His Revenge Baby: 50 Loving States, Washington Page 14

  Because the townhouse was messy. Like, really messy.

  But it hadn’t burned to the ground. Doug and Ruby had both survived just fine without her. Survived, and were apparently at a game together. The truth was, what Doug needed wasn’t a live-in sister to parent him. What he needed was an occasional babysitter and a maid.

  Hell, the way Doug attracted women, Lilli wouldn’t be surprised if Ruby had a stepmother within a year or two.

  Yes, she decided. She would move back to the States, but as one last act of kindness, she’d cancel the newspaper subscription for Doug because she knew he’d never—

  Lilli glanced down in mid-thought and saw something that immediately wiped all remaining thoughts right out of her head. Later, she’d say it must have been fate. Because if she hadn’t pulled the top newspaper off the pile in order to find the subscription cancellation details, she would never have seen the previous day’s edition just beneath it. The one with the front page headline stating, in bold type, “Fired RoTeku Employee Commits Suicide By Train.”

  The first newspaper dropped out of her hand as she grabbed yesterday’s edition and dropped to a seat on the front steps of the townhouse. Like most suicide news in Japan, the employee was never mentioned by name. But thanks to a few telling details like “an assistant in the robotics division of Nakamura Worldwide,” and the awful feeling in her gut, Lilli put two and two together and quickly realized the victim’s identity. Miyuki. Definitely Miyuki.

  She will need to be dealt with.

  Lilli recalled No’s words from that night outside the Italian restaurant with a sinking feeling of horror and anguish.

  Tears sprang into Lilli’s eyes at the memory of the cheerful young woman who’d visited her daily, sometimes preparing scrambled eggs with fish and green onions—strange but somehow yummy—after watching her take her piru.

  She couldn’t begin to accept that Miyuki was dead and No was responsible. But what else was she to think?

  The nagging ring of a phone pulled Lilli out of her semi-catatonic state and brought her to her feet. She knew that ring. It was her old phone, the one she’d just retrieved at the Osaka Charm apartment. In a daze, Lilli quickly dashed away her tears and ran into the house to fish her phone from her purse. The front panel was lit up with Doug’s number.

  He must be calling to tell me about the five-year contract, she thought to herself.

  Lilli shoved the numbness and shock and grief as far into the back closet of her mind as she could, took a deep breath, and accepted the call.

  “Hi, Doug. We’ve got to talk...”

  “Aunt Ana, is that you?” a high-pitched voice said in heavily-accented English. “Is it you? Papa said you are on vacation.”

  “Ruby?” Lilli answered. A stupid thing to say, because who else would it be? And she knew exactly what was going on by the tone of Ruby’s voice. They’d been down this road together, more times than Lilli cared to admit. Doug must have had a relapse.

  “Yes! It’s me! Please help!”

  “Calm down, honey. What happened? Tell me where you are.”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!!” The little girl broke off in what sounded like a hysterical sob but then took a deep breath and continued. “Daddy was happy. He said he had good news for when we got home, but then he start talking strangely, and falls asleep. We drive off road. The car is upside down now, and Papa…he’s bleeding! Really bad, and he’s not moving! And there’s glass everywhere. And my leg, it’s—I don’t know word. It looks bad. Like zig-zag but I can’t feel it…”

  Oh, no. Oh God, no!

  In spite of the fact that Lilli was totally losing her shit on the inside, she forced herself into nurse mode.

  “Ruby,” she said, keeping her voice steady and even. “Stay calm. Everything is going to be all right. Listen very carefully to me. Here’s what I need you to do…”

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “You real fucking bitch! You know that!?”

  Lilli tried. She really, really tried not to take her thirteen-year-old niece’s harsh words personally. Each time things got out of hand, she would mentally trot through the checklist of strategies she’d been given by the pediatric therapist: don’t respond when Ruby becomes aggressive; focus on setting clear boundaries. But the strategies that seemed doable within the professional confines of a therapist’s office, were anything but doable while trapped in a car—in a slow-moving line of other cars—with an irate, mouthy teen. Right about now—even though it was just a few feet ahead—Ruby’s designated school drop-off point seemed about a million miles away.

  Did Ruby have to start this now?

  The radio was blaring about a fender bender on the freeway. Great. That would definitely make Lilli late to work. Again. And it was only her second week on the job. And today was Tour Day.

  Arghh over more arghh with a huge scoop of ughhh on top!

  Lilli gripped the black steering wheel as if she were hanging on for dear life.

  “Ruby, we cannot have this conversation in the freaking drop-off line. You need to get out of the car.” Stay calm, stay calm…

  “Line can wait! This my future!! I need new leg! Good leg, not stupid leg like you want!” As usual, the more upset Ruby became, the more shrill and crappy her English became.

  Lilli glanced in the rear view mirror and instantly regretted it. Her red-faced niece looked a lot like that kid from the Exorcist. Right before she began projectile vomiting. Lilli averted her gaze back to the car in front of her and gritted her teeth, the vivid image of her leaping from the RAV4 and bodily yanking her niece from the back seat flooding her mind. So tempting… But in the end, reason won out.

  Sure, tossing Ruby to the curb would definitely keep Lilli from arriving late to work. But she was also pretty sure child services wouldn’t be at all sympathetic to a grown woman grabbing her handicapped niece by the throat, and throwing her disrespectful ass out of the car before peeling out of the school drop off line, tires squealing loudly, as if she were in an action movie car chase scene.

  What none of those social workers knew was what Ruby was really like. They had no clue how many times Lilli had already had this conversation with her teenaged niece. Because she was positive if they did know, they’d completely understand Lilli’s current state of mind.

  Feeling like a hostage in her own car, Lilli once again explained, “Our insurance covers one leg, Ruby. One. This means you need one leg for everyday use. We simply can’t afford a second prosthetic leg for athletics. Especially because specialized prosthetics are double the cost of the regular ones…”

  “Use Papa’s money for leg. I already tell you!”

  “Ruby, that money is for college.”

  “I don’t care college!” Ruby shouted. “You get me good leg with money! That’s what Papa would want, too!”

  Breathe, Lilli. Stay calm, she told herself. Even though she wanted nothing more than to tell Ruby her beloved papa, with his spend thrift ways, had barely left enough money to put his daughter through community college, let alone purchase her the five-figure, state-of-the-art, computer-assisted blade prosthesis she desperately wanted. And had been demanding for months.

  Even worse, since Doug had stupidly been driving under the influence at the time of his fatal accident—nothing like a heady combo of cocaine and alcohol to perk up a long car ride home with your daughter!—the team’s life insurance refused to pay out. Last but not least, Lilli would have to figure out how to replace Ruby’s current super expensive leg in three years because, go figure, Ruby was still growing.

  But never mind all that. Right now Lilli was having a hard enough time getting the five-foot terrorist out of her back seat. So pointing out the facts of their current financial situation in the middle of the school drop-off line would only make matters worse.

  “Look, Ruby. I need to get to work. And you need to get out of the car,” Lilli repeated, practically chanting the words and working hard to kee
p her boundaries and non-reactive responses in place.

  “Why you so poor?” Ruby demanded, as if she hadn’t heard a thing her aunt just said and considered Lilli’s income a personal failing. “You should get more money like Papa!”

  Amen sister. Ruby definitely had a point. But between the cost of bringing this belligerent child to the U.S., and the cost of Ruby’s various therapies—not to mention Lilli’s inability to work while Ruby was in recovery—well, it was safe to say their savings were pretty much non-existent. And even if money hadn’t been an issue…

  “Ruby, this behavior isn’t working for either of us. I want you to get out of the car. Now. If you don’t, I will take away your screen privileges again. And you won’t be able to watch this weekend’s Pacific Rim Championships. So you can stay in the car, yell at me, be late for school, and miss something you’ve been looking forward to for weeks, or you can stop yelling and get out of the car right now with no consequences later on. It’s your choice. Let me know what you decide.”

  There was a moment of charged silence that left Lilli wondering if her niece would force her to follow through on the proposed consequence. Lord knew, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to go there, much as she hated doing it. Lilli was really beginning to wonder if she and Ruby would actually manage to pull off an even more toxic relationship than the one she’d shared with her own mother.

  Suddenly, Ruby exploded out of the car and, with an admirable show of agility and dedication to her personal cause, she managed to shoulder her backpack while bracing herself on her temporary limb and forcibly slamming the back door.

  Right before screaming into the front passenger window, “I HATE YOU. YOU ARE STUPID BITCH!” at the top of her lungs. You know, just in case Lilli hadn’t already gotten the message earlier.

  Anger is better than nothing at all. Lilli chanted the therapist’s words as she dully watched Ruby storm away with the slightly buffered gait of a below-the-knee amputee. This is a normal phase and part of Ruby’s healing process, Lilli reminded herself for the thousandth time today. Don’t take it personally.

  But how in the hell could she not? With what felt like the gazes of almost every administrator, parent, and child on her, Lilli couldn’t even begin to imagine how to stop from feeling like a complete and utter failure where her niece was concerned. Things were getting to the point where she was almost convinced there was something about her that inspired intense dislike in others. Caused them to eventually push her away. Her mother…her brother…now Ruby. Everyone except…

  Don’t think about him.

  Lilli shoved herself away from the memory of No pulling her to him and kissing her in the snow. Instead she focused on Ruby, wondering how long it would take her to break down and handle Ruby’s behavior the way her mother would have. With hitting and anger and blame.

  Another memory took the place of her time with No. An image of her mother, drunkenly shouting at Lilli that she’d ruined her life. How her father never would have left if she hadn’t come along and fucked things up…

  Lilli shook the uncomfortable thoughts out of her head as she pulled onto the freeway. She would not let herself go there with Ruby. She couldn’t do that to a child…couldn’t become like her mother. No matter how awful Ruby’s behavior got. Lilli had loved her niece before the accident, and as hard as it was, she just had to keep loving her now. The therapist was right. Things would get better. They had to.

  But yeah, she was definitely going to be late for work. Again.

  And since today was Tour Day, Harriet Fields, the hospital’s director, was standing right there in the hospital’s front lobby.

  “We have several big donor tours scheduled for today,” Harriet said, glaring at Lilli as she rushed in through the sliding glass doors. “I hope your tardiness isn’t reflected in your performance when I show them around our otherwise stellar Pediatric Oncology Center.”

  “Sorry! Sorry!” Lilli replied, rushing past the sour-faced director with several fifteen-degree bows—she still hadn’t gotten out of the habit of bowing, even after nearly a year back in the States. “It won’t be,” I promise.

  And it wasn’t.

  Despite it only being her second week in the Children’s Hospital of Seattle’s Pediatric Oncology Center, it would have been hard not to mistake Lilli for an old pro as she juggled charts, pushed wheelchairs, and talked kids who were more scared of needles than cancer through their blood draws.

  In fact, Lilli was so focused on her patients, she pretty much ignored all the big wigs in suits walking through the center. Tour Day was a special day that, thank goodness, only happened once every other month. She had already been warned about it several times. On Tour Day, everyone—especially those working in the Pediatric Oncology Center—had to be on their best behavior. Friendlier. More efficient. Cleaner (Lilli had been reminded to trade out her uniform if a kid so much as got a speck of blood on her). And most of all, everyone was expected to arrive to work ON TIME, if not earlier.

  Well, Lilli had completely failed to get there on time but so far, she’d had no trouble managing the other things expected of her. God, she was glad to be back in a hospital nursing position. Dispensing Bansokos (Band-Aids) in Japan had been ok, especially considering her circumstances at the time. But nothing beat helping kids and their parents through what was inarguably the worst time of their life. And while the job definitely had its tragic moments, Lilli wouldn’t trade it in for anything. Real talk: this job was probably the only thing keeping her sane at this moment.

  Or perhaps she’d spoken too soon… Because when she returned to the nurse’s station after starting a chemo line on a leukemia patient, she found the normally bustling floor completely empty. No nurses, no orderlies, no patients. Nobody.

  What the….?

  “Where is everyone?” she asked out loud, wondering if she was in the midst of one of those weird dreams where you wake up and go to work only to really wake up and find out it was all a dream and—sorry, girl—you still have to drop an angry teen off at school and rush to work.

  The sound of laughter rose up behind her and Lilli followed it into the nearby children’s activity room. Which was where she found pretty much the entire CHS Pediatric Oncology Center nursing staff, a few nurses from other departments, and a handful of patients and their parents gathered. Along with…an adorable pack of fluffy white puppies!!!

  “What’s going on?” she asked no one in particular, laughing despite her confusion.

  The puppies, which she’d later find out were Bichons Frises, were so freaking cute. Like little stuffed animals rolling around with each other inside a hastily constructed pen.

  “It’s puppy day!” A pretty black woman in a doctor’s coat answered. She walked over to Lilli, holding a wiggly Bichon in each arm. “You must be Lilliana, the new pedes nurse. I’m only guessing this because the rest of the staff knows we bring this crew once a quarter. Technically these guys are supposed to provide puppy therapy for the kids, but somehow all the grown-ups end up in here, too. Want one?”

  Lilli laughed and held out her arms. Because, come on! Puppies! Within a few strokes, all the good humor that had been sucked out of her during her most recent blow up with Ruby was magically restored.

  Lilli was grateful to the young doctor for handing her the puppy. She now considered herself an instant convert to the life-changing impact of puppy therapy. Lilli stroked the little dog’s hair as she nuzzled her face in the soft fur at the back of its neck—

  But then suddenly all the hairs on the back of her own neck stood straight out. Followed by the weird, all-over tingle she used to get whenever he was watching her. What the—?

  Keeping a tight hold on the puppy, Lilli whipped around to look through the activity room’s clear panel windows into the hallway beyond. But the hall was empty. She wasn’t being watched. At least not as far as she could see.

  “Everything okay?”

  Lilli turned back to find the pretty doctor
watching her carefully. There were no more tingling sensations or anything like that, but Lilli’s eyes narrowed as she focused her gaze on the doctor. She was fairly sure they’d never met before, so then why did she seem so familiar?

  Lilli carefully studied the taller woman now. Her white coat sported the usual ID nametag that identified her as Dr. Anitra Dunhill. But Lilli couldn’t remember ever working with a Dr. Dunhill before. And considering there were so few black female doctors at this hospital, she was certain she would have remembered this one if they’d previously crossed paths. Especially a doctor as pretty as this one. She was really very lovely, so much so that Lilli felt certain the woman could have easily played a doctor in a TV hospital drama, no questions asked…

  And that’s when it hit her. “You’re…” she started, her eyes wide.

  Dr. Dunhill tilted her head to the side and gave Lilli the chagrined smile of a person who’d just been caught red-handed. “Yes,” she sighed with what sounded a lot like resignation. “That’s me. Well spotted, Lilliana.”

  “Call me Lilli, please. And I hope you don’t mind but I’ve got to ask what you’re doing here? I mean, is this like a charity thing? Part of Tour Day?”

  Dr. Dunhill shook her head. “More like I work here,” she replied with a wry smile. “But my past isn’t generally the kind of thing that comes up during the nurse interview process and, well, I’ve been on vacation for the last two weeks. So I’m not at all surprised by your confusion. As for how I got here in the first place…it’s a long story…”

  She reached over and gently took the puppy from Lilli with a grin. “Want to have lunch? I’ll tell you all about it!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It took him nearly a year to find her.

  Ana’s Osaka Charm file turned out to be yet another part of the smoke and mirrors, surrounding her mysterious disappearance. It contained her detailed biography and identification info—all of it completely false. When she’d departed his life without warning, she left behind just a few personal items in the Umeda apartment, and none in the shared apartment she’d allegedly been living in before No contracted her services. Any hopes he had of identifying her via her fingerprints or DNA were quickly dashed when it became clear the Umeda apartment, and all Ana’s things, had been expertly and thoroughly cleaned by the weekly maid service while they’d been away.