Key West

by Stella Cameron

  Whittle pulled Cory to his feet and walked him slowly from the room.

  “They’re going to arrest Billy, aren’t they?” Sonnie said. She also needed to lie down. “And Romano.”

  “After what they did on that road, they were already headed in that direction. But I think we can now be certain who tried to make everyone—including you—question your sanity. Cruel SOBs. I told Whittle what I found in that attic. And at Ena’s. He’s smart enough to ask KWPD to deal with that end. They’ll secure everything.”

  “My sister hates me,” Sonnie said. Bitterness didn’t make good company. “I wonder why—the deep reason?”

  “Because she’s jealous of anyone or anything wonderful.”

  “Chris, I’d like to turn some sort of key and switch it all off. Send it away but leave you and me together.”

  “The key will turn in time, sweetheart.”

  Whittle stuck his head into the room again. “Nurse says it’s time for your beauty sleep,” he told Chris. “Your husband’s here now, Mrs. Giacano. He’d like to talk to you.”

  “No way,” Chris said. He made a move and dropped back on his pillows. “She’s not to be alone with that man. You understand, Whittle?”

  “I understand what you just said, Mr. Talon.”

  “Then leave her here.”

  “We need you,” Detective Whittle said to Sonnie. “You can refuse to come, but we’d appreciate it if you did.”

  “Don’t—”

  “I have to,” Sonnie said. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll be kept safe.” She knew she would, but she also knew Chris was suffering both mentally and physically, and all because she’d forced him to notice her. She went to the door with the detective. “See you.”

  “When?” she heard Chris mutter, but she left without answering him.

  Thirty-seνen

  He hadn’t gone through so much only to lose to someone else in the end. Frank ignored the plainclothes policeman who sat just inside the door twiddling his thumbs—literally.

  “This place is disgusting,” he said. “I want my wife; then I want to get us both out of here.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Where is she?’’ He knew the answer, and the cop knew he did. “In that man’s room. I’m not even sure she’s safe with him.” He was damn sure she wasn’t.

  “She’s safe.” The guy reversed the direction of his thumbs. “Boss’s going to bring her. You heard him say he would.” Sonnie walked in ahead of Whittle.

  “You might have been killed,” Frank said, and strode to pull her against him. “They planned to have you committed so they could get their hands on your money. Well, it isn’t going to happen. These guys will lock them up and throw away the key.”

  Sonnie pushed him away. “You told me to go with Billy,” she said. “You insisted, and you insisted I did what she told me to do.”

  He spread his hands. “I just got back from hell, cara. How was I to know what was going on?”

  Someone tapped the door, and Whittle stepped out. The preoccupied cop got fresh interest in his job. He stood up, braced his feet apart, ands put his hands behind his back.

  “Let’s go,” Frank said. “They have no right to keep us here. Let’s just leave.”

  Sonnie wanted Frank to leave—alone. She wished she need never see or speak to him again.

  He said, “Sonnie?” in the voice he used when he really wanted something. “That man’s no good for you. A man who came from nothing and still cannot go anywhere? What good is he? He has no job. He’s what they call a bum. And his brother is homosexual.”

  Whittle came in again, this time with a policeman Sonnie hadn’t seen before. Between them, struggling and kicking, was Ena.

  They deposited her on a chair and pushed her back down when she tried to get up. “You don’t have any right to touch me,” she told the police. “I haven’t done anything.” She noticed Sonnie and actually gave a weak smile.

  “If you haven’t done anything, you’ll be okay, won’t you, Annette?” Whittle said. “But you do have priors, and we did tell you why we were bringing you in. And you did say you didn’t mind coming to the hospital to identify someone.”

  “A stiff,” she said, and pushed at Whittle. “I thought it was a stiff. She’s Sonnie Giacano. Now can I go?”

  “Sonnie’s not the one we were wondering about.”

  Sonnie realized Frank was obscured from Ena by one of the policemen. It was Frank they’d brought her to see.

  Frank wasn’t saying anything. He wasn’t moving.

  “Do you know this gentleman?” Whittle asked Ena, indicating Frank.

  She turned on the chair and her facial contortion weakened Sonnie’s already tired legs. “You,” Ena said. “I saw the latest news, Frankie.”

  He turned his back on her.

  It took all three policemen to stop Ena from leaping at that back. “You lied to me, you bastard. You said you’d never actually go near her again. You said the other three would do all the dirty work. All I had to do was make sure you knew what was going on. Calling Chris about Roy was going to be the last of it. Then it was going to be you and me. But you told them about me. You told them where I live so they could come and get me. If you hadn’t, at least I’d be safe.”

  “Shut up, Annette,” Frank said.

  “I’m not shutting tip until it suits me. Hey, you”—she poked Whittle again—”listen up. His brother and her sister pulled off all the tricks. But he was behind it. He knew what they did because Billy told him. The two of them used Romano. And Frank lied to me. He told me we’d be together if I helped. So I did. I gave up sleep to help. Making sure they only did stuff to her when she was alone. Delivering things. Putting a doll in a crib when I should already have been on the run. Made me late, that did. And I had to deal with her turning up with the guy she’s been sleeping with.”

  Frank turned around.

  “That’s right. I figured you deserved to know the truth, so I watched them with my own eyes.”

  Through a hole in the ceiling, Sonnie thought.

  Vaguely, she heard Whittle reading Ena her rights. She fought, but handcuffs put an end to that. Her parting words to Frank were, “I’d have stopped you from using Mitch like that if I’d known you’d leave me on my own. He didn’t even know why he was there. But I asked him to be there, so he went. I shouldn’t have done that to Mitch. I shouldn’t have.”

  Ena was taken into the corridor, and Sonnie went out, too. She couldn’t stay with Frank.

  The spectacle that confronted her was Chris in a wheelchair being pushed by a very pretty nurse. A hospital gown, open in the front rather than the back, was secured in place by a sheet tucked around him.

  Ena glared at him as she was taken past.

  “Good to see you, Ena,” Chris said. “Make sure they look after you.”

  The only reaction was a snort from one of the cops. Sonnie swung away and took several steps back into the room where Frank stood. A policeman rested a restraining hand on his shoulder.

  “You,” Sοnnie said. “How did you know all about Chris? How long ago did you really escape from those people?”

  Chris’s casted foot drew level with Sοnnie. The nurse said, “Five minutes, Mr. Talon. That’s all you said you needed. I have to take you back.”

  Sonnie said, “Thanks for bringing him, nurse. I’ll take him back.”

  The nurse didn’t seem sure, but she did as Sοnnie suggested. Whittle joined them almost silently and made sure the door was closed.

  Being helpless was foreign to Chris. “What’s with Ena?” he said.

  “She’s just a little bit angry with Mr. Giacano,” Whittle said.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Sοnnie told Chris. “She believed Frank was going to reward her for watching me and telling him what was happening. She expected him to move in with her.”

  Ena. That explained a lot, Chris thought.

  “It is not a sin to change your mind about a woman,” Frank
said. “Annette is very sick. She imagines things. She has a history of imagining famous men are in love with her. But what happened was Billy’s idea. She planned everything. She hates my dear wife. They told me about her foot, cara. You must not blame yourself. It would be difficult to avoid when she was unconscious.”

  “Ι’m divorcing you, Frank,” Sonnie said. Her eyes closed tightly and she started to slip downward.

  Chris made a grab. He succeeded in landing her on top of him, and in causing more pain than he could handle. He bent over her and held on.

  One of the policemen lifted Sonnie and set her on a chair. “I told you before,” she said to Frank. “You were angry. You said you wouldn’t let me go. But I told you I’d divorce you anyway.”

  “You aren’t yourself,” Giacano said. He was too close to Sonnie. “You are imagining things again.”

  “I never imagined anything.” Unsteadily, she rose and faced her husband.

  “And you were never abducted, Giacano,” Chris said through his teeth. “And when you found out Sonnie was returning to Key West, you got crazy-fan Annette Roberts to take the house next door where she could keep you informed. You knew about me because Annette saw me, and you did some homework on me.”

  “You’re guessing.”

  “Right before her accident, you were in the car with Sonnie. When she told you she wanted a divorce, you did what you have a history of doing so well: you hit her. You knocked her out, then got too scared to do anything but react. You know all about breaking someone’s foot. That’s what you did to Sonnie. You stamped on her foot—on the gas—and crushed every little bone. Then you jumped. And if you didn’t at least scrape yourself up, you’re quite a man.

  “Your brother was there. He’d followed you in his Jag. And he told you what to do. Get on a plane and get the hell out of Dodge. That’s what he told you. And he made up a big fat lie about terrorists. Poor Frank was abducted by terrorists. You were to come back when the time seemed right and sop up the pity and the adoration—and the bucks for your story, and the endorsements you’d pull in.

  “But you thought you could do better, so you stuck around, in hiding, having an affair with Billy, laughing at your brother while you plotted against Sonnie.”

  “You don’t have any proof,” Giacano said.

  “The police have a number of people who will sing without any encouragement. They’ll sing to try to save themselves. Then there’s the man who was there when you rented the moped. After you walked back to the airport.”

  “He couldn’t have known I wasn’t Romano…” Frank’s lips remained parted.

  Sonnie went for him. With her fists, she beat any part of him he couldn’t cover fast enough. “Υοu killed my baby,” she said. “You murdered her.” She landed a punch on the bridge of his nose, and blood trickled.

  “Watch him, Whittle,” Chris shouted.

  Sonnie’s last punch got one of Frank’s eyes. He captured her wrists, swung her around to face the room, and trapped her against him with one arm. With the other hand he produced a knife from beneath his sleeve.

  “Shit,” Chris said. “Didn’t anyone frisk him?” It didn’t matter that he knew the answer. “Let her go, Giacano,” he said. “Let her go and you’ll make a point or two.”

  Frank laughed. “There aren’t enough points to get me out of here if I don’t have her with me. You want her to stay alive?” The knife came to rest against her neck. “You let me walk us out of here. One move to stop me and she dies.”

  Chris believed him. His mouth dried and he looked at Whittle. “Let him go.”

  Whittle said, “Okay, Giacano, you win.” And Chris could almost feel the way the man’s hand itched to go for his gun.

  “Against the wall,” Giacano said. “Both of you cops. Get your hands up and don’t move an eyebrow.”

  The two men followed instructions.

  Frank edged backward a slow step at a time, never taking his eyes off the police.

  Without warning, Sonnie went limp. Giacano hadn’t expected resistance from her. He failed to grab her before she fell to the floor.

  He raised the knife. “Nothing’s changed,” he said. “You stay right where you are, and we’ll leave very peacefully. Come any nearer and this knife is in her back.”

  “I don’t believe you’d do that to Sonnie,” Chris said. “Try me.” Frank Giacano’s attention wavered for one instant.

  A hollow-point bullet from the Glock opened like a flower in the man’s heart.

  Epilogue

  “You can drown, or you can swim. Decision’s yours, Sonnie.”

  It wasn’t that simple.

  Nothing ever had been that simple, never would be.

  “Roy means you can choose to go down under the weight of hating yourself for what was never your fault,” Bo said. “Or you can look up. If you look up, and open yourself up, you’ll feel the clean wind blow over you and into you, and it’ll fill you with hope. You aren’t supposed to be perfect. Nothing to work on in this world if you’re perfect. Takes us our lifetimes to do the best we can. It’s the trying that counts. The trying turns the ugliest caterpillars into butterflies. You must have been a real pretty caterpillar, and that’s why you’re the most beautiful butterfly I ever saw. Beautiful and good.”

  “That’s right,” Roy said. “Only I never knew you were a philosopher, Bo, or so eloquent.”

  They sat, one on either side of her, on Smathers Beach. The sun shone; the sea was a perfect calm blue; the wind was as clean as the wind Bo spoke of. Roy and Bo had come to her house and insisted she talk to them, really talk to them. She’d agreed, as long as they brought her here.

  “It’s a perfect day,” Bo said. “A day for beautiful butterflies like you, Sonnie.”

  “Beautiful day,” she agreed. Her gaze lingered not on the sea or the cloudless sky that met it without a seam, but on scattered rocks some feet away.

  “Why did you want to come here?” Roy asked. “Wasn’t this—”

  “Yes,” she said, still looking at the rocks. “That’s why. How do you figure out the order of things? Endings and beginnings? It’s all a circle, isn’t it?”

  She felt the two men catch each other’s eyes, and she smiled. “No nonverbal allowed, guys.”

  “Okay,” Roy said. “Bo, I can’t keep this up.”

  “Course not,” Bo told him. “You’re a softie. Sonnie, you haven’t talked to Chris since…Well, it’s been days, and you haven’t.”

  “No. There hasn’t been an opportunity. He needed to be left alone to heal.”

  “What does that mean?” Bo said.

  “He’s never tried to get in touch with me again. I don’t blame him.”

  Roy leaned to see her face. “I’m not getting what you mean by that, but you haven’t tried to get in touch with him, have you?”

  “That wouldn’t be right. I’ve messed up his life—and I’ve gone against things I believe in.” But she wanted to see him at least once before she tried to do what she’d promised herself she’d do; really make something of herself.

  “I can’t stand it,” Roy said. “I can’t. You’re both good people. And you’re both f—friggin’ stupid.”

  “Roy,” Bo said. “Go easy.”

  Roy stood up. “Do you want to talk to Chris? Don’t hem and haw. And if you cry, I’m going to cry. You won’t like that. Just gimme a simple answer.”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “I…Oh. Okay, then. Just as well, because if you knew what we went through to get him to agree, you’d feel sorry for us.”

  “Roy, your mouth will be the end—”

  “It’s okay,” Sonnie told Bo. “ If I could sit here on my own awhile, I’d be very grateful. Then, if you’ll take me home again, you can tell Chris I’d like to at least talk to him.”

  “He’s on his way here,” Roy said, his face crumpled with worry. “They discharged him from the hospital late yesterday and he flew down here. He’s at our place. I called him while you
were doing whatever you do before you go out.”

  “Chris is coming here?” She turned around, but all she saw was the nondescript gray pickup that belonged to Roy and Bo. “If he’s smart, he’ll change his mind. He’s not ready for the beach.”

  “But you’re going to talk to him?” Roy said.

  Sonnie followed the flight of a single gull. “Of course I am.” Even if the thought of facing him stole feeling and left her numb.

  Minutes passed in silence. It was Sunday, and few vehicles came and went along South Roosevelt. Despite the sun, the morning wasn’t yet very warm, and they were the only people on the beach.

  Bo made patterns in the sand with his fingers. When he grew still, Sonnie raised her head to listen, and she heard the engine of Aiden Flynn’s Mustang. She’d quickly learned its distinctive sound.

  Brushing sand from her full blue skirt, Sonnie got up and faced the road. Aiden pulled in to park behind the pickup. Chris was with him.

  Sonnie started up the beach. “He can’t come down here,” she said. “The wheelchair won’t want to move on the sand.”

  Roy caught her arm. When she paused, he kissed her cheek and said, “My brother’s got great taste.” He and Bo hurried toward the road, but rather than stop to help Chris, they got into the pickup.

  What would she say to him? Did he want her to say anything? Whether he did or not, she wanted him to know everything she was thinking and everything she knew now. And she wanted to thank him—and to say how sorry she was for what she’d brought his way.

  Chris was a long time getting out of the car. She saw him gradually draw up to his full height, but Aiden didn’t produce the expected wheelchair. Chris settled crutches under his arms and negotiated his way around the hood of the car.

  Aiden jumped into the pickup and Roy drove away.

  “What—” They wouldn’t hear her, so why ask what they thought they were doing? Anyway, it was obvious. They were trying to throw her together with Chris for as long as possible. And they’d decided that forcing her to drive him home in Aiden’s car wouldn’t hurt.