Beyond Regeneration Read online

  “Thank you for lunch,” Alan said meticulously as he switched off the engine.

  “Thank you for your time and information.” Tension curled up Charley’s spine. If returning to New Hope caused it, there was a simple solution. She had the printed information on regeneration and bio-enhancements. After a couple of client interviews this afternoon, she could leave tomorrow.

  But was it New Hope who caused her unease, or Jack?

  He sat on the porch swing, standing as she and Alan emerged from the car.

  “So that’s where you went,” he said as they walked up to him.

  “To lunch with Alan,” she agreed.

  Alan spoke over her. “They’ve gone?” He paused on the bottom step.

  “Who?” Charley glanced back over her shoulder. The security guards and their car were gone. “Oh.”

  Jack nodded tightly. “Michael arrived. We talked.” There was a short, unpleasant silence, then Jack shook himself. “Sorry. I should be grateful. The guards will return at night. Tomorrow, I’ll have someone in to upgrade security.”

  Alan said, heavily. “Your announcement of bio-enhancement changed everything.”

  “Why?” Charley asked. There was a question she should have asked earlier. “How much is bio-enhancement technology worth?”

  “It’ll make me a multi-millionaire and Michael even more obscenely rich,” Jack said. “Its weapons potential makes sure of that.”

  Weapons potential. The phrase silenced her. She’d been thinking of bio-enhancement from a medical and social point of view, but it was a weapon.

  Jack had modified the human body as a weapon.

  She glanced down at his left hand. The claws were sheathed, but he could rip open a person’s face. So could a knife, but the claws would pass an x-ray security scan.

  Lillian’s voice, harsh with some strained emotion, carried out through the open reception room window. “You had better meet me. I can…”

  Alan pushed past Charley and Jack. Through the open door, they saw him catch her arm.

  “Lillian, that’s enough. You’re hysterical.”

  Lillian wrenched out of his hold.

  “Definitely hysterical.” Michael’s voice. “You should know I don’t respond to threats.”

  “We’ll see,” Lillian snapped, and exited with Alan at her heels to one of the back rooms.

  Jack pushed back his glasses as his frown sent them wriggling down his nose. “What was that about?”

  “Secrets.” Michael strolled out to the front porch. He looked in the direction of Lillian’s departure. “And a woman playing out of her depth.”

  “Michael, I won’t have you disturbing Lillian or any of my staff. After the break-in, here, you’d be better employed upgrading the security at Jabberwocky.”

  “Jabberwocky’s security is fine. I’ve just been out there. That’s why I’m here. I have some questions for you, John.”

  Jack scrubbed a hand over his face. “Why not? The break-in has shot everything else to blazes. If you’ll excuse me, Charley, I’ll catch up with you later.”

  Michael offered her a perfunctory smile, and that was it. Jack’s office door shut her out.

  So why had he been waiting on the porch, waiting for her?

  She stared at the door blankly, then at the empty reception area. So…she would find people who were willing to talk with her. She could make a start on her regeneration client interviews.

  They left her exhausted.

  When Jack knocked at her door just after six, she hung onto the door after she’d opened it. She felt like a dying daisy, wilted.

  “I came to ask you to dinner.”

  “Here?”

  “No.” The rejection was immediate and heartfelt. Jack softened it with a slight smile. “While I’m at New Hope, I’m always on duty. I thought a restaurant in town?”

  She hesitated. She’d been buffeted by other people’s emotions all day, not least the memories of New Hope’s clients and the pain that had brought them to the center. The interviews had left her raw. Emotional distance had been impossible.

  “Please, Charley.”

  It was little enough for Jack to ask—her company for the space of a meal—when he’d given her an exclusive on bio-enhancement. And she was tired enough that his presence left her heartbeat unaffected.

  “Okay. I’ll need a few minutes to finish up.” Going over her notes with the interviews fresh in her mind clarified points, but she wouldn’t forget these interviews.

  “Will it bother you if I wait in here?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He slumped onto the sofa, removed his glasses and tipped his head back. His eyes closed.

  Charley realized she was staring and transferred her gaze to the mess of work spread across the table. She could tidy it, but why? Instead, she closed the laptop and went into the bedroom to check her appearance.

  Jack drove them to a casual tourist restaurant decorated in bright 1970s colors, and loud with conversation and music. The food wasn’t as good as the first restaurant he’d taken her to, but it was hot and filling, and to be surrounded by holiday makers determined on having a good time was freeing.

  They talked casually about regeneration and bio-enhancement. Charley had exhausted her interview mode.

  “I just followed where the research lead.” Jack stabbed a piece of curried chicken.

  “Bull shit.”

  After a moment’s shock, he grinned. “All right. The truth is the old axiom is right. Doctors do have a bit of a God complex. I want to do more than heal the sick, I want to make people better than they are.”

  “Better than human?”

  “No.” He put his left hand on the table and stared at his claws, letting them zing in and out. “I just don’t think we can, as a conscious intelligent species, turn our back on being all that we can be, although the path to getting there may be rough.”

  She put down her chopsticks. “I’m sorry, Jack. I wasn’t criticizing.” She touched his hand and picked up the chopsticks again. “Or maybe I was, but I’m really trying to think this through.”

  He took his enhanced hand off the table. “I understand. I’m still working through all the implications of bio-enhancement.” He looked around the restaurant. “This place is new.”

  The subject of the changes tourism had brought to the south coast took them safely through the rest of the meal, but when Jack parked back at New Hope, he reverted to regeneration. “I don’t want you to be angry, Charley, or to think that what I’m offering is pity. If you’d like to regrow your hand, you can have a place at New Hope, free.”

  She froze, the warmth of a relaxed social evening blasted into nothingness.

  “I saw the way you reacted to the QNA lab, but the procedure of regeneration is minimally intrusive.” He cleared his throat. “I keep a vacancy at New Hope for a client who needs to skip the waiting list. You could have that vacancy.”

  She shivered. “I heard about your waiting list.” The clients she’d interviewed that afternoon had spoken of their relief at finally reaching New Hope. “You’re in demand, Jack.”

  “You’re…a friend.” He drew a deep breath. “The decision’s yours, but the option is open.”

  “Thank you.” The words sounded stilted. The politeness a rejection of his kindness, and he didn’t deserve such rudeness. “You’re kind.” Impulsively, she leaned across and kissed his cheek.

  It was two years since she had kissed a man, even casually. The sensation of his skin against the fleeting brush of her lips tingled.

  Charley scrambled out of the car. “I must catch up on my work.” She dived down the familiar burrow of career absorption. “Good night.”

  “Charley.” He stopped. His face was a blur in the darkness. “Good night.”

  She closed the apartment door behind her. After a couple of minutes the Jaguar started up. Charley flopped down on the sofa, listening to the car engine fade into the distance.

  She could still f
eel Jack’s skin against her lips.

  “God.” She had an offer of regeneration.

  Her parents had wanted to pay for the procedure two years ago, but she’d been raw with Eric’s death, and the memory of what Africans endured for lack of food and medical care. Regeneration for the loss of a hand had seemed frivolous…no…inappropriate. Certainly too expensive for her parents to bear the cost.

  And the emotional cost, the year out of her life, the chance to live whole again, alone—could Charley bear those costs?

  “No.” And she couldn’t risk loving someone, either.

  Chapter Seven

  Charley rubbed one cold foot—she hadn’t stopped for shoes, only snatched up a jacket over her pajamas—against the ankle of her other foot.

  An early morning walker, one of New Hope’s clients, had found the body and announced it with screaming hysterics. The body was a huddled darkness close to the sprawl of rock that marked the end of the beach. The woman’s incoherent sobbing made sense now. She hadn’t been calling for Lillian and her nurse’s training, she’d been reporting Lillian’s death.

  Charley shivered and looked away from Lillian’s crumpled body. There were others already checking that she was, indeed, dead. For Charley, the slack, sodden state of the body had told its own story.

  She glanced around, worried suddenly that Alan might see his wife this way. He wasn’t in sight. Apparently, he hadn’t heard the screams and commotion. The Dos’ house was on the far side of New Hope, given an illusion of privacy by a stand of poplars. Charley heard a mutter among clients to wake Alan.

  “No,” she interrupted instinctively. “Phone Jack.” Let Alan have a few more quiet minutes. Let a friend break the news, although there was no gentle way of learning of the sudden violent death of a spouse.

  “Dr. John,” Staci clarified, and three phones were instantly produced. People were glad to have something positive to do.

  “I’ve phoned Dr. Bradshaw,” the oldest of the security guards said. He straightened from his study of Lillian’s body. “He’s coming. If you want to be helpful.” His gaze swept the ragtag group “Go back to your rooms. The police and ambulance are on their way. I’ll stay with the body.”

  No one moved.

  Charley raised her voice. “Coffee. Let the diet go hang one day. Let’s hope the kitchen staff have some hidden.”

  “They do.” Staci managed a weak grin, answering Charley’s attempt to get them moving. “I can find their stash, and under the circumstances…”

  Whether it was the lure of coffee, or the greater comfort of being able to sit inside, with living company, Charley didn’t know, but the cluster of clients started slowly back towards the kitchen and dining room.

  Charley dropped out of the main group as they passed her room. She needed shoes and would take the opportunity to change her pajamas for real clothes. What she wouldn’t do was report Lillian’s death to the media. She was glad she was no longer in the business of news. She shivered and pulled on a thick sweater. If she closed her eyes she could see Lillian’s body against the dark wet rocks, and behind that picture lurked memories of Eric’s death and funeral.

  “Company,” she said aloud. Being around other people would push her into functioning. She closed the door to her apartment with a bang, and when she turned around, saw Jack crossing towards the beach with a group of police.

  He looked up at the slam of the door, saw her, and hesitated. He said something to the tall policeman walking beside him before jogging across to Charley. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine. It’s Lillian.”

  Jack bit out a tense curse, and they both looked towards the Dos’ house. It was still dark with no lit windows to suggest a waking presence. “I have to wait for the police to break the news to Alan, but I’ll go with them.” He glanced towards the police, who were disappearing behind a dune. “I have to go.”

  “Yes,” she said miserably. “Be careful.”

  He nodded curtly and ran after the police.

  Why did I say that? She rubbed the stump of her arm. Be careful! Lillian’s the one who is dead.

  The reminder of death sent goose pimples over Charley’s skin, but she no longer felt the need to hurry to the warmth and company of the dining room. She stood and watched Jack till he was out of sight. In jeans and a faded black sweater he looked younger and as if, with the shedding of his professional clothes, he had also shed his professional distance and tolerance. There’d been a harsh line about his mouth that suggested he took Lillian’s death personally.

  He should, too. Everyone should. John Donne had it right. Every man’s death diminishes me.

  Poor Lillian. Whatever trouble had driven her to walk the beach at night, it was ended now, destroyed by wet rocks and a beautiful, treacherous sea.

  Charley walked into the dining room and through to the kitchen. It was still too early for the kitchen staff, and in their absence, the New Hope clients had taken over the premises. Not only was coffee perking, one of the men had mixed apple spice muffins and already the first batch were sending out their sweet aroma to mesh warmly with the comfort of coffee.

  Charley retreated with a mug to a corner table in the dining room. For once, she acknowledged, her disability was a badge of belonging. For New Hope’s clients, her profession as a journalist was secondary to their view of her as a person also needing regeneration. She was one of the group and they spoke openly.

  The room buzzed with speculation; everyone talking, and few listening. One or two spoke of murder, and pointed to the break-in and the presence of two security guards. Two middle-aged women spoke of suicide. The randomness of an accident appalled them and they flinched away from it. New Hope was their refuge from the world’s cruelty.

  “Why would Lillian kill herself?” the self-appointed baker demanded, bringing his tray of muffins through to the dining room.

  “She wouldn’t,” Staci said, flatly. “She wasn’t that sort.” The clients who were at New Hope following devastating accidents exchanged glances. They knew what it was to contemplate suicide, and decide against it.

  Unwillingly, the consensus settled on an accident.

  “Lillian did walk along the beach,” a man in his thirties said. His regrowing ear was almost hidden by his longish black hair.

  Others chimed in. They’d seen Lillian on the beach, on the rocks. “She wasn’t a strong swimmer.”

  “Ssh.” The hushing came from several directions.

  Charley followed the avid gazes and looked out the windows.

  Jack and the tall detective were crossing the yard, heading for the Dos’ house.

  “Poor man.” The sympathetic comment broke the silence.

  Charley grimaced at the bitter taste of the coffee and let the words flow over her. Sympathy, no matter how well-meant, didn’t help. The decision to get up and keep going had to come from within. She wasn’t sure Alan would cope. He’d seemed a gentle man, already functioning under strain.

  “Will the police want to interview us?” one of the former proponents of the suicide theory asked. She fluffed her auburn hair.

  “I shouldn’t think so.” The baker ate his muffin with enthusiasm. “Unless you heard or saw something?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “No.” The woman looked disappointed.

  Her friend beside her, however, had a new problem. “They won’t send news cameras here, will they?”

  The room filled with a new sense of discomfort. No one wanted to be recorded on television as a freak.

  “Dr. John won’t let them in,” Staci declared. “And if the police rule Lillian’s death an accident fast, the story can be kept under wraps.”

  Charley stared at Staci, somewhat taken aback by the younger woman’s clear grasp of reality. She was right. If Jack could squelch the story early, it would save New Hope bad publicity.

  Maybe, Charley mused, Michael would pull some strings? And what about his security guards? A fatal accident had occurred under their watch. How wou
ld that look?

  She punished herself with another sip of the strong coffee. A woman was dead, and she was thinking of public relations. Although, to be fair, she was doing so mainly because she was concerned about headaches for Jack—which was none of her business.

  “Excuse me.” She pushed back her chair and went into the kitchen to rinse out her mug. She had no call to identify herself with his interests.

  She slid out through a side door and went back to her room, remembering along the way Alan’s escape through a side door the previous day. He wouldn’t escape the impact of Lillian’s death so easily.

  Jack would be telling him now, dealing with the instinctive denial, the deep grief and anger.

  She flinched from the pain of old memories. Work kept them at bay. She powered up her laptop and forced herself to focus on a weekly column she wrote for a Sydney paper. It was a relief to concentrate on researching and reviewing the latest Hollywood diet and ending on a light note of linking sleeping patterns and astrology.

  “Capricorns sleep deepest from one to three am. Geminis should never try to sleep before ten. It will lead to bad dreams.”

  Bad dreams. She grimaced and finished re-reading the article. It showed the discipline of two years’ effort. Despite her mental and emotional turmoil, the article had a light tone. She ran the spell check, made a couple of minor changes, and sent it to her editor. The familiar satisfaction of an article finished and a deadline met soothed her mood. She rolled her shoulders and clicked idly on her inbox.

  “Dr. Solomon?” She frowned at the screen.

  He’d sent her an email with the subject line: I’m in Town.

  “In town? I thought he’d left Sydney, flying back to Chicago?” She clicked.

  Morning, Charlotte, Solomon wrote. I’m hoping you’ll read this in time for us to meet for lunch. I tried your cellphone, but it’s switched off. And that was it, apart from a couple of contact phone numbers. Local phone numbers as well as a mobile number.

  He wasn’t in Sydney. He was here, in Margaret River.

  “Weird.” Why would Solomon want to meet with her? If he was here, he was here to see Jack.