Night on Fire by Diana Deverell

Author:Diana Deverell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Sorrel Press
Published: 2014-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

22

I leaned closer to Bella and spoke in a hushed voice. “You were with him a long time.”

“Only a half hour,” she said. “Spent five times that long getting to him.” She described a stop-and-start drill using pay phones. I realized Wlodek Wojcik must have had someone tracking Bella’s movements from point to point, checking to see if she was being followed to their meeting. She’d been sent to the northern edge of Copenhagen via commuter train. She’d followed orders to detrain at Klampenborg and hang around Dyrehave, the park created from the former royal hunting preserve.

She said, “I wandered on the paths for another hour before he decided to talk to me.” She turned to grin at the mirror. “Said he still couldn’t resist my red hair.”

“How’d he react when you told him he had a son?”

She turned away from her reflection. “He was surprised.”

“Surprised? He hasn’t seen you since 1986 and he took your word for it, that Woody’s his kid?”

She waved a hand impatiently. “He doesn’t have to take my word for it. I’m not looking for money or a last name or any of that soap opera shit.” Her voice got lower, more intense. “I come to him, an old girlfriend he remembers fondly. I tell him my son is sick and needs a bone marrow transplant. Would he mind taking a blood test to see if he might be a suitable donor?”

“Right.” My voice was sharp. “No big deal, being hospitalized to have your bone marrow removed. To be inserted in a boy who’ll call you dad for the rest of his life. Makes perfect sense to me, he’d go along with that idea.”

“I’m not stupid. I took it slow. Talked about Woody growing up. Showed him some pictures. Let him get used to the idea, he might like a boy, looks so much like him.” She smiled again and her eyes shone green. “It’s still there. The spark between us, whatever it was, got us together years ago. That helps.”

The man had taken heavy-duty precautions before their meeting. His behavior was what I’d expect from a major drug dealer. Yet Bella was simpering over a compliment from him. I had to snap her out of her daze. “Lust. That was the spark in Warsaw. That was the spark today. You’ve got no reason to trust Wlodek Wojcik.” I was so horrified, I had trouble talking plainly. The Polish name came out garbled.

“Call him ‘Pope.’ Lot easier to say. His biker name. Pope.” The second time she said it, she broke the name into two syllables, blowing little puffs of air out with each “p.” Like a smoker savoring a cigarette after good sex.

“Listen to you. You’ve still got the hots for this guy. No way you can think straight, you give in to those feelings.”

She glared at me. “Big surprise, I like the man. I wouldn’t have had his baby if I hadn’t liked him so much back then. It was more than just sex.

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