The Total Package Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Robert and Doris

  a.k.a. Boris and Natasha

  a.k.a. Dad and Mom

  With all my love

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Stephanie Evanovich

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  ALTHOUGH SMOKING HAD been outlawed inside public establishments more than a decade ago, the bar still had leftover smog. Invisible yet pungent, it hung like an indiscernible cloud. Adding to it were eons of postadolescent hormones and a corner that never could completely ditch the smell of vomit. Aptly named the Bunker in this particular rural Pennsylvania college town, it was where a college freshman managed to get served a few beers, and the owner could get away with it as long as neither acted like a jackass. The red-­plastic-­covered barstools and chairs were sometimes sticky from humidity and residual sweat from game-­winning celebrations and defeat commiserations. When ordering pitchers of beer you didn’t look too closely at the glasses, telling yourself that the alcohol would kill any germs, which was part of the general belief that one was invincible. Still, the Bunker inspired the kind of nostalgia that made it a must-­stop whenever former students attended homecoming.

  Everyone remembers their old college hangouts. But while Tyson Palmer sat alone at a table in the barf corner of his alma mater, he was grasping for memories. Maybe it was the weed that dulled his senses. Or maybe the Percocet. He still believed he could hold his liquor.

  “I’ll take another Jack Daniel’s on the rocks.” He jiggled the ice in his now-­empty glass at the server making a pass across the room, his voice deceptively steady. “Make it a double.” Some of the recollections were so clear. Not too long ago, around these parts ­people had described him as promising and gifted. Tyson had been the classic success story, raised in a hardworking, middle-­class family that met all the American Dream criteria, even if those requirements were throwbacks from the ’50s. There was one boy and one girl born to a mother who worked part-­time when they were in school and dressed them up for church every Sunday. A dad who came home every night from his management job at a local building supply store at five fifteen on the dot to enjoy a cocktail with his loyal wife as she finished preparing dinner. Douglas Palmer was the kind of father who played poker once a month with the neighborhood fellas and never missed a peewee football or baseball game. Whose eyes lit up when he realized just how far and accurate his then-ten-­year-­old son could aim. He tried to downplay his pride as the accolades began rolling in and coaches took real notice. Then, slowly but surely, he became the father who vicariously began to live his own variation of football fantasy through that son. After acting as his agent when Tyson signed with the Boston Blitz, his dad divorced his mom and moved in with a twenty-­three-­year-­old exotic dancer.

  Within the last three years, the adjectives attached to Tyson Palmer’s name slowly morphed into overrated, reprehensible. A real waste. Wanting to stay in his father’s good graces, Tyson had often joined him in his downhill slide. Douglas Palmer proved a bad example. Tyson took responsibility for his mother’s heartbreak, stuffed all the hurt and pain deep down inside, and set the sequence on his time bomb to self-­destruct.

  Coming back here was supposed to be a kind of victory lap. But Tyson wasn’t being followed by throngs of alumni or asked to attend any ceremonies, not even the ones taking place on the football field. He wasn’t invited to any parties. Instead Tyson had been forced to retreat to the Bunker, where he was pointed at from a safe distance, like an animal in a zoo. Occasionally someone would approach him, politely engage him for a few moments, mostly about the weather, and be on their way. Nothing to see here—­the phrase cops always used to move spectators along from a crime scene. His teammates and Blitz management had tried to be supportive . . . in the beginning. But it wasn’t long before Tyson’s shenanigans robbed him of his ability to lead, and they all had grown weary of him, even before he started racking up more interceptions than touchdowns on game day. He knew that within the next twenty-­four hours his dirty drug test results would leave him jobless and probably tossed out of the league. The book they were getting ready to throw at him was heavy. I sure won’t miss those cold Massachusetts winters, he thought to console himself.

  “Tyson?”

  Bloodshot eyes focused on a face that was vaguely familiar. It was a wisp of a ghost brushing by him. Someone insignificant, but at the same time, not—­pretty, but low maintenance. Dark hair, hazel eyes with a glint of determination magnified through the lenses of her glasses. When he’d seen her last, she had something he needed. And something he’d wanted.

  “Helen?” he tried to zero in. They had spent quality time together, at least for a while. He hadn’t seen her naked, but it probably wasn’t from lack of trying. Those whose pants he didn’t get into were much more likely to stand out. “Ellen?”

  “Ella,” she said hopefully. “I was your English tutor, in your senior year?”

  Now he remembered. A flash that was stark and vivid, from the predrug days, before those first few injuries that weren’t so quick to heal. She had been one of several students handpicked by the administration when he fell short on his classes during football season. Hired for several hours a week to basically cram the exams into his skull and dictate his essays to him. He wasn’t stupid, but he also didn’t make it easy. Back then he thought about nothing but football and was easily distracted when it came to anything else. “Right.” He smiled at her, feeling the warm nostalgic wave. Her last name was something Italian. “Ella Bella.”

  He had made up the cheesy nickname for her on a rainy afternoon four weeks into that semester, after they abandoned meeting at the library in favor of his dorm room. When he decided he would rather make out than recite the answers to an upcoming test. She was appealing enough, fresh faced and makeup free, a sophomore who had held on to her freshman fifteen. Not girlfriend material, but he wasn’t looking for a girlfriend.

  And after one delicious kiss, Ella Bella had shot him down. Not in cold blood, of course; she’d stammered through the willing-­to-­date-­him speech, but he’d never asked her for a date, and casual sex was off the table. She told him that she was still a virgin and she planned on staying that way. Something about a virgin never failed to make a horny guy hum. Tyson jokingly asked her to bang him every time they were together after that, but he was hardly brokenhearted when she laughed him off. There was always someone else on the sidelines. It was more his way of telling her he was available if she ever wanted to change her mind. He began to view her more like a little sister, especially since she could talk football better than any other girl he knew at school, even better than some of his teammates.

  “You remember?” She smiled back at him, and then giggled. He still had it. And clearly she knew nothing of what was happening in his world. These days he was on almost every woman’s shit list.

  The server dropped off his fresh drink, but Tyson kept at the remaining ice in his drained glass. Pheromones were
producing an equally worthy rush. Ella with the Italian name had barely changed at all. She was still cute. The bar was starting to wind down. It was after 1:00 A.M. The music had stopped playing, but the other drinkers in the bar didn’t seem to notice. Those in hushed conversations still were quiet, only now lip-­reading was no longer required. Rowdy voices remained boisterous.

  “Of course I remember. Thanks to you, I got a B.” Not sure if that was true, but he had a knack for mixing his caddishness with boyish charm, even when he was half in the bag. “You’re here for homecoming?”

  “Yes, by default. I stayed here to continue on to my master’s. I graduate this year.”

  “Congratulations,” he said, straightening up, envious that she would soon be rewarded for having learned all her lessons, including the one about resisting temptation. Suddenly being the biggest partier in the room was a dubious distinction. “Have a seat, let me buy you a drink. We’ll celebrate.” He slid his fresh drink across the table in her direction.

  “I’m not there yet.” She took up his offer for a seat across from him and ignored the highball of whiskey. “I still have to make it through the year. How are you?”

  A loaded question if ever there was one. And the first time he was asked it all night without the asker trying to quickly take it back. By the kindhearted look on her face, she really wanted to know. But how is anyone who’s about to lose everything and become a social pariah? Who will have managed to fall from grace in such a spectacular fashion and in record time? Looking into the eyes of this innocent bookworm, who was still protected from the outside world by two square miles of college campus, he longed to answer honestly. To tell Ella Bella that he wanted to go home but couldn’t remember his own address. And then confess that even if he did recall it, he couldn’t go there anyway because the repo man was probably lying in wait to take back his Land Rover, the only thing he had left after his exceptionally beautiful trophy wife cleaned him out and left when the rumors started to surface and the police came calling. He wanted to admit that he couldn’t tell the difference between stoned and tired anymore.

  “I’m doing great,” he replied, longing to pick up one of the conversations from his past. And if there was one thing he could never be accused of, it was being a whiner.

  Her expression didn’t change, and she continued to study him with the same gentle smile.

  “You don’t have to keep up appearances for me, Tyson.”

  At first it didn’t register, and then he just didn’t want it to. He had already attached himself to the fantasy that she was too busy being intelligent with her nose in a book to be bothered with television. Or the Internet, where his life seemed to play out as he lived it. A train wreck he couldn’t stand watching even as he stood at the helm and drove. He resisted reaching into his pocket for another Percocet, opting instead to take back the Jack Daniel’s he had previously offered her.

  “Here’s to the good old days,” he toasted before taking a swallow. He quickly put his hand and the glass back on the table, a trick he’d learned to feel grounded. Now was the moment for her to take her leave and join the ranks of those repulsed by him. But sweet inexperienced Ella wasn’t beating a hasty retreat. Instead she pulled her chair up closer and lowered her voice.

  “I’d much rather toast to your future,” she said, picking up his half empty drink and polishing it off.

  He didn’t want to pretend anymore. And he didn’t have to carry on the charade. She still seemed to be looking at him with the wide-­eyed adoration she had in the past, only now with a shadow of Jack-­shooting tough girl.

  “I don’t have a future.”

  “Of course you do,” she proclaimed, “and I want to help you get back on the field.”

  Tyson leaned back in his chair, stretching out his long legs to one side of the table. He crossed his arms over his chest and let out a single chuckle. Not the follow-­up he’d expected. And she said it like he should’ve known.

  “Just how do you propose to do that, Ella Bella?”

  “By being a real friend for starters, the kind that wouldn’t just sit idly by and watch you get hooked on drugs.”

  “Nobody got me hooked on anything,” he said stubbornly, more defense mechanism than anything else. By the time the news broke that she was indeed correct, this conversation would be over and he’d never have to see her again. And he refused to blame anyone other than himself for his lousy choices.

  “So it was just alcohol that influenced your decisions that night with Carla Dowe?” she asked, moving on to the next topic, sounding more like a sideline reporter than an old friend.

  Tyson grimaced. That was one face he’d never forget. At least she got right to the point. Carla Dowe was the beauty he met in a nightclub outside of Houston. She had long hair, longer legs, and rode him like a cowgirl in his rental car in the parking lot where they shared a joint after drinking the night away. His other transgressions surfaced rapidly after she sent one too many selfies of them looking a little too cozy. Her tune changed altogether once her parents found out. In the lawsuits that followed and thanks to his expensive attorney, the bar that let her in and served her took the brunt of the fallout. The suspicion around him remained as the allegations intensified, and rightly so. Even he had trouble recollecting the events of that evening. His blackouts had become a frequent occurrence. Luckily, his own lawyer was ruthless enough to subpoena and systematically grill friend after friend of the girl’s to testify about that night and Carla’s delight at having landed herself the ultimate score, complete with all the smiles she snapped, captured, and sent. But it was a double-­edged sword. She looked young and innocent. He looked like ten miles of bad road. Tyson was spared a jail sentence but convicted of being a total scumbag in the court of public opinion.

  “I swear she told me she was twenty-­one.” He tried to make it sound like a joke, but the embarrassment reflected in his bloodshot eyes. “And she was eighteen.” He added feebly. He wasn’t sure why he bothered. There was still the issue that he was married at the time.

  “Four days into eighteen. Easy to lose sight of that fact given she was still in high school,” Ella replied, graciously making no reference to his now-­ex-­wife.

  Tyson scowled defensively, before leaning his forearms down on the table between them. “Then I guess there really isn’t any story left to tell. Sounds like you know it all.” He was sorry he had offered her a seat, much less his drink.

  “I told you, Tyson, I want to try to help you,” she reiterated.

  “Why?”

  “Because I believe in you,” Ella stated with conviction, as if that was enough to earn his trust. But Tyson Palmer was long past trusting anyone, including himself.

  “Why?” he repeated, now angry.

  Ella looked down at the table for a moment, then said quietly, “Because I remember the guy I tutored. Who was serious about his game and never had a problem taking no for an answer.”

  He wanted to laugh in her naïve face. To mockingly tell her at the time she hadn’t been worth the pursuit, if for no other reason than to get her to leave him alone. He wanted her to stop looking at him in the way she was, like he was not a total disaster. But most of all, he no longer wanted to be reminded of when he was in control and held the world in the palm of his football-­throwing hand.

  “That kid doesn’t exist anymore. When you graduate and join the real world, you’ll realize that ­people change, usually not for the better,” he spat out cynically.

  “I refuse to believe that.”

  Tyson sighed and ran his hand through the shaggy brown hair that had outgrown his clean cut months ago. She was being way too persistent, but her sincerity was admirable, and part of him wanted to believe her.

  “Okay. We’re friends, now what?”

  She brightened with his acquiescence. And she really did have a pretty smile. “Now you let me be a good f
riend and help take care of you. You look so tired. ”

  This time he didn’t hold back the laugh, and while it wasn’t exactly harsh, it still was hollow. She wasn’t able to help him any more than he could help himself. And she made it sound so easy, like she could perform some sort of exorcism and all his demons would flee. The more likely story was she was trying to get close to him under the misguided impression that he had something left to offer.

  “You’re good, Mother Teresa. Why don’t we go someplace quiet where I can confess my sins and you can absolve me? Make sure you turn your phone on to RECORD, so you don’t miss the good stuff.”

  “You’re wrong, but I understand you being leery,” she patiently explained. “I . . . I always liked you, Tyson, and you were always so nice to me. You deserve to have someone on your side. I know this is all just your circumstances talking.”

  “Sorry, not interested.” Tyson took back his now-­empty glass and went back to sucking the last remnants of Gentleman Jack off the ice. Damn his mouth was dry, always so dry. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was closed. He wanted her to get out before he settled back into the dark side.

  “What would it take for me to get you interested? For you to consider coming home with me, at least for a decent night’s sleep?”

  Maybe it was the way she asked it, completely oblivious to the fact that the question itself made her sound like a hooker. Maybe it was the pity or her dogged insistence that he see himself for something other than he was, which was a lost cause. And then, like a lighthouse shining through the fog in his brain, it dawned on him. His cute little virtuous tutor had joined the ranks of pleasure seekers and was trying to get him into bed. At least that explanation turned the exchange from ludicrous to one that made sense.