Wes stared at the golf club, wondering if it was intended for
his
head today. He stowed his bike, then pulled out the club and trudged to the passenger side.
When he swung inside, he was afraid to make eye contact with Mouse, so he just stared straight ahead. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
Wes slumped in his seat and watched the passing scenery. Mouse steered the car onto Peachtree Street and drove north.
“Have you heard from your old man?”
Wes shook his head.
“You got a mother?”
“Yeah. She left with my dad.” He brought his hand to his mouth to trim the uneven bits of nail he had left.
“Where is she now?”
He shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Your sister raised you?”
It occurred to him that if Mouse felt sorry for him, he might not kill him. “Yeah. It was rough.”
“Yeah, lots of people have it rough.”
He sagged. So much for sympathy.
The traffic of downtown gave way to Midtown, then Buckhead, then the perimeter, and still they headed north.
“Going a little out of our jurisdiction, aren’t we?”
“I thought we’d take a little drive.”
He was a dead man. Anyone who watched television knew that taking a drive was code for going to an isolated location to be executed. He examined the head of the club, checking the grooves for blood or bits of flesh. “Mouse, I really appreciate all you’ve done for me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Teaching me the ropes, putting in a good word for me with The Carver, and helping me to get clean.”
“You’re welcome.”
The man seemed unmoved. Wes gave up on his nonexistent nails and picked at his raw cuticles.
“You nervous about something?” Mouse asked.
Wes’s stomach cramped. “No.”
Mouse seemed unconvinced. “You sure you don’t have something you want to tell me?”
“I’m sure.” That, at least, was no lie.
They were on Peachtree Industrial now, well north of the city, driving through fits and spurts of old commercial property and residential housing. Mouse chewed on a toothpick, and Wesley chewed on his fingernails.
When they reached Norcross, Mouse veered the car left onto Peachtree Parkway into an increasingly residential—and rural—area. Wes couldn’t recall ever being this far north.
After a few more miles, he couldn’t stand it anymore. “Are you going to tell me the surprise?”
Mouse made a sudden right turn onto a smaller road. “Then it wouldn’t be much of a surprise, would it?”
Wes stared at the passing trees and fields and wondered if the look of surprise would be frozen on his face when his body was found.
If
his body was found. There were a few stacked-stone entrances for subdivisions he couldn’t see with names that had words like “Estate” and “Colony” in them. He supposed people paid big money to live in big houses with big yards and good schools...and lots of undeveloped countryside in between.
He had to hand it to Mouse—no one would think to look for him way out here in—
“What county are we in?”
“Forsyth, I think.”
No one would think to look for him way out here in Forsyth County. He wondered if Meg would raise the alarm when he didn’t show up tonight...or if she’d think he’d flaked out, like before.
When Mouse started craning his neck and tapping the brake as if he were looking for a place to pull over, Wes began to panic. At this point, he figured he had nothing to lose. “Mouse...actually, there is something I want to tell you.”
“Thought so. Well, might as well get it off your chest.”
Wes was going to be sick. “I, um...that is...” He coughed and a bitter taste filled his mouth.
“Spit it out.” Mouse slowed the car and flipped on the turn signal.
Wes squeezed the armrest, then noticed where they were turning. “St. Marlo Country Club?”
“Yeah,” Mouse said with a big grin. “I thought we’d play a round of golf, just you and me.”
“That’s the surprise?”
Mouse’s grin dissolved. “You don’t want to play with me?”
Relief flooded his limbs. “Are you kidding?” He whooped. “Yes, I want to play. This is...this is
great
, Mouse.”
Mouse grinned again. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Then Wes stopped. “But what about clubs?”
“Relax, we’ll get everything we need at the golf shop.”
“I don’t have much cash on me.”
“It’s all on me, Little Man.”
It was perhaps the worst, ugliest game of golf ever played, Wesley decided as they slogged, chopped, and hacked their way through eighteen holes. His swing was awful, and Mouse’s was even worse. They trash-talked each other relentlessly. He drove the golf cart while Mouse sucked down a couple of beers. In the interest of time, they set a maximum number of shots per hole. By the time they’d reached the eighteenth green, they’d lost nine balls and both of them were knocking on a score of 140.
Wes couldn’t remember ever having so much fun.
“You were actually getting pretty good there toward the end,” Mouse said as they left the clubhouse.
“Better maybe, but not good.”
“You just need practice. Me, I doubt I’ll ever get the hang of it.”
“I doubt it, too,” Wes said, then ducked a playful punch. It was a far cry from the kind of punishment he thought he was going to get today. When he climbed into the car, he was pleasantly tired, and...happy.
Mouse started the engine. “Say, what was it you wanted to tell me earlier?”
“Huh?”
“You said you wanted to get something off your chest.”
He shifted in his seat, his mind racing for a plausible answer. “I...got a woman pregnant.”
Mouse winced. “Jeez, no wonder you’ve been so jumpy. Is this your Meg?”
“No,” he said morosely.
“Aw, shit. What’s the situation?”
“The woman is older.”
“Not married, I hope?”
“She’s single, and she wants to keep the baby.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
“It’s her decision. I told her I would help anyway I can.”
“Is this someone you care about?”
Wes wet his lips. “It’s complicated. She’s my attorney.”
“Aw, hell.”
“And my dad’s former mistress.”
“Aw, fuck.”
Wes sighed. “I know—it’s a mess.”
“Does Meg know?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t had the nerve to tell her yet.”
“You gonna call her from the hospital waiting room?”
“No.” Although that wasn’t a bad idea.
“All I’m saying is you gotta tell her sooner, rather than later.”
“She’s going to hate me.”
Mouse nodded. “Probably so. Women are funny about their guys having kids with other women.”
Wes puffed out his cheeks in an exhale. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Sure, you do. If you want to be a man, you do the hard thing.”
“The hard thing?”
“Yeah—the hard thing is usually the right thing. Especially where your kids are concerned.”
That gave Wes something to chew on other than his nails. Mouse was right. Carlotta had done the hard thing by sacrificing her twenties to raise him.
So did that mean Randolph had taken the easy way out?
No. His dad had a good reason for leaving...
leaving
had been the hard thing. Somehow.
“But how do you know what the hard thing is?”
Mouse gave him a little smile. “Easy—it’s the thing you don’t want to do most.”
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say.”
“Welcome to adulthood, Little Man. It sucks for a while...and then it doesn’t. You’ll see.”
“If you say so.” He saw the sign for a MARTA station and sat up. “Why don’t you drop me at the train? That’ll save you time and I won’t have to sit in traffic and smell you.”
“Okay, smartass.”
When Mouse pulled up to the MARTA dropoff, Wes rolled out, then turned back and leaned in. “Mouse...thanks, man. For everything.”
“You’re welcome. Collections Saturday. I’ll call you.”
Wes shoved the door closed, then retrieved his bike from the trunk. His mind whirled on the long train ride back into Midtown. He rehearsed what he was going to say to Meg over and over. On the short bike ride from the station to her dorm, he worked up a little irritation—it wasn’t as if Meg had been putting out...and they weren’t even dating. She couldn’t really blame him for being with someone else when she would barely give him the time of day. He was a red-blooded man, after all. And virile, according to Liz.
What did Meg expect him to do—wait for her to decide if and when she might bestow upon him the gift of her uptight self? Did she think she held his balls in her hand?
She had no right to be angry with him for doing what men do...and he’d tell her so.
He called from her dorm lobby while the lady watchdog at the desk eyeballed him warily. “Meg, I’m here.”
“Oh, good, you’re early. Have you thought of a way to sneak in?”
“Um, maybe you’d better come down first.”
“Okay.”
As much as he’d psyched himself up, every defense he had constructed evaporated when she bounced off the elevator and into his heart. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and she wore a yellow onesie-romper thingy that exposed her tanned arms and legs. She’d gotten a henna tattoo on her wrist while on vacation and the colors were still vibrant. Meg smiled wide and opened her arms to invite him into her personal space.
He went. He deserved this, one last hug to inhale the scent of her shampoo and feel her lithe body snug against his. He ran his hands down her back and when the woman at the desk glared at him, he went a few inches lower for a blissful handful. Meg kissed him with her pink berry mouth, then pulled back and frowned.
“Is something wrong?”
“Uh...I need to tell you something.”
She smiled. “Okay. What?”
He should ease into it, he decided...tell her how much she meant to him, and he wished he had waited for her because after all, he’d pretty much made a career out of thinking about having sex with her...
She gave a little laugh. “Wes, whatever it is, just tell me. I mean, how bad can it be—”
“I got someone pregnant.”
She stopped midsentence, mouth open. He was ready for anything—a slap to the face, a knee to the nuts. Crying, shouting, name-calling. He braced himself.
Instead, her eyes got quiet and faraway. “You’ll be a great father,” she said softly, then turned and walked back the way she’d come.
He was too stunned to follow her, couldn’t even get his breath until the elevator doors had closed. He ran after her, but was stopped by one beefy arm across his chest.
“I don’t think so,” the dorm monitor said, pointing to a sign that read ‘No male visitors past lobby.’ “Why don’t you just go?”
He nodded and left, still reeling from Meg’s response and how it only made him love her more.
And it made him more determined to do the right thing—the hard thing. Now it was clear what he had to do: Ask Liz to marry him.
But if he was going to pro
pose to the mother of his child, he needed a ring, and for that he needed money.
He pulled out his phone and connected a number. “Chance, man, it’s Wes. I need a poker game.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
JACK SURVEYED THE bedazzled runway and snorted. “Whose idea was it to set up another fashion show after last week’s disaster?”
Carlotta gave a little laugh. “It was already on the schedule. But lucky for us it’s set up like last week’s show so we can recreate the scene of the crime.”
“Yes, lucky for us.”
“Are you still mad that I was right about someone killing grooms?”
“You seem to have overlooked one very real possibility.”
“And that is?”
“The men might have done themselves in rather than walk down the aisle.”
“Very funny, Jack. Just because you’re allergic to commitment, doesn’t mean every man is.”
“Says the girl playing Spin the Bottle with three boys in her sandbox.”
Her mouth tightened with annoyance, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of a comeback.
“Speaking of your sandbox,” he said with a sardonic grin, “what’s going on with the photographer next door?”
“I haven’t seen him around, but I had a real estate friend look into who owns the house.”
“And?”
“And the information was a little vague, but she seemed to think it’s owned by the government.”
He shrugged. “That’s pretty common, with all the foreclosures through federal financing programs and grants for affordable housing.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Leave it to Jack to squash anything remotely intriguing about the situation.
He glanced at his watch. “How was your interview with Lucas Monday?”
“About what I expected. He’s irritated because he hasn’t gotten to talk to Randolph yet.”
Jack pursed his mouth. “Interesting.”
“And Liz was...surprisingly helpful.”
“See? Liz has some good qualities.”
Carlotta burned to tell him that managing birth control wasn’t one of them, but bit her tongue. Liz had asked her to keep quiet about the baby and she would, for Wes’s sake. Besides, if word got out and Randolph got wind of the situation, it could complicate Liz’s ability to represent him.
At least Wesley had seemed to be in a better frame of mind when he’d come home last night. He still didn’t want to talk, but he’d given her an unsolicited hug, and that was like gold.
“Wonder what’s keeping Salyers?” Jack said, checking the time again.
“I’m here,” the woman called from the curtained rear entrance. She walked up and nodded a greeting to Carlotta. “Sorry I’m late. It took me a while to wade through that crowd. Has it been like this all week?”
“Mostly,” Carlotta said. “But today is the last day of the show, so it’s a little crazy.”
“Do you still work at Neiman’s, Ms. Wren?”
So Salyers had reviewed her notes from the old case...which did not paint Carlotta in the most favorable light. Her cheeks warmed. “Yes. The Expo is a temporary assignment.”