A Moment in Time (17 page)

He replaced the receiver in its cradle and
smiled, thinking about Tiffani, that voluptuous body of hers, the
things they could do. He knew she'd call back.
She's really into
me,
he thought.
Really gets off on it.
Besides, she
wasn't about to turn down the chance to snort a little nose
candy.

Chapter Ten

Valerie drove the Jeep toward the big iron
gates at Stonelair, stopping at the post in the middle of the drive
to push the intercom button.

"Who is it?" a voice asked. The
not so
jolly bald giant
, she thought.

"Dr. Rochelle," she answered.

"When you get to the split in the drive, veer
to the right," the voice said. "To the house."

"Okay," she said, noting once again that
video cameras, mounted on the stone piers to which the gates were
attached, swiveled toward the Jeep. Must be motion sensitive, she
thought. She had the urge to wave at them and stick her tongue out,
but decided that would look pretty silly on the monitors. Not very
professional, either.

The gates swung open, and she drove through,
anxious to see Stonelair in the daylight for the first time. On her
last visit in the darkness and driving rain, she'd seen virtually
nothing but the stable compound. The mile-long drive was
beautifully landscaped, bordered on both sides by giant old
conifers, with ancient maples and oaks behind them. Rhododendrons,
mountain laurel, and azaleas were massed along the edge of the
drive and banked around the bases of the big trees. They were long
past their blooming stage, but it must be spectacular in the
spring, she thought. The place was like a beautifully kept
park.

She came to the split in the road and veered
to the right, following Ducci's instructions. When she finally came
within sight of the house itself, her first glimpse was of massive
chimneys and a slate roof reaching to the sky above the treetops.
As she rounded a bend in the road, the house itself came into full
view. She slowed down and looked at it with awe.

My God
, she thought,
it's a small
chateau!
Built of limestone, it loomed in the near-distance
like a great fortress, albeit an elegant one. She'd heard about it
all of her life and seen very old photographs of it, but nothing
had conveyed the monumental reality of the house.

She knew that it had been built by one of the
great robber barons before the turn of the century, a railroad
tycoon, as she remembered. Then it had descended to one family
member after another, none of them staying there for more than a
month or two a year. Sometime back in the early sixties the family
had boarded it up, their fortune largely squandered over the course
of the last century, until finally they'd sold it to Conrad.

The drive led into a courtyard in the center
of which was a large fountain, its bronze horses spouting sprays of
water. She drove up to the wide stone terrace that led to the front
door. Killing the engine, she got out, grabbing her large carryall,
then went around to the back of the Jeep, where she retrieved her
medical bag from the cargo compartment.

Valerie looked over as one of the massive
wooden doors across the terrace opened. Santo Ducci, giant that he
was, didn't quite fill it. He quickly strode across the terrace
toward her, his entire body seeming to ripple as he approached.

"Here," he said as he reached her, "let me
take that for you."

"No need to," Valerie said, looking up at him
with a smile. "I'm used to it."

"Have it your way," he said, shrugging.

He led her across the terrace and into the
entrance hall, where their shoes echoed loudly on the stone floors.
Valerie glimpsed a limestone fireplace and neoclassical
boiseries
on the walls. Over the ornately carved
boiseries
hung old oil paintings, their picture lamps
casting little pools of light in the dimness. She caught only a
fleeting glace at them before Ducci gestured her to the left and
down a long gallery, its lefthand wall hung with more paintings and
the right punctuated with French doors, which led out onto another
stone terrace that gave onto acres of manicured lawn.

They finally arrived at a set of double
doors, and Ducci stopped, gesturing for her to enter. "The dogs are
in here," he said, "and probably the cat." He smiled.

"The cat may be on the prowl, huh?" she
said.

"You never know," he replied, "but she hangs
out with the dogs a lot."

Valerie stepped just inside the doors and
found herself looking into a library, a cavernous double-height
room with a balcony running partway around it. Bookshelves lined
the walls both beneath and above the balcony, and a spiral
staircase led up to the balcony's walkway. On one wall was a huge
fireplace similar to the one in the entrance hall, and another wall
was set with French doors that gave onto the stone terrace she'd
seen from the gallery. Two matching Dutch baroque brass chandeliers
were suspended from the ceiling, and the fireplace wall was hung
with oil paintings, hunt scenes and horses galore and several dog
portraits. Bronzes, primarily of horses, stood atop bookcases and
on the shelves, and needlepoint carpets covered the floor. Despite
its grandeur, the room had an air of being truly lived in.

She stepped on into the room and was
surprised— and delighted—to see that amid this incredible luxury
four giant Irish wolfhounds lounged in various positions, two on
the rug looking out toward the lawn and two spread out on old
leather couches in front of the fireplace. That explained some of
the room's lived-in feeling, she surmised.

The moment they became aware of her, all four
sprang to their feet, bounding over to greet her. She immediately
set down her bags and began stroking their somewhat wiry coats,
talking to the giant beasts all the while, her face beaming with
joy at their sheer size and friendliness.

"Oh, they're beautiful," she exclaimed.

"Thanks," Santo said. "They're a handful
sometimes."

"I bet you are," she said to the dogs, trying
to divide her attention equally among the four.

"What are their names?" she asked Santo.

"Paddy, Katy, Sheila, and Seamus," Santo
replied.

Valerie couldn't help laughing. "So they're
Irish through and through," she said.

He nodded. "Yeah," he said. "We got them when
they were pups. From a breeder in Castleknock, outside Dublin. Flew
them over here."

"I can see why," she said. "They're such
great beauties. Which is which?" she asked.

"Paddy and Katy are the grays," Santo
replied, "Shelia's the brown, and Seamus is the brindle."

Valerie continued letting the dogs get a good
scent of her, stroking them and crooning all the while until
suddenly she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She
looked up. An enormous cat, a fat, long-hair calico, was not so
much walking down the steps from the balcony, Valerie thought, as
descending them grandly, her every step measured and regal.

"Ooooh," she cooed, "and who do we have
here?" The cat strode toward Valerie, her feet practically
invisible beneath her fat, furry body, and continued through the
veritable thicket of dogs' legs, rubbing herself up against Valerie
when she finally arrived at her feet. She was totally comfortable
with the dogs, ignoring their friendly sniffs and licks at her.
Valerie leaned down and stroked her silky fur, noticing her huge
green eyes.

"That's Mina," Santo said.

"Oh, Mina, you are a beautiful lady," Valerie
said. "Quite the
madame
, aren't you? And you look like you
have a lot of Maine coon in you."

"We think so, but we're not sure," Santo
said. "Wyn—Mr. Conrad—got her at the pound several years ago."

"She's certainly brave with these dogs,"
Valerie said.

"She's fearless," he replied. "She had a
Mexican standoff with a six-foot-long snake once. I don't think
she's due any shots, but you can check her chart. I have all their
medical charts here."

Valerie looked up at him in surprise. "They
usually send them to us," she said.

Santo looked stony-faced. "I had them sent to
Mr. Conrad overnight so you'd have them today. You can take them
with you when you leave."

I guess Mr. Conrad gets whatever he
wants
, she thought. "That's great," she said. "Could I take a
look at them?"

"Sure," he said. "They're over here." He
walked over to an enormous French
bureau
plat
, and
she picked up her bags and followed him, the dogs and cat trailing
behind her.

Santo indicated the pile of charts on the
desk, then placed them on a corner, where they were easily within
her reach.

Valerie set her bags down and studied the
charts for a while, then neatly placed them in a stack on the
desk's old burgundy leather surface and looked up at him.

"You're right about Mina," she said. "She's
up-to-date on everything." She turned around, looking at the dogs.
"So it's just you guys," she said. Then turning back to Santo, she
asked: "Okay if I set up here?"

"Sure," he replied. "Whatever's best for
you."

Valerie set her leather medical bag on the
desk, opened it, and started pulling out supplies: four syringes,
already filled with fluid, swabs and alcohol, and several boxes of
medication.

"I'll help hold them for you," Santo said,
starting to straddle Paddy's huge body with his own.

"No," Valerie said. "Just leave them be. That
won't be necessary."

"Uh, I beg to differ," Santo said. "I think
you're going to be a very sorry lady if you don't let me help you
out here."

She shook her head. "No," she said
emphatically. "Trust me on this."

Santo saw that she meant what she said, just
as she had down at the stables some weeks ago, and reluctantly
backed off. "Okay," he said, "but I think you're making a
mistake."

Valerie paid no attention to him as she
picked up an alcohol-soaked swab, looking over at the pack of
tail-waggers. "Okay, who's first?"

The dogs looked at her expectantly.

"Aha," she said, "I think Katy wants to be
first. You know the old rule, don't you, Katy? Ladies first."

She began stroking Katy's neck, talking to
her softly and reassuringly, all the while rubbing the alcohol-
soaked pad on the back of the neck where she wanted to give her the
injection. After a moment, she put down the pad, picked up the
syringe, and then deftly plunged it in. Katy looked around, but her
attention was diverted by Valerie's constant crooning.

Santo watched as she repeated the process
with the three remaining dogs without experiencing any difficulty
whatsoever. When she was finished, he shook his head. "I don't
believe it," he said, "not a single complaint."

Valerie smiled and continued petting the
animals. "You're all good boys and girls, aren't you?" she said.
"Okay, now we'll have our first heartworm pill. That's nothing. It
tastes like a real treat."

She opened one of the boxes on the desk and
tore off four of the large chewable pills. "They should have one of
these a month," she told Santo, opening the blister packs one by
one. "Here's a magnetized calendar you can put on the refrigerator
or wherever to keep track of when they should have them. You can
mark down today's date and go from there."

"Thanks," he said, taking it from her.

When she was done, she gave each of the dogs
one of the pills, and all four returned to their favorite spots to
chew them.

With a tiny meow, Mina jumped up on the chair
at the desk, then onto the desk itself. "Oh-ho," Valerie said, "are
we jealous?" She stroked the big cat, then looked at her more
closely. "Oh, Mina," she said. "You have a tiny tick on your
chin."

"What?" Santo said, looking at the cat.

"Yes," Valerie said. "See right there, just
below her lower lip? A tick."

"I hadn't seen it," Santo said,
apologetic.

"Well, it's easy to miss," Valerie said.
"It's barely begun to feed. I'll just get rid of it." She reached
over a thumb and finger, prepared to pinch off the tick.

"Don't do that!" a voice boomed out
authoritatively from somewhere above her.

Valerie jerked around, looking up, but she
didn't see anybody. She did see all four of the Irish wolfhounds
spring from their various positions and go bounding toward the
spiral steps that led up to the balcony.

"You'll either have to put her under or
heavily sedate her to do it," the voice continued, its volume now
lower, but still commanding.

Valerie's eyes followed the dogs to the
spiral stairs, where she finally spotted a figure standing up on
the balcony at the opposite end of the room. There her eyes rested,
trying to make out the distant figure, his body silhouetted against
the sunlight pouring in through the window behind him. He appeared
to be very tall and lean. His polo shirt revealed powerfully built
arms, a neck thickly corded with muscle, and hinted at an imposing
chest. Other than that, she could tell almost nothing about him
because he was wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his face,
casting it in shadow.

The elusive Mr. Conrad?
she asked
herself.
Obviously
, she decided.
Who else around here
would issue orders from on high?

"I think I can take care of the problem," she
finally replied in an even tone.

"Then I don't think you know the animal," he
said challengingly.

"And I don't think you know me," she retorted
without thinking.

"You're right about that," he said, "but I
know Mina extremely well."

She flushed in anger and embarrassment. Who
the hell did he think he was, questioning her abilities like this?
First the man all but begs her to come out here and treat his
animals, and now he insults her about those very abilities he is
willing to pay for.