Naked (12 page)

No, actually that's not true. I have seen it since. When she started asking me to lie about my recovery. That's the same Heather. That's the Heather that got me to go down that hill. But I don't blame her for the accident. I mean, if any of those other girls had dared me, I probably would have blamed them.


But not Heather.


He was buck naked. Water dripped from his lithe body onto the enamel tile.

ORIENTATION WAS STILL A PROBLEM.

Once again Gaia woke up and had no idea where she was. Her immediate instinct was to smother her face with a pillow and sleep through all the depressing sunshine streaming through the blinds, but the fresh smell of fabric softener sparked her memory. It was her first clue that she was no longer alone.

Tenuous Morning Buzz

The pillowcases at Mercer Street always reeked of the faint stale odor of an enclosed space that hadn't been cleaned in days.
Everything there smelled that way.
But here at Mary's house there were many scents, and each stirred a feeling of contentment: the light clean sheets, coffee being brewed, eggs being scrambled. It smelled like a home—at least, the way she imagined a home
should
smell. The truth was, she really had no idea.

Gaia took three deep relaxing breaths and then rolled off the bed with a faint smile. Time to get up.
Time to be normal.
This was her plan: she'd have a quick shower, put on some extremely comfortable clothes, sit around the breakfast table—and then it was off to Central Park to frolic with some handsome college boys in the fields and play some football. It was a day in somebody else's life. Whose life was it,
though? One of the beautiful people? Heather Gannis? She almost laughed out loud.

Then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror of the bureau. The smile faded.
So much for the tenuous morning buzz.
Her eyes were ringed with dark circles, her skin pallid, her hair a tangled mess. Somehow the reflection was a stark reminder that the life she lived was her own and nobody else's. She was not one of the beautiful people, nor could she ever pretend to be. And she was still a stranger here, an outsider. A guest. No amount of hospitality could change that.

Don't think,
she reminded herself.

She rubbed her eyes and stumbled groggily out into the hall toward the bathroom. Thinking led to self-absorption led to misery. She had to stop focusing on
herself.
She would focus on Paul, on the events of the day as they unfolded.
She would observe and participate and experience, but she would not analyze.
And that way she would—

“Hey! Whoa, there!”

Gaia froze.

Blood instantly shot to her face.

She'd thrown open the bathroom door without knocking. Paul was just stepping out of the shower.
He was buck naked.
Water dripped from his lithe body onto the enamel tile.

“Sorry!” Gaia whirled and slammed the bathroom door shut. Her eyes were wide. Her breath came fast.

Paul laughed. “It's all right. We're all born this way.”

Gaia squeezed her eyes shut. The self-flagellation began.
You idiot. You moron. You fool. You shit head.
Why the hell hadn't she thought to knock? Actually, she knew the answer to that question. She hadn't thought to knock because knocking hadn't been an issue in a very long time. After all, when you lived in solitude, you were never in danger of barging in on anyone.

“Gaia?” Paul asked.

“Yes?” She groaned.

“Don't sweat it. It's the price of sharing a bathroom. It happened to Mary and me all the time. It comes with the brother-sister territory.”

Gaia opened her mouth, then closed it. “Oh,” she said finally.

Her embarrassment began to fade, and it was replaced with an emotion that felt oddly like. . . annoyance. But why? She was annoyed with herself, of course—with her own thoughtlessness and stupidity. But something about the simple directness of Paul's tone bothered her.
And she couldn't figure it out.
He was obviously thinking of her as a sister. And why wouldn't he?
She
thought of him as a brother. It made perfect sense. They were close. . . almost intimate. Even after such a short amount of time, he was comfortable enough around her to joke around about nudity. Which was perfect as well.
Which was as it should be. So what was the problem?

There was no problem. Right. She had just been a little shocked. That was all. She was overthinking this.

The door flew open, and Paul strode by her, a towel firmly wrapped around his waist. He patted her shoulder with a wet palm.

“It's all yours,” he said.

Gaia watched as he disappeared into his room.

Don't think,
she reminded herself.

“
OH MY GOD, YOU LOOK
GREAT!
”
Heather gasped gleefully when Ed emerged from his apartment building. “Why don't you wear clothes like this more often?”

A Sucker for Sure

Ed paused outside the glass doors as they swung shut behind him. He should have known she would compliment him. And it pissed him off.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he'd never felt more uncomfortable in his entire life. It wasn't the crutches digging into his arms or even the khakis—which made his legs look like packages that had just been delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. It was this goddamn orange turtleneck sweater that his
sister's fiancé, Blane, had given to him as a present.

That was the kind of guy Blane was. He thought it was the most generous act in the world to give a sweater to his future wife's poor, crippled brother.
He kept on patting himself on the back about it.
Never mind that the sweater itched like hell and practically cut off the circulation to Ed's head.

“Are you okay?” Heather asked, frowning at him in the harsh, late winter sunshine.

“Sure,” Ed said.

Secretly he had been hoping that Heather would burst out laughing when she saw what he was wearing. This outfit was about as un-Shred-like as he could get. There was absolutely no question that he looked like a big hobbling orange Popsicle.
A sucker for sure.
In fact, this color combo was pretty much straight-up Chad Carmel. Blane and Chad had a lot in common, actually. They might even be the same person. Maybe there was a secret factory out in the Hamptons where they cloned rich, insensitive morons—then sent them out into the world to make it a more dismal place.

“What's wrong?” she asked, fighting to keep smiling.

“Nothing.” Ed tried to smile, too. “You look beautiful.” He wasn't lying. It was a warm day, warmer than it had been in months, so there was no need to bundle up. Heather was wearing an open black velvet jacket, a white T-shirt, a long black skirt. Her hair was down,
rustling in the brisk wind. She was as close to perfection as any girl he'd met (at least on the outside). While Ed. . . well,Ed still had a ways to go.

Heather glanced down the sidewalk toward First Avenue. “Shall we?”

Ed lifted his shoulders.
Yes! There's nothing I'd rather do more than eat brunch at Sarabeth's with your snotty friends from the Hamptons!

“I guess we should take a cab, huh?” Heather asked absently.

“Or we could just bag the whole thing,” Ed mumbled under his breath.

Heather shot him a withering stare, then started down the street by herself. Ed rolled his eyes. That hadn't been a smart move. If he was going to get back on track with Heather, he had to keep his mouth shut. He hobbled forward and tried to catch up.

“Look, I'm sorry,” he called after her. “It's just. . . I just can't stand your East Hampton friends. You know that.”

She stopped and turned, scowling. “These aren't my
East
Hampton friends. I told you that Chad wasn't gonna be there, didn't I? These are my
South
Hampton friends. You actually think I'd make you see those people again?”

Ed stared at her. She wasn't joking around. She actually thought there was
a difference between her East Hampton friends and South Hampton
friends.
He didn't know whether to be frightened or disgusted or appalled. . . or
what.
All he knew was that Heather Gannis didn't nearly look as stunning as she had only seconds earlier.

“We're going to be late,” she stated coldly.

“Fine,” he muttered.

She marched to the corner and quickly flagged down a cab, then delicately stepped in, making sure her skirt wouldn't wrinkle beneath her. The door stayed open. She crossed her arms and waited.

For a fleeting instant Ed considered turning around and limping home. But he knew that would be an act of finality, one from which there might be no return. So he doggedly struggled forward, handed Heather each crutch, then pulled himself into the cab. At the last instant, however, his foot caught on the doorjamb. He tumbled across the seat. Heather scooted out of his way, and he landed on the car floor. A sharp tingle shot up his spine.

“Ow!” he shouted.

“Come on,” Heather grunted, yanking him into an upright position. “You're gonna be fine.” She leaned across him and swung the door shut. “Sarabeth's, please,” she called to the driver.

Ed grimaced at her, struggling to ease into the seat and ignore the pain at the same time. “You know, a little sympathy every now and then wouldn't—”

“Oh, shit!” She groaned.

“What?”

She eyed his legs, shaking her head. “Your
pants.
Now they're filthy.” She glanced down at the car floor, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “It's dirty down there.”

Ed's jaw tightened. “I fell,” he said.

“I know, but look at your pants. I don't want to bring you in there with. . .
ugh,
forget it. I can't take you
anywhere.
”

He stared at her for another five long seconds. His blood was beginning to boil. There was no way she could possibly be—

“That was a
joke,
” she explained.

“High comedy,” he mumbled.

They spent the remainder of the cab ride in silence.

FRUSTRATION WAS BEGINNING TO
set in.

Loki had obviously chosen the wrong team, and there was too little time to make changes. Now he was forced to
participate in the one activity he despised above all others: waiting. Waiting for them to find Tom. Waiting for them to find the leak, the traitor who stood on the verge of betraying the intricacies of Loki's project. (The delicious beauty of the word
project
lay in its vast understatement.) Of course, he knew that in spite of all his planning—and a few minor successes and setbacks—all the years since Katia's death had ultimately been spent doing just that. Waiting.

The Great Machine

He'd been waiting to reclaim what was his, to execute some long-required justice, to exorcize some of his sorrow. But most of all, he'd been waiting to accomplish something truly remarkable—something worthy of Gaia's respect and admiration, maybe even her love. And after all those years of extensive and enlightened patience, his various enterprises were paying off.
The great machine had finally been energized, its many cogs starting to spin in unison across many time zones.
Plans within plans were coming to fruition.

Yet here he was, sitting once again at his laptop in his sparsely furnished loft, with no other option but to wait some more. All he felt was a combination of barely restrained anger and impatience. He pounded out yet another instant message. Probably his hundredth in the last forty-eight hours.

Instant Message Board 20
QR9-11 Status: Secure 12:32

L:
     Progress report


QR9:
   Enigma still out-of-pocket


QR10:
  No progress


QR11:
  No progress


L:
     Leak status?


QR9:
   No progress


QR10:
  No progress


QR11:
Valid intelligence confirmed from Berlin. Following up immediately. May have a lock within thirty minutes.


L:
    Excellent. If leak is confirmed, we'll find Enigma there as well. Assigning QRs 1-4 to Berlin immediately. When leak is determined, terminate. Do not wait for orders. We cannot proceed until security has been reestablished.


Loki breathed a sigh of relief. He nodded in satisfaction. Finally some competence. It was about time. If they could confirm the identity, then the leak was as good as dead, and they could finally proceed—with Tom under surveillance again. Loki had no doubts that the leak would lead them directly to him. The final loose thread would be clipped.

He typed the necessary memo and sent it off
through the secured server. Once he'd received his response, he rose from his seat and began to pace slowly toward the window and back again, assessing the remaining tasks at hand.

Waiting was so much easier when the reward was assured.

ED HAD THE DISTINCT FEELING
that he was in hell. No, purgatory. Right. That was where they sent you before you went all the way down to the fiery pits with the demons and the pitchforks and ironic punishments. Purgatory was more familiar. Purgatory was a place you knew and hated in life, where you were forced to await your punishment.

Mirrored Sunglasses

That was Sarabeth's. It actually
looked
like a house in the Hamptons.