Sidney Sheldon's the Tides of Memory

by Sidney Sheldon

  Arnie Meyer spoke into his mouthpiece.

  “See anything?”

  The police reconnaissance officer shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Can you ask the pilot to go lower?”

  “Not really. We have to be careful. Winds can be very changeable out here and these cliffs are no joke.”

  “Yes, but my daughter . . .”

  The policeman reached across and put a hand on Arnie’s shoulder. “If she’s out here, sir, we’ll find her. Doug, take her down a little, would you?”

  They swooped lower over the waves.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Alexia woke up to find her legs submerged in water. She felt a moment’s blind panic—where am I? Then the pain in her ankle reasserted itself, shooting through her like a lightning bolt, and it all came back.

  Lucy.

  The cove.

  The gun.

  “I want you to cast your mind back to that day.”

  Lucy’s voice came from behind her. She must still be under the lee of the cliff. Alexia had been dragged forward into the surf and positioned on her knees, like a prisoner about to be executed.

  “It was a hot summer in Maine. You were there on the beach—you, Billy, and the children. It was right after lunch.”

  Horror stole slowly into Alexia’s heart as it dawned on her what was happening.

  She’s re-creating her brother’s death.

  She’s not going to shoot me.

  She’s going to drown me.

  She tried to move, to roll over, anything, but she was stuck fast. Lucy had clipped some sort of weights to her handcuffs, anchoring her to the spot.

  “Think about the children now,” Lucy was saying. “Try to picture their faces. Can you see my brother? Can you remember him?”

  Remember him? His face has haunted me all my life. Every day. Every night. I tried to kid myself that I’d moved on, that I’d outrun my past. But Nicholas was always there. Always.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s playing.” Tears rolled down Alexia’s cheeks.

  “Playing what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “TELL ME!”

  “Tag, I think. I’m not sure. He was running around on the sand. He was happy.”

  “Good! Very good,” Lucy encouraged. “Go on. What happened then?”

  “I don’t know,” Alexia sobbed. The water was rising. It was up to her waist now and as cold as the grave.

  “Of course you know! Don’t lie to me. I’ll shoot off your fucking fingers one by one, just like I did with Jenny Hamlin. What happened?”

  Alexia closed her eyes. “I lost sight of him. Billy was playing the fool, diving for pearls. He went under and he didn’t come up again and I thought—”

  “I don’t care about Billy Hamlin!” Lucy screamed. “Tell me about Nicko. What happened to my brother?”

  “I don’t know what happened!” Alexia shouted back. “He was in the water, in the shallows, playing. He was with the others. When I looked back he was gone.”

  “NO! That’s not good enough. You must have seen something.”

  “Jesus, Lucy, if I’d seen, don’t you think I’d have done something? Don’t you think I’d have tried to save him?”

  Alexia was frightened by the desperation in her own voice. She wasn’t afraid of death. But drowning had always been her worst nightmare. To sit helplessly as the water rose around her, sucking her in, to gasp for breath as it filled her lungs, choking her, slowly starving her brain of oxygen . . . She’d lived the terror so many times in her dreams, Alexia thought she had understood Nicholas Handemeyer’s suffering. That she’d atoned for it somehow. But she realized now she knew nothing. The reality, here in the waves, pinned down like a trapped animal, was far, far worse than even her most fevered imaginings.

  “You? Try to save him?” Lucy laughed. “All you cared about was yourself. You didn’t have an unselfish bone in your body. Not then, when you were plain old Toni Gilletti. And not now, as Mrs. High-and-Mighty De Vere. You, you and Hamlin, you let Nicko die!”

  The water was almost at Alexia’s shoulders now.

  “That isn’t true. You weren’t there, Lucy. You don’t know what happened. I loved your brother. He was a lovely little boy.”

  Lucy let out a howl, more animal than human. She put her hands over her ears. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare say you loved him.”

  “It’s the truth!” Alexia spluttered. “He was always my favorite. He used to make me little cards.”

  Before she could say any more, Lucy ran at her with a roar of purest rage. Grabbing her from behind, she forced Alexia’s head down under the waves.

  After a moment’s sharp terror, Alexia stopped struggling.

  This was it. This was the end.

  Beneath the surface, all was dark and silent and peaceful. There was no Lucy here, no shouting, no madness, no pain. Alexia’s earlier calm returned. She allowed herself to go limp, each of her muscles submitting to the cold embrace of death.

  There’s nothing to fear.

  Everything slowed down. She was aware of nothing but the faint drumbeat of her own pulse. One by one, the people she loved came to her.

  Michael, healthy again, smiling and laughing, bursting with life and youth and promise.

  Roxie, walking toward her, her arms open with love and forgiveness.

  Teddy, as he was when they met. Funny, kind, self-deprecating, adoring.

  Billy Hamlin, young and strong and smiling on a Maine beach.

  Alexia started to pray. Let Michael be at peace. Let Roxie forgive her father. But for herself she had nothing to ask.

  How arrogant she’d been to think she had any control. To think she could escape her fate.

  Lucy was right about one thing: Nicholas Handemeyer’s death did deserve a sacrifice. But that sacrifice had to be Alexia’s. All her life the ocean had called to her, pulling her back, demanding she return and pay what she owed: a life for a life, a soul for a soul. Now, at last, the circle was closing.

  It was time.

  “What’s that?”

  The pilot pointed through the glass.

  Arnie Meyer and the surveillance officer both followed his finger.

  “What?” said Arnie. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Under the rock face,” said the pilot. “We’ve passed it now. I’ll circle back. I thought I saw . . .”

  “Figures.” The surveillance officer lowered his telescopic binoculars. “Definitely, at the water’s edge. It has to be them.”

  “I don’t see anything,” said Arnie desperately as the chopper banked sharply to the right, swooping low over the ocean like a bird scanning for fish. “Where? Was Summer with them? What did you see?”

  The surveillance officer ignored him. “Coast guard!” He barked coordinates into his radio. “We need urgent assistance. Two females. Uh-huh. No, we can’t go in from here.”

  “What do you mean you can’t go in from here?” Arnie Meyer felt the panic creep through his veins like snake venom. “The tide’s coming in. They’ll drown!”

  The surveillance officer looked him straight in the eye.

  “We can’t go any closer without hitting the cliff.”

  “But we have to do something!”

  “We’ll crash, Mr. Meyer. We cannot reach them. I’m sorry.”

  I’m sorry.

  Alexia De Vere was still praying.

  Please forgive me. For Nicholas. For Billy. For all the suffering I’ve caused.

  Lucy Meyer had released her a few minutes ago, scrambling up onto a small ledge on the cliff face so she could watch her die more slowly. As Alexia gasped for air, wincing with pain as the oxygen surged back into her lungs, it occurred to her for the first time that Lucy was also going to die. The waves would claim her too, just minutes after Alexia’s own life had ebbed away.

  She must have known that when she brought me here. She doesn’t care about dying any more than I do. She wan
ts it. The peace. Just as long as she sees me punished first. All she wants is closure. We’re so alike, in the end, Lucy and I.

  A noise distracted her. At first she thought she was imagining the low, droning sound, like the buzz of a bee. But then it got louder and louder, overpowering even the cymballike crashing of the waves. Alexia tipped her head back and looked up.

  A helicopter! Rescue!

  She hadn’t felt afraid before. When she thought death was inevitable, she’d been able to accept it, to make her peace. But now that there was a chance of life, of salvation, adrenaline and desperation coursed through Alexia’s body once more.

  I want to live!

  Only her face was above the waterline now. Instinctively she tried to wave her arms for help, but they were cuffed and weighted beneath the waves. She began to cry.

  “I’m here!” she shouted futilely at the sky. “I’m here! Please, help me!”

  The helicopter hovered directly above for a few seconds, so close and yet so tantalizingly out of reach. Alexia strained her eyes against the brightness, searching for a ladder or a rope. Instead, without warning, the chopper turned and sped off into the blue.

  “NO!” Alexia screamed. There was no mistaking her terror now. “No, please! Don’t leave me!”

  From her ledge-top vantage point, Lucy Meyer smiled.

  This is for you, Nicko, my darling.

  Soon they would be together again.

  Summer dug her fingernails into the crumbling rock as she descended the path.

  They’re here. They have to be here.

  The way down to the cove was steeper than she remembered it, and the tides were so high she couldn’t see any beach at all from the top of the cliff. But the water bottle had confirmed it. This deep into the moor, there was only one place her mother could be going.

  Then suddenly, like two figures in a dream, there they were. Rounding the bend where the path doubled back on itself, Summer saw her mother, crouching on a ledge above a sliver of sandy shore. She wouldn’t have seen Alexia at all had she not followed Lucy’s gaze to a point about twenty feet in front of her. Out in the water, a lone human head bobbed like a buoy.

  “Mom!”

  Lucy spun around. “Get out of here!” she screamed at Summer. How on earth did she find us so quickly? “Get back up the cliff. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Not without you.”

  “I said go back!” Lucy raised her gun.

  Summer’s eyes widened with shock. She wouldn’t shoot, would she? Not her own daughter.

  “Go back!” Lucy shouted again.

  Summer hesitated. As she did so, the sandy rock crumbled beneath her.

  Arnie Meyer was the first out of the helicopter.

  Ripping off his headphones, ignoring the shouts of the two policemen, he ran out onto the moor, half stooping, perilously close to the still-whirring propeller blades.

  “Stop, you idiot!” the surveillance officer yelled after him. But Arnie kept running, blindly, toward the edge of the cliff.

  He heard a woman’s scream, then another.

  Dear God! Don’t let me be too late.

  Lucy watched, horrified, as her daughter fell, screaming, her arms and legs flailing wildly like a puppet with its strings cut. Summer landed on an open ledge about halfway down the cliff face. Her head hit the ground with a sickening thud. The screams stopped.

  Lucy looked out to sea. Alexia was almost completely submerged now. She turned back to her daughter, lying prone and lifeless on the ledge.

  This isn’t right! It’s not supposed to happen like this.

  She wanted to watch Nicko’s killer drown. She’d waited so long for this moment. All her life. But what if Summer were still alive? What if her baby needed help, desperately, and she stood by and did nothing? Irrationally, Lucy felt a rush of anger. Why did Summer have to come here? Why did she have to ruin it all?

  “Police!”

  Lucy looked up. Three men were at the top of the path. One had his gun drawn and trained on her. A second was scrambling along the ledge toward Summer. Lucy looked closer. Oh my God, is that Arnie?

  “Drop your weapon and put your hands above your head.”

  Lucy ignored these instructions, turning her attention instead to the third man. Rappelling down the cliff face, a life ring tied to his waist, he was clearly headed toward Alexia.

  “Ma’am. I said drop your weapon!”

  Lucy closed her eyes and tightened her grip on her gun. It was so hard to concentrate.

  The man at the top of the cliff was still shouting. “Drop it now or I’ll shoot!”

  Why won’t he be quiet? I can’t think with all this noise.

  To her left, Lucy saw that Summer was sitting up. Arnie had managed to reach her. He was holding her now, talking to her.

  That’s good. They have each other.

  Below her, the rappelling cop had reached the ground and was unclipping himself from his safety rope. Lucy watched him dive into the water. Only the top of Alexia’s head was visible now, but it could take so long to drown. She was probably still alive. If he got her to the beach and resuscitated her fast enough . . .

  It was then that Lucy knew what she had to do.

  Taking careful aim, she fired a single shot directly at Alexia’s skull.

  Arnie Meyer screamed.

  “Lucy. No!”

  Too late. It’s done.

  Turning to face Arnie, Lucy blew him and their daughter a kiss. Then, before the cop at the top of the cliff had time to react, she slipped the barrel of the gun into her own mouth and pulled the trigger.

  Down on the shore, the softly lapping waves kept up their peaceful, timeless rhythm.

  Only now they were red with blood.

  Chapter Forty-two

  England. One year later.

  Roxie De Vere gazed out of the train window in a reflective mood.

  It was a beautiful line, the slow train into London from West Sussex, taking its passengers through woods blanketed with bluebells, past pretty flint cottages and impressive stone manors, across rivers and deep into valleys lined with lush green pastureland, some of the richest and most fertile in England. Signs of spring were everywhere, in the blossoming apple and cherry trees, in the plaintive bleating of the newborn lambs searching out their mothers, in the crisp, cool breezes gusting in across the Channel from France.

  Roxie De Vere thought, It’s the kind of day that makes one feel lucky to be alive. And Roxie did feel lucky, albeit a luck that was tinged with sadness, and with regret for all that was lost. She only had one parent now. One person left living in this world with whom she could share her childhood memories. Reminisce over happier days. Cry over the sad ones.

  Shared happiness, shared pain, shared regret. It wasn’t the easiest of foundations on which to rebuild a relationship. But it was all that Roxie De Vere had. That and a couple of days a month of visiting time. Contrary to popular belief, Her Majesty’s prisons were no bed of roses. Life there wasn’t all open-ended visiting hours and strolls through the grounds. A stark room, smelling of disinfectant and despair, full of tables with inmates on one side and visitors on the other. That was to be the setting for all their meetings from now until . . .

  No. I mustn’t think about that.

  Roxie forced herself not to think about the future.

  If the past few years had taught her one thing, it was that anything could happen. Live for today. Love for today. Forgive for today.

  She repeated the mantra softly to herself as the train rattled on.

  The worst thing about prison life was the boredom. The monotony of each day, broken only by bells and meals, and divided into chunks of time—work, leisure, exercise, sleep—that seemed to bear no relation to reality, to the rhythms of the world outside.

  The only way to make it bearable was to detach from your former life completely. To forget who you had been on the outside, and accept this new world fully and without question.

  Inmate 5067 had
become adept at such detachment. Of course, having a famous name made things harder. Other prisoners were less willing to put aside the past, to forget who Inmate 5067 really was—who the prisoner had been. They remembered why Inmate 5067 was here, despite the aristocratic name and political connections, rubbing shoulders with drug dealers and killers and stooping to manual labor just like the rest of them.

  There was no violence. No intimidation. At least, there hadn’t been yet. But Inmate 5067 would never be accepted into mainstream prison society. Life was lonely. Then again, that was part of the punishment, wasn’t it? Part of what I deserve. Roxie’s visits were a lifeline in some ways, but they were also painful, a sharp reminder of all that prison had taken away.

  Waiting in the visitors’ room as the prisoners’ families and friends filed in, Inmate 5067 felt breathless with anticipation. What if she hadn’t made it? What if something happened and she changed her mind? But no, there she was! Roxie, smiling as she maneuvered her wheelchair through the tables, the proverbial ray of sunshine.

  My daughter. My darling daughter. God bless her for finding it in her heart to forgive.

  Roxie opened her arms, full of love.

  “Hello, Mother.” She was beaming. “It’s so good to see you.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  When the full story of Alexia De Vere’s past life and secrets emerged in the British press, it caused the biggest political scandal since the Profumo Affair back in the 1960s. Politics didn’t get dirtier, or more salacious than this. Shoot-outs on an American beach, murder, perjury, a secret identity and a string of corpses as long as your arm. The whole affair was a Fleet Street editor’s wet dream.

  Of course, for those actually involved, the reality was both more tragic and more prosaic. Alexia De Vere herself felt lucky. Lucky to be alive—Lucy Meyer’s shot on the beach had merely scratched her shoulder, and the police rescue team had pulled her out of the water and given her mouth-to-mouth before any permanent brain or other damage was done. Minutes later, seconds later, and it could all have been over. Alexia tried not to think about that.

  She was lucky in other ways too. Lucky to have had a chance to reconcile fully with Roxie, and with her darling Teddy before he died. (Teddy De Vere suffered a massive heart attack in his prison cell, the same week as Alexia’s extradition hearing in America.) She even felt lucky to be here, in a British jail rather than an American one, atoning at last for the sins of her past. Maybe now, finally, her dues to the gods would be paid. When she finally walked out of Holloway Women’s Prison, she would be a free woman, in more ways than one.