Duncan reached out and grasped her chin just as he had Kanesha's.
"I'd like to make your daughter's smile look just like yours.
'"You can do that? ' the mother whispered.
Yes. He could. This was the age of miracles, and he was a miracle worker.
But still . . . never promise too much. Better to give them more than they're expecting.
"A certain amount depends on Kanesha. Not everyone heals the same. So . . . a smile like yours . . . that'll be okay? " The mother smiled softly, hesitantly, but genuinely this time "Yes. That will be okay."
"Good! " He pressed a buzzer on the wall. A heavyset black nurse entered. "Marge, see if we can set up Kanesha for a facial reconstruction, left upper and lower labial, f. or late Wednesday, morning.
" "Next week? " the mother said.
"Too soon? " "Well, no, I just . . .
"She's had that scar long enough, don't you think? " The mother looked at him, staring into his eyes, looking for assurance there.
"Yes, " she said finally. "Too long." As Marge led them out, Cassie Trainor stepped into the room and slipped behind him. She was tall, blond, and well proportioned, her uniforms were tailored to maximize the effect of her ample bust. Midforties, trim, and sexy. She gripped his shoulders and began to knead the muscles at the back of his neck with her thumbs.
"How's Dr. Duncan today? ' Duncan had everyone at the clinic refer to him as "Dr. Duncan." It was a legitimate moniker and it obscured the Lathram name.
He didn't want it getting around that Duncan Lathram was doing charity work. He'd made such a point of refusing to deal with insurance companies, private, government, or whatever, and about performing no surgery that was necessary, that he didn't want to have to explain why he was fixing up ghetto kids for free.
He had stopped explaining.
"I'm fine, and that feels good."
"So, what're you doing after we finish here? Ready to buy that drink you've been promising? " Duncan tried to keep his shoulders from tightening. He'd been ducking Cassie for months now. Not long after his divorce they'd had a little fling.
Very hot. Too hot not to cool down, as the song went. She was an excellent nurse and uninhibited under the covers. He remembered one night when . . . no, now was not the time to relive that, not with her fingers kneading his shoulders. Eventually, they'd gone their own ways, but every now and again Cassie seemed to like to fan the embers of old blazes. Duncan knew there were plenty of old blazes in Cassie's past.
Too many for comfort nowadays when casual sex had stopped being a recreational sport and metamorphosed into serious business, grim business, requiring research and background checks, especially with someone with such a busy and enthusiastically varied history as Cassie Trainor.
He hated that something so basic and so wonderful as sex had become a source of paranoia and anxiety, a new religious sect with purification rites and latex Eucharists.
What a world. What a goddamn screwed-up world.
Casual sex was all he had the heart for these days, and casual sex was like Russian roulette. No time or heart to invest in a lasting relationship, and no desire to pursue one, not after what had happened to his marriage.
What had happened to him since the divorce? Where had his passion for life gone? He'd withdrawn from all his old friends. Not consciously.
He hadn't even realized what was happening until it was done. He spent a lot of time alone now, but that didn't seem to bother him. He didn't know this preoccupied, isolated man he had become.
Maybe Lisa hadn't been an aberration. Maybe it ran in the family.
Whatever the reason, he realized he'd become a man who feared intimacy more than solitude.
But at least today he could tell Cassie the truth.
"I'd love to, Cassie, but I'm meeting my son for dinner." '"Too bad.
How old is he now? ' "Twenty-one last month." Lisa would have been 23 last spring, already graduated a year. "Starting his senior year in college. We're trying that new Italian restaurant in Georgetown. " "Giardia? " Duncan laughed. "Not funny." Giardinello. I'd ask you along but we're going to talk about the flare."
"I getcha. Okay.
Maybe next time"
"Definitely." She glided away and he watched the white fabric of her uniform slide back and forth over her buttocks, an urge rose within and he almost changed his mind, almost called her back. Instead he looked at his watch. He'd have to pick Brad up soon at the house.
The house . . .
Used to be his house too. Now it was just Diana's. He wondered how she could live there, walk through that foyer where . . .
Duncan rubbed his eyes and rose from the chair. When things finally fell apart, he didn't contest the divorce action. So while it wasn't exactly an amicable dichotomy, it never got vicious. He let Diana have what she wanted, agreed to generous alimony payments, and, of course, he'd seen to it that Brad had whatever he needed. He loved his son, wanted to stay close to him, and most of all, wanted to spare him the spectacle of his parents hissing and clawing at each other.
And Duncan got . . . what?
What did I get besides out?
He and Diana still were on speaking terms, but only on neutral, practical matters, never anything personal. And he would never set foot in that house again.
He tended to heal slowly, sometimes not at all. He had no implant full of beta-3 for the soul.
Which was why he had been on the west portico of the Capitol yesterday morning. Trying to heal himself by balancing the scales, by closing the circle, by imposing a symmetry on the chaos his life had become.
Only then would this cancerous rage cease its relentless metastasis and allow him to get on with his life.
He barked a laugh in the empty room. His life? What life?
Marge poked her head in. "Dr. Duncan . . . you all right? " "Fine, Marge. Just fine." That's a laugh, he thought, waving her off.
Nothing at all is fine.
Yesterday morning . . . another failure. Why wasn't anything ever simple? Why couldn't things go the way he planned?
Neither of the other two had gone the way he'd intended either.
Lane and Schulz, both dead, one in a car, the other in a twenty-story swan dive.
And yesterday . . . Allard was supposed to crack up in front of the cameras, not crack his skull on the Capitol steps. Duncan hadn't wanted him physically hurt. Hell, any hired thug could do that. He'd come prepared to see Allard mortally embarrassed, terminally humiliated, politically ruined, he'd wanted his credibility bloodied, not his head. Damn! All the planning, the exquisite timing, wasted. Now Allard was just a victim of a bad fall, pitied, pathetic, an object of sympathy instead of ridicule.
Duncan wondered at his own coldheartedness, but only briefly. He had plenty of warm emotions left, but they were already spoken for. No leftovers for the likes of Congressman Allard.
Allard, at least, was still alive.