Angel Falling Softly (25 page)

At two-thirty New York time, the stampede seemed to ease. The charts leveled off. In the boardroom at Loveridge & Associates, Milada brought up the real-time price/volume graphs on her laptop. She smiled to herself. The stock had hit an air pocket. Sell volume had outstripped buy volume. There were no bids, the worst possible thing that could happen to a stock. The market makers, day traders, elves and technicians, the portfolio managers, anybody with a position in the company—including a great many people who had no idea what the company did but had bought heavily in the run-up—perched in front of their NASDAQ Level II screens and held their collective breath.

They could only hold their breath so long. They all gasped together. WMI dropped like a rock. A thrown rock, to be sure, gliding down in a gentle curve, sinking slowly at first and then accelerating under the growing grip of gravity. Now the margin calls started kicking in, and the real carnage began.

Wylde bounced to the top of the most-active charts, a foreboding achievement for a small-cap stock. When the markets closed at four-thirty Eastern Daylight Time, it had bottomed out at 11 and recovered to 12.125.

Milada waited for the West Coast satellite feed of the
Nightly Business Report
to call Garrick. WMI led both the NASDAQ Actives and Big Movers charts. As the graphics flashed on the screen, the anchor provided commentary with the manner of a sports announcer running through the box scores: “Wylde Medical Informatics lost two-thirds of its value this week, dropping from forty to a tick over twelve. The sell-off is widely attributed to comments made late last week by CEO Darren Wylde, rejecting a possible takeover bid by DEI, one of Wall Street’s consistently underrated high-tech investment firms.”

Garrick was at dinner when he answered the phone. She could hear in the background the chime of silverware on fine china, the reverent, dignified commotion of waiters and busboys at work.
La Grenouille
on Fifty-Second, she guessed.

“Hi, Milly,” said Garrick. He said to his dining companion, “It’s Milly.”

“Hi, Milly,” said Jane.

Garrick said, “You enjoy our little performance today?”

“I’ve been watching the Wall Street wrap-up. You could have been a tad more subtle, Garrick.”

“I tried, I tried. But that’s what makes this economy such a wonderful thing. You get to go bankrupt with such speed and expedition. No helpless flopping about. I’d hate to be that Wylde chap right now. His board is going to have him for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

“Especially when you consider that the board consists mostly of his kids.”

“You can be mean, Milly.”

“What is our position in the company?”

“I bought in heavily at the end, moved us to just over half of outstanding.”

“What about capital gains?”

“Did my best to break even.”

“Good. I don’t want you getting arrested on me.”

“Hey, not a worry, Milly. The Feds love me. I never make money except when I’m supposed to. Where do we go from here?”

“Twelve is a generous market valuation. The stock should lose a few more points on momentum next week. But that’s where we’ll start the negotiations.”

“Will do.”

“Let me speak to Jane.”

Garrick passed the phone across the table. Jane said, “Hello, Milly.”

“Jane, when’s the last time we asked for a meeting with Mr. Wylde?”

“Last Wednesday, if memory serves.”

“So he knows where to find us.”

“He certainly does. Anything else?”

“What’s Zoë been up to?”

“Hasn’t gotten herself into trouble. Recently.”

“Good. How about Frank?”

“Still jazzed about this green energy thing he’s got going with Alan Ridgeway. Ethanol and fuel cells are where it’s at these days.”

“Is he serious about that? A little learning is indeed a dangerous thing.” Milada sighed. “And Alan Ridgeway? What’s in it for him? God, I thought it was all talk, another one of Frank’s phases. At any rate, make sure Muriel signs off on the books before anybody at the SEC starts asking for them.”

“Sure, as soon as she can
find
the books. Oh, Garrick wants to say something.”

She handed back the phone. Garrick said, “It’s been a good day, Milly. Go get yourself something to eat.”

Milada laughed. “I had a very interesting repast this past weekend.”

“You must tell me all about it.”

“I’ll think it over.”

“You do know how to keep a man intrigued.”

“You’ll have to settle for Jane in the meantime.”

“I’m intriguing her right and left.”

She heard Jane laugh. A pang of loneliness struck hard at Milada’s heart. In that moment she wished more than anything she were back in New York, sharing the table with Jane and Garrick, her two best friends in the world.

“Take care, Garrick.”

“Cheerio, Milly.”

Milada hung up the phone, took off the headset, and hit the intercom button. “Karen, call Executive Ground Transport and have Steven sent over. Hold my calls. I’m done for the day.”

R
achel stood at the door to Jennifer’s hospital room, waiting for Milada to glance up and see her. She felt a pang of guilt in her heart for having burdened a complete stranger with her own family’s tragedy. She’d been expecting drive-by charity. Milada actually
caring
hadn’t been part of the equation. But now that empathy seemed like the single remaining thread of the lifeline keeping Rachel’s head above water.

Rachel sat down across the hospital bed from her. Milada casually retrieved a nine-by-twelve envelope from the side table and returned it to her attaché. Something to do with her business, no doubt. Milada had fewer qualms about revealing the impossible things about her life than the mundane.

Rachel was no different. The more impossible her beliefs, the more bold she was in her beliefs and the more willing to claim a knowledge of
things not seen.

But now a black tide of doubt spilled into her thoughts.

Again, in a moment of honest introspection, she would admit that Laura was right about her sister:
She just lies there.
What drew her time and again to this sterile room, what kept her in the uncomfortable plastic chair by her daughter’s bed, was a daydream, a hope, a fantasy that in the next moment Jennifer was going to open her eyes and recognize her and say, “Hi, Mom.”

And she would be there to take her in her arms and comfort her. The thought alone brought tears to her eyes.

When that moment didn’t come, there was the next moment, the next moment in which everything would change, and then the moment after that. It was pure hope, it was faith without works. But it kept her more alive than anything else she knew.

She said to Milada, “Do you need a ride home?”

Rachel couldn’t think of anything else to keep the conversation going. She really did need to learn more about business and finance. There was no telling when such knowledge could come in handy.

When she pulled into Milada’s driveway, she put the Odyssey in park and turned off the engine.

“Thank you for the ride,” Milada said with perfunctory courteousness.

Rachel hesitated a second and then got out as well. As she came around the front of the car, Milada gave her a disconcerted—even annoyed—look that Rachel pretended not to see. She hated presuming on other people. But desperation was a powerful thing. It drove Saul to Endor, and it drove her here. The briefest memory of Jennifer lying comatose in her hospital bed eviscerated any second thoughts.

The last straw. This was it. She would seize it and let it go and let the wind carry the chaff where it may.

The air inside the house was still warm from the heat of the day. Rachel closed the door behind her. Milada turned on the kitchen light and then the cooler fan, filling the dark, empty quiet with soft incandescent light and hushed white noise.

“Jennifer was doing better for a while.”

Milada didn’t answer.

Rachel could no longer be bothered with subtleties. She said in a pleading whisper, “If Jennifer were like you, she wouldn’t die—”

“The infection alone would kill her.”

“The cancer will.”

“Does your faith thrive on failure, Rachel? Pascal’s wager is the rationalization of gamblers everywhere. God plants the seed, and we do everything in our power to make it grow. He gets the praise if it lives. We take the blame if it dies. How is that fair?”

Rachel stared back at her. She didn’t know the answer.

“You asked me before, so I shall tell you: I am the creation of a virus. A carrier, a host, or perhaps I have become the parasite itself. Genetically speaking I am hardly human. A medical curiosity. There is nothing miraculous about me.”

“Then why do you care?” Rachel asked desperately.

“Do you want the truth? Then let me tell you about my family. I have three fathers—the man who gave me life, the devil who gave me eternal life, and the
paterfamilias
who forced upon me a life worth living. If Jennifer became like me, whose blood would flow in her veins? Whose daughter would she be? Tell me that is something you could live with.”

Milada pushed Rachel out of the way and descended the stairs to the basement. But Rachel knew how to deal with recalcitrance. After all, she had a teenager in the house. And though for most of her life her brothers had been bigger and stronger, she could usually goad them into seeing things her way. She could be just as stubborn and no less insistent. It was not something she was proud of.

“What do you want, Rachel?”

The tone of indifferent exasperation in Milada’s voice only stoked Rachel’s fury. “
Jennifer wouldn’t turn out like you!
” she shouted, the words erupting out of all her shattered dreams and wounded pride.

Milada whirled about, eyes blazing, the tendons in her neck tight with fury. Rachel quailed. She retreated to the hallway, retreated until her heels clicked against the baseboard and her head thumped against the sheet rock. Milada’s right hand flew to her throat, pinning her like a butterfly to the wall. Rachel did not doubt that if Milada closed her fingers her spine would snap in two.

The flesh between Milada’s thumb and forefinger pressed so evenly against Rachel’s larynx that she was not conscious of the force Milada was exerting until her lungs convulsed from lack of air. Instinctually she grabbed at Milada’s forearm. She might as well have been grasping an iron rod.

The pupils in Milada’s pale eyes dilated, widening into ovals. Her lips parted, revealing the tips of the needle-sharp fangs behind her white incisors. Rachel felt the raw scream of anger coming. She tried again to push the hand away. Black splotches bloomed in the borders of her vision.

At the last moment Milada held back, her voice emerging in a strained shout, still loud in Rachel’s ears. “That man came from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
I was twelve years old.
When did I fear God for naught? I did as I was told and did it well. Tell me, where are my fourteen-thousand sheep and my six-thousand camels and my seven sons and three daughters?
Where?
”

Milada’s voice broke. The ferocity in her countenance faded as suddenly as it had appeared, replaced by a softer expression, hurt, almost, by what she had been driven to do. She walked away.

Rachel slid to the floor, gasping for breath, her limbs twitching, the blood pounding in her veins. Her hand went to her throat. Milada had not, she was sure, even bruised the skin. A storm of emotions kaleidoscoped through her mind. Rachel started to laugh and then to sob.

She pushed herself off the floor. When she got to the top of the stairs, Milada was sitting at the kitchen counter staring at a glass of red wine. She didn’t look up. Rachel steadied herself. She took a breath and let it out.

“You may have her.”

After all you can do.
It would be impossible for her to do more or to offer more. Had Milada asked for her life in exchange, she would have laid her own body on the table. But Milada didn’t want her life.

Now Milada looked at her.

Rachel said, “Hannah asked for a child, and when she was blessed with a son took him to Eli to have and to raise as his own.”

Milada looked away. Bitterness filled her voice. “
Therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering.
”

“Please. Surely the Lord forgave Eli for the life he gave Samuel.”

“Do I look like a mother to you?” Milada smiled wryly and shook her head in disbelief. “Christians claim to believe in eternal life. So why are you so afraid of death, Rachel?”

The question rocked her back on her feet. Her heart reacted before her mind could respond, before her mouth could answer. Rachel clenched her hands and teeth but couldn’t restrain the tears coursing down her cheeks. The reason was so very simple, and yet she had never articulated it aloud before. “Because I’ll miss her when she’s gone. I’ll regret all that she could have been.” She drew a great sobbing breath. “I’m sorry, Milada. I shouldn’t have—” She turned toward the front door.