Hold Me in Contempt (38 page)

I smiled through my racked nerves and went to get the bag. “Thank you,” I said, picking it up. “I don't where my brain is.”

When I exited the hospital, it was a little after 3 a.m., so most of the reporters were gone or asleep in their vans double-parked in the street. I walked quickly with my head down and turned two corners, dropping my cell phone into a garbage can on the first corner and my purse into a garbage can on the second corner.

Just before the third corner, I saw a shabby taxicab with a man in a turban sitting in the front seat.

Chapter 15

T
he fog was so thick when Baboo pulled into the drive in front of Teterboro, there was no way I could believe my flight, or anyone's flight, would be leaving out of the small, private New Jersey airport that June morning. It was just five o'clock, but so hot and muggy outside, the tight air looked like white smoke or milk you could catch in a cup and drink.

I rolled down the back window and reached outside to test the elements. To find a sign, an omen telling me what I should or shouldn't do. I was seeking something to help me make a decision I'd thought I already made when I walked out of Mount Sinai and discarded my belongings into public trash receptacles. My hand in the fog, I reminded myself that it wasn't too late to turn back. To turn myself in.

I tried to hold the fog in my hand. To grasp it and remember the shadows of my life. I was Kimberly Kind. An attorney at law. That was all I was. All I'd achieved. I wanted more. So much more. And I wanted it with King. If I stayed, that would never happen. I realized that when I was talking to Paul in his hospital room. He was never going to give up.

Baboo stopped in front of the terminal.

I pulled my arm in and rolled up the window.

Baboo turned around to me and smiled in his silent way that said so many things. He was wearing his white turban with gold piping around the edges.

“You ready, miss?” he asked so simply.

“I guess so.” I sniffled and blinked to hold back contemplative tears.

He got out of the car and left his door open, so the dinging from the car alarm blared a warning signal.

I looked out around the car and tried to see my old world through the fog. There was nothing.

My door opened and Baboo was standing there with a slender white man in a black jacket, who was smiling at me.

“Queen Donnelly?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Welcome to Teterboro Airport. I'm Pope. I'll be escorting you to your jet,” he said.

I got out holding an envelope Baboo had handed me when I'd gotten into the car in Manhattan. There was a passport inside. “Queen Donnelly” was beside the actual picture from one of my older driver's licenses.

“No bags, Ms. Donnelly?” Pope posed, looking into the car behind me.

“No. Just me.”

“Well, right this way then.” He smiled again and turned to lead me through the sliding glass door in front of the terminal.

I started walking, but then I stopped. “Wait a second,” I said, turning back to Baboo and running toward him. I embraced him and tried to find in his hold everyone I couldn't say good-bye to. “Thank you,” I said to him and all of them. “I'll be back.”

I let Baboo go and walked into the airport, promising myself I wouldn't look back again. I didn't realize where I was going until Pope mentioned that I'd be flying on one of Meridian's private jets to Belize. There was another family, the Quinns, who'd be flying with me. If I wasn't okay with that, he could have Ladouceur enlist better accommodations.

“That's fine,” I said as we walked right through security and toward a small waiting area that was just steps away. Five chairs were organized before doors that led out to the tarmac where a G6 was being catered to by a crew armed with hoses and brushes.

“Don't worry about the fog. Meridian's pilots are the best money can buy. Everything will be fine,” Pope said, looking at me. “Just relax. We do everything from here.”

Once the Quinns, a fortyish couple with teen twins in matching Polo outfits, made it to the gate and we boarded the plane, it seemed like the fog dissipated into wind.

I sat in a cushy single recliner toward the back of the plane. There were only three rows though. And one long leather couch the twins had already commandeered. I looked out the window. The sun had just made it over the horizon and burst through the clouds.

I remembered the first flight I'd ever taken. My mother's mother had died and we were taking her body back to Church, Florida, for burial. My parents could only really afford one ticket, but my mother insisted my father find some money so I could go with her. I was just six, but she said she wanted me to see where her people were from. I honestly don't remember anything about the trip. Just the flight. It wasn't a G6, but it was a big deal to be on that airplane. My mother let me sit next to the window. She held my hand and told me not to be afraid. To look right out at the sky and not blink. She said, “There's only rumbling when you're going through the clouds. After that, you'll be the closest to God you can get without dying.”

I looked out the circular window from my seat in the back of the G6. We weren't above the clouds yet. The pilot was talking to us over the intercom, something about turbulence ahead and fine weather at our final destination.

After the plane sped up and kicked off from the earth, I looked down at blue flashing lights rolling down the highway toward Teterboro.

“Say good-bye to the big city,” the pilot said over the intercom. “Paradise awaits.”

Acknowledgments

To Kevin Hunter and Jill Ramsey, my business partners. Thank you for your patience and understanding. To my father, thank you for giving me your love of books. Both reading them and writing them. To Mommy, for giving me my zest for life and a fertile imagination. And finally to my son, Kevin. You're my special gift from God. We begged for you! You're smart, intuitive, and insightful. Thank you for being you. I love you very much!

Also by Wendy Williams

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Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

HOLD ME IN CONTEMPT
. Copyright © 2014 by Wendy Williams. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Designed by Diahann Sturge

ISBN 978-0-06-226841-9

EPUB Edition April 2014 ISBN 9780062268433

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