Low Pressure (42 page)

“I’d turned off my phone.”

“How come?”

“I didn’t want to talk to anybody.”

Gall grunted. “How’s Bellamy doing?”

“She’s okay. Uh, listen, Gall, I want you to fix my airplane.”

“Ain’t that what I’ve been doing?”

“Yeah, but it’s taking too long. What about those parts you’ve been waiting on?”

“I’m hounding them to rush the order.”

“Good. I need to be flying again. Soon as possible.”

“Don’t I know that already?”

“Right. But I’ve also been thinking about—”

“Dent—”

“No, let me get this out before I change my mind. I’ve given more thought to the senator’s offer.”

“That’s what you’re calling about?”

“I know it’s late, but you’re the one who’s been on my ass about it, so I’m calling now to tell you that I’ve decided to talk to him. Maybe . . . I don’t know—it might not be that bad to have steadier employment. At least I can hear the guy out, see what he has to say.”

“I’ll set it up.”

“An informal meeting. I’m not dressing up for him.”

“I’ll set it up.”

Suddenly Dent felt good. Maybe a little proud of himself for the first time in a long time. He realized that he was smiling hugely. But Gall’s restraint puzzled him. “I thought you’d be a lot happier.”

“I’m real happy. You’re finally acting like a grown-up, making a good decision.”

“So, what’s the matter?”

“I’m just surprised by your timing.”

“Again, I apologize for the hour. Hope I didn’t interrupt anything. But I reached the decision a few minutes ago and wanted to act on it immediately. Call the guy first thing in the morning, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” A pause, then, “You talk this over with Bellamy?”

“I would have, except . . .” Dent took a deep breath, expelled it. “She’s not speaking to me.”

“Oh. I get it now. You don’t know.”

Gall’s tone sent a chill through Dent. His happy bubble burst. “What don’t I know?”

“Her daddy died. It was reported on the ten o’clock news.”

Steven folded his dark pinstripe suit into his suitcase, which lay open on the bed, and looked over his shoulder at William as he came into the room. Steven asked, “Any problems?”

“None. All the shifts are covered. The chef will manage the kitchen. Bartender will oversee the dining room. No one will know we’re gone.”

“You hope.”

“We’ve hired good people. Things will run smoothly, and if there is a hitch, it won’t be the end of the world. Or even the end of Maxey’s Atlanta.”

Steven hesitated and, not for the first time, said, “You don’t have to come with me.”

William shot him a look as he pulled his own luggage from the storage closet. “I don’t have to, but I am.”

“For a decade I’ve protected you from my family and its woes. Why involve yourself now?”

“I’m not involving myself with your family. I’m involved with you. Period. End of discussion. What time is our flight tomorrow?”

Steven had made their reservation for the first flight out of Atlanta to Houston. “We’ll be there by ten. The funeral home in Austin is sending a hearse to Houston to transport the body. We’ll ride back to Austin with Mother in the accompanying limo, and then fly home from there after the funeral.”

“Which is?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

“Soon, then.”

“Mother saw no reason to delay it. Howard’s death has been expected for months. Actually, without her knowledge, he had already made most of the arrangements, even for the viewing, which will be tomorrow night.” He laid several folded shirts in the suitcase. “Out of respect, Lyston Electronics will shut down for three days, although the employees will receive full pay.”

“Who mandated that? Bellamy?”

“Mother. She thought it was a gesture that Howard would have approved. As for Bellamy, when I spoke to Mother, she hadn’t yet notified her.”

“Why, for godsake?”

“She dreaded having to tell her. Despite the time Bellamy has had to prepare herself, she’ll be grief-stricken.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumping. Since receiving the news, he’d been busily attending to business matters, making travel arrangements, readjusting his schedule, packing mourning clothes.

Now the gravity of the situation seeped into him, and, along with it, profound weariness.

William came over to him. “What about you? What are you feeling?”

“I’m worried about Mother. She sounded as good as could be expected, but I’m sure she’s keeping up appearances and holding herself together, being the strong, stalwart widow of an important man.” He exhaled heavily. “But Howard was the center of her universe. Her life revolved around him. She’s lost the love of her life as well as the purpose for it.”

William acknowledged that the transition for her would be difficult. “Selfishly, however, I’m more concerned about your state of mind.”

“I’m not leveled by grief, if that’s what you mean. Whatever my relationship with Howard was or wasn’t, it’s too late now to change it, and in any case I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.”

He took a moment to sort through his shifting emotions. “I think he would have been more of a father to me if I had let him. When they married he embraced me as his son, adopted me, made it legal. And it wasn’t just for show or to please Mother. I believe he actually wanted to become my
dad
. But I couldn’t have that kind of relationship with him. I kept him at arm’s length.”

“Because you blamed him for Susan’s abuse.”

“By extension, I suppose,” Steven admitted. “Unfairly.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Steven looked at him sharply.

“Howard may have known what she was doing,” he said softly.

Steven adamantly shook his head. “He would have stopped it.”

“He would have had to acknowledge it first. For a man as principled, as devoted to family values as Howard was, accepting that his teenaged daughter was a conniving, malicious, unconscionable whore would have been out of the question. Rather than confront it, it’s possible that he denied it, even to himself, and looked the other way while she continued her reign of terror over you.”

It was only a theory, but upsetting nevertheless. Steven placed his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. “Jesus. I fool myself into believing I’m over it, but I’m not.”

“You should have had counseling.”

“I would have had to tell first. And I couldn’t tell.”

William sat down beside him and placed his hand on Steven’s bowed head. “Susan is dead.”

“I wish,” he said in a voice made raspy by anguish. “But I wake up in the middle of the night, feeling her breath on my face.”

“I know. And the haunting has gotten worse since
Low Pressure
was published.” William clicked his tongue with irritation. “For the love of God, why did Bellamy ever start this insanity? Why won’t she stop?”

“Because she’s haunted, too. She wants an end to it just as I do, and her approach is to dig for answers to questions that were buried with Susan.” He raised his head and saw in William’s eyes a foreboding that matched his own. “Until she has them, I’m afraid she won’t stop digging.” He added in a whisper, “But I’m equally afraid she will.”

Ray figured he must be cursed or something.

Maybe some unknown enemy had a voodoo doll that looked like him, a thousand pins stuck in it. Maybe the stars that charted his fate were out of whack or had collapsed upon themselves.

It was certain that something was fucked up. Or else why couldn’t he catch a break?

Bellamy Price had been seconds away from walking straight into his well-laid ambush.

When a cell phone rang.

Ray had heard it from inside the closet. Even as his jaw dropped with disbelief over his rotten luck, he’d heard her running footsteps going back the way she’d come. He’d heard her say, “Don’t hang up!” as she raced down the stairs.

The phone stopped ringing. Breathlessly, she said, “I’m here, Olivia.”

Then for a time, nothing, and Ray had thought to himself that if she was that absorbed by what her stepmother was saying, she probably wouldn’t hear him. All was not lost.

He’d eased open the closet door, slipped out, and tiptoed to the double doors of the bedroom, where he’d paused to listen. She was speaking in a murmur. She’d made a sound like a sob then began crying in earnest.

He’d left the bedroom and crept down the hall, knowing that her weeping would keep her from hearing him. It had sounded to him as though she was at the foot of the staircase. That close. If he could reach the landing without alerting her, the noise he made going down wouldn’t matter. By the time she’d registered his presence and reacted, she’d be dead.

Ray had heard her say, “I’ll leave immediately and get there as soon as I can.” Then more softly. “No, I’ll be driving this time.”

Some soft good-byes had been exchanged, and then she’d disconnected.

He’d peered over the banister and saw her snatch a large shoulder bag from the hall table, then go directly to the front door and pick up a suitcase. She’d paused only long enough to hit the light switch and plunge the first-floor rooms into darkness before she’d sailed through the front door and locked it behind her.

It had all happened so swiftly that Ray was still lurking on the landing, gripping his knife in a sweaty clutch and debating what his next course of action should be, when he’d heard her car starting. Headlights swept across the front windows as she backed out of the driveway and drove away. Just like that, she was gone.

Ray had had no choice except to punt. Again.

And that was why he was convinced that some bad mojo was working against him. He’d left her house and walked back to where he’d left his pickup. As far as he could tell, it had gone unnoticed. Just to be on the safe side, he’d switched out the license plates several times before driving to Georgetown.

Exhausted and out of options, he’d decided to go home.

Now, forty minutes after being thwarted again, he reached the duplex. He secured his pickup in the garage, then walked to the front door and let himself in. Groping his way around the living room, he lowered the blackout shades on both front windows. Only then did he move to a table and switch on a small-wattage lamp.

Turning toward the kitchen, he drew up short. “Jesus,” he grumbled. “You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing here?”

Rupe Collier stepped out of the shadows and into the circle of feeble light. “I’m here because you don’t do as you’re told.”

I
don’t take orders from you.” Belligerently Ray shouldered past Rupe and lumbered into his kitchen. Rupe caught the full brunt of his body odor as he went past.

“You stink, Ray. Why don’t you go take a shower?”

“Why don’t you kiss my ass?” He took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, twisted off the cap, which he dropped to the floor, and guzzled half of it before lowering the bottle and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he belched loudly and wetly.

Charming
, Rupe thought. As soon as Ray’s usefulness ran out, he needed to disappear.

From the outset their alliance had been an uneasy and tenuous one, fraught with mistrust on both sides. But for Rupe’s peace of mind it had been necessary to forge the quasi-friendship.

Following Allen’s fatal stabbing, Rupe had heard about Ray’s attempts to scale the walls, both real and figurative, that protected the Lystons. As the prosecutor who’d gotten Allen convicted, Rupe figured he would also be a target for Ray’s revenge. He had an idiot’s IQ, but he was just pugnacious enough and stupid enough to be dangerous in a loose cannon sort of way.

Besides, Rupe was a firm believer in the adage that it was better to be lucky than smart.

He feared that one day Ray would get lucky and either kill, maim, or damage him in one manner or another. Rupe didn’t want to be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life, but he’d already made one attempt on Ray’s life by staging the auto accident. He’d decided to take a different tack and befriend the man.

Because Rupe also believed in keeping his friends close, but his enemies closer.

He’d found Ray living in the same rundown house he’d shared with his late brother. Being limited in all capacities including his mangled left arm, he’d been unable to acquire gainful employment and was barely scraping by on welfare.

In rode Rupe Collier on a white stallion—actually in a flashy white Cadillac—offering Ray a new place to live rent free. He gave him a recently repossessed pickup truck and a job at a glass company, which Rupe had bought so windshield repairs and replacements could be done there cheaply.

Initially Ray had responded to the extended olive branch with a threat to bash in Rupe’s skull. Playing meek and mild, Rupe apologized and said that he didn’t blame Ray for his antagonism. Of course “antagonism” had to be defined.

Ray was mollified by the apology, but not entirely without suspicion. “How come you’re doing this?”

“If I hadn’t prosecuted your brother’s case so well, he would still be alive. I feel terrible about that. Even if Allen was guilty, he wasn’t given a death sentence. He shouldn’t have died in prison. And if he was innocent . . . well, that’s a possibility I can’t bear to think about.”