The Lady Vanishes (11 page)

He supposed she had a point, but she was his friend. She was Roland’s friend. The idea of taking her bra off without her noticing seemed weird at the very least. “Roland did tell you what I want?”

She rolled her eyes, stripped off her thick pink scarf, and unbuttoned her coat. She tossed the scarf and the coat over the back of the admin’s chair and paused to sniff the roses in the vase on the desk.

“These smell amazing,” she said, flashing Milton a smile. “Stop frowning, Milton. I don’t know why you want to take some woman’s bra off without her realizing it, but I’m willing to play along.”

Still frowning, Milton nodded.
Maybe this is a bad idea.
It had been a whim mostly, but he liked the challenge.

“Well,” Blake said, rubbing her hands together. “Let’s do this. I didn’t put on my best bra for nothing.” Laughing, she turned on her heel and walked out of the room toward Milton’s office.

Blake was a tall, slender woman who looked more like she belonged on a beach in California than in a Boston winter. She had blond, stick-straight hair, long legs, and large breasts. Men flocked to her, but it seemed like she was only ever attracted to the ones who were the worst for her. He, Roland, and Nick had met her at the bar near the MIT campus where she’d been working as a waitress when they were students, and they’d all been friends ever since.

The two men followed her into Milton’s office. Blake was looking at his bookshelves, picking up the small pieces of evidence of tricks that had failed. She paused at a photograph of his family, holding it gently in her pale, slender fingers.

Milton tensed, fishing a coin out of his pocket. She watched him, friendly understanding in her gaze.

“He would have been thirty-two this year, wouldn’t he?”

She was asking about Milton’s little brother, William, who’d died when he was ten years old and Milton was twelve. She knew about it because he’d gone to the bar where she worked and gotten raging drunk on his brother’s birthday. Raging drunk to the point that he’d attempted to perform on top of the bar, so obliterated that he’d barely been able to stand. Blake had called Roland and Nick and the two men had managed to wrestle Milton into a booth. He didn’t remember it, but apparently he’d told them the story of his brother, and why he’d started working with magic.

He rubbed the coin in his pocket and shifted his feet. He didn’t drink like that anymore. No more than a glass of wine or two on occasion.

“You know I don’t talk about that, Blake.” He wasn’t angry; he knew she meant well. She always meant well, but he didn’t talk about his brother, ever.

“I know,” she said, and placed the picture back on the shelf. “It’s a great picture.”

Milton relaxed and let the coin drop back into his pocket. “Thanks, Blake.”

“No problem. You want to tell me why you want to take off some woman’s bra without her noticing?”

“I want her. I want to know her.”

Blake blinked. “And you think that’s the way to go? Taking off her clothes without her knowing it?”

Milton shrugged. “Probably not. Now I’m just curious if I can do it.”

Blake seemed thoughtful for a moment, a small frown between her eyes, but then she half smiled. “It might work. Depends on how you go about it, I imagine. And whether she likes you back.”

And there was the problem. Milton didn’t know if Regina liked him or not. She turned him down, but she’d kissed him.

Roland came into the room then, shutting the door behind him. Frustration turned down the corners of his mouth.

“You finished the algorithm?” he asked Milton.

“I did,” Milton answered. “So show me.”

Roland didn’t attempt to charm Blake or distract her. “Come over here and just stand like I’m talking to you.”

He turned to Milton. “The key is to manage to wrap your arms around her. You’ll need a reason she won’t suspect. This is really better with a team, someone to cause a distraction.”

A team,
Milton considered. He could enlist one of the kids and maybe not tell the kid why he wanted to put his arms around Dr. Burke, but he thought maybe it was inappropriate. A little inappropriate. Maybe one of the nurses?

He watched Roland remove Blake’s bra three times, each time without her realizing it until the bra was gone, and then he attempted the trick. He managed to remove it without her noticing on the third try.

“And I’ve got big tits,” Blake added, holding up her purple bra. “So it’s really impressive.” She gave Roland a mock flirtatious look. “Maybe you should start a school, Roland.”

A knock sounded on the door, but it opened before anyone could say anything. Nick, his blue eyes blazing, stepped inside the room and took in the sight before him. Milton standing next to Blake, Blake with her bra hanging from one fingertip.

He didn’t say anything, just stared at Blake until her cheeks turned red, and then he left, closing the door behind him. Both Roland and Milton stared at her.

With a quick, jerking movement, Blake put her bra back on without taking off her sweater, something Milton had always considered a magic trick all its own.

“Judgmental ass,” she muttered. She looked at the two of them. “Are we done? I want to run some errands before my shift.”

“Yeah,” Milton said quickly. “We’re done.”

She left quickly, her long legs moving even faster than usual, the door shutting behind her with just a little too much force.

Milton looked at Roland, who shrugged.
I guess he doesn’t know what that’s about, either.

“So what’s all this about a benefit?” Roland scratched the back of his head and took a seat in one of Milton’s chairs.

Milton, who had glanced at his bookshelf, at the photograph in front of his old house, focused on Roland’s question with relief.

“I want to have a magic show for the children at the hospital, only I want them to perform the tricks. They like learning how; it distracts them.”

“I can see why they’d enjoy it, but what does hosting a benefit have to do with removing a woman’s bra?”

“I didn’t say there was a connection.”

Roland smiled at him wryly. “You didn’t have to, my friend.”

Milton took a seat behind his desk and took out a deck of cards. Shuffling rapidly, he spoke, “I met a doctor there, Dr. Regina Burke. She’s beautiful, Roland.”

“I’m sure she is,” Roland agreed, his voice soft. “You don’t think this could turn into a problem, your mixing work at the hospital with this woman?”

“I can’t help it,” Milton muttered, laying the cards out on the desk. “I want her.”

“Okay,” Roland said. “Then I’m happy to help.”

Milton frowned. “How do you think you can help me?”

Roland shrugged and stood. “You go at everything in such a straightforward way, Milton. No detours—you see something you want and you go for it, but I’ve seduced plenty of women. You want to know the one thing they all have in common?”

Milton did want to know. This was another kind of magic trick. “Yes. I do.”

“They want to believe that a man understands them even better than they understand themselves. You should find out about her, find out what she likes, what she wants, what she needs.”

“That’s it?” He’d already found out what she didn’t like, why she wouldn’t go out with him. And he knew she enjoyed working with the kids at the hospital, but unless he hacked her system and read her files, he didn’t see how he could get to know her if she wouldn’t let him.

Roland nodded, patting the pockets of his suit coat as if looking for something. Milton held up his wallet casually.

Roland half smiled. “Well done.” He took his wallet back and made as if to leave.

“What if I already like her?”

Roland paused and glanced back at him. “You don’t even know her.”

Milton thought of all he knew about her. She worked hard; she was fierce, honest. She helped sick kids and she tasted like she was made for him. Other than her refusal to go out with him, he liked almost everything he knew about her.

“I know quite a bit.”

“It’s an illusion, Milton. A trick. No one really knows anybody else, not at first sight.”

Milton frowned. Maybe that was true, but he’d dated women before and never felt this sense of connection. He felt it the same way he felt the certainty that a trick would work. He couldn’t explain it, but it wasn’t something he could just ignore.

“I’ll get to know her,” he said stubbornly.

Roland nodded. “I never doubted it for a second.”

BY MONDAY MORNING,
Regina had come to the conclusion that Milton Shaw took her at her word and would not be contacting her again. A part of her, a very small and private part of her, was disappointed that he hadn’t at least tried to go out with her again. Still, she knew that Accendo was scheduled to install the new patient software today, and she had the uneasy feeling that Milton Shaw didn’t give up as easily as it might seem.

Frustrated at herself because she couldn’t get the man out of her head, she rode her bike in the icy drizzle, telling herself for the hundredth time that she needed to get a car. She didn’t want to have to deal with parking the damn thing, though, and it wasn’t like she went far—just to work, which was only a few miles on a bike lane. She wore layers of high-tech cycling gear and antifog lenses to protect her eyes, and after a few minutes of riding, she told herself she barely felt the cold. Which was a big-fat-daddy lie.

When she arrived at the hospital’s employee entrance around six thirty, she locked up her bike, dug her employee ID out of her backpack, and swiped it to access the back entrance, which had a nurses’ station and locker rooms for both male and female staff. She hurried into the building, removing her helmet once she was inside, and tousled her hair. The guard on duty waved to her, but one of the nurses, Sarah, stopped marking on the patient board and shook her blond head in disbelief. “I think all doctors are crazy. But you take the cake, Dr. Burke.”

“Thanks, Sarah.” Regina appreciated the honesty, if not the sentiment.

She shifted her grip on her helmet and backpack and headed for the locker room. Her wet shoes squeaked on the white ceramic tile floor. The guard at the desk, a young man named Colton, stopped her. Behind him, a phone rang, and one of the nurses answered it. Regina didn’t see anyone from Accendo working with the computers, but they’d explained that for the most part, the transition should be seamless, simply switching from one environment to the other on the server. In Regina’s experience, no transition was that easy, especially if technology was involved.

“Ah . . . Dr. Burke?”

“Yes, Colton?” she asked curiously and took a few steps back toward the desk. He was gesturing at an enormous red box tied with a shiny ribbon. Milton Shaw. She’d bet her bicycle on it.

Sighing, she approached the counter and set her helmet and backpack down before eyeing the box warily. Was it going to explode? Burst into flames?

“It’s for you,” he managed and swallowed.

“Yeah.” Regina continued to eye it warily.

He nodded. “It arrived an hour ago.”

“Has it made any noise?”

He blinked. “Noise?”

She touched the outside of the box carefully. “Like ticking, or chirping, or maybe hissing?”

He chuckled, as if she was teasing, but Regina was mostly serious. Milton Shaw was a trickster. Who knew what was in this box?

“Open it,” one of the nurses prompted, and Regina blew out a breath. She drew on one of the tails of the large bow, hoping this wasn’t going to be too embarrassing, and sucked in a breath, surprised. Inside the box were mustaches and glasses, dozens of them, and a note that read, “For the kids.”

But underneath was a small box with a different note: “For you.”

Regina picked up a pair of red glasses with a bold nose and a thick brown mustache, and managed to slip the flat, rectangular box into her pocket at the same time.

One of the nurses chuckled.

Colton looked puzzled. “Is it a joke?”

Regina sighed. “More or less.” She put the mustache and glasses on her face and handed the box to Colton. “Pass these out to everyone, would you?”

“We’re supposed to wear them?” another nurse asked, her voice squeaking slightly.

“I’m afraid so. They’re from the magician.”

There were small titters of laughter, but no one protested—they often wore silly costumes for the kids—and in a few minutes everyone in the room was wearing the glasses and mustaches and going about business as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

She left before they could ask her any more questions, turning around and walking down the hall toward the entrance to the locker room. She stepped inside the cool, dim interior. Someone was taking a shower; she could hear it running.

She took a seat on the bench in front of the locker and pulled the note and the small box out of her pocket. Flat and rectangular, it was tied with a red bow.

Milton Shaw. What is he up to?

She opened the box warily and immediately let out a relieved breath. It wasn’t some ridiculously expensive necklace. Instead, a high-end bike light with five different flash settings lay nestled on top of a pair of Pearl Izumi P.R.O. Softshell riding gloves. Designed to stay dry in extremely cold weather, the gloves were expensive and extremely warm. Her hands weren’t going to freeze anymore on her rides. She pulled them out and saw a map, folded neatly in the bottom of the box. “Hidden Bike Routes of Boston” was written at the top.