“With me?” Jenn said. “Safe?”
“Something,” Jesse said.
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
They stood with their arms around each other for a moment, then stepped apart.
“What’s in the envelope?” Jenn said.
“I’ll show you in a while,” Jesse said.
Jenn brought him a drink and one for herself and sat on one corner of the couch with her legs tucked under her. Jesse sat at the other end. Jenn raised her glass to him.
“Well,” she said. “Here we are.”
“Yes.”
“No matter what happens,” Jenn said, “somehow we keep blundering along, connected to each other.”
“I know,” Jesse said.
“What is wrong with us, Jesse?”
“Different things, maybe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe what’s wrong with me isn’t what’s wrong with you.”
“And yet,” Jenn said, “here we are.”
Jesse nodded. He picked up the brown envelope from the coffee table and took out two eight-by-ten photographs. Enlargements of the pictures Sunny had found. He put them down on the table side by side in front of Jenn. Jenn leaned a little forward to look at the pictures.
The moment she saw the photograph, Jenn said, “Oh!”
Jesse waited.
“What are these pictures?” Jenn said.
“You and a guy,” Jesse said.
“Where’d you get them?”
Jesse shrugged.
2 1 8
H I G H P R O F I L E
“I don’t know this man,” Jenn said.
“The guy with his arm around you?” Jesse said. “This guy? With your head on his chest? Him?”
“Oh, Jesse, don’t be jealous,” Jenn said. “You know how I am.”
“If I knew how you were for sure,” Jesse said, “maybe my life would be simpler.”
“I don’t even know that man, we were just at some beach party somewhere. Just kidding around.”
“His name is Timothy Patrick Lloyd.”
