Think Before You Speak (29 page)

“Got it,” Zeke reassured as he deposited me
out of the way in front of Jimmy’s apartment.

The medical examiner’s team worked their way
down the stairs right about then, a black bag with Han’s body
strapped to the gurney. I shuddered as they wheeled past and out
the door.

“But Zeke, I need to ask one more favor…and
this one’s vitally important.”

He gave me a look but refrained from making
promises. “What?”

I knocked on Jimmy’s door to check on Reggie.
“Don’t tell my mom.”

***

How had I ended up here again so soon?

Two weeks ago I’d left Zeke’s place and
returned to my apartment briefly before running off to San Antonio
with Nick. Went on my first date with Radioman, and now I was right
back where I’d started – in Zeke’s apartment.

Slinky cuddled in my arms, all snoodled with
me in the blanket as I stared out Zeke’s floor-to-ceiling living
room windows toward the Dallas skyline, blazing against a veiled
night. Lightening flashed in the distance, a bolt snaking down like
a giant hand swatting at a spire. Felt like I’d gotten one of those
slaps tonight – and then some.

I sensed rather than heard Zeke’s approach,
the deep grovel of sleep garbling his voice. “It’s almost four in
the morning, Vic.”

“Mm-hmm,” I acknowledged.

The warmth of his arms loosely encircled as
he stood behind me. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Nope.” Numbness hadn’t fully worn off, and I
was tired beyond belief, but my brain still wouldn’t shut down.
“Hey, Zeke?”

“Hmm?”

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

His arms tightened ever so slight and pressed
my back deeper into his chest, until resting his chin on top of my
head. “Yes. In the line of duty, it’s sometimes an unfortunate
necessity to save others.”

The skyline blurred in the ensuing silence.
Rain dotted then ran in rivulets down the glass like the tears I
couldn’t muster – until I realized the blur came from my eyes.

What the hell was this? I hadn’t turned into
some sappy, silly, emotional
girl
– had I?

“I didn’t mean to kill Han,” I whispered.

“I know.”

“The only person I ever in my life dreamed of
killing was Lorraine Padget.”

Zeke released a ragged sigh but didn’t
respond, as if he knew immediately where my train of thought took
me.

“I never gave you a chance to explain the
situation then,” I continued, stepping from his arms to face him.
“But I’d like to know now. What happened that night at the
restaurant?”

“After all that’s happened, do you really
want to go there tonight?”

“I
need
to know, Zeke, in order to let
go of it once and for all. To forgive.”

Brown eyes swirled in doubt, calculating the
risks. Knowing Zeke, he was also trying to read me to see what kind
of angle I was playing. Strange and unusual emotions swirled my
thoughts when I realized I didn’t have any ulterior motive either.
When he reached a hand to brush the tear from the corner of my eye,
his expression softened. Was I that easy to read?

“Lorraine and I were friends in high
school.”

“If memory serves,” I returned, “you two were
more than friends at one time.”

“As were you and Bobby,” he said with a
smirk.

Ouch! The Ranger had me there. “Touché.”

He turned to stare outside like I’d been
doing, and I focused on his silhouette in the ambient and
intermittent light from outside as he spilled his side of the
story. A story long overdue.

“That night it was really busy, so I waited
for you out on the restaurant’s deck overlooking the water.”

Knowing Zeke’s penchant for avoiding large
crowds and his preference for the great muggy and buggy outdoors,
that part rang true.

Zeke continued. “Lorraine was there, huddled
in a corner, crying over some guy who’d left her to pay the
check.”

“She was crying over getting stuck with the
bill?” I asked, incredulous. “The girl’s on television. She’s not
hurting for money.”

Zeke pressed his lips together as if deep in
an internal debate. “There’s more to that particular piece of the
story, but it’s not my place to share it.”

Someone blackmailing Lorraine perhaps? Talk
about your ironic twist. “Fine. Go on.”

“She told me what had happened with the
check, and about how that affected something else in her life,” he
said, shooting me a look that said
don’t ask
. “Then I hugged
her.”

“You hugged her,” I reiterated.

“Yes,” Zeke stated. “There was nothing to it
but an offer of sympathy and encouragement for the hard times she
was going through.”

The image of that night flashed through my
mind in concert with the window-reflected lightening. I focused –
really focused – on exactly what I remembered.

“No kissing?” I asked, picturing Lorraine’s
mascara-streaked face resting against Zeke's shoulder.

“Nope.”

“Not even the forehead thing?”

“None,” Zeke returned, his eyes hardening as
he faced me again. “I’d never have done that to you…to us.”

The memory coalesced with Zeke’s chin on top
of Lorraine’s head – just like he’d done with me moments ago – and
countless times before tonight. I sighed, feeling the fool for my
rash reaction that night. An
emotional
reaction.

Sometimes it sucked being a girl. “Why didn’t
you ever say anything?”

A gruff snort. “There was too much yelling
and screaming and too many fists and claws flying. Besides, someone
had to fish Lorraine and my hat from the lake.”

“So you stayed behind to help her instead of
following me,” I accused. “Then you never came home.”

“Stayed with one of my buddies. Figured you
could use a night to cool off,” Zeke said. “I didn’t expect to come
home to find you’d moved out.”

I looked him square in the eyes, my voice
low. “You never called either.”

Silence. Regret passed like a shadow across
the angular planes of his jaw. “An error on my part.” With a sigh
from the bottom of his toes, he headed off toward the bedroom. “I’m
going to try and get a few more hours of sleep before work.”

“Zeke?” I called.

He stopped but didn’t look my way.
“What?”

“Thanks,” I muttered. “And for what it’s
worth…I’m sorry.”

The import of those words passing my lips
shocked me like a zap of lightening. Hmm. Maybe it wasn’t the only
relationship besides the one with my mom that had matured this
week.

“Maybe now we can be friends,” Zeke said,
before closing the bedroom door.

Zeke and I friends? The thought sent a warmth
through me – or maybe that was heat from Slinky’s body nestled in
my arms. Guess we’d have to wait and see how the next day or two
went – and if my brain ever awoke from this damn fog.

With Han leaving an empty place in Reggie’s
business, by late Friday he’d made quick work of signing
preliminary contracts with that corporate entity to purchase the
Premier Interior Decorating Company of Dallas. I doubted it’d be
long before Reggie made even more permanent decisions about his
future, namely moving to San Antonio to be nearer a certain person
of the female persuasion. Then he could retire the name of Reginald
von Braun and become once again simply Reggie Brown. With the pile
of money he’d have from the sale of the business, he’d be very
comfortable whether he chose to start a family or not.

Speaking of money, since he wanted nothing to
do with it, Reggie offered the blackmail cash to me in appreciation
for saving his name – or names – but I had a better idea. Instead,
I convinced him to make an anonymous donation to Bobby’s prison
ministry, thereby killing two birds – er, um – helping two friends
instead of one.

By Sunday morning, I had my emotions in check
and sported
another
new cell phone and a different purse to
protect a hot commodity sure to cause a little chaos – at least I
hoped. Janine offered a knowing look when I dropped the folded
cashier’s check into the donation box set up for Bobby at the
church.

“I knew there was another reason you agreed
to come with me this morning,” Janine accused. “You’ve been pumping
people at the bar for money, haven’t you?”

“Can’t I help out a friend?” I asked.

“If memory serves, helping friends is what
seems to have gotten you into trouble a lot this summer.”

“You’ve got a point there, but I wasn’t about
to miss the public launch of Bobby’s ministry.”

Janine beamed her blue eyes sparkling. “It is
pretty exciting, isn’t it? Getting to be on the ground floor of a
new enterprise?”

Spoken like a true entrepreneur. I mused
again about the wrong De’Laruse being groomed for the takeover of
the family corporate empire.

My best friend skittered back and forth in
front of the counter, while I tried to remain scarce behind it and
keep a running tab on the total donations thus far to avoid falling
asleep. Most of the saintly persuasion hustled by her with hardly a
glance. Those few who gathered to hear Janine’s pitch for Bobby’s
work dropped in a dollar bill here and a fiver there. Some were
gracious enough to write a check and take the applicable tax
deduction.

Bobby popped out of the sanctuary between
each service and fielded questions from a gaggle of women both
young and old. Before the start of the third service, Lorraine
Padget sliced through the crowd like a hot knife through butter and
practically draped herself on him before making a grand show of
placing a check in the donation box.

Me? I got a snarl directed my way like a pit
bull staking its claim. The poor guy. A widower only a few months
and already the chase to claim his carcass was on. I thought to ask
Lorraine about the status of her engagement, but given our present
location, I figured it best to keep those comments to myself.

Maybe there was hope for my disease-ridden
mouth yet.

After Bobby left to share the stage with his
dad one more time, Janine and I finished tabulating the final
trickle of donations for the grand announcement at the end of the
service. When she saw the amount of the anonymous cashier’s check
representing Reggie’s blackmail payout, she gasped.

“Oh, we have to announce this one separately
from the rest,” Janine squealed. “Such generosity must be
highlighted to encourage others.”

I don’t know how much encouragement it’d spur
other people to give if they weren’t already so inclined. More like
guilt them into opening their pocketbooks. But since it all went to
help Bobby, who was I to correct my best friend?

Shortly before the end of the service, a
runner came by to collect the final tally and deliver it to Pastor
Dennis for the big announcement. Janine and I entered the darkened
auditorium and stood along the back wall until our eyes adjusted,
then made our way down the center aisle toward the front to the
honorary seating designated for our families.

Usually the De’Laruse and Bohanan clans
attended either the first or second service – minus myself since
I’d ditched the double life years ago. However, with the big
announcement slated for the third one, they’d chosen to be a part
of this service.

Pastor Dennis went on and on about his son,
the catalyst behind Bobby’s calling to this ministry, about his
return to Dallas and the loss of his wife. He carefully skirted
Bobby’s short stint in prison – and the fact they’d left him in
there to rot – and merely referred to his being a suspect.

The whole time Bobby towered over his father,
I couldn’t help but notice the rising flush in Bobby’s cheeks and
the careful swipe at his eye as if to brush away a tear. Meanwhile,
the elder Vernet openly cried, mingling sweat with his tears as he
played the sympathy card for the audience. I couldn’t help but
notice the dichotomy of the reactions between father and son.

Maybe Bobby was adopted.

The pastor made a big show as several older
kids from the children’s department pranced onstage holding an
overlarge check image of five thousand dollars from the church. I
stewed. Reggie, who didn’t even attend church, had displayed a
greater generosity than Bobby’s own family.

When the runner from earlier appeared onstage
and handed over the final donations tally Janine and I had
collected, Pastor Dennis practically shouted the announcement of
Reggie’s anonymous donation. The whole congregation stood in
thunderous applause. All I wanted to do was run up on stage and
highlight the hypocrisy.

The sperm donor beat me to it.

My dad sidestepped to the center aisle,
walked up onto the stage and presented his own check to Bobby – for
a quarter million dollars. Some people just had to hog the
limelight.

Janine glanced my way while the crowd went
wild, and Thomas De’Laruse dropped into his seat to furiously
scribble out a check, most likely an amount to one-up my dad. I
dissolved into a fit of laughter. It no longer mattered who got
credit for what because there would always be someone else who had
to overcompensate in one vein for what they lacked in another. In
the end, Bobby was the real winner here.

Talk about your dick measuring, folks. And in
church no less.

***

Since I wasn’t real keen on hanging around a
death scene, Slinky and I didn’t get firmly settled again at my
apartment until late Sunday afternoon before leaving for the
preseason opener at Cowboys Stadium.

Okay, okay. So the powers that be had sold
the naming rights of the new stadium several years ago. But to
tried-and-true, die-hard Dallas Cowboys fans, it’d always be
Cowboys Stadium to us.

Bite me AT&T.

The storm front had brought in more
comfortable temperatures – for most people. With the dome retracted
it meant no air-conditioning, which allowed the sun to call dibs on
my sweltering carcass and promised an uneven tan of epic
proportions. Guess it was better than a blistering sunburn.