Sugar Daddy(206)

Sighing. Gage dragged his hand through his hair, leaving some of it standing on end. "I've got a headache that won't quit." He rubbed his temples gingerly. "I didn't sleep last night. I feel like I've been hit by an eighteen-wheeler."

"Have you taken something for it?" I asked. I rarely spoke to him directly.

"Yeah." He looked at me with bloodshot eyes.

"Because if not—"

"I'm fine."

I knew he was in considerable pain. A Texan male will say he's fine even if he's just had a limb severed and is bleeding to death in front of you.

"I could get you an ice pack and some painkillers," I said cautiously. "If you—"

"I said I'm fine," Gage snapped, and turned to his father. "Come on. let's get started. I'm running late as it is."

Jerk, I thought, and took Churchill's tray from the room.

We didn't see Gage for two days after that. Jack was enlisted to come in his place. Since Jack had what he called "sleep inertia." I had genuine worries for Churchill's safety in the shower. Even though Jack moved, talked, and gave the appearance of a functioning human being, he wasn't all there until noon. In fact, sleep inertia looked a lot like a hangover to me. Swearing, stumbling, and only half listening to what anyone said, Jack was more of a hindrance than a help. Churchill remarked testily that Jack's sleep inertia would improve a hell of a lot if he didn't go out tomcatting half the night.

Gage; meanwhile, was bedridden with the flu. Since no one could remember the last time he'd been sick enough to take a day off, we all agreed it must have hit him pretty hard. No one heard from him, and when forty-eight hours had passed and Gage still wasn't answering the phone, Churchill began to fret.

"I'm sure he's just resting," I said.

Churchill replied with a noncommittal grunt.

"Dawnelle's probably taking care of him," I said.

That earned me a glance of sour skepticism.

I was tempted to point out that his brothers should visit him. Then I recalled that Joe had gone to St. Simon's Island with his girlfriend for a couple of days. And Jack's caretaking abilities had been pushed to their limits after helping his father shower two mornings in a row. I was pretty certain he would flat-out refuse to go to any more trouble for ailing family members.

"Do you want me to check on him?" I asked reluctantly. It was my night off, and I had planned to go out to a movie with Angie and some of the girls from Salon One. I hadn't seen them in a while and I was looking forward to catching up with them. "I guess I could stop by Eighteen hundred Main on the way to see my friends—"

"Yes," Churchill said.

I was instantly sorry I had made the offer. "I doubt he'd let me in." "I'll give you a key," Churchill said. "It's not like Gage to hole up like this. I want to know if he's all right."

To reach the residential elevators of 1800 Main, you had to go through a small lobby with marble flooring and a bronze sculpture that looked like a hunched-over pear. There was a doorman clad in black with gold trim, and two people behind the reception desk. I tried to look like I belonged in a building with multimillion-dollar condos. "I've got a key." I said, pausing to show it to them. "I'm visiting Mr. Travis."

"All right." the woman behind the desk said. "You can go on up. Miss..."

"Jones," I said. "His father sent me to check on him."

"That's fine." She motioned me toward a set of automatic sliding doors with etched-glass panels. "The elevators are over there."

I felt like I needed to convince her of something. "Mr. Travis has been sick for a couple of days," I said.

She looked sincerely concerned. "Oh. that's too bad."

"So I'm just going to run up and check on him. I'll only be a few minutes."

"That's fine, Miss Jones."

"Okay, thanks." I held up the key just in case she hadn't seen it the first time.

She responded with a patient smile and nodded toward the elevators again.

I went through the sliding glass doors and into an elevator with wood paneling and a black-and-white tiled floor and a bronze-framed mirror. The elevator whooshed up so swiftly, I barely had time to blink before it reached the eighteenth floor.

The narrow windowless hallways formed a big H. It was unnervingly quiet. My footsteps were muffled by a pale wool carpet, its pile spongy underfoot. I went to the corridor on the right and scrutinized door numbers until I found 18A. I knocked firmly.

No response.

A harder knock produced no results.

Now I was starting to get worried. What if Gage was unconscious? What if he'd gotten dengue fever or mad cow disease or bird flu? What if he was contagious? I wasn't too crazy about the idea of catching some exotic malady. On the other hand, I'd promised Churchill I would check on him.