Ophelia (11 page)

The stranger’s momentary shock of adjusting to the light of
the library was all David needed. He pounced and landed on his opponent’s
chest, only to find himself reeling a moment later. Although the lower half of
her face was covered in a skintight black mask, David had the feeling that he
knew those gray eyes…that he had seen the wavy hair somewhere in the back of
his mind. Hesitating only a moment, the bodyguard revealed her identity.

Time seemed to slow, then, as the light went out of the
woman’s eyes. Her hair fell more softly about her shoulders and after a moment,
she closed her eyes. David glanced away long enough to see whether she’d been
severely injured and when he looked back, his worst fears were confirmed.

It was Ophelia.

Half
tempted to roll her onto her back, David stopped himself when he recalled his
first aid training. He waited a moment to see if she was still breathing before
he stroked her cheek.

“Lia?”

He accompanied this with a little Irish, but she did not
stir. Feeling a little more frantic, David searched the detritus of the room,
but failed to come up with a flashlight. Cursing, the bodyguard lifted her
eyelids and examined her pupils.

“Eduardo!
Get up!”

David did not wait for a response before bursting into the
master bedroom. “Ophelia is home and she’s been badly hurt!”

“What happened? Did you call the paramedics?

“I—”

The younger man snatched the phone from the opposite side of
the bed and spoke rapidly to a dispatcher. After a moment, Eduardo dropped the
phone and rounded on the bodyguard.

“Where is she?”

“On the floor of the library. I didn’t move her in case of a
back or neck injury.” David hesitated. “She’s not conscious.”

Eduardo gave him a sharp look. “You haven’t told me what
happened. She certainly didn’t do this to herself…I would have heard her!”

The bodyguard headed for the door. “I’ll check on her and go
down to meet the ambulance.”

“You’ll go nowhere near her! It’s much too early to call
Wahim…wake Bernard and then meet the ambulance. I’m sure Ophelia won’t mind if
you two take the Lexus, but don’t touch my Porsche!”

~*~

After
nearly an hour of angry silence—in which the attending physician promised to
send in the neurologist as soon as possible—Eduardo was ready to explode. The
bodyguard snapped first.

“I hope you’re ready to deal with her for the next eight to
ten hours,” David growled. “She’s going to start crying at some point.”

“My wife rarely cries…why would the sudden change?”

“Think, if you will, of what it would be like if you hadn’t
slept in a while, that you were so
very
tired…but you were told that you
had to stay awake for at least another eight hours or risk death. Wouldn’t you
cry, eventually?”

“Fine,” Eduardo said bitterly. “I’ll console her and try to
keep her awake when she comes to.” A malicious smile spread across his face a
moment later. “Right after you explain to
both
of us what happened.”

“If she can’t remember, she doesn’t need to know.”

“You’re going to have to explain this to the police
sometime
.”

As if he had summoned her, a young woman stuck her head into
the cubicle.

“Dr. Washington. The police are extremely busy this evening
and asked me to take a statement.”

“Which I will be glad to assist you with, as soon as Mr.
Miraz leaves.”

The doctor raised her eyebrow as she glanced between David
and Eduardo, but the younger man finally complied, flipping the bodyguard an
obscene gesture on the way out.

“You witnessed the incident?”

David suddenly became interested in the wall above the
doctor’s shoulder.

“You were involved.” She glanced down and noticed the
protective way he was holding his left arm. “
Definitely
involved,”
Washington murmured.

“Mister…?”

“Westbrooke.”

“Mr. Westbrooke, if you’re injured, why haven’t you been
treated?”

“My priority is to protect Ms. Osborn.”

Dr. Washington made an impatient noise and rang for a nurse.

More
than an hour later, David had been x-rayed and stitched up, his broken ulna
set. Upon his insistence, the two of them had chivvied Eduardo from Ophelia’s
cubicle yet again and settled in to record the incident.

“What happened with Ms. Osborn that required fifteen sutures,
several contusions and your left arm to be put into a cast?”

“I thought she was an intruder. We fought.”

“How long have you worked for Ms. Osborn?

“If you’re trying to plumb the line between an honest mistake
and absolute stupidity, let me assure you that she was dressed in an unusual
fashion and her identity was obscured.”

Dr. Washington involuntarily glanced toward the bed, but a patient
care technician had changed Ophelia into a hospital gown as soon as the
attending physician had announced that she was stable.

“Instead of outlining the incident, perhaps you’d better tell
me the entire story.”

“I woke up at 2:30 and found myself tempted to go up to the
library.”

“I assume you live with Ms. Osborn?” the doctor interrupted.

“Since she left Ireland at the age of fourteen,” David
explained. “Before that, I lived in an apartment about ten minutes away from
Ophelia’s mother and stepfather.”

“Where is your room in relation to the library?”

“On the first floor, across the hall from the butler. The
library is directly above our rooms and the master suite is on the opposite end
of the house.”

“How long had you been in the library at the time Ms. Osborn
arrived?”

“About a half hour. I was thinking of going back to bed when
one of the windows overlooking the balcony exploded.”

“Was it rigged with charges or anything of that sort?”

“Not to my knowledge. As far as I could tell, the window
shattered when the intruder—Ophelia—tumbled through it.”

“The attending physician didn’t find any glass in Ms.
Osborn’s skin or any in her hair,” Dr. Washington replied. “What was she
wearing that made her impervious to such wounds?”

David described Ophelia’s armor, then added, “She was a
clothing designer before she inherited Osborn Scientific…I have no doubt it was
something she invented.”

“What happened after Ms. Osborn dove through the window?”

“I tackled the intruder with the intention of dispatching her
before Ophelia or her husband awoke.”

The doctor wrote in silence for a few minutes before she
asked, “Tell me the nature of your relationship with Mr. Miraz.”

“Affable. Eduardo was the perfect gentleman when they first
met, but he has been…out of sorts…since Ophelia left Australia.”

“Out of sorts how?”

“He has been prone to extreme bouts of jealousy and wildly
unsubstantiated claims,” David replied. “Eduardo’s most unrealistic theory
centered on Ophelia and I ‘fleeing’ Australia to elope.”

“You do not have romantic feelings for Ms. Osborn?”

“I have known Ophelia Rhiannon Osborn since she was six years
old, Dr. Washington,” David said icily. “She is young enough to be the daughter
I never had, and I have always thought of her as such.”

“Be that as it may, the police will think that Ms. Osborn was
planning to kill Mr. Miraz when they learn that he accused her of having an
affair with you.”

“If Ophelia intended to kill Eduardo, why didn’t she break a
window in the master bedroom?”

“Coming in the library window makes it appear that the
incident was a failed attempt at robbery.” Washington was smug. “But if these
ideas come so easily to you, perhaps the altercation was staged? Your broken
arm merely a result of ‘going too far’?”

“May I remind you that you are merely a doctor and not an
officer of the law,” David’s voice was soft, with a ruthless edge. “You will
leave the accusations to those who are actually
in
law enforcement and
concentrate on saving Ophelia’s life.”

~*~

Ophelia
did not wake for three days; and when she returned to consciousness, she had no
memory of the episode in the library. Harry visited a few times, but it was
primarily Eduardo and David who took it in turns to keep her company. Indeed,
Ophelia did not see her brother at length until after she was released from the
hospital.

“I do not recall inviting you to dinner.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t remember,” Harry
grumbled.

“If I were not preparing for a charity
event, I would slap that fork out of your hand and escort you to the street
myself, never mind David!”

Her brother chewed in silence for a moment. “What happened to
that other guy? Drew or whatever his name was?”

“Mr Whitaker was terminated when he took too
many liberties with my safety.”

Her emphasis on “terminated” made Harry slightly nervous, but
he didn’t say anything as he refilled his wine glass. His sister watched him as
she put in her right earring, but he failed to notice until she caressed his
scarred cheek.

“You should get a poultice for that…I am
sure there is a herbalist in the Village.”

“Stop touching my cheek!”

Ophelia continued to observe him as she sank into a chair.

“This is not about your cheek, is it?”

“Since when is ‘stop touching my cheek!’ not about touching
my cheek?”

“When it is about brooding over Bernard’s
story of the night our father died.”

Harry stiffened. “How did you know he told me?”

“It is the same story I listened to long
ago. I knew he had told you when your demeanour suddenly changed.”

He considered this for several minutes. “Do you believe him?”

“Edmund Bernard has not told me a lie since
I returned from Australia five years ago; I do not believe he has told one
since the moment I was born,”
Ophelia said.

When Harry didn’t respond, she added,

“If your best friend requires your
assistance, provide it. Do not let animosity stand in the way.”

Ophelia
teetered on the edge of her bed, feeling for all the world like gravity was
going to reach out a giant hand and pull her to the floor. Her cell phone
slipped out of nerveless fingers and fell to the floor with a soft tinkle of
plastic. The sound of her phone breaking brought Ophelia back to reality long
enough to slide off the bed and go after it, but the pieces were becoming
difficult to see as tears flooded her eyes.

“No!” she howled. Ophelia pounded the plastic shards,
heedless of the fact that she was drawing blood. “
NO!
”

The woman dissolved into a blaze of languages that sound like
neither Irish nor Spanish. She opened her mouth to punctuate this with a
lung-jarring scream; but her stomach churned and Ophelia found herself
scrambling toward the bathroom on her hands and knees.

~*~

“Are
you going to be okay?”

A murmur brought Ophelia out of her nauseated reverie and she
realized that someone was holding her hair back as she maintained a death-grip
on the toilet.

“Eduardo?”

“No.” The voice was a little clearer this time. “David. How
did this happen?”

“Hang on…”

Ophelia leaned over the bowl a second time, but her stomach
was already empty. David handed her a tissue and rubbed her back as she took a
few moments to catch her breath. When she realized that her stomach was
settled, she sat back.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“No,”
Ophelia said faintly.
“It is only stress…and perhaps a little too much to drink.”

This evoked a fresh wave of tears, causing Ophelia to turn
and grab her bodyguard in a crushing hug.

“Take your time,” he murmured, smoothing her hair.

“Hospital…called…”
Ophelia choked on
the next word
. “Harry…”

“Is he all right?”

David didn’t think it was possible for her to squeeze any
harder until she nearly yelled in his ear.

“Harry is
DEAD!
”

He was glad that she couldn’t see his expression as he closed
his eyes and returned the embrace. Ophelia hadn’t had a moment’s peace since
her father died and they could only hope that her brother’s death wouldn’t
bring more of the same.

“Is there anything we need to do?”

“…the morgue…”

“Where is your husband?”

“He stayed behind when I left the benefit,”
she whispered.

“My
stepdaughter received a call about an hour ago,” David announced, blatantly
lying in Ophelia’s hearing. “The caller said they thought her brother was
here.”

The attendant bent down to peer at Ophelia, who was leaning
heavily on her stepfather’s arm.

“Is she okay?”

“The news of her brother’s death hit her rather hard.”

“Decedent’s name?”

“Harry Osborn.”

“Harold
Ambrose
Osborn,”
Ophelia corrected in a weak voice.

The attendant slid her glasses down her nose. “She doesn’t
look like you.”

“I said I was her
step
father,” David retorted. “This
is Ophelia Rhiannon Osborn…the late Dr. Osborn’s daughter.”

“I’m going to need to see some identification. From both of
you.”

Ophelia fumbled for her driver’s license, slightly hindered
by her bodyguard’s solicitousness. When the attendant had examined both
licenses, she passed them back with a glare.