Sandra Brown - Low Pressure

He didn’t doubt her absolute love and devotion. Not today, and not on the day they’d stood at the altar in the company of their children and recited their wedding vows. The day they’d united their families, their lives, had been one of the happiest of his life.

They had met a year earlier at a black-tie fund-raising event. He was a major donor who was being recognized that night for his generosity. She was a volunteer checking people in as they arrived.

As she’d passed him his table-assignment card, she’d remarked on his bow tie being askew.

He patted it awkwardly. “I don’t have a wife to check these things for me before I leave the house.”

“My late husband thought I was pretty good at straightening his tie. May I?” She hadn’t been flirtatious or inappropriate in any way as she came around to the other side of the table and efficiently adjusted his tie. Then she’d backed away and smiled up at him. “It wouldn’t do to have an honoree with a crooked bow tie.”

He would have enjoyed continuing their conversation, but he was summoned into the banquet hall, where the program was about to begin. He didn’t see her again that night.

It took him a week to work up the nerve to call the charity office and ask for her name. During the seven years since his wife had died, he’d dated occasionally. A few of the women he’d taken out he’d also slept with, although never at home, where Susan and Bellamy were under his roof.

But he hadn’t fallen in love until the night he met Olivia Maxey, and it had been an instantaneous and hard fall.

Later, she’d confessed that it had been the same for her. Referring to her husband as “late” had been calculated to let him know she was available. “The most courageous thing I ever did in my life was step around that table to straighten your tie. But I simply had to touch you, to see if you were real.”

After a year of courtship, they had married.

He didn’t fear death, especially. But he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her. He had to clear his throat before he was able to speak. “What else did you and Bellamy talk about?”

“Oh, she asked if I’d managed to get any rest last night. She wanted to know—”

“Olivia.” He spoke her name quietly, but in a way that chided her for attempting to keep something from him. “I’m not that drugged. I sensed your distress when you were talking to her. What’s happened?”

She sighed a concession and looked down at their tightly clasped hands. “That horrid reporter—”

“Rocky Van Durbin? He can’t be dignified with the title ‘reporter.’”

“He ambushed Bellamy as she left the offices.”

“He’s in Austin? I thought she’d outrun him, that we were through with all that.”

“Unfortunately, no. She’s still on his radar screen. In his column tomorrow, he’s going to pose a question to his readers. And to hers, in a sense.”

“What question?”

“Was the right man punished for killing Susan? Did they get the right guy? Words to that effect.”

He digested that, then sighed heavily. “God knows what kind of offshoots of discussion that will produce.”

“It was bad enough when Bellamy’s identity was revealed.” For weeks after the disclosure they’d been plagued by telephone calls asking them for comments and interviews. Several regional reporters had even shown up outside their estate and at their business offices. They’d declined all requests and eventually had handed the responsibility of fielding them over to their attorney.

“What I hate most,” she said, “is that our lives will once again be on review in that horrible tabloid.”

She left the bed and, clearly too agitated to sit down, paced the narrow space in front of the window. “Lyston Electronics was touted by the secretary of commerce as a model corporation. Where was Van Durbin then? Or when you instigated the profit-sharing program for every employee? None of that made headline news.”

“Because that’s not scintillating subject matter.”

“But the circumstances surrounding Susan’s killing are.”

“Tragically.”

“To us, yes. To everyone else, it’s entertainment. And from now on, the Lyston family will be remembered only for that salacious murder in Austin.” She began to cry in earnest. “I feel like the foundation of our life together is crumbling beneath me. It’s more than I can handle right now.”

He patted the side of the bed and coaxed her to come back to it. She went to him and leaned down to rest her head on his shoulder. “You can handle it,” he said gently. “You can handle anything. And what you’ll be remembered for is having been the most loving, wonderful, beautiful wife any man could have dreamed of. Making you my wife and mother to my girls was the smartest decision I ever made.” He turned his head and kissed her hair. “This will go away. I promise.”

For a time they clung to one another. He said all the things he knew she wanted to hear. He told her that Van Durbin and his ilk would soon be exploiting someone else’s personal tragedy, and that, until then, they would rely on each other for support as they always had.

Eventually she sat up and blotted her eyes. “There’s something else. I hesitate to tell you because it’s almost as upsetting as the business with Van Durbin.”

“What could be that bad?”

“Bellamy is with Denton Carter.”

He hadn’t seen that coming. He’d been as shocked and put off as Olivia when Bellamy informed them that she had booked a flight with him. Some situations were best left alone. But, after sensing the animosity on both sides, he’d thought yesterday’s flight would be the last they saw of him.

“By ‘with,’ what do you mean, exactly?”

“I shudder to think. She told me that Van Durbin had confronted her and Dent as they left our building. I think it was a slip of the tongue, because her voice skipped and then she went on talking in a rush and didn’t mention him again.”

He pressed her hand reassuringly. “There could be a simple explanation for why he was there. Something about payment for yesterday’s charter, maybe. Don’t borrow trouble.”

She gave him an odd look.

“What?” he asked.

“You said those very words to me when Susan started going out with him and I wanted to put a stop to it. I didn’t have to borrow trouble, Howard. He is trouble, and I still blame him for what happened to our daughter.”

“That ought to hold her.” The locksmith tested the newly installed lock on the utility room door, then moved aside and invited Dent to test it for himself.

Satisfied, he nodded. “Thanks for coming out so soon. What’s the charge?”

Dent paid him in cash and tipped him ten bucks for treating the repair as an emergency. After seeing the locksmith on his way out the back door, he went into the living room, where Bellamy was in conversation with the two police officers who had responded to their summons.

She was sitting on the sofa; the officers were standing amid the boxes of knickknacks and books she still hadn’t unpacked. Dent, who had an ingrained aversion to cops, didn’t venture any farther into the room but propped his shoulder against the door frame, which was a good observation point.

He had followed Bellamy home from Lyston Electronics, keeping one eye on the road and the other on his rearview mirror. He didn’t believe Van Durbin had followed them, but he probably didn’t need to. Surely EyeSpy had a battalion of underpaid Internet geeks doing research and electronic investigative work. Finding out Bellamy’s new home address would have been duck soup.

When they reentered her house and saw again the evidence of last night’s intruder, Dent had said, “With Van Durbin in town, you’ve got more to worry about than media coverage of this. Call the police.”