“Have you seen your face in a mirror?”

“Yes.”

“How would you describe what you see?”

“I look like I’ve been in an accident.”

“You look like a living eggplant.” When her expression remained stubbornly determined, he changed tactics. “Reporters and photographers have been hanging around downstairs, hoping for a look at you. You don’t want anyone to see you looking like this, do you? You have a public image to preserve.”

Leigh was in no mood for a lecture on the importance of her public image. It was already Wednesday, and the helicopters wouldn’t be able to fly tomorrow if the weather didn’t improve. She wanted to help the police narrow down the search by finding the spot where her car went over the embankment. She could not endure another day of helpless inactivity and enforced bed rest. Her body hurt everywhere, but her mind was clear and she needed to be able to act.

Her doctor mistook her silence for assent. “You know I only have your best health interests at heart. You simply are not well enough to be discharged.”

“Let’s pretend I’m an ordinary blue-collar worker,” Leigh proposed smoothly. “I have a family to support and no money to cover what my HMO policy won’t pay. If that were true, Dr. Zapata, when would you discharge me?”

His gray brows snapped together.

“Would it have been yesterday?” she prompted.

“No,” he said.

“Then when?” she persisted.

“This morning,” he said. “You’ve made your point, Mrs. Manning.”

Leigh instantly felt like a witch. “I’m very sorry. That was rude of me.”

“Unfortunately, it was also completely on point. I’ll sign your discharge papers after I stop in to see you in the morning—provided you agree to leave here in an ambulance.”

As soon as he left, Leigh tried to call Brenna, but her secretary had already started for home. With an hour to waste, Leigh made her way slowly and painfully to the chair opposite her bed. She eased herself onto it and began leafing through the magazines and newspapers she’d gotten earlier from a volunteer who was pushing a cart with reading materials. Leigh was trying to rebuild her strength.

At six-thirty, she put the newspapers aside, crept back to her bed, and called Brenna at her home number. “I have a favor to ask,” she began. “It’s a little out of the ordinary—”

“I don’t care,” Brenna interrupted swiftly. “Just tell me how I can help.”

“I’m being discharged in the morning. Could you bring me some fresh clothes?”

“Of course. Anything else?”

“Yes, rent a four-wheel-drive vehicle and drive that up here. Park it somewhere close to the hospital, then take a cab the rest of the way. I’m required to leave the hospital in an ambulance,” Leigh explained, “but I’m not going to stay in it. We’ll let the ambulance go as soon as we get to the rental car.”

“And then what?” Brenna asked uneasily. “I mean, if you need an ambulance in order to leave the hospital, shouldn’t you stay in it back to the city?”

“We’re not going directly back to the city. The police can’t follow my map, but I should be able to find the place where I went off the road. The cabin where I was supposed to meet my husband has to be very close to that spot.”

“I understand,” Brenna said, “but I’m really worried about you, and—”

“Brenna, please! I need your help.” Leigh’s voice broke with exhaustion and fear, and when Brenna heard it, she capitulated at once.

“I’ll take care of everything,” she promised fiercely. “Before you hang up,” she added, “there’s something I want to say. I hope you—you won’t take this in the wrong way.”

Leigh leaned her head against the pillows and braced herself to hear something she didn’t want to—the normal outcome, in her experience, of any statement that began with someone suggesting that the listener not take it the wrong way. “What is it?”

“I haven’t worked for you very long, and I know you have hundreds of friends you could turn to, so I’m very pleased . . . well, flattered . . . that, you’re counting on me . . . when you have so many other people . . .”

“Brenna,” Leigh said with a weary smile, “I hate to disillusion you, but I have hundreds of acquaintances I can’t trust, and only a few true friends I can completely trust. Two of them are on the other side of the globe, and one of them is lost in the mountains. Everyone else—casual friends, acquaintances, and people I’ve never even met—are already under siege from the media. The newspapers are full of misinformation, speculation, and wild innuendos, and they’re getting that stuff from my so-called friends and close acquaintances.”

Brenna fell silent, obviously trying to think of another explanation, but there was none. “That’s very sad,” she said softly.

It was also the least of Leigh’s worries. “Don’t dwell on it. That’s simply the way life is for people like me.”

“Thank you for trusting me; that’s all I wanted to say.”

Leigh closed her eyes. “Thank you for being—for being you.”

When Brenna hung up, Leigh gathered the last of her strength and made her final phone call of the night. It was to her publicist, Trish Lefkowitz. She gave Trish a quick, unemotional update on the situation, and once Trish had offered words of sympathy and encouragement, the publicist got straight down to business: “Do you feel up to giving me some instructions about how you want me to handle the press? Up until now, I’ve been winging it.”

“That’s why I’m calling. I’m going to be discharged in the morning, but I’m not going directly home, and I don’t want reporters following me. Brenna and I are going to drive up into the mountains to look for the place where I had my accident.”

“That’s crazy. You can’t possibly be well enough—”

“If I can find it, it will help narrow down the search.”

“Men!” Trish exploded. The publicist’s long string of unsatisfactory relationships was turnin

g her into an outspoken man-hater. “Logan is probably camping out in some cozy snowbound cabin, with a farmer’s wife baking him cookies, while we’re all going crazy with worry and you’re trying to rescue him.”

“I hope you’re right,” Leigh said.

Trish sighed. “Me, too, Now, let me think, how can I distract the media so you can make your getaway . . . ?”

Leigh waited, picturing the publicist pushing her shoulder-length black hair behind her right ear, then slowly twisting the end of a lock and tugging on it while she contemplated the situation. In happier days, Leigh had teasingly warned her that the entire lock of hair was going to drop off in her hand one day.

“Okay, here’s the best way. I’ll call the hospital’s spokesman—his name is Dr. Jerry-something. I’ll have him notify any members of the press who are hanging around the hospital that you’re being released in the morning and will be leaving by ambulance to come home. Then I’ll arrange for an empty ambulance to leave the hospital, and hopefully, they’ll chase it all the way back to New York City. How’s that sound?”

“It sounds good. One more thing—notify the media that I’ll give a press conference at home tomorrow tonight.”

“You’re kidding! Do you feel up to that?”

“No, but I need their help and cooperation. A police artist is working up a sketch of the man who found me after my accident. We can hand out the drawing if it’s ready. I also want to try to put a stop to the rumors I read in two newspapers tonight that Logan’s disappearance is merely the result of some sort of marital squabble. The NYPD has volunteered to get actively involved in the search, but newspaper articles like those will make the police look—and feel—foolish.”

“I understand. Can I ask how you look?”

“I look okay.”

“No bruises on your face, or anything? I’m thinking about cameras.”

“I need a public forum; it doesn’t matter how I look.”

Tags: Judith McNaught Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net