The Fountain of Youth (Order of the Black Sun Book 15) Read online

Chapter 8

  Purdue woke from a wonderful, dreamless sleep for the first time in ages. This time he knew he was in his own bed, in his mansion, Wrichtishousis. He’d awoken, however, with a sick feeling curled up in his innards. No doubt it was the recollection of the awful surprise he’d endured at Sinclair two days before. Although he hadn’t been seriously injured, apart from a nasty blow to his patella and another pounding to the back of the head, the emotional turmoil of what could have happened had he not realized that he was being played was overwhelming.

  As a matter of fact, Purdue felt almost violated, having been probed and deceived by someone who was purposely exploiting him for the benefit of whatever wicked god he was serving. He cringed at the thought of what might have befallen him once the charlatan was done tapping the secrets of his mental reprogramming. Purdue literally shook his head to rid his mind of the possible exits he could have taken from this world.

  He’d been awake for over a day, occupied at the police precinct with Lieutenant Campbell in Dundee until early the previous evening. According to the investigating officer, Purdue had been the target of a hit, but the lieutenant could not confirm this. He’d hinted at it, but assured Purdue it was only the product of experience and logical deduction.

  Showering hurt this morning. The warm water agitated the bruises and lacerations he’d incurred during the struggle for the gun. The tall billionaire wet his white hair with shampoo and cried out in pain from the swollen bruise at the base of his scalp. “Oh my God! If he isn’t dead yet, I’m going to kill him just for the bloody discomfort!” Purdue shouted in frustration.

  In fact, he’d been planning to go and check on the progress of his assailant for his own investigative purposes. “I need Sam. I need Sam to find out who this bastard is and why he wanted to poke inside my head. A case of Scotch to the man who guesses who he works for too!”

  “An evil warlord from some grisly German era?” his butler asked nonchalantly as he brought in fresh towels.

  “My God, Charles, do you want to give me a heart attack so early in the morning?” Purdue exclaimed.

  “Apologies, sir,” the refined man replied dryly. “But it is past noon, in case you did not know.”

  “What?” Purdue whimpered. “Are you serious? What time is it? I left my watch in my bedside drawer.”

  “It is ten minutes past two, sir. Shall I bring you something to eat? You’ve slept through four meals. You must be famished,” the butler said with a slight lift in his solemn voice.

  “Yes, thank you, Charles. But just toast. Toast with salt butter,” Purdue requested. “And some Bovril.”

  “To drink or to spread on the toast, sir?”

  Purdue peeked over the screen of the shower, his eyes rolling for the decision. “Um, both.” He turned to rinse his hair just as Charles was about to leave, but the butler had to halt when Purdue continued his wish list. “And a mushroom omelet with chopped peppers, please.”

  The butler sighed and waited for more, but only heard Purdue burp under the clatter of the water. “Very well, sir.”

  When the billionaire had finally eaten his fill under the watchful and very concerned eye of his cook and housekeeper, he climbed the stairs up to his study to catch up on the business he’d neglected while at the police station.

  “Shall I get the car ready, sir?” the butler asked from the bottom landing. “Or will you not be going to Dundee anymore?”

  Purdue stopped at the top of the stairs for a moment, looking down at his butler. “Actually, yes. Yes, thank you, Charles. I think I should go and visit my former therapist just to see if there is any more cheer I can provide,” Purdue said jokingly. “Did Didi bring my financial month-ends this morning?”

  “She did, sir. I told her to leave them on your desk,” Charles informed him. “She asked that you sign the documents she’s marked and that, if you shan’t be back by Thursday, you leave them right where she’d left them for you.”

  “Marvelous,” Purdue smiled, wringing his hands. “That’ll be all. Thanks, Charles.”

  Purdue walked briskly toward the open doors of his study, eager to catch up on important payments and settlements, permits and registration applications for some new patents. He was lenient with his travels and business trips, but never with monetary matters. Purdue liked overseeing payments personally, even though he had Didi working full-time as his personal accountant. She was as meticulous as he, sometimes even strict to a point where he felt as if she employed him, but he still kept an eye on all movements of his money. Didi had left some documents open on his large rosewood desk, marking the places where his signature and initial were needed with colorful, sticky flags.

  “Aw, Didi, you are too creative to be an accountant, my darling,” he commented, smirking at the colorful ensemble of markers decorating the normally boring and bland collection of typed and printed papers. One by one he perused the wording to make sure that he knew what he was signing for. On the letters and offers sent from his own office to be checked before being sent out globally, Purdue played editor. Not only was he pedantic about grammar and spelling, but it was also very important to the charismatic explorer and inventor to word his correspondence to reflect his business acumen and his personality.

  “Odd…,” he muttered as his elongated fingers lifted the last envelope addressed to him.

  “What is it, Mr. Purdue?” his housekeeper asked as she passed. “Everything alright?”

  He looked up at her with a perplexed expression and lifted the envelope for her to see at a distance. “Look at this. Orkney Institute of Science,” he said amusedly. “It’s peculiar that I would be receiving a statement from my own clinic in Kirkwall.”

  “Probably a mistake. Why would you be billed by your own company?” she scoffed with a silly smile.

  The housekeeper, Lily, was relatively new in his service, yet Purdue and Lily often spoke about personal matters as if she were a part of his family. In fact, most of his staff was treated very amicably by David Purdue and he was not afraid to ask for their advice on small, apparently trivial matters. Of his other avenues of expertise, though, they were worthless as far as opinions went. Of those subjects they hardly had any comprehension, let alone valuable input.

  Purdue shook his head and opened the invoice. Lily remained in the room, dusting absent-mindedly at the wooden orb-shaped bookends on Purdue’s bookshelf and waiting for the verdict. But he did not respond. Purdue was so quiet while reading the details of the bill from the clinic that Lily was beginning to worry about him. She refrained from interrupting him for her own curiosity only because of his face. Lines sank into his skin at all the wrong places, leaving Purdue with a countenance of shock and sorrow. Then she watched the concern become desperation until his face had become hard again, displaying a form of determination.

  “Lily,” Purdue said suddenly, and she jumped to pretend she was busy. “Can you please pack a bag for me? Just some clothing for about…five days away will do. I would do it myself but I…,” he choked inadvertently, “…I, uh, have some things to tie up here quickly.”

  “Of course, Mr. Purdue,” she replied in her best professionalism, but her voice was fraught with sympathy for whatever had just punched him. “How soon will you be leaving?”

  Turning red at the lids, his moist, light blue eyes pinned her. In the short while that she’d been working for him, she had never seen Purdue lose color like this. “I will be leaving tonight still.”

  “Very well, sir,” she answered and slowly exited his study, pressed to look back, but refraining. Her large breasts rocked in her jersey as she pulled a light jog on her tiptoes to make a quick break for the garden, where she was dying to share the news of the boss’s apparently bad news with her colleagues.

  Inside the house, Purdue watched her from the window, but he did not care what she was relaying to the others. He did not care that they would worry and guess as to the news on the account sheet. All he cared about was doing something about the illne
ss of Dr. Nina Gould, a carcinogenic illness turned terminal that had been kept secret from him even while he was paying for the treatment of the very disease.

  The staff at his Kirkwall clinic had a third degree coming, and then he had to know everything about Nina’s condition before he even thought of contacting her. She was a feisty and independent woman even on a good day, but being contacted by the man she blamed for her malady would send her into either a quiet evacuation or a profuse hatred.

  Purdue had not forgotten about his foe in the hospital at Hopkins Memorial in Dundee, but he knew Lieutenant Campbell would notify him as soon as the fake Dr. Helberg woke up. Nina was more important, and her time was running out. So Purdue elected to sort out the well-hidden diagnosis and subsequent therapy of her sickness first.

  “I wish he wasn’t having so much trouble all the time,” Lily told Charles. “He’s such a nice bloke and all this bad crap is throwing out his well-being, you know?”

  “The best thing is to mind our own business, Lillian,” Charles reprimanded her in his stable firmness. “I’ve been here for years and Mr. Purdue has dealt with some really hair-raising situations and come out of it with tremendous resilience. I suggest you keep to yourself and let the man assert his dominance where need be until he is his old self again.”

  “Do you have any idea what it could be about?” she persisted.

  Charles turned his thin, middle-aged face down to her and said only, “No.”

  Lily had to abandon her prying at that stage and concentrate on preparing her employer’s luggage. For the rest of the afternoon she’d encounter Purdue passing by or see him coming out of the bathroom, but she wisely did not engage him in conversation. Apart from bathroom breaks, he stayed in his study, signing papers and arranging Didi’s files for her collection the following day.

  When Purdue was done with his administrative duties, he descended the winding stairs to the basement level laboratory, vanishing rapidly under the ground floor concrete and laid stone. He’d made it clear that he wanted to be alone.

  Locking the door behind him, Purdue sat down in front of his lab computer. The machine was wired to a network of worldwide scientists, physicians, and medical specialists through a special server that linked up a kind of underground system for professionals, inventors, and researchers of a more clandestine nature.

  He did not want the bright white light of the laboratory to give him a hospital vibe, so he kept the emergency lights only. In his smaller, personal laboratory he would make contact with the men and women worldwide who knew all the things his own genius did not have knowledge of. Above him the flickering green eyes of the tall machine blinked zealously to accommodate his curiosity, his need for knowledge about lung cancer.

  When he logged into the secure, hacker-protected network he stated what specific information he needed.

  I do not have a lot of time. This is not a college assignment, ladies and gentlemen. I do not care about the treatments available for lung cancer, only the cellular workings of the illness and how to, hypothetically, reverse them. It matters not how far-fetched or ludicrous. Based on everything you all know about lung cancer, deliver for me a science-fiction method if you have to. Just tell me how cancer works in terms of compounds and chemistry. Speak my language.

  Chapter 9

  Nina was watching the secret language of intimidation between Christa’s minion and Mrs. Patterson, using the show to keep Clara distracted from how fast she could suck on the fag the Dean’s mother had gifted her.

  So your hair falls out and you keep aggravating the condition? God, you must be burning brain cells by the second, Nina thought as she watched the two women fight as politely as they could to pull the wool over the visiting historian’s eyes. They had no idea that they were failing dreadfully, that her deduction was as sharp as ever. The only thing she couldn’t figure out about their match was why she was being fought over. Christa and Clara were hardly acquaintances, let alone friends, so why the hell would they care how much she smoked in the first place?

  “It’s becoming late, ladies,” she finally spoke up, rising from the bench and extinguishing her cigarette. “Time to check on my class.”

  “But Dr. Smith is with them,” Clara said, gawking at her.

  “Precisely, sweetheart,” Nina replied and blessed Clara’s face with the last of her smoke, sending her retreating out of the way where she was trying to block Nina off. The petite brunette gave the old lady a nod and a smile.

  “Goodbye, Nina,” Mrs. Patterson smiled and waved. “See you later, dear.”

  What they did not notice was that Nina had no intention of going back to the examination hall. Instead, she wanted to find out what all of the peculiar behavior was about. She reckoned that her distrust of the faculty came from her frail disposition and her own insecurities, but she had to admit that the treatment of her students and the unusual hostility between the women was a point of concern. Something was afoot here at St. Vincent’s, and for some reason she was in the middle of it.

  “How dare you deliberately hinder the process, Mrs. Patterson?” Clara spewed, almost sounding like her superior witch queen friend in control of Nina’s class. “We need Dr. Gould to be here for some time still. Her contract has already been paid six months ahead and she is expected to serve her purpose here for at least this stretch of time. You are impeding her progress as if you have authority here!”

  Keeping her voice low profited the failed academic nothing. Since the radiation sickness had almost blinded Nina, it had enhanced her hearing by great measures and she could discern every single word spoken in the hoarse whisper Clara used.

  “Now you listen to me, girly,” Mrs. Patterson announced as she stood up to reiterate her rank in age above the petty little teacher she had no respect for. “I don’t care what you think you’re going to get from Dr. Gould. What you’re doing to her, and to these students, is unethical and downright illegal. I’m only keeping your hideous practices secret because my son asked me to. Do not provoke my anger, because I know all your bloody little secrets, Clara. Yours and theirs.”

  Nina’s heart was racing at the words of the elderly woman and the way her sweetness turned gravely into power. A deep frown formed on the historian’s forehead as she tried to decipher what they were talking about.

  “The only reason your presence here is tolerated, Mrs. Patterson, is because Christa respects her husband,” Clara threatened. “You know that she’d send you away to a rest home, where you belong, in a blink if it weren’t for her love for Daniel. If I were you, I’d refrain from stepping into things you have no business with. Why don’t you go stay with another family?”

  Mrs. Patterson’s blue eyes flashed as she stepped up to the bitchy subordinate of a daughter-in-law. “Now you listen. I have no family. I was a war orphan, growing up in a far more horrible situation than you can ever imagine! Do not think for a minute that your juvenile attacks faze me in the least. And neither do those of that harpy whose teat you’re dangling from!”

  Mrs. Patterson was so infuriated that her voice quivered and Nina felt the same kind of rage welling towards the gossiping waifs of the institution.

  What did she mean by what they are doing to my students? Nina wondered from her hiding place behind the corner. Mrs. Patterson rushed away in the opposite direction, leaving Clara pallid and relieved that, for now, the fight was over. She retreated into the office of the Department Head, across from Nina’s little corner.

  “Dr. Gould?” the Dean’s voice shredded Nina’s thoughts.

  “Oh, hello Dean Patterson,” Nina smiled sheepishly.

  “What are you doing?” he asked mildly.

  “H-hi-ding?” Nina replied.

  “From what?” he asked, starting to smile at her hilarious honesty.

  “Dean, why did you choose me for this semester at your college? How did you find me and why did you invite me to teach here?”

  “You have a very good reputation, as you know. In fact,
” he boasted, “you’re a bit of a celebrity in the academic world. We thought you would be an invaluable tool for us.”

  “Oh,” Nina shrugged, a bit disappointed with his obvious answer. But then the Dean revealed an interesting tidbit that intrigued her somewhat.

  “Besides, I have to credit my wife for your acquisition,” he bragged with a gentle hand against Nina’s arm. “It was she who suggested you – out of the blue – and I must admit, I couldn’t have been more pleased with her choice.”

  “Um, thank you, Dean,” she replied modestly while inside her a little flame was ignited, the same pilot light that usually grew into a furnace during previous chases for relics. Something was cooking in Hook, and it was not Mrs. Patterson’s dumplings.

  “There you are!” Christa cried from the courtyard she’d entered the building from. “I’ve been looking all over for you, Dr. Gould. Hello darling!”

  Dean Patterson kissed his wife and put his arm around her.

  Look at how sickeningly wholesome you look. Such a happy couple, Nina mocked mentally under her calm expression. It begs the question, why she kept her last name, doesn’t it?

  “Here I am,” Nina said cordially. “I thought I’d stick around until you were done with your experiment on my class.” Her sarcasm was more arousing than she realized, which she instantly noticed by the reaction of the Dean.

  “What? What experiment are you doing now?” the Dean asked his wife. The way in which he asked the question proved to Nina that his wife performing experiments on students did not seem to be anything new to Dean Patterson. It was an alarming notion to say the least, and Nina vowed to check on her students the moment she was released from the obligatory bullshit conversation they were engaged in.

  “Relax,” Christa told him. “Dr. Gould’s wording is more alarming than need be.” She gave Nina a reprimanding glare. “She meant that I popped in this morning to give her students a surprise exam. That’s all. Right, Dr. Gould?”