Forgive Me by Joshua Corin Page B

going.”
    “Oh that’s a shame. I was so hoping to hear more about your organization.”
    Which was wonderful—but did it have to be now? Now, when somewhere in the building someone was looking to pin Ross for his betrayal? Although, as long as he stood here with Buddy, he was safe, wasn’t he? Whoever was out there, whoever the Serendipity Group had sent to teach him a lesson, wouldn’t dare make a move in front of a total stranger. They weren’t psychopaths.
    “I started Atlantans Helping Atlantans about twelve years ago, although really I guess you could say I started it when I was eight. I was in the Cub Scouts and my troop took a field trip to a soup kitchen. I forget what merit badge we were trying to earn. Anyway, I still remember—”
    Buddy Meeks held up a hand and took out his phone. The following conversation lasted forty-five seconds and it was entirely in—what language was that? Japanese? Chinese? No, Chinese wasn’t a language. Ross remembered that much from school. Buddy finished his call and hissed a sigh.
    “My car’s here,” he said, “and it looks like I’m going to be taking my second lunch appointment on my way to my third lunch appointment. You know how it goes.”
    Oh. Yeah. Sure.
    “But you have my card. Use it. I want to help.”
    They shook hands. Buddy continued down the stairs and out the front door to the valet curb and the limo and only then did it occur to Ross that he should have asked for a lift. It would have been presumptuous, but it also would have saved him from confrontation. Ah well. Buddy went his way and Ross Berman went his, proceeding past the valet curb to the paid parking lot across the street.
    The offices of the Serendipity Group weren’t that far. Perhaps the best option was to drive straight there and be a man. Explain why he did what he did. Perhaps he should have been open from the get-go.
    Yes. That’s what he would do. And what was the worst that could happen?
    Ross thought again about the baseball bat.
    Yeah, maybe he needed to disappear for a few days. Then he would call them and offer up his justifications. A few days couldn’t hurt. He could collect his thoughts, write everything down. And what better time than the autumn to spend a week or so in the idyllic isolation of rural Georgia.
    “Hi, Ross.”
    He heard her before he saw her. Jessabelle Rothstein, perched on the hood of his eighteen-year-old station wagon. Sipping Starbucks. Because of course she was.

Chapter 14
    She looked good, but she’d always looked good, even when she was bad. And Jessabelle was bad. That, more than anything, had been the primary lesson Ross had learned that day in Walker Berno’s home. The primary lesson, but not the only one.
    “It’s so good to see you,” she said. “It really is.”
    She wore her blond hair in a ponytail. Her jumpsuit was red grape. Her glasses were new, though. The wire-rims had been replaced by a thicker, blacker pair. They were the glasses of a scientist.
    She hopped off the hood and loped around to the passenger seat and said, “Let’s go for a ride. It will be just like old times.”
    He could have run. He should have run. He didn’t run. Despite it all, this woman still had power over him. Despite it all, Ross found himself pulling out of the lot with her right beside him, following her directions toward I-85S.
    “You’ve gained weight.”
    “I stress eat.”
    She glanced at his backseat, which had become a storage area for several dozen Dunkin’ Donuts bags and soda cups. “It suits you. You’re growing into yourself.”
    “Phillip was my best friend.”
    “I know. That’s why we reached out to you when we needed to bring him here. Don’t miss the entrance ramp.”
    Ross merged with the late-afternoon traffic. Soon they would cross the east-west I-20, but until then, the max speed he could achieve in this congestion of cars was a brisk fifteen miles per hour. Wherever he was headed, he had time.
    Time to think.
    “You