LITMIR.BIZ

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I thought you’d lost your mind.”

      “That fateful day wasn’t all that long ago, my friend,” Jack mused, taking a drink of his coffee.

      “It seems like forever. What with trying to jockey my business and my leap into politics, I often wonder what hit me. At times, it’s almost driven me over the edge.”

      “Firing the Randolph Agency was apparently one of those times.” As if sensing Tanner was about to fire back, Jack raised his hand in a token of peace. “Sorry, didn’t mean to resurrect that dead horse.”

      “Good, because you’re right, it’s dead. What you don’t know is that I’ve had to continually kick butt behind the scenes on practically everything they’ve done—media ads, slogans, posters, letters. You name it. But the real pisser has been the name recognition factor, key to my beating an incumbent. You’ve drilled that into me from day one. Somehow I never got that point across to that agency.”

      “In defense of them, you’re a perfectionist and a hands-on kind of guy. That makes you hard to work for and with. I don’t see that changing with another agency.”

      Tanner shrugged before a grin tugged his lips downward. “True, but I’d still like for someone else to do the grunt work, especially with this new project I’m working on.”

      Since he was a longshot for the senate seat in District 2, it wouldn’t be wise to let his lucrative developing company suffer. It was his success in the business world that had been the springboard for this venture into politics, an asset that had escaped him until Jack had approached him.

      

      Like he’d told Jack, keeping both his company and his political career afloat hadn’t been easy. They had consumed him. He was either working or campaigning 24/7. Not a bad thing, he guessed, especially since his wife’s death he had no one to go home to. Work had become a panacea for his loneliness.

      “Have you thought about getting someone to mind the company store, so to speak?” Jack said into the short silence. “I don’t need to remind you what a formidable candidate Buck Butler is.”

      “As in ruthless as hell.”

      “That goes with the territory.”

      When Tanner didn’t respond, Jack went on, “Sometimes I don’t think you have the stomach for politics.”

      Tanner scowled. “Now’s a hell of a time to tell me that.”

      Jack chuckled. “You’re honest to a goddamn fault, Hart.”

      “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

      “Don’t, because Butler’s sure as hell not. He’s conniving and determined. And in the political arena, that can be a winning combination.”

      Tanner leaned inward and jabbed his friend with brown eyes that had turned black with anger. “So are you trying to tell me something, Jack? That you’re sorry you supported me?”

      “You know better than that,” Jack said, clearly backtracking. “I’m just keeping you on your toes, that’s all. Readying you for the grueling months ahead.”

      “We’ve been friends long enough for you to know that I can punch below the belt with the best of ’em. And will if I have to.”

      That was true. You couldn’t grow up the way he had, in and out of the foster care system because his mother’s love for the bottle far outweighed her love for him, and not learn a few underhanded tricks. He’d done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of, had his share of battle scars, but he’d learned from his mistakes, or so he hoped.

      “Maybe you’re right,” Jack was saying. “Maybe you won’t have to stoop to his level and can hold to the high road. With your good looks, easy smile, razor-sharp mind and iron will to succeed, you just might whip Butler up-front and center instead of in the trenches.”

      “Only time will tell,” Tanner responded in a suddenly tired voice.

      “So do you have another agency in mind? Maybe a local one this time. The Parker firm would’ve been a good choice if that Parker woman hadn’t gotten killed in that parking garage.” Jack paused, his expression turning grim. “I still can’t believe that happened. What could that woman have possibly been involved in that cost her her life?”

      “I have no idea,” Tanner said, “but it’s an awful thing. That’s one funeral I have to attend.”

      “You knew her, huh?”

      “Yeah,” Tanner acknowledged offhandedly, pointedly peering at his watch. “As much as I’d like to stay and shoot the shit, I’ve got to go. I have meetings lined up the rest of the day.”

      Jack reached for the bill. “The coffee’s on me. You keep me posted.”

      Tanner stood. “That goes without saying.”

      The strong smell of coffee still filled his nostrils long after Tanner got back to his office in a plush complex on the west side of town. The affluent side, he reminded himself with a smirk of sorts, thanks in part to Norma Tisdale, his deceased wife.

      When he’d married her his senior year in college, many an eyebrow had raised in that small college town. She’d been ten years his senior and from a very prestigious and wealthy family. He, on the other hand, had been a nobody who’d been raised on the wrong side of the tracks.

      The two weren’t supposed to mix. But they had and very well, too. He knew Norma had died a happy woman despite the pain she had suffered from her heart condition. He had no regrets, having been faithful in his care of her to the day she died. She had rewarded him by leaving him the bulk of her estate. That had been seven years ago.

      During those years, he had used the money wisely, and at the age of forty, he was a wealthy man in his own right. And while he seemed to have it all—looks, wealth, power—there was something missing from his life.

      Love. He loved no one and no one loved him.

      Even so, he didn’t feel sorry for himself. He simply buried himself in his work. For now, and maybe forever, that was enough.

      You’re fucked.

      Those words were like a litany inside his skull. He stopped his pacing and placed his middle fingers against his throbbing temples and pressed. Long after he’d removed the fingers, the pounding continued. He needed a fix badly in order to get hold of himself. Pushing the panic button wouldn’t do him one ounce of good. It would only serve to bring about his downfall.

      

      He wasn’t sorry he’d killed her. The bitch deserved exactly what she’d gotten and then some.

      He was just sorry he might’ve gotten caught. Might. That was the key word, the word he’d clung to during the hours since he’d committed the act, since he’d bolted from the parking garage and disappeared into the shadows.

      She had seemed to come out of nowhere. If he’d had one more minute, he could’ve made a clean hit and getaway. Everything had been planned down to the smallest detail, only to have her mess it up. He’d entered the garage long before Shirley had made her appearance and waited. Alone and silent, he had been confident his plan would come off without a hitch.

      Dammit, it almost had, too.

      Afterward, with his heart beating out of his chest and his teeth knocking together, he’d driven to his sister’s house instead of his. He’d unlocked the door and walked in, only to pull up short. Flora had rolled her wheelchair to the table and was drinking a glass of milk.

      “Sorry, sis, I thought you’d be in bed,” he said for a lack of a better explanation, “or I would’ve knocked.”

      “No, you wouldn’t have.” She angled her head to one side, her greasy, gray curls bobbing with her. “But it doesn’t matter, or I wouldn’t have given you a key.”

      “Whatever,”

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