The Blood Eagle in the Big Easy (34 page)

Nothing like righteous anger of a child to make you feel ashamed of yourself and put you in your place. I stopped struggling to move around and sat there as quietly as possible before changing the subject. “You said something about moving the office?”

“We can get to that.” She looked at Nicholas who seemed to understand he wasn’t needed at the moment and left the room.

“Is everything alright?”

“No, not really.” Tears came to her eyes as she sat on the bed next to me holding my hand. The look on her face tore my heart to pieces as sadness nearly overwhelmed her. “I almost lost you last night, and I thought of all the stupid things I’ve done over the years and realized that I don’t tell you often enough how much you mean to me.”

Carefully I slowly reached over and put my hand on her shoulder. “You’re not going to lose me anytime soon...” Those were the exact wrong words to come out of my mouth. She bawled even harder than before and I felt helpless.

“You can’t promise that, not after last night.” She held my hand tight and for the first time she realized that I was truly mortal and I might not always be there for her. “You flatlined in the middle of surgery and there was nothing I could do but watch as your heart failed to respond after pulling glass shards from your right ventricle.”

Opening my mouth to speak I quickly thought better of it and to just let her get it out of her system. There was nothing I could say that would change what had happened and nothing I could do would bring her comfort. So I shut my mouth and listened.

“No matter what I did I couldn’t save you, but those little nanites did their job and sealed the hole and your heart started on its own accord.” Tears flowed like a river down her cheeks dropping heavily on my hand. She told me how she did her best to patch me back together and if it hadn’t been for the nanites I would have died well before she was able to finish.

She wanted to shout at me to stop going out in the field so I wouldn’t get hurt again but she knew that she couldn’t do that. There were too many other families who depended on me. Families whose fathers didn’t have my abilities or such an amazing daughter to put them back together again. One day though she knew my luck would run out and she would have to deal with the fact that I would die what would be most likely a very hard and painful death. Until that day she would be the best daughter she could be and I promised I would try to be a better father.

In light of our new arrangement she made a startling confession. The tacky furnished home she kept in the French Quarter was only there for her mother's and my benefit. Same thing with her car. She had another home on the North Shore which was much more tastefully decorated and the Audi R8 5.2 sports car she drove was an amazing piece of refined machinery. She only kept the garish house in the Quarter because I had bought it for her on her eighteenth birthday, and the obnoxious Hummer was to mess with me mostly. The fact that it bugged her mom was just a bonus. She admitted she loved to see me squirm and when we bought the place. She realized how horrified I was by the previous owners taste, so she adopted it as her own just to mess with us. Also to my great surprise she had actually been dating Nora for the last four years and was in a serious long term committed relationship with her. After a while though she didn’t know how to get out of the web of half truths and flat out lies without embarrassing herself so she had maintained the whole garish and flamboyant lifestyle all the while living across the lake in near wedded bliss.

“I’ll tell mom when things aren’t so crazy around here alright?”

“Your secret is safe with me.” Honestly who would believe me? “Besides I don’t think I am in any shape to deal with your mother just now.”

“God no, she would kill us both.”

“Who all knows what happened last night?” Concerned at how others would react to me being injured wasn’t always at the top of my priority list but with the current situation I needed to save face in public. People were depending on me to keep the city safe. “This is just a really bad time for me to be hurt.”

“Don’t worry no one except our two men who brought you in, Nicholas, Justine, and mom really know how bad things got last night.” She grabbed a tissue and wiped away her tears,  gaining control of her emotions. “Everyone outside the office thinks it was a gas explosion in the boiler room above your office, which is convenient if you think about it.”

“So are you ready to tell me about the move to the new office building?”

Kira chewed her lip as she stood nervously pacing the room. “Remember last year when I had you sign off on some land purchases?”

“Sure, you bought a place on the North...” It dawned on me that I had bought her new house. I really should pay more attention when she puts stuff in front me me to sign. “At least I know where you live.”

Kira blushed as she tried not to laugh. “I was going to tell you... eventually.”

“And there was that failed condo venture you bought dirt cheap on St. Charles.”

“That’s the one!” She beamed with pride suddenly losing all embarrassment of tricking me into buying her new home. “It’s been under construction since the day we took it over and it’s only six months from completion.” She busied herself, going around the room and putting things away as she quickly spoke. “The fifteenth floor had already been converted into very nice apartments before we acquired the property so they were left untouched. The other fourteen floors were retrofitted to house Warden Industries well into the twenty first century instead of the nineteenth like this one.”

Though feeling slightly offended I still had to admit she had a point but it still hurt, even if it was just a little. “I can’t wait to see the place.”

She smiled as she beamed at me. “That will be later today but for now I need to go upstairs and make some calls and wake mother. She’s been worried to death about you.” Opening the door Kira called for Justine who appeared almost instantly. “Justine will see to your needs for now so play nice, both of you!”

Justine smiled sweetly as she entered the room stopping long enough to check my chart before moving over to one of the shelves where she started filling one of the trays with very specific items.

“You might want to wait for the nurse or Kira to return if you need something.” She acted like she knew where everything was and what she was doing as she continued to take bandages, surgical scissors and clamps from the shelf placing them neatly on the waiting tray. “What the hell are you doing?”

Justine smirked as she shook her head. “You never read my resume, did you?”

“You were one of Kira’s new hires, so she took care of all that.” She was making me tense as she checked the items on the tray only to pull a few more bandages from the shelf.

Pushing the tray toward the bed she grumbled. “She is such a bitch!”

“Who?”

“Your daughter! She told me you were the one who recruited me.” She was obviously irritated with the situation and she was coming my way with several sharp objects. “If you had recruited me or even read my resume you would know I was a surgical nurse at Charity Hospital before the storm and I was very good at my job!”

Talk about overqualified to be a receptionist! “How the hell did she convince you to join us?”

“Well that’s a funny story.” She pulled the sheet back as she looked at my bandages. “Please hold still. I need to remove your IV and dress some of your wounds so we can transport you.”

True to her word she quickly removed the IV placing a cotton ball in its place and wrapping it with a stretch bandage. She leaned me forward as she assessed the dressings on my back. The burns on my forearms were nearly indecipherable. It looked like I had a bad case of rug burn, which was something I didn’t want to have to explain to anyone anytime soon. She cut away several of the bandages to find my wounds healed and the stitches looking completely out of place. She quickly removed them causing me only minor discomfort. There were only four wounds on my chest which still needed the silk stitching, which I was sure corresponded to the wounds on my back where I had been impaled by the larger shards of glass from my desk. Content with her work she pulled a white mesh shirt down over my head and around my body to hold the bandages in place while also applying pressure to keep me from tearing the stitches out as I moved around.

Grunting a little through the discomfort I was able to swing my legs off the bed as she helped me into a pair of jeans. “You promised me a funny story.” All things considered I wasn’t exactly embarrassed to have her helping me get dressed but I was a little uncomfortable with the situation. “Does this feel a little awkward to you?”

“It wasn’t exactly how I imagined I would get you out of your clothes, but things never go as planned.” She pushed me back onto the bed to keep me from falling over at her comment. “You really are slow aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry?” It had been a while since anyone had been that forward with me and it took me by surprise. “You what?”

She knelt down to help me with my socks, smiling all the while. “I guess we should get to that funny story.”

“I don’t think that will help...”

As she continued helping me dress she told me we had actually met during Hurricane Katrina when I brought in one of the surviving victims of the Kappa. She was working at the makeshift hospital the Army National guard setup near the Superdome where she had helped the young woman who had nearly bled out due to her wounds. It had taken twelve hours for me to get there through the aftermath. She had been impressed with the lengths that I had gone to to help save this woman’s life and she wanted to be a part of something that mattered in the end. She had heard rumors over the years about Warden Industries but that day was her first actual encounter with anyone associated with the company. It wasn’t until she was halfway through boot camp that she found out who I was. Justine was a little embarrassed to admit the fact that she had always had what amounted to a crush on me since then.

“I find going out and facing god knows what and saving lives in the process is sexy as hell!” As soon as she said this she blushed so hard I thought she might pass out from lack of blood. “But that’s a story for another time.?”

“I suspect it is.” As the drugs continued affecting me my mind swam through the information. “Does Kira know?”

“I would have to guess she does.” Justine helped me to my feet as I leaned heavily on her to stay upright. “I told her the story before I knew who either of you were.”

“Great, my daughter is playing matchmaker.”

“You could do worse.”

“Oh honey there isn’t anything wrong with you. Hell you're damn near perfect. It’s me that’s the problem.” We hobbled through the door as we made our way slowly toward the stairs. “The thing is I’m not exactly normal.”

“You don’t say!”

              The new headquarters of Warden Industries was located just off Hwy 90 on the corner of Clio and St. Charles. It was an L shaped fifteen story building that was several times larger than my old building. The facade of the place was definitely lacking in the style department with all primer gray paint covering the masonry. A we arrived we were ushered through the manned security gate to a private lot for VIP’s and visitors. Beyond that lay a multilevel parking structure at the properties extreme northern edge. The security presence was impressive as armed guards patrolled the perimeter which encompassed the entire block from St. Charles Ave to Carondelet St. and from Clio to Erato.

Making our way through the rear entrance from the garage I finally understood the scope of the undertaking Kira had started here. The place reminded me of a cross between an upscale hotel lobby, nature retreat and a law office reception area. The wide expanse was covered in gray black slate flooring with brushed nickel fixtures. The centerpiece of the room was a large fountain and throughout the sprawling lobby were these amazing green gardens giving the place a very zen-like feeling. A freshness hung in the air as I felt at peace for the first time in more years than I would have cared to think about.

Stopping for just a moment at the front desk the solid marble circular reception area, Justine handed me a keycard and temporary pin. Kira guided me through the first floor she pointed out things like the new cafeteria and armory along the way before reaching the stairwell. Scanning the card and entering the pin number the door popped open allowing me access. Everything above the main floor required special access cards.

My office was on the third floor overlooking St. Charles Ave. She’d taken the time to ensure that my office had the best view by installing floor to ceiling windows. The office itself was several times larger than my previous one with all the amenities of home such as a kitchenette on the far side of the room and a well rounded library on the western wall. The oversized bar was centrically located nearest the full living room set. Hell I could live here without having to miss any of the comforts of home. I hated to admit it but the more modern sleek looking furniture was actually... I can’t believe I’m even thinking this... appealing.

It was all very impressive except my new desk chair was beyond which was incredibly uncomfortable. “I see you have been busy.” The old mahogany desk seemed to barely work with the rest of the decor. I guess she was trying to break me in slowly.

Kira eyed me closely before she smiled slightly. “You like it don’t you!”