Victoria watched her walk off. The woman had been deeply wounded, but she still had hope and joy.
Dora Malisoff’s words rolled around in her mind as she walked on toward the turn in the road that would take her home.
Miles away, Rob Luden entered District Attorney Steve Farmer’s office. The six-feet-four-inch fifty-four-year-old prosecutor remained seated behind his large, dark walnut desk which was so covered with files and stack of briefs that anyone coming in to ask for a favor or complain about his workload would instantly feel insecure.
Farmer was one of the sharpest politicians in the county. He had been elected and re-elected district attorney for the last twenty-two years. His opponents were usually names sacrificed so the opposing party wouldn’t look totally insignificant. There was talk now of his running for Congress. That was going to be a mere stepping stone for an eventual run for the Senate.
Rob knew all this before he came to Farmer’s office. He had met him before, of course, and was always impressed by how prepared Farmer was and how quick to get to the bottom line. He looked like a man who believed with William Penn that time was what we want most, but what we use worst. No one had to warn Rob that Farmer was impatient and intolerant of anyone wasting a minute of his attention.
‘Have a seat, Rob,’ he said. Rob’s report was in front of him. He tapped it with his pen. ‘So you want to prosecute a dead man?’
‘No, sir,’ Rob said, smiling.
‘You haven’t located the murder weapon?’
‘No.’
Farmer sat forward. ‘So, let me understand this. Bart Stonefield withheld evidence six years ago concerning a sexual assault on the woman he is now going to marry, and this woman is providing him with an alibi for the night of Marvin Hacker’s murder. There are no witnesses to contradict that and there is no forensic evidence to place him at the scene of the crime. Is that right?’
‘Nothing now.’
‘Furthermore, from what you tell me, she was aware of her fiancé’s not revealing what he knew at the time. Am I leaving anything out?’
‘No, sir.’
‘And so not being able to prosecute him for murder, you propose that I charge Bart Stonefield with obstruction of justice and bring him before a jury of his peers who will see the chief defense witness, his fiancée, testify that she knows this and still wants to marry him?’
‘It fits the definition, so I thought I’d bring it all to you.’
Farmer nodded and then looked out his window.
‘This office and just about every one like it in every state and every federal district survives because of how it handles its priorities, Rob. Like everyone else, we have just so much manpower, money and energy. We’d love to have a perfect world where none of this matters and we’re concerned with only the letter of the law. Ever read John Stuart Mill on justice?’
‘No, I don’t recall doing that.’
‘Mill argued that justice is what is right and what has the best consequences. What, in your opinion, would be the best consequences here?’
Rob was silent.
‘The men who did this terrible thing are dead. Even their own mother doesn’t seem to mind that they’re dead from what you’ve described. The girl who was violated has recuperated to the point where she can have a normal life. The man she’s marrying is from a very successful family who contribute to the economy of the area. Any suggestions about the best consequences?’
‘I talked about it with my wife,’ Rob confessed.
Farmer smiled. ‘That’s something I do from time to time. Someone who loves you and whom you love is the best person to trust, as corny as that might sound. So? Share her opinion.’
‘She said lose it.’
‘Lose it?’
‘That file,’ Rob said, nodding.
Farmer smiled. ‘What’s your wife’s name?’
‘Becky.’
‘Tell Becky she has a great political future if she ever so chooses to try.’
Rob laughed.
‘Go pursue the killer of this Marvin Hacker if you like, but remember what I said about priorities.’
‘I’ve already put it in a file,’ Rob said.
‘What file?’
‘Cold cases. Actually, it’s under a new title. Frozen cases,’ he added.
Farmer nodded. ‘I’m going to keep my eye on your career, Rob. I’m anticipating some very good things.’
Rob Luden rose when Farmer did. He extended his hand. They shook and he walked out.
Technically, he was agreeing to let someone get away with a crime, but oddly, or maybe not so oddly, he felt better about it than he had when he had gotten criminals convicted.
EPILOGUE
Mrs Wilson, the receptionist at Stonefield’s, told her that Bart was home sick. She was surprised that Victoria did not know, and then, to help her feel better about it and not feel guilty herself about telling his fiancée something she should have known, she added, ‘He probably doesn’t want you to worry.’
Victoria went right to the worst possible scenario.
She had the experience that would have brought her there, too, if she had let it.
During a few early sessions especially, Dr Thornton got her to confess that she was so depressed that she had contemplated suicide.
It was both ironic and painful for her to feel guilty about this, but she recognized that the guilt was a stepchild of the love she still had for Bart. Just as he couldn’t live with what he had done or not done, she knew she would suffer such permanent damage emotionally and psychologically that she might as well make it a Romeo and Juliet ending.
She rushed out of the house, got into her car and drove as fast as she could to Bart’s apartment. When she arrived, she didn’t even shut the car door after she got out. She charged up the steps, shoved the key into the lock and stepped into the apartment. It was deadly quiet, a stillness that triggered a surge of chills up her spine and then, in cold fingers, seized her neck.
‘Bart?’ she called. Timidly, she walked through the living room and into the bedroom.
He wasn’t there, but the sight of her black dress with the mess shoulders carefully laid out on his bed took her breath away. In her haste to leave the night before, she had left it hanging in the closet. His leaving it there was the act of someone captured by the deepest melancholy, suffering now from the intensity of his love, something that was supposed to bring him great joy. It was summed up quickly in her mind by Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s famous line. Beauty without the beloved is like a sword through the heart.
She swallowed back her small cry of fear and turned to rush out of the apartment. She hadn’t even noticed on arrival that Bart’s car wasn’t there. Where would he have gone? Where had they enjoyed some of their happiest moments together? Where did their love mature and take so firm a hold of each of them? She thought she knew, but she also knew that she might be wrong, that she might waste whatever time was left, or that, worst of all, she’d be right but too late.
Less than an hour later, she arrived at Echo Lake and walked to the dock where Bart’s boat was moored. As she feared, it wasn’t there. She looked out and thought she saw it somewhere in the middle. She was moving on fumes now, her legs feeling numb as she walked about looking for someone to help. She paused when a boat came from the right and slowed as it approached the dock. A man wearing a captain’s hat, sun glasses, a New York Yankees T-shirt and a pair of white shorts drew closer. She thought he looked about sixty.
When she waved to him, he looked at her, obviously wondering who she was. Nevertheless, he politely waved back. She hurried to meet him at his mooring place on the dock. He kept a puzzled smile on his face as she hurried to get closer.
‘I need your help,’ she shouted over the sound of his engine. He cut the engine down to an idle and put his hand around his ear.
‘What?’
‘I need your help. I think my boyfriend is in trouble out there. I’ll pay you whatever it costs.’
He brought the boat closer and then shut the engine and drifted to his place.
‘I don’t get you,’ he said. ‘Who’s in trouble? Where?’
‘My boyfriend, Bart Stonefield. I think that’s his boat in the middle of the lake.’
‘Stonefield?’ He turned and looked in the direction she indicated. ‘Yeah, I know Bart Stonefield.’ He put his hands above his eyes to shade them and looked. ‘That could be his boat. What’s his problem? Engine trouble?’
‘I think he’s very sick,’ she said. ‘He shouldn’t have gone out today.’
‘Sick?’ He looked again.
‘Please, can you take me to him? Whatever it costs …’
‘Doesn’t cost that much, lady. Hop in,’ he said. ‘I’m George Samuels,’ he said.
‘Victoria, Victoria Myers,’ she told him as he helped her into the boat.
‘Well, let’s go see what’s what,’ he said. He started his engine and put the boat in reverse until he could turn it and go forward. It was not as fast as Bart’s but she was just relieved to find someone to help. ‘I don’t see him,’ he said as they drew closer.
Her heart felt as if it had turned to stone.
‘It looks anchored,’ he added.
‘Can we get right up to it?’
‘Close as I can,’ he said. He circled it. They didn’t see Bart. He slowed down and put the engine on idle as they drifted alongside. She stood up. When she was able to, she reached out and grabbed the side of the boat. ‘Careful,’ he said as she turned and threw her leg over the side of Bart’s boat. ‘He’s not in there.’
She didn’t respond. She had to get into the boat anyway. She did it awkwardly, practically falling on her rear end. She managed to get into the boat and stood, hoping perhaps he was lying down. He was not there.
‘He’s not swimming,’ George Samuels said, shading his eyes and looking farther out. ‘I don’t see him. Think he fell out or something?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, the tears forming.
‘Maybe I’d better get some help,’ he offered. ‘You want to go back.’
‘No. I’ll wait here,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said and accelerated, turning and heading back toward the dock.
She sat and stared at the steering wheel and controls. Then she buried her face in her hands and began to sob softly. Suddenly, she heard a loud thud and looked down at a short-handled sledgehammer.
Bart, wearing a mask and an oxygen tank, pulled himself up on the side of the boat and then started to get in. When he saw her, he froze.
She didn’t say a word.
He got into the boat and sat on the floor, pulling the mask off and unloading the oxygen tank.
‘Am I dreaming?’ he asked her.
‘No. I had someone bring me out here … George Samuels. He went back for help.’
‘Help?’
‘We thought … you might have drowned.’
‘Oh.’
‘I called your office and Mrs Wilson told me you called in sick, so I went to your apartment.’
He got up and sat on the cushioned bench. ‘You thought …’
‘Yes.’
He nodded. ‘I considered it.’
‘What did you do, Bart?’
‘I brought up that sledgehammer to bring to the police. If I wasn’t going to have you, it didn’t make a difference anymore.’
She nodded. ‘Well, it does,’ she said. ‘You are going to have me.’
The blue in his eyes was as electric as it had been that first night when he came to pick her up and had brought the corsage. She couldn’t hold back another moment. She moved forward and embraced him. They kissed and he looked at her.
‘Are you sure?’
There was no other way to make him believe. She let go of him, picked up the short-handled sledgehammer and tossed it back into the lake.
He smiled.
‘Just think,’ she said, ‘how good I will feel every time I waterski on this lake.’
His smile was a promise she knew they would both keep. There was one other thing she really wanted them to do.
‘Now get us back quickly,’ she said. ‘I need you to go somewhere with me.’
‘Where?’
‘To a bungalow at the colony near my house.’
‘Bungalow? Why?’
‘For a special, very special piece of blueberry pie,’ she said.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Andrew Neiderman is the author of 115 published titles, under his own name and as V.C. Andrews. With national and international media now revealing and interviewing Neiderman, he is – arguably the most successful ghostwriter in American publishing. Having brought V.C. Andrews from seven novels at just under thirty million books sold worldwide to more than seventy-five titles over one-hundred and six million sold worldwide, he has reached new heights of fame and accomplishment. During this remarkable side of his career, he has kept the V.C. Andrews franchise alive and it is now the longest-running in American publishing with consistent titles for more than thirty-five years. Recently, he has promoted and helped sell five of the titles to Lifetime; Flowers in the Attic broke their viewing record. Warner Bros. has now contracted to develop another series written by Neiderman as V.C. Andrews, the first title of which is Ruby for cable television.
Under Neiderman, he has published more than forty-five novels, the most famous being The Devil’s Advocate, a major feature film produced by Warner Bros. and starring Al Pacino, Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron. He is developing this with his co-librettist in London as a stage musical and will, this coming year, be presenting it to major theatrical production entities internationally. In addition, the stage play version opened in the Netherlands November 18, 2015 and will tour there and in Belgium. Finally, the television series based on his novel is being considered by Warner Bros. for development.
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