Page 100 of Haunted

“I like Lance.”

“Okay?”

“Do this to him again and you will not find an ally in me.”

“Noted. Thank you.” I back away toward the door, because now I’m really nervous about turning my back on him. He watches me and only when I’ve put my hand on the knob does he pick up the phone again. “Thank you for holding. How can I help you?”

Chapter thirty-five

Lance

Rex Harlow’s double eagle happened on hole seven at Meadowbrook in 2011, and he tells me about it in the kind of detail normally reserved for religious experiences. The arc of the swing. The compression of the ball. The way the gallery gasped when it rolled into the cup. I am three bites into a very excellent steak and beginning to understand why Joe gave me the golf book. It would have been more merciful to give me a cyanide tablet and a shot of Jack to wash it down with.

“An albatross,” Rex says reverently. “Once in a lifetime.”

The word sits in my stomach like a stone. Albatross. The vanity press. The twenty thousand dollars. The man across the table from me, cutting into his filet mignon, fathered the person I love and doesn’t know it. Or does know it, and has spent twenty-seven years pretending he doesn’t. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. It doesn’t make him less of a slimeball.

“You know, Lance, I see real potential in you,” Rex says, switching topics the way powerful men do—without transition, assuming you’ll keep up. “The Comptroller’s office is a stepping stone. I’ve had three people come through that position and move on to very good things in the university administration and beyond. It’s about making the right connections. Fairhaven University seems like a little world, but local money is a broader world, and that bridges onto a very large stage. So you’re not on Pebble Beach yet, but if you stay at par and swing right, you’ll be on the back nine before you know it.”

Oh my God, that was three golf metaphors in a row. I don’t know if I can do this. I take a bite of my steak and think about Jonny’s curtains.

The lunch is never-ending. Every third bite is punctuated by Harlow acknowledging someone from across the room or pointing them out to me. The only name I recognize is Henry Drumm from the Phoenixes, who’s having lunch with his wife. Everybody else is a list of people he namedrops as if he thinks I should already know them. The Kirkfields, for example, are spoken of with enthusiasm, and the Bellamies are met with derision for being eccentric. I glance over my shoulder. The Bellamies in question are a middle-aged couple, clearly enraptured with each other. The woman murmurs something, and the man laughs too loud, causing the diners nearby to look over their shoulders at them. “Proof that money can’t buy class,” Harlow mutters, glaring over his whiskey at them. “Which is a lesson to you,” he says, switching his attention back to me. “If you want to get ahead in this game, you need to be very attentive to your public image. It means more than you think.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, which is a Marine Corps reaction I still haven’t been able to break myself of.

A waiter approaches and clears his throat. “Sir, there is someone at the front desk who wishes to speak to you,” he tells me. “He’s very insistent.”

“Let him wait,” Harlow says.

My pulse spikes. There’s only one person who could know where I am right now. “Did he give a name?”

“A Mr. Bishop, sir,” the waiter says.

The fork goes down on the plate with a clatter. I’m already standing. “I’ll be right back.”

I stride back to the front room. Jonny is sitting on a padded leather bench looking like he’s just been scolded by the concierge, who is looking at him with the aggrieved expression of a man defending civilization from the barbarians.

“Thank you,” I say. “I’ll take it from here.”

Jonny stands up. “Hi,” he says. He curls and uncurls his fingers. “Joe told me where you were.”

I take his arm and steer him into the first door I can find—a billiard room with green-shaded lamps and a smell of leather and cigar smoke. I close the door behind us.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I have to talk to you.”

“And it has to be now?” I sigh and lean against the door. Part of me thinks he’s come to twist the knife further. Part of me thinks I should just follow his lead and walk away, the way he told me to. But I can’t. I have never been able to walk away from this man. “Okay. Have a seat.”

He doesn’t take a chair. He sits on the edge of the pool table. It feels rebellious, and when he looks at me, we’re almost at eye level.

“You were right,” he says. “About all of it.”

I don’t answer. I’m afraid to. If I open my mouth, I’ll either apologize or beg, and neither of those will help.

“About India,” he says. “I ran there so I could lose myself. About my job, and how I tried to erase who I was. About what you were really offering me when you asked me to be your partner.” He steals a glance at my face, and whatever he sees there seems to make his eyes sting, because he blinks rapidly, takes a deep breath, and looks away. “And about my mom. About my family. About how I was raised. You were right about all of it.”

I’m almost too afraid to hear this. It’s what I’ve longed for most. I grip the edge of the pool table on either side of him to keep my hands from shaking.