LOW PRESSURE

Chapter 3

Together Dent and Gall got the airplane into the hangar.  Dent climbed back in to retrieve his sunglasses and iPad, and spotted the copy of Low Pressure lying in the seat Bellamy had occupied.  “Son of a bitch.”  He grabbed the book and, as soon as he cleared the door of his airplane, made a beeline for his Vette. 

Gall turned away from the noisily humming refrigerator, a six pack of Bud in his hand.  “I thought we’d crack a couple of --  Where are you going?”

“After her.”

“What do you mean after her?”

Dent got into the driver’s seat and started the engine, but when he would have pulled the door closed, Gall was there, the six pack in one hand, his other braced against the open car door.  “Don’t go borrowing trouble, Ace.”

“Oh that’s funny.  You’re the one who set me up with them.”

“I was wrong.”

“You think?”  He gave the door a tug.  “Let go.”

“Why’re you going after her?”

“She left her book behind.  I’m going to return it.”

He yanked hard on the door and Gall released it.  “You should leave it alone.”

Dent didn’t acknowledge the warning.  He shoved the Vette into first gear and peeled out of the hanger.  He knew the road well, which was fortunate, because while he drove with one hand, he used his other to wrestle his wallet from his back pocket, fish the check from it, and, after reading the address, accessed a GPS app on his iPad.  In a matter of minutes, he had a map to her place.

Georgetown, not quite thirty miles north of Austin, was known for its Victorian era architecture.  Its town square and tree-lined residential streets boasted structures with gingerbread trim. 

Bellamy lived in one such house.  It set in a grove of pecan trees and had a deep verandah that ran the width of the house.  Dent parked at the curb and, taking the book with him, followed a flower-bordered path to the steps leading up to the porch.  He took them two at a time and reached past a potted Boston fern to ring the door bell.

Then he saw that the front door stood ajar.  He knocked.  “Hello?”  He heard a noise, but it wasn’t an acknowledgment.  “Hello?  Bellamy?”  As fast as he’d been driving, she couldn’t have been that far ahead of him.  “Hello?”

She appeared in the wedge between the door frame and the door, and it looked to him like she was depending on it for support.  Her eyes were wide and watery, and her face was pale, bringing into stark contrast a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks that he hadn’t noticed before.

She licked her lips.  “What are you doing here?”

“Are you okay?”

She gave an affirmative nod, but he didn’t believe her.

“You look all. . .”  He gestured toward her face.  “Was it the flight?  Did it mess you up that bad?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

He hesitated, wondering why he didn’t just hand her the book and tell her to shove it where the sun don’t shine, as he’d come here to do, then turn and walk away.  For good.  Forever and ever, amen. 

          He had a strong premonition that if he stayed for one second longer, he would live to regret it.  But despite the impulse to get the hell out of there and away from her and all things Lyston, he gave the door a gentle push, which she resisted.  He pushed harder until she let go and the door swung wide.