A Dangerous Affair Read Free Page A

shirt and followed the big guard to a conference room with a window air conditioner and a video surveillance camera mounted in the ceiling. A folding chair faced a metal table with a water pitcher and a tray of plastic cups on top.
    "Sit down," the guard instructed.
    Lloyd planted himself in the kindergarten chair. He kept his posture ramrod straight with his hands in his lap and his wrists cuffed and fastened to a chain around his waist. His prison-issue slacks fit him loose and short, causing the pant legs to ride high above his bare feet in flip-flop sandals.
    He recognized the conference room from his first parole board hearing. The same bland walls stared back at him. This time fresh paint fumes came through the ventilation ducts. If only for a short while, he relished his time in the peaceful enclave, removed from the D-block netherworld of perpetual disruption and violence. "I like what they did with the place," he told his stone-face chaperone.
    Minutes passed like hours while Lloyd waited for the four-member panel from the Florida Parole Commission to arrive.
    Three middle-aged Caucasian men and an older Puerto Rican woman assumed their spot at the conference table. A court reporter set up a portable stenograph machine.
    One panel member poured water. Another sneezed in a handkerchief. A third projected his own indifference toward the one person who stood between himself and an early lunch.
    "Good morning," the chairwoman said, acknowledging Lloyd.
    "Good morning," Lloyd replied with a smile.
    "We've all read your file, Mr. Sullivan. Since this is not your first dance, I'll get right to the point. You've had quite a ride in this facility, including a failed parole evaluation in 2007. Since that time, the court has asked this board to reexamine your case. We have. And to be honest, aside from your age, I'm not convinced much else has changed. What makes you think you're more equipped to enter society today than you were the last time we met?"
    Lloyd pondered this first of several probing questions designed to peel away the cheap veneer of false pretense and expose an inmate's true state of rehabilitation. Three years ago, the panel had asked him the same question. This time, he'd prepared a more carefully thought-out answer.

 
     
     
    Chapter 3

     
    Jamie Blanchart hauled groceries from the cherry red Volvo S-40 in her two car garage. Her hourglass figure strained beneath the sleeveless yellow sundress she wore over a lace bra and panties. Designer shades hid oval eyes inherited from her Polynesian mother. Straight auburn hair framed her heart-shaped face and brushed the top of her C-cup breasts.
    She carried the milk and OJ first. Then she went back for the bags of canned goods, frozen chicken, and the six-pack of her husband's favorite beer.
    She slid her clogs onto a shelf in the laundry room inside their three-bedroom home and carried the cold groceries to the counter by the fridge. She checked the microwave timer. The smell of baked tenderloin filled the quiet house.
    She crammed the frozen food in the freezer and organized the cold groceries in the fridge. The milk went on the bottom shelf. Cheese and meat went in the middle drawer. Beverages belonged in the door panel below the condiments. Butter came from sticks, not tubs of yellow spread. Milk was two percent. Cheddar cheese was sharp. Lettuce had to be crispy, not limp. And anything else Alan Blanchart wanted, Alan got.
    With the groceries finished, she grabbed a dust rag and a bottle of Pledge. She tackled the China hutch first, a gift from Alan for their five-year anniversary. She worked the rag in a clockwise motion along the mahogany grain, her image reflected in the glass doors that displayed the antique china.
    She used a feather duster on the silver candle holders and the faux bouquet of flowers on the dining room table. She ran the stick vacuum on the hardwood floor outside Alan's study, where the door to her man's domain remained locked at all