Another excerpt from my new book A Slightly Tainted Hero. It just launched on Smashwords: http://bit.ly/20HECit. Grab a copy and let me know what you think!

From Chapter Seven:

Louise was prepared to find Dave in a contrary mood as she strode down the hallway and turned into his room. She was also fully prepared to be reasonable and ready to discuss how they would each deal with the cauldron of publicity that was clearly coming to a boil. Even so, what had the man been thinking of? After all was said and done, everything, all of it, was right there in living colour and on TV, from start to finish. Everything you do nowadays is on camera, he should know that. It had been the most nerve-wracking piece of footage she’d ever watched in her life.

Risking Irene Blanchard’s safety was bad enough, but once he’d gained the upper hand (though God only knows how he managed to do that), it should have stopped right there. But to kick a man in the teeth when he was down, even she knew that was way over the limit. It was as if her husband had turned into a homicidal maniac. And it had grown even worse. There’d been the episode with the guns, a needless confrontation that played itself out on the screen like the footage of two half-witted cowboys at the OK corral. And then there’d been the grand finale to finish it off—Irene Blanchard yanking down her boss’s drawers and sticking her hand up . . .

Louise paused in the doorway, for the moment speechless. Her husband was not propped up in bed as expected, but was resting on one elbow and leaning comfortably sideways as if lying on the beach. Irene Blanchard sat next to him, bent cosily forward with her elbows resting on the arms of her chair. Their heads were almost together, less than two feet apart. Louise coughed for attention, and the pair looked up in surprise. Her husband’s greeting was simple enough, though it struck her as maybe too glib.

“Oh, hello dear. Didn’t see you there.”

Louise bit her lip on the word “obviously.” There was no point commenting on the tête-à-tête; even as she strode across the room there was a nagging sense that she was being foolish about it. She was making a mountain out of a mole hill, based only on her discomfort at the pair’s close proximity. Besides, there were other issues that needed addressing, and there was no time better than now.

“Have you seen that effing film, David?” Louise hissed as she drew near the bed.

He glanced sideways at Irene as if disappointed, then looked up at his wife and said, “Nice to see you, Dave. How are you, dear? Are you feeling any better?”

“I can see you’re doing just great, I don’t need to ask,” Louise snapped.

Irene rose, her cheeks turning colour. “I was about to leave. Jason will have something on for dinner.”

Louise shifted direction. “Have you seen it?”

Irene straightened her coat around her shoulders, then looked straight at Louise. “Yes, it was on the five-thirty news. Maybe a half-minute of it, maybe three-quarters. I didn’t think it was all that bad. The only thing a bit out of sorts was when the fellow went for the gun. The weapon on the ground didn’t show up on the TV clip, so it appeared as if Mr. Lockwood kicked him in the face for no reason. That can be explained, though. The man was going for his effing gun.”

Louise hardly heard a word beyond the “maybe a half-minute” and the “effing” at the end. “I don’t mean the effing news, Irene. I’ve seen that. I mean the video on YouTube. It goes on for at least ten effing minutes, maybe more. I didn’t bother to time the damned thing. It’s got everything on it, and I do mean everything!”

“Oh boy.” Dave paled, suddenly looking tired.

Irene sat down as if stunned. Louise, however, was not finished. Looking back and forth between them, she demanded, “What are you two going to do about it?”

From Chapter Ten:

A woman perhaps ten or fifteen years younger than him leaned casually against the doorjamb, an odd, knowing sort of grin on her face, as if she expected him to recognize her. She wasn’t a bad looking woman, perhaps a few pounds over her best fighting weight, but then, so was Louise, and it didn’t look bad on her, either. A subtle ash tint streaked her blonde hair, which was not particularly long and very neatly coiffed. She hadn’t spared the dollars on dressing herself, either. She wore a trim business suit that flattered her figure—a hip-length jacket belted at the waist and a knee-length skirt, both tailored in grey worsted wool, and complemented by a silky, oyster-hued blouse worn with the collar up. The top buttons were open just enough to reveal an inch or two of tantalizing cleavage. There was also a modest pair of high heels, which clicked on the floor as she pushed herself away from the door jamb and walked toward the bed.

Curious, Dave set the book on his lap. He was about to ask who she was when suddenly, as if doused with a bucket of iced water, he knew. Oh, shit!

“Dave, it’s good to see you.” The woman gave a low, throaty chuckle and lowered her voice to a whisper. “And ‘oh shit’ to you, too, my dear. When you’re thinking something unsavoury, my boy, you’re not supposed to move your lips.”

‘C-Carol?”

“D-duh-D-duh-Dave. Of course it’s Carol. How are you?” When she reached the bed, she leaned over and kissed him firmly on the mouth, holding her lips against his until, in spite of himself, he began to respond. The tip of her tongue briefly darted forward, which made Dave jump, then she quickly pulled back and chuckled. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Neither have you.” Which was almost as big a lie as Carol’s, but she certainly wasn’t doing too badly, either. And forget that initial impression of being ten or fifteen years younger. If memory served Dave correctly, only eight years separated them. And for her early fifties, Carol had kept herself in damned good shape. “It’s good to see you,” he finished weakly.

“Then look like it, David, instead of turning as white as your bed sheets. It’s been how long now, going on twenty years?”

“I suppose.” God, was his voice quavering?

Carol pulled up one of the chairs and sat down, carefully crossing her legs. Dave’s eyes wandered sideways, taking in a few inches of silky thigh; nothing had changed there, either. And yes, it had to be going on twenty years. The mountains north of Montreal, though by western standards they were really only hills. What were they called, dammit? It didn’t matter! What did matter was that there had been an in-depth tax seminar there, two weeks as he recalled, and they’d had adjacent hotel rooms. The rooms were all paired by two connecting doors that locked with a deadbolt that turned from inside the room, thus ensuring privacy. Only the one between his and Carol’s hadn’t remained locked. Oh my God! “W-what brings you here?”

“I believe it was an Airbus 330.”

“As I said, you haven’t changed.”

“Is that a compliment, or an outright lie?” Carol stared at him with narrowed eyes. “I’ll take it as part lie, but then, I lied too. You have changed. You’re nearly twenty years older, you’ve got a bunch of wrinkles, and your hair’s turning very grey, though it’s good to see you’ve still got most of it. Still not bad looking, though—for a man your age. A firm chin, straight nose, and a belly that doesn’t look that bad under those bed sheets. And oh yeah, those blue eyes. I remember those blue eyes. I’ll give you that. They haven’t changed.” Carol’s eyes twinkled with amusement as she set her tongue in her cheek. “Are you still getting it up?”

Dave cringed, but managed to reply in the same light, bantering manner, though the best he could do was, “Yeah, every morning, about seven a.m.” Why was she here?

“And I bet it stays that way until you get out of bed and pee.”

“And how is Ron?” Dave asked, steering toward firmer ground. He’d never met her husband, of course, but talking about him might offer a clue about why she was here, sitting next to his bed—an unwanted ghost from the past.

“His name was Roy,” Carol corrected, and shrugged. “We went our own ways. Six, seven years ago now.”

“Too bad,” Dave offered, and it was too bad. It might also prove to be too bad for him, as well. Why, oh why, was the woman here? Surely not looking for a replacement?

“Actually it was too bad, and in more ways than one.” Carol’s face turned serious. “He passed away a bit more than a year ago. Heart attack.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Carol,” Dave murmured, and he truly was as he mentally added, poor bugger. Even so, the thought struck him, quite uncharitably, that maybe his death was the reason why Carol was here. Had she come to tell him she was single, and free? No, surely not. If that was going to happen, she would have done that after the divorce, not now. Wouldn’t she?

“These things happen,” Carol said, her tone perhaps a little too dismissive for comfort.

“I suppose. What happened with the divorce, though? You didn’t, er, get, you know, get into some other, uh . . . ?” Dave was more than just curious, wondering if Carol made a habit of attending tax seminars with lecherous intent and had finally been caught out. It was an unkind thought, he knew that, for it took two to tango, and they’d been damned lucky that they hadn’t been caught out nearly two decades ago.

Carol didn’t seem to mind the implied question, though she did give it a moment’s thought before replying. “Not me, this time it was him. It took a while, but I noticed Roy’s absences coincided with that of the neighbour’s wife. What really teed me off was that she was a really good friend of mine, and now we aren’t.” Carol tilted her head to one side, assuming a forlorn look of hurt. “Good friends are so hard to find, Dave, aren’t they? Anyway,” she tossed her head, as if making light of it all, “I divorced the poor man.”

“Wasn’t that being a tad hypocritical?”

“Of course it was. But hey, there’s no point keeping milk in the fridge once it’s turned sour. It was over by then anyway.”

Dave figured he was getting nowhere, and began to wonder hopefully if this was maybe nothing more than a friendly visit after all. Though even if it was, there still had to be a “why.” He tried another tack. Carol had been in Toronto with one of the major international accounting firms, known throughout the financial world as The Big Four. They used to be called The Big Five until Enron went under, taking their auditors with them—though that might very well have been the other way around. Dave shook his head, trying to clear his mind. “So what are you doing now? Still counting beans with the big guys?”

“Still with the big guys, but I’m no longer counting beans. Public relations, the legal implications of practice, and so on. Administrative-type stuff.” An impish grin spread across her features. “And no comment about the public relations bit, either. I’m running an in-house seminar in your fair city, by the way. You might recall that seminars were my forte, only back then I was attending them, not running them.”

“Yeah, I do recall. And your attendance was very good, too.” Dave responded in kind, as his heart finally throttled back to a fairly rhythmic pounding. Yes, perhaps this was just a friendly visit, after all. And why not? The two of them hadn’t parted on bad terms. They had simply gone their own way. Played it safe, went home, and called it quits while the going was good, so to speak. And it had been good, he reflected, but nothing good—and illicit—goes on forever. At the end of the day, both of them had independently decided that, all things considered, some things are best left alone. In the long run, there was no future better than the one already in hand. And if what Carol was saying today was true, then it wasn’t difficult to guess what had at least prompted the visit. “I suppose you tuned into the news, once you got here?”

“Yes. This evening, though I’ve been in town for a couple of days. You seem to have made quite a splash.”

“So that’s why . . . ?”

“Uh-huh. I thought about it for a while then decided on impulse to drop by. I rationalized that you might like an update on old times. I told the desk I was your first wife, gave them my business card, and they let me in.” Carol ran her hands down her outfit as if she were on display, plainly amused. “I think I got profiled.”

“Can’t blame them.” Dave decided it was best to ignore the ‘first wife’ subterfuge, it left him uneasy. Besides, knowing Carol, it was nothing but teasing.

“I must confess to a certain prurience about the encounter.” Carol raised her eyebrows in query. “The woman who was with you, is there, uh, any . . . ?”

“Irene?” Dave laughed. “Heavens, no—she’s our office manager. The only time that ever happened was with you, in the Laurentians. Honest.” The name of the mountain range popped magically to mind, now he wasn’t trying to remember it. “My nerves couldn’t have stood another such encounter.”

“Oddly enough, me too,” Carol said, and for the moment looked pensive. Then she suddenly shifted gears. “Your kids—you had two. How are they doing? Any accountants in the family?”

“Not at all. I imagine Mike saw too much of what his father was doing when he grew up, and took up law instead. No respect for the family’s good name,” Dave teased in turn, as he recalled Carol also had a law degree tacked to the back of her name. “As for Kathy, she’s in Toronto, working for the TD Bank. She’s the only one who came close to counting beans. Got a commerce degree, and decided that was enough. Seems to be enjoying herself.”

For a few more minutes the conversation played back and forth, Carol asking questions for the most part and Dave responding, though he did toss back a few of his own. Somewhere in the background a speaker system announced for the second time that regular visiting hours were over, and that was when Dave realized how quickly time had passed, and that most of the talk had been one-sided.

“What about your brood?” he asked. “You had one back then, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and now there are two. There was an afterthought that coincided with the timing of Roy’s vasectomy. A product of overconfidence, I guess. She’s a real delight, though. Here.” Carol fumbled in her purse, a glistening, brown leather clutch not much larger than a decent-sized wallet. A faint, yet familiar scent drifted over as she leaned across and handed him a small, two by three coloured print. It showed a very attractive young girl in the traditional graduation photograph: a dark mottled background; a black gown with red and white edging on the collar; a large bouquet of red roses; a very happy smile. There was much of her mother in her, and Dave said as much as he studied the picture.

“Yes, this mum’s quite proud of her. Her name’s Theresa, but she goes by Terri.”

“She’s very pretty. Is this a high school grad, or university?” Dave asked.

“Oh, just high school,” Carol said, and bit her lip as if in hesitation before adding, “she’s only eighteen. She’s looking at a couple of universities, but will probably settle on Queens.”

“She certainly looks a lot older than…” Dave, moving to return the photograph, suddenly stopped, his heart lurching as if a hammer had hit him square in the chest. His hand pulled back, and he stared again at the picture. “…than eighteen.”