Tell on You

  Glad for the excuse to write Melissa a last note, Jeremy went to the kitchenette for the shopping list pad. He’d only written “Dear” when a key rattled in the door.

  He looked up. Melissa stood in the doorway.

  SEVENTY EIGHT

  MELISSA GLARED AT HIM. “What are you doing here?”

  Jeremy froze like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He gestured at his duffel bag. “I needed to pack some things. Didn’t have enough to get through a month. I called and sent a couple of texts. But you didn’t answer.” Christ, now he sounded petulant.

  “I told you, I need some space.” Melissa unbuttoned her jacket, avoiding Jeremy’s eyes.

  “I get it. But I’ve been worried. You still having the bleeding?” Jeremy took a step toward her. She looked pale, tired. Wanting to reach for her, he held back, sensing she might bolt like a frightened deer.

  “No. It stopped.” Melissa brushed back a stray lock of hair from her forehead.

  Jeremy stared. “What’s that on your wrist?” He pointed at the plastic band she wore.

  “Nothing.” Flustered, Melissa tugged at the patient ID band until it tore off. She crumpled it in her hand.

  “Mel? Were you at the hospital?” Jeremy peered at her face, but she still avoided his gaze. “What’s wrong?” he pressed. “What’s going on?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing. Some tests my doctor wanted. Bloodwork and stuff.” Melissa stuffed the crumpled band in her jacket pocket and dropped her coat on the sofa.

  Jeremy didn’t buy it. She looked furtive, guilty even. Why? “How come he ordered the tests?” Emboldened, he clasped her shoulder, turning her to face him. “Don’t shut me out, Mel.”

  Her weak smile looked more like a grimace. “I’m not. It was just routine. I told you, Jeremy, he’s worried about my blood pressure. He wanted to check my hormone levels.”

  His eyes remained glued to her face. “And? Were they okay?”

  “He’ll let me know. It takes a day or so to get the results.” She wriggled her shoulder from Jeremy’s grasp.

  His hand trailed down her arm, unwilling to release her. “Look, I’m leaving tomorrow. Peter’s taking me to the airport pretty early for a ten o’clock flight.” Too early. Too soon. “Once I’m at the facility, they won’t let me have my phone. If you find out the results, would you call, or text me? Please? Maybe I’ll get the message before…” He broke off, helpless at the prospect of being incommunicado.

  For a moment, Melissa’s mask slipped and he saw his own pain reflected in her eyes. But only for a moment. “Okay,” she said. Don’t worry. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. If that’s the way she wanted to play this. “I’m sure you’re right.” He forced a smile. “Hey, it’s nearly dinner time. Wanna go out? Have a sort of…” He made air quotation marks. “Last supper?” Bad choice of words. “A farewell dinner, I mean.” His eyes beseeched her, a lost puppy, begging to be taken home and fed.

  “I can’t.” Melissa pulled away her arm. “I’m really not hungry. Still a bit queasy.”

  “Okay,” Jeremy relented. “I understand.” But suppose he never saw her again? “How about if we sit and talk for a while? Here, or wherever…”

  “I’m really tired.”

  In other words, no. She didn’t want to be with him.

  “I had a pretty stressful day,” she added.

  Jeremy looked away, well aware of all he’d contributed to her travails. “Did you—?” He hesitated. “Uh, any further trouble with the news people after I left?”

  She shook her head. “No. You?”

  He shrugged. “Nah. Not after…” Had she missed his debacle on the evening news?

  “I saw it,” Melissa said.

  He flushed. “I made quite the jerk of myself, huh?”

  “Not entirely.” She gave him a small smile he wanted to bottle and take with him. “It might have been your finest hour.”

  “Mel…” Jeremy moved toward her.

  She shied away as if he held a cattle prod. “You’d better go.”

  His eyes refused to release her. “Take care of yourself, huh?”

  Her smile faded. “Sure. You, too.”

  He nodded at her belly. “And the baby.”

  “Uh huh.” Melissa’s eyes glimmered.

  What did her unshed tears mean? Jeremy longed to kiss her goodbye. Her rigid stance warned him not to try. “Okay, then. Bye.” Grabbing his duffel bag, he hurried out before he lost it and wept like a child.

  Jeremy drove back to Newark under a darkening sky. Melissa needed space and he owed her that. Somehow, he’d make it through the night, get on the plane tomorrow and do the rehab stint for his so-called sex addiction.

  For all the sense that made.

  How did someone who’d barely had a sex life qualify as a sex addict, anyway? He’d only slept with—what?—two or three other women, besides Melissa. A rank amateur. They’d laugh him out of the treatment facility.

  He pulled into the motel lot and turned off the engine. A troubling thought occurred to him. Suppose they assumed he was lying, or in denial? Or both? If they considered him treatment-resistant, they might refuse to discharge him at the end of the month. Should he invent some racy exploits to confess in group therapy? As a lit teacher, he could come up with some hot stuff, ala D.H. Lawrence or Henry Miller. Fifty Shades of Jeremy Barrett.

  Jeremy got out of the car and took his duffel bag from the trunk. He stood a moment in thought, then slammed down the hood.

  No.

  Done with lies. He sucked at it, anyway. Striding toward the motel entrance, Jeremy raised his head and straightened his shoulders. He’d be totally open and transparent at that treatment center. Maybe they had something to offer him. He sure as hell had plenty to learn. He’d keep an open mind.

  He’d blown his old job. His new one—cleaning up the mess he’d made. As Jeremy stepped through the doors into the motel lobby, his duffel bag, and the rest of his burdens, felt lighter.

  SEVENTY NINE

  BACK IN HIS ROOM, Jeremy finished off the Pork Lo Mein and spring rolls he’d ordered in. Not four-star cuisine, but probably better than he’d get in rehab. He tossed the empty containers in the wastebasket. What next? He’d spoken with his mother, laid out clothes for tomorrow, already packed the rest of his things.

  Adjusted his attitude, he hoped. Any loose ends, for this last night of freedom?

  Rick.

  Jeremy owed him a call. He’d still be in jail if not for his friend and needed to thank him. He picked up his phone. Late afternoon in California, assuming Rick had made it back. Good time to call.

  “Hey, pal! How’s the nose?” Rick greeted him. “You ever get around to having a doctor check it?”

  Jeremy grinned, hearing his buddy’s voice. “It’s fine. No worries.”

  “Then I won’t be getting any medical bills?”

  “Nah.” In a serious voice, Jeremy told him, “I already owe you, big time. I don’t know what we’d have done if you hadn’t come through with bail.”

  “You’d do the same for me.”

  Jeremy bit back a wisecrack about his poverty. “I’ll find a way to pay you back, Rick.”

  “No rush. So what’s going on?”

  Jeremy took a breath. “I’m on my way to a rehab in Louisiana tomorrow.”

  “Rehab? For what?”

  Jeremy explained the PTI arrangement his lawyer had brokered.

  “Pretty good deal,” Rick observed. “How’s Melissa taking all this? She sounded really rattled when she phoned, after your arrest. You guys patch things up?”

  “Uh, let’s say it’s a work in progress,” Jeremy acknowledged. “I can only hope having the space while I’m away helps her sort it out.”

  “She will. And when you’re sprung from rehab? You going back to teaching?”

  “Not at Forrest, for damned sure. In fact, I doubt I’ll teach.” Until he’d said it, Jeremy hadn’t known he�
�d decided that. “Time for a fresh start, maybe.”

  “Huh! In that case…”

  “What?”

  “My company is opening a sales office in the southeast. Think you might be interested in becoming a rep?”

  “Selling software?” Jeremy blurted, incredulous.

  “Why not?”

  “For starters? I’ve never done it.”

  “Neither had I, when I started,” Rick said. “You’d be a natural. Quick study, strong platform skills. Better money than teaching.”

  “But—where are we talking about?”

  “South Car-o-lina,” Rick drawled. “The Lowcountry. Spanish moss, warm winters.” He chuckled. “Grits.”

  Grits? “Rick, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you’ll think about it. If you want, I’ll set up a meeting with the regional manager when you get out of rehab. You’re practically next door, down there in Louisiana.”

  A second chance? “Jeez, Rick. I will. I’ll think about it. If Melissa is open to it. Gotta be a better place to raise a kid, right?” South Carolina.

  “Talk to her.” Rick laughed. “Sell it to her. Be good practice. Let me know.”

  “Yeah, I will. Man, thanks for saving my ass again.”

  “You can save it yourself,” Rick said. “All I’ll do is open the door. See ya.”

  Jeremy ended the call in a daze. A new life in a new place. With his wife and child. The old saying—one door closes, another opens. Perhaps enough to see him through the month ahead.

  MELISSA FORCED DOWN SOME tea and nibbled a slice of toast. For dessert, she filled a small dish with applesauce, managing a few spoonsful. Last supper, Jeremy had said. More so than he realized.

  Their baby’s last supper.

  Melissa pushed away the applesauce and got up from the table. Right not to tell him. He had enough to deal with.

  She carried the dishes to the sink. A done deal, anyway. She’d made the choice, scheduled the procedure for the morning. Procedure. Nice, safe, clinical word. But, for the best. Not cut out to be parents, either of them. Not now. Maybe never.

  Melissa swiped away a tear with the side of her hand, wishing to brush away her despair as easily. All those high hopes, back when she’d stopped her birth control.

  Idiot.

  She went to the living room and burrowed through a stack of books on the coffee table. Keep busy. Don’t think about tomorrow. Selecting a thriller she’d borrowed from the library, Melissa carried it into the bedroom. Read for a while, go to sleep early. Wait for Mom to come for her in the morning.

  Then—over. All over.

  HER HANDS ENCASED IN latex gloves, Nikki hefted the CD in its plastic case. So light, for a tool of destruction. Heather had come through, all right. She and that geek cousin of hers. Handy having a sociopath in the family.

  Everything set for tomorrow.

  Nikki peeled off the Post-It note she’d inscribed with a red Sharpie, and affixed it to the case holding the disk.

  Listen to me.

  She grinned. Short and sweet. She’d printed, not that the cow knew her writing. Nikki slid the CD into her bag with care, wanting it in place when she left in the morning. She pulled off the latex gloves, tossed them into the purse as well. Heather or Martin’s fingerprints already might be on the CD. Not her problem, as long as hers weren’t.

  Nikki set the alarm on her cellphone for 5:00 AM. Crazy early, but the pre-dawn gloom would provide cover while she positioned her booby-trap under the wiper blade on the driver’s side windshield of that bitch’s car. Then Nikki would back off to a safe vantage point to watch the fun.

  It promised to be one hell of a show.

  Nikki turned off the light and crept into bed. Way before her usual bedtime, but no taking the chance she’d oversleep for her dawn mission. All that remained now—to get her beauty sleep.

  EIGHTY

  WINKELMAN’S CALL CAME BRIGHT and early the next morning.

  “Rise and shine, sex offender!”

  Jeremy marveled that his attorney sounded so cheerful at 6:30 AM. Probably generating billable hours already.

  “I’ll be by to pick you up in an hour,” Winkelman said.

  “Why so early?” Jeremy asked. “My flight is at ten and the motel is so close to the airport planes are practically landing on the roof.”

  “I’m taking you out to breakfast. A man can’t start recovery on an empty stomach.”

  “Depends what he’s recovering from. Anyway, my car or yours?”

  “Leave yours at the motel,” Winkelman said. “Give me the keys and my secretary will drive it back to your apartment.”

  “Like valet parking, huh? Okay, on my way to the shower. I’ll be ready.”

  As Jeremy started for the bathroom, his cellphone rang. Melissa, calling to say goodbye? He grabbed his phone from the night table and checked the screen.

  Not Melissa. Beth Milton.

  Jeremy frowned. Why would his mother-in-law phone? His considered ignoring her call, but there might be an emergency with Melissa. Or maybe her test results.

  “Hello, Beth,” he said warily.

  “Jeremy.”

  Her urgent tone commanded his attention. “What’s wrong? Has something happened to Mel?”

  “Oh, god. I hope I’m doing the right thing.”

  “Beth, what is it? Tell me.” Anxiety chilled the pit of Jeremy’s stomach.

  “She’s going for an abortion. Now. This morning.”

  “What?” Stunned, he sank onto the bed.

  “She asked me to drive her, because of the anesthesia. I didn’t want to.” Beth’s voice broke. “I told her I would, but I can’t go through with it. I won’t help her destroy my grandchild.”

  “But—why? Why would she do that?” And not tell me? Jeremy flashed back to the hospital band he’d seen on Melissa’s wrist yesterday. Tests, she’d said.

  Pre-op tests.

  “She doesn’t think you want it, Jeremy.”

  Her words knocked the wind out of him.

  “And frankly I don’t know whether you do or not,” Beth went on. “But you’re the only one who can stop her.” She choked back a sob. “Please, Jeremy! Go!”

  “What time are you due to pick her up?” He pulled on the pants he’d laid out.

  “Seven fifteen.”

  Less than half an hour from now. “Does she know you’re not coming?” He zipped up the trousers, cradling the phone against his neck.

  “No. I—I haven’t told her yet.”

  “Don’t. Stall, Beth. Let her think you’re coming. I’m on my way.”

  He didn’t wait for her reply. Throwing on the rest of his clothes, Jeremy grabbed his duffel bag and rushed out the door. Let Winkelman and rehab wait. First he had to save a life.

  Maybe three.

  EIGHTY ONE

  “MOM, WHERE ARE YOU?”

  The second voicemail Melissa had left, along with a text. Now she was worried. Beth Milton, going incommunicado? Unheard of. Granted, her mother disapproved of distracted driving, and might ignore a call while behind the wheel. But she despised tardiness. Inconceivable for her to be ten minutes late without calling.

  But missing in action, on this of all mornings.

  Melissa raised the blinds and peered out the living room window. Where was she? This was hard enough, without Mom going psycho on her.

  Fifteen minutes late now.

  Her mother didn’t want to be involved with the abortion. But standing her up for the appointment? Unthinkable. Had something happened to her? Melissa’s anxiety cranked up a notch. Rather than stand there, staring out the window, she decided to go wait downstairs. Then they’d be off the instant her mother pulled up. Melissa grabbed her jacket and purse, hurried downstairs.

  What if her mother let her down? She’d drive to the procedure and call someone to take her home afterwards. A taxi, if necessary. One way or another, she’d get this wretched thing over with today.

  OUTSIDE THE BARRETT�
�S APARTMENT, Nikki sat, on stakeout, in her car. From a few doors down, she watched the apartment entrance with the bitch’s Ford Escape parked in front. It now sported the lethal CD beneath its windshield wiper. The Deathmobile, armed and ready.

  Let her have an early errand. Come out soon. At least Nikki’s suspension from school—or excused absence, holiday, or whatever the fuck—gave her a pass on classes. How I spent my summer vacation.

  Would the lazy cow make her wait all day?

  At that moment, Nikki’s target appeared. Mrs. B emerged from the building.

  Yes! Nikki wanted to pump her fist, except she was keeping a low profile. The car. Get into the freaking car, dummy.

  But Mrs. B stopped on the front steps of the apartment building. She stood there, shifting from one foot to the other, scanning the street with an impatient frown.

  Waiting! The goddamn bitch won’t even drive herself. Frigging princess. Nikki clutched the steering wheel. C’mon. C’mon!

  Mrs. B pulled out her cellphone. Too far away to pick up the conversation, Nikki saw by her scowl that she didn’t like what she heard.

  The person who was supposed to pick her up? Don’t wait. Nikki silently mouthed the words. Get in the car, bitch.

  Mrs. B ended the call.

  Nikki held her breath. Would she wait, or go?

  At last Mrs. B shook her head. She walked toward the Deathmobile.

  EIGHTY TWO

  “GO, GO, GO!” JEREMY nudged the Honda up to 85, weaving across the westbound lanes of Route 78, passing, not bothering to check his rearview for cops. Thank god for the lighter rush hour traffic on this side. Going the other direction, he’d be a dead duck. This way, he might reach the apartment in time.

  But cutting it mighty close. He glanced down at the dashboard clock. Only five minutes until Beth’s arranged pick-up time. Wait, Mel. Wait for me.

  Without warning, traffic came to a dead halt. Jeremy braked hard to avoid rear-ending a mini-van in front of him. With a screech of tires, the Honda stopped inches from its bumper, drawing a glare from the driver in his rearview and a blast from his horn.