Chapter 1

David Blaine opened the large heavy envelope with care. Ali had made him a gift but this time it was neither jewels nor golden chains to hang about his neck and wrists. As the photos emerged from the pile he smiled a little to himself. This was just the kind of toy Ali loved to collect, a vintage steam-driven yacht. He had no idea what he would do with it but apparently it now belonged to him. The Medea had changed hands once again.

The Medea is a 1904 steam yacht with a history as colorful and interesting as her namesake.

 Loud giggling and laughter brought his head up from the pile. Mandi and Lyssa were in the hallway outside his office/library.

“Shall we?” Mandi asked Lyssa in a loud whisper, hoping to alert David that something was coming his way.

Giggles, “Yeah, let’s do it!” Lyssa poked her head around the door and through the gloom and morning rays of light passing though the high stained glass windows she saw her father at his desk.

“Is anybody home?” she asked and fell into a fit of giggles.

“No” he replied and tilted his head around his desk.

Lyssa came through the door and to the tune of I’m a Little Teapot she sang I’m a Little Veggie Bin and all about her clothes, stuffed in her waistband and her tee shirt, forming oddly-shaped breasts were veggies from the garden. Cabbage leaves placed on her head threatened to hide her face. She pushed them back and continued prancing across to his desk.

He fell into laughter and asked her to turn around, noting the beets sticking out of her pants.

“…here is my sprout,” she continued on.

Mandi leaned in the doorway, smiling. It had taken a while for Lyssa to accept her. She’d cried for MeeMaw Langston and lastly her mother. Now they were best friends. Mandi, an unlikely candidate for nannyhood, had taken to the little girl and spent her days playing with her and correcting her where needed. She was more of a playmate than anything else with her. Poor little kid. But the poor little kid belonged to David Blaine.

She was his playmate, too, his companion, his lover, whatever he needed. She’d given up her flat in London, her job with the intelligence agency, a fact that her former boss was still trying to ignore. Cramer called regularly. She’d left it all behind for him, for David Blaine and did it knowing she would never have all of him, though he was generous of himself with her. Ali still claimed his heart and always would.

Lyssa finished her performance and bowed, losing the cabbage leaves on her head.

“Come here, you little cabbage.” David pulled her onto his lap.

“Did you like it, Daddy?”

“I loved it, Lyssa. Did you think this up all by yourself?”

“Yes, I thunk up the song but Mandi helped me with my costume.”

He gave her a hug and looked across the room where Mandi leaned in the doorway.

“You’d better take yourself into Cook and let her put you in a pot,” Mandi laughed.

“She’s not going to cook me!” Lyssa gasped.

“She might when she sees such nice produce.” Mandi jingled into the room. She was wearing bells on her anklets today. She smelled of patchouli when she bent to take Lyssa from David’s lap. He inhaled deeply. She’d made little swirls with her eyeliner on her cheeks.

He never knew what she would look like or smell like. She liked surprising him. He touched her arm and their eyes met for a moment. She turned away with a little smile playing around her lips.

“You haven’t seen this.” He indicated the pile on his desk. “Come back when you’ve deposited her in the pot.”

“No pot!” Lyssa protested as Mandi carried her from the room.

 

He removed a scallion from his lap and tossed it on the desk. Leaning against the desk were his two canes. He had a collection of them now and some were quite valuable. It was the sort of thing he and Billy could talk about and scour around the countryside for. He’d been hesitant about Billy because of what had happened with his wife. Mandi was a different creature but still he was careful and Billy was the height of discretion.

When it became apparent to Mandi that he could not look after himself properly and she couldn’t manage him in and out of the bath she talked to him about a nurse. Billy Seldon came to his mind and he was contacted through the agency. He was a man’s man; he looked after David’s clothing, attended his needs, helped him to dress and prepared meals on cook’s day off. He acted as butler, chauffer and companion.

Billy loved David and looking after him was all he could ever hope for. He had on his own, taken lessons to become a masseuse so he could ease the pain in David’s back. He was aware as no one else was of the pain Blaine suffered. He walked with two canes most days. Some days his legs were in braces and some days they were not. It all depended on how he felt. He also had a back brace that he wore when he knew he would be standing for any period of time. Billy had also been known to find marijuana for Blaine…medicinal purposes, of course.

Margret Langston visited when she could. Blaine worked with her but more from home and photos now than actual day to day onsite work. His initial enthusiasm for his recovery from the broken back he suffered in the elevator fall had passed on. There was some improvement but he was not resigned to the fact that he would always be dependent on someone else.

His long time friend and lover, Prince Ali, was still confident that the right physician could work miracles. They just had to find him. Ali had gone home with his wife and children. Other members of his family had come forward and defended him when it was seen who would be occupying the throne. Now anyone who dared to speak of or to question Ali’s sexuality was soon banished. Ali lived on a tightrope, keeping his secrets secret. There were few he trusted anymore and even fewer did he love. Only Blaine and his children. His wife he was fond of.

“Beg pardon, Sir.” It was Jeremy Beeson, Blaine’s man of work. He did most of the heavy lifting around the grounds and hired on local boys to help when he needed it.

“Yes, Beeson?”

“There be a man in the drive. I says to him to wait there. He’s a…Chinaman, me thinks.”

Blaine went still. He hadn’t thought about his mother in a long time. “Ask him to come in. Where is Billy?”

“He’s in the garage I will tell him to come to the house.”

“Thank you, Beeson.” David looked around his library. Except for the scallion it was presentable enough but it wouldn’t do for him to be seated. He reached for his canes and by locking his legs he stood by his desk. He did not want to appear disabled. A quick hand through his hair and he slipped on his jacket from the back of his chair.

Billy came running into the library. “I am sorry, Blaine. Totally unaware of a visitor. Are we all right in here? Yes? I shall lead him to you. Tea? Right.”

Blaine had nodded.

When the visitor was brought in he was known to him. It was his cousin. “Chi Chang.” He bowed slightly.

“Blaine,” Chi returned the greeting.

“What brings you here? I fear it is not good news for you to travel so far.”

“It is not good.”

“Please be seated.” David felt for his chair and slowly lowered himself into it, holding on to the arms.

This was not lost on Chi. He observed his cousin closely. “You have had an injury?”

“I have, yes,” David smiled slightly. “Ah, Seldon, tea. Thank you.” He reached to pour but Billy caught his eye and performed the ritual for him, handing a cup off to Chi and one to David. He backed out of the room, keeping an ear out in the hallway.

Chi waited until Billy had removed himself from the room. “I will speak plainly to you. It is our uncle.”

“My mother’s brother?” Plain spoken but in the Chinese dialect they both shared.

“Yes. I am very sorry but he is dead.” He bowed his head.

Blaine stared at him a moment. This was the uncle he had saved by sacrificing himself in China. It had only been the intervention of Ali that had saved him from a lifetime in prison.

“This is very sad news. May I ask what happened?”

“That is why I am here. It was not a natural death. Your mother grieves for him. He was her protector. She ask me to find you. It is you who must find our Uncle’s murderer.”

“I do not understand. Why have the police not found the murderer?”

“Because the murderer has fled the country. We know where but we can do nothing.”

“What happened? How did he die?”

“He was poisoned. Poisoned by his lovers.”

“Why?”

“I do not know, Blaine. There were two of them from Greece. A brother and a sister we believe, or they could have been man and wife.”

“Both were his lovers?”

“Perhaps.” Chi was uncomfortable. “I do not know of these things. I have led a very sheltered life in some regards.”

“I am not sure I like your insinuation.” Blaine smiled slightly. “Our uncle had two lovers. For some reason unknown they poisoned him and left for…where?”

“Sicily. They evidently have family there.”

“Are they political?”

“They are students.”

“What does that mean? Are all students political?”

Chi smiled a little, “You know that better than me. We believe he was targeted but for what reason we do not know. He was not that close to the Chairman after the Orb fiasco.”

David closed his eyes. Would that never subside? “I will need more than this. I will need to know exactly where they are, names, addresses, contacts. I will need also to know if our Uncle had any other ties with Sicily, Greece or Italy. Has he slighted someone in a delegation…anything, Chi.”

“You will do this?”

“I will do what I can. You were correct about the injury. I was in an elevator that crashed and I broke my back.”

“You cannot help us then. You are not able to do this thing we ask.”

“Yes, I can. There is nothing I cannot do if I want it badly enough.”

“If you are sure then we will talk. I will tell you everything I know.”

“You will stay the night," Blaine stated. “Billy, we have a guest for the night.” He barely raised his voice.

Chi bowed to him and smiled.

Blaine spent most of the afternoon with Chi, closeted in his library. Billy informed Cook and Mandi of the visitor.

“What’s it all about?” Mandi asked.

“I haven’t a clue. I don’t speak Chinese. They were very serious and…sad.”

“Sad?”

“Yes, his mother…perhaps?”

“Hmm, could be. I wish he’d tell us something.”

“He’s missed his therapy session,” Billy sighed.

Mandi looked at him a moment. “Do they help at all?”

“I couldn’t say. I know a sit in the whirlpool upstairs and a good rubdown does him more good than anything. Well, you know that,” he smiled and winked.

“Sometimes I think I might be getting sloppy seconds.”

“Oh, never, love.” He winked again. Billy had been taken aback by Mandi’s thinly-veiled attempt at seduction. That had been early on. They even laughed about it now and again. Billy was gay  and he was flattered, but his desires were elsewhere.

“Ooop, he’s calling.” Billy shot out of the kitchen and down the hall to the library.

Mandi took a drink from her tea cup and looked over to the worktable where Cook and Lyssa were rolling out pastry. It wasn’t like David to shut the door to his library. She wasn’t sure she liked the visitor.

“Yes, Sir,” Billy bobbed in the doorway.

“Show my cousin Chi Chang to a guest room where he may freshen up. And…come back for me.”

Billy looked at him a moment, understanding that Blaine had sat too long in his desk chair. He hadn’t worn his braces today and was most likely unable to stand. “Right-o,” he replied and led the cousin to his room.

“Is it safe to come in?” Mandi asked from the door.

“Of course it is,” he smiled slightly.

Mandi noticed the lines around his eyes. He was in pain and weary. “What can I do for you?” she asked and went down on her knees in front of his chair.He placed a hand in her hair. “Have you ever been to Sicily?”

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