Retribution: The Second Chances Trilogy Book Three (10 page)

Whatever he knows about the period beginning with the chance discovery of Aurora at a road stop, and ending with his gradual emergence from self-induced hibernation, is the product of someone else’s recall. If he did have a front row seat for Aurora’s decapitation, the imagery did not generate a homegrown memory. If he observed that Aurora was strung-out when he commandeered the truck and drove off with her, it’s because someone told him he did. If he saw needle tracks riddling her neck, it’s because someone said they were there. He has only the word of a biased onlooker and theorist that Aurora provoked him with taunts and threats, maddened him with shameless admissions, struck out at him with fists as well as epithets on the final dash to death and destruction.

Transplanted memories, the lot, and this latest one they’ve embedded is no different. If Aurora was already dead when her head left her body, he’s not the one to say. Nate’s gruesome revelation didn’t jar anything loose; he’s no closer now to remembering anything on his own than he was when they first started seeding his fallow memory with their take on things. And he’s in no danger of remission. It would take something worse than the notion of having watched a beheading to return him to the dark side; the bright side holds too much appeal to make that even a remote possibility.

He finishes with the treadmill, gulps down a half-bottle of Evian brought from upstairs and moves to the Soloflex machine, where he concentrates on the brightness that is Laurel.

Laurel, as she looked when she came to him in the church; Laurel, as she looked when she kissed his wedding ring prior to placing it on his finger; Laurel, as she looked when dancing with the children at their wedding celebration. As she looked when she learned her father had died, as she looked only hours after having seen David struck down, as she looked last night when she told him about the baby and declared the need for emergency sex. And, most of all, as she looked, later in the night, when old and new grief combined to overwhelm her.

Legitimate memories, all of them. Memories to treasure, including that last one. He’s obligated to remember the sound of her weeping or risk forgetting what she’d already been through before her involvement with him brought about more sorrow and loss. And he’s obligated to figure out how in bloody hell he’ll ever be able to make up for the additional sorrow and loss. He’ll start on that as soon as he figures out how in bloody hell he’ll ever be able to live with the deaths of Benjamin Chandler and David Sebastian dropped on his doorstep.

He strains through an extra ten pull-ups before stopping to reconfigure the machine. He adds weight plates to increase resistance, inclines the bench to facilitate reverse curls and groaningly executes several before confronting a concern that refuses to remain secondary.

Although Grillo’s task force and the Feds aren’t looking for a Jakeway connection to Rayce’s death, what if that changes? What if something makes them start looking? What if a connection is made and—same as the others—leads back to him? What if Rayce’s rush-to-judgment family were justified in pointing a finger at him, even if they didn’t know for dead certain what they were pointing at? How would he bear up under that?

The thought is too repellent to linger over. He grunts with the effort of discovering a less withering, less debilitating topic and nothing suitable shows itself. He touches on the material ways he could compensate Laurel for what he’s caused: By putting a team of pricey decorators and art dealers at her disposal; providing a luxury assortment of new motorcars; acquiring showy real estate—a posh flat in London, a New York flat to rival this one, and villas in all the current hot spots.

“No.
God
no,” he gasps. It’s the wrong wife he’s thinking of; it’s Aurora who responded to that sort of thing. Laurel would tell him to bugger off right after she told him if she wanted any of that shit she’d buy it herself.

“No,” he mutters and dismounts the machine midset, thereby ending his physical martyrdom. If he’s to make up for the extra burden added to Laurel’s load it will have to be with a spiritual endeavor, a day in, day out, never-ending effort to keep a smile on her face. It will have to be by showing her his fabled capacity for love—that limitless capacity some say was his downfall in dealing with Aurora.

Under the harsh needle spray of a lukewarm shower, he lathers up and confines his thoughts to the expected baby. But that tempts worry that the baby has been marked in some way, no matter Laurel’s assurances to the contrary. And who’s to say Laurel hasn’t been marked and won’t be given to nocturnal outbursts of grief for the foreseeable future?

He dials the water temperature down to a punishing cold, tips his head back to take it full force and one of Rayce’s irreverent remarks surfaces.

“Tell ’em you already gave at the office,” was Rayce’s ready response to an oversupply of misfortune. Especially if that misfortune was viewed as an act of God and showed signs of continuing.

“Isn’t
that
the bleedin’ truth,” Colin says after he shuts off the water and steps out of the shower stall. “I fucking gave at the office, didn’t I then?” he projects heavenward. “So you can quit tryin’ to get more,” he bellows as he drips his way towards a supply of towels. “Especially from family and friends,” he adds whilst drying off with renewed vigor.

“Sorry, thought you were alone down here.” Nate pops up without warning, then reverses in the direction of the stairs.

“C’mon back. I am alone. I was talkin’ to myself. I was rehearsing, actually.”

“For what?”

“For when I meet God.”

“Should I ask if that’ll be anytime soon?”

“No, and don’t ask if I’m about to go unplugged after hearing what you had to say earlier.”

“Unplugged . . . That’s a new way of putting it, isn’t it?”

“However it’s put, you know what I mean. That’s why you came down here, isn’t it? To see if I was still . . . here.”

“No, that’s not the reason.” Nate frowns, lowers himself to the bench in the dressing area. From his sling he brings out two bottles of imported lager and a couple of Cuban cigars. He needs help opening the refreshments, which rather puts the shoe on the other foot about who needs watching over.

Colin secures a towel round his waist and takes a seat at the opposite end of the bench. He passes on the cigar but does accept a beer.

The wariness that described Nate yesterday is gone. He fires up the Panatela without aid and sends up a wreath of blue smoke before appearing ready to get on with it. And when he does get on with it, it’s without the condescending claptrap that marked the final weeks of their professional association. And there’s none of that “first of all” and “second of all” shit that always came across as verbal finger-shaking.

“Inopportune time or not, you need to decide on a management plan right away,” Nate says around the cigar.

“I intend to once things settle down a bit.”

“You can’t wait for that to happen. You need to act now because there are limits to what people will contribute during a crisis. I’m not talking about myself or Amanda, I hasten to add. You’re welcome to stay here as long as necessary and Amanda and I will serve in whatever way we can for as long as it takes. But—and I’m sorry to have to force the issue—the present situation calls for
structured
representation to control the media, deal with legal concerns, liaise with law enforcement, handle security, transportation, and the myriad other problems that are bound to arise.” Nate ticks off each item on the fingers of his immobilized hand indicating he’s not sworn off old managerial traits altogether. “You can’t expect volunteers to perform these tasks with the same level of professionalism as a staff that’s contractually obligated,” he lectures.

“What all—who all are we talkin’ about?”

Without skipping a beat, Nate exhales a list of names and agencies in a long plume of cigar smoke. The names are all familiar, all have been contractually obligated to Verge or Colin Elliot, Ltd at one time or another, and all can be contractually obligated again. Including Nate.

“Do whatever’s necessary to reinstate yourself, find me a new solicitor, and sign everybody else up.” Colin drains off the remainder of the beer and belches mightily.

Nate drowns a wasteful amount of good cigar in what’s left of his lager. “I’m sorry, that’s not possible,” he says.

“What’s not possible? Didn’t you just advise me to make it official with this lot of volunteers that includes you?”

“It’s not possible if it includes me. I meant what I said when we parted ways. I won’t work for you again. Not in any official capacity. I’ll help you any way I can as a friend, but not as a manager.”

“Fine, then as friend point me in the direction of a new manager.”

“Do I really have to point?”

Colin is slow to catch his drift. And when he does, it all seems a bit obvious, a bit prearranged. “Did Amanda send you down here to see to the negotiations? Are you working as her agent now?” he says with the beginning of an edge to his voice.

“Amanda has no idea I’m alone with you—she was taking a nap last I looked—and if she thought I was down here boosting her chances she’d have my ass.”

“But you are.” Colin yanks on a pair of wrinkled linen trousers, thrusts his arms into a vintage Hawaiian shirt.

“Only if you persist in seeing it that way, and there’s no guarantee she’d accept the position if you did offer it. She
is
contemplating an offer from me, you know.”

“I
don’t
know. Have you already forgot that whilst she was fronting for David, great pains were taken to keep me in the dark about your relationship with her?”

“I haven’t forgotten a damn thing about that period and the only thing relevant for either of us to remember is that Amanda never
ever
functioned as my puppet,” Nate says, his voice now taking on some edge. “With the exception of our mutual concern about this Jakeway monster, Amanda and I have never collaborated on a project that relates to you. We’ve never conspired to—”

“Yeh, yeh, yeh, I guess I should believe that by now. Enough people have tried to convince me.”

“You should also believe that my current advice in no way reflects on your ability to handle your own affairs. I’m in no way suggesting you’re
incapable
of getting through the current crisis without a committed professional staff, but given the nature of the crisis and who was most affected, it follows that you might want to—”

“You can leave off tiptoeing and you needn’t spell out that at a time like this my entire focus should be on my wife—my
pregnant
wife—who may never completely recover from this honeymoon from hell . . . from this agony I’ve heaped on her. I’d only just concluded that’s where all my energy should go when you popped in on me.”

“Then . . . So?”

“Yeh, I’ll do it. You can tell Amanda she’s got the nod.”

“Oh no you don’t. I’m not telling her, you are. And if you tell her I nudged you a little I’ll flat out deny it, not to mention—”

“Fucking relax, will you? What would it matter, actually, if she did find out you were beating the drum for her? You appear mad for each other, so doesn’t it rather figure that you’d be on the lookout for job opportunities that could favorably affect her?”

He gets no argument, so that appears to put an end to the encounter. With Nate in the lead they head for the stairs, where Nate stops short on the second step, turns and spits out the question everyone wants answered.

Colin backs off a pace or two and pretends to give serious thought to a response. “No, that little tidbit you dropped this morning did
not
cause me to remember anything firsthand. No, it is, and no, it will always be, because I don’t
want
to remember. That okay with you?”

It must be because Nate resumes climbing the stairs without comment.

Nate is again the logical one to carry out a retrieval—this time from the Chandler house, this time with a combination chauffeur-bodyguard to see him through.

Without Monday morning traffic and the mechanics of driving to distract him, his mind is free to wander a vast array of subjects. In the interest of sustaining the fragile calm that got him this far, he skirts any subject related to the last time he offered to act as errand boy, confines his thoughts to Amanda and the decision she still hadn’t arrived at after sleeping on Colin’s offer.

That’s enough to occupy him on the way out of the city and through the lower-lying reaches of New Jersey. But as they gain altitude and penetrate the more desirable suburbs, the events of the past forty-eight hours won’t leave him alone.

Bemus, who’s behind the wheel of a rental BMW, is sweating apprehension as he glides the big sedan into Old Quarry Court and around the cul-de-sac to the Chandler house. Although crime scene investigators have cleared the dwelling for entry by authorized civilians, crime scene tape still rings the property and a pair of uniformed cops is in evidence to keep the ghoul population at bay.

As anticipated, his car and the one Laurel used as a battering ram have been removed. The driveway is clear of debris from the shattered overhead door and the yawning door opening is sealed with plywood he himself ordered from a local service specializing in emergency enclosures.