Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [64]
“Do you want the eleven o’clock news to show Keith’s fiancée banging on the door, but not having it open? That’s what the reporters are threatening. She’s crying and she’s drunk.”
“Damn it, I’ll be there. Just, oh hell, this is going to go to shit.”
“Going, Chuck? I think it’s already gone.”
Jason called through the door, “Lisa Bromwell, is that you?”
“Keith, this isn’t funny, don’t humiliate me like this, don’t make me beg.”
Jason started to unlock the door.
“Gotta go, Chuck, Jason is unlocking the door.”
“Can’t you control him better than that?”
“About as much as you can control Keith and his fiancée,” I said.
“Then we’re screwed,” Chuck said. He hung up. I hung up. And I couldn’t have agreed more.
27
I GOT MY gun from the bedside table and put it in my robe pocket. Not because I thought I needed my gun handy, but because it was my gun and it was my job to control it. A very drunk woman scorned was about to come through the door. I did not want to give her any ideas. A loaded gun unattended could be a real disaster. The robe hung funny on that side, but it was better than the alternative.
Jason opened the door and a short blond woman spilled through, pounding fists on his chest. She was screaming at him. A reporter, complete with camera and lights, pushed in behind her. Perfect.
Jason was trying to out-yell her. “It’s Jason. Lisa, look at me, it’s Jason!”
Lisa’s eyes were squeezed tight as she pounded at him and screamed. She had wanted in the room, but she didn’t want to see.
I stood there without a clue as to what I could do that might help. I could have forced the reporter and cameraman out; I was armed. But somehow I thought that might play badly in the press. To the hysterical Lisa I was the other woman, so trying to touch her would be bad. I had no freaking idea what to do. Fuck.
The camera was getting it all: me standing in the robe, the mussed bed, the string of condoms in their wrapper on the floor where Jason had dropped them. There were even a few pieces of clothing draped on the room’s chair. Again, perfect.
The reporter shoved a microphone into Jason’s face. “Keith, is this the new woman? Is the wedding off? Lisa deserves the truth, Keith.”
Jason spoke into the mic. “My name is Jason Schuyler. I went to school with Lisa and Keith and Keith’s brother Kelsey.”
Maybe they would have listened, maybe not, but struggling with Lisa had finally loosened his robe so that it spilled apart enough for the camera to try to get the whole show. If it was network they wouldn’t be able to show it, but how often do you get a chance to get film of a presidential hopeful’s son nude? The cameraman wasn’t missing his opportunity.
Lisa’s hands were on Jason’s stomach, and she’d stopped screaming. She was blinking down at him, not up at his face. She muttered, “Jason?” as Jason managed to get his robe a little more closed.
The fact that seeing him nude had made her believe it was him made me wonder, just how close a friend had Lisa Bromwell been to Jason in high school?
Voices from the hallway, mostly men, yelling. Peterson was the first one in the doorway, but he had other suits with him, and some of the uniformed guards we’d seen earlier. They were what we needed. Someone to be bad guys to the press and rescue us at the same time. I didn’t usually wait to be rescued, but this level of press attention had thrown me. How do you handle people this rude that you can’t belt in the nose?
Peterson and his men got the press out. They tried to get Lisa Bromwell out, too, but she was now clinging to Jason and blinking up at him blearily. A second woman from the hallway was trying to help Peterson persuade Lisa to let go of Jason. The new woman was tall in heels that made her at least six feet, with sleek brunette hair that had been styled straight, but was thick enough I was betting it curled when left to its own devices. She was beautiful in that perfect-makeup,