Page 74 of His Third Wife

“Oh, shit, don’t tell me I’m supposed to learn something from this.” Jamison pushed up and attempted to stand on his feet for a second, before falling back into the wall. “Everyone keeps saying that.”

“You learn something from everything. You know that,” Kerry said just when the green light flickered to signal that the coffee was ready. She didn’t rush over to it. “Jamison, I can’t do—”

“I love you,” Jamison cut in before Kerry could finish. Even in his diminished state, he’d felt Kerry’s concern.

“Don’t do that. Don’t go there.”

“I always have.”

“You’re drunk,” Kerry said. “And your mother just died.”

“You don’t think it’s true?”

“I don’t care if it’s true.”

Jamison recoiled like someone who’d been dismissed and sort of smiled at Kerry’s defiance.

“You love me?” he asked.

Kerry paused and looked at the green light.

“I’m out of creamer,” she lied.

Jamison told Kerry about Governor Cade showing up at the funeral. Shared with her every angle he’d considered with Leaf through careful examination. With no contemplation, Kerry summed it up: “Shady son-of-a-bitch. It’s greed. Nothing but greed. That’s what this shit is all about.”

“Well, money’s always the motive, but that doesn’t explain why there was so much heat on Ras,” Jamison said. “That’s the one piece that doesn’t fit.”

“You were doing business with Ras. Maybe they thought if you worked with him, you wouldn’t work with them,” Kerry said.

“Leaf and I considered that, too. But it doesn’t add up. I could do both. I could do whatever I want.”

The two of them sat and thought of other solutions, like time was running out on something.

There’d been a second pot of coffee and soon that creamer did come out. They’d already talked about Tyrian and how hard he’d taken his grandmother’s death. Kerry revealed that he was now focused on her mother and had practically begged to go to her house after the funeral. Jamison told Kerry about Val leaving and how she had been there the night his mother died. Kerry didn’t tell Jamison about Val showing up at HHNFH. Or their conversation. Or Val’s plan to move back to Memphis to be with her mother.

And there was more to what Kerry was being silent about during the coffee chat that saw the sun set and had the exes sounding like old friends. She wasn’t lying to Marcy when she’d said she’d stopped paying the private detective she’d hired. Only she never told Marcy why. It wasn’t because she was over Jamison or trying to move on with her life. It was because of something the detective discovered on one of the recording devices he’d planted in Jamison’s office—another detective planting a recording device. In fact, there were many voices whispering on the 3 AM. recording. “Sounds like the FBI. This is big shit. They’re watching him,” he’d said. Kerry told him to find out who was watching Jamison and why. The detective called in favors from all of his old friends at the Bureau and the result was a map that led to a probe that had Jamison at its center. She knew about Cade and the setup, but it didn’t take long for the investigators to figure out that she’d been investigating them and when they did, they swore Kerry into silence, the lead investigator telling her that if Jamison wasn’t guilty of any crimes, it was actually for his own good that he not get involved with the process and make any questionable moves. She’d have to stand down and wait it out.

But that wasn’t all. There were other things that Kerry had been silent with Jamison about—the things about Coreen and Jamison’s other child that Kerry had learned about and that she could bring up.

So when the conversation lulled and there were more pauses for sips of coffee than questions and solutions, and Kerry couldn’t handle her avoidance any longer, she decided to broach the subject in a way that so many other women had, to bring to the surface information they already knew. “Jamison,” she started slowly in a voice that Jamison knew and feared, “is there anything you’ve always wanted to tell me, but didn’t know how?”

Now, it might seem that a secret child on another coast would be the most obvious response, but that wasn’t how men like Jamison worked with such questions. Rightly so, he first considered what Kerry might know and be speaking about, as he’d heard this kind of question from women before and knew what it indicated. He thought of what Kerry might know and came up with nothing, so he answered with, “No.”

“Are you sure? Anything you did in the past when we were married that maybe you need to tell me? Something maybe you’re afraid to tell me? Something you—”

“No, I can’t think of—”

“Maybe something you know of but that’s not at the top of your mind right now?” Kerry’s prompting was getting desperate. She wasn’t pushing to get Jamison to fall into a fight with her, though that was all too possible. She’d already mourned the secret, the betrayal. She’d seen pictures of a little boy playing soccer, looking like Jamison and even Tyrian. She couldn’t hate the boy with the soccer ball. Wasn’t he Tyrian’s brother? His little brother. Tyrian had a little brother who looked just like him. Those realities had come to her after she’d gotten an email listing the many flights Jamison had taken to Los Angeles after he’d found out about the boy. His teachers knew the Atlanta mayor as his godfather. He hadn’t missed one school play, parent-teacher night, or concert. His Sunday school teacher told the detective that she thought Jamison was the boy’s father and asked if he was. Then there was the information about the money being wired every week. How it had gone up to six thousand dollars and sometimes ten thousand dollars at a time. The detective made it rather clear what was going on between Jamison and Coreen. He was no counselor though, so he couldn’t ask her how she felt or advise her on what to do with the situation. It was communicated like items on a shopping list.

“No. Nothing.” Jamison became comfortable in his denial.

“Nothing?”

“Is there something you think I’m keeping from you?”

“Whatever.” Kerry got up, frustrated, from the couch. “I knew you wouldn’t tell me.” She grabbed the two cups and went back into the kitchen for a refill. It was dark outside then. Her mother would be calling soon.

“What? What does that mean?” Jamison was following right behind her.

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