Her chuckle was watery. ‘Oh, Chris scuttled to his attorney right away to file for divorce. I didn’t fight him. I didn’t want him by that point. Especially when he blamed me for the miscarriage. I’m not sure who was angrier about that, Papa, Gran, or Wendi. I think he was most afraid of Wendi, to tell you the truth.’
‘I believe that. She is fierce when it comes to protecting you. But what she said makes so much sense now. More sense anyway. It made sense when she said it.’
Meredith lifted her head, her eyes wet, her brows scrunched in a frown. ‘What do you mean? She promised me she wouldn’t say anything to you.’
Adam opened his mouth, then closed it. ‘Not going there, Meredith. Wendi scares the bejeezus out of me.’
Meredith’s lips twitched, which had been his intent. ‘That will make her so happy.’
He lifted his head from the pillow enough to kiss her lips chastely. ‘Tell me about the depression. What do I need to know?’
‘Not much, really. I have a shrink.’
‘I know. I heard you tell your grandfather that too. Do you see Dr Lane?’
‘Oh no. She specializes in PTSD and, at least up until yesterday anyway, that wasn’t my issue. Dr Lane and I met at a conference a few years ago. I liked her, and everyone I’ve sent her way likes her too.’
‘I’m going to have to check in with her in a few days,’ Adam said grimly, because PTSD was his issue and this entire weekend had rattled him hard. Which reminded him that he’d promised his sponsor he’d make time for a meeting. He needed to keep that promise. For Meredith. But mostly for me. Putting on the oxygen mask first applied to him as well.
‘No shame in that, Adam.’
‘I know.’ He did, but it still rankled from time to time, that he hadn’t been able to handle it alone. It rankled worse that he had just heard those words in his father’s voice. He shut down the old tapes and refocused on Meredith’s needs. ‘Meds?’
‘Yes. They help. So does yoga and running and playdates with my friends. I nurture myself too. I learned a long time ago to put on my oxygen mask first before helping others. I just needed a refresher tonight. Thank you, by the way. I forgot to say it earlier.’
‘When? When I imparted flight attendant wisdom or when you were coming so hard you saw stars?’
Her snorted laugh was the most ladylike he’d ever heard. ‘Both.’ She sighed. ‘I still have bad cycles,’ she said, very serious now. ‘Sometimes I can pre-plan, like around the holidays. Sometimes they hit me out of the blue and those are the bad times.’
She’d said the words carefully, as if she was afraid they’d make him bolt. ‘I’m not afraid of bad times,’ he said, trying to put all the honesty he felt into his voice. ‘But I’ll have them too, so I need to know what you’re thinking and I’ll do the same. I won’t cut you off again, even if I think it’s for your own good. From now on, it’s full disclosure. Okay?’
‘I can live with that. So, in the spirit of that . . . I need you to be careful when you go out to that used-car lot tomorrow. I finally have you. I don’t want to lose you.’
‘I promise,’ he said seriously. ‘Because I finally have you too.’ He hugged her to him. ‘Go to sleep. It’ll all be there when we wake up. I’ll be here when you wake up.’
She burrowed into his chest. ‘Good night, Adam.’
He drew in her scent, holding on to the moment. Holding on to her. ‘Good night,’ he whispered. And for the first time in longer than he could remember, it was.
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Monday 21 December, 2.05 A.M.
He pulled his SUV into his driveway and switched off the ignition. He’d need to get another vehicle. This one had come from Mike’s lot and he couldn’t have it connected to him. It would be far more difficult to track his vehicles now that he’d burned Mike’s used-car lot to the ground, but he wasn’t taking any chances, especially with Kimble still alive. The man was sniffing too damn close.
Goddamn him. Except he didn’t know who he was cursing more – himself or Adam Kimble or Mike. He was definitely cursing Mike.
For years they’d done so well together. They’d never been a huge enterprise. Never wanted to be. They’d watched others rise higher, only to fall spectacularly over the years.
They’d kept it small, taken advantage of opportunities as they’d come up. Discover a crime in progress? Offer the doer an easy way out – payment in exchange for silence. Sometimes it was a one-time payoff. Give me the drugs you were about to sell, he’d say, and we’ll call this whole arrest a misunderstanding. And then Mike would sell the drugs himself and they’d split the take.
Sometimes the opportunity was too good for a one-time payment. Those were the really juicy crimes, committed by people who had a lot more to lose than a two-bit dealer on the street. Their best clients were the rich elite, with careers, reputations, and fortunes on the line. They were the bread ’n’ butter clients who kept paying, year after year.
And sometimes the perfect victim would emerge and be too tempting to pass up.
Voss had been one of those, a man especially vulnerable to blackmail after becoming an overnight millionaire. Especially vulnerable because of his proclivities.
Voss had liked them young.
Which they’d learned after Voss had answered one of their ads, meeting one of their underage girls in a hotel. Of course there’d been cameras. Mike had wanted to blackmail Voss right away within the first moment of seeing the rich man’s face on camera. Idiot. They’d had a gold mine in the making and Mike would have blown it as a one-off.
He – not Mike – had been the one to tell Jolee to communicate with the girl while Voss was cleaning up in the bathroom, to tell the girl to offer up her friends for a party. Voss had been greedy, setting the next meet for the following weekend in the same hotel.
Voss never considered he’d been recorded. The following weekend’s videos had been the gold mine he’d expected and Voss had been paying through the nose ever since.
Then, no thanks to Mike, he’d tapped the well again. Set up a party with some of his best clients who were not afraid of blackmail. Provided the entertainment – the drugs and barely-eighteen college hookers that would entice Voss without making him fear further entrapment.
He – not Mike – had made sure Jolee approached Voss that night, selling their services so that they’d become Voss’s party service provider of choice. They were milking Voss from the front door and the back, so to speak. Blackmail plus the ‘legit’ services that were still completely illegal. And the man had no clue that he was paying the same people.
Until Voss got stupid and had a party with his kid at home. Asshole.
If he had to pinpoint the moment when it all began to unravel, that would be it.
Which, of course, was bullshit. He’d played Voss so well because he understood the rich man better than anyone else knew. Anyone else still alive, anyway.
Mike had been right about one thing. He hadn’t been able to resist Mallory Martin and he’d never been entirely sure why. Maybe because he’d considered her ‘safe.’ An asset he hadn’t had to personally manage. But more likely because so many on the net had wanted her. And I’d had her. I’d had something those other losers would never have.
Having Mallory had made him want a young thing of his own, spurring him to find Paula, and she’d been such a pretty thing. But Kimble had been getting a little too good at his job in Personal Crimes and needed to be taken down a peg or two. Paula had to be sacrificed and he’d been itchy ever since.
And then Mallory had escaped last summer and turned everything upside down.
‘I should’ve let Mike take care of her,’ he murmured into the quiet of his SUV. He’d thought himself too smart to fuck it all up. And yet he had.
Now he had to figure out how to fix this mess.