Crazy Thing Called Love (20 page)

Something was off
. On Friday, all through the Cooking With Beer segment, Madelyn had been watching backstage. Sabine wasn’t there, but Ruth was. A thin black shadow at the edge of the set.

Ruth was never backstage.

“Delicious,” Maddy cried, trying a bite of stew cooked with Guinness while simultaneously calculating how many extra minutes on the recumbent bike it would cost her. Next up was a cheese fondue with ale in it. Just looking at it was making her fat.

On the other side of the stage, Billy—dressed in one of his new light spring sweaters, a gorgeous blue V-neck with a gray T-shirt underneath—waved at her. Grinning like the Cheshire Cat with all of her secrets locked away in that dirty little mind.

She was embarrassed by how much time she’d spent this weekend thinking about him in his tux.

The cheese fondue was served to her on an apple, which hardly reformed the fat content. She ate the apple and cheese and moaned in unfeigned ecstasy. Though at this point in her dairy-free life, it could have been a Velveeta slice on stale bread and she’d have loved it.

Wiping her mouth and fingers with a napkin, she turned to the camera. “All right, guys, next up, Billy Wilkins will go toe to toe with an etiquette expert.” She leaned sideways, looking at Billy. “And I don’t want to
put too fine a point on it, but Billy looks good. See for yourself after the break.”

“We’re out. Ninety seconds,” Peter yelled.

Instead of Gina rushing to her, it was Ruth. Instinctively, she stepped back, as if to protect herself. Ruth looked rabid.

This was getting very strange.

Ruth leaned close, way past any personal space limit established years ago. “Listen,” Ruth whispered. “There’s been a change.”

“A change?” She glanced sideways at Billy, who was watching her.

“Shhh. Look at me. I need you to focus. It’s not as bad as it seems, if you can keep Billy under control.”

Panic clamped down on the back of her neck. Keep Billy under control? “What the hell are you talking about? And where’s the etiquette guy?” She whirled around, looking for the formally set table they had planned on using. She’d seen it backstage before opening the show.

It wasn’t there now.

“Twenty seconds.”

“Read the teleprompter and …” Ruth blew out a long breath, and Maddy suddenly realized how much older her associate producer looked.

“Are you okay?” Maddy asked.

Ruth’s smile was broken. “I’m sorry, Maddy. But I promise I’ll try to fix it.”

And then she was gone.

Gina appeared, brushed powder over her face. “What’s going on, Gina?” Maddy asked.

“I don’t know, baby, but it’s bad news back there. Phil—”

“Phil?”

“That man is acting like a fool,” Gina said and then was gone.

That instilled absolutely no faith.

Billy walked over and sat next to her, his face folded into concerned lines.

“What’s up?” he asked. “Where’s the table?”

“Do you know what’s going on?” she whispered.

From one moment to the next, Billy … sharpened. Gone was the smile and the easygoing slump in the chair next to her. Now he was fully on guard. A warrior ready for a battle. “Why?”

“And five.” Peter was giving her the finger countdown behind the camera and then the red light was back on and there was nothing to do but move forward.

“Welcome back. For those of you just joining us, it’s day two of the Billy Wilkins Project. Last week, we cleaned the hockey bad boy up, and if I do say so myself, we did a pretty good job.”

Billy stood, his muscular body shown to perfection in his sweater, the tight but not too tight fit of his gray slacks.

The crowd loved it. Unaware that every muscle under those clothes was tense, radiating a menace that made the earth uneven beneath Maddy’s feet.

Calm
, she thought—or rather, prayed—
keep calm
.

She glanced back to the teleprompter. “Well, today we were going to put Billy to the test with an etiquette expert, but we’ve had a change in plans.”

A sense of irrevocability settled hard in her bones.

“Our producers have done some digging into Billy’s … past,” she stumbled over the word. Past? Her mouth kept talking, but she lost all connection to what she was saying; she knew she was just a face spitting out words. An automaton. But damn it, Ruth had promised her that her and Billy’s marriage would have no part in this.

“And instead of Ms. Manners from the
Dallas Gazette
, I’d like to introduce Rebecca and Charles.”

Rebecca and Charles? What the hell?

She turned sideways, waiting for the mystery guests to come in from backstage, but there were no chairs. No mics. No setup. Nobody had planned this right.

What the hell was going on?

From the corner of her eye she saw a commotion in the front row, right behind the camera operator, who swiveled quickly to catch the two children standing up.

Charles was a toddler, two or three years old. Red-faced and clinging to an older girl, brown-haired and undeniably militant. The kids were clean, the young girl’s body hidden under a blue hoodie. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

But the look in her blue eyes was haunted.

Maddy caught sight of Ruth backstage, pointing frantically to the teleprompter, but Maddy was thunderstruck, lost.

Beside her, Billy came to his feet.

“Becky?” he asked.

The girl glanced to the left where Phil was standing, nodding so fast it was like his neck was broken.

Clutching the boy closer, the girl lifted her hand and waved to Billy.

“Hi, Daddy!”

The
AM Dallas
audience went ape shit. Rabid. Phones came out and people nearly fell over themselves trying to take pictures.

Anger roared through Billy. Justified and huge, barely controlled.

Maddy just stared at him, her mouth open, her eyes pleading, standing at the front of the stage, a giant chasm opening between them.

And he wanted to yell,
Did you lie to me? Did you look me in the eye and lie about my family?

“I didn’t know,” she whispered.

He didn’t believe her, or if he did he couldn’t quite gather himself enough to actually say the words. The girl—God, could it really be Becky?—crouched to protect the now screaming boy in her arms as the crowd pushed in to get a closer look.

I gotta get them out of here
.

Billy ripped the mic off his sweater, but it wasn’t enough, his anger demanded more. He kicked Maddy’s empty chair to the floor and the clatter and bang silenced the studio. Every eye was on him. Every cell phone lens.

Maddy jumped, startled. And he liked that. His anger loved it, his anger was like a dog rolling in a dead bird, so he kicked over his own chair. The shitty side table with the coffee cups on it shattered under his boot.

It was either that or strangle his ex-wife with her straightened hair.

The sound of that boy’s cries cut through the mayhem like a knife and he charged off the stage toward those two kids.

“Come on,” he barked, holding out his hand. The girl shook her head, her eyes wide.

Phil appeared at Billy’s shoulder and Billy knew he would punch him in his smarmy face if he stood there one second longer. Without the patience or the words to make their exit happen any other way, Billy grabbed the girl’s hand and crouched and picked up the boy.

The girl stiffened and the boy freaked right out. It was like pulling a two-by-four and carrying a wiggling puppy at the same time.

“Calm him down or I’m going to drop him,” Billy muttered to the girl as he pushed his way backstage.

“Charlie,” the girl whispered. “Charlie, chill out. It’s like a piggyback. See?” Billy glanced sideways in time to see the girl pretending to smile.

How many times did I do that for Denise?
Lip swelling,
eye bleeding, he’d told her countless times he was fine. That everything was going to be fine.

He’d been lying.

The girl was lying, too.

“Billy!” It was Ruth. He ignored her, walking to the green room, where he’d left his coat. The keys to his truck were in its inside pocket.

“Billy!” She was following him. Stupid woman.

He continued to ignore her, turning the corner into the room where the small breakfast buffet was still set up. He set Charlie down and dug through the coats on the rack for his new overcoat.

“I’m sorry,” Ruth said.

“Go. Away.”

“Billy …” Ruth took a step closer and the chains keeping him in line strained. He yanked his coat from the rack, sending the whole thing to the ground. “Stay the hell away from me.”

His phone buzzed in his coat pocket, like a living thing.

Good chance it was Victor. There was no time for putting out his agent’s fires, so he let it go to voicemail.

He turned off the phone.

At the buffet, Becky was filling the pockets of her hoodie with fruit and muffins, stuffing snacks into Charlie’s small hands.

“Let’s go,” he barked at the kids, who both flinched so hard granola bars rained onto the floor. They stood paralyzed.

“Come on. We gotta get out of here.”

“No.” Becky’s face twisted into a sneer, her hands in fists. It was like looking in a mirror, and he knew this girl’s back was to the wall and if he kept pushing, she’d start pushing back.

Charlie sucked back tears.

He sensed Ruth at his elbow and he jammed his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t grab her. Wouldn’t shake her. God, the urge to hurt someone was overwhelming.

She was holding a plastic bag. “Diapers,” she said. He yanked the bag from her hand.

“We’re not done,” he muttered.

“I know.” She seemed resigned, like a woman on her way to the gallows. “Go out the back door. Apparently there are some camera crews at the front one.”

Gratitude didn’t even register.

“We need to leave,” he barked at the kids. Ruth crouched on her knees in front of them, pushing the fallen granola bars into their pockets.

“We’re not going anywhere with you,” Becky said.

“Do you know who I am? Really?”

Cagey, Becky glanced sideways at Ruth. “You’re our dad.”

Ruth whispered, “We all know that’s not true.”

“Fine time for you to admit it!” Billy snapped at Ruth as the little boy started to cry again.

Behind him he heard the clickety-clack of high heels on concrete and he knew, with the terrible sixth sense that came with his love, that Maddy was coming.

The anger billowed back up.

“Billy!” Maddy came around the corner, panting, her hair a wild banner behind her. “Billy, oh my God, are you—”

“Leaving.” He couldn’t look at her, maybe not ever again.

He jerked his fingers at the kids. “Let’s go.”

Becky just reached down for Charlie’s hand, their little feet rooted to the ground.

“Please!” he yelled, losing his mind. He just wanted to get them free of this den of snakes so he could figure
out what was going on. Thinking was impossible in this place, where every touchstone of his anger was being fondled and rubbed and thrown against walls.

“Christ, Billy, stop scaring them!” Maddy whispered.

Unable to stop himself, he turned on her, so close that her breasts would touch his chest if she took a deep breath. His skin shrank to nothing, his anger pounded in his veins, not unlike lust. Not unlike love. Every emotion he’d ever felt was too big for his body and betrayal was no different.

She shrank back, her whiskey eyes filled with tears.

“Stay away from us, Maddy. I’m serious—just stay away.”

“The show—”

Laughter, dark and rotten, churned in his throat. “You do not want to talk to me about the show.”

Reining himself in, he crossed over to the kids and went down on one knee in front of them. He was in enemy territory without any help in sight and he didn’t know what he was doing. At all.

With painful hindsight he wished that he’d called that private investigator about finding his sisters. But he’d forgotten, or decided it wasn’t that important, and what a stupid decision that had been.

“I’m not your dad,” he said, right into Becky’s blue eyes. “You know that, right?”

After a moment she nodded.

“You’re our uncle,” she whispered.

“That’s right. I’m your uncle. Your mom is my sister. We need to get out of here.”

“Where …” She swallowed, so clearly scared and over her head and he suddenly wanted to kill Denise for coming up with this ridiculous scheme. Did she send two kids on a plane with no adult? Was she here? What the hell? “Where are you taking us?”

“My house.”

Becky shook her head.

He took a deep breath, counting to ten. “I have video games.”

The girl kept her mouth shut.

“Ice cream.”

Nothing.

“I like ice cream,” Charlie whispered and Becky shushed him.

“What can I do to make you leave with me?” At this point he would promise her the house, whatever she wanted just so they could go. “I’ll pay you.”

Somebody gasped, one of the traitorous women behind him, who had no business judging him after the shit they’d pulled, so he ignored them.

“How much?”

He didn’t even blink. “A hundred bucks.”

“Okay. And some clothes for Charlie. He peed through his diaper.”

He ripped open his wallet, blindly pulled out some bills, and shoved them into her hands.

Carrying the bag of diapers, Billy led his niece and nephew out the back of the building to his truck.

He had no idea Maddy was following them until she said: “You … you don’t have a car seat. For the boy.”

“His name is Charlie,” Becky said. “And it’s okay. He didn’t have one at home.”

“That’s … that’s illegal, isn’t it?” Maddy asked.

“Not if you don’t have a car,” Becky said, lifting Charlie up into the Audi.

Maddy looked at him, as if not having a car was the worst thing she’d ever heard of.

“You’ve forgotten what it was like,” he said and climbed into the driver’s seat. Shutting the door as hard as he could, a sad outlet for the violence simmering inside him.

Once he pulled out of the parking lot it hit him: