Sandra Brown - Play Dirty

Coach did just that. It was the last conversation they’d had.

Griff looked at Ellie now and shook his head sadly. “I thought I was smarter than him. Smarter than everybody. When I got caught, Coach denounced me. I didn’t blame him. I understood why he washed his hands of me.”

“You broke his heart.”

He gave her a sharp look. She nodded and repeated solemnly, “You broke his heart, Griff.” Then she laughed lightly. “Of course, he was pissed, too.”

“Yeah, well, it’s probably just as well he’s not here. If he was, I doubt I’d have been invited in for cake.”

“Honestly, I doubt it, too.”

“I knew I took a chance by coming.”

“Why did you? I’m delighted. But why did you come?”

He left the table and moved to the counter. He took a black-eyed pea from the brown paper sack, held the pod between his thumbs and split it open, then shook the peas into the stainless steel bowl. He tossed the empty pod back into the sack.

“I keep hurting people, and I don’t want to.”

“Then stop doing it.”

“I don’t mean to. I just do.”

“How?”

“Just by being me, Ellie. Just by being me.” He turned and rested his hips against the counter, crossed his ankles, folded his arms over his chest, and studied the toes of his boots. They needed another shine. “I’m destructive. It seems to be the curse of my life.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

His head came up, and he looked across at her.

“Stop crying in your beer and tell me what’s going on. Who’s been hurt?”

“An acquaintance. She was hurt bad on account of me. No other reason, just because of her association with me.”

“I’m sorry for that, but it doesn’t sound like it was your fault.”

“Feels like it was. It goes back to…” He gestured as though saying, back then. “There’s this guy. Ever since my release, he’s been right here,” he said, holding his palm inches from his nose. “He’s got it in for me, and he’s not going to go away until I’m dust under his heel.”

Griff had kept one eye on his rearview mirror the whole time he’d been driving here. He’d taken a circuitous route, too, doubling back several times, to make certain he wasn’t being tailed by either Rodarte or somebody Rodarte had hired to follow him.

Of course Rodarte would know where the Millers lived. If he’d wanted to get to Griff by harming them, he would have done so. Griff supposed Rodarte didn’t consider Coach as vulnerable as Marcia. The idea of coming up against Coach might even scare him. And it should.

“Are you in trouble, Griff?”

He knew she was asking if he was involved in something illegal again. “No. I swear it.”

“I believe you. So go to the authorities and tell them about this person who’s hounding you and-”

“I can’t, Ellie.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s not acting strictly on his own.”

“You mean-”

“ Vista. The same men Coach called slippery, and he didn’t know the half of it.”

“Then you certainly need to talk to the authorities.”

He shook his head, thinking back to what he’d resolved yesterday as he left Marcia’s penthouse. “I’ve been up to my eyebrows in the ‘authorities’ for the past five years. I don’t want anything to do with the authorities.”

He couldn’t report Rodarte’s crime without bringing a lot of shit down on himself and Marcia. The hell of it was, their silence gave Rodarte protection and room to maneuver. Rodarte could make a real menace of himself, and Griff was hamstrung.

“But the police or the FBI need to know if-”

“I no longer trust the system, Ellie. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I’ve formed a good relationship with my probation officer. I think he’s on my side. I want to stay under the radar, do nothing that would call attention to me.”

“And to that murder.”

“And to that murder,” he admitted.

“They never caught the person who killed that Bandy character, did they?”

“No, they never did.”

The silence became dense, stretched out. She didn’t come right out and ask. She didn’t want to insult him by asking. Or maybe she didn’t want to hear the answer. She took a sip of tea, returning the glass to the table with more care than necessary.

“You can’t live your life dodging the bad guys, Griff. You’ll just have to ignore them.”

“I’ve tried. It’s not that easy. In fact, it’s impossible. Ignoring them only makes them more determined to get my attention. And they’ll use other people to do it, to bend me to their way of thinking. I won’t play with them, Ellie. I won’t break the law again. But I don’t want other people getting hurt.”

Specifically, the Speakmans. If Rodarte found out about Griff’s deal with them, he could ruin it, and it was the only thing Griff had going. Beyond that, Rodarte could do irreparable damage to the couple’s reputation. Speakman might be as crazy as a loon, but he seemed like a decent enough guy. He was respected for his community service and for giving away barrels of money to charity.

And it made Griff queasy to think of Laura Speakman being subjected to Rodarte’s violence as Marcia had been. Given half a chance, Rodarte would hurt her and not think twice about it. He’d already noticed her, spoken of her in terms that enraged Griff.

Noticing Ellie’s look of concern, Griff relaxed his stance and smiled. “I didn’t come here to worry you. I just needed a sounding board, and you’ve always been a good one.”

She got up and took his hand again. “More than anything, I want you to be happy, Griff.”

“Happy?” He repeated the word as though it was of another language. Happy seemed an unattainable goal.

“Have you got a job yet?”

“I’m looking into some things. One will open up soon.”

“In the meantime, what are you doing for money?”

“My lawyer sold all my stuff. There was a little left after he paid the fines and such. What wasn’t sold he put in a warehouse. I cleared it out a few weeks ago. Sold a few things on eBay. I’m doing okay.”

She pulled her handbag off the peg near the back door and took a fifty-dollar bill from her wallet. “Here.”

He staved her off. “Ellie, I can’t take that.”

“Yes you can. I insist. It’s part of my Hawaii money.”

“ Hawaii money?”

“After years of my pestering him about it, Joe’s finally consented to take me to Hawaii later this summer. I’ve saved some spending money. If you don’t take this, I’ll buy fifty dollars’ worth of tacky souvenirs I don’t need and will never want to look at again. Take it.”

He took it. Not because he wanted to or needed it but because she wanted to give it to him, and she needed him to accept it. “I’ll pay you back.”

They heard the car at the same time. She looked up at him, gave him a very weak smile of reassurance, and turned to face the back door as Coach came in. “Whose car-”

That was as far as he got. Seeing Griff in his kitchen stopped him in his tracks. His sparse hair had gone grayer. He’d put on maybe ten pounds, but he was still as solid as a brick wall, not fat. There were more squint lines extending from the corners of his eyes, showing up white against his perpetually sunburned face. Otherwise he looked much the same as he had the day he’d brought Griff to this house almost twenty years ago.

Griff registered all this within the span of a second, which was only as long as Coach stood still before continuing on his lumbering way through the kitchen, past the living room, and down the hall. The slamming bedroom door echoed loudly through the house.

It was a while before Ellie spoke. “I’m sorry, Griff.”