All That Bleeds (29 page)

She rattled the handle, then looked over her shoulder at the corners of the room. “There are probably cameras.”

“There are.” He walked slowly around the room, seemingly to admire the portraits, but she knew he was evaluating the security, too.

When they left the room, she leaned her head close to him. “Do you think you could get into the cabinet without triggering an alarm?”

He nodded. “I’ll see the layout of the security center at the after-dinner briefing.”

“Which is when Tobin wants me to meet him. I thought I’d stall until you could come with me. I don’t expect him to hurt me. Photographing me is a big part of how he makes his living. But maybe he’s had a more lucrative offer. Your coming with me is assuming you’re not too tired. It’s been a long day, and I know this is when you usually sleep.”

“I’m your bodyguard. I go where you go.”

No response about whether he’s tired, which he must be. He makes things so easy for me.
She stopped in front of her door.

He opened it and stepped in, surveying the room. She closed the door and leaned against it, waiting. After a quick sweep, he returned to her.

“I hope it wasn’t too awful—all that standing around, watching them set up the lighting and everything. Photo sessions are a lot more boring than people realize.”

“Yeah, looking at you for a couple hours is a real hardship.”

She set her palms against his chest, then moved one up to his cheek. “I miss your face. This new face is a great disguise, but it’s such a tease. I’ve wanted to see you in the flesh for so many years. Now you’re here, but you look like someone else.”

Merrick glanced at the clock, then unbuttoned his shirt.

Speaking of making things easy for me…

“You don’t have to do that.”

Merrick lifted the medallion over his head and dropped it on the carpet. Suddenly, he was himself again, the handsome jaw stubbled with black whisker shadow and the eyes darker than night.

As her fingers traced his cheekbone, she exhaled slowly. This was the face she’d dreamt about. Her thumb rested just under his lower lip.

“If I kissed you, would we be late for dinner?”

“Let’s find out,” he said, reaching behind her to lock the door.

One kiss became two. Two kisses became many. They traded the wall for the bed, but before either of them was satisfied, the telephone’s shrill ring interrupted. She grabbed his wrist to stop him touching her, so she could force her mind to clear.

She pulled away, breathless and laughing. “Hold on,” she said.

“I’d like to,” he murmured, which made her laugh again.

She put a finger to her lips to remind him to be quiet as she lifted the phone from its cradle.

“Hello?”

“Alissa, it’s Dimitri.”

She sat up straighter, moving her blouse to cover herself.

“Yes, Dimitri. Are you at the retreat center?”

“I am. Dorie just arrived.” He paused. “She brought Richard.”

Oh, God.
Her blood plummeted with the shock, leaving her light-headed. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Merrick roll from the bed.

“She brought my father?” she echoed faintly, trying to concentrate despite the roaring sound in her ears and the dread rushing through her body.

“Yes. I convinced him to join me in the lounge where he’d be out of sight. You should come. He’s not well.”

“I’ll be right there,” she said and hung up. She put a hand to her head. All the precautions she’d taken to keep her dad out of sight until after the vote had been for nothing. Still
reeling from shock and disappointment, she forced herself to stand and absently arrange her clothes. Dressed and back in his disguise, Merrick’s fingers deftly redid the buttons he’d opened moments earlier.

She was grateful for his silence and for the efficiency with which he got them into the hallway. The lounge door appeared in front of her more quickly than she would’ve wished. She took a deeper breath and exhaled, pulling her shoulders back, a gladiator entering the arena.

In the lounge, her father busied himself in the kitchen area, making coffee, whistling the toreador song, and occasionally talking to an imaginary companion.

Dimitri, Cerise, and Dorie formed a tight trio at the room’s center. Alissa heard bits of their conversation.

“…to help you,” Dorie said.

“I don’t want that kind of help,” Cerise hissed, and Alissa was grateful for that at least.

Spotting Alissa, Cerise strode over with a grim expression. “I’m sorry about this,” she said, then she lowered her voice and tipped her head closer. “If you want to drive Richard home, I’ll cover for you.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Alissa said. “I couldn’t count on Dorie’s discretion, and Dimitri can’t deny what he’s seen with his own eyes.”

Cerise shrugged. “He’ll find a way to help you. He always does.”

Alissa blinked. Cerise’s tone had been neutral, but the implication that she resented Dimitri’s support of Alissa was evident. Would Cerise have been happier if Dimitri had abandoned Alissa like every other influential person had, including Cerise, in the immediate aftermath of her mom’s death? Was Alissa supposed to have no one to turn to within the community?

“Good luck,” Cerise said, and walked out of the lounge without returning to her family.

“Cerise!” Dorie called, hurrying after her.

“People call me the ice queen,” Alissa said to Merrick softly, “but I’m a soft touch when it comes to the people I care about. Cerise, on the other hand, can hold a grudge forever. Dorie may
be about to find that out.” Alissa turned to her father, who was oblivious to all the drama.

Richard looked fit and handsome in his cable-knit sweater and jeans, with his recently trimmed hair neat and combed. To look at him, no one would’ve known how troubled he was.

Her dad approached, carrying two cups of coffee. He glanced to his left at an imaginary person and said, “I was not kidnapped. The girl tried to trick me by saying my daughter needed me, but I knew Andromeda was fine. Perseus was with her, after all.” He turned to Merrick and held out a cup. “It’s good Columbian coffee, but the machine’s not great. Helene and I had our best cups of coffee when we lived in Spain for a year.”

Merrick took a mug.

“Andromeda likes chicory coffee and beignets. You might take her to the Café du Monde in New Orleans. After you fight the Gorgon.”

For heaven’s sake,
she thought.

“I’m her bodyguard. Between Gorgons, I’ll go wherever she wants.”

In spite of everything, that cheered her. Both Merrick’s easy way with her dad and Merrick’s rock-steady commitment to be with her no matter what happened. She smiled at him, and the corner of his mouth curved up. Her clamoring heart slowed, and the tension in her body eased a little. She’d done everything she could to control the situation with her dad, but now it was out of her hands. She tried to think of it as a step toward freedom from living a lie, despite the disastrous timing.

Her dad extended a mug to her. “Andromeda takes her coffee black.”

“Like you,” she said, taking the cup. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Hi, Dad.”

Dimitri, who had been watching the exchange, joined them. “This might not be the best place to have your coffee,” he said to Alissa.

“No,” Alissa agreed. “We’ll go to my private study.”

Her dad returned to the counter and filled a mug for himself, then he walked to the sofa in front of the fireplace and sat.

“Dad, this is a common area and might get loud. I’d love
to show you my private rooms. I’ve got a beautiful painting of Mom there.”

“What about her journals? Did you find her missing journal?”

So he knew one of the journals was missing. Had he purposely started her looking for it?

“The EC has most of her journals and is keeping them safe,” Dimitri said.

Her dad took a swallow of his coffee. “Keeping them safe from whom? Helene’s writings belong to her daughter.”

“You signed them over to the council,” Dimitri said.

Alissa raised her brows. She hadn’t known that they’d had her father sign anything. He certainly hadn’t been competent enough to do that.

“I don’t need her books. She is ever present, like salt in the ocean,” her dad said. “You wanted to protect yourself, Dimitri. It didn’t matter to me if you did. But now what was taken should be returned.”

Dimitri rolled his eyes and looked at Alissa. “They wouldn’t have been safe in his care. Helene’s journals are an archive of her time as Wreath Muse. It would’ve been a problem if they’d been damaged or burned.”

So Dimitri had been aware of her father’s bouts of pyromania. Everyone seemed to know more than they’d revealed.

“I revoke my permission and transfer my signing power to Perseus.”

Alissa gaped at her father, who winked at her.

“They bully you, Andromeda, but no knife to his throat will cow this Perseus. Let him help you retrieve what’s yours.”

“Richard seems to think you have a very close relationship with Mr. Mills,” Dimitri said.

“He also thinks my name is Andromeda.”

Unperturbed, her dad finished his coffee and turned to Merrick. “That which nourishes also destroys, but it’s a magnificent destruction.” He glanced at the ceiling, murmured something, and then lurched off the couch and slammed into the cabinet.

Alissa and Dimitri gasped. Dimitri grabbed Richard’s arm, but as Alissa surged forward, Merrick drew her back.

“Let him,” Merrick murmured near her ear.

Richard shoved Dimitri away and cracked the cabinet under his fist.

“Richard!” Dimitri snapped, dragging him back. “Stop this. You’re not well. You’ll hurt Alissa’s chances for the Wreath!”

“Only a fool would deny her the Wreath, but then…we’ve been a company of fools, haven’t we?” Her dad plucked a journal from the shelf, continuing to push Dimitri away. Richard opened it.

Merrick put a hand on Dimitri’s arm. “Is it his wife’s journal?”

Dimitri looked startled to have Merrick address him.

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you let him and his daughter look at it? Seems like the mother’s estate belongs to them unless her will said otherwise.”

“A reduction,” her dad announced and tossed it in the fire.

Alissa and Dimitri shouted, but Merrick moved lightning quick, retrieving the book from the flames before it caught fire.

Richard shook his head. “No need, Perseus.” He walked to the counter and poured himself more coffee while Alissa and Dimitri recovered from their shock.

Dimitri turned and signaled to the corner of the room that everything was all right. Alissa glanced over, trying to spot the hidden security camera, but her attention was drawn back to her father when he spoke.

“It’s not a bad forgery, but stripped of its secrets and her heart’s blood, it won’t be worth reading by anyone who knew her. Where is it?” Richard asked Dimitri. “Where have you hidden Helene’s real diary?”

Dimitri denied that the journal wasn’t authentic, but Merrick could tell that Alissa wanted to dig deeper into things with the EC president. She asked Merrick to install Richard in the second room of the security suite next to hers, where Merrick was staying. Merrick didn’t mind dealing with her father, but he didn’t want to leave her alone in the lounge. Unfortunately, as Len Mills, he was supposed to be on her payroll, so he couldn’t argue or ignore her instructions in front of Dimitri Xenakis.

In the room, Merrick set Richard’s bags down. Despite the father’s moments of pure madness, Merrick was inclined to believe that there was a problem with the journal. Why else would Xenakis and the Etherlin Council deny Alissa access to it?

Richard ignored the suitcases in the middle of the floor, not bothering to unpack. Instead, he sat on the couch with his messenger bag and retrieved a stack of manuscript pages from inside. He set the papers on his lap and slid a red pen behind his ear.

“I don’t care that you’re not what you seem,” Richard said without looking up. “But they will. You should leave this place and take her with you.”

“She won’t go before the vote. She also wouldn’t go without you,” Merrick said.

“My wife is a muse. I belong to her and with her, in this life and the next.”

“Your wife is dead. Your daughter’s alive, and she needs you.”

Richard’s gaze went first to the ceiling and then lowered to rest on Merrick. “I’m a drowning man. She shouldn’t wade in after me. This river is too deep.”

“She believes she can rescue you.”

Richard looked back down at his pages. “She should rescue herself.”

Merrick’s jaw tightened and he leaned forward. “Are you fighting her help, Richard? If so, you and I are going to have a problem.”

Clear blue eyes rose to meet Merrick’s. “No doubt your problems are just beginning, my friend.”

Alissa flipped through the journal that was supposed to be her mother’s. The handwriting looked very much like the way she remembered her mom’s to have been. To discern if it was a forgery though, she’d need something she was sure her mother had written to do a side-by-side comparison.

She looked up to find Dimitri watching her. Setting the journal on the shelf, she turned to face him.

“There’s a lot of mystery surrounding her death.”

“It was a terrible tragedy.”

“I thought for a while that you were keeping her papers from me because you were trying to protect me, but now I wonder if you were protecting yourself.”

Dimitri’s black brows drew together. “Your father sees conspiracies where there are none. He’s clearly not in touch with the real world.”

“He’s generally lucid enough when it comes to her memory. It takes a bit of work to understand him at times, but there’s a vein of truth that runs through the things he says.”

“How could anyone spot it amongst the raving?”

“Practice.” She paused. “He’s not the only one who’s told me there was more to the end of my mother’s life than I
realized.” She leaned against the couch, studying him. “She spent a lot of late nights with you. I know that for certain.”

Dimitri slid his hands into his trouser pockets and drew his shoulders back.