The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [162]
Lights were still on in some of the offices and a presidential reception for some foreign dignitary was going on. The White House never slept. Cal checked his messages with the switchboard. There was just one and it wasn’t from Genie. In fact, it wasn’t from anyone he knew. He dialed the number and asked for Nurse Sara Milgrim.
She was calling from Fairlawns for one of the residents, Nurse Milgrim told him. It was difficult for the lady to call herself, you see, because she was ninety and a little bit deaf. She knew about him from the newspapers and had seen him on television, and was most insistent she had to see him personally. “She said to tell you she would only speak to you, sir. I don’t know what she means but she said it had to do with,” Nurse Milgrim lowered her voice. “It had to do with the Ivanoff emerald.”
Cal sat up straight. Cornish would have to wait. “Who is she? What’s her name?”
“Why, Missie O’Bryan, sir.” Nurse Milgrim’s voice faltered.
“O’Bryan, you say. Right, tell her I’ll be there right away. And thank you, Nurse Milgrim, for taking the trouble to call me.”
“I did it for her, not you,” Nurse Milgrim said tartly. “And when you get here, remember she’s an old lady. It’s very late and I don’t want you upsetting her.”
“I promise,” he agreed with a half smile.
Maryland
Missie glanced at herself in the hand mirror, patting her hair shakily, making sure that Milgrim had done a good job and she was looking her best for her visitor. A bit of the old vanity returning, she thought with a tired smile. It seemed everything from the past was returning to haunt her in her old age. Except Anna. Why hadn’t she called? Or come to see her? Hadn’t the murders of those two men convinced her what a dangerous game she was playing?
She shook her head and put away the mirror. She slept so little these days she was always glad when the early TV programs came on to keep her company. But she hadn’t expected to see Misha’s eyes looking at her from the screen this morning. Nor had she ever expected to hear the name Solovsky again. And now suddenly Anna was going to be exposed on television and she was afraid for her life.
She had wondered desperately what to do. She knew of no one who could help, except maybe the President. And that was when she had seen Cal Warrender on TV. They said he was the young man investigating the Ivanoff mystery and she remembered reading about him in the newspapers, “an up-and-coming young politician,” they called him, and “a man to watch.” They even said he had the President’s ear and that his views were respected, and he was always pictured at those Washington parties. Suddenly he had seemed the answer to her prayers. Surely a man who had the President’s ear and who was also involved in the Ivanoff affair would understand what she had to tell him. He would help Anna. No doubt Milgrim thought she had finally gone round the bend with all her talk of the Ivanoff emerald, but she had been forced to use the name in order to convince Mr. Warrender to see her.
Her hand trembled as she took out the beautiful jeweled frame with its photograph of Misha. She placed it on the table beside her, displaying it for the first time in more than half a century.
“Well, Misha,” she said softly, “I’m going to have to break my promise after all. I’m going to have to tell them Azaylee’s story. Because if I don’t, my darling, then what you feared will come true and they will kill your granddaughter.”
After folding her hands in her lap, she sat quietly, waiting for Cal Warrender to arrive.
Missie was not what Cal had expected from an old lady. She had the kind of regal beauty even age could not wither, with her upswept silver hair and her magnificent violet eyes that were assessing