Sweet Lamb of Heaven (30)

“She doesn’t play outside by herself,” I said. “The motel’s on the edge of a cliff.”

He slipped his phone from a coat pocket.

“My driver can babysit.”

“No thanks,” I said firmly. “We don’t know him.”

“Hello?”

It was Don, knocking at the cracked-open door with perfect timing.

“Come in!” I said, relieved.

He stepped inside, nodded curtly at Ned without smiles or introductions, and held his hand out to Lena.

“I’ve got a job for you,” he said. “You want to help me?”

“I’m the assistant!” crowed Lena.

And Don towed her efficiently out of the room.

I was so grateful to see her go that I felt my shoulders unclench.

“Look, I’m not asking you to give any stump speeches, honeypie,” said Ned, stretching out a hand and pushing the door closed behind them. “You don’t have to say a word. You can be deaf, dumb and blind. Hell, I like you better that way. Just smile and hold my hand sometimes. And get the girl to do the same. You soldier through till the election, smiling all the time, I’ll give you a friendly, neat divorce as your very own victory gift. Plus full custody. With visitation rights, of course. Couldn’t be looking like a deadbeat dad.”

“And you’d actually put that in writing. Before the fact.”

“All official. With confidentiality agreements on the timing and conditions there, of course.”

“Even if you lose? You’d sign off beforehand on it, no matter how the election goes?”

“I won’t lose. Not with the friends I have and your two pretty faces beside me. But sure, I’ll sign.”

“Because I know you want more than the state senate. Won’t you want a wife and kid when you run for something bigger, too?”

“I’ll cross that bridge. Let me worry.”

I was asking questions, but I wasn’t seriously considering the request.

“Don’t you think I could get sole custody now?” I said. “I mean Ned. You’ve come to one of her birthday parties. Ever. And that was by accident, if I remember correctly.”

“You might could get custody,” said Ned, and smiled again. “But maybe not. Running off like you did.”

“You wouldn’t want that fight,” I said. “Publicly. You’d never want it. Especially not now.”

“You’d be amazed how I can spin things, when I need to. I might decide to play the victim. People do love their victims, in America.”

We gazed at each other across the room. That is, I looked past Ned, not wanting to look at him, so I don’t know if he really looked at me either. I tried to remember another time he’d been so direct, and all I could come up with was when he asked me to get married. It had been at a restaurant with white tablecloths and obsequious waiters—he likes being served by such waiters and I hate it. When waiters are too fawning I hear the falseness they’ve brought to it, possible snide remarks in the kitchen.

Now he was relaxed in the chair, facing me, while I was in a defensive posture, backed up against the counter of our kitchenette as far from him as I could be. My hands were braced against the edge.

“I need time to think,” I said. “And while I think, I need you to not be here. And not spend time with Lena, either.”

He shrugged. “The clock’s ticking.”

“Why? Isn’t the election a whole year away?”

“Primary’s in August. My party controls the governor’s office and the House; the Senate’s a 10–10 split, but with redistricting we could take over there too, come November. We’ve been low-key till now, but it’s time for a higher gear.”

“You’re not going to start campaigning before Christmas, are you?”

He picked up Lena’s Lucky Duck from where it lay, studied it for a few moments, and then dropped it.

“Getting my ducks in a nice little row.”

There was a knock on the door, so I crossed the room and opened it. The Lindas stood there, smiling pleasantly, waiting. Ned rose from his chair and smiled too, at them first, then at me.

“Well, got to be getting back,” he said. “You mull it over, honey. So great to see my girls again. Ladies? A pleasure.”

The Lindas moved aside for him, and just like that he was gone.



I DON’T HAVE confidence we can run away again. For one thing it would clearly look illegal, now that he’s sought us out. And for another he’s obviously better at stealth than I am, and he does have friends. Whether Beefy John tipped him off or was only a witness, he has sources of information and I’m clearly not equipped to detect them.

The Lindas told me Lena was helping Don in the café; they sat and listened while I explained. I told them what my position was; they were sympathetic. And I didn’t have to persuade them Ned wasn’t the charmer people always think he is—maybe, as post-reproductive women, they were outside the field of his pheromones.

Almost as soon as Ned was gone the guests seemed to come out of the woodwork: the motel returned to life, with movement and light in the rooms, people talking and walking between them, breath visible in the cold. Don brought Lena back, and Kay and Burke were with them and made remarks about Ned’s shining car, his bodyguard/driver, his tailored coat and even the lamb, which lay abandoned in a corner of the room atop its pile of bright wrapping.