Intimate Exposure

Elliot. She knew he was there, but his touch and voice startled her anyway. She tried to focus on his face.

“Yes?”

“Maybe you should go inside. Have a glass of water. Sit for a minute.”

Her rattling thoughts aligned themselves in some semblance of order. Inside. Right. She nodded. She patted herself down for her keys before she remembered they were clutched in her hand. She tried to fit the key in the lock, but it wouldn’t go. Wrong one. She tried again, the soft scratching sound of metal against metal amplified ten times.

“Let me.” Elliot’s cool hands pried the keys from her incompetent fingers and he slid them into the lock. Easily. As though he was used to it.

The tumblers rolled over inside the lock, but he didn’t have the chance to open the door. It was snatched from his hand, startling them both. Gina Pak was standing there in the minuscule hallway, panting a little. She was even tinier than her father, glossy hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a red T-shirt and jeans, both of which were damp.

“Shani!” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry I didn’t get the door right away. I was giving Béatrice a sponge bath. She’s up to a hundred and five. And she threw up, twice.”

Bee! Panic and shame. For a full five minutes, Christophe had managed to shove her poor baby from the forefront of her mind. Did he still exert such a power over her, that on a night as awful as this, she could forget she was on a rescue mission?

“Where’s she?” she asked, even though she knew.

Gina pointed. Without looking at the wretched envelope again, she threw it to the floor and hastened to the bedroom, which she shared with her daughter. The room was decorated more like a child’s nursery than a room in which an adult slept. It was bright yellow, her daughter’s favorite color, and strewn with enough bee motifs to make Sting himself gag. A bee mobile swayed over the bed, cartoon bees smiled down from the walls and bee suncatchers dangled behind drawn curtains. Bee lived up to her name.

She was lying on her back. Her thick hair, which usually sprang up all over in a cheery mop, was damp from the bath. She had nothing on but a pair of panties and a yellow cotton Winnie the Pooh T-shirt. Her limp limbs were carelessly sprawled, her small, dark, pointed face slack. Eyes fire-bright. Bee spotted her and managed a smile. “Mama!”

Shani reached to smooth the hair from Bee’s brow, but Elliot was in the way, on his knees at the child’s bedside, lifting each eyelid with his thumbs and examining her eyes, then her nostrils and mouth, tilting her head to each side to look into her ears, too.

Shani was too stunned and confused to move.

“How old is she?” he asked.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“How old is she?”

Not wanting to be left out of the conversation, Bee piped up. “I’m three and a half!”

“You are? You’re a really big girl!” Elliot was soft-voiced, indulgent, his hands still working on her.

Bee watched him with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, her bleary eyes trying to focus. “You a doctor?”

“No, I’m not, but I’m just gonna check you out, if you let me.” He tenderly ran his fingers along her throat then lifted her shirt and carefully looked over her torso.

“No blotches,” he murmured. “That’s good.” Strong fingers encircled the tiny wrist, and he fixed his eyes on his watch, counting pulse beats.

A scary thought crossed Bee’s mind, and she gave him a panicked look. “No shots! No shots!” She lifted her eyes to her mother, pleading for her intervention if a needle should appear.

For Shani, that was too much. Elliot looked as though he knew what he was doing; she certainly hadn’t a clue what to do herself, but her territorial instincts were aroused, her hackles up. “Elliot, I asked you a question.”

He turned to Gina, who was as puzzled as she was. “Has she eaten anything this evening?”

“Not much.”

“Drinking okay? Thirsty?”

Bee pouted, as if she suspected that any second now, one of the grown-ups was going to try to force something into her. “No! Not thirsty!”

Elliot mumbled something and patted the damp hair. Bee relaxed a little, sinking back into the pillows, but still frowned suspiciously at the adults surrounding her.

Gina shook her head. “She didn’t want her juice, or water. I made her take a few sips, but—”

That was enough. Shani shouldered Elliot aside and threw her arms around her daughter. The child’s skin was on fire. He didn’t resist, didn’t look the least bit offended.

“You said you aren’t a doctor …”

“No, but I know what I’m doing.”

“How, exactly?”

He shrugged. “Peace Corps. Two years in Haiti after college.”

She was momentarily stunned. A member of the wealthy Bookman clan, in the Peace Corps?

Without offering any further explanation, he extricated a blanket from the pile of rumpled bedding and seemed about to reach for Bee again, but then he thought better of it and held it out to Shani. “Wrap her up. It’s cold out.”

Shani did as she was told. Bee didn’t resist, which was scary in itself. Usually, getting any article of clothing onto her daughter required a chase around the bed, three or four laps at least, and maybe a foray into the living room. But Bee was as boneless and unresisting as a sleeping cat. As she lifted the hot little bundle into her arms, Bee wound her hands around her neck, face pressed against her breast.

Elliot followed her to the door. He turned to Gina, who was hovering, her expression a mixture of concern for Bee and frank curiosity over Elliot’s sudden appearance.

“This is Elliot,” Shani informed the teenager belatedly. And to Elliot, “This is Gina, Mr. Pak’s daughter. She’s seventeen. Her real name’s Jin, but, well, everyone calls her.” She was aware that she was babbling. She stopped herself. “She babysits for me.”

Elliot nodded, gravely extending a hand. Then he was all business, opening her front door and preceding her outside. “We’re going to Immaculate Heart Pediatric,” he informed Gina.

“She gonna be all right?” Gina asked.

Elliot’s eyes were on her, not Gina. “I think so. A high fever doesn’t mean anything awful on its own. It’s probably just an infection.”

Oh, thank you, Jesus. She let Elliot propel her into the backseat, allowing him to buckle the seat belt over her lap before she settled her daughter in her arms. In the absence of a car seat, it’d have to do.

He sensed her apprehension. “I’ll get you there safely,” he promised. “Both of you.”

They pulled to a screeching stop in the hospital parking lot. Elliot hopped out and looked in through the window at Shani as she struggled in the backseat with Bee’s deadweight. “How’s the baby?”

“Sleeping,” Shani answered. “Still hot.”

“Then we’d better get in there.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the entrance to the E.R.

It was next to impossible to emerge from the car holding Bee, but Elliot opened the back door and gently, as if lifting something infinitely precious, eased her daughter from her lap.

Shani got out, feeling the sting of pins and needles run through her legs as blood rushed back into them. It had gotten colder. She stamped on the ground, found her land legs again and held her arms out for her daughter. But Elliot shook his head, cradling Bee as though he’d known her since the day she was born. “Keep your strength. You’ll need it.” She couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or outraged.

Of one accord, they moved toward the doors. “You didn’t have to do this,” she pointed out.