“Don’t provoke me,” she warned.
“My mother is growing too old to stay with us in the long run. I’m sure you can’t wait to get her out of our way. If I sell this property to the Costwalds, we can afford to put her in a high-end retirement home where I will no longer have to worry about my mother’s medical needs or her emotional well-being. She will be well taken care of and you will be rid of your horrible, terrible hag of a mother-in-law. Wouldn’t that make you happy?” his riposte snapped back.
Nina checked behind her and ahead through the long narrow hallway that was almost completely dark from the rainy weather outside. The high ceiling arched gracefully, reminding her of a cathedral, holding all the secrets of those who’d confessed their sins behind closed doors and hushed torment, just like the tirade she was listening to right now.
The shadowy corridor was thankfully void of human presence. Nina was relishing the information that served to fill out the meager details Mrs. Patterson had furnished her with. Little by little the facts were falling into place, although it was probably not even half the story. Suddenly Nina heard footsteps approaching the door. High heels clapped on the wooden floor, growing louder. The last thing Nina heard as she bolted for the refuge of the dark on the staircase was Christa giving her husband an ultimatum.
“I’m telling you Daniel. If you sell this college, I’m filing for divorce. And all your new income from the sale of this property will be swallowed up in alimony.”
“What a bitch,” Nina whispered to herself as she watched the tall department head storm down the hall toward Clara’s administration office.
The pain was becoming insufferable, but at least the looming coughing fit seemed to have abated with all the excitement of eavesdropping. Nina’s boots clanged on the iron steps that became cement and rock stairs halfway between the ground floor and the basement. She threw her bags down quickly and fell to her knees to rummage through her purse for the last sheet of the painkillers she still possessed.
Kind of strange how I never feel drowsy down here, she thought as she gulped down the capsule with the last bit of warmed bottled water she had with her. Maybe the humming air-con is lulling the kiddos to sleep in my lectures, because it can’t be my teaching voice.
Nina literally felt better when she was in the confined space of the basement’s cool tomb, and that was unusual, given her fear of small spaces. It was a comfortable and temperate atmosphere, minus maybe the dust from the stacked paperwork and records. While she caught her breath from the searing agony of her illness, Nina remembered the first time she’d heard something she wasn’t supposed to at St. Vincent’s: that day in the kitchen when she’d overheard the conversation between Christa and Clara about running records for a male person that Christa did not want to do. Could those records have had something to do with the sale of the college? Perhaps it was why Christa didn’t want to run them, so that she could mar the sale of the property. Yet Nina had a feeling that Christa’s reasons were not based just in her career or her husband’s money, but in something deeper. She would profit so much from the sale. Why on earth would she fight so hard to keep the place? What did it have that other places did not?
“Oh my God!” Nina exclaimed. “She is after the underground river, the fountain!”
“Who is after what?” Gertrud asked from nowhere.
“Gertrud, what did I tell you about just suddenly talking to me?” Nina reprimanded the admin assistant.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Gould,” Gertrud apologized again. “I just don’t know how else to start talking, especially in a quiet room away from other noises.”
“We should put a bell around your bloody neck,” Nina said, smiling as she rose and placed her stuff on the desk. “Hey, listen, Gertie,” she said in a subdued tone, “do you know anything about the records the Dean was looking for?”
The befuddled assistant rolled her eyes back in thought, mulling it around in her mind for a bit. She seemed to grasp something, but still looked a bit uncertain to the historian.
“I’m not sure about this, but I do know that Dean Patterson has been trying to look up a distant family,” she replied, hoping to sound smarter than she felt. Shrugging, Gertrud walked to the iron file cabinet in the corner and pointed. “These are the oldest secrets kept by this college, as far as I know. But I’m not sure if they have anything to do with the Dean or what he’s looking for.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Nina said. “It’s a start. Thanks Gertie.”
“Always happy to help,” the assistant said before frowning. “Ugh, they’re looking for me topside. Will you excuse me, Dr. Gould?”
“Of course. Go on,” Nina grinned, happy to be alone to do her spying.
Chapter 14
“I want to know by the end of this business day,” Purdue told Dr. Cait. “But keep it professional.”
“Mr. Purdue, I had no idea that you did not know about Dr. Gould’s condition,” the medical scientist insisted. “Please, you have to believe that I was not deliberately keeping her cancer treatment from you. You were aware of the treatment we gave her, the tests, all that…”
“Yes, but that was for radiation poisoning, not lung cancer,” Purdue explained, seated on Dr. Cait’s office chair like a king taking charge. He was at the Orkney Institute in Kirkwall, looking for answers from his medical staff as to why he hadn’t been told about Nina’s illness.
“Mr. Purdue, the radiation she suffered was the catalyst to the contraction of her cancer malady. We assumed you knew that her treatment had been altered accordingly. Nobody here had any idea that you didn’t know. Only Evelyn knew that the statements were being sent to Dr. Gould for billing and she told me that this arrangement was at the request of the patient. We truly had no idea that you didn’t know. You know it would be absurd of us to deliberately withhold information from our employer!”
“Evelyn…she had a car accident, right?” Purdue asked.
“Yes, sir. She’d been sending the statements to Nina directly, as Nina requested,” Dr. Cait reiterated. “None of this was kept from you intentionally. It was just…miscommunication.”
Purdue felt sick. Not only did the revelation of Nina’s cancer rock him to the core, but the circumstances under which he’d found out made him feel betrayed by the few people he trusted. Yet, the more he considered the various factors involved, the more Dr. Cait’s explanation looked legitimate. The billionaire gave a long sigh, looking out the window of the doctor’s office at the stunning view of the countryside.
“Just keep your eyes and ears open for me, alright? I can’t help but feel this subterfuge was more than coincidental,” he told Dr. Cait.
“I shall. But I hope you’re wrong, Mr. Purdue. We’ve been such a good team thus far and I’d rather not think that someone here has been hiding anything.”
“So, there’s nothing you can do to reverse the effects? No cure for her?” Purdue asked.
The doctor shook his head with a somber look. “Not that we know of, short of reversing time back to before she contracted it.”
Purdue’s eyes widened, but he said nothing. At once he became completely preoccupied by something, but Dr. Cait knew well enough by now not to ask. The genius inventor always went into a daze of far-out ponderings when an idea came to him. “Thank you, Dr. Cait. I have to go back home to do some experiments.”
“Um, alrighty then, Mr. Purdue,” Dr. Cait replied. “Please drive carefully. This weather is terrible enough to entail building an Ark.”
Purdue chuckled dryly only out of courtesy, but his eyes were somewhere else, as was his mind. Dr. Cait knew that expression all too well. In the past, he’d learned that Dave Purdue got that look just before embarking on expeditions for the sole purpose of chasing relics reputed to be a farce.