The Cure Page 4

  On the other hand, he was expected to be at the boss’s beck and call every minute of every day, unless he was traveling on business. And even the lowliest of cubicle drones had more privacy—Tal never knew when Marsh would walk through the door dividing their offices. And God help him if the big man found him with his feet on the desk or his television turned to something other than the news.

  Tal was pretty certain his office was under surveillance. Marsh hadn’t gotten to be one of the world’s richest businessmen by staying within the legal lines. Tal had planned enough “extracurricular” operations over the past six years to know exactly what lengths Marsh would go to.

  It would be foolish to think that just because they were confidants of a sort, Marsh wouldn’t still have eyes and ears on Nova all the time.

  So Tal made it a point to never conduct any personal business in his office. More importantly, he made sure to never use his office for any business of any kind that might be used against him later in a court of law. That’s why, after finishing his conversation with Marsh, he’d used his personal cell to send an innocuous text. Meet for coffee? Now, ten minutes later, he had an equally bland message waiting.

  Corner of Ninth and Fifty-Fifth. Fifteen minutes.

  Perfect.

  As he left his office, Janice, his secretary, asked him where he was going.

  “To take care of something for Mr. Marsh,” he replied. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

  Janice nodded and returned to her typing. She’d been handpicked for him by Marsh, and he trusted her about as much as he trusted the security of his office phone.

  In the back of his limo, Tal had time to consider his place in the grand scheme of things at Marsh Enterprises. His innocuous title was as much of a cover as any used by the CIA or FBI. In reality, Tal’s job description was simple: to take care of anything that Marsh couldn’t accomplish through regular, or legal, means. Corporate espionage, blackmail, even physical violence—they’d all been carried out on Tal’s orders.

  And he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, either, when the situation called for it. That was how he’d earned the position in the first place.

  He remembered that night like it was yesterday; he’d barely gotten back to the apartment and gotten out of his bloody clothes when the phone had rung.

  “Tal Nova?” The voice on the other end was filled with jovial good humor.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Leonard Marsh. It’s come to my attention you were involved in an unfortunate incident earlier this evening.”

  “What?” Tal nearly dropped the phone. How the hell had anyone found out already? It had only been an hour since the accident. The fact that it was the owner of Marsh Enterprises, where Tal was presently working as an intern, was even more unbelievable.

  “Come now, Mr. Nova. Don’t play stupid. You did a piss-poor job of covering up your involvement in the hit-and-run. You left your fingerprints on the body, and no doubt there is DNA evidence on your car which would link you to the crime if the police were to do even a cursory investigation.”

  “What do you want?” He knew blackmail when he heard it.

  “I’d like to offer you a business proposition. Say yes and you’ll have my guarantee your name will never be brought up in connection with any police investigation. Say no and one carefully placed call will have you behind bars before the sun rises.”

  Tal knew he was helpless to say no, but he asked his next question anyway. “What kind of business proposition?”

  Marsh’s laughter echoed in Tal’s ear. “My dear boy, you don’t get to know that until you answer. That’s the whole point.”

  The decision was easy. “Fine. I accept.”

  “Excellent. Come to my office tomorrow and I’ll explain everything. Welcome to the team.”

  That was the end of Tal’s old life, and the beginning of his new one. A week after graduation he turned down the offer from the Cardinals and accepted the position of Security Manager with Marsh Enterprises. Marsh arranged for him to attend an intense twelve-week school in corporate espionage that included classes in firearms, self-defense and computer hacking.

  He surprised himself by not only showing an aptitude for the science of security operations, but also enjoying it, which lessened the disappointment of not fulfilling his dream of playing in the NFL. His rise to Vice President was rapid, and along the way he picked up several other useful talents.

  There were times when Tal worried that Marsh might have stashed away evidence that could point a legal finger at who really ran over that traffic cop six years ago. But then he’d think about all the dirt he had on Marsh, names and phone numbers and even photographs, all stored away in safe deposit boxes scattered around the city under false names.

  And, of course, he was the only one who knew Marsh was dying.

  It would be interesting to see how things played out with the DeGarmo woman. If she was the real deal, there was a lot more the company could do with her besides keep Leonard Marsh healthy.

  She could make Tal’s life a lot easier.

  “Stop here,” he told the driver as they approached Ninth Avenue. He exited the car and walked the final block out of habit, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be watching him.

  Del McCormick waited by the newsstand, their usual meeting spot. As always, Tal marveled at the man’s ability to blend in anywhere. Unless you were specifically looking for him, there was nothing about him to catch the eye, nothing that would stick in a witness’s memory.

  McCormick was average everything. Not too tall or short, plain brown hair, plain brown eyes, and a face that would never be called ugly or handsome. A medium-sized nose, lips perhaps a shade on the thin side but not obviously so, and just enough color to his skin that you wouldn’t call him pale. His frame looked slender, but Tal knew the man’s slightly baggy clothes hid a body kept in excellent shape through intense martial arts training.

  “What’s up?” Del asked, as the two men sauntered down the sidewalk. His eyes darted back and forth, watching everyone and everything around them.

  Tal stuck a piece of gum in his mouth. “Got a strange one for you. Highest priority. I want you to take care of it personally.”

  “Hush-hush?” Del kept his eyes forward, but Tal heard the change in inflection, indicating he was interested.

  “You, me and the big man makes three,” Tal said. “And it has to stay that way.”

  “No problem. Are we talking interaction?”

  Tal shook his head, knowing the other man was asking if there’d be violence involved. “Not that kind. But you will have to meet the subject in person. She’s a vet.”

  One of Del’s eyebrows went up. “Army? Navy?”

  “No, a veterinarian. I need you to pay her an official visit. She lives up north in the burbs.”

  Del frowned. “Got no pets. Travel too much.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll supply the pet. Meet me at this address tomorrow afternoon at five.” Tal passed him a piece of paper. “Wear something you don’t mind getting blood on, and that you can hide a videocam in. You’ll be playing the role of desperate pet owner.”

  Pulling a battered Yankees cap from his back pocket, Del chuckled, a rare event for him. “Now I’m really interested. Later, my friend.” He adjusted the hat on his head and walked away.

  In less than twenty steps he was lost in the afternoon crowd.

  I swear he’s part chameleon, Tal thought, as he headed back to the limo. But McCormick was perfect for the job. An hour after talking to him, DeGarmo wouldn’t even remember what he looked like.

  As the car wove its way through the streets of Manhattan, Tal dialed Marsh’s direct line.

  “It’s me. I should have what you need tomorrow night.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Jesus Christ, what the fuck did you do to it?”
>
  Del McCormick looked around the parking lot to make sure the dog’s pitiful cries weren’t drawing any witnesses. In the city a howling dog might not be noticed, but in a boondocks town like Rocky Point some Good Samaritan might decide to check out what was going on.

  The dog’s broken limbs twitched and jerked, and Del could see jagged pieces of bone sticking through the bloody fur.

  “Getting squeamish?” Tal Nova lifted the animal from his trunk and placed it in the late model Volkswagen Jetta Del had stolen for the job.

  “No, just a little surprised. You could have warned me.” He had no intention of telling the hulking black man that he had a soft spot for dogs, especially little brown mutts like the one he’d had growing up.

  Like the one now dying in his backseat.

  One thing you never displayed in front of men like Tal Nova was weakness. They were like lions, always watching the herd to cull out the sick or vulnerable.

  Tal wiped the blood off his oversized hands. “That would’ve taken all the fun out of it. You got the camera ready?”

  Del patted the breast pocket of his denim jacket. “Fiber optics. Transmits to a receiver in the car. Wide angle, so I can get almost a whole room.”

  “Good. Here’s what you do. You go into the clinic with the dog in your arms, screaming how someone ran over your poor puppy. Then you make sure you stay with the doctor the whole time. When she’s done, you bring me the video. I’ll be waiting right here.”

  “That’s it?”

  The taller man leaned forward, his blocky features tightened into a menacing scowl. “That’s it. You come right to me. You don’t eat, piss or make a phone call. You don’t pass Go. You don’t do anything before I get that video, understand?”

  “Hey, no problem. I’ll call you when I’m out.”

  Del jumped into his stolen car and exited the parking lot.

  Driving to the clinic, Del couldn’t help but think about what kind of play Tal was working. Something big’s going on. I’ve never seen him like that.

  For the first time in all his dealings with Tal Nova, Del wondered if maybe he’d gotten himself into something he was going to regret.

  He turned the radio up, trying to ignore the heartbreaking whines from the backseat.

  Leah jumped up from her desk at the sound of the man’s voice from the waiting room.

  “Help me! Is there anyone here? My dog’s been hurt.”

  She ran out of her office and found herself facing a middle-aged man holding a bleeding, crying dog with obvious compound fractures.

  “Oh my God! Come this way. What happened?” she asked as she led the man to the first exam room.

  “He got hit by a car. I didn’t even know he’d gotten out of the yard. I was in the house and I heard him howling. When I got outside, the car was already driving away.”

  Leah had the man hold the dog down on the steel table while she looked it over. Besides the jagged bones sticking through the skin, there were several bloody cuts on the dog’s sides and back.

  Worse, her talent revealed the presence of multiple internal injuries, visible to her as glowing spots on the dog’s abdomen.

  She knew instantly that even with emergency surgery the dog had a fifty-fifty chance, at best.

  “Go wait in the other room,” she instructed the man. “Your dog needs multiple operations right away, but I can save him.”

  “No, I have to stay with him,” the man insisted.

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, that’s impossible. I’ll come get you as soon as I’m finished.” She pushed him gently but firmly out into the waiting room, and then shut the door. As soon as she was sure he wouldn’t try to get back in, she placed both hands on the dog and concentrated on making its injuries disappear.

  Immediately her hands grew warm and the dog stopped crying. Leah closed her eyes and braced herself for what was to come next.

  The dog cried out, a sharp, surprised bark, and twitched under her hands at the same time as the electric shock ran through her body.

  When she opened her eyes again, the dog was healed, its legs straight and whole, new fur already filling in the patches where the skin had been abraded away in the accident.

  The dog looked up at her, panting and smiling a doggy grin.

  “Hey, boy, feel better now?” she asked, rubbing her hand under its chin. It lifted its head and licked her fingers.

  “C’mon, let’s take you in the back and wrap you up, and then you can have a nice meal and take a nap.”

  Leah carried her patient down a back hallway and into the room that served as a combination library and surgical recovery area. The trick was going to be making the dog look like it had undergone an operation.

  She gave it a small bowl of canned dog food laced with a strong sedative. Once the dog was suitably groggy, she shaved the back legs and wrapped them in plaster casts. She also shaved a few patches of fur on the body and put iodine on the bare skin, then taped gauze over the areas. After that, she wiped the dried, crusted blood away from the rest of its fur.

  Once the dog was sleeping in a recovery cage, she checked her watch. Only forty-five minutes had passed since she’d ushered the owner into the waiting room.

  Still too soon to pretend I’m done. She thought about going to her office and catching up on paperwork, but there was no way to get from the recovery room to her office without passing the waiting area.

  Resigned to wasting the next hour or so, she turned on the computer and visited some of her favorite online shoe stores.

  And tried to ignore the growing ache in her legs.

  Del McCormick waited ten minutes until he was sure the lady vet wasn’t coming back out. Then he slipped out the front door and made his way around the building, checking each window to see if he could get a glimpse of what she was up to.

  That she was hiding something was a given. There was no other reason for Tal to want her videotaped. The question was, what could a veterinarian be doing that was so important?

  He was just about to move on to the next window when he saw movement in the room. Dr. DeGarmo came in, the mutt cradled in her arms. She set it down on the floor, which seemed odd until the dog followed her across the room.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered as he pulled the fiber-optic camera from his pocket and aimed it through the glass.

  He watched in growing amazement as she gave the dog something to make it sleep, and then proceeded to shave and bandage it. When she was done, she placed it in a cage and sat down at her computer.

  Del hurried back to the waiting area and sat down, unsure of when DeGarmo would come get him. He held a magazine in his lap like he was reading, but his mind was trying to make sense of what he’d seen.

  That dog was dying when I brought it here, he thought. I’m no vet, but even I could see that. Now there’s not a damn thing wrong with it.

  She healed it.

  It seemed impossible, but he had the evidence in his pocket. Then another thought came to him.

  Tal suspected this. That’s why he arranged this whole thing. A vision of Tal Nova finding a stray or adopting the dog from a shelter someplace and then running it over with his car—or worse, beating it with a pipe or bat—ran through his head. He’d set up the doctor with a patient that couldn’t be saved the normal way, forced her to use whatever powers she had to cure it.

  But how? If only the examining room had had a window, he could’ve seen the whole thing. As it was, he had to hope he’d gotten enough to earn his money.

  Footsteps on tile alerted him to DeGarmo’s return before she came through the doorway.

  “Is he all right?” Del asked, putting as much concern as he could into his voice.

  “Yes,” she said with a happy smile. “It was touch and go for a while, but your dog’s going to be just fine. Come with me and you can see him now
.”

  She waited until he’d put his magazine down, and then led him down a hallway to the same room he’d seen her in earlier. Her movements were stiff, as if she’d been sitting too long in the same position. The dog was still asleep in its cage, its bandaged legs sticking out as it lay on its side.

  “He’s really okay?”

  “Yes.”

  He could see how it would be easy for her to make pet owners feel at ease. She had a genuine smile full of warmth and compassion. Nothing like the cool, clinical expressions so many doctors used on their patients.

  “I was so afraid. I thought… Well, when I saw his legs, I didn’t think he’d ever walk again.” It was no lie; Del hadn’t expected the damn thing to make it out of the clinic alive. “We just got him a few weeks ago, but the whole family loves him.”

  “There were some broken bones, but animals heal better than people do,” DeGarmo explained. “Luckily there were no internal injuries, so I didn’t have to do surgery. Everything else was just bruises and cuts.”

  Something about the way she said “internal injuries” made him look at her. She was staring at the sleeping dog, and her face had gone very serious and sad.

  She’s lying! That dog did have internal injuries. She cured them as well.

  “How long before the bandages come off?” he asked.

  “What? Oh, I’d say three to four weeks. I’ll want you to bring him back in two weeks, so I can take another x-ray and see how the bones are healing.”

  “Can he walk like that?”

  She smiled again, but this time he could tell it was at some private joke, rather than for his sake. “He’ll have some trouble at first, but don’t worry about it. Let him decide how much weight to put on his legs, and don’t let him run or climb stairs.”

  Del wondered what she’d do if he just leaned over and rapped on the casts, exposing her secret. The idea was tempting, if only to force her to explain everything to him. But it would undoubtedly piss Tal off. If he’d wanted the full secret, he’d have told Del to get it.