Strobe lights went off in my brain. The faulty synapses that hadn’t made the connections earlier finally got it right. Of course. My parents had died because they’d seen Gregory with Lisa on the beach that day, the giant blond man and the tiny black woman. Because his connection to Lisa was the link to his laundered fortune. And now Ava and I might die for the same reason. I gasped for air like Walker had gut-punched me.
Walker’s laugh was maniacal. “You know what’s funny, besides you hiring me of all people to help you figure out what happened to your parents? What’s really funny is that Gregory had written them off as two stupid tourists. Then your parents had to run off their mouths about it to the wrong person. Which makes them stupid tourists after all, I guess. Full circle. Visitors never get it. This is a small, small island. Their waiter that night at Fortuna’s? Jilly Edwards, Lisa’s daughter. And your mother literally points to a picture of Lisa in the paper and says to your father, right in front of Jilly like she’s not even there,” and here Walker used a simpering falsetto, “Oh my gaw-wad, this is the woman we saw naked on the beach with that big blond man, honey. And she’s a senator’s wife.”
Oh, Mama. My heart broke. My sweet, sweet mother, who had no idea there was evil around her, who saw the beauty and not the danger. Just as she had everywhere in her life. It was one of the things I’d loved most about her. She was positive, she was strong, she was smart, but she was, well, naive.
“Yeah, Jilly girl called home. Lisa convinced her it was mistaken identity, but Lisa knew it wasn’t. So, Lisa called Gregory. Who called me. Who always calls me.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Ahead of us, Ava’s car turned right onto the familiar lane I’d ridden down with her one month before. The cliffside was very close now.
“So you just do all Bonds’s dirty work and let him keep his hands clean?” I was fighting to keep my voice normal.
“He got me out of a tight spot once,” he said, and shrugged. “And he pays well.”
Ava pulled over when we broke from the trees.
Walker grunted. “Put it in park, and turn it off.”
I did as he asked. The sun was sinking, but no green flash tonight. I looked into the sky of fire, hell above earth. It’s not hell, I thought. Hell is this. That’s what salvation looks like. I wasn’t ready for either salvation or hell, though. I wasn’t sure yet how, but I was going to fight until the end. I had to.
“Get out of the car and stand with your hands on the hood.”
I did as he told me.
He got out of the car and walked around to my side. “Walk to the front passenger seat of your truck and get in. Go.” He shoved me with his left hand and held the gun against my back with his right.
I walked to the truck and got in. Ava was staring at me.
“Are you OK?” I asked her.
“I fine. You?”
“Yes.”
“Shut up.” Walker dropped himself into the back seat. He shut the door and scooted over behind Ava.
Ava gave a war cry. I saw a flash as she lifted my machete from underneath the bench seat, leaned forward, and whirled her right arm backhand toward Walker, the blade horizontal and inches from my face in the awkwardly tight space. “There’s not enough room for this to work,” I thought, anguished and hopeful at the same time. Walker’s arm shot up and he caught Ava’s wrist as she swung. Thud. He twisted. Snap. The machete fell into Walker’s lap in the back seat. Ava screamed and rocked forward, holding her arm.
“That was stupid,” he said, calm as the eye of a hurricane. “Shut up, put the car in gear, and drive forward.”
“I can’t,” Ava sobbed.
He cocked the trigger of his gun and pressed it into the hollow of her neck below her skull. His voice was slippery and cold. “Yes, you can, dear. Now do it.”
Ava carefully placed her broken right wrist into her lap. She tried again with her left hand. “Can you put it in gear for me?” she asked me, her voice breaking over her sobs as she swallowed them.
I didn’t say a word, just shifted the car into drive. Using only her left hand, Ava steered. We crested the rise, and the nose of the truck pointed down the short slope.
“Stop,” Walker said.
Ava stopped the car. I put it in park.
Ava put her face on the steering wheel. “You a fucked-up bastard.”
Walker’s face didn’t even flicker. But I saw his arm move. I reacted out of years of training and the instinct that had set me apart in the dojo years ago, the inner ear that mattered most, that had drawn words of praise from my sensei. As he lifted his gun and cracked it against her head, I chopped his wrist with my right hand, sending the gun skittering to the floorboard under Ava’s feet, and immediately slammed my left arm back in a vicious sword chop to his throat. Ava slumped against the door, unconscious. Walker fell against the seatback. He grabbed his throat, writhing, choking, and gasping for air.
I unclicked my seatbelt and leaned over Ava, unfastened hers, opened her door, and pushed her out to the safety of the grass. While I was extended across her seat, I felt the car begin to move. I sat up and realized with horror that my body had forced the gearshift from park to drive. I wrenched the door handle, threw open my own door, and rolled out. Blue, green, and orange spun around me as I tumbled and rolled, then fell still. I scrabbled toward Ava, not yet believing we were free, and I turned toward my beautiful gold truck to see Walker in profile, frantically trying to open the back door as the Silverado went over the cliff. I heard the scraping of metal on rock, a terrible sound. I saw my parents’ faces now instead of Walker’s, and I let down the tears that I had held in so long.
I put my face in my hands and sobbed, but only for a moment, then I shook my head, refusing to give in to grief. I clenched my fists and hit both of them into the ground. “I got you, you asshole,” I screamed in anguish, in triumph. “I got the bad guy, Dad.”
It didn’t bring my parents back.
I felt something cold, hard, and narrow against my right fist. I moved my hand and saw the glint of gold in the green grass. I reached under the flattened blades with my thumb and forefinger and plucked the object free. It was a gold band. My heart stopped. I turned it on its side and searched for the inscription.
Hannah.
Seconds passed, maybe minutes. I became aware again, of where I was, of my mother’s ring in my hand, of Ava. I stuck the ring on my finger and crouched over Ava, the last of my tears falling on her face as I shook her gently. She groaned.
“Ava, wake up, Ava, it’s Katie. Wake up.” I smoothed her wild black curls off her face and used my palm to wipe the trickle of blood from her forehead, smearing it more than cleaning it. “Come on, Ava.”
Her eyes opened. “Katie? What happen?” She sat up, then held her head. “Oh my God, my head hurt so bad.” She took in our surroundings. I saw her remember. “Where he go? Where he?” She tried to climb to her feet, but fell forward on her hands and knees. Her wrist buckled and she cried out, then rocked back on her knees and hugged her arm to her chest.
“It’s going to be OK, Ava. He’s gone now.” I pointed toward the cliff.
She gaped at me. “You kill him?”
“Not exactly. I think the childproof locks did him in.”
Ava stared at me like I’d dropped my basket for real. Then she howled like a hyena, laughing until she held her side with her good arm. “I going to hell now, for true,” she said.
“For this and all your other sins,” I agreed.
She swung her legs around and sat on her bana, then pulled her knees in to her chest with one arm and rested her head on them. “Only one problem. That bastard the only one could prove I didn’t kill Guy.”
I patted my left hip for the iPhone. It was still there. Please, God, please, I prayed. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the phone. I opened the recorder and pressed Stop, then fiddled with it until it played back my recording.
“Come on. Make room for Ava, and then follow her
to Baptiste’s Bluff.” I pressed Stop. I swiped the timeline forward. “Why’d you kill the Senator?” I heard my voice say. “Haven’t you figured that out by now?” Walker’s voice replied. I pressed Stop again. Halle-freakin-lujah, and thank God for Sherry Talmadge.
“Was,” I said. “He was the only one who could prove it. Now you’ve got me.”
Chapter Forty-nine
I speared the earth with the point of the shovel. I shoved it in firmly, then stomped it in further with my foot. When the blade was threequarters of the way submerged, I shifted my hands so I could push down on the handle with all my weight. The shovel levered free of the ground. I lifted a bladeful of dirt, and with a twist of my wrist and arms, heaved it to the top of the small pile I had created. The hole was ten inches deep, ten inches wide. More than big enough now for what I needed.
Sweat trickled down my chest and pooled in my cleavage, dammed off by my bra. I turned to look behind me, up the cleared grassy hill at the imposing yellow hulk of my house in side view. From this angle, I could see the third-story balcony to my favorite room, one I would use as a guest suite before too long. Not so long ago, that balcony was only a jutting concrete ledge. Now it was covered in red pavers that matched those on the patio by the nearly-finished pool. Soon, twisted black metal spindles would support a matching railing. It was nearly a real balcony now. A rock-covered chimney sprouted from the roof above it. Crazy had worked a miracle on Annalise. I’d done my share, too, including staining the mahogany staircase to a deep brown sheen. She wasn’t done yet, but I’d move in before summer.
I soaked her in, then returned to my work, down on a knoll that overlooked the long valley full of mango trees. A cluster of cashew trees peeked over the edge of the slope, its fruit red and ripe. I sank to my knees in the dirt. It was cool, in contrast to the hot March air. I needed to hurry.
I scooped a last few handfuls of dirt out of my burial pit, then patted the earth down to create a perfect resting place. My hand dug in the right pocket of my pleated khaki shorts until I found the cold metal I sought. My mother’s ring. My grandmother’s ring. A ring that I would have worn some day, too, if my mother had lived to give it to me on my wedding day. Assuming I ever got married, which I didn’t really foresee. If I had confessed to another woman alive that I was putting this heirloom under nine inches of dirt, they would have called the police for a 5150 pickup. I clutched it, stricken with an urge to keep it, to wear it, to feel it on my finger, but I didn’t waver. It was time to put the past to rest. Past time to do it.
I dropped the ring into its grave. It landed with a soft thump, almost a plink. My eyes stayed dry. In the six months since Walker had flown off Baptiste’s Bluff, I had shed very few tears, and then only tears of vindication. When the charges against Ava were dropped. When Jacoby told me that the police had officially reversed their finding about my parents’ deaths, and posthumously charged Walker with murder, the murders of Frank and Heather Connell, and the murder of Guy Edwards. They left only Michael Jacoby’s death unsolved, but it was forevermore under a cloud of suspicion. When Bonds and Lisa were captured on St. John, gassing up his yacht before they tried to make their break out of U.S. territory, I’d wondered how far out to sea Lisa would have made it before Bonds tossed her overboard. The U.S.V.I. police had charged them with conspiracy to commit murder, times three. Word on the street was that the Feds would come after them for money laundering soon, too. I looked skyward and said, “Thank you, God.”
I kneaded dirt from my hand. A thin layer formed over the ring. It hurt. It hurt a lot. “You’ll always be with me, Mom. You, too, Dad.”
My next burial item was easier.
A clear plastic Cruzan Light Rum bottle, empty. The same one I had poured down Ava’s sink on the day we almost suffered the same fate as my parents. I didn’t need it anymore. I had stayed dry ever since then, and I credited hard work and the influence of a big jumbie house.
Not that I hadn’t faced temptations. When your boyfriend owns the hottest restaurant on island and hosts incredible wine tasting parties, temptation is a constant. Bart didn’t understand my decision to completely stop drinking, but he hadn’t known the old me. He thought I was the next best thing since crème brûlée, so maybe he didn’t need to understand. I looked over my shoulder and said, “Thank you, Annalise.”
Bart’s car motored up the drive now. I couldn’t see him, but I heard the sound of the wheels on the dirt road. Spending time up here, I had come to recognize engines by sound: the loud rumble of Rashidi’s Jeep, the whine of Crazy’s truck as it strained under loads of building supplies, the purr of Bart’s well-tuned black Pathfinder. I picked dirt up in both hands, closed my hands over it like a book, then opened them from the reverse side, dumping the dirt in a splat on the liter bottle.
One more item to go. The hardest one. The most secret one. The one no one else had to understand but me. The one I certainly hadn’t trusted Ava with. Even though we’d reached an understanding about how we would act toward one another’s men after she was so flirtatious with Bart, I knew Ava was still Ava. I didn’t feel safe putting this information in her hands, or anyone’s. I loved her, but I’d keep my boundaries, thank you very much.
I reached into my left pocket and pulled out the SIM card to my iPhone. The old SIM card, the one for my Dallas phone number. I’d lived on St. Marcos for seven months now, and only this morning had I changed my cell phone to a 340 area code number.
Letting go of my Dallas life shouldn’t be this damn hard. I squeezed the tiny black rectangle, and before I even knew it was coming, a sob escaped me.
“Not now. I can’t cry now. I can’t let Bart see this.”
It wasn’t letting go of my Dallas life that hurt. It was severing the last link to Nick. A number he knew. A number he could still call, if he wanted. A number he had not called in the months I’d lived here. A number he wouldn’t call.
My breath came in sharp gasps now, but I held the tears in. I extended my hand over the hole, SIM card hidden away in it.
“Drop it. Let go of it,” I ordered myself.
I sensed a presence to my left. I whirled, feeling foolish but holding the SIM card behind me.
Her. She stood only ten feet away from me, under the farthest branches of a flamboyant in full bloom. Her ebony skin shimmered below the crown of brilliant orange flowers. Her eyes glowed like agates. There wasn’t a drop of breeze, but her skirt was flowing out behind her. She shook her head, then held her arms open. I stepped toward her, toward those arms, that embrace.
“Katie?”
Bart’s voice. I willed my eyes to track the sound. He stood on the side of the house next to mini towers of biscuit-colored travertine floor tile ready for installation, up the hill from me. He looked taller from this angle, and blonder. He wore a powder-blue t-shirt and navy shorts, and he was fresh, like crisp linen and spring sunshine. He squinted, sunglassless. But he had seen me, and he waved.
“What are you doing?” he called out.
“Hey,” I replied, stalling.
I turned back toward my mysterious friend, and saw what I expected. Nothing. Dammit. With my back to Bart, I flung the SIM card into my little pit, and I kicked dirt into it, then rotated my foot longways and used it to shovel more dirt in the hole. The SIM card disappeared. I shoved more. Now soil covered the entire bottle. Another, and another, and then one last time I pushed the dirt in. I couldn’t see anything but earth in the shallow, narrow hole. Good enough.
Only seconds had passed. I faced Bart now. He had closed the distance between us.
I said, “Just digging a test hole. I was thinking of planting a banana tree down here.”
I held my fingers crossed behind my back. My pulse was so loud in my ears that I wondered if he could hear it. My mind ping-ponged between the hole and its contents and the here and now with Bart.
Bart’s arms slipped around me and he pulled me in tight to his chest. I exhaled, and circled his body with my own arms. I laid my
head on his chest. His heart thumped at an almost normal pace. He nipped my ear, then whispered into it.
“I thought we would do that together. What are we going to do with you, little Miss Independent?”
Before I could answer, he kissed me, something I had grown to like a lot, and a darn good way to forget about what lay beneath five inches of dirt at my feet. I sank into his kiss for a moment, then pulled back to answer his question.
“I think you’ll figure something out,” I said, lacing my voice with as much Angelina Jolie as a tall, skinny redhead could muster.
He smiled, and his white teeth gleamed against his island-tanned skin. He looked like California, like the cover of Men’s Journal, like a man who wanted to lick my toes and eat me for dinner. He grabbed my hand and gave me a tug.
“Yes, I know a few things we could try,” he said.
“Wait,” I replied.
I pulled my hand out of his and picked up the flat gray rock I had brought to mark the burial spot. I dropped it into position. I wondered if I should have put the SIM card in a ziplock, just in case.
“What’s that for?” Bart asked.
I looked straight into his eyes, blue as the Caribbean Sea. “To remind me this spot is too far from the house for the banana trees.”
Bart scrunched his forehead, then threw back his head and laughed. “Only you, Katie. Only you.”
And I put my hand back into his. I snuck one last glance at the earthen pile, then inhaled soundlessly through my nose. We walked up the hill, away from my buried ghosts, back toward Annalise and the sparkling promise of something new, together.
The End
Now that you’ve finished Saving Grace, won’t you please consider writing an honest review and leaving it on the online sales channel of your preference and/or Goodreads? Reviews are the best way readers discover great new books. I would truly appreciate it. And now, here’s an excerpt from Leaving Annalise, the second book in the Katie & Annalise series. ~ Pamela
Saving Grace (Katie & Annalise Book 1) Page 25