“Hysterical as usual.”
Rob Rhino tiptoed in. Claire almost laughed, a stealthy pudgy porn star in screaming green plastic clogs, holding a white envelope against his chest. He paused, on pointe, set the envelope down in front of her, mimed some weird interpretive dance kind of thing, then tiptoed out.
“Mother? Hello?”
“Oh sorry. Right. Have you talked to Annabelle since her surprise visit here?”
“What?” Jordan coughed. “She flew there? To Pennsylvania? What in the—”
“She didn’t tell you she talked to Andrew?”
Claire picked up the FedEx envelope, puzzled. Room 244 blared across it in red felt-tip marker. Her hotel room number. She flipped it over. Addressed to her from Conchita. Rob must’ve picked it up from the hotel.
“Yes, she did.” Jordan let out a big puff. “She didn’t say much. Come to think of it, I guess I didn’t give her much of an opportunity. Well, Steven didn’t. He ripped into her about the inappropriateness, lack of ethics, blah, blah. You need to fire—”
In a rush, a random thought bounced to the tip of Claire’s tongue. “You said we could help. Who’s we?”
“I misspoke. I’m pretty useless. I should’ve said Steven’s help.”
Him.
“Steven? What on earth could he do for me?”
Floral arrangements for the memorial had already been decided.
“Steven is an attorney. Let him help you with this mess with Andrew.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
The contents of the envelope hit the smooth shiny antique table top with a whop, a thick wad of correspondence rubber-banded together in a neat packet. Conchita’s signature—organized neatness. Claire’s mail. She’d forgotten she’d asked Conchita to forward it.
A letter from her great-aunt Charlotte in Milwaukee. A reminder from AAA—her membership expired in thirty days. A condolence card (right on time) from someone she’d never heard of in Florida. Must be another of Liam’s business associates. A postcard from Frank’s Luxury Auto Service, the forty thousand mile reminder for Liam’s Range Rover.
Claire almost doubled over.
She didn’t want to remember but too bad so sad. Her sober brain had other ideas.
“Hey, it’s Frank. You had an appointment this morning?”
“Oh I... umm... I... what?” Claire almost fell, tangled in her bath towel, sopping hair slapping her cheek. The only reason she answered the phone in the first place was because she thought it was Guillermo.
“You were going to bring Liam’s Range Rover in this morning? The brakes.” Frank yelled over the mechanic noise in the background, the clatter in Claire’s head.
Did he think she was a servant? “Conchita must’ve—”
“No. Liam said she was off today. You were going to bring it. I offered to send someone to pick it up. He turned me down. Said you guys worked it out on your end?”
Shit. Crap. Forgot. “Yeah... well—”
She rummaged through the nightstand halfway listening to Frank’s mechanic lingo. “Those brakes won’t hold up, pads are about gone. I told Liam that the last time he was here. You know Liam, never wants to take the time. He’ll be out of time if he slams on those—”
“Sorry, Frank. I had a... thing. I’ll call you back in a few to reschedule.”
“Who was that?” Liam rushed in.
Claire plonked down the receiver.
“Oh... ah... Jordan. He’s... he might come to town. Wants to have dinner or something.”
“I gotta go. I’m late as usual.” He grabbed his car keys, didn’t glance in her direction, or even make listening sounds. “I’ve got that presentation.”
Claire would’ve met her husband’s eyes had he been looking at her. She picked up her empty wine glass, held it aloft in a mock toast.
“Good luck with that.”
Her trembling fingers felt the raised letters of the printed address on the card like a Braille reader. Somewhere in Rob Rhino’s house a phone rang. Like it had the day Liam died. Her eyes closed, slow, deliberate, weighed down.
Claire’d never told Liam she hadn’t gotten the brakes fixed.
They’d held out a while longer after the missed repair appointment. Not long enough. She’d never said a thing. Not even when he’d stormed out in a rage that day while she screamed at his back. She’d followed him to the garage, never letting up. The driver’s door slammed behind him.
Claire’d wished him dead, knowing it was a definite possibility.
****
“What are you doing?” Rob hit the floor on both knees.
Claire, caught, but not caring, barely glanced in his direction. “Where’d you put ’em all?” All of Rob’s period-correct kitchen cabinets hung open. The subzero restaurant size fridge waved open, its contents in chaos. Claire’s bony ass stuck out of the last cabinet she searched, under the sink.
“No drugs under there.” Rob tried to squeeze into the cabinet with her.
“I know.” She pushed him out, sucked herself out too. “It’s not my birthday.”
“What’s going on?” He yanked her by the arms, sat her upright.
“Where’d you put the beer?”
“I threw it out.” Rob sat cross-legged across from her on the black and white tiled floor. “You didn’t answer me. You’ve been doing so well.” He looked stricken.
Claire lay prone on the cold floor. Must be what it’s like in the morgue on a slab.
“Rob Rhino. Give it up. You can’t save me.” The tears ran down her neck. “I don’t want to be saved.”
“I want it enough for the both of us. That’s enough for now.” Rob lay next to her.
“Rob, it’s not that simple... it’s—”
“It’s like they say, as stupid as it sounds. One day, one hour at a time.” Rob gripped her hand.
“You don’t know me, Rob. I’m not worth saving.” Claire took her hand away from his. “I’m not what you think I am.” She wrinkled up the corner of her T-shirt with one hand. “Underneath the anger is... something else.”
He snatched her hand back. “I know, Claire. I know about Liam.”
“What about him?”
“You know. The car. The brakes.”
Claire went still. “You can’t possibly—”
“You told me. About not getting the brakes fixed.” He clutched her hand tight as if he knew she’d try to run. “You got stoned, drunk, forgot about the appointment. Forgot to tell Liam. Then he got in the car, you were so angry, still half pie-eyed—”
“How—” She cried out the words in a rasp. “I never told you.”
“You did. That night in your hotel room, the night you’d had dinner with Liam’s family, and called me. The first time you almost overdosed. It was just you and me.”
“You’ve known all this time.” Not a question.
Quid pro quo, Rob Rhino.
“Gloria?” she prodded. Their hands stayed clasped.
“What about her?”
“What happened to her?”
His breathing stayed even. “Her heroin addiction ruled us. We had nowhere to go but down.”
“And?” Claire propped her foot on his calf. They lay still on the cold floor.
“We had her trust fund money so I had to cut that off, discourage the supply. She started whoring herself out for cash.” His voice got quieter. “I’d come home, there were men there, off the street, zipping up. She sold our car. Got the clap.” Claire could hear him start to cry. “I had to give her the money back. Thought it was the lesser of two evils.”
Claire wanted to say something, nothing came to mind.
“With cash there was no stopping her. She’d overdose once a week. Looked like shit, dead woman walking. She’d started crushing pills and snorting them too ’cause she’d fucked her veins up so bad she could never hit one with the needle. When she was too high to do either of those she’d gulp ’em by the handfuls. She was so loaded, such a fucking mess, she couldn’t s
wallow, almost choked to death every time.”
Claire’s disgraceful memory of Rob’s adeptness at finger induced vomiting made her stiffen.
Rob paused, maybe to summon courage, maybe to reconsider his confession. “Gloria was hell bent, headed to the grave. Time was the only question.”
“Some people are. Can’t save them from themselves.”
Lame, but what else could she say? It’s what she felt about Gloria, about herself. Without letting go of Rob’s hand she closed what little gap there was between them on the floor, her body pressed right next to his for shelter, comfort. To make him keep talking, make him stay.
“That last day, I knew she couldn’t last. I couldn’t either. I knew she’d never get help. She’d made that clear. I’d grown to hate what she’d become, what I’d become with her.” Rob covered his face with the hand that wasn’t hanging on to Claire’s. “She was so high, weighed next to nothing. Her beauty trashed like a used syringe. She tried to swallow a bunch of pills, started choking. As long as I live, I’ll never forget that look on her face, the pleading. She thought I’d put my fingers down her throat like I always did, keep her alive. Only I didn’t.”
Claire stared at the ceiling, watched the faux turn-of-the-century gaslight fixture.
“I left her there to die like a junkie in her own vomit.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Claire drifted into the back-room office in time to hear Freddie Eddie utter the most disturbing words she’d heard him say since they’d been introduced.
“You know you’re my only baby doll.”
Rob Rhino sat at one desk, his bifocals perched at the end of his nose, stubby fingers hunting and pecking at the keyboard in front of him. Einstein with a dyed combover. Melissa worked at the desk next to Rob’s at a much quicker pace while Freddie Eddie continued a cutesy wootsy convo with some poor sap on the other end of the phone at the desk toward the back.
“Hey you.” Rob looked up from his computer screen, his heavy head swaying ever so slightly like a giant bobblehead. “Thought you were napping.”
“Stuff to do.” She leaned against the doorjamb, manila envelope firmly in hand. Claire couldn’t take her eyes off Freddie Eddie. Cupcake? Get outta town.
Rob looked over his glasses.
Melissa piped up. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
The girl had a brain and a halo.
“No, but thank you,” Claire said. “Oh wait. Actually there is something. Can I sit at one of these desks to finish going through my mail?”
She could’ve used the dining room or stayed holed up in her bedroom, but truth be told since their mutual purges Claire’d felt shaken. She wanted to be near Rob. He had that way about him. He made her feel safe, despite his story. Rob was like a quilt in the winter. Without him she felt cold, exposed. Besides, who was she to cast stones? Maybe he should be scared of her.
“Pick any one.” Melissa smiled like an angel, motioned around the room.
Claire plopped down at the first empty desk next to Melissa’s.
“I’m making a mess of this. Back in the day we used pens and paper.” Rob Rhino peered down, his eyes traveled back and forth, searching. “Aha, M, there it is.” He hit the key with a loud clack. “God my eyes are worse than yours Claire Corrigan.”
“Didn’t you learn to type, Doctor?” Claire said.
“Yes. I am typing.” Rob’s sausage fingers stabbed out a key here and there.
Freddie Eddie hung up after making kissing sounds into the receiver. Claire almost gagged. “Afternoon Claire. Are you feeling better?” Freddie Eddie said his eyes reptilian.
They hadn’t exchanged two words since their confrontation her first day in Rob’s house. Claire tried to peer into his mouth to see his forked tongue.
“Been gone too long, usually don’t stay away from the missus more than a week or two,” Freddie Eddie announced to the room.
Away from who?
“He gets all moony after a few days.” Rob rolled his eyes. “You’d think they were newlyweds.”
Did he say missus?
Melissa giggled, kept clacking away, diligent at her work.
“You have a missus? There’s a Mrs. Freddie Eddie?” Claire didn’t hide her horror.
Apparently not the sensitive type Freddie Eddie let out a loud guffaw and smacked the desk top with the flat of his hand. “Yes, ma’am, there is indeed a Mrs. Freddie Eddie.” Rob Rhino and Melissa cracked up too. “For the past thirty-two years if you can believe it.”
She couldn’t believe it. Freddie Eddie married for over thirty years. And from what she could tell happily. Even he was better marriage material than Claire.
****
“You never told me Freddie Eddie had a wife.”
“Thought I did.”
“Ahh... NO.”
Rob laughed. “Marie’s a kick in the ass.”
“I’ll bet. Probably kicks his ass every day.”
Claire looked around the empty office. The man in question had just waltzed out with the threat he’d see them tomorrow. Right behind Melissa. Rob Rhino and Claire had the place to themselves.
“He’s pretty well behaved.”
“Doesn’t seem that way to me.” Claire had a vague memory of Freddie Eddie and a young usherette in the parking lot at Rob’s speech.
“Oh that’s all show. He’s too chicken.” Rob laughed.
“Doubt it.”
“Marie is... what you’d call... sturdy.” Rob looked down through his glasses at Claire with a you know what I’m talkin’ about look on his face.
“Freddie Eddie married a fat chick?” Claire howled.
“You’re not supposed to say that anymore.” He frowned. “She’s a great Italian cook.”
“Now that’s funny.”
“I’ve heard him call her mommy.”
“Stop. You’re killing me—”
“Oh don’t say that.” Rob’s face crumpled.
Claire stopped, felt bad for her insensitive choice of words. “Oh sorry.”
She looked at his pouting face, his drooping jowls, then burst out laughing again.
“Get over yourself, Rob Rhino. Mommy, for Chrissake.”
****
She took another pass at her mail. After sorting through it earlier and finding the reminder card from Randy she’d stopped. Randy’s Luxury Auto Service’s postcard rested comfortably in the trash so Claire could buck up and carry on. Rob resumed his hunt and peck. She tried to squint her way through.
“Do I look like I want a Victoria’s Secret credit card?” Claire huffed, shooting silent accusations in Rob’s direction, tearing up an envelope. “Want to know who Victoria’s Secret is? She’s a slut.”
Rob didn’t look up from his keyboard. “Not touching that one with a thirteen inch—” He giggled to himself. “Never mind.”
A small party invitation-sized envelope came up next. No return address. Something disagreeable slinked around her skin. She ran her pencil under the glued flap, tearing it open with a quick rip.
“Jesus Christ. I need to use a computer.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Check your email.
A simple phrase turned ominous. In the decade Claire had known Andrew’s wife Meg, she’d never paid a social call. They’d known each other through their husbands, ran into each other at the occasional holiday or cocktail party, the usual.
“Guess she left me a few messages on my cell. They’re still on it since I’ve never checked them. She gave up.”
Rob shook his fat finger at her. “Maybe you should get with it, start taking care of business.”
Claire balled the engraved stationary in her fist, the MC monogram crumpled. The note had been short. Meg had tried to reach Claire by phone, no luck. She had information Claire might find interesting.
Claire and Rob Rhino sat close to the computer screen.
“Wish I had a drink.” Claire keyed in her email address.
“I hear ya
.” Rob rubbed her back. “Use these.” He handed over his bifocals. “Good God woman, get yourself some reading glasses. You’re sad with all that squinting.”
Meg was only too happy to spill her guts, air their dirty laundry. Like thousands of men before him Andrew emailed, texted, Facebooked, and voicemailed his ass into a sling. Complete with photos. Copies of which Meg was delighted to email to Claire as long as she promised not to have him disbarred until after Meg took him to the cleaners.
Here comes da judge.
They read through email after incriminating email detailing less a romance than an extortion scheme. At least on Andrew’s end. Ellen appeared pretty clueless, at least from her side of the correspondence. Claire almost pitied her. Andrew talked money almost exclusively.
She spends more on drugs.
We need to speed this up. She might not live to trial.
She has no idea your lawyer is me.
They shared Rob’s glasses and each read to themselves. Claire could feel herself get tense, her eyes fill. Without taking his eyes off the emails Rob put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her to him. He had her back.
“Oh my god. What the—”
Rob turned back to look at the screen and cackled. “Oh brother.”
There was an all too clear photo of Andrew, naked, alone, and pointing at his not quite but probably the best he could do hard-on with a proud semi-smile on his pampered Botoxed face. His gray hair artfully mussed, his flabby body oiled up ’cause it looked much better that way.
“Oh... gross. If that’s not bad enough he’s got man boobs.” Claire covered her mouth with one hand. She didn’t need the glasses to see what pitiful corner the situation had just turned.
Rob Rhino pointed to Andrew’s crotch and talked to the screen over his glasses. “Claire how do you work that zoom thingy? Dude you call that a prick? Please. Stop embarrassing yourself. I could beat that with a—”
Claire elbowed Rob in his gut.
“Stop it.”
****
She got up to stretch her legs, to try to absorb some of what she’d read. There seemed to be no end to the emails. She couldn’t read anymore.
The Last Day For Rob Rhino Page 21
