then she kissed him, long and deeply, letting her lips pull back slowly
from his. Her eyes quickly searched his. She didn’t find what she was
looking for.
“You’re right, Jenn. The ridiculous murder case is over. A man I
respected and cared for got his brains blown apart.
Case closed, time to move on. Got a fortune to build.”
“You know what I mean. You never should have involved yourself in that
thing in the first place. It wasn’t your problem. If you would just open
your eyes you’d realize that all of that was beneath you, Jack.”
“And hardly convenient for you, right?”
Jack abruptly stood up. He was more exhausted than any thing else.
“Have a great life, Jenn. I’d say I’d see you around but I really can’t
imagine that happening.” He started to leave.
She grabbed his sleeve. “Jack, will you please tell me what I did that
was so awful?”
He hesitated and then confronted her.
“The fact that you even have to ask. Jesus Christ!” He shook his head
wearily. “You took a man’s life, Jenn, a man you didn’t even know, and
you destroyed it. And why did you do that? Because something he did to
me ‘inconvenienced’ you. So you took ten years worth of a career and
wiped it out. With one phone call. Never thinking about what it would do
to him, his family. He could’ve blown his brains out, his wife could
have divorced him for all you know. You didn’t care about that. You
probably never even thought about that. And the bottom line is I could
never love, I could never spend my life with someone who could do
something like that. If you can’t understand that, if you really think
what You did wasn’t wrong, then that’s all the more reason why we need
to say good-bye right now. We might as well flesh out the irreconcilable
differences before the wedding. Saves everybody a lot of time and
trouble.”
He turned the handle on the door and smiled. “Everybody I know would
probably tell me how crazy I am for doing this. That you’re the perfect
woman, smart, rich, beautiful-and you are all of those things, Jenn.
They’d say we’d have ‘a perfect life together. That we’d have
everything. How could we not be happy? But the thing is, I wouldn’t
make you happy because I don’t care about the things you do. I don’t
care about the millions in legal business, or houses the size of
apartment buildings or cars that cost a year’s salary. I don’t like this
house, I don’t like your lifestyle, I don’t like your friends. And I
guess the bottom line is, I don’t like you. And right now I’m probably
the only man on the planet who would say that. But I’m a pretty simple
guy, Jenn, and the one thing I’d never do to you is lie. And let’s face
it, in a couple of days, about a dozen guys a lot better suited to you
than Jack Graham are going to be knocking on your door. You won’t be
lonely.”
He looked at her and felt a grimace of pain as he observed the absolute
astonishment on her face.
“For what it’s worth, anybody who asks, you dumped me.
Not up to the Baldwin standard. Unworthy. Goo&bye, Jenn.”
She still stood there several minutes after he left. A series of
emotions competed for space across her face, none, in the end, winning
out. Finally she fled the room. The sounds of her high heels against the
marble floor disappeared as she hurried up the carpeted stairs.
For a few seconds more the library was quiet. Then the desk chair swung
around and Ransomed Baldwin eyed the doorway where his daughter had been
standing.
JACK CHECKED THE PEEPHOLE, HALF-EXPECrING TO SEE JENnifer Baldwin
standing there with a gun. His eyebrows raised a notch when he saw who
it was.
Seth Frank walked in, shrugged off his coat, and looked around
appreciatively at Jack’s cluttered little apartment. -Man, this brings
back memories of another time in my life, I can tell you.”
“Let me guess. Delta House 175. You were vice President in charge of bar