Bed of Lies (20 page)

"Mr. McRae?" The bailiff was at his side. "Judge would like to see you in chambers. Now." That was odd.

He looked back at Tony. The guards were hustling him away already. "I'll be back," Zach called out as he headed for the judge's chambers.

It didn't take long. The judge didn't want him back in his courtroom anytime soon. That little tussle at the end, when they argued over how the judge would charge the jury, had been a bit ugly, and Zach probably had been out of line. He took the dressing down as best he could, nodding and trying to hold his tongue. But in the end, he just couldn't. He yelled, "You think that boy deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life?"

"That's not for me to say, son, and you know it. That's for the jury."

"He shouldn't have been charged with the crime in the first place."

"Enough," the judge said. "You're lucky I didn't throw you in jail for contempt. If I hadn't known your boss for years, I may well have done it. I settled for calling him instead. Adam wants to see you in his office, first thing tomorrow. Which means you should be going, Mr. McRae."

"Kicking me out of the state, judge?"

"I could arrange a police escort until you board your plane. You've got to step back, son, or you're not going to be any good to any of your clients. You're sure not going to get anywhere pissing off judges."

Zach opened his mouth to argue, but the judge cut in. "Enough. Go."

So Zach went, all the way to Ohio. He collapsed that night in his own unfamiliar bed in the apartment on the river he and Gwen shared on rare times they were both in the same city.

Bleary-eyed and still pissed early the next morning, he lost it with Adam, yelling and slamming his fist down on his boss's desk. Twenty minutes later, Zach was back on the street, his chest heaving. First he'd been ordered out of the State of Tennessee and now he'd been ordered not to show his face inside his own office for thirty days. When he'd argued about that, Adam made it sixty.

What the hell was he supposed to do for sixty days?

He took to the streets, walking fast, trying to burn off some restless energy, some tension, something that felt like despair. He didn't screw up like this. He didn't fall apart. He wasn't stupid or reckless. Yet within the space of a few days, he'd taken an old friend to bed while he was engaged to someone else, drank way too much and thrown things against a wall and lost a case that sent a young boy to prison for life. He'd been kicked out of a courtroom, and now he was suspended from his job.

He had a hard time believing it all.

Zach walked until he calmed down a little. He found it hard to be still these days, to make his mind be quiet. He didn't want time to think. He didn't like the direction his thoughts took, the tightness that came into his chest or the funny things that happened to his breathing when things got bad. Usually he could walk it out. If that didn't work... Well, he could always use his so-called father's tried-and-true method. A bottle of something. That had worked really well last time.

His next impulse was to call Julie. It was right there, like a neon sign flashing on and off in his brain.
Call Julie.

No, he would not do that. He could call his father—the real one —but if his family knew he was this close to home, they'd descend en masse, and he just couldn't handle that now. He supposed he should call Gwen, just to see if she was at all interested in the fact that his life was falling apart.

He glanced at his watch. Close to noon on a Tuesday?

She is probably getting ready for a cocktail party.
The idea moved through his head in a nasty little voice, a mean, petty one. As though he had a right to complain about the woman he'd thoroughly wronged so very recently.

He searched his heart for what he felt for her. Where had it gone? They'd slid into a satisfying relationship, comfortable, compatible. He admired her body as much as her brain, her determination as much as her wit. They had made sense together.

Why didn't they, anymore?

He pulled out his phone, which had a calendar function. Gwen, one of the best-organized women on earth, did a linkup and fed her schedule into his, his into hers, once a week or so, so they could always find each other. He checked it now. She might actually be in town. He called campaign headquarters. They were expecting her today.

Fine. Maybe he'd hide at the apartment and see her tonight. Maybe he'd have calmed down by then. He took a cab back to his office to get his car, then drove back to their apartment. When he unlocked the apartment door, he saw Gwen's coat draped over the back of the sofa, her purse and her keys on the table beside the door.

Well, hell. No hiding here.

He called out her name, but heard no response.

Maybe she was asleep. She just crashed sometimes after coming in from a long trip.

He thought he heard something in the bedroom, which was at the end of the hall, next to their his-and-hers offices. They'd gotten a three-bedroom so they'd both have space to work.

Zach pushed open the bedroom door. It was dark in the room, and Gwen was in bed, leaning back against the pillows, a sheet wrapped around her, barely covering her breasts. Her hair looked mussed, and she seemed a little dazed.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"Zach? I didn't... I saw your things, but... What happened?"

"I lost the case," he said. "It's over."

"Oh." She just sat there for a minute, staring at him, and then glanced quickly toward the bathroom. "I thought you'd be at work..."

"No, I..." He didn't want to explain. Not yet. And he was starting to get a funny feeling about this.

Slowly, he turned toward the bathroom door. There, in the pool of light spilling from the opening, stood a guy he'd known for the better part of ten years. He was shoving his shirttails into the waistband of his slacks and looking like he expected to be knocked flat on his ass any minute.

"Zach... I'm sorry," the guy began.

Zach laughed. What could he do? It was so... cliché. The perfect ending to the perfect day.

"I didn't... It didn't..."

"Never mind." Zach knew what came next.
I don't know how it happened.
Or
, It didn't mean a thing. Yeah, right.

Gwen didn't say a word. She would have seen the suitcase he'd dropped by the front door late last night and known he was back in town. And she'd done this anyway. So she wanted him to find them together. Maybe she just didn't care anymore. He'd slept with someone else, and apparently, so had she.

"You mind leaving us alone?" Zach asked, his voice dead even as he stared at Gwen.

"What?" Dan asked.

Zach took a breath and said, "We have some things to talk about. Gwen and I. Privately, if you don't mind."

"If I don't mind?" Dan repeated.

He supposed civility seemed out of place at the moment, unless one was in on all the little nuances of the situation. Maybe Dan didn't know about Zach's little fling.

"Yeah, if you don't mind," Zach said.

Dan laughed nervously. "I thought you'd break my jaw or something."

Zach shook his head. This was between him and Gwen.

"I'm really sorry." Dan gathered up his socks and shoes, belt and keys, and hovered by the door. "You're not going to go off or something as soon as I walk out the door, are you?"

"Nope," Zach said.

"He doesn't care that much," Gwen added helpfully.

Dan looked baffled. Finally, he gave up and left.

Zach sat down in the chair by the antique dresser that had been in Gwen's family for about a hundred and fifty years, the dainty, lace-covered thing he'd nicked when they'd moved in, laughing and happy and thinking this was forever. Where had those feelings gone?

He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair for a minute and then stopped when the motion seemed too telling, too agitated.

"So, this was about getting even?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Gwen said. "I think I just wanted to know what it felt like."

"To have sex with Dan?"

"To have sex with someone other than you," she said.

"He just came to mind first?" Zach asked.

She shrugged. "He always seemed... agreeable. I'd just never done anything about it before. Because I was engaged to you."

As digs went, that certainly hit home. "So... how did it feel?"

"Different. It felt... good. And exciting. And then it got kind of awkward and wrong, and then it was just... sad." Anger and remorse mingled on her face. "It made me sad. Sad for us, and sad for Dan, because I used him that way. And pretty soon I didn't feel much of anything. I didn't really like it, but I was the one who started the whole thing. So I just lay here and let it happen, hoping it would feel better at some point. But it didn't. Isn't that stupid? But I'll be damned if I'll be sorry for it. Not that I did it or that you caught us."

"Okay." He could accept that. He could understand all of that. He couldn't argue a thing. It was his mess, first and foremost, not hers. She never would have done this if he hadn't done it first. So it didn't seem he had much to say except, "What now?"

"I don't know, Zach. What do you want to happen? You don't even seem angry."

"I don't have the right, do I?"

"I don't know," she said, her voice rising slightly. "I think I'm mad at you for not being angry. I mean, you find another guy coming out of our bathroom half dressed, and me sitting here naked in our bed.... Our bed, Zach. It was ours. And it looks like you don't feel a thing."

"I could ask him to come back so I could knock him down, if that would help," he said, finally getting mildly irritated.

"You don't care, do you? You don't care that I slept with him."

"Yeah, I care." It annoyed him that they were here, playing out this scene. But he knew exactly where this was coming from, and he'd started it, dammit. "What do you want me to say?"

"I want to know how you feel."

He shook his head. "Stupid. I feel really stupid, and I don't like it." Gwen would understand. Her IQ was nearly a perfect match to his.

"That's it?" she asked, anger winning out over regret.

"That's all I've got," he said. "All I can come close to identifying. I feel stupid and frustrated beyond belief. I'm sorry. Sorry we've come to this. I didn't want to hurt you."

"Well, I wanted to hurt you."

"Yeah, I got that part."

"I don't want you to understand. I think I wish you had hit him, and that you'd yelled at us both, and that you'd cared. But I don't think you do."

He threw up his hands and shook his head some more. What was a man supposed to do when it was his own actions that had brought them here?

"I think you should leave now. Find a hotel or something. I'll be here for a few days handling a problem at campaign headquarters," she said, glaring at him. "Where will you be?"

"I'm not sure."

Okay, that was a lie. The first one he could remember telling her. He was going to see Julie, if he could make himself go to Baxter.

"Is this it, Gwen? Are we over?" he asked, because maybe she was thinking more clearly than he was, and he always told clients to try not to make decisions while they were feeling crazy. "Just tell me what you want."

"Why?" she asked. "If I tell you, are you going to give it to me?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Well, that's just perfect."

He went into the other room, picked up his bags, and left.

* * *

Zach still didn't want to go home.

No, that was too mild a description of his feelings. He was breaking into a cold sweat just thinking about it.

A part of him said it was time to deal. A time comes when running is no longer an option, lying a luxury a man can no longer afford. He lectured clients on this, and it was good advice. He didn't think he could run anymore.

There was something really pathetic about a grown man who was scared to go home, scared to face up to what was inside him. It wasn't like anyone back there was going to crucify him or anything like that. They'd do anything they could to help him. The thing was, he didn't know if anyone
could
help.

Maybe that's why he still wanted to run. Right now, he had the luxury of lying and thinking things might get better, that this whole mess might go away. That maybe he'd find the strength to handle it. But if he went back and spilled his guts to his family, they wouldn't let him run. They'd make him face it all, and then he'd know how bad it really was.

He felt his breathing going shallow and fast, started counting as he inhaled and exhaled, trying to take deeper, slower breaths. Sometimes he could make that happen. Sometimes it helped.

* * *

It took less than an hour to get to Baxter, Ohio.

The road took him past his sister Emma's first. She'd take him in and not tell anyone he was there—at least for a day or so. But her kids would blab or someone would see him or his car, and his secret would be out. Plus, she had this nasty habit of trying to play shrink with him lately, something she never used to do.