A Dangerous Affair (36 page)

He pressed the starter button and cracked the throttle as a woman in a tan Honda Civic pulled into the spot beside him with her window down.

"Are you Lloyd?" the woman asked behind dark sunglasses, with a pink silk scarf around her neck.

Lloyd raised the kickstand with his boot. Prepared to back himself out and make tracks for home, he ignored the pretty blonde with long hair and heavy makeup.

"Jamie told me you worked here. You look just like she said."

Lloyd kept his hand on the brake, despite his better judgment to light up the rear tire and lay down a strip of rubber across Sonny's parking lot. "What do you want?"

"I'm Samantha, Jamie's friend. I need to talk to you."

"You've got me confused with someone else."

"You have a cross tattoo on your forearm. You went to prison for your brother. And you're the only one who looks man enough to ride a bike like that around here."

Lloyd kept the Triumph in neutral. "What do you want?"

Samantha backed her car out. "Not here."

Lloyd followed the Honda to a Wendy's and met Samantha inside. He bought her lunch and found a window seat looking out at the parking lot.

* * *

Samantha cased the dining area and sipped a Coke with no ice through a straw. She unfolded the wrapper on a spicy chicken sandwich and cheated her diet to feed the craving she reserved for stressful moments in her life. "Thanks," she said between bites of chicken with lettuce, tomato, and extra mayonnaise. She shoved fries into her mouth and licked the top of her chocolate frosty. "I only eat like this when I'm tense."

Lloyd rested his arm on the two-person table. "I'd hate to see you when you're hungry."

Samantha rolled her eyes. "How well do you know Jamie?"

"Well enough."

"Did you know her piece-of-shit husband is the sheriff?" She chewed a mouthful of chicken and washed it down with a sip of soda. She pulled her scarf away to reveal the purple bruising around her neck. "He did this to me three days ago. After he raped me."

She watched Lloyd. It took a moment for the news to sink in.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't be. He'll get what's coming to him. I'm not looking for sympathy. It's Jamie I'm worried about. I knew her husband was an asshole the day she married him. I knew he put his hands on her, but I never figured he was capable of this." She wrapped the scarf around her neck and let the extra length hang down her back.

"I met him at the car wash this morning," said Lloyd. "He seemed like a prick."

"Does he know you're banging his wife?"

"It never came up."

Samantha gave a fleeting smile. "He doesn't know. He would've killed you if he did." She scooped the frosty into her mouth. Her taste buds savored the frozen treat while she diverted her attention from Lloyd to the restaurant entrance. "I've dated cops before, and I can tell you he's no cop. He's an asshole who should be neutered with a fork."

"Who else have you talked to about this?" asked Lloyd.

"I contacted a battered women's shelter through a friend of a friend in New York. I have to get Jamie out of Florida, and I need your help to do it."

"I'm on parole. I can't leave the county, much less the state."

"I did a background check on you. I wouldn't be here if I didn't like what I found. If you care at all about Jamie, you'll help me help her."

Lloyd stared out the window a moment or two. "What do you want me to do?"

"Jamie won't listen to me. I tried to get her on board, but that bastard has her under his spell. Jamie doesn't see what he's doing to her. Or the danger she's in. Especially with you in the picture."

"She's scared to leave him," said Lloyd.

"They always are. That's what the woman from the shelter told me. Abused women view their situation from a different perspective than most. They blame themselves more than they blame their abusers."

"That's ludicrous."

"That's reality." Samantha licked the salt from her fingers and reached in her purse for a cell phone. "Take this. It's a prepaid phone. I'm the only one with the number. I'll call you when I have all the details worked out. In the meantime, you have to help me convince her to leave."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"She trusts you. She wants to be with you. She'll do anything to keep you."

"What if you're wrong?"

"Just talk to her. Tell her you need her. Tell her you love her. Tell her you can't live without her. Then tell her you'll end it if she doesn't leave her husband."

Lloyd followed her stare. "I don't know—"

"What's there to know? Jamie doesn't like change, and she hates confrontation. Every now and then she needs a kick in the ass. No matter how bad it hurts." Samantha sipped her drink. "If you care for her at all—"

"Of course I care for her," said Lloyd. He brought his other arm on the table and put his hands together. "We have to be careful."

"If you're worried about the sheriff, he can't touch Jamie once I get her out of state."

"It's not the sheriff I'm worried about," said Lloyd. "It's the thought of going back to prison."

Chapter 53

Jamie waved through the window as Alan's unmarked cruiser backed out of the driveway. She pulled the living room curtains shut and retreated to the laundry room. She wanted time to herself and now she had it. Alone in her house and in her thoughts. Afraid to leave and afraid to stay. She wanted out of a marriage she couldn't leave. She longed for a relationship she couldn't have. She gave her heart to Lloyd Sullivan, but her husband held the title to her soul. Every moment she dreamed about her lover was wasted effort. She chose her fate when she married Alan Blanchart and vowed her commitment in front of friends and family in a house of God.

A loaded basket by the dryer served a timely distraction from her melancholy state. She carried clean sheets to the guest bedroom and dumped them on the bed. She tossed the pillows on the floor, where she noticed a tiny red stain in the oatmeal Berber. She got on her hands and knees and scratched the spot with her fingernail. Using a wet washcloth and a squirt of carpet cleaner she removed the mark completely without questioning how it got there in the first place.

She fluffed the pillows and adjusted the duvet to cover the bed frame. Then she propped the laundry basket under one arm and fixed the crooked painting on the wall outside the closet. When the frame dipped sideways, she set the basket down and used both hands to adjust the cheap oil painting of a western cattle drive.
Another
mother-in-law gift to throw in the fire along with the other tacky artifacts on the walls in here
.

She pulled the picture away to check the hook and noticed a small electrical wire extending from the nail hole in the wall to the back of the framed canvas. She followed the wire with her fingers and inspected the front of the painting. A tiny camera hidden in the thick oil strokes stared back at her.

She yanked the wire out and set the frame on the floor. Perplexed by her discovery, she opened the closet and rubbed her hand along the wall behind a rack of winter clothes. The wire fed into the wall, and from there it disappeared.

She noticed the attic access panel above her head, where a length of two-by-four had been screwed in the ceiling to cover the entrance—and the gateway to a section of the house she'd never seen before. A section she'd never cared about until now.

She opened her pink toolbox under the kitchen sink and returned to the guest bedroom closet with a Phillips screwdriver. She stood on a shoe rack with one hand on the wall for balance and reached up to undo the first screw. The overhead task proved considerably harder than she thought at first, as she wrestled with the large screwdriver in her hand.

With the two-by-four down, she pushed the attic access panel through the opening and lifted herself up far enough to peek inside. She reached her hand out and grabbed a jointed truss to pull her skinny figure through the rectangular space. Inside the attic, she braced her feet on the roof joists, careful not to step on the drywall. Rows of fiberglass insulation lined the gaps between the rafters. A web of electrical wires ran the length of the dark confines, carefully intertwined by someone with a skillful and cunning hand.

She traced several wires from the bathrooms, the kitchen, and the ceiling above the garage where dead mice occupied a pair of traps in the corner. The smell of dust and insulation set her allergies in motion, prompting a sneeze attack and the dreaded itchy eyes.

Dismayed by her discovery, she lowered herself back down until her feet touched the wobbly shoe rack. She stepped to the floor with her arms extended above her head for support. Any semblance of trust she had with Alan dissolved completely. She felt disgusted. Betrayed. Cheated by the man who swore an oath to uphold the law—and the sanctity of their marriage.

She searched the bathroom and unscrewed the lights above the vanity. She checked the mirror on the wall beside the dresser and the picture hanging above the headboard. She searched her own bedroom and the remainder of her house, inspecting picture frames, lampshades, electrical sockets, and any other viable crevice she could find.

When her anger and curiosity brought her to Alan's study, she pressed the door handle and found it locked as expected. She ignored the warnings in her head and used the key Alan kept above the door frame. The house was hers as much as his. Whatever else Alan hid from her, she had a right to know about it.

Inside the study, a computer desk blocked the window overlooking the neighbor's yard. A tungsten gray file cabinet with a combination lock occupied the opposite corner. A custom bookshelf contained pornographic DVDs.

She stared at blank monitors flanked by a stack of digital video recorders with red LEDs staring back at her like rabid eyes. The house was wired from top to bottom, giving Alan unfettered access to her personal life, and to that of anyone who bothered to visit.

She pressed play on the unit labeled as "guest bedroom one" and forwarded to the previously recorded footage of Samantha in the shower.

She watched Samantha on the toilet; Samantha undressing in the bathroom; and finally, Samantha raped on the bedroom floor.

She closed her eyes, convinced the woman in the film was someone other than Samantha. But the camera didn't lie. The image, as vivid and real as the pain on Samantha's face, revealed yet another truth about the man she'd married.

Startled by the sound of the garage door, she left the study the way she found it and replaced the key above the door frame with the teeth facing out.

She darted back to the guest room and pressed the picture hook in the wall with her thumb. She adjusted the gaudy oil painting and left the laundry basket on the carpet above the freshly scrubbed stain.

She ran the shower and steadied herself on the shoe rack to screw the two-by-four back in place. She held the screws in one hand with the screwdriver and the wood plank in the other. Tiny flecks of sawdust fell in her eyes. Her heart raced. Her forearms trembled with fatigue.

When her foot slipped, she fell against the wall and dropped the last three screws on the carpet.

"Hello?" Blanchart called out from the laundry room entrance.

Jamie pushed the shoe rack against the wall and hid the hardware behind it. She pulled her shirt off and laid it on the bed.

"Jamie?" Blanchart called outside the guest bedroom.

Jamie took a deep breath. Her shoulder throbbed from her collision with the wall. "You're home early," she said, straining to mask the panic in her voice. She covered her chest with her arm. "I was just getting ready to shower."

Blanchart studied the room and the unmade bed with pillows on the floor. "Why are you showering in this room?"

"I just cleaned ours. I wanted to keep it fresh for you."

"Turn around."

Jamie swallowed. "What's wrong?"

"Turn around," Blanchart said more forcefully the second time. He touched the bandage that covered the tattoo surgery on Jamie's shoulder. "You've got something in your hair," he said matter-of-factly. He pinched a sawdust flake and rolled it between his fingers.