Carla Neggers: Abandon

He leaned over his coffee, the steam rising into his eyes. “Rook can save Bernadette.”

“From what?”

“From you, Cal.” Harris raised his gaze to the man across from him. “And from Jesse.”

There. He’d said the name. Jesse Lambert. The devil.

Harris had known Cal even before he’d started seeing Bernadette, but only in the past three months had their fates become intertwined. Cal was hard-driving and ambitious, a womanizer who had seemed, at least in the early days of his marriage to Bernadette, ready to settle down.

Bottom-feeder that he was, Jesse Lambert had sensed Cal was ripe for the picking. With impeccable timing, he’d pounced at Cal ’s weakest moment.

And Harris had helped.

“You should give him the money,” he said. “Trust me, Cal. I know of what I speak. Give him the damn money now. Then get out.”

Cal averted his eyes. “If I give Jesse the money, there’ll be no getting out. Ever.” He returned his gaze to Harris. “I’ll turn into you.”

“If you don’t pay him, he’ll kill us both.”

“He’s a dealmaker, Harris, not a killer. We’re offering him a deal. Don’t weaken now.”

Harris could hear the disdain for him in Cal ’s voice. After all, Harris was the one who’d brought Jesse Lambert into Cal ’s life.

Into Bernadette’s life.

That was what ate at his soul. In using Cal, Harris knew he was also using the one friend he had left in the world.

“Jesse is the devil, Cal,” Harris said quietly. “And we made a deal with him.”

Cal didn’t respond right away. He drank his coffee, eyeing Harris, his expression unreadable. Jesse Lambert had walked into Harris’s life five years ago, preying on his insecurities and compulsions – and Harris had let himself be victimized. The gambling scandal that had ended his career was the least of his transgressions. Because of Jesse, he had betrayed his friends and the public’s trust for financial gain.

You let the devil have his way with you.

Three months ago, Jesse had returned to Washington, wanting fresh meat in return for his silence about Harris’s wrongs.

Harris had thrown him Cal Benton.

Cal ’s work and his marriage to Bernadette Peacham provided him with the kind of access and information that Jesse could use. He stayed in the background, maneuvering, manipulating. But when Jesse came to collect, Cal had refused to pay up.

“It’s time to give the devil his due, Cal.”

“We will, but on our terms. We’re not stealing his money. We’re delaying payment in return for Jesse getting out of our lives.”

“We?”

Cal leaned forward. “Don’t think Jesse doesn’t know you helped me.”

Harris could feel the blood drain from his face. A few weeks ago, he’d dropped one tidbit about Jesse Lambert to Cal, and Cal had run with it, uncovering Jesse’s true identity. Cal had a complete dossier on their devil. Names, addresses, bank accounts. His insurance policy, he called it. His game was straightforward but dangerous. Using information Cal provided, Jesse blackmailed people – among them a popular U.S. Congressman, a powerful Senate aide and a well-to-do, well-connected Washington widow. Jesse remained in the background, anonymous. Cal and Harris were the ones who arranged payments. In three months, they’d amassed $1.5 million. In cash. They were to split five hundred thousand, and Jesse was to get a million.

Only Cal was withholding the million until Jesse exited from their lives.

He’d keep the dossier. If Jesse ever breathed Washington air again, it would end up in the hands of federal investigators. They wouldn’t need to know a thing about Cal or Harris’s involvement with Jesse to nail him.

“Going to the FBI won’t save you,” Cal said.

“I haven’t given them anything. I just thought if they were looking…” Harris trailed off and blew on his coffee, wishing he could understand his own motives, his own thinking. When he’d first gotten in touch with Andrew Rook three weeks ago, his plan had seemed so logical and sensible. Now, he didn’t know. Finally, he shrugged at Cal. “I guess I hoped Jesse would think twice about killing us if I’d talked to the FBI.”

“Does he know?”

Harris shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re a sniveling weakling, Harris. You’re trying to save your own skin. That’s all.”

“If only you’d been faithful to Bernadette…” Harris pushed aside his coffee and sank into the cheap wooden chair. He felt crumpled, saggy and old. He’d broken so many promises over the years – to his ex-wife, his children, his friends. To himself. “I don’t want her to get caught in the cross fire.”

Cal ’s jaw tightened visibly, and he spoke through half-clenched teeth. “She won’t.” There was no hesitation in his tone, no regret, no guilt.

Harris stared at his coffee, a film forming on it as he tried to get his head around his thought. “But it’s not fear of humiliation that sucked you into Jesse’s orbit, is it, Cal?” He looked up, giving Cal a knowing, bitter smile. “You wanted the action. The risk. The same impulses that prompted you to take your little tootsie to Bernadette’s house for the weekend got you into the pickle you’re in now.”

“Would you have preferred I’d capitulated and let Jesse put out the pictures for the world to see? How would that have helped your good friend Bernadette?”

They were graphic pictures. Harris had seen them. Cal Benton copulating with a very young, inexperienced, beautiful Congressional aide in the bedroom he and his wife had once shared. They were the kind of scenes that would not only ruin him, but the aide and Bernadette. Her authority in the courtroom would be diminished with those images in people’s heads.

But Cal hadn’t cooperated with Jesse Lambert for noble reasons – or even just to protect himself. He liked living on the edge. Jesse had seen that quality in him and used it to his advantage, luring Cal into his world of blackmail, extortion and fraud.

“I played Jesse’s game,” Cal said. “Now I’m pushing back, hard, because that’s all he’ll understand. You don’t fool me, Harris. You don’t give a damn about my sainted ex-wife.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to stop talking to the FBI.”

“I haven’t told them anything of substance -”

“Good. Don’t.” Cal gave him a long look. “You can’t weaken. You can’t waver. Stick with me, Harris. I know what I’m doing.”

“No, you don’t.” Harris couldn’t remember when he’d felt so tired. “You don’t have a clue.”

Cal sniffed with impatience. “Go into hiding, then. Leave Jesse to me.”

“I already have gone into hiding. I just – tonight…” He broke off, not knowing how to explain his actions. “No one knows where I’m staying.”

“Rook?”

Harris shook his head. “No one.”

Cal slumped in his chair in relief. “That’s good, Harris. Excellent.”

“My advice, still, is to give Jesse his money and the dossier you have on him.”

“He won’t know if I’ve made copies of the information – if I have it all stored in my head. No, we’ve done what we’ve done, Harris. I have his money, and I have enough to put him away for decades. He’ll cooperate.”

Harris didn’t think so.

But Cal was on his feet. “Go, Harris. Leave Jesse to me.” He smiled, his arrogance and confidence back. “Hide.”

Harris didn’t respond, and Cal left, not so much as glancing into the coffee shop as he passed by the window on the street outside. Harris remembered himself in court, holding the attention and respect of everyone present. He’d squandered his reputation – that life – because of weakness, greed and the constant search for excitement. But he’d learned a few things during those years. He could recognize a violent man when he saw one.