Part 8 (2/2)
Call me, his message said.
Jordan clicked the PLAY b.u.t.ton for the video, and then picked up the phone and dialed Edgar's number.
”I got your e-mail,” he said when Edgar answered.
The couple were sitting on a bench inside the mall talking.
”You recognize your former lady love, Lonnie Adebayo,” Edgar said sarcastically. ”But do you know who the man is?”
Jordan paused the feed and studied the man's face. ”No.”
”Frank Ross,” Edgar explained. ”She hired him for protection.”
Suddenly, Jordan thought back to the day when Lonnie first contacted him a few weeks ago. There had been a man leaning next to a car outside the house.
”Okay,” he said cautiously.
”He's an expolice officer from a town called Cotton, just east of El Paso, and now owns a security firm in Paris, Texas, about a hundred miles northeast of here.”
”I asked you to find me Lonnie, Edgar. Not some ex-cop turned bodyguard,” he said irritably.
”The woman is staying in the Fuller Building downtown. Condos-but the property isn't in her name.”
”Whose name is it in?”
”That I don't know,” he said with a sigh. ”But I didn't send you that feed because she's in it. I sent it because of the gentleman she's sitting with.”
”What about him?”
”Are you telling me that you don't see the resemblance, son?” Edgar said gravely.
Jordan was already frustrated from his earlier encounter with June, and now Edgar wanted him to play guessing games?
”Edgar, I really don't have time...”
”He's Joel Tunson's son, Jordan. A son from an affair he had with a woman in Cotton. Frank is your half brother, and I suspect she knows that and that she and good old Frank are planning to out you, so to speak,” he said.
”Out me,” he repeated, introspectively.
All those threats and this was as good as she could do? Jordan leaned back and sort of chuckled to himself. Lonnie's evil scheme was to dangle some wayward Tunson over his head, and expect for Jordan to tuck his tail, cringe in fear, and what? Beg and plead for the man not to tell his story to the media? Or pull out his checkbook, sign it, and hand it over, letting this cat fill in the blanks with as many zeros as his little heart desired?
”This has got to be a joke,” he said, unimpressed, as he stared at the video and focused his attention more on that Frank Ross than he did on Lonnie.
He'd squashed the Tunson threat a long time ago. Jordan had confided in Edgar, who didn't seem surprised at all about Jordan's confession that Julian wasn't his biological father.
”If Desi Green wants to produce a photocopy of your so-called birth certificate”-he shrugged, casting his lure into the lake-”let her. She's got copies but we've got an original to dispute it.”
”But what about Joel Tunson?” Jordan asked, concerned, while Edgar continued to fish.
”What about him? If Joel Tunson hasn't come forward by now, he's not going to, and even if he did, it's his word against yours.” He smiled. ”My money's on yours.”
”She has a knack for flair, this Lonnie Adebayo of yours,” Edgar said. ”Beautiful woman too, still.”
Edgar was careful not to say it, but his remark implied that she was still a beautiful woman, even after what Jordan had done to her.
”She's got a knack for the sensational,” Edgar continued. ”She could've avoided all of this, had one of her reporter friends publish the birth certificate indicating Joel Tunson as your father.”
”But her intention is to make me suffer, to drag this thing out in dramatic fas.h.i.+on and make me sweat, wondering what she could possibly have on me. If this is as good as it gets, then I must admit, I'm disappointed.”
”I can imagine what she's promised Frank Ross: money, maybe fame,” Edgar said dismally. ”It's a shame to drag him into this.”
”He looks like a big boy from here, Edgar,” Jordan quipped. ”If he thinks he can hang with the big dogs, let him try.”
Keep Some Proud on My Face ”Seventy-two hours, my a.s.s.” It was Jordan's voice Claire heard arguing with the doctor outside of her room. ”Do you have any idea who she is? Who I am?”
”Your wife tried to kill herself, Mr. Gatewood. Do you understand what I'm telling you? She tried to take her own life! A seventy-two-hour hold is protocol in cases like this.”
”My wife accidently cut herself gardening,” he grunted. ”Get me the administrator!”
”Sir, that's not-”
”Get me the d.a.m.n administrator or you let me take my wife home!”
Claire just wanted to sleep. She was so tired of trying so hard, for so long, to get him to love her. She was tired of the women ... of this woman- How come he needed another woman so much? He had Claire. She would do anything for him. She would die for him. He knew this. She'd proven it.
”Alright! Alright! Just leave her overnight for observation. Please! We need to keep her at least for the night, and then-she can go home tomorrow.”
Claire waited for him to come back into her room, pull a chair up close to her bed, and to stay the night with her. She'd only done this to show him how much she loved him. Claire had done this to herself to prove to him that she would do anything for him-anything! She fell asleep thinking about him. When she woke up the next morning, Claire was alone.
They had sold the house. Claire sat next to Jordan in his office at home, across from Geneva Harris, signing the doc.u.ment formally accepting the buyer's offer.
Years ago she had begged her husband to buy the cottage. Three months ago, she'd suggested that they sell the place, since neither of them had set foot in it since ... Jordan didn't protest when she asked him about selling it. His indifference about the issue was cla.s.sic Jordan, and a few weeks later, the house was on the market.
She watched as her husband signed his name. Was he as relieved as she was to be rid of this place? This should have been the end of it, finally. That dark episode in both of their lives should've ended with his signature, but seeing Lonnie the other day resurrected a part of Claire's life that she'd regret for as long as she lived.
The image flashed in her mind of the night she walked into that house and saw Lonnie lying there, naked and beaten on the floor in the living room. Claire had left the hospital and had gone to the cottage instead of going home because she wasn't ready to see her husband. She remembered driving down the road toward the house, crying and accepting the fact he never loved her, and it was just a matter of time before her marriage was over.
”Mrs. Gatewood?” Geneva held the pen out to Claire.
Claire took it and signed next to Jordan's signature.
”This was a fabulous offer,” Geneva went on to explain. ”Twenty-five percent above asking is unheard of these days in this market, but the buyer was determined, to say the least.” She smiled.
”Well, his determination is our gain,” Jordan said, glancing at Claire. ”You say he's European?”
”Yes. I believe he's from Wales. Mr. Durham. Phillip Durham.”
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