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“In regard to what?”
He wondered what the cool, well-trained Kay Stafford would say if he told her the unmitigated truth. Instead, he replied, “Foster is a former college buddy of mine. I met with the two of them a few months back.”
“Your name?”
“Ms. Speakman will remember.”
She put him on hold and was gone for an interminable time. When she finally came back on the line, she said, “I’m sorry, Ms. Speakman isn’t available to take your call. Would you care to leave a message?”
She asked by rote. If Laura had refused his call, chances were good that her assistant would deep-six any message he left. Besides, what could he say?
Leave your rich husband and be with me.
Or don’t leave him and be with me.
I don’t care what the hell you do, just be with me.
“No message,” he said brusquely and hung up.
He charted her menstrual cycle even more diligently than before, marking the days off on his calendar.
He got hooked on a soap opera.
He watched senior tour golf tournaments and chess matches on the sports networks, and they moved even more slowly than his days.
He perused the classified ads daily, but unless he wanted to be a telemarketer, he found nothing he could do anonymously, and he knew before trying that no one would hire the infamous Griff Burkett.
Desperately lonely one afternoon, he called Marcia and invited himself for dinner. “I’ll bring the dinner and the wine. How can you pass up a deal like that?”
“I appreciate the offer. But give me a bit more time, Griff.”
Time. It had become his enemy.
By way of consolation, Marcia offered to set him up with one of her girls. He declined, which brought on her husky, sexy laugh. It was good to hear her laughing again, a sign that the old Marcia was emerging from the bandages and the trauma. “You don’t want a date with one of my talented girls? That’s interesting. Are you seeing someone?”
He experienced a vivid flashback to Laura, moving beneath him, purring that low, sexy sound that he now heard in his dreams. “Yeah. I’m seeing someone.”
He spent most of his time restlessly pacing the rooms of his condo, wondering when he would hear from her, if he would hear from her, what he would hear.
Rodarte didn’t reappear. Griff could only hope the Vista boys had strongly advised him against hassling Griff further. But that was naïvely optimistic. Contrary to what Rodarte had implied, he wasn’t in league with Vista or answerable to them. And even if he had been, they would have supported any bad ending he had planned for Griff Burkett.
He considered warning Bolly and Jason of an ugly man in an ugly car, but he was afraid that would spook Bolly and he would scotch the coaching sessions, and that one hour each day was the only hour during which Griff was marginally distracted.
He called Laura twice more at her office, without success. After the second time, he brazenly called her cell phone. Knowing that she would recognize his number on caller ID, he was surprised but elated when she answered. But all she said before hanging up was “Stop calling me. You can’t call me.”
He tried to exhaust himself by swimming laps. On the days he didn’t swim, he ran miles. He worked out in the gym as though he were still in training. He went to multiscreen cinemas and saw every movie on the marquee.
He killed time.
Finally, while waiting inside a fruit smoothie store for his yogurt-and-berry blend, the call came. He almost dropped his cell phone as he snapped it off his belt and flipped up the cover. “Hello?”
“Griff, Foster Speakman. Congratulations.”
His field of vision shrank to a pinpoint, consumed
by onrushing blackness. The clerk behind the counter signaled to him that his drink was ready. Griff looked at him with misapprehension. He turned and left the store. Out on the sidewalk, he stood in the shade, but heat had been trapped beneath the canvas awning. It was like being inside an oven. He was suffocating.
“Griff? Did you hear me?”
