He grabbed a beer and wandered intothe bedroom. The computer monitor was still on, so Lisa must have been doingsomething on it earlier. He touched the keyboard, the screensaver disappearedand her e-mail program appeared. He reached for the mouse, intending to closeit and shut down the computer, but his eyes were drawn to rows of e-mails fromthe same sender...
Travis. Why was his brotherTravis e-mailing Lisa so much? His eyes scanned the list. There were five e-mailstoday alone, several from yesterday, three days ago and more.
Trey gnawed on his bottom lip, thentipped the beer to his mouth. He should close the program. That was Lisa'spersonal e-mail. But as he lowered the beer with his left hand, his right handslowly moved the cursor up to the top e-mail and clicked. The message opened.
If you're sure Trey won't be hometonight, you can spend the night with me, he read. It would be soawesome to sleep with you all night.
Trey swallowed hard with disbelief,his heart squeezing painfully in his chest. The room went out of focus and thebeer dropped from his fingers to the floor, foaming all over the pale greywall-to-wall carpet.
When Lisa walked in the nextmorning, her mouth dropped open in shock to see him there.
"How long has this been goingon?" he demanded.
He hadn't slept all night. He'dtortured himself by reading e-mail after e-mail, including the ones she'dsaved. He already knew the answer to his question. Their affair had been goingon for nearly three months.
"How could you do this? Andwith my own brother! Jesus!"
Lisa started to cry. He watched her,afraid he was going to cry himself, feeling hollow and frozen inside. Not onlywas his marriage done, but his own brother had done this to him. Nevermind Lisa, how could Travis have done this to him? Hot knives of painand betrayal sliced through him.
"I'm sorry." She sobbed,dropping onto the bed and covering her face. "I'm sorry, Trey."
He just stood there, feeling likethe biggest sap in the world. What a fucking idiot. Why hadn't he seenthis? He shook his head.
"We're having a baby," hewhispered painfully. "How could you do this to our child? How could you,Lisa?"
She only sobbed louder.
"Lisa?"
Her muffled sniffs and choking gaspswere her only response. Cold terror gripped him. "Lisa, tell me I'm thefather."
She moaned. Trey's gut roiled and hethought he might actually vomit. The world stopped for a long, painful moment.
"Jesus Christ, Lisa. For thelove of God, please, tell me you're not pregnant with Travis's baby."
She raised her face to look at him.She was a pretty woman, but right now her face was blotchy pink and puffy andshe looked more miserable and distraught than he'd ever seen her.
"Are you really four monthspregnant?"
She shook her head.
Fuck. No wonder she stillwasn't showing.
"No," he choked out."No." He turned around sharply, unable to look at her, afraid heactually might physically harm her, his rage was so great. He clenched hishands, eyes squeezed shut while his heart pounded painfully in his chest."Son of a bitch!" He drove his fist into the wall, shattering thedrywall and leaving him with bleeding, throbbing knuckles.
Lisa gave a startled whimper behindhim. He flattened his hands on the wall and lowered his head, sucking in air.
He'd already packed his things. Hehad nothing left to say.
He worked incessantly. There wasnothing else left in his life. His wife and unborn child--ha! What a joke. Hiswife, his unborn nephew, his brother were all dead to him. He couldn'tface his sister or his parents and their own feelings of betrayal and pity forhim. Just could not face it.
He moved into a furnished studioapartment not far from the bureau and buried himself in the Sheldon Barnescase. He studied and restudied every detail until his head swam. Still, peoplewere reporting sightings of Barnes, although he seemed to be lying low. Whichwas unusual for him. It did seem to indicate he was still in the area, though.
Cops had staked out Sheldon's familyhome in Brawley, thinking he might return there, but he hadn't. At least, notyet.
When Trey wasn't working, he wasdrinking. Too much, he knew, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He madestrict rules about not drinking on the job, only permitting himself to drinkhimself into oblivion after he'd left work.
One night he stopped at a barinstead of going home, unable to face one more lonely night in that cold, bare apartment.He needed some noise, some people around him, even though he had no desirewhatsoever to talk to anyone.
He sat at the bar at the Pinto Club,chugging back beer after beer. Happy couples twirled on the dance floor,laughing, and he watched them with detached interest. A burst of laughter froma nearby group drew his eyes for a moment. A group of women at a table werelaughing about something apparently hilarious and having a great time.
Trey ordered another beer andsighed. The empties lined up in front of him told him it was time to go home.Only problem was, which he hadn't thought of earlier, he was probably too drunkto drive. Not that he felt drunk. He felt stone-cold sober. Nah, that wasn'ttrue either. The room had taken on a bit of a fuzzy glow.
He could easily walk the few blocksto his apartment. With that thought, he tossed back the remainder of the beerand lifted a hand to signal the bartender for another. What the hell. Ifhe had to walk home, might as well have a really good reason. And the alcoholwas finally starting to make him feel pleasantly numbed to the pain that wasconstantly with him.
The laughing group of women caughthis eye again. One of them was getting up to dance. A man led her onto thedance floor, a good-looking guy with shaggy blond hair. The woman, too, wasblonde, a long sheet of platinum
