Kill the Competition (48 page)

Belinda's jaw dropped. "That's amazing... and so generous."

Libby beamed. "I'm the most popular woman at the office."

"I'm going to pay off my Thunderbird," Carole said.

"Are you staying with Gustav?" Belinda asked.

"Oh, good gravy, don't get her started."

Carole grinned sheepishly. "I finally slept with him, and it was just... magical. I think Gustav is the person Ricky was talking about when he said the love of my life was right under my nose."

Belinda sighed. "Martin Derlinger is going to be heartbroken." She cleared her throat mildly, then asked, "So... how are things at the office?"

"You'll be happy to know," Libby said, "that Brita found your missing evaluation form in the crack between Margo's desk and her printer stand. It was simply lost—how ironic is that?"

"Mr. Archer is like his old self again," Rosemary said, her cheeks glowing. "He's coming back to work fulltime, for a year at least. And he sent Tal off to rehab."

"Did you give Mr. Archer the Payton contracts?"

"Yes, but he said he's turning it all over to you when you return."

Belinda exhaled. Employed—whew.

"He feels terrible about what you've been through, Belinda. I think he's hoping you'll be willing to take over Margo's position."

"Me?"

"And he said he was going to talk to Jim Newberry about coming back."

More good news.

"Are any of these flowers from Vince?" Carole asked, looking around the room.

Belinda stroked Downey's fur and shook her head. "No one back there knows anything about all this, not even my folks."

"How have you kept it from them?"

"My folks are on a cross-country trip, and I... haven't really made an effort to stay in touch with anyone in Cincy." She looked at Libby and gave her a little smile. "But I'm going to."

"You once told me," Carole said, "to ask you on another day what Vince was like."

Belinda nodded and lay her head back on the pillow. "Vince was..." Memories eluded her, already more distant than just yesterday. "Vince was a rerun."

The girls smiled, and Libby snapped her fingers. "I'm going to use that in the book!"

"Oh, not the book again," Rosemary said, rolling her eyes.

A rap on the door sounded. They scrambled to get Downey back in the bag, then Belinda called, "Come in."

Wade Alexander stuck his head in. "Maybe I should come back later?"

"No," Rosemary said quickly. "We were just leaving."

Libby frowned. "But—"

"Come on, Libby." Rosemary winked at Belinda and reached forward to squeeze her hand. "I have one for
your
book, Belinda."

"What?"

"DO hold out for your happy ending."

Belinda squeezed back. "Someday, Rosemary. Thank you."

The girls shuffled out, smuggling Downey with them. Wade waited until they were clear of the door before he entered. He was off-duty, wearing dark jeans and a pale blue dress shirt, carrying a sheath of wildflowers.

She was sure she looked like two kinds of hell and vacillated between wanting to touch him and wanting to become invisible.

"Hi," he said.

"Hello." She played with the hem of the sheet. "I don't know how I can thank you for... everything."

"I was just—"

"Doing your job," she finished. "I know. But you helped me through this nightmare, and saved my life at least twice, so let me say thank you."

He nodded. "You're welcome." He looked at the flowers around her. "I brought you these, but it doesn't look like you need them."

She reached for them and inhaled their light scent. "They're lovely. Will you sit for a few minutes? But I warn you, it's ten minutes until Jell-O, and I never miss Jell-O."

He gave her a little smile and sat on the edge of the chair next to her bed. "You're feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, everything is going to be... fine. Really."

"Where will you be staying?"

She shrugged. "I was thinking about getting a place ITP if I can afford it, cut down on the commute."

"Inside the perimeter, huh? By the way, you should have your car back in about a week."

"Great."

"Yeah."

She sighed and he shifted, and the silence was sticky.

"I came to apologize," he said finally.

Her eyebrows shot up. "For what?"

"For the way things between us ended."

Ended. "No reason to apologize."

"You were partially right," he said, clasping his hands together. "I was convinced Hardeman was guilty. I let my prejudice get in the way."

"You had good reason to believe he was guilty."

He inhaled. "But you were wrong about the reason I slept with you."

She toyed with the flowers. "It's okay, Wade. I'm not looking for a relationship, and neither are you. I'm still trying to acclimate. We got caught up in the moment, and it was fun. End of story."

"End of story?"

She angled her head. "Don't make this any more awkward than it has to be. We're both adults. Let's just chalk it up to the drama and part as friends."

He pursed his mouth. "Okay."

"Okay."

He stood. "Okay then."

"Okay."

"Stay out of trouble."

She smiled. "I'm reformed."

He smiled back, then walked to the door and looked back. "Call me if... anything."

"I will." She smiled until the door closed behind him, then turned over and snuggled against her pillow. Things were good... considering.

Chapter 33

"It's a great day in Hotlanta, folks—unless you're drivin'. The connector is backed up due to a wreck in the center lane and it's causin' fits for the HERO units. I-285 eastbound is a parkin' lot because a water main break at the Ashford-Dunwoody exit left about six inches of water standin' on the road. The two leftmost lanes of southbound I-75 are closed for repavin' from Windy Hill all the way to North Avenue—whew, it's ugly out there. This is Talkin' Tom Trainer for MIXX 100 FM traffic."

Belinda turned down the volume on her earbuds and smiled as the MARTA train slowed at her stop. Julian was in good form today after being off the air for eight weeks. And he sounded rejuvenated—she hoped he had put his demons to rest. It seemed that no one, not even a smooth-talking celebrity, was immune to the torture of unrequited love.

When the train doors slid open, she exited onto the platform along with dozens of other in-town commuters and set off walking toward the city hall building, where she would pay the fines for her tickets and put that part of her life behind her.

Her driving life, that is. Oh, she had obtained her Georgia driver's license for emergencies (with requisite dreadful picture), but when her Civic had been returned to her, she'd realized she didn't want to drive around the car that had once held her boss's body. So she'd sold the car through the want ads and bought a scooter. Very chic. Very in-town. Very slow.

And perfect for her twelve-block commute to Archer on the days she didn't walk or ride MARTA. She missed the carpool companionship, but her one-bedroom apartment in Midtown provided a walking lifestyle that made her feel much more connected to the city. (Once a week she stopped at the corner of Peachtree and 13th Street and left a flower in the memory of a wonderfully creative writer and her untimely end.) And besides seeing the girls every day at the office, they all met for lunch at least twice a week to dish about life in general and to work on the book.

Her cell phone rang. At this time of day, it could only be a wrong number or a work emergency. She withdrew the phone from her bag and glanced at the screen. Or her mother. She connected the call. "Hi, Mom."

"I called your office, but your assistant Brita said you had taken the morning off."

She smiled. "I had to run some errands. Is something wrong?"

Her mother made fretting noises. "Well, I just heard something very upsetting. Mrs. Lakes in my garden club—you remember her, she used to teach Sunday school."

"Yes," Belinda said, wondering where this was going.

"Well, Mrs. Lakes has a nephew in Atlanta who was here to attend a Reds game—he's a pharmaceutical sales rep—and he said he saw something in the Atlanta paper a few weeks ago about a woman named Belinda Hennessey being mixed up with two murders, and said it had something to do with a furniture company, too. Isn't that strange?"

Belinda swallowed hard. "Yes, that's very strange."

"Well, I told Mrs. Lakes that it simply couldn't be you... could it?"

Dredging up all the terrible things that had happened would serve no useful purpose, and it would only give her mother nightmares. Besides, she didn't even feel like the same person who had come to Atlanta in the spring, afraid of herself and emotionally inaccessible.

"Atlanta is a big city, Mom. It must have been a different Belinda Hennessey."

Barbara Hennessey emitted a musical sigh of relief. "Of course it was. I'll call Mrs. Lakes and let her know. Are you looking forward to Suzanne's visit?"

"Yes, I have all kinds of things planned for us to do." She was pleased that Suzanne had responded so warmly to her e-mail messages and phone calls. The women had developed a stronger bond through correspondence than they'd had when they had both lived and worked in Cincy. Suzanne promised she was bringing the silver candlesticks as a housewarming gift for Belinda's new place.

"Have you seen that handyman lately?"

Belinda's heart strummed. "Um, no, Mom, I haven't. We were just friends."

"I could give your number to Mrs. Lakes to pass along to her nephew."

"Um, no, Mom, thanks anyway."

"Okay, well, I'll let you get to your errands. Your father says hello."

"Give him my love. I'll talk to you soon."

Belinda hung up and heaved a sigh of relief. That was close. At least the phone call had taken her nearly to the steps of City Hall. A few minutes later, she entered the double doors and stopped at the information desk for directions to the courtroom where she was scheduled to appear. It was more like a classroom, the woman explained to her, nothing to be nervous about. She would show her driver's license and pay her fines and would once again be in good standing with the city of Atlanta.

Belinda couldn't very well explain she wasn't nervous because of the courtroom, she was nervous because the ticket resurrected memories she didn't want to revisit. Wade Alexander had certainly forgotten all about her, had moved on to other damsels in distress. The reason she still thought about him at night wasn't that she had fallen for him, but that she was so grateful for all he had done for her.

And
to
her.

Because it was nice to know that she had the capacity to evoke and experience that kind of passion with a man. But if she allowed herself to be lulled into the belief that it could happen only with Wade Alexander, well, then she would be, as Libby would say, "in a bad way."

She found the courtroom, where she sat on a folding chair with dozens of other traffic criminals. She had come armed with reading material, though—the first complete draft of the DOs and DON'Ts manuscript that Libby had finished. And it was actually very good—entertaining, insightful, hopeful. Libby had begrudgingly conceded to Rosemary's traditional outlook by devoting the last chapter to "DO hold out for your happy ending."

Almost two hours later, her name was called. As she approached the podium and the tiny microphone, she remembered Julian's offer to have the tickets taken care of, and for a split second, she wished she had taken him up on it. At the podium, she stood while the lady judge read the violations.

"Is the ticketing officer in the room?" the judge asked. "A Lieutenant Alexander?"

Belinda's heart jumped to her throat—she hadn't realized he would be here. She glanced surreptitiously to the left and right but didn't see him.

Apparently, the judge didn't see him either. "No?"