Sunny - Mona Lisa Eclipsing

“ THERE’S QUITE A crowd of reporters,” Hannah said worriedly as we came in sight of the hospital. We had parked the van three blocks down and walked the remaining distance, in case we needed to make a quick, anonymous getaway.

“I’m picking up three Monère guards posted around the hospital,” I said. The local territory Queen’s men.

“Me, too,” Amber confirmed. His golden eyes scanned the area, lingering with unease on the crowd of reporters and cameramen restlessly gathered thirty feet away from the front entrance in an area that had been sectioned off with yellow tape by the police, who were also quite visibly present. I saw two squad cars, counted three police officers outside, and glimpsed a dark uniform inside the glass entrance doors.

“Amber, can you stay out here and stand guard, in case our arrival spooks Jarvis into flying out another window?” I asked, looking up at our most conspicuous member. “I know the Queen Mother informed the local Queen not to touch Jarvis, but your presence out here might keep her men from overreacting if he tries to bust out unexpectedly.”

Amber agreed with obvious relief. He glanced up at the hospital, looking puzzled. “That’s odd. I’m not sensing Jarvis at all.”

“Neither am I,” I said, “but it’s a stone building. If the walls inside the hospital are built with cinder blocks like the hospital I used to work in, it’ll mask most, if not all, of his presence.”

Mr. McManus was seated in the waiting area and was easy to pick out. He looked exactly like what he was: a high-priced attorney, wearing a three-piece suit and spit-polish black shoes. Beneath the bushiest eyebrows I’d ever seen, sharp intelligence gleamed out from a pair of deep-set eyes. Wavy russet hair, sprinkled with distinguished gray, framed a craggy, strong-boned face. An expensive-looking briefcase sat by his feet, and the fingers of his right hand drummed impatiently as he scanned the faces of everyone entering. His gaze touched on us briefly, then moved on.

His sharp eyes swung back, refocusing on me as I made my way over to him.

“Mr. McManus, I presume?” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Lisa Hamilton. Thank you for meeting me here.”

“You’re much younger than I expected,” he said, frowning as he shook my hand.

“And you sound even better in person than you do over the phone,” I returned. I had been expecting his voice to be less vibrant somehow, but it was even richer and more resonant in person, almost professional quality like what you heard announcing commercials.

“How old are you?” McManus demanded, his bushy brows scrunching together like caterpillars wriggling toward each other.

“Twenty-one. Don’t worry, I’m legal.” In that one sense of the word, at least. “Let me introduce my friends to you.”

Everyone exchanged courteous nods.

“Here—before I forget,” I said, handing him the thousand-dollar retainer fee. The cash was wrapped in a sheet of hotel stationery with the top letterhead ripped off, leaving just a blank sheet. An envelope would have been nicer, but all of them had been imprinted with the hotel’s name and address.

McManus counted the money and slipped it inside his suit pocket. He glanced at me, waiting expectantly. When nothing more was forthcoming, he said, “One pointer, Ms. Hamilton. Always ask for a receipt in any cash transactions.”

A good point, though it made me feel as young as he said I looked. Business transactions were not my forte. “Can I have a receipt?” I asked.

McManus took out a business card and printed out the amount he had received on the back. Dating and signing it, he handed it to me, completing our transaction.

I pocketed the business card/receipt. “So are we your clients now?”

His thick brows twitched. “I thought you were engaging my services to represent Jarvis Condorizi solely.”

“For the most part. But if I and my friends get into trouble upstairs, I trust you’ll come to our aid as well.”

“Of course. But that will increase my time, and your expense.”

“Understood.” We walked to the bank of elevators, bypassing the visitor’s desk.

“You know where he is?” McManus asked when I pushed the “up” elevator button.

“The burn center, most likely.” The elevator doors opened, and I entered, holding the door while the rest trooped inside.

“Don’t you need a visitor’s pass?” McManus asked.

“I thought it would be better just to go straight up. Your presence should be enough to get us in.”

Clearly, McManus didn’t like this, but he didn’t comment. Scanning the directory posted on the wall, I pushed the button for the fourth floor.

“Not all of you will be able to see him,” McManus said as the doors closed and we started going up.

“Most of them will wait outside the burn unit. It’ll just be Hannah and me, and you, of course, going in to see Jarvis.”

Dontaine, Nolan, and Dante turned to gaze at me. Only Quentin seemed unconcerned.

“He is a wounded male,” said Dontaine too quietly for McManus to hear.

“Which is why it would be best if only Hannah and I went in,” I answered. “The presence of other males will only agitate him.”

“And a Queen’s presence will not?” Dante asked with acerbic bite.

“Consider me both bait and protection for Hannah,” I murmured. “Don’t worry, Nolan. I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt Hannah.”

“It is both of your safety I am concerned about,” Nolan said.

“Mona Lisa is right,” Hannah said quietly. “This way will be the least threatening to Jarvis, and therefore the safest for us.”

“Excuse me, did you say something?” McManus asked, glancing at me. He had obviously seen my lips moving.

“No, just talking to myself,” I answered blithely.

That didn’t appear to lend him any more confidence in me, but at this point I didn’t care as the lift came to a gentle halt and the doors opened to the fourth floor.

We left the men waiting unhappily in the sitting area and made our way to the Trauma and Burn Center. Visiting hours were posted on the glass doors, from nine a.m. to nine p.m. It was a few minutes past nine. Perfect timing, though our number of visitors was not as ideal. Most hospitals allowed only two visitors in at a time, not three, and only relatives were permitted into the intensive care units.

Then we were in the burn unit and the smell of it hit my sensitive nose—burnt flesh beneath the astringent, industrial smell all hospitals had. I caught the feel of Monère presence, but that, too, was faint, much fainter than it should have been, but I would have known, even had I not felt him, where Jarvis was. There were two policemen posted outside the room directly across from the nurses’ station, with a crowd of other bodies inside and outside of the room: nurses in their flowered-top scrubs and young-looking doctors in white coats and dark blue scrubs. Hospital interns and residents, I realized with a start. Must be a teaching hospital. Two FBI types stood outside the room next to two seated police officers. There was almost an equal number of people inside his room gathered around the bed, all of them gloved and gowned, blocking my view of the occupant.

McManus stopped in front of the nurses’ station, waiting patiently for one of the busy nurses. But what I felt made me too uneasy to wait.

“I can’t discern his heartbeat,” I said to Hannah. Everything was beating human fast, and that should not be; Jarvis’s heart should have been half the normal rate, but everything I heard was going at least sixty to eighty beats a minute. The only reason for a Monère’s heart to beat that fast was extreme stress or severe injury. And it wasn’t because he had sensed us: none of the heartbeats had sped up. That, coupled with the weak presence I felt emanating from him, had me severely worried.