John Lescroart - A Certain Justice

It was not yet dusk. There was no problem with visibility. He honestly didn't think he'd get two blocks.

Twisting his head from side to side he saw a seemingly endless procession of faces everywhere – in the car in front of him (the backseat folks turning around – Why?), behind them, crossing at the intersection, up and down the sidewalk – and all of them with eyes focused on him.

Casual glances or studied stares – they were all directed at him. Melanie had picked a popular place on a crowded street close to the dinner hour. It had to be only a matter of time before somebody recognized him.

He slumped down, far into the seat. Melanie rolled her window down. 'What do you want?' she asked.

'I want to get out of here, that's what I want.'

She glanced into her rearview mirror. 'Not possible,' she said. 'What's your second choice?'

Her window was still open. 'You know, Melanie, I'd like to, but I can't seem to get myself feeling too casual about all this-'

'I'm not casual,' she said. 'But we have got to eat and the fact is that nobody's looking at you, not here.'

'Everybody's looking at me!'

The driver behind them honked and Melanie waved a conciliatory hand out her window, then ordered two double cheeseburgers, fries, shakes. She pulled forward. 'I can understand how you'd feel that, Kevin, but I don't think it's true.'

They were still in the line, hemmed in, the cars edging forward slowly. It was going to take at least five minutes to go around the building and get to the service window. 'It's heartening you don't think that, Melanie, but if you're wrong, I'm dead.'

'I'm not wrong. You have to trust me-'

'I have to trust my instincts. They've gotten me this far.'

She looked over at him. 'For the record, Kevin, I've had something to do with getting you this far. I understand… you saw a man get lynched last night, for God's sake. Who wouldn't be scared? I'm scared, too. But I think I'm seeing things a little more clearly.'

He had to admit he was on the edge of panic and she seemed almost creepily calm. 'Maybe you're right but-'

'I'm only sure that right here is as safe for us as anywhere in the city, and you're the one who wants to stay here and make your stand, so I'd say the best advice is, get used to it.'

They inched forward. Honks behind them – people talking loud, laughing, yelling – off to the side out Melanie's window, but no one seemed to be moving toward them. Kevin looked down and put a hand to his forehead. 'How are we getting out of this?' he asked.

'It'll look better on a full stomach,' she said deadpan.

Melanie had been right. She had played a major role in getting them to where they were right now… no one had recognized him, the drive-thru burger joint had been an inspired choice, and, right or wrong, things did look better on a full stomach. He took in this woman sitting across from him and was washed with an intense gratitude.

Most importantly, she had believed him, believed in him.

He had always suspected there was more to her – much more – than he'd seen when they'd been 'dating,' but something about their chemistry, or his own guilty conscience, or both, had made it all, finally, futile. The relationship wasn't going to work, not under the ground rules they'd tacitly established, so he'd decided he had to move on.

But now his dire situation had shifted the balance between them. They were partners, equals; And this realization suddenly made him feel like a cheat. He'd been unfair to Melanie by not being up front with her when they'd been going out, by not telling her that before they had gotten together he had slept – once, one night only – with her friend Cindy Taylor. Now he felt he at least owed Melanie the truth – both about him and her supposed 'best friend.' She hadn't just 'come on to him,' as he had said.

So he told her.

And now Melanie, who had weathered his flight and panic attack with stoic calm, now Melanie had balanced her half-full milkshake cup on the steering wheel and was, quietly, crying.

The early-evening sun peeked through the low cloud layer, highlighting the red in her dark hair, the glistening wetness on her cheeks. 'I don't believe it,' she said. ' Cindy ?'

'I thought I ought to tell you.'

'I don't know why… why didn't you feel you should tell me before, when we were… I mean when I thought we were together.'

'We were together, Melanie.'

She almost laughed. 'Sure. God, what a fool I was. You must have both been laughing at me the whole time.'

'No. It wasn't like Cindy and I were an item. It was one night, before you and I got together.'

'But she said… she told me-'

'She lied, Mel.'

She turned toward him. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

'What would that have done, Mel, except hurt you? Besides, I half-figured Cindy had told you anyway and you knew and decided it wasn't that big an issue.'

Melanie threw him a long glance. 'Nice try, Kevin…'

'No, I guess that wouldn't have been your response.'

'I guess not.'

The windows were down a quarter inch, the wind whistling through. 'Besides,' Kevin said, 'I wanted you. If I told you about Cindy, I figured no chance.'

She looked at him again, not knowing quite what to believe. 'Maybe you just wanted somebody-'

'If I'd just wanted any old body I would have hung with Cindy or somebody else who might, frankly, have been a little easier to deal with.'

'Oh, that's nice. Thanks very much.'

Kevin turned toward her. 'Come on, Mel, what do you want me to say? I thought you were great. You think I felt anything about Cindy? Not likely. All right, so you and I didn't work – that doesn't mean it wasn't honest. I tried, we both tried, we just didn't fit.'

'But we did , I thought we did. We could have.' Melanie made a fist and banged it against her thigh. 'Oh damn, why are you telling me all this now?'

He reached out to her, grimacing at the pull on his ribs, touched her shoulder across the car seat. 'Because you're here now, Mel. I don't think you would have been here six months ago.'

'That's not true, I would have.'

'No. You would never have really believed I wasn't part of this madness. You wouldn't have questioned what you saw with your own eyes. You would have written me off, for the guy who never took anything seriously. But hey, at least now you already know all about my bad character. And I'm the same guy and you're still here in spite of it. That's different.'

He grabbed the dregs of Melanie's milkshake off the steering wheel. She was allowing a half-smile. He needed that.

'So now,' he went on, 'I thought it would be better if I laid it all out – Cindy, the whole thing. No surprises. This is who I am. Maybe, when, if this thing ever blows over we can, you know, like go on a date or something.'

Melanie sucked at her lower lip for a moment, then said she'd consider it.

Glitsky had come home just before five and had slept nearly four hours. Rita had gotten him up for dinner as he'd asked, all of his boys furious, stir crazy and squirrely at their long day indoors, wanting answers, thinking their dad was a paranoid who'd been a cop too long and the older ones telling him so.

"Now, dinner finished, the boys sat facing him across the kitchen table, the three of them en bloc, sticking together (which he thought was good), bonded against their old man (not so good). Even Orel, whose gangling body Glitsky had held snuggling in his lap as recently as six months before, he was working on his eleven-year-old interpretation of the evil eye – and though not as developed as the glare of his brothers, Jake and Ike (ave atque vale Jacob and Isaac), Orel was the one who most favored Flo, and so his hard look cut Abe the deepest. Which was not to say that the two older guys, who had it down to an art, were any easier for him.