“After all … tomorrow is another day!”
What the fuck?
Then another message.
Hope the show went well n sleep tight. I missed u 2day. E
Cindy realized her heart was beating a mile a minute, and she chastised herself for her silly, sappy relief at ever doubting Edmund Lambert in the first place.
He’ll call me tomorrow.
She felt herself melt down into her mattress—texted back, Sounds good. Miss u 2 ?—and fought off the urge to just call him right then and there. He’d probably understand, but that would not look cool. Beyond stalkerish, she thought. Besides, if he wanted to talk to her, he would’ve called, right? Plus, she needed to sleep; there was no way she could spend the whole night talking to Edmund with a pissed-off George Kiernan and a matinee waiting for her tomorrow.
“Fuck it,” she said, and was about to call him anyway, when another text popped in her inbox.
U need to rest. Go to sleep and c u after the show tomorrow.
Cindy started to text back, After all, tomorrow is another day!—but settled on Sounds good? instead.
She waited for a reply, but when it didn’t come, she saved Edmund Lambert’s number and closed her phone—closed her eyes, too, and drifted off to sleep feeling more like Scarlett O’Hara than ever. It felt wonderful.
Chapter 68
An hour after Edmund Lambert’s good night text to Cindy, the General saw the light go off in Bradley Cox’s apartment. He didn’t know if the young man was alone; didn’t know if the redheaded female with whom he sometimes copulated was staying with him. But the General didn’t care. He would take them both if he had to.
The timing of things demanded it.
Of course, the General would’ve much rather had the luxury to plan as he’d done with the other soldiers. At the same time, however, he was worried because of the uncertainty of what was to come. The time line of things most certainly would have to change. Of that, the General was sure. And he would need to leave the farmhouse and the doorway behind very soon—it was too risky to stay there to balance the equation, to complete the nine—but where would he go?
The doorway would tell him. Once it was finished draining, and once he had taken care of Cox, he would know what to do next.
The General had driven the FBI agent’s TrailBlazer and parked it in a lot across from the young actor’s apartment building—a two-level, student shithouse with a half-dozen single-bedroom units on each floor. The General had gotten his address and telephone number from the contact sheet. Cox lived in the corner unit on the first floor. His silver Mustang with the tinted windows was parked in front. The General had seen him pull up to theater in that car many times.
The General waited patiently in the TrailBlazer, his eyes never leaving Cox’s front door as groups of drunken students stumbled in and out of the shadows on their way home from the bars downtown. The General had a number of ideas as to how he would get into Cox’s apartment, but the timing of his arrival in Greenville was bad: early Sunday morning, the bars closing, a very good chance of him being seen.
And so the General would have to wait. But that was all right. The General was used to waiting.
Chapter 69
Bradley Cox was in bed staring up at the ceiling when the ring of his cell phone startled him. He reached for it immediately, but the line was already dead when he answered it. He looked at his alarm clock—3:12 a.m.—then looked at the missed-call list. He didn’t recognize the number—704 area code, Charlotte, he thought—and was about to dial it back and tell the owner to go fuck himself for calling so late, when he heard the ding of a text message.
If this is Amy again, he thought, I’ll tell her straight up to fuck off for good. He was in no mood for a booty call—especially not after tonight’s horror show at the theater. She had called earlier that evening to ask him if he wanted some company, but he told her in no uncertain terms that he wanted to be left alone. And then the young actor did something he hadn’t done since elementary schooclass="underline" he cried himself to sleep. He woke up around 1:45 a.m. and turned off his light. But a face hovering there in the darkness just beyond his busted nose had kept him wide awake until now.
Edmund Lambert.
Yeah, that son of a bitch had fucked things up royally for him. And the motherfucker was going to pay. Cox had it all planned. He would get a couple of guys from his father’s construction firm—big redneck-types who just loved this sort of thing—and they would pay a courtesy call to Edmund Lambert when the time was right. Might even deliver their candy-gram straight to the motherfucker’s front door. Oh yeah, the three of them would tune old soldier boy’s ass good ’n tight.
He’d played the scenario over and over again in his mind, and the image of Edmund Lambert’s face beaten to a bloody pulp actually made him smile. Sure, he knew he was going to catch holy hell from Kiernan, but his little plan made an ass chewing from the old man all worth it. Indeed, he had just begun to feel better when the ring of his cell phone pulled him from his fantasy.
Cox scrolled out of the missed-call list and checked the incoming text message.
It’s Cindy Smith, the message read. R u up?
Cox shot upright—his heart beating fast, his “player instinct” kicking in at once.
No matter who a chick is, he said to himself, when she texts you at three in the morning that means only one thing.
Booty call.
But Cindy Smith?
In an instant, Cox forgot all about Edmund Lambert—his mind racing now with how to play the situation properly. As much as he hated to admit it, he’d had it bad for Cindy Smith—still did, as a matter of fact—but never told a single soul. What bothered him the most was that he didn’t know what he’d done to fuck it all up with her. Yeah, he’d been a rude dick to her a couple of times, but that was only after she turned him down. And he’d been genuine and gentlemanly in his desire to take her out—had already known that he was gonna have to put in his time if he wanted to bang her and made up his mind that she was definitely worth it.
But now?
The show. He’d seen the look in her eyes when he fucked up tonight: the compassion, the way she bailed him out without thinking, without contempt as his cast mates snickered in the wings behind him.
Maybe everything happens for a reason, he thought. Maybe that’s what was needed to finally bring us together.
“All right,” he said, thinking quickly. “If we talk on the phone, I won’t even ask her to come over. If she comes over, I won’t even touch her. Even if she wants to. That’s the way to play it.”
He took a deep breath and texted back, Yeah. What’s up?
A moment later, Can we talk? I’m in my car outside.
“Holy shit,” he said—his fingers moving before he could think twice about what to say. Just come in, he wrote. B right back.
His mind was on fire—but he needed to do three things: take a piss, put on some clothes, and brush his teeth. He leaped out of bed, turned on the lights, unlocked the front door, and headed straight for the bathroom—took a leak in the sink as he brushed his teeth, and then put on a pair of dirty workout shorts he found on the bathroom floor. He had just finished rinsing out his mouth when he heard the front door open and close.