River's End

by Nora Roberts

  switched off the tape recorder. “I’m heading back to L.A.,” he continued as he began to pack his briefcase. “I’ll be talking to Jamie Melbourne tomorrow.”

  He noted the way Sam’s fingers jerked and curled on the table. “Is there anything you want me to pass along to her?”

  “She won’t take anything from me but my death. She’ll be getting that soon enough. She was jealous of Julie,” he said in a rush, and had Noah pausing. “Julie could never see it, or never wanted to admit it, but Jamie had plenty of built-up jealousy over Julie’s looks, her success, her style. She played the devoted sister, but if she’d had the chance, if she’d had the talent, she’d have knocked Julie aside, stepped over her and taken her place.”

  “Her place with you?”

  “She settled for Melbourne, music agent with no talent of his own. She played second lead to Julie all her life. When Julie was dead, Jamie finally got the spotlight.”

  “Is that another theory?”

  “If she hadn’t tagged on to Julie, she’d still be running that lodge up in Washington. You think she’d have a big house, her business, her pussy-whipped husband if Julie hadn’t cleared the way?”

  Oh, there was resentment here, bitterness that had brewed for more than two decades. “Why should that matter to you?”

  “She’s kept me in here, made damn sure I didn’t get a decent shot at parole these last five years. Made it her goddamn mission to keep me inside. And all the while she’s still sucking up what Julie left behind. You talk to her, Brady, you have a nice chat with her, and you ask her if she wasn’t the one who talked Julie into filing for divorce. If she wasn’t the one who pushed it all over the edge. And if she wasn’t the one who built her whole fucking big-time business off her dead sister’s back.”

  The minute his plane took off, Noah ordered a beer and opened his laptop. He wanted to get his thoughts and impressions into words while they were still fresh, and he wanted to get home, spread his notes out around him, start making calls, setting up interviews.

  The rush of anticipation racing through his blood was a familiar sensation and told him he was committed now. There was no going back. The endless stream of research, digging, backtracking and puzzling didn’t intimidate him. It energized him.

  From now until it was done, Sam Tanner would be the focus of his life.

  He wants to run the show, Noah wrote. So do I. It’s going to be an interesting tug-of-war. He’s smart. I think people have underestimated him, seeing him purely as a spoiled and selfish pretty boy with a filthy temper. He’s learned control, but the temper’s still under it. And if his reaction to Jamie Melbourne is any indication, his temper can still be mean.

  I wonder how much of what he tells me will be the truth, what he sees as the truth, or outright lies.

  One thing I’m sure of is that he wants the spotlight again. He wants to be recognized. He wants the attention that’s been denied him since he walked into San Quentin. And he wants it on his terms. I don’t think he’s looking for sympathy. I don’t think he gives a good goddamn about understanding. But this is his story. He’s chosen the time to tell it, and he’s chosen me to tell it to.

  It’s a good twist—the son of the cop who took him down writing the book. The press will play on it, and he knows it.

  His comments on Jamie Melbourne are interesting. Truth, perception or lie? It’ll be even more interesting to find out.

  Most intriguing of all is the fact that he’s yet to ask about Olivia, or to mention her by name.

  He wondered if Jamie would.

  Noah understood that Jamie Melbourne’s publicity firm, Constellations, was one of the most prestigious in the entertainment business. It had branches in Los Angeles and New York and represented top names.

  He also understood that prior to her sister’s death, Jamie had represented only Julie, and had worked primarily out of her own home.

  It was an unarguable fact that Jamie’s star had risen after her sister’s murder.

  What that meant, Noah mused as he drove through the gates to the elaborate home in Holmby Hills, was yet to be seen.

  According to his research, the Melbournes had moved into the estate in 1986, selling their more modest home and relocating here where they were known for their lavish parties.

  The main house was three stories in sheer wedding-cake white with a long flowing front porch at the entrance flanked by columns. Rooms speared out from the central structure in two clean lines on opposite sides, with walls of glass winking out on richly blooming gardens and fussy ornamental trees.

  Two gorgeous golden retrievers bounded across the lawn to greet him, tails slapping the air and each other in delight.

  “Hey there.” He opened the car door and fell instantly in love. He was bending over, happily scratching ears and murmuring nonsense when Jamie walked over carrying a ratty tennis ball.

  “They’re Goodness and Mercy,” she said, but didn’t smile as Noah looked up at her.

  “Where’s Shirley?”

  A faint wisp of humor played around her mouth. “She has a good home.” Jamie held up the ball. As one, both dogs quivered and sat, staring up with desperately eager eyes. Then she threw it, sending it sailing for the dogs to chase.

  “Good arm,” Noah murmured.

  “I keep in shape. It’s too nice an afternoon to sit inside.” And she’d yet to decide if she wanted him in her home. “We’ll walk.”

  She turned, heading away from where the dogs were wrestling deliriously over the ball.

  Noah had to agree she kept in shape. She was fifty-two, and could have passed easily for forty—and was all the more attractive as she wasn’t going for twenty.

  There were a few lines, but they added strength to her face, and it was her eyes that drew the attention rather than the creases fanning out from them. They were dark, intelligent and unflinching. Her hair was a soft brown, cut in a just-above-chin-length wedge that set off the shape of her face and added to the image of a mature woman of style and no fuss.

  She was small framed, slimly built and wore rust-colored slacks and a simple camp shirt with confidence and comfort. She walked like a woman who was used to being on her feet and knew how to get where she wanted to go.

  “How is your father?” she asked at length.

  “He’s fine, thanks. I guess you know he retired last year.”

  She smiled now, briefly. “Yes. Does he miss his work?”

  “I think he did, until he got involved with the neighborhood youth center. He loves working with kids.”

  “Yes, Frank’s good with children. I admire him very much.” She walked past a glossy bush that smelled delicately of jasmine. “If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here now.”

  “I appreciate that, and your taking the time to see me, Ms. Melbourne.”

  She didn’t sigh out loud, but he saw the rise and fall of her shoulders. “Jamie. He’s spoken to me about you often enough that I think of you as Noah.”

  “Has he? I didn’t realize the two of you had had that much contact.”

  “Frank was an integral part of the most difficult period of my life.”

  “Most people tend to separate themselves from people who remind them of difficult periods.”

  “I don’t,” she said briefly and walked toward a large fan-shaped swimming pool bordered in white stone and cool pink flowers. “Your father helped me through a tremendous loss, helped see that my family got justice. He’s an exceptional man.”

  Your father’s a great man, Olivia had told him once. And later, Beside him, you’re very small.

  Noah turned off the ache of that and nodded. “I think so.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  As they skirted the pool, he could see the deep green of tennis courts in the distance. Tucked behind oleanders and roses was a scaled-down version of the main house.

  “I don’t like your work,” she said abruptly.

  “All right.”

  She stopped, t
urned to him. “I don’t understand it. Or why you do it. Your father dedicated his life to putting people who take the lives of others in prison. And you’re dedicating yours to putting their names in print, to glorifying what they’ve done.”

  “Have you read my work?”

  “No.”

  “If you had, you’d know I don’t glorify the people I write about or what they’ve done.”

  “Writing about them is glory enough.”

  “Writing about them lays it out,” Noah corrected. “The people, the acts, the history, the motives. The whys. My father was interested in the whys, too. How and when aren’t always enough. Don’t you want to know why your sister died, Jamie?”

  “I know why she died. She died because Sam Tanner killed her. Because he was jealous and sick and vicious enough not to want her to live without him.”

  “But they’d loved each other once, enough to marry and make a child. Enough, even when they were supposedly having serious marital difficulties, for her to open the door to him.”

  “And for that last act of love, he killed her.” This time, Jamie’s voice was hot and bitter. “He used her feelings, her loyalty, her need to keep her family together. He used them against her just as surely as he used the scissors.”

  “You could tell me about her the way no one else can. About what she thought, what she felt, about what happened to turn her life into a nightmare.”

  “What about her privacy?”

  “She’s never had that, has she?” He said it gently. “I can promise to give her the truth.”

  She looked away again, wearily. “There are a lot of degrees in the truth.”

  “Give me yours.”

  “Why is he letting you do this? Why is he talking to you, to anyone after all these years?”

  “He’s dying.” He said it straight and watched her face.

  Something flickered across it, glinted in her eyes, then was gone. “Good. How long is it going to take him?”

  A hard woman, Noah thought, hard and honest. “He has brain cancer. They diagnosed it in January and gave him under a year.”

  “Well, justice wins. So he wants his brief time in the sun again before he goes to hell.”

  “That may be what he wants,” Noah said evenly. “What he’ll get is a book written my way. Not his.”

  “You’ll write it with or without my cooperation.”

  “Yes, but I’ll write a better book with it.”

  She believed he meant it. He had his father’s clear, assessing eyes. “I don’t want to hate you for it,” she said almost to herself. “I’ve centered all my hate on one place all these years. I don’t want to diffuse it at this point—especially now that his time is nearly up.”

  “But you have something to say, haven’t you? Things you haven’t said yet.”

  “Maybe I do. I spoke with my husband about this yesterday. He surprised me.”

  “How?”

  “He thinks we should give you your interviews. To counterbalance what Sam tells you, David thinks, to make sure whatever ugliness he’s formed in his mind doesn’t stand on its own. We were there, part of their lives. We know what happened to it. So, yes, maybe I do have something to say.”

  She ripped at a hibiscus, tore the fragile pink blossom to shreds. “I’ll talk to you, Noah, and so will David. Let’s go inside so I can check my calendar.”

  “Got any time now?” He smiled, a quick and charming flash. “You said I could have an hour, and we’ve only used about half that.”

  “That part must come from your mother,” Jamie mused. “The fast dazzle. Frank’s more subtle.”

  “Whatever works.”

  “All right. Come inside.”

  “I need to get my things out of the car. Taping interviews protects both of us.”

  “Just ring. Rosa will let you in.”

  “Rosa? Would that be Rosa Sanchez?”

  “Rosa Cruz now, and yes, the same Rosa who worked for Julie at one time. She’s been with David and me for the past twenty years. Go get your tape recorder, Noah, you’re still on the clock.”

  He made it fast, though the dogs conned him into throwing the ball for them and made him wonder why he didn’t get himself a dog of his own.

  When he rang the bell, he noted that the long glass panes on either side of the grand white door were etched with calla lilies, and the marble urns that flanked them were spilling over with fuchsia in tones of deep reds and purples that were obviously well loved and well tended.

  The woman who answered the door was very short and very wide, so that he thought of a barrel in a smartly pressed gray uniform. Her hair was the same color as the cloth and wound tidily, almost ruthlessly back into a nape bun. Her face was round and deep gold, her eyes a nut brown that snapped with disapproval.

  All in all, Noah thought, she made a better guard than Goodness and Mercy, who were at that moment happily peeing on the tires of his rental car.

  “Mr. Brady.” Her voice was richly Mexican and cold as February. “Ms. Melbourne will see you in the solarium.”

  “Thanks.” He stepped into a foyer wide as a ballroom and had to muffle a whistle of interest at the flood of crystal in the chandelier and what seemed like acres of white marble on the floor.

  Rosa’s heels clicked over it busily, giving him little time to study the art and furnishings of the living room. But what he did see told him the dogs weren’t allowed to do any romping in that area.

  The solarium was a towering glass dome snugged onto the south side of the house, crowded with flowers and plants and their exotic mix of scents. Water glistened its way down a stone wall and into a little pool where white water lilies floated.

  Seats and benches were tucked here and there, and a pretty conversation area was arranged beside the tall glass. Jamie was already waiting on a generously sized rattan chair with cushions striped in cheery green and white.

  On the rippled glass of a round table was a clear pitcher filled with amber iced tea, two tall glasses and a plate of what Noah thought of as girl cookies—tiny, frosted and shaped like hearts.

  “Thank you, Rosa.”

  “You have a cocktail party at seven.” Rosa relayed this with her eyebrows beetled into one straight line.

  “Yes, I know. It’s all right.”

  She only sniffed, then muttered something in Spanish before she left them alone.

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “Rosa’s very protective.” As he sat, Jamie leaned forward to pour the tea.

  “It’s a great house.” He glanced over her shoulder, through the glass to the flood of flowers beyond. “Your dahlias are terrific, a nice match with the wild indigo and dusty miller.”

  Jamie’s brows rose. “You surprise me, Noah. The horticultural limits of most young hunks stop at roses.” The grimace he didn’t quite hide made her laugh and relax. “And you can be embarrassed. Well, that’s a relief. Was it the flower comment or the hunk reference?”

  “Flowers are a hobby of mine.”

  “Ah, the hunk then. Well, you’re tall, built and have a very handsome face. So there you are.” She continued to smile, and indulged herself in a cookie. “Your parents keep hoping you’ll find the right woman and settle down.”

  “What?”

  Thoroughly amused now, she lifted the plate, offered it. “Haven’t they mentioned that to you?”

  “No. Jesus.” He took a cookie, shaking his head as he set up his tape recorder. “Women aren’t high on my list right now. I just had a narrow escape.”

  “Really?” Jamie tucked her legs up under her. “Want to talk about it?”

  His gaze shifted, met hers. “Not while I’m on the clock. Tell me about growing up with Julie.”

  “Growing up?” He’d broken her rhythm. “Why? I thought you’d want to discuss that last year.”

  “Eventually.” The cookies weren’t half bad, so he had another.