‘It can’t be that many,’ Elaine said, though with uncertainty.
‘Trust me, I was there. My whole career, everything I’ve accomplished, has been surrounded by death and destruction. Even when I was still a kid, my parents died — were murdered — while they were hunting for Atlantis. Which is why I’ve been asking: was it all worth it?’ She looked down at her abdomen, where a small but distinct swelling revealed the presence of her unborn child. ‘Do I want to bring a kid into my world? What right have I got to put a baby at that kind of risk?’
‘But you’re not working for the IHA any more,’ Elaine pointed out.
‘Maybe, but you know what?’ Nina said with another flare of anger. ‘Last month, a Nazi tried to kill me, right here in New York!’
The psychiatrist’s eyes widened. ‘A… Nazi?’
‘Yeah, an actual goddamn Nazi. You see? I can’t get away from this shit! I tried to, I just wanted to stay out of trouble and write my book, but it keeps finding me!’
‘Your book,’ said Elaine, relieved at a chance to change the subject. ‘How’s that going? You told me last time that you’d been having difficulty maintaining focus…’
Nina huffed sarcastically. ‘Oh, it’s going super fine, better than ever. No, I’m now almost completely blocked. My publishers are gonna be thrilled that they’ve paid over half a million dollars for three and a quarter chapters. Some people I know in Hollywood want to buy the screen rights.’ Macy’s boyfriend, the film star Grant Thorn, had unsurprisingly withdrawn from the idea after the young woman’s funeral, but his business partner had since made tentative enquiries about reopening negotiations. ‘Right now, though, it’d make a really short movie.’
‘Why are you blocked?’
‘Why? Because every time I start trying to write about what I’ve discovered, it makes me think of the people who died in the process. It’s…’ She sagged, feeling emotionally drained. ‘I can’t move forward.’
‘In what way?’
‘In every way. With my life. All I keep thinking about is whether it’s all been worth it, and I don’t know the answer, and… and I’m stuck. Going nowhere.’
‘But you are going somewhere,’ said Elaine. ‘You’ve made progress over just the last month — you realised you were in denial over Macy’s death, and the fact that you sought help from a therapist shows that you’re able to start moving on.’
‘I might be able to start, but that doesn’t mean I have started. On that, or anything else. The book’s stalled, I can’t even do something as simple as come up with baby names…’
‘Do you know the sex?’
‘Yeah. I had an ultrasound last week, and they could tell what it was. My husband, Eddie, told them not to say anything — he wants it to be a surprise — but I snuck back in and asked. It’s a—’
Elaine held up her hands. ‘No, no. I’m like your husband, I like surprises too. I didn’t know what either of my kids was going to be until they were born.’
‘I guess I prefer to plan everything in advance. He’s more the make-it-up-as-you-go type.’
‘So how have things been between you since you learned you were pregnant? Has he been showing any tension, or…’
‘No, no.’ Nina shook her head. ‘He’s been great — he’s absolutely thrilled at the prospect of having a kid, and he’s been doing everything he can to help me. No, it’s… it’s me.’ She sighed. ‘I’m angry, I’m depressed, I’m confused — I’m a hundred and one negative things, and I’m taking all of them out on him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because there isn’t anyone else. Since I left the IHA, it’s just been me and him. I’ve been horrible, and I know it, but… but I can’t help it.’
A sympathetic nod. ‘Pregnancy hormones can really affect your mood. It’s often a lot harder with a first pregnancy, because you don’t know what to expect. It’s good that he’s been so supportive.’
‘Maybe, but…’ A lengthy pause as she struggled to make a terrible admission. ‘I can’t help thinking that he’s putting up with it for the baby rather than for me.’
‘But do you really believe that, Nina? Deep down, I mean?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I believe about anything right now.’ She stared back at the marks on the carpet.
The psychiatrist made more notes before speaking again. ‘I don’t know your husband, but from what you’ve told me, it certainly seems that he loves you. He wants to help you, but you’re reluctant to allow it. That’s understandable — you’ve been through a traumatic experience, and you’ve put up barriers to protect yourself from further harm. The problem is that you’re not letting anyone through them, even the person who cares about you the most.’
Nina managed a sarcastic grin. ‘Well, duh. I didn’t need a psychiatrist to figure that out. I need one to tell me how to deal with it.’
‘I can’t tell you to do anything, Nina. I can suggest, and advise, but in the end only you can come up with the answer. Although one thing I would suggest is couples therapy. If you both came in together, we could address some of these issues.’
Another mocking little smile. ‘Eddie seeing a shrink? I can’t imagine that ever happening. He has his own ways of dealing with things…’
The helicopter dived towards the Statue of Liberty. Eddie Chase gripped the controls, trying to regain height—
‘Little advice, Eddie? Remember that thing I showed you called the stick? You might wanna pull it back.’
‘Oh. Yeah.’ Grimacing, Eddie brought the cyclic control joystick towards him. The Bell 206L LongRanger’s nose came up, and the aircraft unsteadily levelled out. ‘That okay?’
‘You didn’t crash into Lady Liberty’s face, so yeah. But we oughta go back out over open water. I’m havin’ some bad flashbacks to when I first met you!’ Harvey Zampelli took the controls, bringing the red, white and blue helicopter around across the great expanse of New York Bay. The spires of Manhattan rolled into view as he notified air traffic control of his course.
‘Well, it’s only my second lesson,’ said the stocky, balding Yorkshireman once the exchange in his headphones had concluded. ‘And I haven’t crashed it yet, so I’m not doing too bad.’
Harvey quickly touched the cross hanging from his neck on a chunky gold chain. ‘Jeez, don’t say things like that! It’s bad luck.’
Eddie decided not to tell him how many plane crashes he’d been involved in. ‘Thanks again for letting me do this,’ he said instead. ‘I’ve been meaning to learn to fly for ages.’
‘Hey, no problem,’ the black-haired pilot replied. ‘I mean, jeez, you saved my life! That’s gotta be worth the price of some avgas. I sure as hell hope so, anyway! Right? Right?’ He laughed, then added, with a hint of insecurity: ‘Right?’
‘Right,’ Eddie told him with a grin that revealed the gap between his front teeth. ‘But it’s not a problem for you, is it? Doing this in the middle of the day, I mean.’
‘Nah, I had an empty slot, and if there ain’t any paying customers, I gotta leave her sitting on the pad with the engine running anyway.’ The LongRanger’s flight had begun from the heliport at Manhattan’s southern tip; Harvey’s aircraft was one of the many offering tourist tours around New York.
‘Isn’t that expensive?’
‘Not as expensive as having to do a full check every time I shut down and restart the engine. Quicker, too. Besides, I’m a pilot. Any chance to fly, I’m gonna take it!’ He laughed again, then surveyed the surrounding airspace. ‘Okay, take the controls. Remember what I told you — keep the cyclic tipped forward to maintain airspeed, but don’t push it too far or we’ll lose height. We wanna stay between a thousand and fifteen hundred feet. Got it?’