Overkill(65)

Doug Pratt gently pulled the brush through Rebecca’s hair. Ever since she was old enough to be aware of her beauty, her dark hair had been one of her vanities. She’d always worn it long, never allowing anyone to trim off more than an inch at a time.

Now Rebecca’s hair was kept closely cropped, but Doug still brushed it every day. It had broken Mary’s heart the first time nursing staff had sheared it. She’d salvaged the long locks, placed them in a shoe box, and tied a ribbon around it. That shoe box with its treasure inside remained on the shelf in the top of Mary’s closet.

“Even before I met him, I didn’t like Zach Bridger,” he said. “I made no secret of it. He led you astray. Him and his flashy, celebrity lifestyle was too much temptation for you to resist.

“Oh, you took to it, all right. Can’t argue that. But if it hadn’t been for him appealing to your wild streak and introducing you to all that immorality, you wouldn’t have met a deviant like Eban Clarke. You wouldn’t have been at that orgy, and your life wouldn’t have come to this. See? It all goes back to Bridger luring you into his freewheeling way of life.”

He gently turned her head to give him access to the other side. “Your mother thought it was unfair of me to blame him.”

Mary had said that by the time Zach Bridger had entered Rebecca’s life, she had already veered far off the path of the righteous. Until the day she died, Mary had refuted his condemnation of their ex-son-in-law.

What he hadn’t confessed to Mary, or acknowledged to himself, was that his anger toward Bridger had long been surpassed by fear of him. He woke up every morning afraid that it would be the day when Bridger said enough.

He placed the hairbrush in the nightstand drawer. “I’ll water your ivy in a minute.” He sat down in the chair beside the bed, slumping, reluctant to broach this subject with her.

“Bridger came to the house yesterday with that Ms. Lennon I told you about. She’s pleasant. Polite. Soft-spoken. Not abrasive like you’d think she might be.”

He stared at the speckled vinyl flooring between his well-worn trainers. “At Eban Clarke’s release hearing, this prison psychologist testified for our side.” In layman’s language, he explained the thrashing Dr. Hawkins had taken from Clarke’s defense attorney.

“Anyhow, what I’m getting to, Ms. Lennon left me with that psychologist’s final analysis of Clarke. I read it last night.” He raised his head and looked into his daughter’s sleeping face. “It’s like he doesn’t give a damn about what he did to you, Rebecca. Not a speck of repentance. Ms. Lennon says he’ll escape the punishment he deserves unless we…”

He cleared his throat as he stood. He went over to the sink, filled a glass of water, drank part of it, then emptied the remainder of it into the flowerpot on the windowsill where the young ivy he’d brought her last week was struggling.

“What got me angry yesterday was that it looked to me like Ms. Lennon’s arguments are chipping away at Bridger’s promise to stay out of our business.” He kept his back to the room, his stare fixed on the parking lot beyond the window. “But don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m looking out for you.”

He pinched off a leaf that had turned yellow. “There’s something else. Bridger’s got himself mired in another mess. This time with Kate Lennon. When they were at the house, I sensed undercurrents. You know the kind I mean. It appears that I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Last night they were being shown on TV.

“This upsets me, because whenever he’s in the news, you’re in the news. It’s not just his scandal, it’s ours. The media is having a field day with our tragedy. Like a rerun. It would tear Mary apart. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad she’s not here to see it.

“Aside from that, Kate Lennon is the last woman in the world I’d want him to go near, much less become romantically involved with.” He turned away from the window and walked back over to the bed.

“What scares me? I could tell that Bridger is on the fence. That has to be Kate Lennon’s doing. She’s got a sweet face and sincere eyes, she represents the law, but her agenda goes against God’s law. If Bridger—”

“Mr. Pratt?” He turned to find that Dr. Gilbreath had entered the room. She said, “Sorry to interrupt.”

“No problem. We were just chatting.”

“Could I please have a word with you?”

“Of course.”

“In my office.”

It wasn’t unprecedented that Dr. Gilbreath sought him out to discuss something regarding Rebecca, but considering that Bridger and Kate Lennon had had a conference with her yesterday, and that she had asked for privacy, his guard went up. Her wistful smile also made him uneasy.

She must have sensed his hesitancy, because she said, “I promise not to keep you long.”

“All right.” He murmured to Rebecca, “I’ll be right back,” and followed the doctor from the room.





Bing and Kate joined Zach in his hotel room, where, over coffee, Bing was told about the cancellation of Kate’s case against Eban Clarke.

“The AG was ambivalent from the start,” she said. “This gave him a good excuse to nix it.”

“Just like a goddamn politician,” Bing said.