“Oh no, Mrs. Lester. We’re just here to tie up some loose ends. Unless you have any more to add, we’ll get out of your hair for now.”
“No—forever, I hope,” Megan said. “No offense. You’re probably all good guys.”
They all smiled, even Scott.
He walked them to the door. Parker turned to him after he stepped out.
“I wouldn’t say this in public, Mr. Lester, but off the record, good job. If you ever want to change professions…“
Scott laughed.
“Thanks. I’ll stay in the dirtier business of making money, but not the same way as before, believe me.”
Parker nodded. “I do,” he said.
Scott watched them leave. He turned when he heard Megan behind him.
“You should call your father,” she said. “The news media isn’t going to be much farther behind.”
“Right.”
“Go to your office. I want to shower and dress and get Jennifer up and about. We’re not going to lie about like invalids. That would be the worst thing.”
“Absolutely right. In fact, a change of scenery might be just what the doctor ordered,” he said.
She didn’t respond. He watched her walk off and then he went to the den to call his father. Scott didn’t permit any questions. He told him basically to shut up and listen. At the end of the conversation, Scott told him that he would indeed be the one to go to London now.
“Good idea. You should get away.”
Scott looked toward the stairway.
“We’re all getting away. Tell Arlene to buy three first-class tickets. Keep the return open-ended. We might do some more traveling.”
“We?”
“Yes, we,” he said firmly.
“Are you sure about this?”
“As sure as I am about a number of new things, Dad. We’ll have one of our private executive sessions when I return.”
“Now look, you’ve been through quite a traumatic time. You need to step back and be sure that you’re thinking things out logically, clearly and—”
“You can be confident, Dad. For the first time in a long time, I am.”
He hung up and slowly climbed the stairs. Megan, in a robe, with her hair wrapped in a towel, stepped out of the bathroom and paused when she realized he was standing there.
“What?” she asked.
“I want to ask you for a favor. It’s a very big one and if you refuse, I won’t argue. I’ll accept it and walk away.”
“What is it, Scott?”
“I want you to imagine I have a big eraser in my hand, a magic eraser.” He held up his right fist.
She smiled.
“Yes, and…?”
“And I want you to let me try to erase all my mistakes, all the errors I’ve made with you and Jennifer these past years. Then I want you to stand with me on some European shore and throw the eraser into the sea.”
She held her smile.
“Why European?”
“I’ve got to go…We’ve got to go to London for a business meeting. A short one,” he quickly added. “And then take in some theater, some touring—Jennifer’s old enough to appreciate a lot of it—and then when that’s done, go to that dream place where we spent our honeymoon.”
“Capri?”
“Where else? I want to go to the same restaurants, if they are there, and I want to sail around the island and have lunch and swim in the colorful water, walk the narrow beautiful streets to look at the shops and hear the music, but most of all to dream of the future again. To top it off, I want us to restate our vows in that little church.”
“The Church of San Costanzo, where we watched that young Italian couple marry?”
“Si, il mio amore.”
“That’s a long time for you to be away from home and the business, Scott. What about your father?”
“We’ll send him postcards.”
She laughed.
“Look. Someone has to live the life he lost,” he said. “After all, what’s a son for?”
She continued to stare at him, unmoving. Her hesitation wilted his hope.
“I know you have good reason not to believe me. I haven’t exactly given you any—”
“Shut up, you idiot,” she said. “You won me back with the magic eraser.”
He smiled, crossed the bedroom and embraced her. They kissed as if it were the first time. Once again, he started to roll off a litany of apologies, but she put her fingers on his lips.
“Get that eraser started,” she whispered, but not as softly as she thought.
“What eraser?” Jennifer asked from the doorway.
They both laughed.
“You can’t see it, Jen,” Scott told her. “But you’ll know it’s there.”
Back in San Diego at his favorite breakfast hangout, Sanchez Rosario was holding court describing his exciting adventure. His fellow fishermen and friends were in rapt attention hearing the details about this gringo who had the courage to attack so formidable an enemy on his own turf.
“And with no real plan and no real weapon,” he emphasized. “I told him to call the police, but he insisted he had to do this himself.”
“Was he loco?” another fisherman with a boat nearby asked. “I’ve seen this man Wallace. He looked like he could eat a shark alive.”
“And he had the temperament of a scorpion.”
“You say the gringo looked like a banker?” another inquired with a note of skepticism.
“Worse, like an accountant.”
They all laughed and then the other fisherman asked, “How did you know it would work out well, Sanchez? You could have been in trouble, too, if not. I wouldn’t have gone after him like that.”
Sanchez smiled. “You don’t listen to my grandmother.”
“Si. Why would that matter?”
“It’s like my grandmother says,” Sanchez told them. “Donde hay amor, no hay temor. Where there is love, there is no fear. This is great strength, strength you don’t know yourself is in you,” he said.
His friends all nodded.
“And of course,” Sanchez said, not willing to be too modest, “he had me with him.”
That brought the most laughter.
Weeks later, thousands of miles apart, he and Scott would stand looking at different bodies of water. Scott would have Jennifer holding his left hand and Megan holding his right, but both he and Sanchez would think the same thought. It was what made him want to return to the shore and look out quietly. It was indeed the magic eraser.
It’s the sea, they both thought, the sea that has the power to restore us.
And always will.
RAVES FOR ANDREW NEIDERMAN AND THE MAGIC BULLET!
“Long-time fans of Neiderman will be thrilled by The Magic Bullet as he continues in his decade-long tradition as an expert weaver of suspense.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Andrew Neiderman’s The Magic Bullet is a quick, fast paced medical suspense that puts together a set of characters into a situation in which medical ethics and self-interest conflict…[It] maintains a perfect balance of suspense and characterization to make it an excellent choice for readers who want to just relax or unwind into a fun suspense read that keeps one riveted page after page.”
—Merrimon Book Reviews
“This is an exhilarating thriller that grips the audience with the concept of The Magic Bullet elixir.”
—Midwest Book Review
Other Leisure books by Andrew Neiderman:
THE MAGIC BULLET
Copyright
A LEISURE BOOK®
January 2010
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