Twenty-one

I parked on the back street and down the block. I looked around carefully and switched the door light off before I let her step out of the car.

"Let's go!" I urged her.

We walked swiftly through the darkness and entered the building through the back. Nothing seemed out of place. No one was watching.

"I'm sorry for the mess," I said as we entered what for most people would be a living room. "A client stopped by this morning for a photo session."

Emily gazed at the lighting equipment. "This looks expensive."

"Left over from my glory days of shooting for fashion magazines," I said. "They had bigger budgets back then."

I offered to take her coat, but she stood frozen. Her anxiety was ramping up again.

"You're safe here," I told her. "If anyone walks through that door uninvited, they won't be walking back out."

She handed me her coat and took a seat on the sofa. It was positioned against the wall temporarily in order to clear space for Justine's session. 

I opened the gun cabinet, counted four-thousand from my casino winnings and handed it to her.

She tucked the money into her handbag without examining it. "Thank you," she said. "I'm sorry..."

"Don't say it," I said. "It's your money. And I haven't finished the job yet."

"So, you're taking the job?" she confirmed.

I smiled. "Drink?"

"Yes, please." 

I poured two glasses of bourbon on the rocks and sat on the other side of the couch.

"When did this problem start?" I asked.

"Which one?"

"The gambling."

She thought for a minute. "He was always impulsive, more than his brother."

I listened. I watched her closely. I wanted to trust her.

"I don't know," she continued. "When he left for college, maybe. The lack of supervision. We didn't find out about it until later."

"When he needed money."

"When he needed money," she confirmed with downcast eyes.

"And your husband doesn't want to pay."

"Ross has been supportive," she explained. "He did pay, several times. A LOT of money. He told Ricky that he needs to get help."

"Is he getting help?" I asked.

"He goes to meetings," she confirmed. "But he still does what he does."

"And now?"

"Ross said that he wouldn't pay anymore," she explained. "He said that Ricky needs to take responsibility. But how can he take responsibility if he can't pay them?"

I found myself agreeing with Ross Pemberton, but couldn't admit that to his wife.

"I tried to help him," she sobbed, "I gave him everything that I had."

I gave her my handkerchief. She was overwhelmed by the trouble that had befallen her family. "How do things get like this? We were happy."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Pemberton..."

"Thank you."

"Can your talk to your husband?"

"He won't listen." 

"Can you try again?"

"Ross and I have been throught his a hundred times. Two-hundred times. He won't budge."

"And you think that by divorcing him..."

"If I have money, I can help Ricky."

I moved a box of tissues and placed them within her reach. 

"Thank you," she said in a whisper.

"It's going to be okay, Emily," I said.

She wiped her eyes and nose. "I don't know."

"What is your real name, anyway?" I could tell by the way that she looked at me that the question had come as a surprise.

"It's Rhonda."

I wiped a tear away from her cheek with my thumb. "It's going to be okay, Rhonda."

I don't know what it is about a woman in trouble. It's something about their sadness, how overwhelming it is and how completely they express it. They hide nothing, they hold nothing back. 

That's all but impossible for men. We bury any sign of weakness before it can be discovered and exploited. Only in moments of deepest, safest love can we open up and share our painful secrets. When a woman bares her soul, we want to provide that same degree of safety for her. Maybe that's why I didn't flinch when she kissed me. I felt the tears on her cheek. I stayed with her.

These weren't reckless kisses, either. They were intentioned and impassioned and profound. She kissed like a woman who hadn't received affection in a long time but believed that all was possible if she gave of herself wholeheartedly.

She was beautiful, slender and curvaceous, as alluring as models that I'd photographed who were well-paid and decades younger. I won't pretend that I wasn't attracted. But it was her sadness that drilled into my heart. That, plus the powerful instinct to save her child from the wrath of evil men, even if that meant destroying her husband. She was the most potent female force that I had ever encountered, and resisting wouldn't have changed anything. 

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