CHAPTER 2

EXCUSE ME?”

“You heard correctly, Mr. Burkett. Another Coke?”

Griff continued to stare at his host until his question sank in. At least the crazy bastard was a courteous host. “No thanks.”

Speakman rolled his chair over to the end table and picked up Griff’s empty glass, carried it along with his to the wet bar, and placed both in a rack beneath the sink. He used a bar towel to wipe the granite countertop, although from where Griff sat, he could see that it was highly polished, not a single drop of liquid or streak of moisture on its glassy surface. Speakman folded the towel, lining up the hem evenly, and threaded it through a ring attached to the counter.

He rolled back to the table at Griff’s elbow and replaced the coaster he’d used in its brass holder, gave it three taps, then put his chair in reverse and resumed his original place a few feet from where Griff sat.

Griff, watching these maneuvers, thought, Courteous and neat.

“Let me know if you change your mind about another drink,” Speakman said.

Griff stood up, rounded his chair, looked back at Speakman to see if his lunacy could be detected at this distance, then walked over to the windows and looked outside. He needed to ground himself, make sure he hadn’t fallen into a rabbit hole or something.

He felt as he had those first few weeks at Big Spring, when he would wake up disoriented and it would take several seconds for him to remember where he was and why. This was like that. He felt detached. He needed to get his bearings.

Beyond the windows, not a Mad Hatter in sight. Everything was still there and looking perfectly normal-the emerald grass, stone pathways winding through the flower beds, trees with sprawling branches shading it all. A pond in the distance. Blue sky. Overhead a jet was making its final approach into Dallas.

“One of ours.”

Griff hadn’t heard the approach of Speakman’s chair and was startled to find him so close. Prison would do that to you, too. Make you jumpy. Linemen topping three hundred pounds used to charge at him bent on inflicting injury and pain, teeth bared behind their face guards, eyes slitted with malice. He’d been prepared for them and was conditioned to take their abuse.

But even in the minimum-security area of the prison, where the inmates were white-collar criminals, you stayed nervous twenty-four/seven. You kept your guard up and other people at arm’s length.

Of course, he’d been that way before prison.

Speakman was watching the jet. “From Nashville. Due to touch down at seven oh seven.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Right on time.”

Griff studied him for several seconds, then said, “The hell of it is, you seem perfectly sane.”

“You doubt my sanity?”

“And then some.”

“Why?”

“Well, for starters, I’m not wearing a sign that says sperm bank.”

Speakman smiled. “Not the kind of job you thought I’d be offering, huh?”

“Not by a long shot.” Griff glanced at his own wristwatch. “Look, I’ve got plans tonight. A get-together with some friends.” There was no get-together. No friends, either. But it sounded plausible. “I need to get going to make it on time.”

Speakman seemed to see through the lie. “Before declining my offer,” he said, “at least hear me out.”

He extended his hand as though to touch Griff’s arm. Griff’s flinch was involuntary, no way to prevent Speakman from noticing it. He looked up at Griff with puzzlement but pulled his hand back before making actual contact. “Sorry,” Griff muttered.

“It’s the wheelchair,” Speakman said blandly. “It puts some people off. Like a disease or a bad-luck charm.”

“It’s not that. Not at all. It’s, uh…Look, I think we’re finished here. I gotta go.”

“Please don’t leave yet, Griff. Do you mind if I call you Griff? I think this is a good point at which to shift to first names, don’t you?”

Speakman’s eyes reflected the bright light from the windows. They were clear, intelligent eyes. Not a trace of madness or the kind of wild glee that signaled insanity. Griff wondered if Mrs. Speakman was aware of it. Hell, he wondered if there was a Mrs. Speakman. The millionaire might have been completely delusional as well as compulsively tidy.

When Griff failed to reply to the question about his name, Speakman’s smile relaxed into an expression of disappointment. “At least stay long enough for me to finish making my pitch. I would hate for all my rehearsing to be for naught.” He gave a quick smile. “Please.”

Fighting a strong urge to get the hell out of there, but also feeling guilty for the physical rebuff he’d given the man, Griff returned to his chair and sat down. As he settled against the cushions, he noticed that the back of his shirt was damp with nervous perspiration. As soon as he could gracefully make an exit, he would adiós.

Speakman reopened the dialogue by saying, “I can’t father a child. By any method.” He paused as though to emphasize that. “If I had sperm,” he added quietly, “you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Griff would just as soon not be having it. It wasn’t easy to look a man in the eye while he was talking to you about losing his manhood. “Okay. So you need a donor.”

“You mentioned a sperm bank.”

Griff nodded curtly.

“Laura-that’s my wife. She and I didn’t want to go that route.”

“Why not? For the most part, they’re reputable, aren’t they? Reliable? They do testing on the donors. All that.”

Griff knew little about sperm banks and wasn’t really interested in how they operated. He was thinking more about what had happened to Speakman to put him in that chair. Had he always been paraplegic, or was it a recent thing? Had he contracted a debilitating and degenerative disease? Been thrown by a horse? What?

“When the male partner is incapable of fathering children, as I am,” Speakman said, “couples do use donor sperm. Most of the time, successfully.”

Well, apparently he wasn’t embarrassed by or self-conscious about his condition, and Griff had to give him credit for that. If he was in a situation like Speakman’s, needing somebody like Manuelo to “tend” to him, he doubted he could be as accepting of it as Speakman appeared to be. He knew he wouldn’t be able to talk about it so freely, especially with another man. Maybe Speakman was simply resigned.

He was saying, “Laura and I desperately want a child, Griff.”

“Uh-huh,” Griff said, not knowing what else to say.

“And we want our child to have physical characteristics similar to mine.”

“Okay.”

Speakman shook his head as though Griff still wasn’t quite getting it. And he realized he wasn’t when Speakman said, “We want everyone to believe that the child was fathered by me.”

“Right,” Griff said, but there was a hint of a question mark at the end of the word.

“This is extremely important to us. Vital. Mandatory, in fact.” Speakman raised his index finger like a politician about to make the most important statement of his campaign. “No one must doubt that I’m the child’s father.”

Griff shrugged indifferently. “I’m not going to tell anybody.”

Speakman relaxed, smiling. “Excellent. We’re paying for your discretion as well as your…assistance.”

Griff laughed lightly and raised both hands, palms out. “Wait a minute. When I said I wouldn’t tell anybody, I meant I wouldn’t tell anybody about this conversation. In fact, I’m not really interested in hearing any more. Let’s consider this…uh…interview over, okay? You keep your hundred grand, and I’ll keep my sperm, and this meeting will be our little secret.”

He was almost out of his chair when Speakman said, “Half a million. Half a million dollars when Laura conceives.”

Arrested in motion, Griff found it easier to sit back down than to stand up. He landed rather hard and sat staring at Speakman, aghast. “You’re shittin’ me.”