by Amy Faye
"Believe it," he growled. "I don't know that you've ever worried about me for one moment in the past, and I'm having trouble believing you're worrying about me now."
"That's totally unfair," she protested. "I've been very worried. These twenty-five years, I've been keeping a very careful eye on you. Making sure that nothing could possibly happen to you."
"That nothing could possibly happen to your meal ticket, you mean."
"That's not fair, Paul. I know I may be hard to get along with…"
It was the most sympathetic she'd ever been. At least she could admit that some things might be her fault. At least, she could do it when she sensed that she'd overstepped herself. But he almost felt sorry for her in that moment. Almost.
"I don't want to hear it, Helen. Tell me whatever it was you cam here to say, or leave, but don't play as if you've got only the best motives because I have known you far, far too long."
She harrumphed and turned. He could almost imagine the theatrical expressions she must have been making because there was no way that she was going to turn away from him so theatrically without the facial expressions, in case anyone might be paying close attention.
"I don't know why it is that I'm always the last to know about these things, but I just heard about these calls that your… friend has been getting. Some strange man, they say, calling to threaten you if you don't drop out of the race? Absurd."
Paul turned his head and looked over at Robbie, who's face pinched itself. The last to know, indeed.
"What do you know about it?"
"Know? I don't know anything at all, I was hoping you could tell me what you knew."
"Well, you know more than I do, apparently. Last I heard, when I spoke to her an hour ago, she'd been told to await further orders."
"So… you mean, you didn't know?"
He let out a breath and for the hundredth time in the past month he realized how tired he was of the entire charade. Normally, Helen managed to keep her life quite separate from his. She could be counted on not to involve herself with whatever he was doing, which was good because it was the only way he could stomach one more day of marriage with her.
Today, though, of all days, she seemed to have decided that she needed to involve herself and make sure that she was always within earshot of every little thing. To make sure that she always came by to make herself feel important.
"Don't know what? I'm very tired, Helen, and I'm not in the mood for any theatrics. Just cut down to business."
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"Well, you're not going to do it, are you?"
"Drop out of the race?"
"What did you think we were talking about?"
He let out a breath. If that was the price they were asking to keep her out of the press… well, there were other ways around it. Ways that were more complex, that was for certain.
"Why would I do that, Helen?"
"Well, you know, I don't know. But you seem to have been so hyper-focused on that slut and her magic vagina, that–"
He sucked in air through his teeth and she stopped for a moment. Long enough to turn, slowly, and look into his eyes. The theatrics had gone on long enough for her, it seemed, and now she was prepared to get to brass tacks with whatever it was she really wanted.
"Well, I don't know what else it is that you find so interesting about her, after all. She's just some girl. Some nobody. What can she offer you? Anything at all?"
Paul's voice was low and hard and he should have felt bad for the harshness in it. He didn't. "You wouldn't understand, Helen. She offers something you haven't got, and I don't blame you because you don't know any better. But don't pretend to be shocked."
He pushed past her and as he did so he realized exactly why she'd come. She was pushing him, like he was some kind of chessman. Eventually, if she'd really gotten that call, Lara would tell him. That, or she wouldn't, and that would be her decision he supposed.
But Helen needed to make sure that he didn't think too hard about it, or else there would be hell to pay one way or another. But he wasn't thinking that far ahead right now. Right now, he was going to find a checkbook.
36
Lara's phone was a heavy weight in her pocket. She wasn't sure what she was going to do, but she had no trouble figuring out what she was supposed to do. What the man on the other end of the line wanted her to do.
He wanted her to get on the phone, and call Paul, and talk to him. If she explained the situation she wasn't sure what he would choose. The odds of him agreeing to the terms were higher than she would have liked.
It wasn't fair to him. It wasn't fair to Tim that he might be the instrument of his damn hero's downfall. If he knew Paul's relationship with him, if he knew he'd been abandoned the minute that a second line showed up on her pregnancy test, then maybe he would see Paul differently. She couldn't destroy that, no matter how much she might want to. It wasn't fair to Tim, regardless of how fair it was or wasn't to Paul.
She sucked a breath through her nose and picked the phone up, looked at the turned-off black screen and thought about touching the button to turn it on. Her finger moved to turn it on and then she didn't push it.
There had to be another way. She didn't know what it was, and she sure as hell didn't know what she was going to do to make it happen, but she was going to have to figure it out. Something outside the room moved closer, and a man's voice spoke.
"324. This is the one."
She looked up just in time to see a man's head peek in. He had a stern expression and in spite of leaning through the doorway his back was ruler-straight.
"Is there anyone else in here?"
Lara raised an eyebrow. "No," she told him. She wanted to ask why he cared, what it was exactly that they were looking for. Other than her son, of course.
The man stepped inside, and then Helen stepped through the door behind him. A second man was behind her. Paul had never kept two bodyguards with him, not if he could help it. Certainly not in public. Apparently Helen was a little more paranoid.
"Lara, how have you been? How's the road suiting you?"
Lara's face darkened. If Helen was here then it wasn't to be polite, she knew. Maybe things were different for other women, but Helen's relationship with Lara began and ended with calling her a slutty bimbo.
"Leave me alone. I'm spending time with my son. Please, just go."
"About your son," Helen said. She frowned. "You know, I was thinking about what you'd said to Paul. I was thinking about how you said that you'd gotten pregnant right after he left."
"What's your point?"
"My point is, Lara, that doesn't really add up, does it?"
She let out a long breath. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Let's not be coy here. Ten years ago, you decided you thought you could get your hooks into my husband if you flashed around a pregnancy test and tried to pressure him into, who knows what was going on in your mind. Marrying you?"
Helen snorted and Lara's eyebrows knit together in anger. For a long time, the cold fury of remembering that day had been what got her out of bed. The baby growing inside her, that had been what kept her going at the end of the day, but it was the cold rage that stoked the fires that kept her pushing harder. That was what got her the rest of the way through law school, when things got hard.
But that was ten years ago, and she wasn't that woman any more. She was above it. She was beyond it. It didn't hurt any more, except as a memory of a time that she'd been hurt, once.
Somehow she'd been wrong about that, she found, as Helen's hard voice ripped out all the sutures in the wound and she found that it was as fresh as the day she'd gotten it underneath.
"Helen, I need you to leave." Paul's wife started to speak, but she barely got a word out before Lara cut in. Her voice cracked as she lost control of herself for an instant. "Now, Helen."
The older woman stepped forward and gave her a full-bodied slap across the face. It burned hard a
nd nearly sent Lara to the floor. The two men moved almost immediately, anticipating a response that never came. That would explain why she needed bodyguards, Lara thought bitterly. To ensure that she never got any of the comeuppance she deserved.
"Don't you dare talk to me like that, you fucking slut. Don't you imagine for one second that you're allowed to even look at me. Is that clear?"
Lara's face burned with pain, but more than that, it burned with rage. She managed to contain it as best she could.
"Did you just come here to slap me, then? Fine. You've done it. Go."
A second blow came, and though she anticipated it Lara couldn't move fast enough to prevent nor avoid it.
"What did I tell you about speaking to me?"
Lara bit the insides of her cheeks and kept silent.
"What seemed strange to me about it all, when I thought about it, was that you were pregnant ten years ago. You were told to get rid of the child, of course. You know that, and I know it, both of us very well. So what I'm confused by is exactly how you expect me to believe that you got rid of the child, then got some other poor son of a bitch to seed you less than a month later."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Lara said. She braced for a blow that never never came.
"I very much doubt that. Now why don't you tell me the truth, Lara? And understand that your dangers aren't all anonymous men on telephones."
Lara shivered and looked into Helen's eyes and knew without needing to be told exactly what danger she might be risking.
She had been told once before, ten years ago, and it was no less scary now than it had been when she was a young woman.
37
Paul Green looked at the clock face on the home screen of his phone and new in his gut that he had waited long enough for Lana to get in touch with him about whatever agreement the man on the phone had tried to make with her.
It made him sick to think that anyone would threaten her under any circumstance. To think that they would threaten her using him, and that they would do so with the apparent belief that they could do so with impunity…
He shivered at the feeling of anger that ran through him. It sickened him, and at the same time he couldn't bring himself to hate that part of him any more than he hated any other part. It was the most useful piece, and the revenge that he might be able to claim for himself…
It wasn't good, and he wasn't happy about it, but he was happy that he could muster that kind of attention about anything at all. Surrounded by people who didn't believe in anything except their own power and greed, surrounded by doubt and unhappiness and everything that he hated, it was amazing that there was anything left that he felt the need to defend. Maybe he shouldn't have been amazed by it, but he was in spite of himself.
Paul's fingers tapped the buttons to call Lara. That would be the first step. If Helen had made it up to split the two of them, then he needed to ensure that hadn't happened, by getting the information straight from the horse's mouth.
The phone rang once, twice. Three times, and he was convinced that he'd have to call back later when Lara's voice answered. She sounded tired and something quavered in her voice that told Paul she'd been crying.
"What?"
He forced himself to ignore all of that. If he didn't, it would rip him apart, and he needed to at least temporarily remain focused on the task at hand.
"Lara, I need to talk to you about something."
"Yeah, well. I guess that makes two of us."
"Have I done something to upset you?"
Paul expected more reaction to that question, but it didn't come. Instead, Lara just held her answer for a long time before she gave a quiet, meek "No."
"Helen tells me that you got another call."
"Is that what she told you?"
"She told me that he insisted you get me to drop out of the race. Is that right?"
"If you know so much about it, why don't you tell me?"
She had been crying. Perhaps, she was still crying, though he couldn't be sure. She was angry with him, though. He was sure of that. What he wasn't sure of was exactly why she was angry.
"I just want to know if it's true or not."
"What, you don't believe your wife?"
"If she told me she'd killed a man and needed me to help me bury the body, I'd believe it in a heartbeat. When she plays nice and decides to give me information that seems useful, I'm a little less trusting."
"Well, why are you asking me, then?"
"You wouldn't lie to me," Paul said.
"You don't know that."
"Could you just answer the question, please? Is that what he wanted, or isn't it?"
"Just leave me be. Go away, forget you ever knew me, and I'll get over it. I've gotten over everything else. I'll get over this, too."
He wanted to tell her what was going on with the hospital. If the doctors hadn't spoken to her yet, though, he didn't want to give her false hope. So he tried to think of something else. A vague feeling at the back of his mind, that there was something he wasn't telling her, something he ought to have said, gnawed at him.
"What happened after I left? Anything?"
He heard her start crying, then, as clear as a bell. He heard the muffled sounds of her sucking breath through her teeth as she tried to get control of herself. She held the phone away from her mouth, maybe even put her hand over it, but it wasn't enough to hide the noise. Not from him.
He closed his eyes and let out a long breath. Helen had done something. He didn't know what it was, but he knew that he had been expecting something since the first time she'd started threatening Lara.
Paul's teeth ground together. Ten years ago, he'd been dangerously close to making the best decision of his life. Now he was beginning to remember why he'd been so close to it.
"Lara, I need you to talk to me."
"What's the point?" Her voice cracked and his heart cracked with it. Paul pressed his jaw together until it hurt.
"What did she do to you?"
"Don't act all innocent, Paul."
"I don't know what happened. I promise, I don't know anything about it."
"Of course you don't. You never know, do you? I should never have come to see you in the first place. You're a tornado and all you've ever brought on my head was trouble."
Paul's eyes snapped shut and he took a deep breath, holding himself as still as possible. If he was careful to stay calm then maybe, with luck, he would forget about what she'd just said.
"I'm sorry that you had to suffer like that, Lara. I never meant to hurt you, so whatever it is that I did to upset you… I'm sorry. If you want to go home as soon as Tim's out of the hospital, I won't stop you."
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. She seemed to be chewing on a response, deciding what she was supposed to say to that. Paul's eyes stayed shut and he took deep breaths. Eventually, if he was very lucky, he might be able to really calm down. He wasn't there yet, though, and he wasn't sure that he was going to be there any time soon.
"Tell me, Paul."
"Tell you what?"
"Tell me what you think about Tim. Tell me how you feel about him. Really."
Paul sensed more than knew that she was leading up to something. The problem was figuring out what the point she was leading up to. Was this related to whatever had chased her away all that time ago?
Paul Green had never been a sensitive man. He had too much money to develop the sense that common folks had without needing to be taught it. A born womanizer and too much ambition for his own good. Too much ambition to maintain a moral compass for very long.
"He's… he's a good boy. Smart. So smart, so sweet. Kind. If you hadn't asked I wouldn't have said anything about it, but… these past days, he's been one of the few things keeping me going at all."
Lara paused for a minute. Somehow, Paul thought, he probably hadn't stunned her with his incredible wit and verve. He sounded tired even to himself, and as much as he hadn't lied, wouldn't lie
about something like that, he had no illusions that he sounded anything other than stiff and, well… tired.
"I'm glad to hear that," she said. She didn't sound glad, though. Not to Paul's ears. She sounded angry. "Because hopefully, you'll realize what a mistake you made when you told me to 'get rid of' him ten years ago."
He was about to ask what the hell she was talking about when the other side of the line went dead, and he had the feeling that she wasn't going to want to talk to him.
Someone had clearly told her some things, and they'd used his name to do them. He didn't have to think long to guess who it might have been, and if she didn't know it already, Helen was about to find out how much hell he could bring her.
38
Lara Green had never had a great deal of luck with men. It was probably related, she thought, to the last one that she'd seen seriously. The one she was seeing now, though she had no illusions this time about anything serious or long-lasting like she had the first time.
Maybe that was the curse of Paul Green. There was no way that anyone was going to compare to him, when he was at his strongest. Like the old poem went, 'when he was good, he was very very good; and when he was bad, he was horrid.'
She'd forgotten how horrid he could be, this time around. She'd let herself get wrapped up again. But to pretend that he had nothing to do with it? She'd been approached by his personal secretary, and she'd been given a letter from him. Signed by him, as she recalled, which left little room for doubt about what he wanted from her.
If she wanted to practice law, she'd abort. If she wanted to be able to show her face anywhere? No more child. No more Tim.
Was it just so unimportant to him that he'd forgotten about it? Had he experienced some kind of change of heart, and now he was just too embarrassed by the whole thing to confess?
Lara didn't know and didn't care. There were other things she needed to do besides thinking about how she was going to write off Paul for the rest of her life. Eventually, yes, she would have to explain the entire situation to her son. And she would, when the time came.