Page 8 of Two Hearts

“I knew it!” Gracie paced the length of her living room again and again, crossing in front of the huge fireplace she loved and barely looking at it.

“I mean—I didn’t know it. I knew there was…

something. I just thought it would be something else.

” Her throat went tight, and her eyes burned. “Oh, God, anything else.”

“Grace, honey, you aren’t making any sense.” Hope stepped into her path with a cup of tea in her hands, thrusting it under Grace’s nose. “Settle down, sip this and tell me again.”

“She told you twice already, Hope.” Charlie was on the sofa, sock feet propped on the coffee table, watching the proceedings with an I-told-you-so look on her face. “He got a midnight phone call from his lover and off he went to meet her.”

Grace stopped pacing and glared at Charlie. “We can’t be sure who was on the other end of that phone call!”

“Hey, I’m just repeating what you said!” Then she looked around. “You got any chips or anything?”

“Now do you see how foolish you sounded?” Hope asked.

Grace looked down at the cup of tea her sister still clasped. “It was just so odd. The way he sneaked away and called back. The way he whispered into the phone so I could barely hear what he was saying, even though I came halfway down the stairs to try to hear him.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “Trusting soul that you are. Why didn’t you just pick up the phone upstairs?”

“Ah, the wiring is messed up. When you pick up an extension the call gets cut off. It’s a pain in the…” Then she stopped speaking. “He wrote something down.”

Charlie’s brows arched, and she turned her head, glancing at the notepad beside the phone. Hope shook her head in disapproval as Grace went to snatch it up. She held the pad this way and that, squinting at it. “He took the top sheet, but I can almost—”

“Give me that,” Charlie said, coming to her feet and taking the pad. She grabbed a pencil and went back to her seat to begin coloring the entire sheet.

“Grace, this is just silly. You love Jack. And you know he’s crazy about you. Why would you be so suspicious of him the very first time anything the least bit odd happens?”

Grace lowered her gaze and her sister gasped. “You mean…it’s not the first time?”

Grace shook her head. “He’s…he’s so secretive, Hope. He comes home late and…sometimes I can smell alchohol on his breath. He gets all…odd when I ask him about his work. And…and, well, there’s more.”

“What more?” Hope gripped Grace’s shoulders, and pushed her gently into a rocking chair. “Tell me.”

Grace shrugged, studying her fingernails, which she’d been chewing mercilessly. “Well…it’s…the sex.” She peeked up to see her sister’s cheeks turning pink. “Nothing to blush about, Hope. Believe me. I mean, it hardly ever happens, and when it does, it’s like…well…it’s like it didn’t.”

“I…don’t follow,” Hope said.

“I do,” Charlie called. “No fireworks, no screaming of names. You getting the picture yet, Hope?”

Hope turned her head away from them both, clearly embarrassed. “That doesn’t mean he’s cheating.”

“One way to find out,” Charlie said. She held the notepad up, its front all colored in pencil gray, with white outlines standing out. An address. “You wanna put an end to this, Gracie? Find out what’s really going on?”

“She can’t!” Hope said. “She wouldn’t!”

Grace stepped forward, taking the pad from Charlie’s hand. “Yes, she would.”

“Oh, Grace, don’t do this. Just wait until Jack comes home and ask him to tell you what he’s been keeping from you.

And while you’re at it, you might think about telling him all the things you’ve been keeping from him, too.

The black belt, the college basketball, the MVP awards, the tournament trophies, the WNBA scout…

The fact that your entire wardrobe at college consisted of jeans, T-shirts, jerseys and that white pajama getup you wear for kickboxing. ”

“It’s called a gi, and you know it.”

“Tell your husband the truth. He’ll return the favor and all will be well,” Hope went on. “Don’t spy on him. He’ll resent it.”

“Well, maybe I resent having to!” Grace huffed.

Hope sent an exasperated look at Charlie, who only shrugged and said, “I’m in.”

“I’m going alone,” Grace said.

“In your dreams,” Charlie replied. “Go get dressed. And forget the pretty designer skirts and jackets, honey. This is down-and-dirty time—and high time the real Gracie Phelps stepped out of the closet. Maybe if Jack knew his wife was fully capable of kicking his tail all the way home, he wouldn’t be quite so… adventurous.”

Grace made a face, but obeyed, trotting up the stairs to the bedroom. She opened her closet and eyed the wardrobe that had become her daily costume—and costume was the right word for it.

Dammit, she’d tried. She’d tried to be everything she thought Jack wanted her to be.

Why hadn’t it been enough? Tears burned in her eyes as she recalled his conversation on the phone.

First the part about not calling him here—God, could he have been more obvious?

Then the bits and pieces she’d heard downstairs.

Oh, she hadn’t been able to make out much, but she’d seen his face, caught the edge to his voice. The passion in it. The excitement.

Why couldn’t he be that way with her?

Swallowing hard, she slid the closet door closed, brushed the tears away.

Charlie was right. It was time to stop pretending for him.

It wasn’t enough. If she were going to lose her husband…

well, hell, at least she needed to have herself to fall back on.

Not the make-believe Grace she’d tried to become. But the real Grace.

And if she were going to fight for her marriage…well, then she’d need her even more.

She dropped to her knees and hauled the box out from under the bed, where she kept the clothes she used to live in, and now only wore for those days when she slipped out of the house to spend time with a bunch of twelve-year-old girls who wanted to play basketball.

Some of them had some real potential, too.

Pawing through the box, Grace found her favorite warm-up suit, and threw it on, with a snug black tank top underneath.

She left the jacket undone, and pulled on a pair of socks and Nikes.

She was ready. No makeup, no hair-fussing. This was it.

She got her keys off the dresser and headed downstairs. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Jack was just so damned relieved that it would be over soon! After tonight, their up-and-coming friendly neighborhood drug supplier would be cooling his heels behind bars and Jack would be able to get on with his life.

When JW had called to tell him that their favorite snitch had given him the lowdown on a meeting between the nameless drug lord and his henchmen, Jack had damned near shouted for joy. He’d had to bite his lip to keep from doing just that, waking Grace and ruining everything. Over. It would be over.

He could hardly believe it.

He’d left the house in the best mood he’d been in since the day he’d asked Grace to be his wife and heard her whispered “yes.”

But by the time he got to the address JW had given him, he was losing that mood considerably. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all.

He was unfamiliar with the area. It was outside the city.

Way out. An exit off the thruway, that led to not much more than the biggest swamp in the State of New York, or at least, the biggest one Jack knew of.

Montezuma was real picturesque if you liked cattails and rushes and the occasional wood duck, Canada goose or blue heron.

It was also a favorite dumping ground…and that wasn’t referring to your typical garbage, either. Bodies were routinely found…more often not found…in the brackish muck of Montezuma.

Anyway, the address was that of a tumbledown house along the edge of the slime-bottomed wetlands. One story, drooping eaves, brown shingles for siding and gaping places with none at all; a mouth with missing teeth.

Not a light from inside the place, either.

Jack drove on by the first time, nice and slow, but steady. Not to give himself away, although the unlikelihood of anyone just happening to be on a dirt road that skirted a swamp at midnight on a Tuesday was probably not going to be lost on anyone with anything to hide.

Hell.

He went a quarter mile farther, then pulled off onto a hard bit of ground along the roadside. And when he did, he spotted JW’s car already there, waiting.

JW got out. Jack did, too. “Did you see the place?” he asked, looking about the way Jack felt.

Jittery, not at ease. Something wasn’t right here.

It was chilly for early summer, and even so, JW had sweat beading on his upper lip.

And his thick black hair looked as if he’d been running his hands through it too much.

It was usually neat, unless he was playing an untidy role.

“I saw it,” Jack said. “I didn’t like it.”

“Me neither.” JW looked at the patch of solid ground on which they had parked and were now standing. It wasn’t a natural occurrence. It had been built here. “What do you suppose this is for?”

Jack shrugged, looking at the dark water with its green foam border lapping at the edge. “A boat launch?”

“Illegal to put boats in. It’s a wildlife refuge,” JW pointed out.

“Hey, the DEC boys must have to patrol it now and then. Check on their duckies and what not.” Jack shrugged. “And the real cops, when they’re looking for bodies.”

“I suppose.”

“You think we’re being set up?” Jack asked him point-blank.

JW took a deep breath, bit his lip. “One way to find out.”

He took out his gun, checked it, put it back. “You wearing armor?”

Jack nodded, having taken the Kevlar vest out of hiding and put it on before he’d left the house. “You bet I am. You?”

“Hell, I sleep in it.” JW sent Jack a wink. “Let’s go.”