too.

Rachel held out the BYU top for Milada to see, the one with the cougar crouched over the big block letters. Milada’s eyes lit up. “It’s darling!” she said. She drew it down over her breasts and pulled on the bottoms. Her figure showed well even through the loose fabric. “You’re right, it does fit.” She peered down at the blue silk-screened logo. “You graduated from BYU?”

“Yes, that’s where David and I met.”

“It’s precious,” said Milada. “Zoë will be jealous. Why don’t we call it a trade?”

“A trade?”

“I certainly couldn’t get one of these back in New York.”

“But—” Rachel meant to say that she could buy several dozen sweat suits for what an outfit like Milada’s must cost. “I’m sure you could get one at any mall or sports shop around here. And Provo’s not that far away—”

“I detest shopping for clothes.”

She was serious. Running out of reasons not to, Rachel gave in. “Okay,” she said. Now that the possibility was real, she found herself looking forward to trying on Milada’s outfit. After she got it cleaned.

Milada said, “One thing, though. The dry cleaning will likely prove dear.”

Expensive, she meant. It shouldn’t cost
that
much, Rachel confidently assured herself.

She walked with Milada back to her house on Larkspur Lane. “I’m sorry about tonight,” Rachel apologized again. “Our dinner parties are rarely so eventful.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“Still, it sure was a good thing you were there. I think you’re the only one who kept her head on straight.”

“You would have done fine without me.”

“I’m not so sure. You probably saved Andy’s life.”

“To be honest, Rachel, I am not the Good Samaritan type. It is the kind of thing Kammy would have done.”

“Then thank her for being such a good influence.”

Milada flashed a weary smile and wished Rachel a good night.

The bishop got home shortly before ten. Rachel heard the younger Millingtons piling out of the Odyssey, climbing into their big Chevy Suburban. She walked outside. “Oh, Rachel,” gasped Charlene, running up to her. They hugged. “The doctor said Andy’s going to be fine.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“I forgot to thank you before. It was just so—”

“That’s okay. But it’s really Milada you should thank.”

Brent Millington and David finished talking. They shook hands, and Brother Millington gave him a heartfelt whack on the shoulder. Big guy emotion. “See you Wednesday, Bishop.” Brother Millington and Charlene climbed into the Suburban, and they drove off.

Laura was waiting for them in the kitchen. “So how’s the doughboy?”

Her father gave her a scolding look. “Surprisingly well. They’re keeping him overnight at Alta View for observation. But it looks like he’ll be no worse for wear. Remarkable, considering the severity of his reaction.” He paused. “There was one odd thing, though. A pair of marks on his wrist—” David touched his right arm.

“Bee stings?”

“No, they’re pretty sure it wasn’t that. More like needle marks. Maybe one of the EMTs—” He shook his head. “Who knows in cases like this—all the excitement and everything. At least he’s all right.” David paused for a moment. “How did you know where to find him?”

“Mom didn’t find him. It was Milada. It’s like she has radar or something. Like she can see in the dark.”

Her mother agreed. “She does have very good eyesight.” Then she hesitated. “When we found Andy, I think she started doing CPR.”

“You think?”

Rachel opened her mouth to go on, but she didn’t know what to say. She tilted her head to one side, her brow furrowing. “I—I can’t remember.”

“Can’t remember?” Laura was incredulous. “How can you not remember? Mom, you were right there!”

“I know.” A gnawing frustration welled up inside her. “She started doing CPR and then—and then Andy started breathing and she picked him up and carried him back to the yard.”

End of story. Good enough for them, but not good enough for her. Something was missing. Something she couldn’t remember. Something she’d
lost.

David gave her a reassuring hug. “It’s been a most interesting family home evening.”

“Yeah,” said Laura. “We should have Milada over again sometime.”

Have Milada over again.
Rachel smiled. Laura was rarely enthusiastic about their adult guests. But at that same moment, something jolted inside her like an electric shock. She ran herself a glass of warm water and drank it slowly.

It was only later that night, her mind hovering at the edge of sleep, that she understood what she had felt. Not fear—not the fear of imminent harm or suffering—but surprise, astonishment, even awe.

Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow creeping across the room. She felt a quick stab in the gut. Her eyes opened wide. But it was only the curtains fluttering against an open window, the bright street light beyond.

It’s nothing.

So in her dreams, she went back to cranking the handle of the music box with a quiet if impatient amusement. Listening to the playful melody. Yet feeling the uneasy expectation that when the trap door flipped open, the little clown would pop out bearing tooth and claw.

M
ilada asked Jane, her assistant, “Is Garrick on the line yet?”

She heard a click in her headset. Garrick Burke said, in the lower Middlesex accent he’d never bothered to shed, “Morning to you, girls. At least to you, Milly. Still morning there, isn’t it?” He was on speakerphone, sounding like he was in the middle of the Holland Tunnel.

“Talk to me about Wylde Medical,” she said. “I don’t like what I’m seeing.”

“Neither do I. I’m looking at thirty-seven and change on the big board right now.”

Milada sucked air through her teeth. Garrick said, “I’m telling you, Milly, the float is a bloody mess. Every time I buy into a position, the day traders are all over me. It’s like throwing a stuck pig in the Amazon.”

“What are we holding?”

“I figure we’ve got over a third of outstanding. With the churn we’re kicking up, we could sell off right now and make a killing. All that irrational exuberance, don’t you know.”

“Get it up to half first.”

“How high are you willing to go?”

“Forty.”

She knew Garrick was shaking his head when he said, “It’ll go there, Milly, on a rocket. But I wouldn’t pay ten for the whole shebang. They’ve sunk fifty million into that new biotech venture of theirs—fifty million in new debt on marginal earnings, and not a dime of profit so far.”

“Those are real assets, Garrick. Fungible R&D resources. Push come to shove, everything else depends on the unregistered shares. That’s what’s flogging the float. Have your elves start digging.”

“Hi-ho, hi-ho.”

“That was elves,” Jane interrupted. “Not dwarves.”

Milada laughed. “Jane, have we heard anything from corporate? Let them know I’ve come all the way out here just to look at DEI’s investment. Considering their stock buybacks, we’re putting a lot of money into their coffers. In the meantime, have research do another patent search. I don’t want this to be easy for the wrong reasons.”

Jane agreed. Then she asked, “How’re you doing, Milada? The Hilton treating you all right?”

“I moved out of the Hilton. Rented a house in the honest-to-God suburbs.”

“You did what?”

“It’s a great improvement. I’ll fax you the papers. You can pull off the contact information in case my cell goes out.”

Garrick chuckled. “The suburbs? No kidding? You mean the quarter-acre plot, the two-car garage, the neighbor kid who comes over every week to trim the lawn—”

“That describes the situation.”

“You know what the old song says about mad dogs and Englishmen, Milly.”

“Yes, I know, Garrick. I will stay out of the midday sun.”

“And watch your diet. You must be a mile high. The blood thins out at those altitudes.”

She ignored him. “Jane, ride their little backsides and FedEx me by Thursday latest. I want hard copies.”

Jane cheerfully said she would. Milada hung up the phone and called Karen back into the room. “I have a job for you.” She handed Karen the annual report for Wylde Medical Informatics. “That Post-It note marks a listing of the board of directors. I want you to find out who they are, where they live, who they’re related to, how many kids they have, what charities they contribute to, other boards they sit on, and what they eat for breakfast. Especially Darren Wylde. Does Loveridge have an Edgar or Morningstar account?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“Find out. If not, you can use mine. I’ll show you how it works.”

“Okay!” said Karen. She sounded excited to find out, to get involved in The Big Project. Better than pushing the mail cart and making coffee.

The first batch of SEC reports arrived the next morning with the FedEx courier, a thick wad of Xeroxed forms crammed with tiny, practically indecipherable print, the dirt hauled out of an economic archeological dig. The valuable artifacts wouldn’t show themselves without a good deal of sifting.

Milada called in Karen, and they started going through the forms. “How is your research going?” Milada asked.

“It looks like the biggest stockholder in WMI got into the business as a funeral home operator.”

“Yes, that’s Darren Wylde, the CEO. A well-run funeral home is a veritable cash machine, so that’s no surprise.”

“Up to 1979 the only hits in LexisNexis had to do with Wylde Funeral Homes and his work on the board of the National Funeral Directors Association,” Karen said. “Wylde remains the largest locally owned chain of funeral homes in the Intermountain West. Listings related to Wylde Medical Informatics start in the late 1980s, and then there’s a bunch more in the last five years.”

“So he stays out of the spotlight. How much of the company does he own?”

“About twenty percent.” Karen looked at the papers they were stacking in small piles around the conference room table. “What exactly are we doing?”

“We are trying to determine the size of the float. When a company goes public, the stock they sell to you and me is called the float. The rest gets divided up among the company’s officers. Since the volume of held stock determines who controls the company, the principals will try not to sell off their holdings—their unregistered shares—even after the lockup has expired and their options vest.”

“So we’re trying to find out how much of the company Mr. Wylde controls?”

“Precisely,” said Milada, rewarding her pupil with a smile. “The stock he
owns
and the stock he
controls.
Love, money, and in-laws.”

The phone rang. It was Jane. “Yes,” Milada confirmed, “we’ve received the first batch.”

“I just had a pleasant conversation with Dr. Richard Brickey, CTO at Wylde. He’s
dying
to show you the place. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. The meeting’s set for tomorrow at two.”

Milada rolled her eyes. “Yes. That works for me.”

“They’re off the Van Winkle Expressway in Murray. I assume that means something to you. You have the address?”

“I’m sure Steven will be able to find it.”