The Bad Judgment Series: The Complete Series (34 page)

“
H
oney
, I bought you a boat,” Walker called out as he came through the door, several hours later. Buying a boat must have put him in a good mood, because he looked and sounded extremely happy. He stopped in the kitchen for a second and inhaled. “What the hell is that glorious smell? Is it a home-cooked meal?” he asked, coming towards me and sweeping me into his arms.

“Yes it is, Mr. Walker,” I said, formally. “Or should I call you Mr. White?”

“If you’re making me a dinner that smells that good,” he said, leaning down to give me a quick kiss, “you can call me whatever the hell you want.”

I’d made a roast chicken dinner. I put fresh rosemary and thyme into the chicken, along with a lemon, and sprinkled the outside with olive oil and fresh herbs. I’d roasted carrots, fingerling potatoes and asparagus; it did smell heavenly. I’d read the recipe in a women’s magazine once. It said that three of the staff members had made it for their boyfriends, and that their boyfriends had proposed later that night.

Which had absolutely nothing to do with why I made it. It had just popped into my head. I swear.

“That smells so good, I could cry,” Walker said.

“It’s just dinner,” I said. “Nothing to cry about.”

“If you’d been eating fast food and chocolate bars for dinner for two weeks straight, you’d know exactly what I meant,” he said.

“Uh, Walker, I have been.”

“I know, but you’re not a
guy
. If you were a guy, you’d know exactly what I meant.”

I didn’t argue with him. I just set the table. Then I poured two glasses of wine, made two big plates of food, and put out a salad. He went in and checked the computer and came back out a few minutes later, looking happy and comfortable. My heart ached to see him like that. He should be able to look like that every night, I thought.

When I had thoughts like that, I started to get mad. Mad at the people who were doing this to us. And I’d decided that, given the present circumstances, mad was good.

He sat down and I put his plate in front of him. “You are officially back on the payroll, Nic,” he said. “You’re worth even more to me in this capacity than you were as my lawyer — and you’re a brilliant lawyer. But I haven’t had anybody take care of me like this in ages.”

“None of the models or actresses cooked for you?” I asked, spearing an asparagus tip.

“Don’t ruin the perfection of our dinner by talking about such unpleasant things,” Walker said soothingly, in between bites. “From now on, I’m only dating lawyers named Nicole. I’m branded, remember?” he asked, pointing to his back. “Marked for life.”

I beamed at him and he smiled back, even though he was busy eating. I’d been hungry since we’d been hiding, and I wasn’t a six-foot-two, heavily muscled man who had to weigh at least two-hundred and twenty-five pounds. As I watched him, I realized the poor guy had been starving.

“Walker, I’m sorry you haven’t been eating properly,” I said, worried about him.

“It’s all good,” he said, reaching over and squeezing my hand. “This is officially the best dinner I’ve ever had. It erases all the fast food and hunger pangs from the past couple of weeks. I’m gonna let myself forget about it.

“But I’m not ever gonna forget about you taking care of me. It’s a good thing I got that tattoo,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to think that I was taking you for granted. Your cooking, your scheming and plotting…your hot body….” He tugged on my hand and pulled me over to his lap, where he snuggled me to him. “You smell good, too,” he said.

“I probably smell like dinner,” I said and laughed. “But it
is
amazing what a hot shower and clean laundry can do for a girl. But enough about me — how’s the boat? And how’s it coming with the network?”

“I love the boat,” Walker said. “I have to arrange for a mooring over here. It’s on the other side of the island right now, but I want it where we can see it. I’ll take you out on it tomorrow. If we wear baseball hats and hoodies and just fish around here, we should be safe.”

“I don’t really think we should take a chance like that just to go fishing,” I said. I hated to burst his bubble, but we were taking enough chances as it was, with all the car stealing, condo renting, boat-buying and grocery shopping.

“Actually, there’s another reason for going out on it,” he said. “We need to get it prepared.”

“Prepared for what?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. As usual, he was two steps ahead of me in the planning department.

“Prepared for the possibility of a trip.”

I looked at him blankly.

“A getaway, Nicole,” he explained, patiently. “We might have to use the boat to escape when they find us.”

“You mean,
if
they find us,” I said.

“No, I mean
when
,” he said. “At least some of the people who are looking for us are from the federal government. They
will
find us. Probably sooner rather than later. We need to be prepared to run away and stay away. Maybe for good.”

My stomach plummeted; I hadn’t considered that running away for forever
was an imminent possibility. I’d thought of it more as an
if-all-else-fails
measure.

I went back to my seat and moved the food around on my plate, suddenly less hungry. Thoughts swirled around in my head, and all of the images started to make me feel confused: my father, my brothers, the last look Mandy had given me, the car exploding right in front of my eyes, Norris Phaland’s fancy wing tips in the bathroom stall next to me.

I shook my head as if to clear it.

“Tell me about the computer,” I said, not wanting to think about all of it — what we might be running away from, what we might be running towards.

“The network is coming along nicely,” he said. “I think it should be ready later tonight.”

“Have you contacted April yet?” I asked.

“First thing tomorrow,” he said. “She said she was going back to Boston today. I’m going to let her get settled and then I’ll start stressing her out.”

“And Alexa?” I asked.

“You can call your long-lost friend Alexa first thing in the morning, if you like,” he said and smiled at me. “I feel reasonably certain that she won’t be expecting you.”

I smiled back at him, but I had a heavy heart. “No,” I said, “she won’t.”

T
he no-sex
thing was only mildly frustrating; after we’d cleaned up the dishes from dinner, we’d read for a while in bed. I kept looking over at Walker, whose brow was furrowed at some thriller he was reading. I was reading a book about world economics, which I found ridiculously soothing. It was nice to ponder something other than the usual questions I found myself struggling with, i.e., who was following us, whether David Proctor had actually tried to kill me and had killed Mandy instead, who killed the pizza delivery guy, did Walker really like my hair like this, etcetera etcetera.

I felt blessed to be sharing a bed and doing something as fabulous and mundane as reading a book next to him — especially because he didn’t have a shirt on. After about an hour, he leaned over and gave me a deep kiss on the lips; we were careful not to touch tongues. I’d had every intention of taking him in my mouth again tonight, slowly and lovingly this time, but something about being in a clean, beautiful house and having a hot meal for the first time in weeks made me realize how very weary I was. I could tell that he felt the same.

He turned out the lights and rolled over towards me. “I love you,” he whispered, and ran his hands over my hair.

“I love you, too,” I whispered back.

And then, as if we were drugged, we both immediately fell asleep. I woke up nine hours later, Walker snoring lightly beside me. I traced the letters of my name on his back lightly, careful not to wake him. Every time I saw that tattoo, I was thrilled.

Too bad he couldn’t take his shirt off in public, for now. But people couldn’t see my name. Maybe, if we had to run away and hide for good — for forever — we’d find a place that was safe enough for him to do that.

That idea pleased me; but the anger I’d felt simmering inside me since Mandy’s death displaced it. It couldn’t be so easily assuaged. I wanted us to be safe, to be free of the people who were following us, the people who’d done us wrong. But even more than that, I wanted justice.

And plain old justice might not be enough, given the circumstances. Maybe Walker was right. Maybe they deserved something a little rougher.

I picked up my TracFone. It had prepaid minutes on it, so we didn’t have the phone connected to a credit card or an account. It was ultimately disposable; I could call Alexa and then throw it out, then buy another one before I needed to contact her again.

I fired up the computer and did a Google search on her name and home phone number. Trying her at home seemed like a safer bet than her cell. It felt weird to run a Google search on the web; I hadn’t been online in so long that the process seemed foreign to me. I was also, I noticed, afraid. I was worried that the second I logged on, someone would be able to see me. They would be able to see me, and they would be able to find us.

I got offline and ran quickly back to the bedroom. I gently nudged Walker awake, even though I felt guilty.

“What,” Walker said, and he was too groggy to make it a question.

“Are you sure it’s okay to go online?” I whispered.

“Yes. They don’t know it’s us. The computer is listed in the owner’s name, and we’re on the condo association’s network. Nothing points to us. The lease agreement is the only thing that’s out there, and I paid cash for the month. Our names are Mr. and Mrs. White, as far as the broker and the association knows. I appreciate your paranoia — I actually really appreciate it, because it’s gonna help us stay alive longer — but please, go ahead and use the computer.”

I kissed him lightly on the cheek and headed back out to the living room. “And can you make me some coffee? And some breakfast?” he called out, hopefully. “Since you’re already up?” I heard him fall back onto the bed and snuggle underneath the comforter; soon the sound of his deep, heavy breathing was coming from back there and I smiled.

I did another search for Alexa’s number, picked up the phone and dialed. It was seven in the morning; there was at least a slight chance that she hadn’t left for work yet. Alexa didn’t usually sleep in the office. She said the industrial-grade carpet did irreversible damage to her hair.

She picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” she answered, suspiciously.

“Alexa?” I asked. I could feel my heart in my throat at the sound of her voice — and surprisingly, it was because I was sad and I missed her, not because she was a total bitch.

“
Nicole?
” she screeched. “Are you
fucking kidding me
?”

And then she slammed down the phone.

I
paused for a second
, willing my shaky breath to calm down and return to normal.

And then I called her back.

“You have got some nerve,” she said, answering after the first ring. “Mandy is
dead
, and you take off and don’t ever call anyone? Not ever? Do you have any idea how worried we’ve all been? Your poor father has been on the news and in the firm, crying, threatening, looking for some kind of answer….”

“Alexa,” I said, trying to get her to stop. “Shut up. I don’t have a lot of time.”

For once, she promptly shut up.

“You know that we’re in trouble,” I started.

I heard her sigh deeply. “So you’re still with him. Nicole, this guy has been nothing
but
trouble since the day you met him ….”

“Stop it,” I interrupted her. Of course I wanted to hear all about my father and everything that was going on, but I didn’t want to hear her diatribe against Walker, and I had to keep this brief. “Walker is innocent, Alexa. I told you that before. It was true then, and it’s true now.” I paused for a second and she didn’t say anything: another first.

“We need your help. Walker has been framed, and I’m almost certain that someone at Proctor had something to do with it. I think the firm is being paid illegally — and I think that’s only the beginning of the bad stuff that they’ve been doing,” I said, all in a rush. It felt good to get the words out, but the words were so awful, it made me wish they weren’t true.

“I need you to send us documents,” I said. “You need to buy a temporary phone that can’t be traced so you can contact me. I’m going to give you instructions about what we need you to do. This isn’t going to be easy — actually, it’s going to be pretty dangerous. But I’m willing to bet that being at Proctor is dangerous enough as it is, right now, and you don’t even know anything.”

“Thanks a fucking bunch, Nicole,” she said. “This is just what I want to hear before I even finish my coffee.”

“You never heard from me,” I said. “I mean it, Alexa. You could be in serious danger if anyone — and I mean anyone, even my dad — finds out I contacted you. Don’t say a word to anyone.”

“
So
happy you called,” Alexa huffed. “I’ll be waiting on pins and fucking needles until you get in touch again.”

“Ha-ha,” I said. “One more thing — is Tammy back?” I asked.

“Tammy?” Alexa asked. “Your secretary? I haven’t seen her since you left.” She paused for a minute. “Is that bad?” she asked in a small, very un-Alexa-like voice.

I sighed deeply. “I’m pretty sure it’s not good,” I said. “Seriously. You never heard from me. And be careful.”

“I will — and thanks a fucking lot,” she said, and slammed the phone down again.

I sighed again, but Alexa’s bad attitude wasn’t even the worst part of the conversation.

Oh, Tammy,
I thought, my heart banging in my chest.
Tammy, where the hell are you?

The worst part was, I didn’t even know if she were capable of answering.
If they killed Mandy, and they almost killed me, and they killed the driver and the deliveryman, what was there to stop them? What was one more person, sympathetic to our cause?

I made two cups of coffee and went back into the bedroom. Walker was still asleep, his chest rising and falling in a steady, smooth rhythm. He’d probably never slept this long in his life. First, he’d been in the service. Then, he’d been building his company and working seventy hour weeks. Now, we were here.