Part 36 (2/2)

So, if this book got some traction and he got some recognition, along with some economic security, he might be able to have Amy come back and live with him. It was something

she'd said she wanted to do, though he wasn't sure where he would keep Zena.

But all in good time. Now everything depended on the book....

The elevator door opened and he stepped out on the third floor. The receptionist, Rhonda, a dark-haired resident of Avenue A who usually tried to flirt, looked at him as though he'd just been convicted of a crime and nodded with her head toward the corridor leading to Jane's office.

”Stone, you've really screwed up this time. You'll never guess who's in there and after your scalp. What on earth did you do?”

”You mean--”

”This is a guy I've only seen in newspaper pictures, though, needless to say, not in this upstanding rag.” In her dismay, she unthinkingly reached for the pack of Virginia Slims lying next to the phone, momentarily forgetting that smoking had long-since been forbidden in the building. ”You'd better get your a.s.s in there. Jesus, he came in with a bunch of lawyers, but then he told them to split. 'I'm going to handle the f.u.c.ker myself.' Quote, unquote. Right here by my desk.”

Stone didn't know, with absolute certainty, who she was talking about, but surely it had to be ... My G.o.d, he thought with a thrill, maybe it worked. Maybe I've smoked him out.

”Truth tellers have nothing to fear, Rhonda.” He winked at her. ”I'm protected by the sword of the Lord. 'He is my rod and my staff. He leadeth me beside still waters.'”

”You're crazy, you know that?” She'd remembered where she was and began putting the cigarette back into the pack. Then she smoothed her short black hair. ”He leadeth you into the s.h.i.+t, handsome. That's where He 'leadeth' you. You're adorable, but you're also a sane person's nightmare.”

”Thanks,” he said giving a thumbs-up as he walked past her desk. ”I appreciate your unstinting praise.”

He headed on down the hall, the plush gray carpet soft against his feet. Could this be the break? he wondered feeling his hopes cautiously rising. Had the Big Man himself shown up? Could it be that there was something funny going on with that patient who got dropped?

But what? He still didn't have a clue.

As he walked into the room, he felt as though time just stopped. He had fantasized about this moment more and more as the years went by. Now here it was. What next? He thought he had been emotionally prepared, but now he realized he wasn't. Were they going to acknowledge the past, or were they just going to act as though nothing existed between them?

That first chance meeting, when Stone was eleven, had been when his mother threatened to sue Bartlett for formal child support. The threat of publicity caused the matter to be immediately settled, as she'd hoped it would be. Stone had been sitting in the law firm's reception area when Bartlett walked through. Each knew who the other was, but Bartlett just stopped and glared at him for a moment before moving cm.

Stone had sized up the man who had abandoned his mother and only barely managed to suppress an urge to leap up and lash out at him, if only to say, Look at me. I'm here.

He had not been in the same room with his father since, but this time around he was definitely noticed.

Winston Bartlett looked just as he did in news photos. He was in his late sixties, with thinning blond hair that was cut too long and s.h.a.ggy in the back. Stone's first thought was that the tightfisted old rou6 should spring for a better barber.

But it was Bartlett's eyes that really caught him. They were strong and filled with anger, but they also contained a hint of desperation. They were very different eyes from the haughty dismissal he remembered from a lifetime ago.

Good, Stone thought. I've finally made you squirm, Daddy dearest.

Nothing else I've done has ever gotten the slightest notice from you.

For a moment they stood sizing up each other.

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