The puck disappeared into Michael’s goal, making a clattering sound that meant only one thing.
Game over.
“Got you!” Johnny shouted, pumping a fist.
Michael let go of his mallet and straightened, moving around the table to meet his friend halfway. “What does that make your record against me? Two wins, two-hundred-twenty-two losses?”
“Funny,” Johnny said.
“True,” Michael countered.
“In this decade, I’m one and oh. That means you owe me a soda.”
They maneuvered through the arcade past teens with their eyes riveted to video screens and a skinny, loose-limbed boy navigating a Dance Dance Revolution video game. Following the directions of an on-screen prompt, the boy duplicated patterns with his quick feet on an arrowed panel.
The arcade led to a brightly lit area featuring a food counter and some booths. A young couple munching hot dogs and French fries occupied a single side of one booth, seated so close together a sheet of paper couldn’t fit between them. A trio of boys in another booth scarfed down hamburgers.
“A soda isn’t all you owe me,” Johnny said after they ordered a couple of root beers.
“Yeah, yeah,” Michael said grudgingly. “I remember.”
“Well?” Johnny prompted.
“You are the king,” Michael stated in a monotone. “All others bow before you.”
Johnny laughed uproariously. “I love hearing that!”
“Enjoy it,” Michael muttered, “because you might never beat me again.”
By mutual silent consent, they carried their drinks outside to a seating area consisting of four picnic tables. None were occupied so they took the one nearest the road and sat side by side facing the street, their legs outstretched.
They’d occupied the same spot years ago, although the old, scarred picnic tables had been replaced with new ones made of recycled plastic. The arcade was busier than it had been back then and so was the section of street in front of it. It used to be that any traffic on a weekday night was rare. Now it looked like a car or two a minute was passing by.
“What’s your bride gonna think about you coming home late on your first night back after the honeymoon?” Michael asked.
“Penelope is spending this week fixing up our new place so she’ll be cool with it,” Johnny said. “Besides, she knows how much I wanted to hang with you. I just never thought you’d be here when I got back.”
Michael had already explained that his great-aunt was facing the threat of foreclosure. “Never thought you’d come back so soon.”
“According to Penelope, the long weekend in Atlantic City was our pre-honeymoon. The Caribbean cruise this winter is the real deal.”
“Can’t argue with a woman who wants to get you alone on a boat,” Michael said.
“My thoughts exactly.” Johnny grinned. “So what’s this I hear about you angling to spend another two years with the Peace Corps?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am surprised. I got the feeling you were tired of living in third-world countries.”
“Yeah, well, somebody’s got to do it.”
“You’ve been doing it for, what, seven years?” Johnny asked.
“Six,” Michael corrected. He’d gotten his first assignment at the same time he’d received his community college associate’s degree in construction and building management. So far he’d been stationed in Belize, Kenya and Niger.
“It might be time for somebody else to do it,” Johnny said.
“I’ll be fine once I recharge.” The night was warm and the air heavy with humidity. Michael took a swig of root beer, appreciating the sweet taste. He didn’t tell Johnny cold soft drinks weren’t readily available when you were living in the bush. “I’m thinking about renting a place on a lake after my aunt’s situation is squared away.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah, alone.” Michael directed a sharp look at Johnny. “Who’d be with me?”
“Penelope’s friend Sara.”
“That’s not happening,” Michael said quickly.
“Why not?”
“She has to live here after I leave.”
“You don’t have to leave,” Johnny said. “My dad would hire you in a heartbeat. Hell, with your experience, you could start your own company. Or, better yet, form a partnership with us.”
Michael started shaking his head before Johnny finished the first sentence. “I can’t move back here. I told you about getting my tires slashed. You know how people feel about me.”
“I know how I feel about you. I know how my dad feels about you.”
“Give it a rest, Johnny.”
They sat in silence, listening to the whir of tires as the cars passed by. A car horn sounded in the distance. A child squealed with laughter somewhere down the street. Michael remembered it used to be so quiet you could hear the sounds of the arcade through the closed door.
“Know why you used to beat me at air hockey?” Johnny asked.
“Because you stink?”
Johnny usually laughed aloud when Michael made a comment like that, then gave back as good as he’d got. Tonight he didn’t even smile.
“Because you never played it safe like you did tonight,” Johnny said. “You used to be willing to take a risk.”
Michael didn’t pretend not to understand that Johnny was talking about more than air hockey. “In some of the countries where I’ve lived, being an American is taking a risk.”
“Yeah, but the Peace Corps sets up where you work, where you live, even who you associate with. That’s playing it safe.” Johnny stood up, crushing his soda can and tossing it into the waste basket. “For you, taking a risk would be moving back home.”
LAURIE SLAMMED the rolled-up newspaper onto the long wooden counter Thursday morning, attracting the attention of every person in the river-rafting shop.
The couple who’d just gotten through prepaying for the next trip down the river stepped back. The man shuffling through a rack of Indigo River Rafters T-shirts looked up. The two young girls trying on men’s sunglasses stopped giggling.
But the only person who interested Laurie was working behind the counter.
“Why would you do something like this, Kenny?” Her adrenaline was running so high she had to make a conscious effort not to shout.
“Do what?” Kenny’s hazel eyes grew wide and innocent, a trick she remembered from when they were married. It meant he was guilty as hell.
She unrolled the latest edition of a local tabloid and flipped through it. Setting the newspaper down on the counter so it faced Kenny, she jabbed her index finger at a quarter-page display ad at the bottom.
The advertisement looked as if it had been designed by a despondent Cupid. An arrow bisected a heart, splitting it into two sections.
Have pity on my broken heart, read the type embedded in one side of the heart. The message inside the second side was the kicker: Give me another chance, Laurie.
There was no signature, but Laurie hadn’t questioned who placed the ad for a single second. And to think Kenny had probably arranged for it after picking a fight with Mike Donahue to avenge the dead girl who lived on in his heart.
“So that’s what this is about.” Kenny actually smiled, revealing the deep dimple on his left cheek she used to think was so sexy. “The ad department did a good job, don’t you think?”
“Damn you, Kenny,” she snapped. “Don’t play dumb with me. I told you to leave me alone and instead you place this stupid ad for everybody in town to see. You know how people talk. Everybody will think we’re getting back together.”
He tilted his head. They were inside a modified warehouse that housed rafts, tubes, kayaks and paddles while also acting as a retail shop and business office. Morning sunlight spilled through an overhead window, highlighting the golden streaks in Kenny’s brown hair. His skin was tanned. Working on the river looked good on him. Damn him.
“Aren’t we getting back together
?” he asked.
“No!”
He arched both eyebrows. “Then what are you doing here?”
“What kind of question is that? I’m cussing you out, that’s what I’m doing.”
“You could have picked up the phone. Hell, you could have ignored the ad.” He swept one hand in her direction. “Instead, here you are.”
She frowned. “So?”
“So you must have wanted to see me.”
She mentally reviewed the events that had led her to the river rafters. She’d opened the paper, spotted the ad and stormed out of the house, leaving the cup of coffee she’d been drinking as steamed as she was.
After guessing he’d be at the rafting shop, she’d practically sprinted to the building when she spotted his car in the gravel parking lot.
“Of course I wanted to see you,” she said. “How else can I get it through your thick skull that I want you to leave me alone?”
“Think about it, Laurie.” He braced both hands on the counter and leaned close. “If you really meant that, you wouldn’t only tell me to stay away from you, you’d stay away from me, too.”
She jerked backward, temporarily unable to think up a comeback. An attractive woman wearing a green T-shirt identical to Kenny’s appeared from the back of the shop and joined Kenny at the counter.
“Hi, Laurie,” the woman said with an easy smile. “It’s good to see you again.”
With a shock, Laurie realized it was Annie Sublinski, a former classmate who’d been so shy when they were in high-school she was like a ghost. If not for the birthmark on the left side of Annie’s face, Laurie wouldn’t have recognized her even though she knew Annie owned the business.
“Hi, Annie,” Laurie said through gritted teeth. If she opened her mouth any wider, she’d start yelling at Kenny again.
Annie’s gaze swung from Laurie to Kenny before dipping to the newspaper and coming back up again. “Everything all right?”
“Everything’s great,” Kenny said. The jerk was actually grinning.
Annie took in the wide-legged navy trousers Laurie wore with a red ballet-neck short-sleeved shirt. “You don’t look like you’re dressed for rafting, Laurie.”
“I’m n-not. I, um…” Laurie stopped, annoyed with herself for stammering. It occurred to her that she and Annie were playing different roles than they had in high school, with all the poise in Annie’s corner. “I just came by to tell Kenny something.”
“Oh,” Annie said as if she understood when she couldn’t possibly.
“I’ve gotta go. I’ve, um, gotta get t-to work.” There she went stammering again, but now she had good reason. The wall clock behind the counter showed it was nearly ten o’clock, the starting time she and Sara had agreed upon for her first official day of work. She hadn’t considered she’d be late when she went hunting Kenny.
“I’ll be home by five if you feel like doing something,” Kenny called after her as she fled. “Just give me a call.”
Because she couldn’t come up with a snappy reply, she didn’t turn around. She just got the hell out of there.
SARA HADN’T been able to go anywhere over the last few days without a friend of Quincy Coleman’s warning her to steer clear of Michael.
At the drugstore, it was the gray-haired pharmacist who filled her antihistamine prescription: “Quincy says you can’t turn your back on him.”
At Jimmy’s Diner, the waitress who rang up Sara’s takeout order: “I know he’s good-looking, but Quincy says a woman can’t believe a word he says.”
And at the post office, the clerk who sold her stamps: “Quincy says he got away with murder.”
Yet here Sara was, standing not six feet from Michael, watching him use a power sander to smooth out a drywall repair.
She wiped her suddenly damp palms on the slim-fitting white pants she wore with a cropped yellow cotton jacket, ignored her jumpy stomach and moved closer to him.
His head swung in her direction, and it seemed to her that the corners of his mouth started to lift. But the glimmer of a smile was gone when he turned off the sander. “Do you need something?”
She needed to see him.
Because no matter what Quincy Coleman said, Michael corroborated and all those friends of Coleman intimated, she didn’t believe she’d gotten a true handle on what had happened in Michael’s past.
However, she couldn’t tell him that.
She held up the letter she’d written the day before announcing the opening of her practice. “I need to get to my copier.”
He nodded once, then removed the drop cloth from the copier in a fluid motion and immediately stood back, as though being careful not to get too close to her.
“Thanks,” she told him.
He wore an old T-shirt that showed off the definition in his arms and faded jeans that made his legs appear long and rangy. Stubble covered his lower face.
He looked like a conscientious, hard-working man and not the monster Coleman was portraying him to be.
“Anything new on my aunt’s case?” he asked.
She was so intent on figuring out a way to get answers that his question threw her. Of course he’d want an update. They had barely seen each other in three days. During the few minutes when she’d approved the paint colors, they’d discussed her choice of a red accent wall in the main lobby but hadn’t talked about his aunt at all.
“I’ve been researching refinancing options, but her best bet is the local bank.” She opened the lid of the copier and placed her letter facedown on the glass. “Our appointment’s tomorrow morning. I’ll hit on her status as a longtime customer, and I hope we’ll be able to work something out.”
He nodded, his expression that of an impassive stranger. She closed the lid of the copier and pressed the start button but nothing happened. She pressed again, harder this time. Still nothing.
He reached down and picked up one end of an extension cord. Without a word, he plugged it in and the machine whirred to life. She felt her face heat, could almost hear him asking for the real reason she’d interrupted his work.
“Why exactly did the police drop the vehicular homicide charge?” she blurted out.
He stiffened, his eyes becoming even more guarded. Way to ease into the topic, she silently berated herself. Now that she’d brought it up, though, she wasn’t about to back down. If she did, she’d never get answers.
“You said it was because there wasn’t enough evidence, but the forensics teams that reconstruct fatal accidents are good. They can figure out what happened from skid marks.”
“There were no skid marks,” he said in a monotone.
Her mouth dropped open. It was the last thing she expected him to say. Because in the absence of skid marks, the conclusion was that the driver had made no attempt to stop. That usually only meant one thing.
“Were you drinking that night?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
That had to be the truth. The police would have tested his blood alcohol level and detected the presence of any controlled substances. But the driver didn’t have to be impaired for charges to stick. The law viewed a vehicle as much of a weapon as a gun. If there weren’t skid marks, that alone should have been enough to prove that Michael was driving recklessly.
“Then why did the police drop the charges?” she repeated.
His chest expanded with the deep breath he took. “Because it was an old car and a blind curve. The investigators found a leak in the rear brake line and hardly any fluid in the master cylinder. They couldn’t prove the brakes hadn’t been bad before the accident.”
“But I can’t be—”
He didn’t let her finish. “It’s a matter of record. Look it up if you don’t believe it.”
“But I—”
He switched on the sander and turned his attention to the wall before she could mount any more protests or ask any more questions.
Realistically, what more could she say? Just because she couldn’t envision the Michael of
today as a reckless driver didn’t mean his nineteen-year-old self was innocent.
People made mistakes, but they grew and changed as the years went by. Take Sara as an example. If she hadn’t decided to take a chance on a new life, she’d still be researching case law at that boring law office in Washington, D.C.
I’m warning you. Stay away from Michael Donahue.
She heard Quincy Coleman’s voice in her head as she took the copies of her letter from the machine.
You don’t know anything about me.
This time she heard Michael’s voice, but the flesh-and-blood man was silent, his back to her as he sanded the wall.
She shut both voices out of her mind, focusing instead on the workday ahead. Once Laurie arrived for her first full day, they could start addressing envelopes and calling the phonebook companies to place ads.
First, Sara needed to make sure they had enough caffeine to get through the day.
The coffee was brewing when Laurie knocked on her upstairs door ten minutes past the time they agreed upon. Her color was high, her shirt had come partially loose from her slacks and her hair was even crazier than usual.
“I know I’m late, but I assure you I’m usually very prompt and it won’t happen again.” Laurie spoke so quickly that her words ran together, blurring the explanation, but she kept talking. “I even forgot what you said about taking that outside staircase to your deck instead of coming in through the office. And I know you mentioned the office was being painted so I should have—”
“Laurie, stop.” Sara couldn’t let her finish, especially because she suspected the man painting her office was responsible for Laurie’s agitation. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”
Laurie’s shoulders sagged and she dropped into the kitchen chair nearest the stairs. “Is it that obvious?”
Sara sat at an angle to her. “Yes. So spill.”
“I shouldn’t tell you,” Laurie said. “You’ll think I’m a high-maintenance employee. You might figure I’m too much trouble and fire me before I’ve even worked here a day.”
The Hero’s Sin Page 8
