He was disappointed to see a car in her driveway, but he recognized whose it was. Her girlfriend was there. That was all right. Women needed the company and support of other women. Megan was surely rattling on and on about everything. He thought his ears should be burning for sure. He was that positive that he was the center of the conversation between them. He was glad he had bought extra food.
Grasping the bag with its delicious aromas spiraling out, he hurried to the front door and rang the buzzer. Looking behind, he saw there was no private detective in sight. Perhaps he was hiding somewhere. It didn’t matter now.
Jennifer opened the door for him.
“Hey, Jennifer. How are you doing?” he cried, and handed her one of the tiny umbrellas that came with the takeout.
“Who’s there?” he heard Megan call. She stepped out of the living room and saw him. “Steve.”
“I have your pictures,” he said, “and bought some Chinese. Hope you have no other plans for dinner.”
Tricia came up beside her and the two looked at him.
“There’s enough for your friend,” he said.
Tricia and Megan looked at each other and then burst out laughing.
“That’s exactly what we were thinking of doing—going for Chinese,” Megan said. “It’s comfort food.”
“That’s me,” Steve said, stepping in. “Mr. Comfort.”
Was he on a roll, or what?
Nothing would stop him now. When he got home tonight, he would tell his mother to start thinking of new baby names.
CHAPTER TEN
Nothing annoyed him as much, perhaps, as the idea that he couldn’t simply get into his car and drive to his own house and see his own daughter whenever he wanted. Damn if he wouldn’t, he thought when he got into his car after work. His father wanted him to join him for dinner at the Four Seasons later. They were entertaining some Japanese businessmen who were considering their office building in Sherman Oaks. He promised to be there, but he decided to detour through Beverly Hills. When he approached the house, however, and saw a truck in the driveway and Tricia Morgan’s car, he kept going.
He turned around at the end of the street and rode by very slowly so he could look again at the truck. Megan was no good at getting things fixed in the house. The moment something broke down, she went into a small panic and always called him. Yet he felt confident this was not the truck of some repairman, especially this time of the day. The truck had no markings on it either, no company name. If he still had his private detective or if his father had reassigned one by tonight, he might know more. He was simply not making good decisions. He was flailing out everywhere and getting nowhere.
One of their neighbors, Sally Rosenfield, a seventy-five-year-old widow who had inherited fifty million dollars, came out of her driveway and stopped before turning to the right. She was in terrific health and shape for her age, a very independent sort who didn’t rely on her children or servants. As far as Scott knew, she’d never had a driver. She was a major force in a number of charities and kept herself quite active. They had been to her home a number of times and Megan and he had invited her to dinner only once.
The truth was, he saw her as something of a threat. She was always encouraging Megan to be more independent, do more with her life than she was doing. She tried to convince her that exploring the world outside the home would make her appreciate her home life even more. Megan had resisted most of her suggestions, but often brought up those suggestions at dinner, and that occasionally had led to what he called little arguments. It got so he viewed Sally as a troublemaker.
“Hello, Scott,” she called out her car window. “What are you doing?”
He wondered if she could see how red his face became. Here he was parked outside his own driveway.
“I’m just…stopping by to see Jennifer,” he muttered, fumbling the words and adding to his embarrassment.
“Stopping by? Yes, I’m sorry,” she said.
She obviously had heard about his and Megan’s marital troubles.
“Me too.”
“You’re losing a wonderful wife,” she said.
“Yeah, well, none of this is simply one person’s fault.”
“Never is,” she said, but disdainfully.
“Yes, well, I wasn’t looking for sympathy, Sally.”
“Too bad,” she said, shook her head and drove off.
His embarrassment turned to rage. Now he would become the laughingstock of this neighborhood. With Sally’s connections, it would happen at warp speed. He looked at the truck again and then backed up a little and spun into the driveway right behind it. If there was a celebration going on in there at his expense, he wanted to make sure he knew Megan would be sorry. He dug out his house key when he got to the door and entered.
He didn’t intend to sneak into the house looking guilty about it, but he did move softly at first so he could hear what was going on. The first thing he heard was all the laughter. Of course, he recognized Tricia’s voice. She was laughing the loudest. The man, whoever he was, was telling a joke.
“And the nurse adds, ‘If I had known that, doctor, I would have left the thermometer in longer.’”
Megan’s laughter was louder than Tricia’s. He opened the door and slammed it hard. Their laughter stopped. He started down the hallway. The man came to the kitchen doorway first, with Megan and Tricia standing behind him.
“Scott!” Megan cried.
“Having a party?” he asked.
He eyed the man like some gunslinger setting up for a draw. The man hadn’t spoken, but there was something very threatening, lethal, in his look. Scott thought he’d have to search way back through his library of images to find a face registering such unadulterated anger. It was as if they were lifetime enemies.
“We’re just having some dinner. What is it? Why are you here?”
“I have the right to get my personal things whenever I need them,” he said. “Where’s Jennifer?”
“She’s upstairs. She had her dinner earlier and is watching some television.”
“Before her homework?”
“I think I know when she can watch television and when she can’t, Scott. I don’t know if you could.”
“We haven’t been introduced,” he said, nodding at Steve. “One of your boyfriends, Tricia?”
Tricia didn’t speak, nor did she permit one of her usual condescending smiles to form.
“He’s a friend of mine, Scott,” Megan said.
“Right,” Scott said. “A friend.”
“In need is a friend, indeed,” Steve added. He took a small step forward.
The physical threat was something perhaps only another man could feel instantly. Scott hadn’t been in many physical confrontations in his life and all of them had been during his younger years, one in his college days, but if he had some physical altercation with another boy, there had always been the sense that both he and the other boy had a limit, a failsafe point at which one or the other would back off. A fight to the death was never in the mix; it was always meant solely to embarrass or get the other to retreat.
However, he had seen boys and even men in fights where it was clear that one or the other would have to be pulled away. Something primeval and raw had come to the surface, and subduing his opponent would not suffice. This man who faced him in his own home hallway had that look. Scott did all he could not to show he was intimidated or afraid, especially in front of Megan and Tricia, but he recognized he was moments away from that sort of retreat.
“Whatever,” he said, and continued down the hallway toward his den, ostensibly to collect something he needed. Megan pulled Steve and Tricia back into the kitchen.
When he entered the den, he stopped to catch his breath and control the trembling in his legs that had resulted both from his anger and fear. Ironically, he hated himself more, for being this way, than he did that man or Megan and Tricia. His father wouldn’t have backed away. His father would have charged forward and brought it on
, forcing Megan to realize she had created more than she could ever have imagined. No matter what the outcome, she would have been the loser.
That’s Dad, he thought sadly. That’s not me.
He heard footsteps in the hallway and went to the file cabinet to thumb through some documents. Megan stepped into the doorway as he pulled up a file.
“Why didn’t you call first, Scott? That was the agreement.”
“I was nearby and I needed this for a dinner meeting. I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but now that I see you’re in the middle of a celebration, I guess it was a mistake.”
He turned, the pain and rage in his eyes so vivid, Megan had to step back.
“Believe me, Megan. This is a premature victory party you’re having.”
“It’s not a victory party. It’s just a simple dinner. Steve happened by and brought some Chinese food and—”
“Steve? And how long have you known Steve?”
“You should know that yourself.” She pulled one of the photographs out of the envelope and held it up. “One of your private detectives parked outside this house.”
He stepped toward her.
“How did you get that?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Did you have someone watching this house, too? Tell me. It’s very important.”
“I’ll bet.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, what you’re getting yourself and Jennifer into,” he continued, approaching her.
“Right, Scott. I don’t know.”
“Okay, smart-ass, you’re right. I hired a private detective agency and they began surveillance last night, but guess what, the head of the agency was murdered last night,” he said. He left out that the murder had occurred away from Beverly Hills and that the police were under the belief that it was a robbery, but he simply wanted to knock her off her high horse.
It worked.
Her expression of confidence and justifiable anger at him evaporated.
“Murdered?”
“That’s right. I pulled off the detective who was there this morning. If you have any other pictures of other men observing this house, you’d better call the police immediately and inform them.
“Unless,” he added, moving past her into the hallway, “you have some reason why you’re afraid to.”
“What reason—?”
“Anything wrong, Megan?” they heard. He turned to see Steve in the hallway.
“No, nothing. Thanks, Steve.”
Scott looked back at her. She would never forget the expression on his face. Somewhere deep inside her, and from his pleading and tone of voice during the last phone conversation, she was convinced that somewhere deep inside him as well there was the hope that they’d find a way to stop this divorce, find a way back. But the look on Scott’s face now was the look of a man who had been drained of the last drop of love for her. He looked like he had lost his soul.
“You’re going to be sorry for all this, Megan,believe me. In the end, you’ll be sorry.”
He turned away and walked past Steve and back to the entryway. Tricia stood in the kitchen doorway gazing out fearfully. He glanced at her hatefully and continued on to the front door. The moment he stepped out, he felt his lungs relax and begin to fill up with clear, clean, cool air. It was as if he had stepped out of an oven. He welcomed and at the same time hated his craving for relief. It made him feel even more cowardly.
But he stopped thinking about himself when he opened his car door and tossed the useless folder into the rear. He looked back at the house and shook his head when the realization came to him.
He had gone in and out and he hadn’t even said hello to his daughter.
“My God,” Tricia said when the three of them gathered around the kitchenette table again. “When he walked out just now, I thought he was going to hit me. I was frozen in fear, Meg.”
Megan busied herself clearing off the table.
Tricia looked at Steve, who was shaking his head.
“He threatened her, too,” he said.
A thought occurred to Tricia. “Has he ever been violent with you, Meg?”
Meg paused and grimaced.
“Scott? Never. He’s not capable of that.”
“He sure looked like he was just now,” Tricia insisted.
“She’s right,” Steve said. “As you know, I have had experience with that sort of thing. I can pretty much tell when another guy is going to start swinging. I grew up in the streets. You got so you had to know when to strike first in order to survive. Most fights I’ve been in and I’ve seen are onepunch fights, the first punch. It’s not like in the movies. You hit someone in the jaw or cheek and you break bones and teeth. Why—”
“Stop!” Megan cried. “I can’t stand this talk of violence. Scott’s not violent. What’s more, he just told me a terrible thing.” She fought back tears and sat.
“What, Meg?” Tricia asked immediately.
“One of the private detectives he hired was murdered last night.”
“Murdered?” Tricia looked up at Steve.
“How do you know that’s true?” he asked.
“He wouldn’t say such a thing if it weren’t true. I showed him the picture you brought me and that was when he said it. He wanted to know if I had hired someone to watch the house.”
She looked up at Steve.
“You didn’t hire anyone. He can’t accuse you of anything,” he said. He looked at Tricia. She was looking at him strangely, too. “It was purely by accident that I discovered it. I’m not saying I wasn’t thinking about it. What you told me about him and his father got me thinking they might do something like that, Megan. So I kept my eyes peeled when I was around here.”
“You just said it was by pure accident,” Tricia reminded him.
“Well, I meant…that I happened by at that time. Besides,” he said, reddening some now, “you shouldn’t be feeling guilty about anything. You’re not the one who’s doing this stuff. He is. Don’t let him lay this on you. He’s just trying to get out of some lowdown crap he’s pulled. I’ve seen guys like that before.”
“You probably have,” Tricia said. He took it as a compliment, but Megan picked up on her tone and looked at her.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she said. “It’s the first time I saw that much pain in his face.”
“Megan—,” Tricia began.
“I’m tired,” Megan said. “Thank you both for stopping by, but it looks like I have some hard days ahead. I’d better get some rest.”
“Don’t get depressed about it all,” Tricia advised, rising. She put her arm around her. “I’m organizing a get-together with the girls for you on the weekend.”
“I don’t know, Tricia.”
“It’ll be good. You need support now.”
“I didn’t mean for this to turn out bad for you,” Steve said.
Megan smiled at him and reached for his hand.
“I know. Thank you, Steve. We’ll just all take a few steps back for a while, okay?”
His face darkened with disappointment. Back? She should be wanting to rush into his arms even more. She should be going forward, not back. What did that mean exactly? She would reconsider the divorce? It’s not a good idea to push her too hard right now, he thought. He glanced at Tricia and then nodded.
“Sure. Let’s all step back and let the system work for a change.”
“Some system,” Tricia muttered.
Megan walked them to the door.
“I’m glad Jennifer missed it all,” Tricia said. “It would give her nightmares. It’s going to give them to me. That look on his face.”
“We’ll be fine,” Megan said. She hugged her.
Steve stood there waiting for some warm expression from her. She held out her hand.
“Good night, Steve. Thanks again,” she said.
It nearly turned his stomach to do so, but he shook her hand. She could have at least kissed him on the
cheek.
“Night,” he said, and went out to his truck.
She and Tricia watched him go.
“I’m not leaving just yet. Come on inside and sit a moment,” Tricia said. “You’re pretty shaken up, Meg.”
Meg nodded and let Tricia guide her into the living room.
“I don’t know about you, but I could use a stiff drink,” Tricia said, going to the bar. “How about my making you a martini or something?”
“Just some white wine, Tricia. Thanks.”
Tricia poured a straight Scotch on the rocks for herself and a glass of Chardonnay for Megan. They sat quietly sipping for a few moments.
“I know you feel bad about it all, Megan, but you can’t let him make you feel guilty. Men amaze me. He drives you away and yet he resents that another man might find you interesting or that you might turn to another man. It’s just their damn male arrogance.”
“I know, but there was a time, though, when I was just as unhappy whenever Scott was unhappy, and believe it or not, he was the same way. We felt for each other. I think that’s a major part of love, maybe the heart of it, and when that goes, it all goes. Know what I mean?”
“Sure. And I went through the exact same periods of self-pity,” Tricia said.
“You know, Tricia, I didn’t pity myself as much as I pitied Scott tonight.”
“That’s because you’re so good, Megan. You’re better than me, that’s for sure. But that also makes you terribly vulnerable. You actually lucked out bumping into a guy like Steve.”
“Did I?”
“He’s really handsome. He’s funny and very sensitive for a tough guy, and he really likes you. I can see it.”
“I know,” Megan said with some fatigue in her voice, lowering her head. “But…“
“But what?” Megan asked.
“Sometimes I think he’s too good to be true.”
“I’m sure he has his faults, but right now, he looks pretty damn good and true to me.”
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