Best She Ever Had (9781617733963) (9 page)

“Calm down, son!” Thurmond barked out another laugh. “No need to get all
puffed
up! I'm just saying that if you're going to run for office, make sure there're no skeletons in that house of yours. Make sure
all
those closets are clean and set right . . . if you get my drift.”

“And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order,” Thurmond's wife said solemnly with a nod. “Luke chapter eleven, verse twenty-five.”

So now the woman was quoting bible verses?
Good Lord,
Lauren thought.

Everyone knew what Thurmond and his wife were talking about. Lauren's past was far from stellar, and perhaps it wasn't an ideal past for a mayor's wife, but Thurmond was wrong in one regard: She didn't conceal any skeletons. Her past was an open book in the town of Chesterton. It had been gossiped about ad nauseum in every hair salon and cocktail party within a twenty-mile radius. She had nothing to hide!

“Cris, let's head home,” Lauren whispered, linking her arm through her husband's. She could tell he was fuming, and though Cris didn't generally have a temper, he didn't back down from a good fight, either. She didn't want him to say or do anything that could make him look bad—or, worse, hurt his chances of winning the election. She tugged him gently. “Let's just go.”

“You go on home, son! Give a kiss to that baby of yours for me!”

When Lauren saw Cris grit his teeth and the vein pulse along his temple, she immediately stepped forward to intercede again.

“Thank you for the party,” Lauren said politely to Marvin. She then began to walk toward the foyer, but stopped when she realized her husband wasn't walking with her. Cris didn't budge an inch, at first. Instead he continued to glare at Thurmond. Fury positively radiated from him.

“Cris,” she said yet again. “Honey . . .”

She finally seemed to get through to him then. Cris started to walk toward the front door with her. Most of the partygoers had fallen silent as they made their exit. Even the jazz trio had stopped playing—finally! She didn't think she could hear “Take the ‘A' Train”
yet again.

“Thank you for coming!” Judy Payton gushed drunkenly from the other side of the room.

Neither Lauren nor Cris responded. Instead they silently walked out the front door and toward the driveway. The sound of whirring cicadas and crickets greeted them.

Lauren glanced up at her husband, finding him still staring stoically ahead. As they walked down the driveway, she sighed.

She wanted to do nothing more than to help Cris, to see him succeed, but now she worried she would be his biggest liability.

K
orey glared out the taxicab passenger window at the Las Vegas Strip, not giving so much as a glance at his female companion sitting on the cracked leather seat beside him. It wasn't that he was fascinated by the twinkling cyclone of lights, the scantily clad women on the sidewalks, or the crazy swarm of people piling out of the casinos and hotels. He just didn't want to deal with Cynthia right now. He was still pissed at her for what she had said on the plane.

Did she really believe all these years that
she
was the one who had been wronged? She thought
she
was the one who had been betrayed? No wonder she had acted so cold and self-righteous toward him! Well, he was glad he had rid her of that little “poor me” fantasy: Pitiful Cindy Gibbons has her heart broken by her big, bad teenage boyfriend and is driven into the arms of her sugar-daddy millionaire.

No, you don't get to play the victim here, Cindy,
Korey thought vehemently as they rode in silence toward the hotel where the kids were staying.
Not with the way you treated me, you heartless bitch!

She was the one who had betrayed
him
by calling him up one night to say she wanted to see him again, having sex with him one last time, then dumping him unceremoniously before she ran back to her new fiancé. Korey was the one who had been left shell-shocked and feeling deceived and heartbroken.

He was glad he had finally set her ass straight! He was owed an apology—a big one—and he didn't want to listen to anything else she had to say until he got that apology.

Korey pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contact list.

Cynthia turned to him and frowned. “Who are you calling?”

He didn't respond. Instead, he continued to search for the name of his ex-wife, Vivian, hoping that he wouldn't regret calling her. He had just remembered something, something that was very important that could aid them in their search for the kids, and only Vivian had access to it.

Vivian didn't give him much of a chance to second-guess his decision to call her. She picked up on the first ring despite the fact that it was well past midnight back East.

“Oh, Lord, what happened?” Vivian yelled in a panic. “You better not tell me my baby was in a car crash! Is he all right? Damn it, Korey! I told you about letting him drive that—”

“He's fine, Viv,” Korey said, cutting her off before she started a full-on tirade. “Jared is fine.”

At the mention of Vivian's name, Cynthia's lips instantly puckered, as though she had just sucked on a lemon. She snapped her head around and glowered out the car window at the Strip.

“Well, if nothing is wrong with my baby, then why the hell are you calling me this late at night?” Vivian squawked.

“Because I need your spyware password.”

She went quiet on the other end of the line. “What . . . What spyware? I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Come on, Viv! Don't play stupid with me! You put spyware on Jared's cell phone to track him and his phone calls. I know you did! Just give me the site and the password.”

“If you know about the spyware, then you know that I took it off! Jared found out about it and got mad at me for spying on him!”

“And you didn't put it back on after that?”

She fell silent again.

“Yeah, I thought so. Just give me the password.”

“Why do
you
want to track him, though? You said he was okay. What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong! He . . . he just . . .” Korey thought quickly, trying to come up with an answer that wouldn't alarm Vivian and send her racing to Vegas too. “He, uh

. . . he lost it. His phone, I mean. Or he thinks someone might have stolen it.” Korey shrugged. “Hell, he doesn't know. He's always misplacing that damn thing. I'm hoping we can track it down. I bet he left it at a friend's house.”

“
Track down his phone?
Wouldn't it just be easier to buy him a new one?”

“Do you have money for a new one?” Korey asked, turning the question on her.

Five minutes later, he had the Web address, the username, and the password for the cell phone tracking software. He folded the receipt where he had written the information and tucked it into his jean pocket.

“So how's Vivian?” Cynthia asked. She continued to stare out the taxi window.

Korey slumped back against the leather headrest, ignoring her. With weary eyes, he watched the weather forecast on the television screen embedded in the seat in front of him.

“You two seem to be on good terms,” she continued. “Rather chummy.”

“Don't start, Cindy,” he warned.

It had been a long flight, and thanks to Cynthia's antics and their argument, he hadn't gotten a lick of sleep while on the plane. He wouldn't get any rest once they arrived at the hotel either because they had to immediately start looking for the kids. In short, he was exhausted and not in the mood for Cynthia's crap right now.

“I'm
just
saying that you two get along well,” she replied a little too loudly. “I mean, I wish I could call my ex at one o'clock in the morning and say ‘hey' and have him—”

“I didn't call her at one o'clock in the morning to say ‘hey'!” he snarled, reaching the end of his rope. “If you're going to eavesdrop, make sure you do it right! I called her to find a way to help track down Jared and Clarissa. It's another tool we can use.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “I wish you would get the hell over whatever grudge you have against Vivian. It's getting pretty old!”

“Whatever grudge?
Whatever grudge?
You know damn well she insulted my mother and we got into a fistfight once! How could I
not
hold a grudge against her, Korey?”

“You two were teenagers when all that happened. Not to mention that you won the fight!”

“You're damn right I did!
No one
disrespects me or my family, and I let that bitch know it!”

From anyone else, a statement like that would have been empty bravado, but from Cynthia Gibbons it was totally the truth. That day back in 1994 she
did
let Vivian know she wouldn't be disrespected—and she did it with her fists . . .

 

Korey remembered that day vividly. In fact, it was how the two lovers finally got acquainted.

He had known Cynthia Gibbons most of his life, but they were never friends. She was the aloof, almost bitchy pretty girl he had secretly lusted after, like most of the boys in town. Outside of the occasional flirting, Cynthia wouldn't date or take any of the guys at school seriously. She played with them like a cat would a ball of yarn. She was much more interested in older men who drove nice cars, could take her out to fancy restaurants in the city, and buy her whatever her young gold-digging heart desired.

One fall day, Korey and his boys stumbled upon Cynthia and Vivian battling it out in the school parking lot in the center of a circle of screaming and jeering girls. Vivian had a fistful of Cynthia's hair twined around her fingers and was whaling on her with her purse, swinging the leather clutch like a billy club. But Cynthia delivered a one-two punch to Vivian's stomach, sending her opponent careening backward. The girls landed on the cracked asphalt with a thud. That's when Cynthia got the better of Vivian. She climbed astride Vivian like she was a Shetland pony and started pummeling her. Korey stared, slack-jawed. He had never seen a girl that fine fight so hard. He had expected someone like Cynthia to fight with fussy slaps and wild, windmill-like swings. Instead, she battled with the focused intensity of a prizefighter.

But her victory was short-lived. Vivian's friends started to pull at and hit Cynthia. That's when Korey knew he had to intervene. He had no idea how the fight had started, but it was one thing for the two girls to duke it out and settle their dispute among themselves. It was another thing for all of Vivian's friends to suddenly decide to fight Cynthia simply because their buddy was losing.

He took a fortifying deep breath and stepped into the fray—braving the swinging purses and clawing nails—and his boys reluctantly followed. They pulled the girls apart, and Korey dragged Cynthia away, kicking and screaming.

She was still cursing when he opened his car door and shoved her inside. They pulled off seconds later.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” Cynthia shouted as they turned left and sped away from the school parking lot just as the aging security guard hobbled through the front doors onto the school's concrete steps to see what all the ruckus was about. “I didn't need anyone to pull me out of that! I didn't need any help!”

“What do you mean you didn't need any help? You were about to get your ass whupped!” He glanced at her as he drove. “Those girls were about to jump you!”

“I could've taken them!” She glared at him as she tried to finger-comb her hair back into place.

“Yeah, right,” he muttered. “About a half dozen girls? You could've taken them all? Who the hell do you think you are?
Bruce Lee?
”

“I could've done it! Damn it, if need be, I can take you too!”

He drew to a stop and turned to face her. Her hazel eyes were blazing. Her ponytail was undone, and tufts of hair were sticking up around her head. Her shirt was askew and ripped at the collar. She looked like a deranged woman. At the sight of her, he burst into laughter.

“What's so funny?” she asked.

“
You!
You're so funny.” He laughed again and took off when the light turned green. “I'm trying to rescue you, and here you are threatening to kick my ass. I bet you would do it too. Wouldn't you?”

Her face softened. She returned to finger-combing her hair back into place. A wry smile tugged at her lips. “Probably.”

Korey shoved his hand into his jean pocket and pulled out a wad of napkins he had taken from the school cafeteria earlier that day. “Here. Your mouth is bleeding a little.”

She hesitated before taking it. “Thank you.” She then lowered the passenger-side visor and gazed at herself in the mirror as she wiped her face. “So where are we going anyway?”

“Your house. I figured that's where you'd want to go.”

“You know where I live?”

“
Everyone
knows where you live, Cindy.”

“Really?” She cocked an eyebrow. “Am I that famous?”

“Your family is.”

She eyed him warily. “Oh, so you're about to talk about my family now too, huh?”

“No! No! It's just . . . well . . . everyone in town knows you guys. That's all.”

She sucked her teeth. “Yeah, I bet they do. And I can only guess what they say about us.”

“A lot,” he answered honestly, “but I never put much into what other people say.”

“Is that so?”

This time a genuine smile appeared, making his stomach clench and his palms sweat as he clutched the steering wheel.

For a few minutes he had forgotten that he was alone in a car with Cynthia—
the
Cynthia Gibbons, whom he had fantasized about for years, trying his best not to ogle her in the school halls or from the back of geometry class. But now that she was smiling at him, he was unnervingly aware of her—her warmth, her smell, and that alarmingly sexy mouth of hers. He could feel a budding hard-on nudging against his jean zipper.

Cynthia turned and flipped up the visor. “Man, I look like shit!”

“No, you don't. You couldn't look like shit even if you tried,” he blurted out, then wanted to kick himself as soon as he said it. She laughed at the alarmed expression on his face, and he felt his cheeks grow warm. “I mean . . . I mean, you look—”

“I can't let my mama see me like this,” she continued, cutting him off. “She'd want to call the police or sue somebody. Is there anywhere else you can take me besides my house? I wanna clean myself up before I go home, and I'd prefer a place with not a lot of people,” she added. “I don't want anyone to stare at me . . . with me looking the way I do.” She fingered her ripped shirt.

If someone had told him that he had won a million dollars, Korey wouldn't have been any more happy or shocked as he was at that moment. Cynthia wanted to go somewhere alone—
with him?

“Uh . . . uh, yeah,” he uttered, putting some bass in his voice, trying his best to sound smooth and casual though he was bursting at the seams on the inside. “Yeah, umm, I-I know a place.”

He drove her to a creek near Chesterton that only the old-timers and die-hard fishermen frequented. He waited patiently on the dock as Cynthia sat in his car and fixed her hair and makeup, but even after she tidied herself, she didn't seem ready to go home. They walked along the waterfront and talked until dusk about school, Chesterton, the football season, and what they wanted to do after they graduated.

For the first time, Korey realized that Cynthia wasn't as aloof as he once thought. She was funny too, another thing that pleasantly surprised him. He had always had a crush on her, but that day he started to fall for the
real
Cynthia, not some untouchable girl he mooned over from afar.

When he dropped her off at her house that night, she leaned across the seat and kissed him. She did it so quickly that he didn't realize until after she pulled away that she had done it. He could only remember the ghostly sensation of her lips: warm and honey sweet. He watched in awe as she threw open the car door and climbed out of his mom's beat-up Cavalier.