An undercover cop on the brink of an investigation with far-reaching consequences.
A woman escaping a troubled first marriage.
An encounter in a dangerous part of New York City.
Could be a recipe for trouble or the beginning of something good.
Whate...
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Jane
It was official. By the following morning, Tuesday, Police Chaplain Paul Chambers had agreed to officiate our wedding. Happy would pick him up from the precinct then take a roundabout route, using decoys to transport him to our location. The burly security chief met with Steve and Peggy later that day, picking up our wedding clothing and bringing them back to us. He showed me several pictures of wedding bouquets for me to carry, ones that the florist could make in a hurry. I picked one made with an assortment of wildflowers, liking the blue colours of it as the dress I chose was also blue. It was completely unlike anything for my first wedding.
When I married John, it was the typical wedding; white dress, large church, four bridesmaids, four groomsmen, a reception for 450 people. If John's best man had told me what John said about the wedding, then I might have walked away from him before I said, "I do."
After we split up, John's best man, his college friend Lemar Hoskins, brought me some things from the house that belonged to me. I had always got along with Lemar, another hockey fan surprisingly. He had played it until high school and we had a gentle rivalry going whenever our favourite NHL teams played each other. Whenever John would say something to me that could be misconstrued it was Lemar who would apologize for him, and say he meant something different. But on that day when Lemar brought me some photo albums, jewelry, and clothing I had left behind he sat on the living room couch in my small apartment. I brought him a coffee, placing it down in front of him and sat on a nearby armchair. He sipped his coffee, then put it down and looked at me sympathetically.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Sorry that he did this to you. But especially sorry because I should have known he would do something like this."
"What do you mean?" I asked. "You're not responsible for him."
"No, I'm not, but I've always thought he was just a misunderstood guy," said Lemar. "Now I wonder if he's always been playing me. I've known him since high school. He was the quarterback. I was the wide receiver. We meshed so well together on the field, and he seemed to go out of his way to be my friend, to make sure we were together at parties, at events, at awards ceremonies .... When he met you, he complained about you, a lot. Thought you were a ... you know."
"A first-class bitch?" I offered. "I know what he thought of me. Didn't much like him either. Then at that weekend retreat he changed, and I began seeing him in a different light. Thought he saw me in a different light as well. Guess we were both wrong."
"He fooled you, fooled us both," said Lemar. "He knew exactly what he was doing." I remember looking at him, surprised to hear him talking about John like that. "When he asked me to be his best man and told me the wedding was in Edmonton, I was stoked. Home of Gretzky, right? You took us to the hockey arena, we posed at the Gretzky statue, went to see that giant replica of the Stanley Cup, even the water park at West Edmonton Mall ... to me, and the other guys, it was a lot of fun. Your family were so welcoming to us. John smiled at all the right places but he was watching everything and everyone, trying to figure out their weaknesses, ways that he could exploit them."
