He slumped, saying nothing, kicking a foot in the slush like a little kid.
“What is it you need at this point?” she asked. “Why are we here?”
“Free Internet access.”
“But I get the Internet at work or at my house.”
“You don’t get anonymous free Internet.”
She thought. “Harrah’s. They have wireless access.”
“And my credit card number. And the soul of my first and only child, if I had one.”
“Why’s this important?”
“Because we’re going to give out the GPS coordinates. We are sending them to the police so that Philip can put all his fears and emotions to rest about the whereabouts of his son and you can have another hearing. We can’t give our names, though. Ponder this a second. I can see no other way.”
She saw at once that he was right. His was the only possible course of action now. When the police found the body, she could arrange an emergency court session, and Flaherty would work with her, and they’d free up the money. She would have done her job, although there would be other fallout.
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, let’s do it.”
She hooked her arm in his. “We register as Mr. and Mrs. Somebody. We rent a room using a fake name.”
He stared at her. “Not so easy these days, Ms. Reilly.”
“Oh, sure it is. Cash talks in this town. It may be going the way of the dinosaur everywhere else, but here, cash remains king.”
Rather than go to Harrah’s, where Paul was semiknown, and Nina might be known even a little more, they stopped in at the Valhalla, a motel overlooking the lake where the sharply dressed clerk happily accepted rent on an empty room.
In the motel room, Wi-Fi fired up, fake e-mail address up and running, they composed an e-mail to Sergeant Cheney, arguing over the language, and settling finally for something only a lawyer could love.
You will find the body of Jim Strong buried at these coordinates. The coordinates followed, checked twice for accuracy.
“Après moi le déluge,” Paul said. He pushed the send button on Nina’s portable computer. Then they turned it off and looked at each other. “Fake address. Fake ID. Untraceable.”
“I’m so worried about you.”
“Not as worried as I am about me,” Paul said. “And I have made you an accessory.”
“Well, it’s done.”
They fell back on the bed together, side by side. For a long time, they lay there, barely touching, thinking their own thoughts.
“So you and Kurt,” Paul said finally. “Ready to bring me up-to-date?”
“Over.”
“Again.”
“Last time.” The words choked her.
“Can I ask why?”
“I will never understand the human heart. I loved him so much once, then not so much, no matter how hard I tried.”
“Trying—that never works. Of course he felt that.”
“Yes, he did. He said—uh—he said . . .” She found it hard to share what he had said, that she loved another man. Instead she turned her face toward Paul, took his face in her hands, and kissed him. She felt it strong in her again, how she wanted to stay right here, get closer, hold on tight, experience him—it had been a long time.
He pulled back. “Tomorrow, the police will dig up the grave of Jim Strong. And if something goes wrong, I might go to prison for a very long time measured in the life of a lovely lawyer.” He stroked her long brown hair. “You are a dreamer. Underneath all that cyborg thinking, you imagine the world you want to happen, not what’s out there.”
“I dream that we will survive this.”
“Ah, Nina.”
CHAPTER 23
I rushed to unbury Jim.
I didn’t have time to worry about the horror, but I did feel it. Some things you don’t choose.
Once I located his body, the exact location at last, I had to work hard. The body was in rough forest under a pile of debris, which I hurled into the snowy hill behind me. I worked frantically, partly to keep my feelings at bay, partly because I knew the police were coming. They had the same coordinates. They would be searching for the body. I didn’t know if I had an hour or several hours, so I threw forest debris left and right. I was wearing gloves of course, but felt bruises forming as the odd branch stabbed me, and as I stumbled over a rock.
I suffered moments of doubt. Was he really here? Did I have the wrong information? I doubled my efforts. In the blue mountain air, I felt the altitude, the crazed beating of my heart, the pounding in my ears.
Panic.
Nobody there yet.
I kept digging and lifting, hearing the ticking of a clock, although there could be no clock here, only a big wind blowing through the pines.
A full ninety minutes passed before I located the body. I threw myself to the side and breathed heavily, looking at my find, trying to stay unemotional.
A blue tarp entirely wrapped the body, and for that I was grateful. I wouldn’t have to assemble the bones that moved around inside while I pulled the tarp out of the grave. Jim had lain here for two years. The body would now be decomposed, although to what extent I did not know and did not want to know. I finished the job, clearing the area around the area of mud, icy branches, and stink, making sure the tarp remained wrapped tightly around the body. Then I braced myself, pulling it out, slipping and bumping as I dragged him out of the wet hole that had been his grave.
“You’re going back to the lake,” I whispered to Jim before I took away the tarp over his face and forced myself to look.
Then I put him in the back of my truck and drove him back to the lake where he had always lived. All the way to my boat I thought of him, moving around in the truck as if alive again.
CHAPTER 24
Early the next morning, Nina went into her office, which was cold, dark, and empty. Sandy was no doubt thumping around on her horse on this fine clear morning, with Joe bringing up the rear.
Nina tackled one of the stacks of paperwork, only to find it required the kind of logical thinking she didn’t have in her that morning. She decided instead to organize bills for payment, noting anything suspicious, piling them up for Sandy to take care of ASAP.
At 10:00 a.m. promptly the phone rang with the call she was expecting.
“Law Offices of Nina Reilly and Associates,” Nina said automatically. She had instructed Sandy to use that phrase years ago and it had stuck. Well, if you thought of Sandy, Wish, and Paul, she had associates, didn’t she?
“Nina, something amazing has happened. I got a call early this morning from the South Lake Tahoe police.”
“What is it, Philip?”
“The police! They have received some kind of anonymous information about a grave someone has found near Sorensen’s. They think Jim may be buried there. Somewhere out in the woods. Buried. Not Brazil. Not Brazil at all.”
She nodded. So Sergeant Cheney had received the anonymous tip. They were digging. Today, they would find Jim’s body. Anxiety coiled in her.
“Such news,” she said.
“I thought you should know. They’re sending the equipment and men out about four this afternoon.”
“I’m glad you called to tell me.”
“I’ve called everyone, Marianne, Brinkman, Gene Malavoy, Kelly. It affects all of us, Nina. We’re speechless. I believe it. Jim’s dead. I wanted that for so long. I know it must make you glad, too, knowing he may have been found. I have to go now.”
She hung up and found herself unable to call Paul. What good would it do, telling him they were going to dig up Jim’s body? He must be thinking of it right this minute, wondering about his future in a jail somewhere, an ex-cop, not popular.
She thought of the cold grave, the constellations in the sky as they hauled those rocks away and revealed the body.
All day as she went about her life, she was also waiting for the follow-up phone call, the one that would tell her that Jim was officially dead.
T
hat evening, Philip called her at home. She had been pacing, waiting for it.
“More news. Another police call.” Something awful was in his tone of voice, thick, odd.
“Oh?” For a moment she had a frightening image of Paul caught, brought down by something found in the grave.
“The police finished digging.”
“What did they find?”
She heard him mutter something, then say, “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“A place where a body might have been buried, but no body. It’s as though he got up and left. His second great disappearance. It’s like a trick. Nina, is there a curse on me? On us?”
“Philip, are you all right?”
“Nina? Nina?” This came out faintly, as if he had dropped the phone for a moment.
“I’m right here.”
“I don’t feel very well. Awful pain. Something’s wrong. Need a doctor.” His gasping voice alarmed her.
“I’m calling 911 on my cell as we speak.”
“Quite a bit of—”
“Stay on the line with me.”
His phone clattered in her ear.
PART
THREE
CHAPTER 25
Nina picked up Bob and drove over to Matt’s. The snow was melting, melting. Spring buds poked up hopeful heads alongside the cabins along Pioneer Trail. Bob sat beside her, hair uncombed, clothing slapdash, expression hangdog.
Nina tried to listen to the news but he kept changing the channel until she gave up and listened to his choice of music all the way there. She felt grim. Events seemed to roll on without any human control. This morning she would be watching all three kids while she and Paul tried to work out what to do next.
They arrived at the house and parked in the curve at the end of the road.
“Out,” Nina commanded. “And don’t forget your manners.”
Bob slouched from the car, yawning, slamming the door with an emphatic smack, but was polite to his aunt and uncle before excusing himself with a smile on his face, eager to go upstairs and exact his vengeance.
Matt put his parka on, listening to the hoots and complaints drifting downstairs. “Makes ’em cantankerous, waking up early on weekends.”
“Tell me about it,” Nina said drily. She hugged her sister-in-law. “Happy birthday, Andrea!”
Andrea hugged her back. She looked healthy and young in a brown sweater that warmed her red curls and pink cheeks. “Any word about Philip Strong’s condition?”
“They got him to Boulder Hospital within fifteen minutes and he came out of surgery all right. I’ll visit him later.”
“What happened?”
“Something to do with his heart.”
“You know, in emergencies, people often freeze up,” Andrea said. “You used your head, got him an ambulance in time.”
“It was an obvious 911 call. He has been close to collapse for a while.”
“Well, a morning out is a treat,” Andrea said. “Being out of this messy house is a treat anytime! We’re grateful to you, Nina.”
Matt hugged his wife. “To misquote Taj Mahal, my wife deserves mo’ better treats than we puny humans can give her.”
“Aw,” Andrea said.
Nina smiled. “Look at her blush. You two all set?”
“You sure you’re up for this? You look like you’re not sleeping. You’re working too hard.”
“I’m on it.”
“Promise us no video games, no television,” Matt said. “The sun is out, the sky is blue. It’s beautiful. I want them outside.”
“While you’re at it, Matt, why not ask for world peace?” Andrea nudged him with her hip.
For a few minutes they dawdled over which jackets to wear. Finally they left.
Nina heard laughter that felt foreign to her ears.
She took off her extra sweater, kicked off boots designed to deal with slush, not fashion, and went into the kitchen to dig around for supplies. Eggs, milk, cheese, oh, some leftovers—
Almost an hour later, three teenagers emerged from upstairs, noses tipped up, sniffing. They ate fast and, finished, started slapping dirty dishes into the dishwasher, bumping against each other, complaining, and generally having a fine time.
Paul knocked on the kitchen door, peering in through the glass at them.
“Hungry?” Nina let him in. “I cooked.”
“No. I’m here to freak out, not to eat.”
“Jeez, Paul. Let’s not go there yet.”
“Hi, Paul! ’Bye!” the kids said, heading upstairs.
“Not so fast,” Nina said. “Put on warm clothes and come right back down here.”
“What? Why?”
“I’m the boss today.”
A long groan ensued, then arguments followed by stubbornness, and finally, when they saw they could not win, capitulation.
Watching the kids run upstairs, Paul said, “It’s the end of the world. You’re babysitting. Is this what it means to be a woman?”
“Andrea and Matt managed to book a champagne-brunch cruise on the lake. Our dad was supposed to come, but he’s not always reliable, so I stepped in. Things still need to be done while the world ends.”
“Isn’t this kind of situation exactly why God invented the Net? Opiate of the children?”
She turned off the coffeemaker, restacked the pile of dishes in the dishwasher, filled the machine with soap, and cranked it up. They were alone for the moment. “Maybe I need to see my family, Paul. I didn’t sleep last night. We gave the police an anonymous tip with specific instructions on how to find Jim’s grave. They went there to dig him up and found nothing in the grave. Is it possible we sent the wrong coordinates? That they dug up something else?”
“I checked the e-mail we sent Cheney. Our information was accurate.”
“Okay. Then I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve been duped.”
Paul nodded. “To move the scenario along a step further, who duped us? Who stole the body? How could anyone on earth know where I”—his voice lowered to a whisper—“put him?”
“Someone followed us to Jim’s grave,” she whispered back.
He shook his head. “I would have noticed.”
“You have a better explanation?”
“He dug himself out. He’s a freakin’ demon.”
* * *
They all piled into the car, suspending logical thought and talk until they got to the ice-skating rink at the state line. There, they all rented skates. The kids shot off.
Nina tried to remember how to balance herself.
“Hey, you know tricks!” Paul said, watching Nina spin.
“It’s like a bicycle,” she said, “you never—oops!” Down she started, but Paul caught her arm. “You look good when you’re cold and out of sorts,” he said, steadying her. He stood there smiling at her like some kind of fool. They were both fools, spinning like tops.
She felt her eyes welling. “I’m scared for you.”
“Stop that immediately,” he said kindly, pulling her along. “We’re having fun here.”
They didn’t last long and settled into a quiet corner away from the crowds. They watched the kids and other skaters, clapping as Troy executed a jump.
“Someone else besides you and me knew Jim Strong was dead.” Paul kept his voice low in spite of the overall din. “It’s hard to believe. Bob would never say a thing except maybe to Sandy, and Sandy wouldn’t talk about it.”
“Sandy didn’t even tell Joe. I think she tells him everything, mostly.”
Brianna had hooked up with a few girlfriends. Hanging on to each other, they lunged, laughing, attaching themselves to various young boys and then detaching, favoring none.
Nina, watching, thought of herself at Brianna’s age, about the allure of young males with their hairiness, smells, and intensities, and about the way their chemistry compromised a young woman’s intelligence. She could only hope Brianna could pump her way up and down that seesaw back to sanity before she
ruined her life. Nina wondered if Matt and Andrea worried that way about their daughter. Nina sure worried about Bob, every single day, and now and then she thought of herself and Kurt, the young craziness, the young blissfulness.
“The missing body is connected to the sale of the resort,” she said, continuing to watch, multitasking. “Somebody knows you killed Jim Strong, Paul. Somebody knows where you buried him. The body was taken because someone doesn’t want the police to know he’s dead. It has to be the same person or persons who are trying to nick some of that sale money.”
“If that’s true, the responsible thing to do is to go to the cops and get this off my chest for once and for all. I think I’m going to have to take it to Fred Cheney. He’s an old friend. He’ll believe me. Not to talk to the cops at this point is beyond irresponsible.”
Nina found it hard to contain her fright at the thought. “You were a homicide cop. How can you suggest such a thing? Don’t be naive. They’ll eat you alive.”
“Okay, Nina, you’ve got advice? Good. Spill your guts.”
“You go to Sergeant Cheney, you open your heart. ‘Yessir, I took the guy out because he was threatening Nina. He came at me. It was self-defense.’ He may be your friend, but he has a sworn duty and an ethic, too. He may be sympathetic, but don’t assume he’ll treat you any differently than another police officer would.”
“I don’t expect sympathy I don’t deserve. Fred’s a dedicated law enforcement officer. I don’t expect he’ll let our friendship get in the way of what he considers his duty.”
“You’re hoping he will, though. Not officially, but you do hope for leniency.”
“But Jim’s body’s gone. We did try to take care of this. The police will never be able to piece this elaborate story together and find who stole the corpse if I don’t stop protecting myself.”
Bob, Troy, and Brianna linked arms like a gang. Swooping around the rink powerfully, they took on all challengers.
“Paul, you need to hire a criminal lawyer, anyone but me. I know all the best ones. You’ll be all right.” Nina looped her arm over his shoulder. “You saved my life. We both know that. Whatever happened to Jim Strong, he deserved.”
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