by Nancy Martin
I said, “You can’t leave.”
Her face filled with pain. “Nora, I have to.”
“Lex,” I said. “You were protecting Brandi. You thought you were doing the right thing. Tell me you did it for Brandi. Not for the firm. Not for the money.”
My dearest friend said, “Does it matter?”
“It matters to me,” I said. “You’re like a sister. I understand you. At least, I always thought so.”
“Sweetie.” She sounded tired. “You’re my sister, too. But this is something I have to do on my own.”
“So you killed him.”
She put her palms together and rested her hands against her forehead, as if she were praying. Her voice was hollow. “I don’t know why, if that’s what you’re asking. Maybe you can tell me, because I—it’s still incomprehensible.”
“He hit her. Hoyt struck Brandi. You saw it.”
She nodded, unable to look at me. “Yes. He’d just ruined my painting, so I was still angry. Funny thing, I realize now he did that for the insurance money. He knew my Vermeer was worth a fortune and the insurance company would pay off—probably enough to repay all the money he embezzled. I didn’t understand that at the time. But when he slapped that girl, I—something inside me…exploded.” She lowered her hands and looked dully at me.
“So you pushed him.”
“Yes. Away from her. Onto the balcony. And he—he went over the railing.” She shook her head to dispel the memory, but she couldn’t do it. “I know what I did. I’m not pretending it didn’t happen. But part of me has been waiting for you to find someone else to take the blame.” She smiled wanly. “That’s not going to happen, is it?”
“The police will figure this out. If you touched him, there will be fingerprints.”
She laughed shortly. “Oh, yes, there will be fingerprints. Mine will be all over him. And Brandi watched me do it, so there’s a witness. She offered to keep it to herself. Did she tell you? For a price, of course.”
Someone knocked on the door behind me. Two raps.
“Sweetie,” Lexie said to me. “I wish you hadn’t come.”
She opened the door, and Michael walked in from the darkness, very tall and looming. He was still dressed in his jeans and white shirt, with my father’s belt, but he looked like a criminal again. Something in his face. He had his car keys in hand.
At the sight of me, he dropped the keys on the tile floor. “Jesus,” he said. “What happened?”
From far away, Lexie said, “She went into the river, she says. An accident.”
“Libby and Emma?” he asked, grasping me by the shoulders. “Are they okay?”
I nodded, shivering.
“Get her a blanket,” he said to Lexie. “She’s in shock.”
He eased me down to sit on the step. He buffed my arms to get my blood pumping. But his hands were cold, too.
My teeth began to chatter. “She did it. Lexie pushed him.”
“I know, love. I’m sorry.”
Lexie returned and slung the bedspread from her bed around my shoulders. I clutched at it, my fingers trembling.
I peered up at her. “You can’t leave, Lex.”
She stood back, arms folded across her chest, irritated. Or maybe detached. “Sweetie, please.”
“The police will figure it out. It’s only a matter of time.”
“And time is running out.”
“There’s Brandi, too. Once she asks you for money, it won’t stop. Blackmail never does. We can help you.”
“Dear Nora.” She gave me a grim yet forgiving smile. “I’ve ruined my life. There’s nothing anyone can do for me now.”
“So you’re going to run away?”
“Yes.”
I looked up at Michael. “And you’re going to take her? You’re going to help her run from the law?”
Before he could answer, she said, “Don’t blame him. This is my decision.”
“This is wrong,” I said, voice stronger as a white heat started in my chest. “Think it through, Lexie.”
“I have. I’ve lost everything—my reputation and my business. My clients. What’s left?”
“Your friends! Your family!” I threw off the bedspread and got unsteadily to my feet. “And there’s Crewe and—”
“And what? Jail? I couldn’t stand it.”
“It wouldn’t be forever! You were protecting someone! You need to stay and fight.”
Lexie said, “I’m going to leave, Nora. I’m going to run away and save everyone the agony.”
“Don’t. Please don’t,” I begged. “That’s what my parents did, and look what’s become of them. Their friends hate them for being petty crooks. Their children don’t trust them. They haven’t learned a thing.”
She winced at the mention of my parents.
“I know how far you’ve come,” I said. “I know how hard it was for you to put that awful experience behind you and make this beautiful life here. But maybe you shouldn’t have tried so hard to forget. You’ve found money and power and—and your art, too. But it’s all so cold. You have to stop running away from the past, Lex. It’s not too late.”
“I have to go.”
A dam burst in me. “I can’t lose you!”
“You don’t need me any more, Nova. Not like you used to.”
She stepped away. “Michael, these suitcases—”
“He won’t,” I said. “I won’t let him.”
I blocked his way, but Michael had turned to stone.
I seized her hand. “Lexie, I’ll go to the police with you. So will Crewe. We’ll find you a lawyer who will understand that you’ve got all these issues, that you were a victim, too.”
“No,” Lexie said, clipped. “I’m not weak.”
“It’s not weakness. Your cousin hurt you and it’s affected everything since! He shut you off. He made you feel helpless.”
She yanked out of my grasp and put her hands over her ears. “I can’t go to jail, Nora! It would be too awful, trapped like that. I wouldn’t survive.”
At last, Michael said, “It’s not so bad.”
Lexie turned away from me to stare at Michael. He had gone very white, as if he’d been punched. His voice sounded strange.
Gently, as if speaking to a child, he said, “You need time to think, Lexie. To figure out your life. A prison isn’t such a bad place to do that.”
I caught my balance on the newel post and gulped back a sob.
He said, “Can you live with what you did, pushing your partner to his death?”
Lexie wobbled, too. She flinched as if she were the one being pushed until her back hit the balcony rail. She put her hands up to fend off a blow or the thought that she must forever remember that awful moment when she lost her head.
Michael said, “You don’t just forget. But if you do your time? It can be a penance. And you come out of it absolved, with a new life. A second chance.”
He took a breath. “Look how Nora loves you. If you run away, you’ll lose that. And listen, I know what it’s like to live alone, without that kind of love. It’s worse than any prison.”
“Stay, Lex,” I said.
She began to cry. I took two tottering steps and wrapped my arms around her.
We held each other, clinging. I tried to give her what strength I had left.
“I’ll be with you,” I said. “Every step of the way.”
“I don’t think I can face it.”
Michael said, “Talk to the lawyers. See what they can work out for you. It’s not the end.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
I said, “Lexie, don’t you want a normal life?”
“I don’t know what that means,” she whispered.
“Then you’ve got to find out.”
“I don’t know…”
She wept in my arms, messed up her makeup and her hair and sobbed until she couldn’t breathe. It was a storm that left her too weak to stand. We helped each other to the sofa. Michael brought her a gl
ass of water.
Lexie regained her composure at last. Withdrawing inside herself, perhaps. “Okay,” she said to Michael. “I’ll talk to your lawyers. I hope they’re as good as I think they are.”
Michael made the call. Lexie found me something to wear in her closet. I took a hot shower and put on her clothes.
Cannoli himself came. He was courtly. She was self-possessed. It was a kind of summit, almost ceremonial.
They spoke for several hours. Michael listened and contributed, stepping outside onto the deck to take phone calls. Cannoli telephoned for another associate, who arrived at one a.m. in a suit and tie.
Almost sure she was convinced not to run, I curled up on Lexie’s bed after that, too exhausted to think straight.
When Michael came in at dawn and shook me awake, I felt as though I’d slept only a minute. But I sat up quickly, afraid.
“Call Crewe,” he said. “She should see him this morning.”
So I telephoned Crewe, who arrived looking frantic.
Michael went out for groceries, and the two of us cooked breakfast for everyone—eggs and bacon and the works.
Crewe came into the kitchen later, and when I hugged him, he wept.
I had known Lexie. We played with dolls together—cutting all Barbie’s hair off and tearing her clothes so she’d look more like Madonna—the strongest woman we knew.
School, parties. Little spats. Sneaking champagne at high school graduation. The bond I felt for Lexie was stronger, perhaps, than the ties to my own sisters.
I sat with her in the hospital the night she saw the rape counselor. While we waited, we played tic-tac-toe on her hospital gown with a textbook highlighter from my school backpack.
She had rescued me so many times. Picked me up after Todd’s death, consoled me after my miscarriage.
But I had never been able to protect her from the demons she bottled up inside.
We all accompanied her to the police station. On the afternoon of the Fourth of July, I kissed her good-bye as they took Lexie Paine into custody.
“She shows the world her strength,” I said to Michael. He had driven us to his house on the Delaware, and we stood on his deck as the darkness gathered. “But she’s always been vulnerable. And afraid. Even Crewe couldn’t break the barriers she’s built around herself.”
Michael held me.
“Her cousin broke her collarbone when she was eleven, did I ever tell you that? And he raped her a couple of years later.” I drew a ragged breath. “Now I feel as if she’s dead.”
“She’s not dead.” He kissed the top of my head. “She won’t be inside for long. A manslaughter charge like the one she pleaded to—it’s only going to be five years, max. She’ll be out in three.”
It was no consolation.
The trees shivered overhead. The Delaware River rippled and murmured before us. The Delaware, shallow as it flowed before Michael’s house, was a peaceful river. If I threw a leaf onto the water, though, it would rush down to the Chesapeake and out into the ocean, gone forever.
I said, “When did you know? That she killed him?”
“I had a gut feeling. The things she said, the way she pushed Crewe away. I knew she wanted to handle something alone.”
“Like you,” I said.
He tightened his arms around me.
But I turned in his embrace and looked up into his face. “Were you being truthful with her? About paying the price and being absolved? About a new life?”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t going to help her run away, were you? Please tell me that.”
“When she asked me to get her out of the country, I thought about it. But I knew it would be wrong. I was going to try to talk her into sticking around. I couldn’t have done it the way you did. You saved her.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
In the sky overhead, a flicker of lightning flashed, and a moment later the thunder rumbled. The oppressive summer heat seemed to rush down upon us hotter than ever, and then it broke as the first drops of rain hissed on the deck beneath our feet.
But I said, “You’re going to jail again, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry, Nora. I have to admit I’m an accessory to the truck theft. The only way my father will agree to go quietly is if I take some of the blame too. And maybe it’s right.”
I felt the rain sting my cheeks. We let the rain fall around us, though. Cleansing, perhaps.
Chapter Twenty-four
After the weather broke and a few days of rain washed the world clean, my family voted to go to the beach. Libby insisted I come, too. We packed an enormous picnic. It took three cars to transport everyone and all our junk. The day was warm and clear with a brilliant sun.
We staked out a spot on the sand and spread quilts before the weekend crowd got too huge. We opened umbrellas and checked that the coolers had plenty of ice. We could smell popcorn and seawater on the breeze. Daddy bought a box of taffy, popped a piece into his mouth and immediately pulled a crown off one of his molars. I took Maximus down to the water and held his arms while he squealed and splashed his pudgy feet in the waves.
The twins went off to look for dead fish and desiccated crabs. Lucy dug a hole near the water’s edge and spent the afternoon burying things. Rawlins and Shawna rented boogie boards and plunged into the ocean to be alone with each other in the crowd. Max took a nap in my arms.
All morning, Emma sat, ominously silent, in a beach chair. She dug her toes into the sand, wearing black sunglasses that hid her eyes from the rest of us. She drank can after can of ginger ale and didn’t say much. Her brooding made us all nervous.
When she pulled a T-shirt over her head and sauntered off to find a bathroom, Libby whipped off her sun hat and leaned toward me. “Actually, Emma handled the whole episode very well. Except for lighting the Haffenpepper girl’s dress on fire. And Hart’s a quick thinker. I give him all the credit for stripping off the dress before anybody got hurt.”
“Did Hart propose to Eva Braun’s daughter?” I asked.
“He did, but then there was all that screaming. I’m surprised you didn’t hear it, Nora. Anyway, Hart’s a free man. The beer heiress never wants to see him again.”
“Did Emma tell him? About the baby?”
“Yes, she did. And he took it badly, but I don’t think that will last. Mark my words, Nora, there’s something happening between those two. Of course, I’m not entirely sure they like each other much. And there are dozens of issues to be settled. But the sexual tension is electrifying!”
Jacque Petite sat up on his elbows on the quilt where he’d been sunbathing. His back was already beet red despite several layers of sunscreen Libby had lovingly applied. His electric blue Speedo had inched downward to reveal some dazzling white skin of his surprisingly perky bottom. He slid his sunglasses up onto his perspiring forehead and smiled. He was always smiling, of course. Except when he was giggling with my sister.
He said, “I think it would be very hard to enjoy good sex with someone you didn’t love just a little bit.”
Libby patted his cheek. “Yes, my darling, I agree completely.”
I said, “I heard a rumor Hart may make a bid for what’s left of the Paine Investment Group.”
“Really? Would Lexie let that happen?”
“I don’t think she has any say in the matter.”
“Won’t she be blown to bits if she loses the firm?”
“She’s lost it already,” I said quietly. “But after she’s released, it will be interesting to see what she chooses to do with her life.”
“Darling,” Libby said to Jacque. “Did you bring any of your incomparable chocolate-covered strawberries, by chance?”
“You think I might forget your second-favorite treat, my pigeon?” He cast an appreciative glance down the flirty skirt of her bathing suit and gave her knee a squeeze. “I brought champagne, too. You said we have celebrating to do.”
“Yes, Nora’s promotion!
”
My family applauded.
I acknowledged their approval with a seated bow. “Thank you. But it’s not exactly a promotion. Just an assurance that I’ll be allowed to stick around for another year. Especially if I can continue to come up with good video material for the paper’s Web site. And the editors want me to help everybody choose content.”
“That sounds very creative. Very promising,” Jacque declared.
Daddy piped up. “We’re very proud of you, Muffin.”
“Does it mean you won’t be available to look after the children?” Libby asked. “Because Jacque and I were considering a trip to the islands soon.”
Jacque said, “Why don’t we take them with us?”
Libby looked prettily astonished. “With us?”
“Certainly! I love children. And yours are all so interesting, dearest. We could have a glorious time.”
“Well…I suppose we could do that.”
From the other end of the quilt, Tierney interrupted. “Should we be worried about Henry? I think Lucy’s got him buried up to his neck over there. What if the tide comes in?”
We all looked over at Lucy’s construction project. The whole family was pleased to see she had replaced her imaginary friend with a real person. We hated to break the spell by interrupting.
Daddy said, “As long as he’s still breathing, I think he’ll be okay.”
Tierney said, “He’s supposed to take me to the airport later, that’s all. My flight is at nine.”
I said, “You could stay another week, Tierney. You don’t really need to rush back to your business, do you?”
“Yes, I do. For so many reasons.”
“Son,” Daddy said, “you’re a member of the family now. I hope that means you’ll be inviting us to visit you soon.”
“Uh—”
“And, of course, we expect you home for all holidays. I carve a mean Christmas goose, you know.”
A diplomat, Tierney tipped up his mirrored sunglasses and said, “Thank you. I’ll take that invitation under advisement.”
I hid my smile. I had seen a glimpse of the Blackbird genes in Tierney. Perhaps part of his reason for fleeing us so soon was that he could tamp down the spirit yearning to break free inside him.