The Pinebox Vendetta Read online

  The only person who didn’t seem to desperately want an audience with Theresa Velasquez?

  Her husband.

  Rock found Bryce Pruitt in the smoking lounge.

  “Ruck and roll, baby!” Rock called. “Bring your scrum cap?”

  Bryce was chatting with a pair of pals, who took off now.

  “Rock Pruitt,” he said. “It’s been forever. How are you?”

  “Damn good. You?”

  The man had ballooned into a clone of his father, who’d been chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court before succumbing to a massive heart attack. “Alright.”

  “Alright?” Rock poured forward into the lounge, the noxious air stinging his eyes and throat. “We’re surrounded by untold privilege—booze, Cubans”—nodding to his cigar—“ladies who’d boff us for nothing. And all you are is alright?”

  Bryce took another puff. He picked at a button of a chaise lounge.

  Rock wondered how he felt about joining the Senate husbands’ club. “You’ll make four, correct? Almost enough for a sewing circle.”

  “Real funny.”

  “Not at all. Congressional spouses wield huge power. Did you know Trent Lott’s wife designed the Senate curtains? They used to be blinds. Can you believe that, blinds?”

  Bryce looked up with bright hate.

  Rock said, “I made that up. Who knows, though? She could have.”

  During his presidency, Jonathan Pruitt had tried installing Bryce on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Bryce had been a successful enough corporate lawyer in Baton Rouge with powerful clients—having a father who adjudicates the law of the land surely helped—but his confirmation hearings had been a disaster.

  His credentials were belittled. Aides testified that Bryce had used state funds on blowout LSU football tailgates. That he’d forwarded anti-Muslim emails and pursued women in the office. Pretty mild stuff. Jonathan had figured he could sneak a Pruitt onto the Eleventh, down south in Atlanta, not as important as the Fourth in DC or Ninth Circuit out in nut-ball San Fran. But the other side had different ideas.

  Bryce said, “I’ll probably stay back in Charlottesville.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m active with the foundation, Children’s Mercy. It’d be hard to walk away from all my work there.”

  Rock took a long swig of whatever was in his tumbler.

  He caught Bryce’s drift, loud and clear. Bryce Pruitt was his own man, with his own dealings, and his own staff, and surrounded by his own posse of volunteer housewives clawing their way up the nonprofit ladder while their husbands slaved away in corner offices.

  “What say we take a walk?” Rock suggested. The lounge exited to a winding footpath, which led to the beach. “It stinks in here.”

  Bryce hesitated. Of course he knew that Rock wanted what his wife had, or nearly had.

  “Aw, she’s got it in the bag,” Rock said. “I don’t care. I’m just auditioning for the next one, North Carolina. Did you know their governor’s mansion sits on nine acres?”

  Eventually, after appeals to blood being thicker than marriage and all this politics rigmarole being garbage, Bryce agreed to join him for a walk.

  They stripped off shoes and socks, and Rock pocketed a fifth of brandy. The beach felt brave on his bare feet, gritty and cold. The air truly was a boon, fluid, almost sweet after the foul lounge. Nearing the water, Rock felt a swelling anticipation, as though some leviathan might rise out of the frothy surf.

  Bryce walked on the mansion side, Rock beside the Sound.

  The former said, “This is warped.”

  Rock skipped over a deep-crashing wave. “Why can’t two cousins have a little walk ’n’ talk—”

  “The whole thing,” Bryce cut in hoarsely. “The Choosing. Ridiculous. It’s all just a power trip for the elders.”

  Rock was surprised at the gripe—at such easy intimacy. He wasn’t about to discourage it. “They do love watching us on their hamster wheel.”

  They walked several paces in silence. Bryce’s thick body didn’t suit the sand; his feet seemed to bury themselves fresh with each stride.

  “I never asked for that judgeship,” Bryce said. “Do you think they even checked to see if I wanted it? If I wanted to uproot my family, move to Atlanta?”

  “Thought you divorced that wife.”

  “We still had kids—I saw them every weekend!” Bryce kicked the beach. “He didn’t care, Jonathan. His people. They wanted a friendly vote on the appellates, and it was worth the gamble. So they lost. So what.”

  Rock took the rare step of holding his tongue. Just how worked up did he want this one? This fat, whiny weakling.

  How much bitterness do I need?

  Bryce continued, “Those emails were in my Junk folder—I never even opened them.”

  “I hate email,” Rock said. “I’m ready to nuke my computer and go back to parchment.”

  Behind them came a giggle. Then a high shriek, riding moist shoots of wind to their ears.

  Rock pivoted casually but kept walking. Bryce twisted around, squinting down the beach.

  There were two women. One blond. One redhead. Their smiles hung when they saw Rock and Bryce. They were walking waist-deep in the Sound, clutching each other by the wrist and forearm.

  The blond whispered to the redhead.

  Rock took a step back their way. “Brandy?” He waved the bottle. “We’re good sharers.”

  They giggled again and stepped out of the water. As the ocean sheeted off them, two flawless bodies glinted in the moonlight. They wore swimsuits and silk wraps around their chests.

  Bryce was rooted to his spot. His eyes couldn’t have been wider if they’d had mermaid tails.

  Rock handed him the bottle.

  Rock rejoined the Choosing shortly after eleven. The lobbyists and mid-level bundlers had been allowed in, and the Grand Hall chittered with the minutiae of budgetary riders, pet projects, and deregulation. Limousines appeared in the horseshoe drive to take people home. Servers pulled pewter coffee urns through the crowd.

  Wonderfully spent, Rock found the liveliest conversation circle—the best chance to make waves. Several prominent donors were engaged with Zoe Pruitt and Theresa Velasquez.

  “…God still matters, you can’t win Virginia without Him,” Zoe was saying, a phrase she uttered often to her two-million-strong cable TV audience. “It’s essential that our candidate have ties to the church. Clear, authentic ties.”

  As the donors listened, Theresa saw Rock arrive. She took her usual tack of ignoring him, joining Zoe in a tag-team performance, pounding the stakes of the election to the money men. The governor of Virginia might have the opportunity to sign (or veto) legislation on abortion, freedom of religious expression, charter schools…Republicans couldn’t afford to nominate a candidate of questionable faith.

  Rock stood on the periphery, picking his spot, letting them go ahead and slam him without mentioning his name.

  When Theresa used the word “authentic” herself, he struck.

  “Yes, you are just so excruciatingly authentic,” he said, stretching the words until they were see-through. “I’ll bet you go to the churchiest church around, don’t you? Vestry, acolyte every Sunday. Whole nine yards.”

  She shook her head. “I attend a small church in Charlottesville. We’re humble. Maybe forty parishioners? More on holidays, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  They stared at one another.

  Theresa would’ve been well-served to stop here, to show restraint and let Rock be the a-hole. But Rock had a unique ability in these stare-down situations to goad people. He could summon that extra obnoxiousness to his face, that flat disdain people simply couldn’t leave be.

  “Virginia has smart voters,” she said. “They can spot a fake. They’ll see right through the man who comes strolling into the capital’s big downtown church six months before the election.”

  The donors hummed reverently. It was well-known to all that Rock
hadn’t seen the inside of a church since the funeral of Jonathan’s mother at Washington National Cathedral.

  “Voters are smart,” Rock agreed. “They’re smart—and they’re sick of voting for robots. What they want are living, breathing people with relatable narratives.”

  This prompted more hums—fewer than for Theresa, but at least Rock was getting on the scorecard.

  Zoe Pruitt jumped in, “I would argue it depends on the narrative. A godless man who’s thought to have killed his college roommate? How many constituents relate to that?”

  Rock bit back an impulse to push those minimalist, quarter-sized glasses right through Zoe’s face. The Dickerson reference couldn’t be helped. He just had to eat it. “Godless,” though, he could fix.

  He took a gathering breath and allowed his eyes to flutter.

  “‘The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to redemption.’”

  The jaw of oil-magnate George Gibson fell open. Theresa Velasquez moved one hand up her hip.

  Rock added, “Second book of Peter, third verse. In case anyone’s rusty on their Scripture.”

  Zoe Pruitt centered her glasses using a middle finger. “What’s your game, Rock?”

  He showed his hands, palms out. “I’ve fallen at His feet. The drugs, the shady financial dealings, the wayward impulses—which I acknowledge and would expect to emerge during the campaign? That’s all done. I’ve asked the Lord to show me the way.”

  Zoe and Theresa continued to regard him skeptically, but the donors were hanging on his words.

  People always said Rock’s flouting of Jonathan Pruitt’s church-attendance dictate would hurt him, but Rock knew better. He knew it could be parlayed into a redemption story. Give him three minutes on the subject in a debate, and he’d have the electorate believing he fell asleep every night seeing heaven’s white lights.

  Zoe Pruitt’s phone dinged.

  Theresa Velasquez’s dinged, too. And Rock’s, and several phones from the conversation circles on either side.

  Everybody’s phone was dinging.

  Rock stole a glance across the Grand Hall to Marshall Pruitt, seated near the fireplace. Their eyes hitched before moving along.

  Theresa Velasquez inhaled sharply. “What? How—how did this, how could he…”

  Every Pruitt had swiveled to find her, raising up in their heels or wingtips, peering between coiffed heads and jeweled ears.

  Rock couldn’t smile, but he was drinking it in. Here was nourishment for his grievances—for the unfairness of Dickerson, for the leg-up Velasquez’s ethnicity granted her. For everything.

  Heat rippled through his body.

  He waited until most were looking at their phones, then checked his. When he clicked the text, an image grew to his full screen.

  Marshall’s man had snapped an absolute money shot. Bryce Pruitt’s face was centered perfectly, sweaty, seeking. The hooker’s back was arched, her skin blindingly pale and that whipping hair so red—just like Rock had insisted upon, very clearly not Theresa Velasquez.

  No mistaking this for a couple’s home job.

  “Yowser,” Rock said, putting away his phone. “I move we table politics for now. Just, you know, out of respect.”

  Chapter 9

  Sam took Joss to “Intersecting Studies of Dance and Quantum Physics.” Laurel came, too, the three of them sitting in metal folding chairs in an airy ballet studio as an associate professor performed grand jetés and explained how the ebb and flow of subatomic particles mimicked classical dance. The woman was in her late twenties and commuted up from Manhattan, hair razed at a severe angle, tossing off references to CERN and the eccentric pizza-topping preferences of Nobel laureates she collaborated with.

  Sam barely heard.

  Jamie Gallagher was alive. For so long he’d been a ghost, gauzy memories of goofy grins and mountain bikes and a dingy rucksack, entwined with Sam’s own from youth. It took her a while to orient him back into the living, touchable world—the world of today.

  Every ten minutes, she remembered and re-experienced that runaway, mind-blowing joy from the candle ceremony.

  She wished he were here, sitting beside her so there was no risk he’d vanish back into the ether.

  She and Laurel had offered. After catching up in the courtyard, they’d walked Jamie to registration (in a surreal twist, his name was grayed-out in the volunteer’s list) and checked him into his room.

  “We’re hitting this dance and physics lecture at eleven-fifteen,” Sam had said. “Care to join us?”

  Jamie had started to say yes, but then his eyes had flicked to Joss and he’d demurred. “I—I should make some calls…the rest of my family has probably heard by now.”

  Though Sam wasn’t sure, she thought she had detected skittishness—at seeming too forward, at putting her in a compromising position. Something about how he kept his head slightly back in conversation.

  Remembering now, that uncomfortable-looking kink in Jamie’s neck, Sam was helpless against a comparison with Abe. Abe, who’d texted again about the nineteen-volt charger. Who, when he misplaced his apartment keys for more than three seconds, would scream for her to come help look regardless of what she was doing.

  The lecture dismissed at noon. Joss burst from the brownstone that housed the ballet studio, arms arched gracefully overhead.

  “The CERN particle accelerator, are you serious?” She looked between Sam and Laurel’s faces. “That was amazing! I can’t wait to tell Miss Moreau about how quarks swing…”

  As she danced over cobblestone, dipping one shoulder and then the other like a happy airplane, both women smiled.

  Laurel said, “This reunion’s about fifty times more exciting than the ten-year.”

  Sam laughed. “Right. I can’t believe about Jamie. It’s…” What other word was there? “Wonderful.”

  “And great for your documentary, too,” Laurel said. “You know there’ll be gobs more media coverage now.”

  This dented Sam’s smile. Maybe it was true, but she hated the idea of kiting press off Jamie’s reemergence. When Joss had mentioned the project, Jamie had seemed downright spooked by it.

  Sam hadn’t decided how she felt herself. Jamie’s tragedy had partly inspired the project, and now that tragedy was…diminished? Less tragic?

  More complicated, for sure.

  Sam decided to deflect. “Oh, I’m a disaster with marketing. I tried to pitch in promoting our Nicaraguan birds piece? Brutal. I spent twenty hours calling around to bloggers and got one mention out of it. One. Some guy in Florida, two thousand page views a month.”

  Laurel sympathized, revealing that her own blog got even less traffic—and that she was thinking of scrapping her memoir due to complete and total apathy from literary agents. She’d enrolled in a night-school law program, which she hoped would give her more career flexibility.

  Sam was surprised by the disclosures. As they passed the chic boutiques of Chapel Street on their way to a reunion lunch event, she wondered about the change in tone.

  Did it have to do with Jamie? Some kind of realization that life was fleeting, and that petty bragging was a poor way to spend it?

  Sam got her answer at lunch, over soggy pizza slices at everybody’s favorite freshman haunt, Naples.

  “Listen, I need to say something to you,” Laurel began once the surrounding conversations gave them a private moment. “This is hard. My stomach just—since this morning, I’ve felt sick…”

  Sam took her friend’s hand over the table. “Laurel, it’s okay. No sweat, okay? Whatever it is.”

  Laurel inhaled deeply. “That postcard. The one Jamie told you he sent?”

  Sam kept an even expression, but a tumbling started inside.

  Her friend continued, “The post office didn’t lose it.”

  Sam didn’t understand at first. She had mentioned the postcard in passing to Laurel, back
in the dorm room as they were getting ready for the dance-physics course.

  Was Laurel making some progressive argument about government services—how easy they were to criticize, but essential in a just society?

  “I guess that’s, I mean, possible,” Sam said. “I like the post office. I didn’t mean to—”

  “I threw it away. I was jealous—it was right after Willem.” Laurel’s eyes crunched shut. “I was just very bitter then, and I got home before you one night and there was Jamie’s postcard, with his messy handwriting, with this beautiful cityscape from Macedonia…”

  For a moment, everything stopped in Sam’s chest.

  Willem Kirk had lived in their building, an NYU grad student working on a comparative literature PhD. Laurel had been interested, inviting him to dinner at their apartment and attending his poetry readings at Nuyorican. They’d hooked up a few times, but Willem had kept his distance, claiming he was in the “wrong epoch of life” for a relationship.

  One night, though, Willem had gotten blotto and professed a crush on Sam. He’d capture the moon for her! They would hike the Italian Dolomites together—the very moment he finished this blasted dissertation!

  Sam had turned him and his black turtleneck away. Laurel had been out of town and she felt they’d both dodged a bullet—Willem seemed the type to steer clear rather than return to the scene of his embarrassment.

  Weeks later, though, Laurel learned the truth from a mutual friend.

  Sam might’ve told Laurel herself—clearly Laurel was better off without the poser—if not for the fact that it continued a hurtful pattern between the two. Jamie Gallagher had not been the only boy who’d preferred Sam to Laurel.

  Now Sam mastered her shock. “No worries. Laurel, please.”

  Laurel had covered her face with both hands.

  “Come on,” Sam said, “that was how many years ago? It so doesn’t matter. Not one bit.”

  “It was awful,” Laurel gasped. “It was heinous. And now—I mean, who knows how you guys might’ve ended up if—”

  “No.” Sam wedged apart her friend’s hands so she could look Laurel directly in the eye. “That’s a false line of reasoning. How my life turned out, how Jamie’s life did—it had nothing to do with some little square of paper.”