Page 93 of Whiskey Chase
She looked out the window, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “I liked seeing you in action, but I felt like I was watching an actor playing a part.”
“That’s pretty much exactly what it is,” I admitted.
“Why can’t people just be real?” she asked. “Why can’t they say, ‘You know what, Stuart? I don’t want to support your initiative to jail the homeless.’ Why does everyone have to pretend to be polite?”
“It’s how things get done,” I explained. “Everyone pretends to play nicely together until we can’t pretend anymore.”
“I heard you were on leave. Mental health leave,” Scarlett said.
I swore quietly. “Let me guess. Misty Lynn the Second?”
“And third.”
“When I hit Ralston, my ex-wife’s lover, my family went into damage control mode. Everyone knew what I’d done. Most would have done the same in my position. But, in the eyes of the constituents...”
“You come off as unstable. Can’t keep a wife. Now you’re violent,” Scarlett filled in the blanks.
“I basically handed everyone a weapon to use against me. I took a leave from my job. My parents and our publicist told everyone that it was an unfortunate reaction to too much stress.”
“And now you’re left proving that you’re not mentally unstable. You’re just a normal guy who decked an asshole.”
“But I have to prove it by playing the game, following the rules.”
She shot me a look. “And not decking anyone else?”
“I’ve got a second chance to make the next session a good one. Improve my chances for re-election. Then I can start thinking bigger.”
“Do you want to?”
I turned down a side street and drove past the pizza parlor in a hunt for a parking space. “My goal is Congress.”
She was still watching me. “That, Mr. McCallister, doesn’t answer my question.”
“Politicians don’t know how to answer direct questions.”
“Maybe you don’t know what you really want,” she ventured.
I squeezed into a space a block down.
“That’s the hunger talking. Come on. I’ll let you pick the toppings... on your half.”
36
Scarlett
Devlin unlocked the door to his condo and motioned for me to enter. We were on the water five stories up. The Chesapeake Bay stretched out in front of the building, dark water meeting a dark horizon.
He flipped light switches, and the exterior view disappeared. The condo was spacious and well-furnished if lacking personality and devoid of color. The living room furniture was arranged around a gas fireplace and marble mantel. The floors were a light hardwood scattered with black and white throw rugs. The art on the walls, mostly maritime scenes, was black and white as well. The kitchen, small but still twice the size of my own, was black again with white counters. There was a round glass dining table and four clear acrylic chairs.
“I know. It’s a little stark,” Devlin said, bringing my overnight bag in.
“You’re livinghere?” I asked. No wonder he’d been depressed. This place looked like a fancy furnished hospital room. Everything was glass and leather and chrome.
“I’m living in Bootleg Springs,” he corrected me. “I stayed here temporarily.”
“You’re staying in Bootleg temporarily,” I reminded him. There was no point in us pretending otherwise. Devlin’s life was here. Well, not here in this soulless condo but in the general vicinity.
Devlin put my bag down and drew me into his arms. “We should probably talk about what we’ll do when I come back here.”
