Shame ON You

by John W. Mefford

  Shame ON You

  An Ozzie Novak Thriller

  Book 4

  Redemption Thriller Series - 16

  (Includes Alex Troutt Thrillers, Ivy Nash Thrillers,

  and Ozzie Novak Thrillers)

  By

  John W. Mefford

  ALSO BY JOHN W. MEFFORD

  Redemption Thriller Series

  The Alex Troutt Thrillers

  AT Bay (Book 1)

  AT Large (Book 2)

  AT Once (Book 3)

  AT Dawn (Book 4)

  AT Dusk (Book 5)

  AT Last (Book 6)

  The Ivy Nash Thrillers

  IN Defiance (Book 7)

  IN Pursuit (Book 8)

  IN Doubt (Book 9)

  Break IN (Book 10)

  IN Control (Book 11)

  IN The End (Book 12)

  The Ozzie Novak Thrillers

  ON Edge (Book 13)

  Game ON (Book 14)

  ON The Rocks (Book 15)

  Shame ON You (Book 16)

  ON Fire (Book 17)

  ON The Run (Book 18)

  1

  His eyes and temples pulsated as blood rocketed through his veins. Drops of perspiration trickled down his forehead, gathering at his bushy eyebrows.

  Sitting taller in his chair, his lungs begged for more oxygen. He took in a shallow breath and slowly exhaled. It didn’t help. He tried again, deeper this time. It still wasn’t enough. The drumbeat of his heart thumped against his chest.

  Anxiety had returned with a vengeance.

  He flapped his arms as his entire body broke out in a sweat. His mind began to swirl. The office literally spun around him as if he were standing in the center of a roundabout. He dropped a hand to his desk and squeezed his eyes shut. Then he popped them open and scoured his desk again.

  Where is that fucking presentation? He’d asked his longtime administrative assistant to print it off and set it on his desk. Did she do it? No. How many times had she screwed up a simple task? It was as though she’d been put on Earth to send him to the looney bin.

  Considering where you work, that wouldn’t be far to go.

  The perspiration coated his body with a slick film, and his heart continued to race. This anxiety attack was the worst he’d experienced in months, if not years. All the outside pressure had finally seized control of his nervous system. Its grip was relentless.

  “Elena!” he yelled.

  She appeared at the doorway, her head tilted and that smug look on her face. “What now, Doctor?”

  She had the compassion of a gravedigger. “Where is my fucking presentation? You said it was on my desk, and it’s not here, goddammit. My meeting started five minutes ago, and they’re waiting on me.” He pounded the desk with his fist.

  “Well, with that type of attitude, I don’t think I’ll even bother to help you out.” She did her head-shake thing and mumbled as she walked away.

  “Fucking bitch,” he said under his labored breath.

  “I heard that,” she called out.

  He clenched his jaw so hard he thought he might crack his teeth. Sweat poured off his body as his thoughts snowballed into a storm of angst and tension. He fidgeted with his collar until he was able to unfasten his top button, loosen his tie. Still no relief.

  He dropped his elbows on his knees, lowered his head. His glasses slid down his nose, which was slick with sweat. He nudged them up, but they fell right back down again. His gaze landed upon his Cole Haan wingtips, now speckled with drips of perspiration. Normally, he’d move quickly to clean off his shoes, to ensure that his attire, like the rest of his life, was clean, structured.

  But it was far from structured right now. So very far.

  Where was that presentation?

  His breath clicked in his throat. His mind had been so scrambled, he’d forgotten about his backup pills. The magical backup pills! He fished his keys out of his pocket and tried to unlock the bottom drawer of his desk. His hands trembled so much, he was tempted to get Elena into the office to work the key until the desk unlocked.

  But he’d rather die than ask her for a favor. And this was one drawer to which she would never have access.

  Finally, the key slipped in; he turned it and pulled the drawer open. He quickly cast aside old notepads and folders and two glass awards that weren’t worth their weight. He spotted the small plastic container in the far corner. He snatched it from the drawer, used a fingernail to peel open the top, and found two yellow pills. He downed one without water and waited. He stared at the wall, focusing on nothing more than the framed degrees, including his final one for his doctorate in psychiatric medicine.

  A moment passed, and his pulse finally slowed. He found tissues and began to clean off his face. He needed a shower, but that was not an option right now. He’d have to get it together.

  He leaned over and began to put his things back in the drawer. The small journal with his initials on it—CP—caught his eye. He ran his fingers across the leather and the engraved letters; images flashed through his mind. And, unlike so many other times when he’d been able to let them flicker away, this time they stuck.

  “Elena,” he called out, “I need you to tell the team that I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said. “I’ll go do that while you sit in there and throw your temper tantrum.”

  He puffed out a breath, willing himself to not react emotionally to her attitude. She was connected to people in high places, so—although she worked for him—she held all the power.

  Is that the root cause to your…issues? A lack of power?

  He shook off the thought and lost himself in rubbing his hands over the front and back of the journal. The tactile feeling only brought more thoughts to mind, and even a few urges.

  He glanced at his door to ensure Elena hadn’t snuck up. No one was there. She was probably in the adjoining reception area, painting her nails.

  He couldn’t resist. With his heart fluttering like a boy getting up the nerve to ask the pretty girl to dance, he opened the journal. He flipped through a few pages until he found a certain date. He read the phrase that was written on the top line. And the line after that. And the line after that. On and on it went. The same phrase. The same three words.

  He quaked and quickly shut the journal, rested his arm on the desk. He pondered his life from a decade earlier. He couldn’t undo what had been done, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. There was something fulfilling about reminiscing.

  “You’re now fifteen minutes late to your own damn meeting,” Elena yelled from the other room.

  Screw her.

  Even she couldn’t disturb his mood at the moment. An exhilaration consumed his body. A far cry from the gripping anxiety that had crippled him minutes ago. The pill had helped; that couldn’t be disputed. But now his entire mindset had changed. He sat against the back of his chair and let the flow of his most closely held secrets invade his thoughts.

  He smiled. And he knew exactly why.

  He couldn’t wait until he got home so he could play with his new pet. He was always a happier person when he had something to look forward to, and this time was no different.

  2

  An ice sculpture carved in the shape of a ram’s head. That was something I hadn’t seen before.

  Tito, an old friend of mine, tapped his mitt-sized hand against my arm as he tried to contain his laughter. “Oz, did you hear that, dude? Mrs. Moon, our chemistry teacher, is now running a nudist colony off the coast of Spain.”

  I turned, grinned to the gaggle of folks standing in a circle, and tried to conjure up a chuckle. The more I thought about Tito’s comment, the more my smile became authentic. Mrs. Moon, a conservative dresser and ruler of all things prop
er, had, ostensibly, tossed the periodic table and related formulas aside, flipping into the exact opposite persona.

  Unless this new Mrs. Moon was actually her true self. I was not one to judge. Not about life changes. I’d seen plenty in the last few months.

  Tito and six others were still laughing when his “lady friend,” Luella, laughed so hard her voice went falsetto. That only elicited another round of laughter, and I actually joined in on this one.

  A song blared out of speakers all around us, and hordes of people rushed the dance floor. Luella grabbed Tito’s hand and pulled him out there. He looked back at me and waved me toward him. I pointed at my chest. He actually wanted me to join him and Luella on the dance floor? I was already the third wheel at my ten-year high school reunion.

  I shook my head and pulled my phone from my pocket to act like I had an important text coming in from a new client.

  Tito had practically begged me to go to this party, saying I’d always regret it if I didn’t.

  After giving him every excuse I could think of, I finally relented. I allowed my new temporary roommate, Ivy, to watch over my little girl Mackenzie while I tagged along with Tito and Luella.

  It only took three steps into the ballroom at the Austin Driskill Hotel, and an uneasy feeling had come over me. It wasn’t because of the images that were flashing through my mind, including the ones of me and my wife making love in a hotel room upstairs only a week earlier—the last time we might ever share a moment like that. More on that later. But the feeling of unease was because I could see I was just about the only person without a date on my arm. Not that I wanted just any old date. I wanted my date.

  “Nice, Tito,” I’d said earlier. “This helps with the Nicole memories.”

  “Let loose, dude. Get a drink, and let’s have some fun.”

  Easy for him to say, but I rolled with it. What other option did I have?

  The song was popular back during our senior year, from a group called Paramore. Tito knew the DJ would be playing their music tonight. The members of the group, he’d told me countless times, were from Franklin, Tennessee—from where Tito’s family first grew their roots.

  I graduated in a class of four hundred eighty-three. Not small, but nothing like the two-thousand plus I’d heard about in Allen, a one-school suburb north of Dallas that had been created, it seemed, with one sole purpose: to win state football championships. The plan had worked. They’d won five in the last eight years and, along the way, had spent seventy million bucks on a football stadium. I loved football as much as the next guy—I played my first two years in high school—but the obsession in certain Texas cities, usually the one-school towns, was enough to make you rethink your priorities in life. And there was that additional note about school being about more than learning how to run the West Coast offense.

  Tonight it appeared that about half the graduating class was in attendance. And, from there, a generous ninety people had dates. So, I wasn’t the only one without a date. But in looking around, it wasn’t a social group with whom I had much in common.

  I made a beeline over to the bar and ordered my customary Knob Creek on the rocks.

  The mustached bartender cupped a hand to his mouth and yelled, “Sorry, sir, we don’t carry that brand.”

  He wasn’t aware that I could read his lips—a handy coping skill I’d learned since being born with reduced hearing. I wore a hearing aid, but it was still a challenge to hear specific words in a crowd…like tonight.

  “Well, that’s sheer blasphemy,” I said.

  He stared back at me as if he were deaf. Backup plan. “How about Maker’s Mark?”

  He didn’t nod or say a word, but he did grab the neck of a bottle and start pouring. I was okay with that. I pulled out a dollar bill and stuffed it in the glass. He mouthed cheapskate as he turned away from me. Again, he had no idea I could tell what he was saying. Whatever. I scooped up the tumbler and sipped the second-best whiskey in my price range.

  A hand popped me on the shoulder, spilling my drink. “Well, if it isn’t Oswald Novak.” It was Helmet Hair, a.k.a. Chase Gibson. He reminded me of a Ken doll, complete with fake white teeth and mound of dark hair that looked like it had been parted in the same place since birth. Even when he took off his football helmet—he’d replaced me at quarterback when I quit the team—there wasn’t a hair out of place.

  I noticed the music had died down a bit to where I could hear myself think. “Hey, Chase. Long time.” My voice had little energy. “And it’s ‘Ozzie,’ by the way.” He loved poking me, calling me Oswald, like I was some distant relative of the man who’d assassinated a president.

  A girl bounced up and put an arm on Chase’s shoulder. She tilted her head and smiled, as if daring every guy in the room not to glance down. Her plunging neckline on her black shimmery dress was more like a navel line. Just like Chase, who had to show he was the best at everything, Taylor, his significant other, had always been the same way. Plus, it was apparent that she’d acquired some new assets since high school. Bravo for her. If I hadn’t been holding my drink, I would have clapped.

  “Hi, Taylor. How have you been?”

  She fluttered her eyelashes and held out her left hand. It was as though a disco ball had just been lowered from the ceiling. “My five-year wedding anniversary present. Where’s Nicole? I want to make her jelly,” she said with a playful squeal at the end.

  My throat clamped shut. I had to force the Maker’s Mark down my throat.

  “Oh, baby,” Chase said with a smile a mile wide, “don’t you remember what I told you?”

  She tilted her head and looked at me, momentarily confused. Then, like the drama queen she was, she put her hand over her mouth…her entire mouth. That, in and of itself, was quite a feat. “I’m so sorry, Ozzie, to hear about you and Nicole.” She frowned with over-exaggeration, as if she were a mime.

  The story of Nicole and me was no secret, and it had little to do with her having an affair. It had everything to do with the fact that the guy she had cheated on me with was an egotistical killer. In the end, Nicole saw the twisted maniac for what he was, but eventually, our separation became public. As did many other details about my life. Since then, Nicole had done everything in her power to kiss and make up—including our little interlude in the hotel room about six floors above where we now stood—but then I screwed up. Kind of. More or less. It was complicated. Which is why Nicole told me two days earlier she needed to get away, recharge and rethink where her life was headed. She left town for an extended vacation at just about the moment I was ready to finally give her the key to my heart again.

  Timing is everything, right?

  “So, when are you two going to have kids?” I’d purposely ignored Taylor’s comment, countering with a question that might draw a demonstrative response.

  “Well…” Taylor stopped short, arching an eyebrow at Helmet Hair.

  Chase took in a shallow breath, shaking a finger. “You see…”

  I was waiting for more, but he never finished, although his eyes quickly found something interesting in the far corner.

  “Yo, Oz, need to show you something.”

  Tito grabbed my arm and practically dragged me away. I gave Ken and Barbie a quick salute goodbye.

  When I was a safe distance away from the most annoying couple in the room, I said, “You get the award for best save ever, even if you did it by accident.”

  Tito lowered his chin. He was wearing a blue-and-gold checkered golf hat. That and his enormous frame were the two things you noticed first when meeting the man. But despite his size, he was a kind-hearted person and the best damn painter I’d ever known. My daughter, at only nine years old, was a close second.

  “You think I didn’t notice the biggest dipshit in school harassing you?”

  I smacked him on his oversized shoulder. “You had my back. You might have to do that a few other times tonight, by the way. Keep an eye out. I’ll owe you big time.”

  Tito scoot
ed up to the buffet line and started stacking his plate with food. “You haven’t come up with a quick retort, or maybe a ten-second elevator pitch, on where things stand with you and Nicole?”

  “You serious?”

  He downed a piece of barbecue chicken and licked his fingers, all before he’d finished going through the line. “Just thought you might save yourself a little awkwardness…you know what I’m saying?”

  Luella had just pulled up. She goosed Tito, who nearly dropped his food. “What kind of nonsense are you telling Ozzie?”

  “Just trying to help my brother,” he said.

  Luella put a hand on Tito’s elbow and hooked her arm inside mine. “Screw that. Rowdy, loud, and proud. That’s what I say. Screw ’em all to hell, Oz. It’s none of their damn business.”

  I liked her attitude if nothing else. We reached an open table and found our seats just as a video began to play on a big screen lowered from the ceiling. It was titled “Lost Souls, But Never Forgotten Friends.”

  A hush fell over the crowd as all eyes went to the screen. With some type of melodic acoustic guitar playing in the background, we saw images of our classmates who’d died since we’d graduated. There was Lori and Tiffany, and then Bruce. All three had been friends of mine. The pictures of more lost souls continued. I could see the tears and tissues of most of the people in the room. Even Tito thumbed a tear in the corner of his eye.

  It was indeed sad. Lives cut way too short. I felt for their families, and I wondered how these kids might have shaped the world if given the chance.

  And then they got to the last one. The one we all remembered. Brandon Fletcher. While he played baseball, he was a friend of every niche group in the school. A few chuckles as they showed a picture of him with a goofy face as someone painted it to look like Darth Maul from Star Wars fame.

  As the picture remained, a girl appeared from behind the screen. She was playing the guitar. She wasn’t a member of our graduating class. She looked younger, with straight strawberry-blond hair, wearing a flowered skirt that dropped to her knees, a denim jacket, and a pair of boots. She walked up to a mic. “This one’s for Brandon.”