Chapter Thirteen
There are only two places in
the league—first place
and no place.
— Tom Seaver, pitcher
Jack could have kicked himself back to Whitehall, but once he had kicked himself around the motel room, he decided it would be faster if he took the plane. Which he did, taking off at midnight once Mort had found, awakened, and bribed the pilot.
Having lost his small package of airsick pills, Jack was forced to anesthetize himself with several small bottles from the plane’s minibar. His first drink was to calm his nerves as the plane raced down the runway. The second was to hopefully blot out the raw hell he’d felt on discovering that Keely had bolted, run away. The third got him through some turbulence over Oklahoma and the fourth—well, after the third, everything became pretty much of a blur.
Jack, his luggage, and his hangover arrived back at the house around eight fifteen in the morning, at which time he decided to shower, nap, and make out his will, probably not in that order. Then, before Keely could arrive, he would come up with a plan to make her love him, forgive him, and not kill him—again, probably not in that order.
The cab he’d grabbed at the airport rolled up to the front door, stopping behind a gray compact sedan Jack didn’t recognize. He overtipped the driver, grabbed a canvas bag, his single piece of luggage, and headed for the steps. He’d made it to the second step before two huge arms wrapped around him from behind, lifted him clear off the ground, and carried him to the side of the house, his bag still hanging from his shoulder.
Only his hangover, and the resultant loss of brain function and reflexes, kept him from struggling until he was rather gently set back down on his feet in front of Petra Polinski.
“Thank you, Sweetness, that was perfect,” Petra said as the grinning, bald mountain patted Jack’s shirt, as if smoothing away any injuries, and then joined Petra, the two of them now facing Jack.
“Yes, thank you, Sweetness,” Jack said, wondering if either of them had noticed that the top of his head had just cracked open. Then he looked at Petra, blinked, and looked at her again.
The girl was dressed in sharply creased navy slacks, shoes and socks, and a crisply starched white blouse. She had her hair, all the same color, tied back at her nape, she was wearing horn-rimmed glasses, and she was carrying a book... Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
“What the hell...” Jack asked, making a sweeping motion toward Petra. “And why the hell...?” he continued, pointing at Sweetness.
“She’s here,” Petra said, whispering, almost hissing the words.
“She? Who she?” Then Jack’s blood ran cold. “Cecily? Cecily’s here?”
“You wish,” Petra said, rolling her eyes. “Her we could deal with, according to Aunt Sadie. No, Jack, your cousin isn’t here. The county social worker is here. She showed up about twenty minutes ago, but Jimmy had already tipped us off, so I had a chance to change, try to make a good impression.”
Oh, God, but his head hurt. And his stomach was doing somersaults. “Why would you have to make a good impression, Petra? You’re not going for custody.”
“No, but I am the caretaker you hired, and I therefore reflect your judgment, your concern for Candy. Honestly, Jack, try to keep up, okay?”
“She put Ms. Peters in the kitchen with Aunt Sadie,” Sweetness said helpfully. “Aunt Sadie found out from your agent that you were going to be home soon, so she’s stalling, but Ms. Peters wants to see Candy, and you and Keely.”
“Oh, God,” Jack groaned, pressing both hands against his head, trying to think. “Oh God, oh God, oh God. Look—you go keep Aunt Sadie company and I’ll go shower and change.”
“Yes, and brush your teeth,” Petra told him. “You smell like my dad after one of his lodge meetings. Been knocking them back, haven’t you, Jack? I guess it’s just a blessing you didn’t come home wearing a moose head. Must have been one bummer of a trip, if Keely’ s coming home on a different plane. Now go on—chop-chop. Sadie’s good, but she can’t hold this woman off forever.”
Jack nodded, then wished he hadn’t, because his head fell off, rolled off over the grass—or at least it felt like that. He took two steps, then turned around, asked, “Joey? Where’s Two Eyes? Please tell me he’s locked in the cellar.”
Petra shook her head as she rolled her eyes. “Men. You don’t understand a thing, do you? Joey’s in the kitchen with Aunt Sadie and Ms. Peters, of course. Where else would you want a jerk like that except front and center, proving he’s a jerk?”
“Oh, okay. Right,” Jack said, nodding. “And Candy? She’s with them, too?”
“No. Her we locked in the cellar. Of course she’s with them,” Petra told him. “Where else would she be if she’s not with us?”
“Damn,” Jack swore under his breath. He’d wanted to see Candy, hold Candy—grab her up, find Keely, and move all three of them out of the reach of the social worker. But he couldn’t do any of that, not before he’d showered and changed. “Give me ten minutes, Sweetness, then bring me a fistful of aspirin and some orange juice, okay? Oh, and thanks. Both of you.”
Then he was off once more, heading for the front door, the staircase, and the coldest shower he could manage.
He was still towel-drying his hair when Sweetness walked into the room, carrying the orange juice, a small white bottle of pills, and the cordless phone. “Your lawyer,” he said, handing the phone to jack. “Jimmy? She’s here, the social worker is here,” Jack said without preamble. “What do I do? Do I say anything? Do I tell her anything?” Then he listened, and paced, and listened and paced some more before pushing the OFF button and throwing the phone on the bed. “Damn.”
“Trouble, Mr. T?” Sweetness asked, wringing his hamlike hands.
“Not yet, Sweetness,” Jack assured him, then sighed. “Not yet, but it’s coming. My lawyer thinks the private investigators he hired may already have located Cecily, and he’s only half sure that’s a good thing.”
“Uh-huh,” Sweetness said, tapping three aspirin into his palm, then handing them, and the orange juice, to Jack. “What’s the half sure it’s a bad thing?”
Jack looked at Sweetness with new respect. “You’re right on top of this, aren’t you, Sweetness? The bad thing is that Cecily, if we tell her what’s going on, might just fly back here and try to take Candy. Then we’d have a three-way battle for custody, and it would get even uglier. Joey, I figure I can handle, but Cecily is Candy’s biological mother, and if she does her crying, hiccuping, poor-little-me thing, some judge might just believe she really cares about the baby. Which is bull, because she left her, didn’t she? Hasn’t even called to see how she is, nothing. Typical irresponsible Cecily. So Jimmy says I’m to just play nice until he can contact Cecily himself, feel her out about handing over custody.”
Sweetness nodded his large head. “So you still need Keely. Petra said you’d still need Keely. Petra said you screwed up somehow, but Keely will still probably bail you out, because she loves Candy, even if you made her mad. Oh, and Ms. Peters wants to meet her, anyway, because she’s taking care of Candy. Mr. T? You’re still looking a little funny. Maybe you should have a bologna sandwich or something? I always feel better when I have a bologna sandwich.”
Mention of Keely had brought back all the rest of Jack’s problems, the most major being that he didn’t know where Keely was, if she’d even come back, and how he could ever explain to her that he didn’t normally all but attack women in a sexual frenzy. He’d wanted her so badly, and she was sending him signals, wasn’t she, and maybe it was a little crazy the way they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, and how quickly they’d fallen into bed together. But then he’d tried to put some space between them so that she could collect herself, so he could collect himself, and he’d come back out of the bathroom to an empty room. When he’d thought of space, he’d thought from the motel bedroom to the bathroom. Keely, obviously, thought it better to put several states betwee
n them.
“Mr. T? A bologna sandwich?” Sweetness offered once more.
“Thanks, but I’ll pass. Has Keely called?” he asked, facing the mirror, drawing a comb through his still-damp hair.
“No, sir, she hasn’t, but Mr. Moore did, and he said he’s right on top of things, and that her plane should be landing at the airport here at nine this morning. Petra and me, we’re gonna go meet her there, explain everything so that she knows what’s up. We were going to leave just as you showed up, so I have to go now or we’ll be late.”
Jack glanced at the clock radio on the table beside his bed. Twenty till nine. “You’re cutting it close, Sweetness. Get moving. We can’t have Keely just walk into this cold.”
“Yes, sir,” Sweetness agreed, already heading for the door. “Whoops, almost forgot. Aunt Sadie says you should have that box, so you and Keely look like you’re not lying.”
Jack waited until Sweetness had gone, then picked up the small blue velvet box on the dresser, opening it to see his mother’s engagement ring tucked inside.
Would Keely wear it? Would she go along with the fraud in order to save Candy from Cecily and Joey? Would she go so far as to marry Jack in order to keep Candy safe? Would she agree to marry him, not loving him, not even hearing from him that he loved her?
He really had to talk to her.
“Sure, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll grab her before she can say anything, tell her the social worker is here and we have to save Candy, slip a diamond on her hand and, real quick, I tell her, oh yeah, and I love you—desperately—and that makes everything all right and you can just forget going back to New York and all that career stuff, right? Why wouldn’t she go for that, believe that?” Jack muttered, taking the diamond ring from the case and stuffing it in his pocket. “God, I’m a dead man.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed, put his head in his hands, and decided his Aunt Sadie couldn’t do too much damage if he delayed his entrance just another ten minutes.