Maelstrom

Chapter 30: Dodging Calls

I dropped my forehead onto my tiny laminated dining table. I couldn't stop thinking about him. For the duration of two subway rides and a very long walk back to my apartment, I could do nothing but relive my afternoon with Ivan, from the moment I turned to see him at the end of the treadmill to the look on his face when I'd fled the café.

I'd tried taking my post-workout shower, but being naked and vulnerable, with the hot water and the hard, French-milled almond soap and my own hands running over my wet body, my mind imagining Ivan's long, strong fingers and his perfectly formed, expressive mouth ... the shower was a terrible idea.

I tried masturbating, but while it granted me some physical release, I couldn't fantasize about anything but being with him, and I was pretty sure that mentally associating Ivan with orgasms was not an effective way to forget about him.

I'd tried catching up with the world outside Asylum with a copy of yesterday's Times that I'd grabbed off an absent neighbor's doorstep, but my eyes tripped over the printed words without seeing them, and after twenty-five minutes of supposedly reading, I was no wiser to current events that I'd been when I started.

I sighed and picked up my cell phone. I hadn't checked my voicemail for a few days; maybe there would be something there to occupy my brain for a while.

I tapped on the phone icon, then on the linked circles that represented voicemail. Nothing for Lex, so I dialed the number for the service that retrieved messages from Lärke's cell number. Two of them, both from Mormor. I sighed. I had to give my grandmother credit: she never gave up on a family relationship that was unfortunately, all too often, quite one-sided.

The first recording was from Sunday afternoon, which was Tilda Hellström's secretary's only guaranteed day off, so I knew the message would actually be from my grandmother. I suddenly realized how much I was craving a familiar voice, someone who had nothing to do with Asylum or the crazy shit going on with Ivan.

"Lärke, it's Mormor. I'm calling to make sure you received the invitation to Cousin Hasse's birthday party on Friday." Naturally, I hadn't received the invitation; while laying the groundwork for becoming Lex, I had arranged for all my bills to be paid automatically by direct debit, and all my personal mail – what little of it there was – was being forwarded to the precinct.

"It's his 50th," the message continued, "So Sophie is making a big deal of it and has invited half of New York to attend." I rolled my eyes; Sophie was, in both my grandmother's and my opinions, a old-fashioned gold-digger who would make a big deal out of her cat coughing up a hairball if it meant she could throw a party. Why Cousin Hasse – actually my father's cousin, not mine – would have married such a woman in the first place was a mystery. Mormor attributed it to his intrinsic lack of character and a learned misogyny developed in reaction to a lifetime of living in her very long shadow.

"I know that this might not be your idea of a fun Friday night, or a very romantic Valentine's Day ..." Valentine's Day? I'd completely lost track of the approach of that least favorite holiday. Only Sophie would schedule such a personal event on a day like February 14th. It was probably a little test to see who showed up and who would be put on her lengthy social blacklist. Mormor went on, "... But he is family, and since the party is at Eleven Madison Park, at least you know the food will be good."

Unbelievable. Sophie had booked the entire dining room of one of the city's nicest restaurants on Valentine's Day. The woman was capable of ruining the evenings not just of family, friends, and business acquaintances, but of total strangers as well.

"Besides," the recording added, "You haven't been to the house since Christmas and I would like to see you." I was startled; that statement verged on the sentimental, and though I knew how much my grandmother loved me, Mormor was never sentimental.

"You may have chosen not to take your place at Hellström Industries, but you are still a part of the Hellström family." And there she was, the Tilda Hellström that I knew and loved and therefore had to keep at an arm's distance. "I expect to see you on Friday. Don't be late."

I put my head in my hand and laughed ruefully. The voicemail had reminded me that my life could be worse: I could actually be going to Cousin Hasse's party. After all, what was the gut-wrenching emotional torture of obsessing about a luscious but murderous member of a Mexican drug cartel, compared to the agony of life as a glamorous socialite?

I deleted the message and queued up the next one, received late this morning while I was still sleeping. This time it was Tilda's secretary.

"Lärke, it's Sarah McManus calling. Sophie Hellström has been trying to get a hold of you. She's wondering if you're bringing a 'plus one' to the party on Friday. If not, she's going to seat you with Chad Harris from the mayor's office; he's apparently made a request. Please call me back; she's rung me three times already this morning."

I snorted and deleted that message, too. Yes, I was sure that the RSVP request had come from Sophie, but Sarah would never have taken an order to relay said request to me from anyone but Tilda. Mormor figured that the horror of having my name linked with Chad Harris, even if only on Sophie's preliminary seating chart, would be enough to spur me to either rustle up a date for the party or try to formally plead out of attending.

I shuddered. It wasn't that Harris was a complete douchebag – he was, but he was also quite handsome in an obsequious, plastic sort of way, from a prominent East Coast family, and very well-thought-of in certain circles. It was that he was painfully ambitious, and on the two previous occasions I'd met him, his attentions towards me had made it repugnantly obvious that he would love to ride me and my Hellström name and fortune to the big chair in his boss's office and beyond. My guts flipped over at the thought of sharing a table with him on Valentine's evening. I decided not to respond to Sophie's inquiry; it would do Chad some good to sit next to an empty chair at the party, and would provide the unfortunate person on the other side of it with a bit of a buffer.

I sat bolt upright. Checking my messages had actually worked. I was now angry and repulsed, rather than confused, aroused, and miserable. I decided to keep the righteous stomach-churn going and went to grab the combined files from Miami and New York's criminal underworlds.

Perhaps stuffing my head with the mug shots and rap sheets of all manner of violent, murdering scumbags that could be Ivan's friends and associates would tarnish my image of him somewhat.

And if it didn't, at least it would remind me that I was a cop.