A Dangerous Affair Read online

  "Excuse me?"

  "I saw you come off the short bus," the girl explained. "That bus only stops here once a month. Mostly after dark."

  Lloyd pressed on.

  The girl followed. "Were you a dope slinger? A car jacker? You ever kill anybody? The cops found a joint in my cousin's car one time. He told them he'd never seen it before. The cops also found a bag of weed in his glove box. Said he'd never seen that before either. I think they put it there on purpose when he wasn't looking. That kind of shit happens all the time." She took a lighter from her purse. "You don't talk much," she said. She blocked the wind to light her cigarette and blew smoke away from Lloyd. "You want a date?"

  "I'll pass," said Lloyd.

  "You gay?"

  "No."

  "Are you sick in the head?"

  "No."

  "Are you sick in the ass?"

  Lloyd stopped on the broken sidewalk littered with fast food wrappers and discarded cigarettes. "Do your parents know you're out here trying to pick up strangers?"

  "What are you, some kind of Boy Scout? How young do I look to you?"

  Lloyd stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Too young to be out here alone."

  "I'm clean, and I ain't never touched a needle."

  "Go home," Lloyd urged her as a stranger with a smash-nose face inside a hooded sweatshirt approached from a black Escalade with spinning rims.

  "There a problem here?" the man asked Lloyd in a deep, resonating voice. He gave Lloyd the once-over with fierce, deep-set eyes that almost glowed beneath his hood.

  "We're cool," said Lloyd. He turned to follow the arriving bus. "I don't want any trouble," he spoke over his shoulder. He looked directly at the girl and said, "Get on the bus."

  "Look here," the hooded stranger challenged Lloyd. "I run a business. This here's my merchandise. You touch it, you buy it."

  Lloyd watched the group board the bus. "Not tonight."

  The stranger pulled a butterfly knife from his sweatshirt pocket and flashed the blade. "Give up the wallet, motherfucker."

  Lloyd touched his back pocket. "I must have left it at home."

  The stranger pressed the scalpel-sharp blade to Lloyd's throat. "Are you trippin? Give up the wallet or give up your life."

  "You're the boss," Lloyd acknowledged, his heart rate barely higher than his standing pulse. In less time than it took to sneeze, Lloyd disarmed his opponent and barked his heel against the taller man's shin, prompting his attacker to hunch forward. In the same instant, Lloyd yanked the man's head down and smashed his grill against a rising knee, knocking him out cold.

  "Shop's closed," Lloyd mumbled. He stomped the knife with his heel and tossed the broken weapon at the trees. Then he boarded the bus and grabbed the overhead rail, facing opposite the minor irritation in a skirt who claimed a seat between a homeless man and a grandmother clutching her purse.

  "You got some serious anger issues," the girl chastised Lloyd. "You need to cool your jets and find some peace."

  Lloyd switched hands on the rail. "You need to find better friends."

  The girl unwrapped a wad of grape bubble gum and started chewing in earnest. "You got a name?"

  "Lloyd."

  "What kind of medieval name is that?"

  "Mine," Lloyd replied with a hint of attitude. He had enough on his plate without befriending a teenage runaway and all the baggage she brought with her. "Look, I don't know you. You don't know me. Let's leave it at that."

  "Where are you headed?" the girl asked. She blew a softball size bubble.

  "The same place you should be. Home."

  The girl popped the gum with her nail. She tugged at her miniskirt. "What are you staring at?"

  Lloyd held his arm out. "Give me your hand."

  "What for?"

  "Just give me your hand."

  The girl held her hand out, nails up.

  Lloyd turned her wrist. He ran his finger on her palm, tracing the lines that betrayed her tough girl facade. He followed the life line across the middle of her palm between the index finger and the thumb. He studied the shape of the hand and fingers. "You have great potential. Don't squander it."

  The girl tried to pull her hand away, but Lloyd held on.

  "You can read a lot from a person's hands. If you believe that sort of thing."

  "Let go!" the girl exclaimed. "Or the next thing you're gonna read is my fist in your face."

  Lloyd released his grip. "Where do you live?"

  "You're looking at it," the girl replied. "I got nowhere to be. My Mom's dead. My Pop's been in jail forever."

  "I'm sorry."

  She blew a bubble in her mouth and popped it between her teeth. "No matter. I'm an independent business woman now."

  Lloyd followed her hand gestures as she talked. A bundle of human potential wrapped in a pretty package with no direction and a welfare net to catch her fall. A girl starving for a hot meal, a clean bed, and a shoulder to cry on. An easy target for a predator lurking in plain sight with the conscience of a serial killer. "So that's your plan?"

  "You got a better idea?" the girl asked. She rubbed Lloyd's knee. "I can be anyone you want me to be."

  Lloyd pushed her hand away.

  "You got a problem dating black women?"

  "I have a problem dating children."

  "I'm older than you think."

  "And smarter than you pretend to be."

  The girl rolled her eyes. "What are you? My fairy godmother now?"

  Lloyd shifted his weight to his back foot before the bus came to a stop. "I'm getting out. You're staying on."

  The air brakes hissed. The folding doors opened.

  Lloyd took a crumpled Jackson from his wallet and gave it to the girl.

  "What's that for?" she asked him.

  "Your ticket home."

  Chapter 5

  Lloyd recognized the scraggly patch of farmland beyond the town that had sprung up in his absence. In the moonlit distance, single family subdivisions encroached on dormant pastures against a backdrop of felled woodlands laced with sabal palms that once buffered thriving wildlife from human civilization. Two-lane roads had expanded into four. Giant cell phone towers had materialized above the red maple tree lines, like robotic warlords from outer space.

  His boots crunched on the gravel driveway winding to the two-story, wood frame farmhouse crowded by overgrown trees and the constant drone of interstate traffic less than a mile away. On closer inspection, he noticed boarded-up windows and frayed blue tarps covering large gaps of missing shingles on the storm-ravaged roof. Tattered sections of weathered fencing and a faded "For Sale" sign were obscured by patches of creeping beggarweed. To the east, a large pond served as a natural habitat for creatures big and small, including the occasional alligator patrolling the water.

  Lloyd approached the screened front porch overrun with purple jacaranda shrubs and trumpet-shaped hibiscus flowers. For as long as he could remember, the farmhouse belonged to his adoptive parents who helped a troubled teenage boy and showed him love—the same parents who fought hard to keep him out of prison.

  A motion sensor activated a bank of floodlights against the side of the house, exposing the three-car garage.

  A patio door creaked open, followed by the click-clack sound of a lever-action rifle.

  "Who's there?" an elderly woman wearing a flannel nightgown and straw sandals called out in a raspy voice.

  "It's me," Lloyd replied. "I'm home."

  Brenda Sullivan stepped around an iron sugar kettle and studied the stranger in jeans and a white T-shirt. She lowered the Winchester rifle and reached for the folded bifocals in her pocket. "Lloyd?"

  "I would have called, but I don't have a phone."

  "What in God's name are you doing here?"

  "I'm on parole," said Lloyd. "I'm a free man now." He advanced up the porch steps and hugged his mother, a woman who'd spent the latter half of her adult life raising two boys with the hope she'd see both lead happy, successful, lives. Sh
e'd failed on both accounts.

  Brenda swatted a mosquito with her frail, bird-like arm. She lowered the rifle and peered at him. "You look taller and skinnier than I remember," she said. "Don't they feed you in prison?"

  "Three hots and a cot."

  "How'd you get here?"

  "I took the bus and walked," said Lloyd. He smelled the liquor on her breath as he followed her inside the sparsely furnished home with exposed beam ceilings and wicker furniture. "Where's Dad?"

  Brenda ignored the question as she gathered up empty whiskey bottles and threw them in the kitchen trash. "I've been busy."

  "I can tell."

  "There's sliced bread in the pantry," said Brenda. "I keep a jar of chunky peanut butter. The kind you like. I'll let you open it."

  "Is Dad around?"

  "Your father's not with us anymore," she said flatly. "He passed away last year."

  The words hit Lloyd in the stomach like a Terminator punch, knocking the wind out of him before his brain could process the information. "What happened?"

  "I'm sorry you had to find out like this. You weren't the easiest person to get a hold of."

  Lloyd put his hands on his head. "Jesus, Mom you really should have told me. I can't believe he's gone. What happened?"

  Brenda searched the kitchen cabinet for a new bottle. She twisted the cap and filled a dirty glass with Jack Daniels. "It doesn't matter."

  "It does to me."

  "Your brother never made the funeral. Too busy playing with his little whore to pay his respects."

  "Go easy on the sauce," Lloyd cautioned her. "If Dad saw you like this—"

  "I'm not his concern anymore." Brenda steadied herself on the counter. "People live. People die. The cycle of life doesn't stop."

  Lloyd noticed the family photos on the fridge. Pictures of a happier time. "Where's Josh? Or is he dead too?"

  "Don't be morbid. Your brother's still in Lakewood, alive and well. Got himself a girlfriend with a kid that's not his, or so he claims. They share a trailer together."

  Lloyd stepped over piles of dirty laundry in the hall and found more empty bottles than he could carry in both hands. "When did you start drinking like this?"

  "The doctor says my liver's dying. The rest of me is still trying to catch up."

  "You need to quit."

  "And you need to mind your manners. It was hard on all of us when you left. Hard on me. Hard on your father. Harder on Josh more than any of us, I suppose."

  Lloyd poured the contents of an open bottle of Wild Turkey down the sink. "This stuff'll kill you."

  "Hey!" Brenda protested. "I paid good money for that bottle."

  "Spend it on something else."

  "I'll spend my money on whatever the hell I want."

  "Have you looked in the mirror lately?"

  "I'm not the one who went to prison," Brenda scolded her oldest adopted son. "If you'd stayed out of trouble, none of this would have happened."

  "We've all made mistakes," Lloyd confessed. "I've paid for mine."

  "So did your father." Brenda swallowed. Her tongue felt dry. Her hands felt numb. "What are you planning to do now? Sponge off me like your brother does?"

  "I'll find a job."

  "Doing what?"

  Lloyd shrugged. "Anything. Maybe teach."

  Brenda snickered. "No school's going to hire an ex-convict. You might as well tape a sign on your forehead."

  "I'm still the same man I was before."

  "You were the one who could have had a good life. Raised a nice family. Made a name for yourself. But you pissed it away like your brother." She staggered toward him with yellow hues around her red-rimmed eyes. "What happened to you? You were a good kid. Now you come back here with your tattooed arms and your attitude."

  Lloyd watched her wobble on shaky legs. "You should have told me sooner about Dad."

  Brenda swayed in place. "Your father shot himself in the head." She staggered toward Lloyd, well on her way into a drunken stupor. Her eyelids fluttered. "I buried him at Seaside Cemetery. He always did want to live close to the water."

  Lloyd caught her as she passed out in front of him. He checked her pulse before he carried her to her room. Nothing he could say or do would change what happened. That much he knew for certain. Tomorrow would bring a new day, and with it, a chance for a new beginning.

  Chapter 6

  Jamie used a wooden spoon to chip away at a frozen clump of beef stew in a three-quart saucepan on the stove. An under-cabinet radio played a smooth jazz melody from her favorite radio station. The music carried her to a better place. A time when life was simple and unadulterated from the influence of her significant other. A time when her needs came first, and the dormant temper of Alan Blanchart remained as stationary and uneventful as the leftover entrée on her flat top range.

  The music segued to commercials. The washer hit the spin cycle in the laundry room, gyrating the unbalanced load in the oversized tub.

  She sliced a cucumber and added it to the grated carrots and diced tomato in the bowl of mixed greens. She sprinkled fresh parmesan and added homemade croutons to the mix the way Alan liked it.

  With dinner preparations nearly finished, she hung her apron in the pantry and hauled a load of clean laundry from the dryer to her bedroom.

  She folded Alan's shirts in a neat and orderly fashion. She folded his socks and underwear in the same manner, placing each garment in her husband's bureau drawer. Socks to the left. Underwear to the right. White T-shirts belonged in the bottom drawer stacked in piles of three.

  She wiped the sinks in the bathrooms and mopped the floors. She dusted the family room and the dining room table. She took out the trash and cleaned the windows.

  Chores were a fact of life. A nuisance at times, but one she could live with. They kept her busy and provided a welcome distraction from her menial existence as the wife of Sheriff Blanchart. Dreams came and went, yet her married life persisted, despite the challenges and the ambiguity that defined where Alan's life ended and hers began.

  Settled in the quiet, rural suburb of Lakewood, Florida, she kept her business to herself. From all accounts, the neighbors respected her privacy, going out of their way to steer clear of an awkward conversation with the small town sheriff's wife who came and went at prescribed times. Girl Scouts shied away. Trick-or-treaters kept their distance at Halloween. The mailman slipped in and out like a ghost.

  She wiped a smudge from the bathroom mirror in the foyer and cleaned the sink with a disinfectant wipe. She folded the hand towel in thirds and placed a fresh roll of toilet paper on the spool. Then she grabbed the cordless phone from the kitchen on the third ring and answered, "Hello?"

  "Can you hear me?" Samantha Perkins shouted over a spirited MC and loud strip club music.

  Jamie could tell her caller, as usual, was in the strip club where she worked. "Barely," she replied.

  Samantha apparently moved away from the source of the music. "How 'bout now?"

  "A little better." Jamie stirred the saucepan and mashed the big wooden spoon at the melting clump of stew. She covered the top with a lid and adjusted the burner. "Are you at work?"

  "Just changing. You sound distracted. Is this a bad time?"

  "It's fine," Jamie lied with an eye on the microwave timer. "I'm cooking dinner," she said, retrieving her apron from the pantry.

  "Where've you been? I left you messages. I thought maybe you went into witness protection or something."

  Jamie watched the pool boy through the kitchen window. His tan arms flexed inside his muscle shirt as he brushed the pool up and down. "I'm just busy."

  "Are you back to work yet?"

  "I'm staying home."

  "I thought you took that nursing job?"

  "I turned it down."

  "Why?"

  "Alan needs me at home."

  "You'll go crazy at home," Samantha insisted.

  Jamie rubbed her hands on her apron. "Are you on break?"

  "I go on sta
ge in five minutes." Samantha sneezed on the other end. "Charley sent me flowers."

  Jamie smiled. She could hear the excitement in her best friend's voice. "The guy you met on-line?"

  "He had them delivered to the club."

  "He's falling hard for you."

  "You think?"

  "How many dates have you had with him?" Jamie asked.

  "Three."

  "Did you kiss him?"

  "We covered that base on our first date."

  "Was it good?"

  "Amazing."

  "You always say that."

  "I'm serious this time."

  Jamie sprinkled salt and pepper in the stew. The taste was close but not quite to Alan's liking. "What's so great about his guy?"

  "He listens to me," Samantha confided. "He cares about me as a person, not an object."

  Jamie tucked the phone between her chin and shoulder. She added more pepper to the simmering meal and stirred the pot. "He wants to get inside your pants." She paused before the next words came out of her mouth. An extended silence persisted on the line. "You already slept with him didn't you."

  "I'm a dancer, not a slut."

  "That's why he sent you roses."

  "I didn't say they were roses," Samantha said.

  "You're unbelievable. You just met this guy on-line."

  "He's not a creep."

  "That doesn't mean you should sleep with him on your first date."

  "It was our second. And I couldn't help myself. I feel this amazing chemistry between us. Like nothing I've ever felt before."

  Jamie stuck the wooden spoon in her mouth and pretended to gag. "I still think you should take it slow."

  "Look who's talking," Samantha countered over the phone. "What about you and Kyle Miller? Or Ben Redcliff. Or that ski instructor you hooked up with over Christmas break in college? You practically jumped his bones the minute we got back to the lodge."

  "I was taking lessons from him."

  Samantha laughed. "I bet you were."

  Jamie laid the wooden spoon on a plate. "I just hate to see you get burned again."

  "I can take care of myself. You're the one with the perfect life in your sunny Florida home with a pool."

  Jamie laid the placemats on the table. "It's not as easy as you think."