by J. D. Mason
Suddenly, Jordan thought back to the day when Lonnie first contacted him a few weeks ago. There had been a man leaning next to a car outside the house.
“Okay,” he said cautiously.
“He’s an ex–police officer from a town called Cotton, just east of El Paso, and now owns a security firm in Paris, Texas, about a hundred miles northeast of here.”
“I asked you to find me Lonnie, Edgar. Not some ex-cop turned bodyguard,” he said irritably.
“The woman is staying in the Fuller Building downtown. Condos—but the property isn’t in her name.”
“Whose name is it in?”
“That I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “But I didn’t send you that feed because she’s in it. I sent it because of the gentleman she’s sitting with.”
“What about him?”
“Are you telling me that you don’t see the resemblance, son?” Edgar said gravely.
Jordan was already frustrated from his earlier encounter with June, and now Edgar wanted him to play guessing games?
“Edgar, I really don’t have time…”
“He’s Joel Tunson’s son, Jordan. A son from an affair he had with a woman in Cotton. Frank is your half brother, and I suspect she knows that and that she and good old Frank are planning to out you, so to speak,” he said.
“Out me,” he repeated, introspectively.
All those threats and this was as good as she could do? Jordan leaned back and sort of chuckled to himself. Lonnie’s evil scheme was to dangle some wayward Tunson over his head, and expect for Jordan to tuck his tail, cringe in fear, and what? Beg and plead for the man not to tell his story to the media? Or pull out his checkbook, sign it, and hand it over, letting this cat fill in the blanks with as many zeros as his little heart desired?
“This has got to be a joke,” he said, unimpressed, as he stared at the video and focused his attention more on that Frank Ross than he did on Lonnie.
He’d squashed the Tunson threat a long time ago. Jordan had confided in Edgar, who didn’t seem surprised at all about Jordan’s confession that Julian wasn’t his biological father.
“If Desi Green wants to produce a photocopy of your so-called birth certificate”—he shrugged, casting his lure into the lake—“let her. She’s got copies but we’ve got an original to dispute it.”
“But what about Joel Tunson?” Jordan asked, concerned, while Edgar continued to fish.
“What about him? If Joel Tunson hasn’t come forward by now, he’s not going to, and even if he did, it’s his word against yours.” He smiled. “My money’s on yours.”
“She has a knack for flair, this Lonnie Adebayo of yours,” Edgar said. “Beautiful woman too, still.”
Edgar was careful not to say it, but his remark implied that she was still a beautiful woman, even after what Jordan had done to her.
“She’s got a knack for the sensational,” Edgar continued. “She could’ve avoided all of this, had one of her reporter friends publish the birth certificate indicating Joel Tunson as your father.”
“But her intention is to make me suffer, to drag this thing out in dramatic fashion and make me sweat, wondering what she could possibly have on me. If this is as good as it gets, then I must admit, I’m disappointed.”
“I can imagine what she’s promised Frank Ross: money, maybe fame,” Edgar said dismally. “It’s a shame to drag him into this.”
“He looks like a big boy from here, Edgar,” Jordan quipped. “If he thinks he can hang with the big dogs, let him try.”
Keep Some Proud on My Face
“Seventy-two hours, my ass.” It was Jordan’s voice Claire heard arguing with the doctor outside of her room. “Do you have any idea who she is? Who I am?”
“Your wife tried to kill herself, Mr. Gatewood. Do you understand what I’m telling you? She tried to take her own life! A seventy-two-hour hold is protocol in cases like this.”
“My wife accidently cut herself gardening,” he grunted. “Get me the administrator!”
“Sir, that’s not—”
“Get me the damn administrator or you let me take my wife home!”
Claire just wanted to sleep. She was so tired of trying so hard, for so long, to get him to love her. She was tired of the women … of this woman— How come he needed another woman so much? He had Claire. She would do anything for him. She would die for him. He knew this. She’d proven it.
“Alright! Alright! Just leave her overnight for observation. Please! We need to keep her at least for the night, and then—she can go home tomorrow.”
Claire waited for him to come back into her room, pull a chair up close to her bed, and to stay the night with her. She’d only done this to show him how much she loved him. Claire had done this to herself to prove to him that she would do anything for him—anything! She fell asleep thinking about him. When she woke up the next morning, Claire was alone.
* * *
They had sold the house. Claire sat next to Jordan in his office at home, across from Geneva Harris, signing the document formally accepting the buyer’s offer.
Years ago she had begged her husband to buy the cottage. Three months ago, she’d suggested that they sell the place, since neither of them had set foot in it since … Jordan didn’t protest when she asked him about selling it. His indifference about the issue was classic Jordan, and a few weeks later, the house was on the market.
She watched as her husband signed his name. Was he as relieved as she was to be rid of this place? This should have been the end of it, finally. That dark episode in both of their lives should’ve ended with his signature, but seeing Lonnie the other day resurrected a part of Claire’s life that she’d regret for as long as she lived.
The image flashed in her mind of the night she walked into that house and saw Lonnie lying there, naked and beaten on the floor in the living room. Claire had left the hospital and had gone to the cottage instead of going home because she wasn’t ready to see her husband. She remembered driving down the road toward the house, crying and accepting the fact he never loved her, and it was just a matter of time before her marriage was over.
“Mrs. Gatewood?” Geneva held the pen out to Claire.
Claire took it and signed next to Jordan’s signature.
“This was a fabulous offer,” Geneva went on to explain. “Twenty-five percent above asking is unheard of these days in this market, but the buyer was determined, to say the least.” She smiled.
“Well, his determination is our gain,” Jordan said, glancing at Claire. “You say he’s European?”
“Yes. I believe he’s from Wales. Mr. Durham. Phillip Durham.”
* * *
Jordan had been quiet during dinner. Claire showered, and stood in front of her bathroom mirror, staring at her reflection, rubbing moisturizer into her face.
“He was leaving you for me.… If all you’ve ever wanted was to live happily ever after with your man … you should’ve left me there.”
In that moment when she saw that woman lying there on that floor, Claire knew. She knew that it was Lonnie lying there and she knew, instinctively, that Jordan had done that to her. Claire had seen, firsthand, how cruel Jordan could be. He’d never hit Claire, but he’d said things … done things, uncaring things that left her wondering if he really understood the damage he could cause in another person.
Claire’s heart began to race, and she started to turn and leave. If Jordan knew that she’d been here, if he knew that she’d seen what he’d done to this woman—he could just as easily have killed Claire, too.
“Help.”
It was a weak and fragile cry for help, but it was strong enough to stop Claire in her tracks.
“P-please.”
Claire wouldn’t have left a dog to die. Jordan wouldn’t just leave her there, dead, in his house. He was coming back. Claire knew it as sure as she knew she’d take her next breath. Jordan wasn’t finished with that woman.
“H-h-help … me,” Lonnie whimpe
red.
Every instinct warned Claire to leave and to get as far away from that house—from Jordan—as possible. This woman, Lonnie, had mocked Claire. She’d practically ruined Claire’s life, taking from her the only thing that ever mattered—her husband. But even with all of that, something inside of Claire wouldn’t let her leave Lonnie in that house. Claire should’ve left her there.
Jordan had beaten that woman to within an inch of her life, but Claire loved him. She loved him to toxic levels, and hated herself for it. But she’d trained herself to see what she loved in Jordan, and to block out those parts of him that scared her.
“What’s that?” he asked, standing in the doorway to her bathroom as Claire washed down her pill. She had been taking antidepressants even before her attempted suicide.
The muscles in her back and neck immediately tensed whenever he caught her by surprise. Jordan wore only the bottoms of his pajamas and she had thought that he was in bed already.
She nervously started to put the pill bottle back in her medicine cabinet, but Jordan came over and took it from her hand before she could.
He looked at the label. “Prozac?” he asked, concerned.
Jordan never came into her bathroom, and she’d never told him that she was taking anything.
“How long have you been taking these?”
She shrugged, and took the bottle from him. “Awhile,” she said, nervously.
She tried to walk past him, but Jordan blocked her way. “Claire, do you really think you need these?”
Claire needed them to cope, to try and heal, to think rationally, to believe that her marriage wasn’t the farce she knew deep down that it had always been.
The expression on her face must’ve spoken volumes. Jordan tenderly pulled her close to his chest, and wrapped big strong arms around her. Claire melted against him.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “Sorry that I’ve left you feeling so vulnerable.” Jordan kissed her head, and Claire marveled at the fact that he would actually apologize to her and admit something like that to her.
She pulled back and looked up at him.
“You’re my wife, Claire,” he said, staring into her eyes. “And my wife should not have reason to be unhappy.”
Jordan had no idea what depression really was. It was deeper than just being unhappy. It was not knowing how to give herself permission to be anything else. Unexpected sincerity filled his eyes and his voice, and Claire couldn’t help but to feel touched by his sentiments.
“It’s alright, Jordan,” she said sweetly. “The pills help. I’m okay, really.”
He seemed to examine her, searching for clues that she really was fine. His expression softened.
“I want you to stop taking them,” he said gently.
The thought terrified her, but so did disappointing him. Conflict inside her began to swell, and he noticed.
“If we’re going to have a baby, Claire,” he continued calmly, “then I don’t think you can take antidepressants.”
A baby? Since when had Jordan wanted to have a baby with her? He had a daughter, grown and living in California, that he barely saw or mentioned, but he’d made it clear a long time ago that he wasn’t interested in having more children.
Claire, on the other hand, had dreamed of having his children since before he proposed.
“Jordan, I—”
“It’s what you want. Isn’t it?”
Claire was overwhelmed. “Yes. Yes, but you never wanted it.”
He sighed. “My wife wants a family,” he said assuredly. “And I want her to be happy. That’s what I want.”
Jordan kissed her, then took her by the hand and led her into the bedroom. He wanted a child. Jordan wanted her to have his child. If this was a dream, Claire never wanted to wake from it, and the nightmare of Lonnie or of the transgressions of her husband would not ruin it.
How Did I Get So Far Gone?
“Reggie’s dead.”
Those two words, coming from Colette over the phone, abruptly snapped Frank out of the fog he was in. He pushed himself up in bed, and focused on the numbers on the clock by the nightstand until they came into focus. It was just after one in the morning.
“What did you just say to me?” he asked gruffly.
He hadn’t spoken to Colette in days, and she calls him up out of the blue to tell him this?
“He’s dead, Frank,” she repeated.
Frank rubbed sleep from his eyes. “What the fuck happened, Colette?”
The grinding in his stomach warned him that he didn’t want to know the answer to that question. But Frank absolutely needed to know the answer to that question.
“Shot,” she said simply.
“How? Who the fuck shot him?”
He knew who? Jesus! He knew!
Colette didn’t answer him.
“Where are you?”
“He was nervous, Frank.” She spoke as if she were under some kind of spell. “How the fuck can you be a meth dealer and be that damn nervous?” she muttered, more to herself than to him.
“Colette.” He nearly shouted her name. “Where the hell are you?”
“In my car,” she said quietly. “I’m driving, Frank. Just driving. They kept pulling him in for questioning, and I knew … He’s going to break, they said. This one here’s got something and it won’t be long before he gives it up,” she told him, repeating what she’d overheard investigators say around the precinct. “He was a fuckin’ pussy!”
All of a sudden the room got hot. “You fucked up, Colette.” Frank said it before he could stop himself. Right now that woman was a loose cannon. Those damn drugs she claimed she wasn’t doing had fried her judgment. “If you thought you were in a shitty spot before, baby, you sure as hell are in one now.”
“We,” she said simply. “We, Frank, because I’m not going down for any of this shit by myself.”
“I didn’t put the bullet in Reggie,” he snapped.
“No, you just shot a cop!”
“We shot cops and you pulled the trigger first, baby girl,” he argued.
Colette had turned into a lunatic. She’d shot Reggie Rodriguez. Maybe the cops had no concrete evidence leading the murders of those cops back to Frank and Colette, but he could hear sloppy in her voice. Colette had left evidence, and it was only a matter of time before it led to her, and she led them to him.
“I’m leaving town,” she said.
Frank lost it. “You fuckin’ leave and they’ll know it was you, Colette,” he grunted. “You leave and you might as well paint a bull’s-eye on your back and mine too for that matter!”
“It’s too late, Frank! I can’t do this anymore! I can’t stay here and take the heat while you bask in the afterglow of the murder you got away with. I won’t do it!”
“What the hell do you expect me to do?” he snapped.
“We need to leave. We need to go far and we need to go fast. Money, Frank. We need money and lots of it!”
He knew what she was saying, and unfortunately, he knew that in this case, she was right. If the cops got their hands on Colette, it was over—for both of them.
“We don’t have time for you to keep bullshitting, Frank,” she said gravely.
“We’d have had plenty of time if you hadn’t shot Reggie.”
“Reggie was going to talk. Hell, maybe he already did, and maybe they already know,” she said dismally. “I bought us some time. Not much, but some. Now you need to do what you have to do. I, uh … I can’t say how much longer I’ll be in town. I can’t say how long it’ll be before they find out what happened to Reggie, but I can say without a doubt that if they pull me in, I’m pulling you in with me, baby. I mean it.” She hung up before he could say another word.
All of a sudden, the heat was turned up and Frank didn’t have the luxury of time or rational thinking on his side anymore. He had five hundred in his savings account, and a credit card with about two hundred dollars left on it. Put it together and maybe he had enough
to get him to Florida.
Frank had never put much thought into running. In the back of his mind, he’d always thought that this whole thing would magically blow over, and eventually, the deaths of those two men would be filed away in the back of a storage room somewhere. But the dead men were cops, and he knew that the police wouldn’t stop until they found who did it.
* * *
“Lonnie,” he said wearily, over the phone.
The sun was just starting to come up, and Frank had been up since getting off the phone with Colette.
“It’s early, Frank,” she said irritably. “This better be good.”
Frank had been playing out every possible and plausible scenario in his head before finally calling her. A man like Gatewood wasn’t going to make this easy. Frank would need to let him know what was up. He’d need to let him know who he was, and what he wanted, and then, duck and cover and stay out of sight.
The Gatewoods of the world didn’t get their hands dirty on men like Frank. He’d either report Frank to the police for extortion or he’d dismiss him and dare Frank to say a word to the press. And then it would be the word of a Gatewood against the word of a nobody like Frank. In either of those cases, Frank could become interesting all of a sudden, even as far away as Cotton, and that would get the cops back home to looking at him again with fresh eyes. Some bright motha fucka would begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together, and bam! He’d be in handcuffs.
There was one more path Jordan Gatewood could take. He could just nip this shit in the bud right away, and Frank could end up being a smudge on the wall, or cemented to the bottom of a lake someplace. None of those alternatives set right with him, but what choice did he have? Frank needed money, and he needed it fast. He had to take a chance that somehow, fate wouldn’t hold his sins against him, and that he’d catch Gatewood on a good day.
“How do I get in touch with Gatewood?” he asked apprehensively.
Lonnie took a breath. “I’ll text you his personal cell phone number.”
He nodded, forgetting that she couldn’t see him. “How come I get the feeling that I’m going to regret this?”