Free Mercy by Julie Garwood Page B

future, he told himself. Soon he would be able to retire as a multimillionaire and move to the south of France, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing his ex could do about it.
    John slid onto the soft leather seat. Then he loosened his tie, adjusted the rearview mirror, and drove away.
    Should he follow him? Cameron threaded his fingers through his hair in frustration. He knew he wasn’t being fair to John and that it was wrong for him to become so easily spooked by what was surely innocent. John had loved his wife, and if a cure had been possible, Cameron knew that his friend would have spent every dollar he had to save Catherine.
    Yet, the nagging uncertainty wouldn’t go away, and so he did follow him. He figured that if he could just sit down with him and talk, they would be able to clear up this . . . misunderstanding. John would tell him this suspicion was simply a reaction to the horrible guilt he was feeling over what they had done in the name of mercy.
    Cameron thought about turning the car around and going home, but he didn’t do it. He had to be sure. Had to know. He took a shortcut through the Garden District and arrived at John’s house before he did. The beautiful Victorian home was on a coveted corner lot. There were two enormous, ancient oak trees and a magnolia casting black shadows on the front yard. Cameron pulled onto the side street adjacent to the electronically gated driveway. He turned the lights off, then the motor, and sat there, well-concealed under a leafy branch that blocked out the streetlight. The house was dark. When John arrived, Cameron reached for the door handle, then froze.
    “Shit,” he whispered.
    She was there, waiting. As the iron gate was opening, he spotted her standing on the sidewalk by the side of the house. The garage door lifted then, and Cameron saw her red Honda parked inside.
    As soon as John parked his car and walked out of the garage, she ran to him, her large round breasts bouncing like silicone balls underneath the tight fabric of her dress. The bereaved widower couldn’t wait to get her inside the house. They tore at each other like street dogs in heat. Her black dress was unzipped and down around her waist in a matter of seconds, and his hand was latched onto one of her breasts as they stumbled to the door. His grunts of pleasure blended with her shrill laughter.
    “That son of a bitch,” Cameron muttered. “That stupid son of a bitch.”
    He had seen enough. He drove home to his rented one-bedroom apartment in the untrendy section of the warehouse district and paced for hours, stewing and fuming and worrying. A bottle of scotch fueled his anger.
    Around two in the morning, a couple of drunks got into a fistfight outside of his window. Cameron watched the spectacle with disgusted curiosity. One of them had a knife, and Cameron hoped he’d stab the other one just to shut him up. Someone must have called the police. They arrived, sirens blaring, minutes later.
    There were two officers in the patrol car. They quickly disarmed the drunk with the knife and then slammed both men up against a stone wall. Blood, iridescent under the garish streetlight, poured from a gash in the side of one drunk’s head as he crashed unconscious to the pavement.
    The policeman who’d used the unnecessary force shouted a crude blasphemy as he rolled the unconscious man over onto his stomach and then knelt on his back and secured the handcuffs. Then he dragged him to the car. The other drunk meekly waited his turn, and within another minute or two, both were locked in the back of the car on their way to the city jail.
    Cameron gulped a long swallow of scotch and wiped the perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand. The scene under his window had freaked him, especially the handcuffs. He couldn’t handle being cuffed. He couldn’t go to prison, wouldn’t. He’d kill himself first . . . if he had the courage. He had always been a little claustrophobic, but the condition