Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island

by Sandy Frances Duncan

  Suddenly she glanced at the time. “Oh, I should go. The ferry leaves at quarter after four.” She half stood.

  He reached out, barely kept himself from taking her forearm, and said, “You could take a later ferry. And have dinner with me.”

  Her eyes narrowed as if to see him better. “Would that be wise?”

  “Sure.”

  Now her eyes glowed. “Are there later ferries?”

  As if she were relying on his knowledge. “Oh yes, three or four more this evening. The last one leaves at five past ten.”

  “That’s late.” Her head shook, just barely. “And I don’t like driving when I’ve been drinking, even if it’s only a glass of wine.”

  “You’re right. You shouldn’t.” He looked away from her. “Do you have to be back in Seattle this evening?”

  She seemed to think, did she have an appointment? “No. My flight back to Geneva is late tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Friday Harbor House is a pleasant inn. And they have a good restaurant. You could drive down in the morning. The university has arrangements there. I could call—”

  She considered this. “You’re right. That’s the best plan.”

  From March to now. Less than half a year. She had transformed him. His ferry pulled out of Friday Harbor. Just over an hour to Anacortes. Then an hour and a half to her. He hadn’t felt so completely taken by another person since the earliest days with Maggie. Maybe not even, too long ago to compare. He’d loved Maggie then, no question. But it had faded, for both of them. His work became his infatuation, many hours in the lab. He thought she was fine, always pleasant when he came home to dinner, in the morning a wave from her in bed as he left, the outside often still dark. He learned of her longstanding affair, a divorced orthopedic surgeon attached to Duke University Hospital, two weeks after she told him she had leukemia. He’d barely noticed that she seemed unwell! Her lover had recommended she consult a colleague of his. The results of the tests were conclusive, the leukemia rampant. She told Larry she likely had less than a year to live and she didn’t want to spend the rest of her time with him. Ted loved her, even as she was dying. He’d be beside her to the end. She lived another three years, the first two comparably pain-free. For a month after she died, Larry couldn’t keep the guilt away. But soon he thought of her less and less, till all but early memories had faded away.

  That March day Larry had gone home—only 4:30, usually he didn’t get back till nearly 7:00. The house, just minutes from the lab, stood empty all day long with Susanna away at college. Three hours till he’d see Toni again. He lay on his bed and thought of her there in his office. He couldn’t remember what they’d talked about. Not specifically. When he closed his eyes, her face took shape on the inside of his eyelids. Stop it, Larry. She’s only an attractive woman; take it easy. Do some work. He put four Mozart sonatas in his CD player, listened for a couple of minutes, sat in the big blue chair by the window in his bedroom and read half a dozen journal articles. At 6:30 he took a long shower and changed to dress pants and a blue blazer.

  He’d knocked on the door of her room, second floor. She had changed, a tight mauve dress pinched at her slim waist. Her chestnut hair flowed down the sides of her face. She invited him in.

  Best room in the place. Full frontal view of the harbor down below. Pleasant little balcony. Large bed, a table and an ice bucket resting on it, two glasses, a white napkin. An unopened bottle of Veuve Clicquot. “Not my idea,” she said, in answer to his raised eyebrows. “Apparently it comes with the room. I don’t think we should reject it, do you?”

  “Certainly not.” He lifted the dripping bottle, wrapped it in the napkin beside the bucket, unwound the wire around the cork, worked it loose, a subdued plop and he caught it in his palm. He knew sparkling wine came with the room, but she had upgraded. He picked up a glass, tilted it, poured. The champagne glittered. He filled the glass with bubbles. Second glass, the same. He topped off both glasses, handed her one, raised his. His eyes linked with hers. “To a pleasant evening.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “To a lovely evening.”

  They both sipped, their eyes still connected. Till she took a step toward the sliding glass door to the balcony looking out onto the harbor. “Shall we go outside?”

  “Won’t it be cool?”

  “Let’s find out.” But she grabbed a shawl that lay across the back of a chair and draped it over her shoulders. The sleeves of her dress came only to her elbows.

  Larry wondered if he looked calm. He sure didn’t feel it. He pictured Susanna’s reaction if she knew he’d spent time with a beautiful woman in a hotel room, and it made him smile. He followed Toni to the balcony’s railing and stared out over the harbor. No personal association with a woman for so long—pretty much since Maggie left—already he felt in way over his head. Wait a minute: in what? Hell, he wasn’t in anything. Relax, Laurence.

  “A charming island that you have. You’ve always lived here?”

  So their talk began. They finished the champagne. From the balcony, they withdrew to the inn’s restaurant. He ordered rack of lamb, she the prime rib. A bottle of Sheridan Vineyard L’Orage, the best Washington State wine he knew. She exclaimed it remarkably good. He told her about his daughter Susanna and his hopes for her, about his own education. His marriage and its end. She was an easy interlocutor. They ate slowly and drank carefully. Twice she touched his hand across the table. By 10:00 she knew a great deal about him. Nothing of the Project and, unlike the afternoon, she hadn’t tried to turn the conversation to his present work. And he learned she’d grown up in Switzerland in a small village outside Geneva and gone to lower school there, for the next eleven years was educated in English, French, German and Italian, her physics doctorate from Cambridge, her work in, first, her father’s labs, then at the Center for NanoScience. When deteriorating health took her father from the helm of Veritec, his board had named her chair. Four years ago, at thirty-five. She had married at twenty-six a brilliant chemist twice her age; they’d divorced three years later. Amicably. No children. Veritec was her sole ward. They finished the meal with cognac and cappuccino.

  She excused herself, took her purse and headed for the washroom. Larry watched her body as it seemed to float through the dining room, all warm curved grace. He asked for the bill. An evening like none he’d known in years. The ease with which he’d carried it off, not once making a fool of himself. He wanted to see her again, learn more about her, spend time with her. Ridiculous, she lived a third of the globe away. That’s what airplanes are for, Laurence. But he couldn’t just take off, couldn’t leave the lab, his assistants, the Project. Could he? Anyway, likely she wouldn’t much care about seeing him again. She had her life; why spend time with a man fifteen years older? The waiter brought the bill, Larry covered it, the waiter returned with his receipt.

  She came back. “It feels like a fine night. Would you like to walk?”

  “Excellent idea.” How he’d been fearing that she’d now shake his hand, thank him and head off to her room. A walk with her at his side seemed eminently sensible. A few streetlights in the dark evening. She draped the shawl over her shoulders and took his arm as if to suggest she felt unsteady on her heeled shoes. He steered her left. Neither spoke, though at moments it felt to Larry that she was moving to the rhythm of a melody in her mind. Twice he realized she had turned to look at his face in profile. They passed the little park on the right, then the entry to the Port of Friday Harbor. She stopped and turned toward the ocean. A long dock, very few lights. She shivered slightly and he shifted to face her. Their free arms touched and their bodies followed, their faces an inch apart. Their lips touched gently and her arm slipped around his back, his around her waist as their mouths instantly held tight to each other and Larry knew this to be one of the grand moments of his life.

  Their mouths separated at last. She took his hand. “Shall we go back?”

  Quickly started, suddenly ended. “I suppose we should.”

 
; They walked toward the inn more rapidly. It seemed she was leading him. A solid stride, no unsteadiness. They said nothing. Larry’s heart still pounded as if her kiss had stopped most of his breath. At the hotel door he started to say goodbye, but she put a finger to his lips and still holding his hand drew him inside. He followed her up the stairs. He would kiss her once more at her door. He tried to pass his arm around her waist, but she held him off as she fumbled for a key in her purse and opened the door. Drew him inside and shut it. Dim light bleeding in from streetlamps below. She kissed him, his surprise rising and falling away. He could feel her heartbeat beneath her firm breasts hammering as mightily as his own. She stood back then, kicked off her pumps, pulled his jacket off, and let her shawl drop to the floor. She unbuttoned his shirt and pulled down her dress. It fell to the carpet. No bra, panties or stockings. She unlatched his belt and pulled the zipper down and kept pulling till the pants dropped around his knees. He worked his shoes off. He’d not been so hard in years, and his boxer shorts took on a sharp, pointed shape. She reached out and released him from his prison with one hand, with the other took his cock and pulled him to the bed. Then they stood apart in the near dark for a moment till she dropped to her knees and took him in her mouth.

  Larry couldn’t believe what was happening to him. No time to consider, time only to enjoy. He put his hands under her arms and raised her to standing, and they kissed with an appetite he hadn’t felt in centuries, a kiss so dizzying that they fell to the bed and were suddenly laughing, he thinking how absurd to laugh at this moment, and how wonderful. Their laughter subsided and again she reached for him, leading his cock to the entry into her. It slid in as if her lock were made for his key. They moved slowly at first, then more quickly. She exploded first, he following by only seconds. They said nothing, but held each other tightly. And then they slept.

  Larry woke first. Still dark. She lay silent beside him. If he had not touched her thigh, he wouldn’t have believed he was awake. This was crazy. This was wonderful. More: ecstatic. And now what?

  As if hearing his question, she woke and turned to him. “Again.” So they did. And once again before the sun came up. They bathed together in the jetted soaker tub.

  They had breakfast, but not at Friday Harbor House. Larry took her to a little hole in the wall where, he said, you got the best coffee on the island. Over scrambled eggs with bacon, he invited her to the pre-conference planning session in July.

  “I’d love to, especially if we can have some time together afterward.”

  He would find them a place where they could be alone.

  “Laurence, July’s three months away. We have to see each other before then.”

  He had agreed to go to Harvard for a meeting in late May; he’d be in Boston, halfway—

  “Wonderful! I have a standing invitation to speak at Georgetown.”

  “Shall we meet in New York?”

  Already the ferry was docking at Anacortes. He drove onto Route 20 and Spur Island, quickly passing the Indian reserve. In minutes to the cutoff for Mount Vernon, avoiding Burlington, and onto the I-5. There the traffic proved heavy. He concentrated on cars, trucks, vans, to the front and side. Might be longer than an hour and a half. He suddenly felt an ocean of guilt that he’d agreed to meet Toni today, what with Susanna missing. But how could he do anything for her on San Juan? What would happen when whoever held her discovered the algorithms didn’t work? A question he’d asked himself many times each day since they’d kidnapped her. The answer he’d given himself for the last ten days: they’d come back for the real algorithms. More time for her to be found. They wouldn’t hurt her, oh god! No good would come from hurting her. And now he’d give them the right ones. But maybe it wouldn’t come to that. Maybe Marc and Charlie would locate her. If she were on the island. Maybe not. He’d said definitely not the FBI. But Marc and Charlie needed help. He, Larry, needed help.

  He drove as fast as the traffic allowed, shifting lanes when he could. Toni came into his imagination too often; he shouldn’t be distracted from the speeding vehicles on all sides.

  Their time in Boston together, four days in late May, were the happiest he could remember. They stayed at a hotel just off the Common, touristing little, dining out or in, mostly discovering the many pleasures of each other’s bodies. They spent a great deal of time in the hotel room, causing Toni to comment that for once the room itself gave them their money’s worth. And not just the bed: they made love on chairs, on the table, in the bath. The only value they found to their parting: it brought them closer to their next time together on San Juan in July, the planning session.

  At Morsely University they had remained discreet: friendliness went only as far as calling each other by their first names. Just like all seven of the other conference planners present. At the planning meeting, she learned in full about the project that Larry Rossini would unveil at the conference after at least three more human trials. She was impressed at its audacity. At Larry’s audacity. After the planning session, they took the ferry to Victoria and drove north up Vancouver Island, crossing over through Port Alberni to Tofino on the west coast. In their resort’s third-floor room, with a balcony overlooking the wild Pacific, they again researched ways in which two bodies could couple, good ways, less than good ways (but even these were fine ways), and weird ways (also first-rate). And talked a little about Larry’s project. This talk also brought Celeste-Antoinette deBourg and Laurence Rossini to states of high sexual excitement, the implications of which needed to be explored immediately.

  Somewhere in the last two weeks, Larry was discovering, he had crossed a line. Susanna being held as hostage had made him realize this. Without Toni to confide in, to act as a sounding board, to give him support, he might have lost his mind. Before Susanna was kidnapped, he had been deeply smitten with Toni. Now he knew he loved her.

  Better keep his mind on driving. At the end of the road, there she’d be. Together they’d prove that the immediate act always outclassed memories.

  SEVEN

  PETER EMAILED A PDF of Beck’s writings to Kyra. She would open and read them on her iPad. “I can print out the pages,” he offered.

  “Nope, I’m fine. I’ll find a coffee and get on with it.” She looked around for a comfortable chair.

  “No problem if you don’t mind it from the cafeteria.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Okay-plus.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Back in a couple of minutes.” Peter left.

  Kyra examined the page count and said, “This shouldn’t take long.”

  Noel laughed. “That’s what I thought too. I came up for air three hours later.”

  “Shit. So we can have a late lunch or an early supper.” She sighed dramatically. “It’d be a good idea to just talk. We haven’t, for a while.”

  “Oh. Yes. Okay.”

  They took Peter’s car. On the way to the condo, Peter described for Noel the courses Jordan Beck had taken that led to his writing the essays and the novella. Peter’s account seemed straightforward—nothing suggested Jordan might try to plagiarize, nothing either that hinted at reasons for the multiple styles in his work. Noel asked Peter if Islands Investigations International was being hired by the university. By the English Department, said Peter. Keep the investigation as close to home as possible.

  They left the car parked in the condo’s small, nearly empty lot and walked around to the front door. Inside, Peter led the way to the living room. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said. “Something to drink? Munch on?”

  “I’m fine.” Noel glanced around. A corner room, windows on two sides. Two chairs and a couch in olive green, overstuffed. Not the furnishings he’d have expected of Peter; Noel hadn’t noticed them last night. A coffee table covered with books and magazines, small neat piles. Another wall was floor to ceiling bookshelves. Should’ve let Peter find him a coffee or something, get him out of the room, check on his taste in books, get a sense of his social pro
file. He sat in one of the armchairs. Comfortable.

  Peter sat on the couch. “So,” he said, “did you have a chance to think about coming back, say in October, for a couple of lectures on investigative journalism?”

  No, he hadn’t. Not a priority thought in the last few hours. Though it might be worth doing, make him think about his past life, see if it still interested him. And Peter seemed a good person to spend time with. Right now he—and Kyra—would be around at least for a day more. “Lately I’ve just been investigating. No journalism attached.” Because his last piece of journalism, where he’d done what he’d thought was good deep exploratory work, he’d botched badly.

  “Maybe going back to your roots?” Peter prompted.

  Maybe. And that was gentle encouragement. But still, after the Cowley story four years ago, a woman he made out to be the villain when she was only tangentially involved, and she’d nearly killed herself—he couldn’t bear to live with any of that again. Since Cowley, no public face to his investigating. Talking to a bunch of students about the journalistic mistakes you can make? Might be worth trying. “I’ll give it some thought.”

  “Couple of lectures, one in the afternoon, another the following morning. Our usual request from guest lecturers.” Peter paused. “Then you and I could just sort of—hang out for a few days.”

  Well. He was drawn to Peter. And here the possibility it was mutual. At supper yesterday, Peter had chosen Kyra to flirt with. Some kind of triangulated attraction? Acting out his potential affection for Noel through a more socially accepted relationship? Man by way of woman to man? Peter coming out but still uncomfortable in what might become his new skin? And was Noel prepared to hang out? Been a long time. His love for Brendan still haunted. “Yeah, like I said, I’ll think about it.”