A Knight Of The Word

Oh, he mouthed silently, nodded, and gave her a reassuring smile.

They were in a basement room filled with long, multipurpose tables and folding chairs, a coffee machine, shelves with dishes, anal storage cabinets. There were mingled smells of cooking and musty dampness, and she could hear a furnace cranking away from behind a closed door at the back of the room. Fluorescent lighting from low-hung fixtures cast a brilliant white glare over the whale of the windowless enclosure, giving it a harsh, unnatural brightness. A young man sat alone at a table to one side, poring through a sheaf of papers. Two women sat together at another table close to the coffee machine, talking in low voices. The women looked up as Nest appeared with Ray Hapgood. One was middle-aged and unremarkable, with short blond hair and a kind face. The other was probably not yet thirty and strikingly beautiful. Nest knew at once that she was Stefanie Winslow.

“Ladies,” Ray greeted, steering Nest toward their table. “Say hello to Nest Freemark, an old friend of John’s. Nest, this is Carole Price, our director of operations here at Fresh Start, and Stefanie Winslow, the boss’s press secretary and all-around troubleshooter.”

Nest shook hands with each in turn, noting the looks of surprise that appeared on both faces when Ray mentioned her connection to Ross. It .vas becoming dear that when John Ross had ceased to be a Knight of the Word, he had turned his back on his past entirely. The women smiled at Nest, and she smiled back, but this whale business of her relationship with Ross was growing awkward, and she wished he would just hurry up and get back so that she could get this visit aver with.

“Sit down. Nest,” Carole Price suggested, pulling out a chair. “I can’t believe we have someone here who actually knows John from... well, from when?”

“A long time ago,” Nest answered, trying not to sound evasive. She sat down. “It was my mother who knew him, really.”

“Your mother?” Carole Price prompted.

“They went to school together.”

“Good heavens!” Carole Price seemed amazed. “Even Stef doesn’t know much about our boy from those days.”

Stefanie Winslow shook her head in quick agreement. “He never talks about himself, about what he was doing or who he was before we met.” Her smile was dazzling. “Tell us something about him Nest. before he gets back. Tell us something he won’t tell us himself.”

“Yeah, go on,” Ray Hapgood urged, drawing up a chair across from her.

What Nest Freemark wanted to do most right then was to get out of there. The room felt impossibly close and airless, the fluorescent light hot and revealing, and the presence of these people she didn’t know a weight she could barely shoulder. What was happening inside her was indescribable. The uneasiness had taken on a life of its own, and it was careening about in her chest and throat like a pinball, shrieking unintelligibly and battering her senses. It was taking all her energy to keep it from getting completely out of control, to prevent it from breaking free in a form she could only begin to imagine. She had never experienced anything like it before. She was frightened and confused. She was wishing she had never come looking for John Ross.

“Come on, Nest, tell us something,” Stefanie Winslow urged cheerfully.

“He was in love with my mother,” she blurted out, saying the first thing that came to mind, not toeing if it was true or not, just wanting to shift their focus to something else. What in heaven’s name was wrong with her?

There was a flicker of uncertainty in Stefanie Winslow’s eyes. Then Ray Hapgood said, “Her mother died some years ago, Stef. This was a college romance, I’d guess.”

“It was,” Nest agreed quickly, realizing what Stefanie Winslow must be thinking. “It happened a long time ago.”

“Let’s get you some coffee, Nest,” Hapgood announced. “I don’t want Della on my case for not keeping my promises.”

He stood up and walked over to the coffee machine and drew down a cup and filled it. “Cream or sugar?”

Nest shook her head. She no longer wanted the coffee. She thought if she drank it, she would throw it right back up. She was physically sick to her stomach, her head was throbbing, and there was a buzzing in her ears. But it was tile uneasiness that rolled through her like a riptide that commanded her focus.

“Nest, you don’t look well,” Carole Price said suddenly, concern shadowing her blunt features.

“I am a little queasy,” she admitted. “I think maybe it was something I ate at breakfast.”

“Do you want to lie down for a little while? We’ve got some beds that aren’t in use, up on two.”

Nest shook her head. “No, I just need to... you know, maybe what I need is to go back up and get some fresh air for a moment.”