“See Katie standing over there? God, she’s pathetic.”
“I know. Could she be more obvious?”
“Helloooo, girlfriend, you’re the laughingstock of Dallas!”
Peals of laughter, male and female. I recognized voices, but in the din, I couldn’t place them. I strained to hear as the sounds receded, confusing me further.
“Please tell me we won’t be like her.”
“A dried-up workaholic with a desperate crush on a married private eye? Fat chance.”
“No wonder she drinks so much. Oh my God, and did you hear about her trial today? She was mewing like a cat. It’s on YouTube.”
My brain was playing cruel tricks on my ears, but I somehow knew the words were figments of my imagination, not real. My eyes were on fire with unshed tears. Volcanic lava rushed through the veins over my entire head. I clenched my fists so tightly one of my fingernails snapped in my palm. I didn’t care. I’d started a pivot toward the lobby, away from here, as far away and as fast as I could go, when Emily appeared out of nowhere and grabbed my arm.
“Stop, Katie,” she said.
“Let me go,” I said, pulling hard against her grip. My chest was heaving. “You saw him walk away from me?”
“No. I just saw your face, and I came right over.” She gave my arm a tug. “We’re out of here.”
I didn’t like it, but I let Emily prod me forward. She propelled me out of our offices, down the elevator, into the parking garage, and over to my car, where she insisted on driving me home. I plotted revenge on Nick and my other nameless, faceless enemies while she drove. One of them looked surprisingly like me. I wanted to dismember my foes slowly and boil their bones. My anger dulled quickly, though, and I was still as a corpse by the time we arrived at my place.
Emily had called ahead for a cab to meet her. I walked her to the curb.
“Are you going to be OK?” Emily asked.
I knew she wanted me to say yes. And actually, I kind of was. I was as low as I could ever imagine getting, but I feared that the worst thing now was that I’d live through it. Screw Nick, I thought. Screw everyone. I made one mistake. One. I can run circles around three quarters of the lawyers in town.
“Yeah. I’m over it. I am.” I dug in my purse for a twenty-dollar bill. “You’re a much better friend than I deserve. Let me pay for your cab.”
She did.
“I’ll call you in a little while,” Emily said.
She hugged me hard, then left to return to the office for her own car. I wandered inside, numb, trailing my fingers over the standing marble bust as I passed it in my building lobby. The condominium association aspired to a Greco-Roman theme. Not in a papier-mâché way, but in a classy way that said, “I’m old-school elegant.” Them, not me. I rode the elevator, which dinged nine times, then opened.
The hell of it all was that after this, I had to go out with Collin for his birthday. I had to drag my hungover, humiliated ruin of a self back out the door and appear in public during my moment of infamy. With Collin, who was on the side of apple pie and the American way, good not evil. Unlike me.
Time to pull it together. I spruced and spritzed without much hope for a miracle. The lines between my eyebrows get deeper when I’m upset, and I cursed Zane, Sherry, Nick, and myself as I covered up the furrows with Clinique’s Airbrush Concealer. This me would have to do.
Chapter Twenty-three
Collin met me in the lobby at 6:30, looking as cool as I was overheated, his cheeks still pink from the shower. I knew he worked out at the downtown YMCA every day when he got off shift and he took exceptional care of his body. He would have made a good Marine, run-marching in combat boots and scaling obstacles. It would do me a world of good to follow his example. We got in the car and he led the conversation.
Without turning to look at me, he said, “I heard you had a bad day.”
I tried to laugh. It came out as a pathetic snort. “You’ve turned on the news, then?”
He kept his eyes on the road. “And seen you on YouTube, too. I called Emily,” he added.
I rotated my head and my neck popped once, twice. “Then you’re fully informed.”
Now Collin cut his eyes over to me. It was almost as if he’d patted my leg. “If it makes you feel any better, he’s a bad man who deserves to be in prison. I told you a few days ago: fleas.”
That he had. And God, was he right. I didn’t trust myself to speak.
“But did you learn anything?” Collin asked, channeling Dad.
My voice came out high-pitched, whinier than I wanted it to sound. I wanted to suck it back in for a do-over. “Learn what? That I hate criminal law and never want to walk into a Dallas courtroom again? That it only takes fifteen seconds to disgrace your dead father’s memory in front of the entire city he loved?”
“Well, yes, but no. More along the lines of elemental truths. That hell hath no fury like a lover scorned. A lover scorned is a witness turned, every single time.”
“I messed up, Collin.” I held in my tears, but my lower lip trembled. Traitor.
“Yep. Sounds like you had a breakdown.”
“More like a nuclear meltdown.”
“Agreed. But you’re still alive. That’s something.”
The word “alive” triggered something in me. “Collin, Zane picked me because of Dad. He wanted me because of who Dad was. And because Dad was dead, he couldn’t fight back against the message that it sent to the jury for me to take Zane’s case.”
Collin reached up to his bottom lip and pulled it with his thumb and forefinger. “That’s pretty awful. I’m sorry,” he said.
“If only Dad were here,” I replied, and a sob caught my voice halfway through. “This never would have happened if Dad were here.”
We drove in silence. The sun was high in the sky and starting to fall, burning through the smog of an ozone-advisory August day. Collin pulled up to a red light. We were landlocked in a sea of cars, two thousand miles away from St. Marcos and the ocean on its shores. I had left there only five days ago. It might as well have been forever. This trial had consumed me, and I hadn’t even followed up with the investigator. The light turned green. On our right a yellow stucco two-story house caught my eye. Annalise. Maybe I could find another Annalise. There were other houses on St. Marcos. Plenty of them on the East End, according to Doug. That almost made me smile.
Collin pulled into the drive-through for Popeye’s Fried Chicken.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m dying to get fried chicken grease on your white carpet and watch you squirm. That’s all I want for my birthday,” he said.
“Asshole,” I said. I really loved my brother.
He laughed.
Fifteen minutes later, we were sitting cross-legged on my carpet scarfing dark meat spicy and downing large iced teas. Actually, we were sitting cross-legged on towels on my carpet. I wasn’t about to let Collin get chicken grease on the Berber.
After I finished my chicken and was shoveling in red beans and rice, I told him about Nick. More than I had ever told him. Collin listened with every bone in his body. I came to the penultimate moment between Nick and me from today, and I got out my phone.
“I’ve been too scared to look at it, Col,” I confessed.
He held out his hand. “I can do it for you.”
I shook my head back and forth, fast. “No, I have to do this myself.”
I scrolled through Nick’s messages. He hadn’t lied. He’d left word for me in every possible medium. I suspected I would find them on my home voicemail, too, but I spared myself for the moment from enduring his voice. Then I came to an email from an hour ago, after he’d walked away from me at the party.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: I’m sorry
I waited for you in my office. I thought you were following me. I wanted to talk to you. To tell you I’m sorry. I was too harsh today. A shit. Agai
n. It’s as much my fault as yours. I should have gotten hold of Emily when I didn’t hear back from you, but things got crazy in my life that night and I forgot.. I know I’ve failed you as a co-worker and as a friend. If I’d have acted like a friend, I would have done what Emily did, and I would have found you. I would have helped you. I am ashamed of myself, because somewhere inside me, I knew you needed help.
Please let someone help you.
Nick
Before I could react, before I could process, before I could show Collin the message, my phone rang. It was from the 340 area code. St. Marcos. I answered.
“Are you sitting down, Katie?” a male voice asked.
My heart quit beating for a moment, frozen up in my chest like the engine in my car when I had let it run out of oil in college. “I’m sitting.” After Nick’s email and this introduction, I couldn’t have stood if I’d wanted to. I put my head down on my legs with my face between my knees to keep from blacking out.
“Congratulations, Katie. The other buyer’s deal fell through and the bank accepted your offer on Annalise.”
“Doug? This is Doug, isn’t it? I thought they rejected it?” I raised my head slowly.
Doug it was. “Surprise! They never even considered it. I hadn’t put an end date on it, either. So when the other deal fell apart, Ms. Nesbitt picked up your offer and faxed over an acceptance. Can you beat that?”
“No,” I said, and I was barely able to speak audibly. “No, I can’t beat that.”
“Come on, now, show some enthusiasm. This is huge,” Doug urged.
Was it my imagination, or did he sound amused? Maybe it was pity I heard instead. When my heart began to function again and my brain had received its normal supply of oxygen, I realized we were discussing the expedited closing provision I had requested in my offer.
“You should have a deed and keys—strike that. There aren’t any doors, so there aren’t keys, are there?” Definitely amusement that time. “Well, you should have a deed, anyway, in two weeks. That’s very fast by St. Marcos standards, practically unheard of.”
No matter how much I rallied, no way could I add much to this conversation. “Doug, can I call you back?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “Congratulations!”
I thanked him and hung up. Collin stared at me.
“Give me a sec, Col.”
He grunted.
I processed the news. In two weeks, I would squander three quarters of a million dollars in cash on an isolated St. Marcos rainforest money pit and the 110 acres upon which it perched, which, unless I moved down there and took up full-time management of the finish-out, would remain an overpriced horse latrine and depreciate faster than the Titanic sank. I would not only blow a large chunk of my reserves, but also torpedo my job, lose any chance I might have had with Nick (You have no chance with Nick, you idiot) and throw away my entire support network. I was a thirty-five-year-old, single, probably alcoholic, soon-to-be-unemployed female attorney with no construction experience, and, more portentously, I was alien to the environment. An environment that might be involved in the island drug trade, and was just down the road from where my parents mysteriously died.
Wow. Double wow. I swallowed. Collin cleared his throat, hinting.
My phone rang again. Another from the 340 area code, but a different phone number. I hesitated, thinking about not answering it.
“Go ahead, sis,” Collin said. “If it’s important, take it.”
I took the call. “This is Katie Connell.”
Now I heard crying on the other end. Soft crying. What the hell was going on?
“Who’s there? This is Katie. Talk to me.”
“Oh, Katie. It Ava. Last night. Last night something terrible happen.”
Her accent was so thick I could barely understand her. More crying.
“Ava? Are you OK? Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Last night, Eduardo told me to meet Guy at the suite on the hill behind the Porcus Marinus again.”
“Yes?”
“I went. And someone else got there first. And Guy—Guy dead, Katie. Sitting in the chair at the desk, slumped over. Someone come up behind him and slit his throat. He dead. Guy dead.”
She sobbed now, her breath in gasps, her wails wrenching me.
“Ava, oh Ava, I’m so sorry. What can I do? Is there someone with you? Can Rashidi or Jacoby come over?”
“I here with my parents. I call Jacoby when it happen, and he stall so I could get away from there. I just, I just—oh, I don’t know. Everything so crazy. I need to sleep. I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see him there again, all that blood, his blood.”
This made my troubles seem petty. “I’m so sorry for him, and for you.”
“I call you. You the one I want to call. I hope you don’t think I’m crazy. I just, well, you my friend. It didn’t take me long to know that. First time I seen you, I knew you were different. So I call.”
And I realized that she was my friend. Out there on the edge, maybe, but a friend all the same, and she lived on the island where I had just bought a house. And just like that, I knew that I had to leave and start over there, and it couldn’t happen fast enough for me.
“I’ll be there soon, Ava. I’ll be there soon.”
Chapter Twenty-four
My phone rang again. Dallas this time. Emily. I could be a switchboard operator for old Ma Bell at this rate.
I showed Collin the caller ID. He sighed. I wasn’t giving him the best birthday of his life. I pressed Speaker to answer the call.
“Hey, girl. Just checking on you,” Emily said before I even spoke.
I checked on myself for her and found that I was shockingly improved from earlier. “I’m better, Collin’s his usual self, and we’re having a floor picnic. I was about to send him out to pick up his birthday cake.”
“Rich is at a long dinner thing. He took the car,” Emily said. “But I want birthday cake.” She and Rich shared a vehicle. His office was a block from their condo, so most of the time he made do on foot or by mass transit.
“I’ll come get you,” Collin said. Collin had a soft spot for Emily, and I knew he secretly hated that she’d married Rich Bernal long before Collin ever met her.
Serendipity. I needed to tell both of them about my rather sudden change of heart and plans as soon as possible. “Do you mind if I wait here?” I asked Collin.
“I’m just your beast of burden,” he said, but he was halfway to the door, and his voice was light.
“Thanks,” I said.
“ I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” he said. “You can tell me what the hell is going on then.”
“Oh, yeah, of course,” I said, as if none of it was any big deal.
As soon as he was gone, I jumped up and paced around the living room. I collapsed back onto the couch. My head was spinning at the speed of my life in Dallas, but my heart beat with longing for a St. Marcos pace. I put my head in my hands and began to laugh, finally throwing my head back and letting my mirth resound to the heavens. Holy shit. I was doing this.
Well, an announcement of this magnitude took planning. I didn’t have much time left before Collin and Emily would arrive. I would not panic. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. I wrote:
Do Not Drink.
I underlined it twice. Bloody Marys screamed my name. Getting schnockered and forgetting about this abortion of a trial sounded awesome. But I needed my wits about me.
I wrote again.
Call Ava And Rashidi
I needed local help. Ava would for sure, and Rashidi had offered, after all, sort of. Was it OK to impose upon him? I would call them first thing tomorrow.
I wrote one more:
Do Not Call Nick.
No matter how nice—and surprising—his message was, it wasn’t a proposal of marriage. I could not contact Nick. I knew if I did, if I answered that email, if I stepped through that door, I wouldn’t be able to walk back out again. I had to get away fr
om this life and how badly I’d screwed it up, how I’d humiliated myself and everyone I cared about. I was done here. I read his email five more times, then deleted it, which hurt like carving the damn thing out of my heart with a spoon, but I did it.
Fifteen minutes and many cleansing breaths later, everything started to feel right. Astounding, really. Maybe it was normal to have a freak-out in the midst of big life-changing decisions. That didn’t mean this decision wasn’t the best thing that could ever happen to me.
I listed the positives of moving. The people I cared about would come to visit me. Probably. When the house was done, I could be a lawyer right on St. Marcos. If I had to. I could find a new career, possibly, or maybe I could sell the house for a huge profit when it was ready. I would have a year-round tan. I wouldn’t drink as much, and I wouldn’t think about Nick, except occasionally. I would never see Zane McMillan again. Can someone give me an amen? I would spend less money on clothes, shoes, handbags, makeup, and jewelry.
Wait, that wasn’t a positive. I scratched it off the list.
Most people would kill to be in my shoes, moving to the Caribbean on a semi-permanent sabbatical. I was a courageous risk-taking adventurer and I would have no regrets. I closed my eyes and conjured Annalise. I was so doing this.
Collin and Emily returned with a Baskin-Robbins cookies-and-cream ice cream cake and birthday candles. Emily and I stuck them in the cake, lit them, and sang while Collin blew them out. I served the cake, then broke the news while their mouths were full.
“Repeat all that slowly, sis.” Collin was calm, but looking at me as if he needed to call in the white coats.
Emily didn’t say anything. She just stared at me from her perch on my overstuffed peach armchair a million miles across the living room. She looked hurt.
Saving Grace (Katie & Annalise Book 1) Page 13