Suzanne Brockmann - Night Watch

Even though he was talking to someone—and Brittany would’ve bet big money that it was his very nice “friend,” Lana—he helped by putting the milk and yogurt in the refrigerator, the frozen vegetables in the freezer.

“No, I only spoke to her for about fifteen minutes—while she was getting her hair done in her trailer,” Wes reported. “She said this guy’s just a fan who’s gone a little bit overboard. He’s no big deal.” Pause. “No, those were her words, not mine. I haven’t met the guy.” Pause. “Yeah, she mentioned that she came home last week and he was in her garage. She seems to think the only way he could have got in there was if he wandered in while she was leaving in the morning and hung out there all day, which is—yes, you’re absolutely right—it’s pretty freaky. I’m with you totally on that, and yeah, she seemed to talk about him as if he was some kind of stray animal—he wandered in. It’s more likely he snuck in. But she also said that he left immediately, as soon as she asked. And she didn’t get out of her car until he was out of there and the garage door was closed, so at least we know that your sister’s not a total brainless idiot.”

With all the groceries put in the various cabinets, he sat down at the kitchen table.

“Definitely,” he said. “I’m going out there tonight. I’ll look over her security system, and I’ll talk to her again. And I’ll call you soon, okay?” Another pause, then he added, “Yeah, you know, Lana, about Wizard…” Wes rubbed the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes. “Yeah. No, I haven’t heard from him. I was, you know, wondering if you had?” He laughed. “Yeah, right. Yeah, okay babe, talk to you soon.”

He closed his cell phone with a snap and very salty curse. “Sorry,” he said as he realized Brittany was still standing there. “God, I would sell my left…shoe for a cigarette.”

This time, Brittany couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “Are you sleeping with her?”

Wes met her gaze and there was something in his eyes that looked an awful lot like guilt. “Who, Amber? Of course not,” he said, but she knew he knew exactly what she was talking about.

Was he sleeping with Lana—who was very nice.

Britt just waited, watching him, and he finally swore and laughed, although there wasn’t any humor in it.

“No,” he said. “No, I’m not. It’s not…It’s never gone that far. It’s not going to, you know? I wouldn’t do that to Wizard.”

But he wanted to. He was in love with the woman. It had dripped from every word he spoke while on the phone with her.

Brittany’s heart broke for him. “Has it occurred to you that she might be taking advantage of you? I mean, asking you to come out to L.A. to do something she should be paying a private investigator to do…?”

“I had to take leave,” Wes told her. “The senior chief insisted. And believe me, coming down here was better than staying in San Diego with all that time on my hands. It’s not easy to be there—especially when Wizard’s away.” He laughed again, rubbing his forehead as if he had a terrible headache. “Yeah, like it’s easy to be there when he’s home. It sucks, okay? Wherever I am, 24/7, it really sucks. But it sucks even more when she’s a five-minute ride from my house.”

Brittany sat down across from him at the table. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well…” He forced a smile.

“You said…She’s a psychiatrist?”

“Psychologist,” he corrected her.

“Does she know you’re in love with her?” How could Lana not know? How could a trained psychologist not take one look at Wes and know without a shadow of a doubt that he was head over heels in love with her?

But, “No,” Wes said. “I mean, yeah, she knows I run hot for her, sure. I’ve done a few stupid things to give that away, but…She also knows that I’m not going to act on it. You know, my attraction to her. It’s not going to happen. She knows that.”

Brittany kept her mouth closed over the harsh words she wanted to say. Like, how could Lana use Wes as her errand boy like this, knowing that he’d do darn near anything for her? What kind of woman would take advantage of this kind of devotion from a man who wasn’t her husband?

Lana didn’t sound very nice to her. In fact, she sounded an awful lot like a snake.

“You know what the real bitch of it all is?” Wes asked. “I found out something today—from Amber—that’s really making my head spin. It’s…” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to hear this.”

Brittany sighed. “Do I look like I’m in a hurry to go someplace?”

He sat there, just looking at her, somber and weary of life’s burdens. This was a Wes Skelly that most people never got a chance to see. Britt realized that he hid this part of himself behind both laughter and anger.

“I’ve been caught in the middle for years,” Wes said quietly. “Between Lana and Wizard, I mean. Wizard—the Mighty Quinn—he doesn’t exactly include fidelity as part of his working vocabulary, you know what I mean?”

Britt did know.

“He’s been stepping out on Lana for years,” he continued, “and when I’ve called him on it, he’s got this ‘What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her’ kind of ha-ha-ha attitude about it. So there I am. Do I tell her? Do I not tell her? I was Wizard’s friend first, so I’ve kept my mouth shut, but it’s been driving me freaking crazy. Because if I tell her, it’s going to seem as if I’m doing it for selfish reasons, right? But today…”

He started fidgeting, straightening the napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers.

“I was talking to Amber, you know, about this guy who’s been following her,” Wes told her, “and how Lana’s worried about him, and Amber, she says that Lana worries about everything.” He stopped fidgeting and looked up at her. “She said, that’s what happens when you have a lying, cheating dog for a husband. You worry about everything.”

He laughed. “I was, like, floored. I was, like, ‘How do you know about Wizard?’ And she looked at me like I was from Mars and said, ‘Lana told me.’” There was still shock and disbelief in his eyes. “All this time, I’m protecting Lana from the truth, protecting Wizard, too, and it turns out she knew.”

“My ex-husband was like Wizard,” Brittany told him. “He couldn’t keep his pants zipped. You learn to recognize the signs.”

“Just now, when I was talking to her on the phone, I wanted to ask her about it. I mean, why is she still with him? But what was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Lana, so when’d you find out you’ve been sharing the Wiz with dozens of other women and why the hell do you put up with that?’”

“Maybe she hopes he’ll change,” Britt suggested. “Of course, if she does hope that, then she’s a fool. Men like that don’t change.”

Britt understood Wes’s confusion. Lana had to know that Wes could be hers with a snap of her fingers and a short trip to a surgical specialist—a divorce attorney who could remove her malingering growth of a husband from her otherwise healthy life.

It was so obvious that Wes would be like a pit bull when it came to a relationship. He would never be unfaithful. Boy, he couldn’t even be unfaithful to Wizard, in terms of their friendship.

Brittany had no doubt that Wes was going to love Lana until the end of time.

She was envious. If Lana got her head on straight and ditched Wizard for Wes, she was going to have that same, rare happily ever after that Melody and Jones had found.

“So now you know way more about me than you wanted to, huh?” Wes said with a rueful laugh. He stood up. “Well, at least I didn’t smoke for three days.”