The Cove
Page 82“I’d love to hear you. Why can’t we go?”
He gave her a slow smile. “You’d really like to go?”
“I’d really like to go.”
“Okay. The chances are nobody would even begin to recognize you, but let’s get you a wig anyway, and big dark glasses.” He knew that tomorrow he, Sally, and Dillon would leap into this mess feetfirst. He couldn’t wait to meet Scott Brainerd. He couldn’t wait to meet Dr. Beadermeyer. He hadn’t told Sally yet. He wanted to give her today with no hassles from him, from anybody. He wanted to see her smile.
“James, do you think I could call a couple of my friends?”
“Who are they?”
“Women who work on the Hill. I haven’t spoken to them since more than six months ago. Well, I did call one of them just before I left Washington to go to The Cove. Her name is Jill Hughes. I asked her for a loan. She agreed, very quickly, and wanted to meet me. There was something about how she acted—I didn’t go. I’d like to call Monica Freeman. She was my very best friend. She was out of town before. I want to see how she acts, what she has to say to me. Perhaps I’m paranoid, but I just want to know who’s there for me.”
She didn’t sound the least bit sorry for herself. Still, he felt a knife twist in his gut.
She called Monica Freeman, a powerhouse administrator in HUD. She was embarrassed because she had to call Information for the number. She’d known it as well as her own before Scott.
The phone rang twice, three times, then, “Hello.”
“Monica? It’s Sally.”
James was bent over, writing something.
There was a long pause. “Sally? Sally Brainerd?”
“Yes. How are you, Monica?”
“Sally, where are you? What’s going on?”
There was another long pause. “Sally, listen. Tell me where you are.”
“No, Monica, I can’t do that.”
“Let me call Scott. He can come and get you. Where are you, Sally?”
“You never called him Scott before, Monica. You didn’t like him, remember? You used to call him a jerk when you knew I was listening. You wanted to protect me from him. You used to tell me he was into power and that he was trying to separate me from all my friends. Don’t you remember how you’d call after Scott and I were married and ask me first thing if Scott was gone so we could really talk? You didn’t like him, Monica. Once you told me I should kick him in the balls.”
There was utter silence, then, “I was wrong about him. He’s been very concerned about you, Sally. He came to me hoping you would call and that I would help him.
“Scott’s a good man, Sally. Let me call him for you. He and I can meet you someplace, we—”
Sally very gently punched the off button on the portable phone.
She’d been thinking that hell couldn’t feel worse than she felt now, but he’d put a ridiculous twist on it, like the best of the spin doctors. “I don’t know. She’s certainly changed her tune, just like Jill. Two? I doubt it, James. He was always so busy. I think his deals were more exhilarating to him than mere sex.”
“What kind of deals?”
“He was in my dad’s law firm, something I didn’t know until after we were married. That sounds weird but it’s true. He didn’t want me to know, obviously, until after we were married. He was in international finance, working primarily with the oil cartel. He would come home rubbing his hands together, telling me how this deal or that deal would impress everybody, how he’d gotten the better of such and such a sheikh and had just brought in a cool half million. Deals like that.”
“How long were you married to him?”
“Eight months.” She blinked and fiddled with the leaves of a healthy philodendron. “Isn’t it odd? I don’t count the six months in the sanitarium.”
“That’s not a very long time for a marriage, Sally. Even mine—a semi-unmitigated disaster—lasted two years.”