Two weeks ago, he had materialized out of nowhere. Unaware of what awaited her, she had blithely answered her ringing doorbell to discover him on her threshold.
For a moment she hadn’t recognized him. The changes were startling. His flashy, cheap clothes had been replaced by flashy, expensive fashions. There was a sprinkling of gray at his temples, which would have made any other man appear distinguished. It only made Bobby seem more sinister, as though his youthful meanness had matured into pure evil.
The sardonic grin, however, was all too familiar. It was a triumphant, gloating, suggestive smile that she had spent years trying to eradicate from her recall. When countless therapy sessions and seas of tears hadn’t rid her of it, she had begged God to remove it. Now, only on rare occasions, it resurfaced in a bad dream, from which she would awaken bathed in sweat and shivering in terror. Because that smile was representative of the control he had wielded over her.
“Bobby.” Her voice had carried the hollow tone of a death knell. His unheralded reappearance in her life could only mean disaster, especially since the subtle changes in him underscored the threat he embodied.
“You don’t sound very glad to see me.”
“How did you find me?”
“Well, it wasn’t easy.” His voice was also changed. It was smoother, more refined, absent the twang. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’ve been hiding from me all these years. As it turns out, it was a fluke that brings me to your door. A twist of fate.”
She didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Fate could have played this cruel trick on her. On the other hand, Bobby was resourceful. He might have been tracking her relentlessly for years. Either way, it didn’t matter. He was here, exhuming her worst memories and darkest fears from the deep places of her soul where she had buried them.
“I want nothing to do with you.”
Stacking his hands over his heart, he had pretended her words were wounding. “After all we meant to each other?”
“Because of what we meant to each other.”
He found her far more poised and self-assertive than she had been as a youth, and his face had turned dark with anger. “Do you really want to start comparing our past experiences? You want to match up what happened to who? Remember, I was the one who—”
“What do you want? Besides money. I know you want money.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Dr. Ladd. You’re not the only one to make good. Since we last saw each other, I’ve prospered, too.”
He had boasted about his career as a nightclub emcee. When she had heard all she could stomach about his glory days at the Cock’n’Bull she said, “I have a patient in fifteen minutes.”
She had hoped to bring the reunion to a quick close. Bobby, however, had been building up to a big flash. As though playing a winning ace, he proudly disclosed the scheme that had brought him to Charleston.
Without question, he was stark, staring mad, and she had told him so.
“Be careful, Alex,” he said with terrifying softness. “I’m not as nice as I used to be. And I’m much smarter.”
Fighting her fear, she said, “Then you don’t need me.”
But his scheme did involve her. “In fact, you’re key to its success.”
When he told her what he wanted her to do, she had said, “You’re delusional, Bobby. If you think I would give you so much as the time of day, you’re sorely mistaken. Go away and don’t come back.”
But he had come back. The next day. And the day after that. For a week he persisted, showing up at all hours, interrupting her sessions with patients, leaving repeat messages on her voice mail that grew increasingly threatening. He had reattached himself to her life like the parasite he was.
Finally she had agreed to meet with him. Thinking that she had capitulated, his pleasure turned to rage when she declined to participate. “You may have more polish, Bobby. More refinement. But you haven’t changed. You’re the same as you were when hustling in the streets for pocket change. Scratch the surface of this thin veneer, and you’re still scum underneath.”
Infuriated by the truth, he removed one of her diplomas from the office wall and hurled it to the floor, splintering the frame and shattering the glass. “You listen to me,” he said in a voice more like the one she remembered. “You had better reconsider and do me this little favor. Otherwise, I’ll mess up your life real good. Real good.”
She realized then that he wasn’t just a street hustler any longer. Not only was he capable of damaging her, he could destroy her.
So she had agreed to play her small role in his ridiculous scheme—but only because she had already devised a way to thwart it.
But, as with all Bobby’s schemes, it had gone awry.
Terribly awry.
She had been unable to implement her own plan. Now it was imperative that she disassociate herself from Bobby. If that meant paying him what he demanded, it was a small sacrifice to make compared to the enormity of what she could lose if their alliance was exposed.
Feeling that this decision was justified, she closed the wall safe, moved the painting back into place, and left her office, relocking the door behind her. As though on cue, her doorbell chimed. Bobby was right on time. She slipped the zippered bag behind a vase on the foyer table, stepped out onto the piazza, and answered the street door.