Chapter 6
I led her to the area where the carnival games are located
“Last year I promised I’d win you a stuffed animal, but you were too busy with your serial-killer boyfriend. Lucky for you, I’m both forgiving and a man of my word.”
We passed the dunk tank where my brother Ethan was about to be sent for another swim, all in the name of raising money for Rockfield High athletics. There was a time when I’d be first in line to dunk my brother, but despite our philosophical differences about pretty much everything, our relationship has been on the upswing since my return to town. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t smirk when the buzzer went off, and Ethan splashed into the pool once more.
I located the basketball toss—the same one where I’d won Gwen a purplish stuffed elephant five years running during our teenage years. And sure enough, the elephant was the last remaining prize this year. I handed my money to the teenager manning the booth. It was Shane Sullivan, who I had done a story on for the Gazette last winter when he won multiple state swimming titles for Rockfield High.
He looked to my left and said, “Looks like you’re going to have some competition, little man.”
I looked to see the bespectacled Eliot, who had served as my assistant last year when I coached the girls’ basketball team for Samerauk Elementary. At the time, I gave the ten-year-old a full makeover, including wardrobe. You’re never too young to dress for success, but even I would consider wearing a suit to the fair a little over the top.
Eliot didn’t seem to shrink from the challenge. He removed his sports coat, and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. He was surrounded by a pack of tweens, many I recognized from coaching.
I decided to announce, just because, “I’m playing for the gorgeous and talented Gwen Delaney, and I will not be denied.”
Shane looked to Eliot. “Will you be playing for someone, or do you just like cute stuffed animals?”
Without hesitation, his squeaky voice exclaimed, “I’m going to win that elephant for Gracie.”
The statement received a strong reaction from the pack, with a lot of oooo-ing mixed in. One person who didn’t appear overly thrilled by the unfolding events was pack member, and my niece, Ella. I waved to her, but got no response.
“Last chance to back off without getting embarrassed,” I said to Eliot.
“I was thinking the same thing about you,” he shot back. Game on.
Gwen leaned in to my ear. “Please tell me that you’re really not going to steal a stuffed animal away from a ten-year-old.”
“First of all, he just turned eleven. Secondly, nobody gets in the way of my girl and her elephant.”
“I don’t even really want it.”
I smiled. “Haven’t you learned yet—it isn’t about what you want, but what I want for you?”
She rolled her eyes.
Shane handed me the ball, adding, “Age before beauty. Best of three.”
The basket moved side to side. It went slowly on the first shot, and would increase speed as the competition continued. I took my first shot with perfect form and confidence. The only problem was that it clanked off the rim for a miss. This led to laughter from the tween pack.
I still liked my chances. During our time coaching together, Eliot had proved to be an ingenious basketball strategist, but when it came to shooting one, he would struggle to hit the ocean if he were standing in a boat.
But never underestimate a man who is motivated by the fairer sex. He looked at Gracie and she smiled at him—it was like he’d taken a shot of adrenaline.
His first shot swished right through the hoop. His backers cheered, and began chanting El-i-ot! El-i-ot! I’m pretty sure Gwen was cheering along with them.
It didn’t look good for me, but I wasn’t going to cower—I’d been in environments much more hostile than this. My second shot bounced around the rim, and then fell off. Another miss.
If Eliot made his next shot, he would win. But he missed badly, to the collective groan of his followers.
This gave me an opportunity, and I took it. Despite the increased speed of the basket, I embraced the pressure, and made the shot. Eliot would have to make his last attempt to win, but he missed again.
I figured there would be an extra shot to decide this epic competition, but Shane handed the elephant to Eliot. “Tie goes to the younger kid,” he said.
“That’s discrimination,” I argued.
“Take it up with my boss—it’s Saturday and I got plans, which don’t include hanging out at this lame fair. My shift is over.”
Eliot proudly handed the elephant to Gracie, and received a kiss on the cheek. The tween pack reveled in his victory. Except Ella, who looked like she’d eaten a bad hot dog.
Gwen patted me on the head, and said in her most patronizing voice, “You tried your best, JP. That’s all that counts. And I really like my consolation prize.” She ran her hand over her necklace.
As long as it wasn’t an engagement ring—the thought was stuck in my head.
Chapter 7
I walked away in shame from the carnival games. Gwen was still by my side, but was likely plotting a plan to trade-up for Eliot.
We were met by an energetic Allison Cooper. She was with her son, Chase, and Gwen’s much younger brother, Tommy. The two boys had become inseparable this summer. A hostage exchange took place—Tommy was returned to Gwen, and Allison replaced him with her daughter, Gracie.
Gracie handed the elephant to her mother, and rubbed more salt in my wounds. “Eliot won it for me!”
It was a tie, but whatever.
Allison was our classmate growing up in Rockfield. But she and Gwen became close friends during our college days in New York, and have remained so over the years. Their bond tightened even more last year when we were all thrust into what’s become known as the “Huddled Masses Murders,” with one of the victims being her husband, Marty.
Gwen had suggested that Allison and her kids stay with them this summer, providing the opportunity to get away, and do their best to pick up the pieces of their shattered family life. It must have worked to a degree, since Allison decided to stay, and enrolled her kids in school here. She has also been volunteering at the Gazette, trying to bring us into the most recent century—no easy task. Terms like “online presence” and “page views” are becoming common, when six months ago we didn’t even have a working coffeemaker. Of course, my mentor, and the paper’s founder, Murray Brown, recently joked to me that her official title should be driver, since she’s been driving Gwen crazy. So I guess there’s a downside to everything.
Appearing behind Allison, seemingly out of nowhere, was a man dressed in blue scrubs. He looked like he had stepped off the set of one of those TV hospital dramas. It was Dr. Will MacDougal, who also recently joined the “Return to Rockfield” club, and is working with his father at his practice. He rents the house next door to the Delaneys, so we’ve gotten to know him well this summer.
“Hey neighbor—you ready?” Allison greeted him.
I was intrigued by their chumminess. I looked to Gwen to see if she’d noticed, but she was focused on Tommy.
“Big Saturday night plans?” I asked Dr. Will.
He laughed. “Yes … sleep. Worked all night at New Milford Hospital in the ER, stopped home long enough to check my messages, and then came directly here to help my father with the blood pressure checks.”
My Friday night wasn’t much more exciting. After returning home from the parade and the traditional high-school football game that kicks off the Rockfield Fair weekend—Ethan’s team beat Granbury for the seventh year in a row—I made a pro/con list concerning the possibility of entering the race for first selectman, and then fell asleep in a chair watching Blue Bloods. Dr. Will did have a certain do-gooder, too-good-to-be-true quality to him that I’m always very skeptical of. Such thoughts might confirm that I’m as big of a cynical bastard as people say, but it also has kept me alive on occasion.
Be
fore taking off, he reminded me of my follow-up appointment regarding my concussion symptoms, which resulted from a little disagreement I had with a couple of terrorist thugs during the “Huddled Masses Murders.” I had hoped that he’d forgotten about it, but no such luck.
Allison held up her bandaged hand and laughed. “You might as well just give in, JP—he’s like a pit bull. You should have seen him when I skipped out on an appointment for my hand—felt like I was being sent to the principal’s office.”
“Treating patients is just like life—80% of it is just showing up,” Will said with a smile.
The herd began to break off. The carpool made up of Allison, her children, and Dr. Will headed for the parking lot. Tommy requested a candy apple from Gwen, and they went off to the nearest stand. Ella announced that she needed to find her dad and ran off.
Eliot barely noticed her, as he was staring so hard at Gracie walking away that I thought he might break his glasses.
“You do know you’re completely over your head, right?” I said.
“It never stopped you,” he replied, not breaking his stare.
Good point.
Moments later, Eliot’s mother arrived. “I’m so glad to hear you’ll be coaching the team again this year, JP. Eliot got so much confidence from working with you,” she said.
Maybe a little too much, I thought. “I’ll let him coach this year if he stops beating me in basketball shooting games,” I said with a laugh.
“Now that’s something I thought I’d never hear,” she said with a laugh of her own, before they left for Saturday night synagogue, leaving me alone with my thoughts. And of course, my thoughts went to where they usually go—to Gwen.
As I watched her with Tommy, acting more motherly than big-sisterly, with the sunset in the background, I decided that it was one of those moments that needed to be framed and hung in a gallery. But those moments rarely seem to last.
“Hello, John Peter,” were the words that desecrated the painting.
Chapter 8
I closed my eyes, holding them shut for a few seconds. But when they opened, she was still there.
Lauren Bowden.
My former colleague at the cable news network GNZ, my former girlfriend, and my current rash that just won’t go away.
She showed up at last year’s fair with Cliff Sutcliffe, attempting to woo me back to GNZ, wearing an outfit that would have fit in nicely at a fashion show in Milan. So she learned from that experience and came dressed more fair-appropriate this year … sort of. She wore what I would term the sexy cowgirl outfit, with boots, Daisy Dukes, and a colorful flannel that she’d strategically tied up to show off her flat abs. It was a similar, yet less Western, clothing choice that caught my attention at the GNZ summer party a few years back, and led to a yearlong hot-mess of a relationship. But I was a much stronger person these days.
“Love the outfit … but there’s something missing,” I said.
“I was going to wear the hat, but I’d just had my hair done at Renée’s,” she said in her southern accented voice, flipping her magnetic blonde hair to accentuate her point.
“No, it’s not the hat,” I said, as if still thinking and snapped my fingers. “I know what it is—Cliff. Where is he?”
The spray tan almost slipped off her face. “Cliff? Why would I be with Cliff? He’s just my co-worker, it’s not like we’re in some relationship,” she said with a nervous laugh.
She was a little quick on the trigger with the defense. “It’s just that he’s always with you when you show up to woo me back, so it feels a little strange without him.”
“I’m hardly wooing you, John Peter—I think you have things backwards.”
I looked for Gwen, but she had her back to me. Since we had such special connection I thought I could send her a telepathic message. But either it didn’t work, or she was ignoring my SOS. I was all on my own.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure then?”
“Don’t play coy with me, John Peter—you know I’m here to do a story on the anniversary of your brother’s death.”
Suddenly the footing under me shifted. “I’ve never agreed to do a story about my brother.”
She shook her head like a disappointed mother. “You most certainly did. I sent you numerous messages. So you are well aware that I plan to do a story on a victim each month, leading up to the trial next spring. I’m starting with lesser players like your brother, and going to build up to the more famous victims like Senator Kingsbury.”
I seethed. Lesser player? “I erased all those messages. I never even listened to them.”
“As I clearly stated in the message, if you were unable to fulfill your obligation, you were to let me know. And since I never received a call back, you obviously had no issue with the interview. Plus, to show my appreciation, I was willing to trudge up to this glorified hoedown to make it easier for you. So what do you say we stop playing these silly games, and get down to business?”
I much preferred the silly games. I looked deep into her fake blue contact lenses, and said, “You need to get out of here before Gwen sees us together.”
Her look turned superior. “I don’t fault her for her jealousy—as my Mama always told me: you don’t want to be the one to replace the legend, you’re better off replacing the person who replaced the legend.”
If I was following correctly, she was the legend in that scenario. It was her humility that I missed the most. “I’m serious. You need to go before it’s too late.”
“Gwen is just going to have to understand that two of the world’s leading news personalities—despite your recent downfall—won’t be able to avoid having a working relationship.”
“It goes beyond jealousy—she will really kill you if she sees us together.”
“You’re always so dramatic, John Peter—if you recall, I was the one who saved her life. If you save someone’s life, they are not allowed to threaten yours. It’s just simple etiquette.”
As bizarre as it might sound, accidentally or not, she really did step in front of a bullet headed in Gwen’s direction last St. Patrick’s Day, and the network has been referring to her as the World’s Most Courageous News Anchor ever since. I still haven’t got my mind around that one.
I moved close to her, and whispered, “Don’t you find it strange that Gwen was standing right next to you when you were shot? Or that those fake cops knew right where to corner us, under that sidewalk shed?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, John Peter.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Lauren—I know you’re too savvy of a reporter for that. We both know it was a setup.”
“A setup?”
“Don’t you get it? Gwen was in on it—she’s the one who led us there. Like pigs to a slaughter.”
She looked bewildered. “In on what?”
“She’s a CIA assassin! She doesn’t know that I know, and we need to keep it that way—it’s no coincidence that she suddenly showed up in my life after all those years. She’s waiting for me to give up the information, and then I’m a dead man.”
“What information is that?”
“If I tell you, we’re both goners. That’s why she can’t see you with me. You got lucky last time—wearing that bulletproof vest—but there’s no way you can possibly have any protection under that outfit.”
For a brief moment I thought I’d convinced her to scurry fearfully out of town, but she planted her cowboy boots in the muck. “I’m not going anywhere, John Peter—I will be there for you.”
“I appreciate it, Lauren, I really do, but all you’re doing is planning both our funerals.”
She thought about it for a second, and then she screamed.
Before I could locate the source of her fright, I was raised into the air.
As the angry beast carried me off, I looked back to Lauren, and pleaded, “Save yourself—before it’s too late!”
Chapter 9
Once the coast was clear, the giant
set me down.
As happy as I was to be away from Lauren, there was still a lingering question about my escape. “What are you doing here?”
“I think I was saving your life … again,” the giant responded.
Standing before me—more like hovering over me like a skyscraper, even though I was a shade over six-feet tall—in his usual sleeveless denim jacket and wraparound sunglasses, was the former professional wrestler Jeff “Coldblooded” Carter. He later became my scout, confidant, and yes, lifesaver, as we searched the most dangerous parts of the globe, hunting down the most elusive stories.
He looked like an oversized puppy that wanted me to pat him on his shaved dome for a job well done. When he got no love, he began walking away. For some reason, I followed.
“Thank you for coming to my rescue,” I finally said.
“That’s twelve times I’ve saved your life, and twice from that crazy ex of yours.”
“Glad to see you don’t keep score. But what about all the times you almost got me killed—doesn’t that even things out?”
“Almost only counts in horseshoes and grenades. Fact is, you owe me numerous lives, and you just better hope I don’t decide to collect one day.”
“So getting back to my original question—what are you doing here?”
“You’ve always spouted off about how great the Rockfield Fair is, so I thought I’d come check it out for myself.”
I heard a beep in my pocket, and I wasn’t sure if I was receiving a text, or my BS detector was going off. “Weren’t you supposed to be following your girlfriend around on her tour?”
“We decided to take a break.”
“From the tour, or each other?”
“This is not about me—that’s not why I’m here.”
“Then who is it about?”
I followed his point to the man who was the third member of our old team—Byron Jasper. I always felt a piece of my heart chip away every time I saw him confined to his wheelchair, along with a jolt of guilt. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t sporting his trademarked smile. He was also holding a trophy.
Huddled Masses (JP Warner Book 2) Page 31