Robin Cook - Seizure

Daniel was feeling progressively more confident about his decision. At first he’d not been so sure, but that had changed when his memory of Professor Heinrich Wortheim’s prophecy of disaster came back to haunt him. Daniel had vowed from the outset that he was not going to fail, and to avoid failure, Butler had to be treated, meaning entanglement with the police had to be avoided. Since he and Stephanie would be the only leads associated with the murder, if not outright suspects, even a slipshod investigation would invariably involve what they were doing in Nassau. At that point, Butler would have to be apprised of the situation, because after his arrival, his involvement would most likely be discovered in the course of the inquiry, which would ignite a media firestorm. With the threat of such a scenario, Daniel doubted Butler would come at all.

When they got to their suite, Daniel keyed open the door. Stephanie went in first and turned on the lights. The turndown service had come and gone, and the room was the picture of tranquility. The drapes were closed, classical music issued softly from the bedside radio, and the beds were prepared, with candies on the pillows. Daniel secured the door using all the locks.

Stephanie lifted her dress to look at her knee. She was relieved that her injury wasn’t as bad as suggested by the amount of blood, which by now had run all the way down into her shoe. Daniel checked his own knee by dropping his pants. Similar to Stephanie’s wound, he had an abrasion the diameter of a golf ball. Both injuries had some embedded seashell fragments, which they knew had to come out or there would be an infection.

“I feel awfully jittery,” Daniel admitted. He stepped out of his pants before holding out his hand. It shook as if he was shivering. “It must be the adrenaline rush. Let’s open a bottle of wine while we draw a bath. We should soak these abrasions, and the combination of wine and bath should calm us both down.”

“Okay,” Stephanie said. A bath might help her think more clearly. “I’ll run the tub. You get the wine!” She turned on the hot water full-blast after adding some bath salts to the tub. The room quickly filled with steam. Within minutes, the aroma and the soothing sound of the rushing water had a calming effect on her. When she emerged from the bathroom in a hotel robe to tell Daniel the bath was ready, she felt significantly recovered. Daniel was sitting on the couch with the yellow pages open on his lap. There were two glasses of red wine on the coffee table. Stephanie picked one of them up and took a sip.

“I’ve had another thought,” Daniel said. “Obviously, these Castigliano people were not as impressed as I hoped about the reassuring conversations you’ve been having with your mother.”

“We can’t be sure my brother told the Castiglianos what we wanted him to.”

“Whatever,” Daniel said with a wave of his hand. “The point is, they sent this thug down here to do me in and maybe you. They are unhappy people, to say the least. We don’t know how long it will take for them to learn that their henchman isn’t coming back. Nor can we guess what their reaction will be when they do learn it. For all we know, they’ll think we killed him.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“We use Butler’s money to hire twenty-four-hour armed security. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a legitimate expense, and it’s only for a week and a half, two weeks tops.”

Stephanie sighed with resignation. “Are there any listings in the phone book?”

“Yeah, there are quite a few. What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Stephanie admitted.

“I think we need some professional protection.”

“All right, if you say so,” Stephanie said. “But it might be more important for us to start being even more careful in general than we have been. No more walks in the dark. I mean, what were we thinking?”

“In retrospect, it was foolish, considering my having been beaten up and warned.”

“What about the bath? Do you want to get in first? It’s ready.”

“No, you go ahead. I’ll make some calls to these agencies. The sooner we have someone, the better I’ll feel.”

Ten minutes later, Daniel came into the bathroom to sit on the edge of the tub. He was still sipping his wine. Stephanie was up to her neck in sudsy water, and her wineglass was empty.

“Do you feel better?” Daniel asked.

“Much. How did you do on the phone?”

“Good. Someone will be here in a half hour to be interviewed. It’s a company called First Security. They were recommended by the hotel.”

“I’ve been trying to think of who could have shot that guy. We haven’t voiced it, but he was like our savior.” Stephanie stood and wrapped herself in a towel and stepped out of the tub. “It had to be someone who was a damn good shot. And how did he happen to be there just when we needed him? It was like Father Maloney at the Turin airport but ten times more critical.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

“Only one, but it is far-fetched.”

“I’m listening.” Daniel felt the bathwater and began adding more hot.

“Butler. Maybe he’s had the FBI keep an eye on us for our own protection.”

Daniel laughed as he got into the tub. “That would be ironic.”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

“Not one,” Daniel admitted. “Unless it had something to do with your brother. Maybe he sent someone down here to watch over you.”

Now Stephanie laughed in spite of herself. “That’s even more far-fetched than my idea!”

As the nighttime security supervisor, Bruno Debianco was accustomed to calls from his boss, Kurt Hermann. The man had no life other than as head of Wingate security, and since he lived on the grounds, he was always around hassling Bruno with all sorts of minor requests and orders. Some of them were unexpected and ridiculous, but tonight’s took the cake. A little after ten, Kurt had called on his cell phone to instruct Bruno to drive one of the black Wingate vans out to Paradise Island. The destination was to be the Huntington Hartford cloister. Bruno was only supposed to stop if the road was clear, and if it was clear, he was to turn off his headlights before slowing down. Once stopped, he was supposed to walk up to the cloister but avoid stepping into the light. At that point, Kurt would accost him.

Bruno waited for the traffic light to turn green before accelerating up onto the bridge leading to Paradise Island. Never had he been ordered to leave the Wingate Clinic on a mystery mission, and what made it particularly strange was the request to bring a body bag. Bruno tried to think of what possibly could have happened, but nothing came to mind other than the trouble Kurt had gotten into in Okinawa. Bruno had served with Kurt in the Army’s Special Forces and knew the man had a love-hate reaction to whores. It had been an obsession that had suddenly erupted into a personal vendetta on the Japanese island. Bruno had never quite understood it, and he hoped he wasn’t currently being drawn into a recrudescence of that problem. He and Kurt had a good thing going with Spencer Wingate and Paul Saunders, and Bruno didn’t want it to get screwed up. If Kurt had started up his old crusade, it was going to be a problem.

The main east-west road that ran along Paradise Island had moderate traffic, but it dropped off after Bruno passed the shopping areas. It dropped off even more after the first few hotels, and after the turnoff to the Ocean Club, it was deserted. Following orders, Bruno switched off the lights as he neared the cloister. With the moonlight and the white stripe in the middle of the road, he had no problem driving in the dark.

Passing the final coppice of trees, the illuminated cloister came into view on Bruno’s right. He pulled across the road into a shoulder parking area and stopped the car. He turned off the engine and got out. To his left, he could see down the hill to the Ocean Club’s lighted pool.