She eyed him suspiciously. “Yeah, right, and I’m Michael Jackson’s love child.”
He grinned at her. “You don’t look like him.”
“Very funny. Look, I gotta run—” She started to get to her feet and he grabbed her, held her in place.
“Don’t run.” It was all he said, just two simple words, but in his voice she could hear understanding. And suddenly the two words didn’t seem simple at all. Slowly she bent back down to her knees and looked at him, really looked. “How’d you stop?”
“Aunt Vicki put me in detox. When I dried out, I transferred to this school. At first it was hard…. I didn’t know anyone. But I ran for vice president to make friends, and I won.” He grinned sheepishly. “Course, no one ran against me.”
“I found out this weekend that Angel DeMarco is my dad.” She hadn’t meant to say it, somehow it just came blurting out. She waited, shoulders tensed, for him to respond. To make fun of her.
He studied her. “Yeah, you sorta look like him.”
“I do?” She heard the completely dorky awe in her voice and she winced, embarrassed.
“You’re way prettier, though.”
The compliment fluttered through her. A quick smile jerked one side of her mouth. “Thanks.”
She looked at him again, and saw for the first time that he sort of looked like a young Hugh Grant. Not really like a nerd at all.
Chapter Twenty-two
The doctors’ lounge was uncustomarily quiet in the last few minutes before the close of the day shift. The tables were empty, their cheap, brown surfaces cluttered with paper cups and plastic forks. A row of soda and candy machines stood waiting for the next shift of storm troopers to descend, quarters in hand.
Madelaine sat at the rickety table closest to the window, her fingers cupped around the comforting heat of a thick porcelain mug. The burnt scent of French roast coffee wafted upward.
At precisely 5:01 Allenford and Sarandon strode through the single
doors, pulling down their surgical masks in unison. Both men nodded at her and headed for the coffee machine, plunking their money in one after another and waiting in silence for the paper cups to drop into the slot and fill with coffee. Then they carried their drinks to the table.
Chris had a pile of tabloids tucked under his arm, and he tossed them onto the table. Headlines jumped up at Madelaine. Angel DeMarco in St. Joseph’s Hospital … AIDS … cancer … heart surgery … heart transplant.
The two men sat down across from her. Chris reached instinctively for the cigarettes in his breast pocket. Pulling one from the pack, he stared down at it, caressing it absently.
Madelaine was used to his little ritual. He’d given up smoking three years ago—due to the sheer volume of staff and patient pressure—but he still held a cigarette when he’d had a hard day and he needed to think.
Finally he looked up at her. “The DeMarco situation is heating up.”
Madelaine nodded. “I heard a photographer from one of the magazines caught him in physical therapy yesterday.”
Sarandon gave a tired smile. “He wasn’t happy—and he made sure everyone on the floor knew it.”
Madelaine laughed softly. “I don’t doubt it.”
’The point is,” Allenford said, “we can’t hold out much longer. Our security is getting more sievelike every day. Obviously we’ve misled the press by implying he underwent simple cardiac surgery, but that won’t last much longer.”
Allenford took a long sip of coffee, eyeing Madelaine. “You know that security is not the only problem here.”
Madelaine knew what he was going to say before he said it. She’d tried not to think about the repercussions of his celebrity, but they kept coming back, worming through her joy at Angel’s progress. “You mean Francis,” she said dully.
Allenford stared sympathetically at her. “Some reporter is going to discover the connection. The only reason they haven’t discovered it yet is because there’s been no official confirmation of the transplant—they’re too busy trying to find the woman who supposedly gave him AIDS. The confusion has them more interested in his sex life than his heartbeat, but that won’t last. Once they find out about the transplant, some smart reporter will track down the sequence of events … and find out about a patient in Oregon who donated his organs on the same night Angel got his heart. When they hit that patient’s name, it’s going to rip through the headlines like a rocket. If he isn’t prepared…” He said nothing more, let the implication hang in the air between them.
Madelaine’s gaze dropped to the table. She studied the tiny black lines in the fake wood-grain veneer. She knew that Chris was right—she’d known it for days, she simply hadn’t wanted to face it. “I’ll tell him,” she said quietly.
Sarandon got to his feet, leaving the half-empty coffee cup on the table. “Just let me know when you’re going to do it.” He grinned. “I’ll advise the staff to grab their Kevlar vests.” Then he shoved his chair out of the way and strode out of the room.
Madelaine watched him go, saying nothing. She tried to imagine what it would be like to tell Angel the truth, and the images caused a sick feeling. She didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to traipse in there and tell him what she’d done what they’d all done. She was terrified of his response, and for more than the obvious reason.