Kill the Competition Read online

  The flush climbed Belinda’s face in the ensuing silence. She wavered. He didn’t break my heart, he drained it. Left it intact, only smaller. She inhaled deeply, visualizing her lungs expanding into the relative emptiness of her chest. When her brain began to tingle, she exhaled. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  She could almost hear them bristle. “Okay,” Libby chirped in a voice that said they really didn’t want to know anyway.

  Stinging from the awkward turn of events, Belinda cast about for a diversion. “So no one ever said what happened to your last fourth in the car pool. Did she move on to a better job, or simply move to a better location?”

  In a blink, the mood went from taut to tense. Gazes met, then averted.

  Libby toyed with her pen. “Her name was Jeanie Lawford. She died.”

  Belinda’s throat constricted. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”

  “She fell down an elevator shaft at work,” Carole said. “The one that’s sealed.”

  “About six months ago,” Rosemary added quietly.

  Belinda’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to absorb the awfulness of such an abrupt, unnecessary death. “No one told me.”

  “We’d rather not talk about it,” Libby murmured, then looked away.

  A finger of disquiet traced Belinda’s spine. A retaliatory cold shoulder notwithstanding, why wouldn’t the women want to talk about the death of a close friend? Had the woman committed suicide? A blaring horn behind her brought her back to the traffic and to the fact that she had inadvertently decreased her speed. She swallowed and pressed the gas pedal. Maybe this carpooling thing wasn’t such a good idea after all. Belinda leaned forward and turned up the radio volume.

  “Good news for folks on I-85 southbound—the accident blockin’ the right lane below the I-285 junction has been cleared. You folks on 285 eastbound, stay with me, and I’ll get you where you’re goin’. This is Talkin’ Tom Trainer.”

  “Thank you, Tom,” she breathed, feeling as if he were speaking to her. The man with the anesthetic voice would never know what a comfort he was to a new driver like her, who was still trying to sort out Peachtree Street, Peachtree Court, Peachtree Lane, Peachtree Circle, Peachtree Way, Peachtree Place, Peachtree Trace, Peachtree Avenue, Peachtree Corners, Peachtree Commons, Peachtree Run, West Peachtree and Old Peachtree. She was beginning to think Atlanta’s population surge could be explained by the fact that once people were lured into the city, no one could find their way out.

  “I see you discovered Tom,” Libby said, gesturing to the radio. Her tone was tentative, as if she were offering an olive branch.

  “Yeah.” Belinda smiled, softening toward the woman. It was nice of them to try to include her, and it wasn’t their fault she was barely holding herself together. She wracked her brain for something girly to say. “I think his voice is kind of sexy.”

  Libby laughed. “You and every other she-type in Atlanta.” She pronounced it uh-lan-uh, the sign of a true native.

  Alternating between gas and brake, Belinda eked into the engorged lanes of I-285, locally known as The Perimeter, since its eight lanes girdled the city. One grueling mile until the spaghetti intersection of I-85 southbound, which would deliver them into Midtown. She might make the meeting after all. Perhaps she could have a private moment with Margo before the meeting to explain her concerns about Payton’s financials. Her boss might have noticed the discrepancies herself and had already secured an explanation.

  So why couldn’t she shake this prickly feeling of impending doom?

  “Speak of the devil,” Carole said, pointing out the window. “There’s the traffic chopper with Mr. Sexy Voice.”

  Belinda leaned forward. “Where?”

  The reply was drowned out by the sickening crunch of metal against metal as her car hit something bigger and more solid than itself. Her seat belt brought her up short, then whipped her back against the seat. She inhaled sharply and experienced a flash of gratitude that the impact hadn’t been fierce enough to trigger the airbags. Her mind reeled, registering a sparkle of pain in her neck. “Is everyone okay?”

  Breathless yesses chorused around her, but her initial relief was replaced with a stone of dread when she looked up to see what she’d collided with. Yilk.

  “Good gravy,” Libby murmured.

  Belinda closed her eyes and imagined the dollars draining from her savings account, just as a breaking traffic report boomed over the radio.

  “Oh, no! Folks, just when things were clearin’ up on I-85 southbound, now there’s a crash on I-285 eastbound. I saw this one happen—some poor driver in a Honda Civic rammed a police car!”

  Chapter 3

  The police cruiser’s blue light came on, bathing Belinda’s cheeks with condemning heat each time it passed over her face. The officer was male, that she could tell from the span of his shoulders. And he wasn’t happy, that she could tell from the way he banged his hand against the steering wheel. Since the cruiser sat at an angle, and since her left bumper was imbedded in his right rear fender, and since his right signal light still blinked, he apparently had been attempting to change lanes when she’d nailed him.

  The officer gestured for her to pull over to the right. When traffic yielded, he pulled away first, eliciting another sickening scrape as their cars disengaged. She followed like a disobedient child, and despite the odd skew of her car and an ominous noise that sounded like potato potato potato (probably because she was hungry), she managed to pull onto the narrow shoulder behind him. The driver side door of the squad car swung open, and long uniform-clad legs emerged. Belinda swallowed hard.

  “Whip up some tears,” Libby said.

  “What?”

  “Hurry, before he gets back here.”

  “I can’t—owww!” She rubbed her fingers over the tender skin on the back of her arm where Libby had pinched the heck out of her. Tears sprang to her eyes, partly from the pain and partly from the awfulness of the situation. She tried to blink away the moisture but wound up overflowing. She was wiping at her eyes when a sharp rap sounded on her window.

  “Uh-oh,” Carole whispered. “He looks pissed.”

  An understatement. The officer was scowling, his dark hair hand-ruffled, his shadowed jaw clenched. Belinda zoomed down the window and waited.

  “Is everyone okay?” he barked. Bloodshot eyes—maybe gray, maybe blue—blazed from a rocky face.

  “Y-yes.”

  “Then save the tears.”

  She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  Libby leaned forward. “My friend is late for an important meeting, Officer.”

  He eyed Belinda without sympathy. “That makes two of us. I need your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance, ma’am.”

  Belinda reached for her purse, which had landed at her feet. “I’m sorry, Officer, I didn’t see you.”

  “Yes, ma’am, these big white cars with sirens really blend.”

  Libby harrumphed, but Belinda shot her a warning glance and handed over the documents he requested.

  He glanced at her license, then back at her.

  “It’s me,” she mumbled. The worst driver’s license photograph in history: She’d been suffering from the flu, and for some reason, wearing a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt had seemed like a good idea. She was relatively certain that a copy of the humiliating photograph was posted on bulletin boards in DMV break rooms across the state of Ohio.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  He circled around to record the numbers on her license plate, then returned to his car, every footfall proclaiming his frustration for inexperienced, un-photogenic female drivers. He used his radio, presumably to report her vitals. She’d never been in trouble in her life, but her gut clenched with the absurd notion that some computer glitch might finger her as a lawless fugitive—kidnapper, forger, murderer. Her new friends wouldn’t be able to vouch for her, except to say that she maintained a neat desk.

  “He’s kind of cute with that whole
bad-boy unshaven look,” Libby muttered. “But he doesn’t have much of a roadside manner.”

  “Well, I did hit his car.”

  “It isn’t his car—it belongs to the taxpayers. You hit your own car, really.”

  Belinda closed her eyes and focused on the sensation of vehicles passing with enough speed and proximity to send vibrations through her crippled Honda. The vacuum pulled at her hair, and the tang of asphalt stung her nostrils. A symphony of car horns sounded around her. Everything in Atlanta was faster than she was accustomed to. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling as if she belonged to this teeming city, couldn’t conjure up the hopeful romanticism that had shot through her when she’d sat in her Cincinnati apartment hunched over her computer, scanning the Archer employment ad.

  Wanted: Finance specialist for privately owned firm in Atlanta.

  In hindsight, she’d been at a low point—3:00 A.M., on the verge of returning to work after two weeks of vacation that were supposed to have been spent standing in line at the Louvre and instead had been spent standing in line at the post office, returning wedding gifts. To her emotionally scraped self, Atlanta had beckoned like a big-bosomed matron. Warm, perfumed, comforting. Now she was thinking she’d watched Gone With the Wind one too many times.

  The crunch of gravel signaled the officer’s approach. She opened her eyes, but the flat line of his mouth caused the Berry Bonanza with calcium to roil in her stomach.

  “Do you live in Cincinnati, Ms. Hennessey?”

  “No, I moved here two months ago.”

  A muscle worked in his jaw as he scribbled on a ticket pad. “I need your address, please.”

  She recited it as he wrote.

  “You were supposed to obtain a Georgia driver’s license within thirty days of moving here.”

  His tone pushed her pulse higher. “I didn’t know.”

  He tore off one, two, three tickets, then thrust them into her hand. “Now you do.” He unbuttoned his cuff and began rolling up his sleeve. “I need for you ladies to move to my car, please.”

  Belinda gaped. “You’re hauling us in?”

  The officer looked heavenward, then back. “No, ma’am. You have a flat tire and at this time of day, it’ll take forever for your road service to get here.”

  She pressed her lips together, thinking this probably wasn’t the best time to say she didn’t have a road service. Or a cell phone to call a road service.

  He nodded toward the cruiser. “You’ll be safer in my car than standing on the side of the road.”

  “I…thank you.”

  He didn’t look up. “Yes, ma’am. Will you pop the trunk?”

  While the women scrambled out of the car, Belinda released the trunk latch, but the resulting click didn’t sound right. She opened her door a few inches, then slid out, bracing herself against the traffic wind that threatened to suck her into the path of oncoming cars. The toes of her shoes brushed the uneven edge of the blacktop, and she almost tripped. Her dress clung to her thighs, and her hair whipped her cheeks. The rush of danger was strangely exhilarating, strangely…alluring.

  Then a large hand clamped onto her shoulder, guiding her to the back of the car and comparative safety. “That’s a good way to become a statistic,” he shouted over the road noise.

  She tilted her head to look into reproachful eyes, and pain flickered in the back of her neck. Tomorrow she’d be stiff. “This is very nice of you,” she yelled, gesturing as if she were playing charades.

  He simply shrugged, as if to say he would’ve done the same for anyone. Dark stubble stained his jaw, and for the first time she noticed his navy uniform was a bit rumpled. He frowned and jerked a thumb toward the cruiser. “You should join your friends, ma’am.”

  At best, he probably thought she was an airhead. At worst, a flirt. She pointed. “The trunk release didn’t sound right.”

  He wedged his fingers into the seam that outlined the trunk lid and gave a tug. “I think it’s just stuck.” Indeed, on the next tug, the lid sprang open. He twisted to inspect the latch as he worked the mechanism with his fingers. “The latch is bent, but fixable.” He raised the trunk lid and winced. “I assume the spare tire is underneath all this stuff.”

  A sheepish flush crawled over her as she surveyed the brimming contents. “I’ll empty it.”

  He checked his watch. “I’ll help. Anything personal in here?”

  She shook her head in defeat. Nothing that she could think of, and what did it matter, anyway?

  But her degradation climbed as he removed item after item that, in his hands, seemed mundane to the point of intimate—a ten-pound bag of kitty litter, a twelve-pack of Diet Pepsi, a pair of old running shoes with curled toes, an orange Frisbee, a grungy Cincinnati Reds windbreaker, a Love Songs of the 90s CD, two empty Pringles Potato Chips canisters (she’d heard a person could do all kinds of crafty things with them), and two gray plastic crates of reference books she’d been conveying to her cubicle one armload at a time.

  Her gaze landed on a tiny blue pillow wedged between the crates, and she cringed. Unwilling to share that particular souvenir of her life, she reached in while he was bent away from her and stuffed the pillow into her shoulder bag.

  “I’ll get the rest of it,” he said.

  She nodded and scooted out of the way. “Can I help with—”

  “No.” He looked up at her, then massaged the bridge of his nose. “No, ma’am. Please.”

  Glad for the escape, Belinda retreated to the cruiser, picking her way through gravel and mud, steeling herself against the gusts of wind. The girls had crowded into the backseat, so she opened the front passenger door and slid inside, then shut the door behind her. The console of the police car was guy-heaven—buttons and lights and gizmos galore. The radio emitted bursts of static. No one said anything for a full thirty seconds.

  “Your hair looks like crap,” Libby offered.

  Belinda sighed and dug in her bag for a brush, displacing sunglasses, wallet, lipstick holder, compact, and electronic address book. At least now she had an excuse to end the driving arrangement. “I’ll understand if you want me out of the car pool.”

  “Nonsense,” Rosemary said, although she sounded a little less than sincere.

  “Honey,” Libby cooed through the metal screen partition, “Atlanta traffic is like life—sooner or later, you’re going to hit or be hit.”

  “You’re staying,” Carole said. “The odds of you being in another accident now are, like, really low.”

  Belinda tried to smile. The accident seemed to have broken the ice, along with her budget. “Does anyone have a cell phone? I should call Margo to tell her I’m going to be late.”

  “I left mine at home,” Rosemary said.

  “My battery’s dead,” Carole said.

  Libby cringed. “My service was temporarily disconnected.”

  And Belinda hadn’t reactivated her own wireless phone service since she’d moved. She glanced at her watch with one eye closed and pulled the brush through her tangled hair. She’d never make the meeting, and Margo would be irate. The only upside was that she had longer to contemplate what she was going to say about Payton Manufacturing. Assuming her boss would still want her input. Assuming her boss would still want her employed.

  “I hope no one sees us,” Rosemary said, holding her hand over the side of her face.

  Carole laughed. “Haven’t you ever been in the backseat of a police car?”

  “No.”

  “It’s no big deal, you know. Being arrested.”

  “No one is under arrest,” Libby said.

  “And if you don’t mind,” Rosemary said coolly, “I’d rather not hear the sordid details of your trips to the hoosegow.”

  Carole made a face, then twisted and looked out the rear window. “I’ve never seen a cop change a tire before.”

  “It was the tears, I’m telling you,” Libby said. “Otherwise, we’d be standing out there with our thumbs in the air.”

  Ros
emary scoffed. “He would’ve called the Department of Transportation or a HERO unit.”

  Libby sighed. “But this is so much more chivalrous. I loooove big Southern men. Did he make a pass at you, Belinda?”

  Belinda stopped working at the rat’s tail in her hair. “Um, no.”

  “I’ll bet you’re the cutest woman who ever rammed his car.”

  “As dubious a distinction as that might be, he’s only changing my tire so he can get the heck out of here.”

  “He got your address—I bet he’ll call you at home.”

  “He got my address so he could write me three big fat tickets.”

  “How much are the fines?” Carole asked.

  She gave up on her hopeless hair and pulled out the three citations signed by—she squinted at the scrawl—Lt. W. Alexander. After adding the numbers in her head, she laid her head back on the headrest. “Two hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

  “Oooh,” they chorused.

  Oooh was right. No telling what the car repairs would cost, and her insurance premium would probably go up. So much for having her TV fixed. And a couch was definitely being pushed farther onto the horizon unless that raise materialized.

  Worse, the slips of neon-colored carbon paper in her hand seemed to scream, “You’re bad, Bad, BAD.” She’d been driving for fifteen years and had never once violated a traffic law. In fact, in thirty-one years, she couldn’t remember breaking any rules, written or otherwise. She’d been born innately good, her mother had once said. Every child’s friend, every teacher’s pet. Vale-dictorian, Most Likely to Succeed, Who’s Who Among American College Students. Devoted daughter, employee, and fiancée.

  By all accounts, her life should be a raging success. Instead, she was sitting in a police car on the side of a festering interstate, miserable, poorer even than a mere hour ago, decidedly indecisive and significantly insignificant. She pressed her fist to her mouth. She needed a better reason to be here, a better reason to stay here, than simply because it wasn’t Cincy.