Now You See Her - Michael Ledwidge [44]
Because the good-looking blond woman embracing the teen girl reminded him even more of someone else.
His dead wife, Jeanine.
Chapter 54
“CAN I BORROW THOSE, SON?” Peter said calmly, despite his galloping heart.
“Sure, Dad,” Scott said, immediately handing over the binoculars that one of the Feds had brought.
Raising the glasses, Peter ignored the thunderous cheer that rose up as Jeter hit a liner into the gap, ruining Beckett’s perfect game. He slowly searched into the crowd behind the Yankee dugout, where the foul ball had landed.
He panned over people in suits. Billy Crystal. A bunch of pudgy Yankee fan goons pointing at a little black girl in a Boston cap. The new and improved Rudy, without the comb-over.
He scanned up and down the rows and sections, one by one, methodically. Looked through the crowded aisles.
He didn’t spot her. Even after five meticulous minutes. There were too many people, too many faces. None of them was Jeanine.
The woman had only looked like her, and he’d jumped to conclusions, he decided as he handed back the binoculars to his son. It made sense.
He’d been thinking more and more about Jeanine over the last year for some inexplicable reason. He’d even dreamed about her a few times.
In one of the dreams, he was eating dinner with her again by the seawall in their backyard like on their first date. In another, he had his hands around her throat, holding her down under the water on an empty beach as she tried to scratch at him.
All in his head.
When he lowered the binoculars, he saw that A-Rod was on first and Beckett was heading for the showers.
“Now that just sucks!” his son Scott yelled.
Tom Reilly, the Fed beside them, began to do a little victory dance as he giggled uncontrollably.
You know what’s even funnier, Tom? Peter felt like asking his FBI pal. The way you let me pump you for information about any large upcoming federal drug interdictions. You know what I do with that information and the other information I casually collect from all your asshole buddies at the DEA, Tom? I sell it to the cartels. Have you heard of air traffic controllers? Yeah, I’m like a drug traffic controller. Beckett might have just blown a perfect game, but I made seven figures last year, Tommy Boy. Tax free. Not bad for a hick Florida cop. Tee-hee.
Peter scruffed his tan son’s blond head with a grin.
“Don’t worry. It’s not the end of the world, Scott,” he said. “A man takes disappointment in stride. And what did I tell you about using the S-word?”
“Sorry, Dad,” Scott said sheepishly. “I meant to say stinks.”
“There you go,” Peter said, patting his son gently on his shoulder as he gave Reilly a wink. “Much more appropriate. Always remember, the words we choose reveal our true character.”
Chapter 55
IT WAS A QUARTER TO NINE on Thursday morning when I stepped into a gleaming black glass office tower at 57th Street and Third Avenue. With a temporary security pass hanging off my lapel, I smiled at the dozen or so other young Global 100 lawyers who sat as fresh and crisp as sharpened pencils in the twenty-third-floor conference room for the multifirm pro bono meeting.
I scanned the impressive corporate firm names on the place cards, some of which actually represented countries. It was heartening to see lawyers about to do some pro bono work.
If, in fact, that really was what we were going to do.
I hoped it was.
Unfortunately, I’d done pro bono initiatives before in which there were a lot of long expense-account lunch meetings and high-minded dialogues but not too much legit legal work that affected anything or anyone.
Whatever the case, the only thing I knew was that I was going to work my ass off for my boss, Tom Sidirov.
For the Derek Jeter foul ball Emma had snagged last night and for the front-row privilege of watching the Bombers turn a Beckett perfect game into a ninth-inning come-from-behind walk-off Cano grand slam?
I was prepared to work forty hours a day.
I was gathering up coffee and info folders when I caught a bright flash of red hair in my peripheral