Overkill(58)



He got into his car. As he started it, he said above the revving engine, “See you at eight.” He backed out. Cal stood in the yard looking after him until Melinda pushed open the front door. “Cal?”

He turned away from the street and walked toward her. When he reached her, she hugged him tightly around his waist and laid her cheek against his chest. “I overheard what he said. He’s loathsome. I hate him.”

He rubbed her back. “I apologize. He burst our happy bubble over the baby.”

She pushed away from him, looked into his face, and said adamantly, “He affects us only as much as we let him.” She reached up and smoothed out the frown line between his eyebrows. “Cal, ignore everything he said. He’s your past. The baby and I are your future.”

He drew her close again and wrapped her in a strong embrace. He didn’t deserve this woman who, despite his wayward past, loved him. He didn’t deserve the child they’d made, or this house that he’d been fixing up on weekends in the hope of making it permanently theirs.

He’d known the sheer drop was there on the other side of the peak. Fool that he was, he had thought he was braced for it.

Eban wasn’t his past. He was very much his present.





Chapter 25





Zach didn’t know how Bing had managed it, but when he and Kate emerged from the jetway, there was an attractive and mannerly young woman there to greet them. “Mr. Bridger, my name is Leanne. I’m your escort. Do you have all your belongings?”

They hadn’t checked bags, so they replied yes, and Leanne said, “Lovely. Follow me, please.”

They walked along the concourse, trying to stay out of the way of the poor slobs who didn’t have an “escort.” In the midst of the hustle, Leanne was an oasis of calm, asking them polite questions about their flight and the weather in New Orleans.

All was fine, well and good, until they passed a sports café, where patrons were seated along the bar with their beers and margaritas, watching TVs… on which was a close-up picture of Zach.

It was eerily reminiscent of the pool bar on Grand Cayman the morning his life had become a living hell. He broke a cold sweat.

“Through here, please.” Leanne motioned them out of the flow of foot traffic to a door that read “Authorized Persons Only.” She used a keypad to unlock it.

Beyond that door was a sterile tunnel at the end of which was another door with a keypad, and on the other side of it was Bing. He was in conversation with Leanne’s male counterpart. The young man was well turned out and emanating courtesy.

Bing, however, wasn’t so well turned out, and he certainly wasn’t being courteous. As Kate and Zach preceded Leanne into the posh lounge that most travelers would never know existed, Bing stopped what he had been saying and put his hands on his hips. “About fuckin’ time. Your flight was forty-three minutes late.”

It was an effort for Zach to stay composed in the face of a new and as yet unspecified crisis, but he remembered to thank Leanne. He gave the young man a sympathetic smile as he took Bing by the elbow and propelled him toward a corner that would afford them a modicum of privacy.

“I saw the TVs in a sports bar. What’s happened?”

Ignoring the question, Bing glared at Kate, who had accompanied them over. “Who’s she? Or dare I guess?”

“This is Kate Lennon. Kate, this rude bastard is Bing Bingham. I’ve mentioned him to you.”

“Mr. Bingham,” she said coolly.

Bing gave her a thorough once-over, then shot Zach a sardonic look. “Not exactly the word picture you painted of the ‘state prosecutor.’”

Zach didn’t address the implication. Impatiently, he repeated, “What’s happened?”

“You’re all over the cable sports networks. Pat called me early afternoon, asked if I had my TV on. No, I said. But when I tuned in, there you were. Old footage, but you’re the feature of the day.”

“Shit!”

“Yeah. Pat said you weren’t returning his calls.”

“Who’s Pat?” Kate asked.

“My agent,” Zach replied. “I didn’t answer because I thought he was calling about the mouthwash thing.”

“Mouthwash thing?” Bing said.

“He’s been trying to talk me into doing a commercial.”

Bing grunted with contempt. “I hope you told him to go fuck himself.”

“If I was returning his calls, I would.”

“I think he’s secretly doing handsprings over the free publicity you’re suddenly getting, but you’re gonna hate it like hell, Zach.”

“It’s about Rebecca?”

“A replay of four years ago.”

Zach dropped his head forward and cursed under his breath. When he looked up again, he could tell that Kate was as distressed as he.

“I came to warn you,” Bing said. “Drove hellbent from Greenville to get here in time to meet your flight.”

“How did you know we were flying in?” Kate asked.

“Zach always texts me his itinerary. ’Course he failed to mention that he had a traveling companion.”

Zach let that dart whiz past without comment, but he said to Kate, “This isn’t the first time Bing has headed me off to avoid media.”

Sandra Brown's Books