Chapter 79
It’s after three in the morning when he hobbles inside. Drops his keys on the countertop and makes his way slowly upstairs.
She is waiting for him.
On the bed, wearing a bathrobe. She mutes the television as he drops his garment bag on the floor.
Removes his shield, cell, and Glock. Places them on the nightstand.
Tara goes to him.
Kisses him gingerly on his lips.
“You okay?” she asks softly.
“Exhausted,” Joe responds.
She nods.
“We got him.”
Tara nods again, leading him to the bed.
“I know. It’s been all over the news.”
The WRC-TV and Fox 5 choppers had lit up the sky, and it was like daylight bathing the crime scene. Surreal.
Joe slowly undresses. Leaves his clothes in a heap on the floor.
Tara pulls him under covers.
Holds him against her warm body.
Feels him shudder, respite elusive.
Sleep is a game that Joe is losing.
For several minutes they are silent, holding one another, each reveling in the comfort the other brings.
“Is this thing done?” she asks finally.
It takes Joe a moment to respond.
“Yes.”
He knows what Tara is asking.
Kennedy. Is this thing with Kennedy done?
And it is. He means it.
It’s done.
“You’re a good man, Joe Goodman,” she says, kissing his face. “And I love you.”
In the darkness, Joe smiles.
“I love you, too, Tara. Can’t wait for you to be my wife.”
Then sleep finds him. It wins the game.
Chapter 80
He opens his eyes slowly, adjusting them to the harsh fluorescent light.
His stare is unfocused, but as he pans left he can make out a selection of tubes running in and out of him. Machines, blinking, a steady metronome of soft sound. To the right, the face of an angel comes into view. He stares at her features, mesmerized, holding on to them like he would a child’s hand, lest he let them slip and this goddess disappear from his sight forever. She is beautiful. She is incredible. A voice inside his head sweetly whispers in a voice faintly erotic, “I am Celestial, and I’m your deepest, darkest fantasy come true.”
He attempts a smile, but his jaw aches. He endeavors to sit up, but the pain is sharp and abrupt, so he eases back down with a suffering moan.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” the angel says, beaming.
Overhead, a television, suspended from the ceiling, is tuned to the Disney Channel. Directly underneath the TV sits Zack, head down, absorbed in his PSP. He glances up, eyes suddenly as big as silver dollars. He rushes around the bed and is hoisted up by the angel.
“DADDY!”
Michael coughs. Stares at the angel before recognition fuses into his brain.
“Kennedy.”
He coughs again.
“Drink some water, baby,” she says softly. She brings a glass up to his lips, holding it for him. Michael takes a sip, savoring the liquid as it meets his parched tongue.
He drinks some more. This time swallows long and hard.
Kennedy takes the glass away as Zack touches his hand.
“Hey, buddy,” Michael says.
“Hi, Daddy. Missed you!”
The door opens, and his parents, Betty and Roland, enter. His mother has her hands to her face. There are tears in her eyes.
“Lord, my baby is awake,” Betty says, making her way to the right side of the hospital bed. She kisses his cheek and squeezes his hand.
“Hi, Mama.” His father comes up behind her, nodding in that paternal way of his, looking slightly older and a lot more tired than the last time Michael saw him.
“Very proud of you, Son,” his father says. “Very proud indeed.”
Michael looks over at Kennedy.
“What time is it? How long have I been . . . here?”
Kennedy checks her watch and smiles. “It’s close to dinnertime. You’re at Georgetown University Hospital. You were brought here last night after your accident.”
Michael tries to sit up again. The pain spikes in his gut, and he winces.
Serious pain.
“Easy, baby,” Kennedy says, her hand to his shoulder. “You fractured a rib, and you’ve got lacerations over your face.”
The events of the previous evening start trickling back into his psyche.
“My car?” he says.
“Let’s just say we’ll be shopping for a new vehicle really soon!” Kennedy exclaims.
Michael blinks.
“You don’t remember anything?” his father asks.
Michael stares around at the room at the faces glancing back at him. He blinks again, trying to conjure up the details.
“You got him, Daddy,” Zack says, face animated. “You kilt the bad man!”
Nana hushes her grandson.
“What?” Michael asks, his face showing bewilderment. He turns to Kennedy for answers.
It takes her a moment to respond.
“Damian. The one who’s been terrorizing us. He’s dead, Michael.”
“You kilt him, Daddy. You the man!”
“Zack, hush,” his mother says.
“Well, he did!” Zack returns to the chair and his PSP, instantly taken with the game in front of him.
“It’s over,” Kennedy says.
Michael’s forehead wrinkles. “I . . . killed him?”
“I shot him,” Kennedy says, glancing quickly over to Pop Pop before returning her stare to her husband, “but you finished him off with the Range Rover. It’s done, baby. Over.”
He stares at her, and she bends in to kiss his lips gingerly.
“Can I have a moment alone with my husband?” she asks.
“Come on, Zack,” Nana says. “Let’s go find the cafeteria. Your Pop Pop owes us some dinner anyway.”
Zack jumps up.
“Pop Pop, do you think the cafeteria has pizza? You know I love pizza. But not that kind with the cheese in the crust. That’s just gross. My mommy says that stuffed crust isn’t good for you. She says it makes people fat. How can pizza make a person fat, Pop Pop? It’s
pizza!
That makes no sense to me. Right?”
Michael’s father raises his eyebrows at his grandson as they walk out with Nana. The door closes, and Michael and Kennedy are finally alone.
Chapter 81
“Quite an ordeal,” she says.
Michael nods.
“How are you feeling?” she asks.
“Sore as hell. My side is killing me, and my face feels like someone took a razor to it.”
“I’ll call the nurse in a minute, get them to up the Demerol.”
Michael looks at his wife for a full minute before speaking.
“Are you okay?”
Kennedy nods.
“Yeah, I’m fine. We made it through. It was gray skies for a while, but now the sun is shining through the clouds once again. I can see the sun, thank goodness. I’m just glad we’re done with him.”
Michael processes what’s been said and what has not.
“Did he . . . Did he hurt you?”
“No. When I shot him, the gun hit me in the stomach, but that’s about it. I am so glad you insisted on the shotgun in the bedroom. Without it, I might not be standing here now.”
“You shot him.” It’s not a question, but a statement.
Kennedy smiles. “Yeah, I did. Pop Pop said he’s proud of me.”
“I am, too. You did what you had to do. Protected yourself and your family. You protected our son. Thank you for that.”
Kennedy swallows.
She takes a seat on the side of the bed.
“I have something else to say. Can you listen to me and not interrupt?”
“Where am I gonna go?” he asks with a grin.
Her expression grows serious.
“I need to explain to you what happened.” She pauses for a second, then continues. “Between Joe and me.”
Michael swallows but says nothing.
Kennedy carries on.
“Do you remember seven years ago when you were mugged?”
Michael instantly frowns.
Suddenly, a million images rush to the surface, like a tidal wave. It crashes into his chest, making him heave in pain.
Seven years ago, late one Friday night, he’d been in the Adams Morgan section of the District, having beers with some college buddies who were in town for a conference.
Afterward, heading to his car on a darkened street, three young black males, angry at the clean-shaven, sharply dressed black man who seemingly had everything they did not, had attacked him.
He had been savagely beaten when his wallet revealed only thirty-five dollars.
They beat him because of their intense anger and hatred for anything not like them.
He spent two weeks in the hospital.
Concussion, dislocated jaw, multiple lacerations about the face and body.
When he got discharged, the fury burning inside him propelled him to one of the roughest sections of Washington, D.C.
Where a twenty-year-old crack addict who looked fifty sold him a handgun for a hundred dollars. Offered to suck his dick for another five.
Michael took his weapon and went on the hunt.
Searching for the thugs who had maimed him.
Ready to maim them back, with 9mm heat.
But he got caught in a routine traffic stop late one night on Eighteenth Street, blocks from where he had been savagely beaten.
They found the loaded gun beneath his seat.
A loaded handgun in D.C. meant five years.
Mandatory.
No questions asked.
“Remember the night you got stopped?” Kennedy asks. “The night they found the gun?”
Michael exhales.
That night was the worst of his life. He saw every single thing he had worked so hard for spilling down the drain. His wife. His career. Everything dear to him. A conviction meant jail time. Sixty months. Michael knew he couldn’t do five years. No way he could last inside that long.
“You were arrested on a Friday night. Couldn’t make bail until Monday morning. Those were the longest sixty hours of my entire life.”
“Mine, too.” Michael
remembers
. His voice is close to a whisper.
“You spent the entire weekend behind bars. I spent the entire time trying to get you released. I called your boss at your law firm. . . .”
Michael’s eyes grow wide.
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you didn’t want them to know. But I had very few options. And we had precious little time.”
“Frank, he
knew
?”
“Yes. I brought him in to help. It turned out there wasn’t much he could do, but he promised to make some calls—to judges he knew, and a few prosecutors, to see if some sort of plea deal could be reached.”
Michael sighs audibly.
“Wow. He never said a word to me.”
“I told him not to. He couldn’t guarantee results, so I had to do something else. I couldn’t let you go to jail. Couldn’t stand the thought of being without you. It would have killed me.”
Michael stares at his wife. He’s no longer breathing. The air is caught in his throat.
“I reached out to Joe. I had no choice, Michael. I had run out of options. I figured Joe could fix this. Would fix it . . . for me.
“You need to understand, Michael. I was desperate. I can’t even explain to you how I felt. It was as if I were standing on the edge of a towering cliff with a herd of stampeding buffalo on my tail, and my only option in order to survive was to jump. We had our glorious life in front of us, and suddenly this
thing
threatened to shut it down cold. I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t let it ruin us.”
“Joe fixed it,” Michael utters.
For three seconds she is silent. Then, with an audible exhale of breath, she responds.
“Yes. He made it go away. Talked to the arresting officer. Went down to the station and did something with the gun and the paperwork. I don’t know the details. Didn’t want to know. All I cared about is, come Monday morning, you walked out a free man. A man without a gun-possession charge hanging over his head.”
Michael processes her words.
“You traded—”
“Michael—I didn’t sleep with him. But, yeah, I was intimate with him. I did what I had to do to get my husband back.”
Kennedy sits forward.
“And to tell you the truth, the way I feel about you, the love that I have for you as my husband, I’d do it again. If that’s what I have to do in order to keep something from happening to you again, then, yeah, I’d do it again. Think what you like, but you mean the world to me. I can’t ever imagine living my life without you by my side.”
Michael swallows. For a moment he says nothing. It is just the silence between them.
“So, Zack. He’s—”
“Michael Handley, if you ever, ever, EVER hint that the little boy out there is not one hundred and fifty percent your son, so help me God!”
The tears sprout and meander down her cheeks. Michael reaches out and gingerly wipes them away.
“I am sorry, baby,” he says. “Very sorry for doubting you.”
Kennedy nods, blinking and wiping at the corner of her eyes.
“Just say you’ll love me for all of eternity.”
“I will love you for all of eternity,” Michael repeats.
“And mean it.”
“I mean it. I’ve missed you.”
“Yeah? Care to show me just how much?” There is a dazzle to her eyes that Michael finds irresistible.
Kennedy and Michael embrace.
At that exact moment, the door opens and Zack rushes in.
He jumps up onto the bed, almost crushing Michael with his weight. Michael yelps like a hurt puppy.
“Sorry, Daddy. Mommy, look what Nana bought me! It’s a superhero.”
He holds a molded plastic doll proudly out to his parents.
“See, he carries two guns in a holster just in case one jams, and a shotgun in a pouch on his shoulder.”
Michael eyes his mother, who has just entered with Pop Pop, with disdain.
“This is so cool. And if you move him like this,” Zack illustrates, twisting the molded plastic limbs, “he can stand on his own. You have to raise his arms up like this so he doesn’t lose his balance. See, he’s totally the bestest! Can I take him to school and show my friends? Please?”
“We’ll see.”
“Mrs. Knopfson always says we can bring in stuff for show-and-tell. Hey, I have a great idea. You and Mommy should come to show and tell with me. I could tell my class about Mommy shooting the bad man and Daddy running him over with the car! How’s that for real superheroes?” Zack starts laughing. “Man, Jeremy will be so jealous when he hears what you did, Dad. His mom and dad
never
do cool stuff like that!”
Michael stares in amazement at his son. At this moment he feels an intense rush of emotion—love—toward each person in the room. He wishes he could walk over to each one right this second, hold them tight, show them just how much they mean to him, and never let them go.
Instead he grins, gritting his teeth as he attempts to sit up in the bed.
Kennedy shakes her head and leans forward. Michael winces as her cheek brushes against his.
The tears begin to flow, winding down Michael’s nose and cheek.
And he considers that there is no place he’d rather be than right here, even if it means in this uncomfortable hospital bed with tubes and God knows what else inserted inside his veins, with his lovely wife, his precious son, and his incredible parents, those whom Michael loves the most in this crazy, messed-up world, all safely by his fractured side.