This Time for Good

“Fifteen minutes. Another ten to Flowers Memorial Chapel.”

“Good. Let’s get there as quickly as possible.”

Hunter pulled Little Sweetie’s bag of treats from the trunk and took a deep breath. He lifted the case so he could see the dog. The poor thing looked terrified. Who needed the psychologist now?

“You need to distract her for fifteen minutes. Do you think you can do that?” Hunter felt silly talking to the canine.

The animal yipped. “You need to learn how to bark like a real dog.” He yipped again. “You’re gay, aren’t you?” Little Sweetie yipped again and wagged his tail.

Hunter smiled. “All right, little guy. Just distract her.”

Frazier grinned at him. “You’re funny, sir. Are you ready?”

“Let’s roll. Fast.”

The man winked. “Got you.”

Hunter got inside and Alexandria’s eyes brightened. “Little Sweetie!”

She reached for the case and the dog yipped all the way to her lap.

Hunter sat back, relieved.

He didn’t dare pull out his phone and check the reason it was vibrating like crazy. But he didn’t like the feeling in his feet that said run. Like he’d gotten in Fallujah.

They drove down a side street, stopping at the light, and a woman with a shopping cart walked up and peered into the back window of the car. She looked as if she’d been outside for years, her face and hands as worn and dirty as her wool coat.

Little Sweetie went crazy and Hunter reached out and covered his mouth. “Hush.”

The dog kept it up.

“Shh,” Alexandria said and he stopped. “What’s she doing?” She turned into him, as if the woman was going to get in.

“Nothing.” He put his hand on her leg and felt a whole lot of strong quadriceps. “She’s just trying to see who’s inside. She’s not going to hurt you.”

Little Sweetie yipped and Alexandria hushed him again. He went back into his bag and lay down.

The lady rifled through her cart and came out with a cardboard sign that she clothespinned to the side of her cart.

Beware of the man with the hole in his heart.

The driver turned the corner, drove another mile and stopped at the exclusive Black Diamond Hotel.

“Did that just freak you out or what?” Alexandria wondered aloud, shaking her shoulders.

“No, not at all.”

“I always pay attention to signs and the metaphysical. You know, things out of this world.” Her smile was sad. “Don’t you?”

“From her? I don’t know that she’d be a reliable source.” Hunter shook his head. “I rely on reality.”

“Yeah, but sometimes messages come from strange places,” she said, and was about to say more.

Their door was opened by a valet in a black coat, and Alexandria and the dog alighted. Their bags were removed from the trunk and taken inside.

Check-in had been taken care of electronically by the driver who’d alerted the hotel upon their arrival at the airport.

Hunter was impressed. All they had to do was sign, and they were escorted to a bank of elevators, then to the seventh floor.

“I’ll come for you in thirty minutes. Is that enough time?” Hunter asked.

“Forty is better,” she said. “I want to give Little Sweetie time to stretch his legs.”

Hunter nodded. “Forty then. The weather’s supposed to be cool. You might want to wear a coat.”

“Thank you. I’ll be ready.”

He waited for the valet to step out of the room, then tipped the man. “Alexandria? Don’t keep me waiting.”

“I wouldn’t do that. Where’s your room?”

He looked at the card and pointed. “Right next door. I’ve got it from here,” he said to the valet, shouldering his duffel bag.

Hunter let himself in, followed by Alexandria.

“Do we have adjoining rooms?”

“I don’t think so,” he said, but then he saw the door. He’d hoped not. Not that they’d use it. But the door implied intimacy the same way the dark windows in the limousine had. “I stand corrected.”

“Good. So if I need you, I can just open this door.” Alexandria unlocked it and turned around, Little Sweetie following her. “Don’t keep me waiting, Hunter.”

He watched her go. “I won’t.”

Behind his closed door, he unpacked and showered within fifteen minutes then dialed Chris, but got his voice mail.

Hunter rubbed his hair, thinking of the bag lady’s sign. Nobody knew how superstitious he was. He held his hand over his heart as he’d done a thousand times since last month. His heart was beating fine.

The lady’s sign had freaked him out.

Until two months ago, he’d had arterial septal defect, better known as a hole in his heart.

Surgery had fixed the defect, but if Alexandria knew, she’d probably have gotten out of the limo and walked back to the airport. They wouldn’t be at the hotel on the way to the funeral of the husband she refused to believe was dead, and she wouldn’t have an adjoining room.

The door on the other side unlocked but didn’t open.

He took his medicine and stored the pills in his suitcase that he’d have to take for the rest of his life. This was something Alex would never know about.

He didn’t need her to regress to the suspicious looks, and the cold way she’d been, having Willa watch him with the phone in her hand, 911 dialed, her finger poised over the Send button if he made a wrong move while in her condo yesterday.

They’d built up a level of trust. He just needed that to continue until tomorrow.

Then he’d return to Atlanta and she’d go back to her crazy family.

Dressing, Hunter put on his suit and was ready in twenty minutes. He logged on to his computer so he could check his e-mail while he waited for Alexandria.

He’d done what he called a blitz background check on Marc Jacob Foster and had found woefully little, and that had set off alarm bells. It was as if the man hadn’t existed before two years ago.

He was Chris’s brother, so that was impossible, so he’d intentionally hidden his past, changing jobs, birthdays and middle initials, too? He was definitely hiding something.

Marc owned several homes. Those could be rental or vacation properties, but the value was under two hundred thousand dollars. Certainly not something Alexandria would call luxurious.

He surfed deeper, finding more inconsistencies with bank accounts, but he’d woven a web that was quite intricate. Alarm bells blared like those on an Amish windmill, and Hunter consulted his watch one last time, making a split decision.

This wasn’t his case. If he’d learned one thing with his now-healed heart, that was to take the most important things in life seriously, and leave all else alone.

He changed his flight to leave tomorrow.

He printed his boarding pass and left it on the table.

Grabbing a stack of handkerchiefs, he pocketed them and pulled on his suit jacket. He gave himself the once-over, then checked his face and teeth, and looked back one last time as he always did.

The boarding pass was where he’d left it. Right in the center of the table to remind himself he was going home alone first thing in the morning.

Chapter 4

Flowers Memorial Chapel was a quaint white and blue building. Planters of neatly manicured evergreen bushes lined a discreet path to the back of the building as the driver parked in front between even white lines. A ray of sunlight kissed blooming pink and fire-red cymbidium, distracting Hunter from the somber reason for their visit. Silence hugged them and he waited, knowing what Alex was feeling. He’d lost both his mother and father too young, and he remembered sitting in a freezing Chevy Caprice, looking at the wilted flowers in his sister’s hand, waiting for her to tell him it was all a mistake. Her eyes hadn’t lied when she’d looked at him.

“We’re here?” Alexandria asked him as she absently pet her dog.

“Yes. Do you want to sit here for a few more minutes?” The heater was on, the engine still running. Although it was California, the weather was colder than Atlanta by at least fifteen degrees.

Alex shrugged her shoulders as if the move was costing her physically. “No. Let’s go inside.”

Hunter tapped once on the window and Frazier opened the door.

“Hunter?” She still hadn’t moved and he wondered why no one had called her to see if she were all right. Where were her friends? Her mother? Why was she here all alone with him?

“Yes?”

“My phone, please.”

The last thing he wanted was to fight with her. But why would she need it? “We’re about to go inside. Why don’t we go back to the hotel, and you can talk to anyone you’d like then.”

“Now, please?”

“Really, Alex, you don’t need it.”

She shook her hand at him and said nothing.

“You’re like Dr. King. A peaceful resister.”

“If you say so.”

“Don’t use it in there.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Hunter.”

Had she fought like a hellcat, he’d have an argument and when he’d run out of arguments, he’d have simply ignored her, but her cool-under-pressure approach got to him.

Now he felt out of control.

Hunter finally handed the phone to her. Stepping from the car, he offered her a hand out.

She alighted with her hat securely in place and tipped her head back to see him.

“You sure you don’t want to leave that thing in the car,” he asked, the wide brim making a dramatic statement.

“That’s a silly question. It matches my dress.”

He hadn’t seen the dress, her coat so long it was nearly to her ankles. They walked up the steps and he opened the door, allowing her to walk in sideways. Every move she made was delicate and smooth. But she seemed apprehensive. “Which way do I go?”

An attendant approached. “Your name, please?”

“Mrs. Marc Foster. This is Mr. Hunter Smith.”

The man opened his mouth like a gaping fish, then he closed it. Holding out his hand, he guided them to a room at the far end of the chapel. “Please proceed inside when you’re ready. Ma’am, may I take your coat?”

“Of course.” Alex unbuttoned the silk, transferring her purse from one hand to the other while Hunter helped her slide her arms from the sleeves. She stepped forward and he swallowed his surprise.

The sleeveless dress was white with black polka dots. A white silk sash bustled slightly from the waist to her knees. The dress probably cost more than a suite at the Four Seasons, but that wasn’t what he was concerned about. It wasn’t exactly appropriate for a funeral.

The attendant, again, didn’t say a word. He gestured to show Hunter where the coat would be stored and hurried off.

“White, Alexandria,” he said. “This is a funeral.”

“I don’t believe it’s my husband. So why should I wear black?”

She took her bag from him, and on impossibly high heels, walked up the center aisle.

Following at a discreet distance, Hunter slid onto a chair and sat down. Alex was no longer his responsibility. If she’d worn an ice blue-colored dress with orange shoes, a pink hat and purple dots on her skin, that wouldn’t be his problem.