First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [47]
"In ninth grade you were diagnosed with Graves' disease by your pediatrician—what's his name?" He turned a page. "Ah yes, Dr. Hallow. He recommended you for treatment at Children's Hospital, where you stayed for six days while tests were being performed, medication prescribed and evaluated in your system."
He looked up into Alli's stricken face. "Have I left anything out? I thought not." Returning to the file, he struck himself lightly on the forehead and a smile spread over his face like taffy melting on a July afternoon. "But of course I have! I've failed to mention Barkley. Philip Barkley. But you called him—what? Help me out here, Alli. No? All right, all on my own then. You called him Bark, isn't that right? Bark was your first love, but you never told your parents the truth about you and Bark, did you?"
"There was a reason."
"Of course. There's always a reason," Kray said. "Human beings are so good at rationalization. Did you or did you not tell your parents the truth about Philip Barkley? A simple yes or no will do."
Alli gave a little moan, appearing to sink as much as she was able into the chair.
"You see the futility of your current predicament?"
It was a measure of her mental paralysis that it wasn't until this moment that the thought occurred to her. "How could you possibly know about Bark? I never told anyone about—"
"That night on the raft?"
She gasped. "It's impossible! You couldn't know!"
"And yet I do. How to reconcile this seeming impossibility?" He cocked his head. "Would it help if I tell you that my name is Ronnie Kray?"
Some inarticulate sound got caught in the back of Alli's throat, and she almost gagged.
I'M A PRISONER, Lyn Carson thought for the first time in her life. She, her support staff, and her bodyguards were in a motorcade, on their way from a luncheon, where she'd spoken to the Washington Ladies' something-or-other, to a fund-raiser where she was standing in for her husband, who was God knew where, doing God knew what. This morning, she had been on Good Morning, America. She barely remembered what she'd said.
Normally, she loved these functions; they allowed her to feel senatorial—and now presidential—all on her own without feeling like Edward's elbow. But these days, she was so preoccupied with thoughts of Alli that the luncheons, fund-raisers, photo ops . . . these days what an effort it was to keep her smile intact, the tasks that usually filled her with joy dragged by like a ragged filmstrip. What a useless process life is, she thought as the armored limo sped her crosstown, traffic peeling away, pedestrians peering briefly, wondering which member of the government was passing by. Without Alli, my life is without purpose.
In desperation, she pulled out her cell phone, dialed an overseas number. Checking her watch, she calculated it would be just after dinnertime in Umbria. Blue shadows would have already fallen over the olive groves, the ancient stone house would be lit by warm light and the smells of tomato sauce and roasted meat would have permeated the thick-walled rooms. Perhaps music would be playing softly.
"Hi, Mom," she said when the familiar voice answered. "Yes, I'm fine, everything's fine. Of course, Alli misses you, too."
She listened for some time to the melodious drone. Not that she was uninterested in what was fresh in the market that day or the old man who pressed their olives into fragrant green oil, the one who was teaching her to speak like an Umbrian. It was simply that her parents' world seemed so far away, so carefree it was almost criminal. She felt suddenly older than her own mother, who continued rabbiting on about this year's oil, the cinghiale they'd eaten for dinner, the series of paintings her father was completing.
Suddenly, she