Sandra Brown - Low Pressure

But when he’d suffered similar ambushes following Susan’s death, and again during the NTSB’s investigation into the near crash, Gall had been there like a flea in his ear, warning him against impetuous reprisals. “Reporters thrive on angry reactions. You want to beat ’em at their game? Ignore ’em.”

The gash on his cheekbone was throbbing like a son of a bitch, and when he wiped his face the back of his hand, already bleeding from the cuts on his knuckles, came away streaked with brighter, fresher blood. He figured the cut on his back had reopened as well.

When he turned into the room, Bellamy flinched, which made him all the madder. “If you’re more scared of me than you are of them, you know the way out.”

He left the path to the door clear for her as he retrieved his blood-soaked jeans from the bathroom floor and fished his cell phone from a pocket. He then strode into the kitchen and consulted the telephone number for the complex manager, which a previous tenant had penciled onto the faded wallpaper.

Viciously he punched in the number, and the call was answered almost immediately. “Yeah, that notice you put in everyone’s mailbox last week? About the guy who exposed himself to a woman in the North Unit? Uh-huh. Well there are two guys in the parking lot of South. They’re taking pictures through people’s windows with a telephoto lens. I’m almost sure it’s the same two I saw talking to some little girls on the playground this afternoon. You’d better call the police. Okay. Bye.”

He disconnected and looked over at Bellamy, who hadn’t moved or taken her wide gaze off him. “That ought to keep Van Durbin and his sidekick busy for a while.” He buttoned up his jeans and ripped off a length of gauze, which he folded and used to stanch the bleeding on his cheek. “I’m going to have a beer. Want one?”

She didn’t respond.

He took a can of beer from the refrigerator, opened it and sucked up the suds that spilled over the top, then took a deep swallow. He sprawled in the only easy chair in the apartment and calmly sipped at his beer, while Bellamy stared at him as though he was an exotic and potentially dangerous animal that should be caged.

The rings around her eyes were so dark they looked like they’d been put there by punching fists. Her face had been leached of color, but that might have been caused by the glare of his unforgiving overhead light. She looked completely done in, but his ire was such that he didn’t go easy on her.

“Well?” he said.

“What?” Her voice sounded rusty from disuse.

“You’re not going to ask?”

“Wouldn’t you just deny it?”

“Yes. But think what a great plot twist this would make for Low Pressure: The Sequel . You could shock your readers right out of their socks. The boyfriend was the killer after all. He, a sexual deviant if ever there was one, got away with murder.

“Flash forward eighteen years. He puts the moves on the baby sister, who’s all grown up now. Filled out real good. Makes his mouth water. She kisses like a bad girl till he acts on the invitation, then she shuts down like a maiden missionary. When she says ‘No!’ to him, he wigs out, takes her sweet body, and…” He gave an exaggerated shudder. “Grisly stuff. A page-turner for sure.”

She gave him a withering look, then went to the window, where colored lights were flashing on the slats of the uneven blinds. “The police are here. Three squad cars.”

“Why don’t you race down there and tell them that you’ve finally nabbed your sister’s killer?”

“Because I don’t believe you are. You are, however, a jerk.”

He scoffed. “You’re a writer and that’s the worst insult you can come up with? Baby sister also has the vocabulary of a maiden missionary. If you want me to, I can help you with some bad words.”

“I won’t buy into this asinine conversation, Dent.”

He finished his beer and set the empty can on the wobbly coffee table.

After a time, she said, “Van Durbin will tell them it’s a false charge.”

“Of course he will. But he’ll have to explain what he was doing down there with a photographer, which will amount to him admitting that he’s stalking you. He’ll have to do some fancy footwork.”

“They’ll trace the call to your phone.”

“They can’t. It’s a burner. The number doesn’t show up on caller ID. Eventually they’ll realize it was a hoax and let them go, but in the meantime that bloodsucker will be in the hot seat. If there’s a god, he’ll attract a boyfriend in lockup.”

She turned away from the window. “You’re clever. You respond quickly to a crisis situation.”

“A skill that makes me a good pilot.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I guess it would also make me a good murderer, wouldn’t it?”

She sat down on the matching love seat facing his chair, perching on the edge of the cushion as though she might have to make a quick getaway. “Why did you lie to the police?”

“I don’t think it would have gone too well for me if I’d told them that I’d intercepted Susan at the boathouse and that we’d had a lovers’ quarrel. And don’t read anything into the word ‘lovers.’ I don’t mean it literally.”

“How did you know she would be at the boathouse?”

“I was driving up that lane—you know the one, that led to the pavilion?” She nodded. “Susan flagged me down. She was alone.”

“What was she doing?”

“Primping.”

“Primping?”

“She was looking at herself in the mirror of a compact, putting on lipstick, fluffing her hair. Things girls do.”

“I described to you how pretty she looked when she returned to the pavilion.”

“Oh, so now you think I’m making that up so that it fits with your recollection?”

Wearily, she said, “Go on.”

“I said something to the effect of ‘Here I am, better late than never.’ But she didn’t think so. She told me that she’d made other plans that didn’t include me. At first I tried to placate her. I apologized for choosing a ride in an airplane over her. I promised to make it up to her, promised it wouldn’t happen again. Bullshit stuff that guys say when they—”

“Don’t really mean them.”

He shrugged. “She was having none of it. I could see that what was left of my Memorial Day was rapidly turning to crap, so I got mad, told her…” He stopped, and when Bellamy raised her eyebrows, he said, “More bullshit stuff that guys say when a sure thing is no longer sure. Unlike you, I have an… earthy … vocabulary. I called her some rather descriptive and ugly names.”

She stared into space for a moment and when she refocused on him, she said, “In my mind’s eye, I can see the two of you quarreling. But I don’t remember anything after that.”

“I rode off into the sunset.”

“There was no sunset. The sky was stormy.”

“Another figure of speech.”

A thoughtful frown creased her forehead as she sank back into the cushions of the love seat, which made him embarrassed over the god-awful thing. It was a piece of junk, just like everything else in the place. When he’d sold his house, with its swimming pool and heavily wooded backyard on a bluff that overlooked downtown, he’d assumed a necessary indifference to his living conditions.

He’d rented this place because it was all he could afford. He slept here. Sometimes screwed here. Showered and kept his clothes here. He ate carry-out and hadn’t used the cookstove more than once or twice. The fridge was virtually empty.

He hadn’t given any thought to his lifestyle until he looked at his shabby habitat through Bellamy’s eyes. And now he realized that what he did within these walls you couldn’t call living.