A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

Cursed

Harry knew he'd just been discarded like a used piece of tissue and summarily dismissed, but his ravaged pride rebelled at the thought of creeping into his bedroom like a wounded rabbit. Adamantly refusing to shed even one tear or show any fluster, he walked over to the table and began straightening the magazines on it. Zayn's frigid command made him lurch upright. "Go to bed! What are you anyway, some sort of compulsive housewife?"

The magazines slid out of his hand and he glared at him, but he did as he told him.

From the corner of his eye, Zayn watched him retreat, noticing the haughty lift of his chin and the proud grace of his walk, and with the skill Zayn had perfected when he was eighteen, he turned away and coldly dismissed Harry Mathison completely from his mind. He concentrated, instead, on the Tom Brokaw newscast that Harry had interrupted with his angry outburst. He could have sworn that while he was trying to comfort him, Brokaw had said something about Dominic Sandini. Sitting down on the sofa, he frowned at the television set. He wished to God he could have heard exactly what it was. In two hours or so, there should be a late-night news update or at least a recap before the station went off the air. Propping his feet on the coffee table, Zayn leaned back, prepared to wait for that. Sandini's face with its daredevil grin took shape in his mind, and a faint smile touched his lips as he thought of the wiry, irrepressible Italian. In all these years, there were only two men who he had come to regard as true friends: One of them was Liam Payne and the other was Dominic Sandini. Zayn's smile deepened as he considered the total dissimilarities between the two men he regarded as a "friend." Liam Payne was a world-class tycoon; Zayn and he had forged their friendship out of dozens of common interests and a deep mutual respect.

Dominic Sandini was a world-class petty thief; he didn't have one single thing in common with Zayn, and Zayn had done absolutely nothing to earn Sandini's respect or his loyalty. Yet, Sandini had given him both, freely and without reservation. He had broken through Zayn's isolation with dumb jokes and funny stories about his large, unconventional family. Then, without Zayn realizing it, Sandini had intentionally drawn him into that family. They came to the prison and they behaved as if the prison yard was a perfectly normal place for festive family reunions. They thrust their babies into his inexpert arms to hold, and they treated him with the same confusing, boisterous combination of warm affection and stern familial concern that they showed to Dom. Looking back, Zayn realized how much their letters and cookies—and even Mama Sandini's garlic salami—had really meant to him. He was going to miss them all much more than he'd have imagined. Leaning his head back against the sofa, he closed his eyes, his mood considerably lightened by his memories of them. He would find a way to send Gina a wedding present, he decided. A silver tea service. And he'd send a gift to Dom, too. Something special. But what could he possibly buy for Dominic Sandini that Dom would need and like? The most logical gift that came to mind made Zayn chuckle at his own absurdity: a used car sales lot!

Just before midnight, as he'd hoped, they reran the Brokaw story along with a brief video that Zayn had already seen earlier in the day. The video showed Dom, with his hands behind his head, being frisked, handcuffed, and shoved into the back of an Amarillo sheriff's car an hour after Zayn's escape, but it was the newscaster's words that made Zayn frown: "The second escaped convict, Dominic Sandini, aged thirty, was recaptured and taken into custody after a brief skirmish with authorities. He has been transferred for questioning to Amarillo State Penitentiary where he had shared a cell with Malik, who is still at large. Warden Wayne Hadley described Sandini as extremely dangerous." Leaning forward, Zayn stared hard at the television and was relieved to see that Dom didn't look as if he'd been roughed up by the Amarillo cops. And yet, the things that were being said about him didn't make sense. The media and Hadley should have been treating Dom as a hero—a reformed convict trustee who'd sounded the alarm on a fellow inmate who'd made a break for it. Yesterday, when the newscasters kept describing Dom as "the second escaped convict," Zayn had assumed they simply hadn't had time to interview Hadley yet and get the facts straight. Now they'd had plenty of time, and they'd obviously interviewed the warden. Hadley, however, was describing Sandini as dangerous. Why the hell would he do that, Zayn wondered, when he should be taking public bows for the fact that at least one of his trustees was such an honest, upstanding citizen.

The answer that came immediately to Zayn's mind was unthinkable, unbearable: Hadley hadn't bought Dom's story. No, that couldn't be true, Zayn decided, because he'd made certain Dom's alibi was airtight. Which left only one other possibility: Hadley had bought Dom's alibi, but he was too infuriated by Zayn's escape to hold Dom blameless. Zayn hadn't counted on that; he'd assumed Hadley's gigantic ego would prompt him to praise Dom, particularly with so much media attention focused on the incident. He'd never imagined Hadley's viciousness might override either his ego or his common sense, but if it had, then the methods Hadley might use to avenge himself on Dom were chillingly brutal. The prison was rampant with lurid stories of the beatings, some of them fatal, that had taken place in Hadley's infamous conference room, with the assistance of several of Hadley's favorite prison guards. Hadley's routine excuse for the battered bodies that later arrived in the prison infirmary or the prison morgue was always "injuries resulting from convict being subdued during attempted escape." Zayn's alarm escalated to panic at the end of the newscast when the local Colorado newscaster added, "We have a late-breaking development in the Malik-Sandini prison break. According to a statement issued by the Warden's Office at Amarillo State Prison an hour ago, Dominic Sandini attempted a second prison break while being questioned about his duplicity in Malik's escape. Three guards were assaulted before Sandini was finally recaptured and subdued. He has been taken to the prison infirmary, where he is listed in critical condition. No additional details as to the nature and extent of his injuries are available as yet."

Zayn's whole body turned cold with shock and rage, his stomach heaved, and he leaned his head back, fighting down the urge to vomit. He stared at the ceiling high above, swallowing convulsively as memories of Dominic's grinning, optimistic face and foolish jokes paraded across his mind.

The newscaster's words continued, but they scarcely registered:

"Rumors of a convict uprising at the Amarillo State Penitentiary have been confirmed, and Texas Governor Ann Richards is reportedly considering sending in National Guard troops if necessary. Prisoners at Amarillo, apparently taking advantage of the media coverage of the Zayn Malik-Dominic Sandini escape, are protesting what they call unjustified cruelty on the part of certain prison officials and employees, overcrowded living conditions, and bad food."

Long after the television station had gone off the air, Zayn remained where he was, so filled with torment and despair that he couldn't summon the energy to get up. The determination to escape and survive that had kept him sane for the last five years was slowly draining away. It seemed as if death had been at his side or stalking him from behind forever, and he was suddenly tired of running from it. First his parents had died, then his brother, his grandfather, and then his wife. If Sandini died, there was no way to blame anyone except himself for it. Sitting there, Zayn actually felt as if there were some sort of macabre curse attached to him that sent anyone he cared about to an early death. Even through his despair, Zayn realized thoughts like that were dangerous, unbalanced, insane. But then he felt as if his hold on sanity was becoming very, very fragile.