somewhere. Erica is toying with him. Showing him that she could blow his world apart if she chose to.
He reminds himself that Erica just wants money. She’s not going to harm his family.
He drives out of the parking lot and towards home as fast as he dares. Suddenly his phone pings. He glances at it and sees it’s another text from Erica. His hands immediately begin to get clammy on the wheel. He pulls over at the first opportunity, into a gas station, and parks the car. He sits for a moment, breathing deeply, before he opens the message. Now, he’s a little more afraid of her. Of what she might say or do. He’ll tell her to go to hell. He’ll tell her he’s going to go to the police.
He reads the message.
Let’s meet. Now.
He hates her peremptory tone. He wants to tell her to go fuck herself. He responds,
I can’t. I’m busy.
She immediately answers.
I’ll be at the park at the foot of the Skyway Bridge in twenty minutes.
This is fucked up. Completely fucked up. He smashes his hands against the steering wheel, feels the pain radiate up his forearms. What does he do now? He’s never been blackmailed before. What are his options? He could go to the police and tell them Erica is threatening him and stalking him and his wife. He could call them right now. The police could meet her at the park. But what happens then?
His phone pings again.
There’s something you need to know.
As soon as he reads the message, he knows he’s going to meet her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ERICA PUTS HER phone down and looks at herself in the rearview mirror. She’s pretty sure Patrick will show up, and she wants to look her best. She takes her hair out of the ponytail and brushes it. She puts on fresh lipstick. She looks a lot better than his current wife does. It’s not Stephanie’s fault – she’s postpartum and it takes a while to get back to looking good after you’ve had a baby. She’s sure Stephanie is an attractive woman, just not right now.
She thinks about how she went to see her son before she left Denver to move to Newburgh. She hadn’t seen him in years – not since he was born. But she needed to get a current photo. So she’d watched the house and then followed the family from a distance one evening when they went to the park. Fortunately he looks a lot like his dad. She got a nice shot of him, had it printed and put it in her wallet.
She drives closer to the Skyway Bridge, parks her car and walks towards the river and sits down on a bench where she can easily be seen. She knows exactly what she’s going to say.
Patrick drives around for a few minutes, killing time. He doesn’t want to go back to the office and park the car and leave again on foot. Niall might wonder what he’s up to. He’ll drive to the bridge and leave the car somewhere nearby.
Patrick parks on a side street and walks down to the river. His body is tight with tension. There’s a small park at the foot of the Skyway pedestrian bridge that spans the Hudson to the Catskills on the other side. Sometimes he and Stephanie sit on the benches here and enjoy the view, with an ice cream. This will spoil it for him.
When he enters the park, he sees her immediately. She’s sitting on a bench, looking out at the river. She’s not watching for him; it’s like she knows he’ll sit down right beside her, like a good dog. It makes his blood boil. He’s told her he won’t pay her. What happens now?
Like an automaton, he walks over to her and sits down next to her on the bench. He can’t bear to face her. Instead, he looks out at the river too. It’s like they’re two spies, pretending they don’t know each other, he thinks, about to conduct business. It’s all too surreal.
‘I’m glad you could make it,’ she says.
Finally he turns to her. She looks so innocent – with her fine skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes, her serene smile. Almost angelic. He knows better. A flash of something carnal arises from his memory, flits through his head. He musters up his courage and says, ‘I don’t know how to get this through your thick head. I’m not afraid of you. We’re not going to pay