Forced Out (20 page)

When she opened the front door, she stopped and her mouth fell slowly open, amazed at the sight that met her tired eyes. Daddy was sitting in front of the TV in his lumpy old easy chair, and there seemed to be something wrapped in a pink blanket lying on his chest. Then she smiled. Another one of his pranks. It had to be. She knew him so well.

"You almost had me going there for a second." she called, laughing. Jack held a finger to his lips. "I'll explain later," he whispered. "I think she's almost asleep."

"Oh, sure. Don't try to fool--"

At that moment Rosario opened her eyes and cooed.

And Cheryl dropped the bag of clothes and raced across the room.

* * *

Bobby opened his eyes slowly and stretched, awakening from a wonderful three-hour nap and an erotic dream. He'd kissed Cheryl good-bye this morning after giving her his shirt and sweatpants, then fallen into a deep sleep, completely satisfied by the long night of sex. Now he was refreshed and ready for more. He'd push her even harder tonight. See if she'd let him tie her up. Use some of that paraphernalia he had hidden in his closet. God, he couldn't wait. He could tell she wasn't enjoying it the way some women he'd been with actually had. But that made it even better. He liked that she didn't want to do it, but was being submissive and giving in anyway.

He grinned as he watched the ceiling fan rotate slowly. Life was good. Yesterday, the old codger up in Tampa had committed to a three-million-dollar order for his company's line of high-tech, skintight workout suits as well as a couple of million dollars' worth of weight training equipment. It had been the company's biggest single order of the year. The old guy had been pissed off when the meeting started forty minutes late, but after the promise of World Series tickets, everything changed. People were so damn predictable. Hell, the way things had turned out, he'd gotten an extra million bucks in the order he wouldn't have gotten without the tickets. So it had actually turned out
better
that he was late. And he'd gotten that last dip in Cheryl's pond. Everything always seemed to work out for him. Seemed like it always had. He was just one of those lucky guys.

His smile widened. His bosses in Los Angeles were ecstatic about the order, about how much product he was moving. Out of nowhere they were talking about a regional manager post--which would mean a big salary increase and an all-expenses-paid move to Atlanta. There'd even been a wink and a nod over the phone yesterday afternoon about him putting a few extra things on the move so he could suck more cash out of it. And the relocation wouldn't happen for another month, so he still had a few weeks to play with Cheryl. Then, one day, he just wouldn't be here anymore. Poof, gone. Result: another sobbing woman in his wake.

He laughed aloud. It was so beautiful. He'd kiss her at the door after a long night of rough sex like there was nothing wrong. Promise her that they'd go to a nice dinner that night. Then send her on her way, move out, change his cell number, and disappear forever. He'd never told her the real name of the company he worked for. Never told her his real last name, where he was originally from, or anything else about himself she could use to track him down if she turned out to be one of those fatal-attraction psychos. It was just so much fun playing with a woman's mind--and abusing her body. He never got tired of either one.

* * *

Cheryl put Rosario carefully down on the makeshift bed they'd built on the bedroom floor--several blankets and a ring of pillows so the little girl couldn't crawl too far when she woke up. It was as if Cheryl had suddenly gone to heaven, Jack realized, a sentimental smile creasing his face as he watched. She'd picked Rosario up off his chest when she'd gotten home and hadn't put her down since. She'd even called in sick to work

--something she
never
did--so she could stay home with the baby all day. He backed out of the doorway and headed to the kitchen as Cheryl pulled a blanket over Rosario's tiny shoulders and kissed the little girl's forehead.

"She's amazing," Cheryl murmured, sitting in the chair across the kitchen table from him a few moments later. "It's just so awful about her mother." Jack hadn't told Cheryl any of the gory details, just that Julia had died in a car accident. He hadn't told her that he'd been the one to pull the baby out of the wreck, either. It wasn't necessary. There was no need to pump himself up. He was already her hero.

"Yeah, I know."

"Is it really only for a few days?" she asked.

She seemed so disappointed. Like that was way too short a time. Like if it had been for good that would have been fine. Harry had been right on with his prediction. "That's what the trooper said, Princess."

Cheryl pushed out her lower lip and pouted. "She's so beautiful. I don't know if I can let her go."

"Already you're like that?"

She shrugged. "What can I say?"

"Ah." He waved. Like it wouldn't be a big deal for him to give Rosario back. He didn't want to admit that he'd already fallen for the little girl, too. "You're such a softie."

"I'm a woman, Daddy. What do you expect?" She sighed. "I know it's not practical. Most days neither one of us is here, so it wouldn't work out. Still, I--"

"We couldn't afford having her around for long, either," Jack interrupted. He hadn't told her that as of yesterday he was going to be around a lot more during the day. Or that he had less than a dollar in his bank account. "Could we?"

Cheryl sighed again and opened her checkbook. It was lying on the table in front of her.

"Do you really want to know?"

"No." He hated dealing with money, always had. He'd always let Linda take care of that part of the household. She actually seemed to enjoy that chore. Figured. Hell, she'd probably hidden half the assets ahead of the divorce. "But I guess I should," he admitted grudgingly. At least he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he could trust Cheryl. Cheryl tapped down the lines in the checkbook register with her finger, adding up expenses. "Here's the snapshot," she said when she was done. "In terms of savings, I've got about five hundred dollars in my account and you have"--she hesitated--"what, a couple of hundred?"

Not after giving MJ his down payment. "About that."

"It's not much, but at least it's a little bit of a safety net." She studied the register again.

"I make forty thousand a year, which, after taxes, works out to almost twenty-seven hundred a month. You make almost sixteen hundred a month, which, other than FICA, you get almost tax-free. So, together, we've got about four thousand in cash a month to spend." She counted up the cash outflows in her head one more time. "The mortgage is about a thousand a month, including property taxes and insurance. The cars cost us a ton with the monthly payments, insurance, and maintenance. Utilities aren't too bad, but they still eat up a chunk. The food and miscellaneous column hits us pretty hard, and then there's always that credit card payment. Still, we should save a couple of hundred a month." She shook her head. "But it seems like there's always something we don't count on. Two months ago it was the roof. Last month it was the new refrigerator." Jack got up and moved to the sink to pour himself a cup of coffee. "Talk to me about the house. What did we pay for it?"

"A hundred and fifty thousand. We put twenty down," she added hesitantly.

"Why do you say it like that?" he asked, taking a sip as he sat down again. "What's the matter?"

"Are you going to ask me what it's worth?"

"Well, I know the market's off some. What, like five or ten percent? You told me that." She'd actually said it was off more than that, but he was hoping it had come back since then. "Right?"

"More like twenty percent, Daddy," Cheryl said. "All the agents in the office are crying the blues."

"
Twenty percent?
Really?"

She nodded. "It's bad. The bottom line is that the house is worth only about one-twenty now."

"So we're ten grand underwater on it?"

"Yes," she agreed quietly. "It'll come back at some point. Real estate always does, especially in Florida. But that doesn't help us right now."

"Jesus," he muttered. He'd had no idea it was that bad. That the house was worth
that
much less than what they'd paid. "So we have a negative net worth, almost no savings, and we're barely breaking even every month."

She nodded gloomily.

Of course, that was assuming he made sixteen hundred a month. The usher job at the stadium wasn't going to pay anywhere near that. And on top of less money coming in, he had to come up with four hundred bucks a week for MJ. It looked like he was going to have to find another job fast if he wanted someone in the Tarpon dugout spying on Mikey Clemant.

"Well, at least it can't get much worse," Cheryl said, trying to smile. Jack gazed at her. If she only knew.

23

H
ELEN MCLEAN GLANCED fearfully into the rearview mirror again and again as she guided the old Dodge through northern New Jersey on the Garden State Parkway, searching frantically for any sign that someone was following her. Fifteen minutes ago she'd checked out of a terrifying, thirty-nine-dollar-a-night dive motel in downtown Newark that was being used mostly by drug users and prostitutes. A motel with a parking lot she'd had to pick her way through this morning to get to her car as if she were picking her way through a minefield because the asphalt was littered with rusty needles and used condoms.

Now she was headed to Perth Amboy to check into what was undoubtedly just as bad a place filled with exactly the same kind of clientele. Different names and different faces, but their lives would be mirror images of the ones she'd just left. God, she missed her little brick house in Queens. Missed it so much she almost couldn't bear it. So much she was almost willing to go back to it despite the danger she knew was lurking in the shadows there. Not that the little house was anything great. But it was home, and at least she didn't have to worry about stray bullets tearing through paper-thin walls, or listening to a woman in the next room pulling two tricks an hour to support her crystal meth habit. But she had no choice. She had to move, had to
keep
moving to stay ahead of them. They were on to her.

She missed her kitty, too. She'd had to leave in such a rush there hadn't been time to find it. It had been outside somewhere in the neighborhood when she'd gotten the word. She'd called a couple of times from the door, but by the time the suitcase was packed, the poor baby still hadn't shown up. And she couldn't stay any longer. That had been made
very
clear. She had thirty minutes to clear out or she was dead. The worst part of it all was she couldn't get messages to her son anymore. The bartender at the Dugout had told her Kyle wasn't coming in anymore because some guy who claimed to be an old Yankee scout was suddenly snooping around, asking a lot of questions. The bartender had told her not to call him again. That he was tired of being the go-between, that he didn't feel safe doing it any longer. He said he wouldn't go looking for Kyle to give him a message from her, either, because he didn't want to be seen with the kid, didn't want to be involved any longer.

Helen spotted the exit she was looking for and flipped on the blinker. She could feel the tears welling up again. Like they had last night when she'd listened to the woman in the next room moaning for money, or when she'd been sure she'd heard gunshots in the parking lot. She had to help Kyle somehow. He'd sacrificed so much for her--his brilliant baseball future, his girlfriend, his safety. Sacrificed everything for her. And most important, he was her son.

Maybe she should just start driving south, toward Sarasota. Maybe that was the answer. Of course, if she did and they were back there, she'd lead them right to him. Maybe they were waiting for her to do just that.

Her tears fell in steady streams as she pulled to a stop at a red light. She desperately needed her brother's help. Needed Stephen to tell her what to do, like he'd always done after her husband passed away. But suddenly he'd disappeared, suddenly he was unreachable. She shivered. She understood what that meant.

* * *

Treviso dried off after a long, refreshing shower, patting his thin, dripping chest with a towel as he moved out of the steamy bathroom. He'd stayed out in the Bronx drinking with Paulie the Moon until three o'clock this morning, and he'd opened his eyes ten minutes ago to a raging hangover. He'd yelled to the kitchen for Karen to put the baby in the playpen and come service him right away. Sex usually helped his headache, but this morning it hadn't, in part because Karen wasn't her normal passionate self, so it hadn't been as pleasurable as usual. Of course, that tended to happen right before her period, so he wasn't concerned. She'd be back to normal in a few days.

He moved into their small closet and happened to look down, happened to notice something about her black high heels. He stared intently at them--lying snugly between a pair of sandals and her sneakers. They weren't properly arranged, he realized. The right shoe was on the left and the left shoe was on the right. The toes were pointing slightly out, not slightly in, as they should have been. All of her other pairs were positioned so the toes were pointing in.

Treviso ran his hands through his wet, thinning hair. Karen was a stickler when it came to the few pairs of nice shoes she owned. She took great care of them and always aligned them perfectly. And her black high heels were her favorite pair, her pride and joy, worth almost seventy bucks. He shook his head. His natural ability to pick up on such tiny details so quickly was his only edge in this world.

* * *

Marconi sat behind his tray table eating a big, greasy breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, and a bagel with cream cheese. The beginning of an old
Dick Van
Dyke Show
rerun was playing on TV, and he was trying to figure out if Dick was going to trip over the ottoman after coming in the front door during the opening credits--or avoid it. When Dick stopped, then twinkle-toed around it with a smug grin, Marconi laughed loudly, dropping the eggs and hash browns on his fork into his lap. "Motherfu