“Other plans? This a huge feather in his cap. You’d think this would be something he wouldn’t want to miss. He’d have been the center of attention.”
“I was about to go into a deposition and I didn’t really have time to talk. But look at it his way-at least he was here when it counted. I’m glad you made me call him. When you insisted I bring in a guy from New York, I thought you were out of your mind.”
“Hell of an investigator. We were lucky to have had him on our team.” Madison smiled, his face haggard, the strain of the past nine months etched into his skin like acid on a pane of glass. “And I’m equally fortunate to have you for a friend, Jeffrey. Thanks again. You came through when I needed it most.”
“While you’re so appreciative, I should hand you my bill.”
They both laughed.
Leeza’s call from upstairs urging him to come to bed interrupted them. He reached over to the intercom on the wall behind his desk and told her he would join her in a few moments.
“Well, I’d better be going,” Hellman said as he rose from the chair.
“You okay to drive? You can stay the night if you want.”
“Nah,” he said with the wave of a hand. “I’m fine. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”
Madison started to get up; Hellman motioned him down. “I’ll let myself out.”
Madison leaned back in the leather chair, resting his feet on the desk. He felt numb as he attempted to sort through his thoughts, his plans for the future. Although it was quiet now in the house, the echoes of the noise from the party still buzzed in his ears.
He lay silently, watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest with each breath, the gleeful high of only an hour ago becoming a post-drunken depression. He thought of one of his favorite poems: “The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost. As he lay there, he pondered what his life would have been like had Brittany Harding not crossed his path, had she not accused him of rape, had she not tried to blackmail him, had she not attempted to destroy his marriage. Had she not made him kill those two innocent people.
He began to weep, appraising his hollow victory. Physically free, emotionally imprisoned for life. Held captive by his own horrible secret.
