What was Nina doing? She couldn’t rescue them, could she? he thought, confused. Why come back?
She was heading for these rocks, he thought. Had the rain blinded her to the rocks and shallow water here?
She would die! He tightened his grip on Winston. Should he wave her off?
Maybe she would turn away at the last minute. But then he saw Genevieve’s boat cut the same wide arc. Without Paul and Winston in the water to distract her, Genevieve quickly narrowed the space that separated the two boats.
Thirty, twenty, ten yards from the rocks, Nina closed the distance between her and the rocky peninsula of the islet where Paul and Winston lay, the Andreadore chugging steadily along.
Gripping the droopy lawyer at his side, Paul hauled him-bumping, grinding, and screaming-up and over the rocky tip onto the beach at the far end of the cove, then dropped him with a thump. He ran up a steep rock a safe distance from the point, and held up a hand to his forehead to keep the rain from streaming into his eyes.
He tried to see into Nina’s mind as she flew into the wind toward him, but her fixation on her target left no room for anything except determination.
The rain pounded down hard now, and Paul no longer knew to trust his eyes.
He thought he saw the small figure of Nina stand erect on the edge of the Andreadore and then soar like an angel out into the deep water beyond the point just as Genevieve’s boat, directly behind, connected.
He thought he saw Genevieve’s terrified face.
He felt rather than saw the tremendous crash as she struck rock with an explosion so violent it stopped time.
And then, almost leisurely, he saw the rest in detail, slowed like animation examined frame by frame: Genevieve’s boat flipping, coming to rest upside down, whomping down crossways over the Andreadore. The infinity of splintered wood sailing into the air. Fire where boats had been. Heat and light where dark had been.
Amid the splinters, aglow in the glare of ignited gasoline, the silhouette of a woman boneless as a rag doll coming to rest in the lake, poising on the surface, and sinking into its depths.
38
Summertime in Tahoe. Kelly greens and chartreuses mixed with green as dark as charcoal. The forests had soaked up the melted snow that rolled off the mountains. Memorial Day came. The tourists arrived for vacation fun and did not leave.
Nina didn’t notice. She came into the office that Tuesday morning in June and closed her door to everything. She did not answer the phone when it rang. She did not touch the papers that were already beginning to look musty, like something from her past. In jeans and a sweatshirt, she propped her bare feet on her desk and looked out the window toward the lake, but the picture window insisted on acting like a projection screen and the events of the past seven months imposed themselves again to interrupt her line of vision.
Sandy, parked at her own desk outside her door, did not disturb her. She knew that even on a summer morning you could have a dark night of the soul.
Genevieve had advanced through their lives like a landslide, destroying everything.
Paul had helped Nina get out of the water and climb onto the islet. There, they had waited, watching the speedboats burn. Winston woke up in time to observe with them as the burning embers of the boats sizzled in the rain, sinking into the lake in eerie silence. The kayak had floated away. It was hours before Matt notified the Coast Guard and they were rescued.
Paul and Winston had taken their stories to the police. Jeffrey Riesner had requested that the verdict favoring Lindy be vacated based on “irregularities” in the proceedings, and Judge Milne granted the request, ordering a new trial. Removing Jim Colby as receiver, he placed all assets and business management back in Mike Markov’s hands.
The catastrophic outcome of the trial, since it was caused by a member of Lindy’s legal team, exposed Lindy to judicial sanctions. At least she should have been ordered to pay Mike’s legal fees. Instead, Judge Milne delivered a stinging lecture to Nina in open court, widely quoted in the media, that made her red to the roots of her hair, beamed Jeffrey Riesner up to the moon, and yanked out the last shreds of her self-confidence.
Mike had most of his money. Lindy had nothing.
Nina had less than nothing.
A year of her life had been completely blasted into oblivion along with Genevieve’s boat.
What was left of Markov Enterprises after Mike’s neglect was now his to run again until a new trial went one way or another.
Whatever happened, Nina was no longer in the picture. Her business had been shattered by the Markov case. Clients had drifted away to lawyers who had more time to return their calls. Her checkbook featured a negative balance. She could not begin to afford to represent Lindy in a retrial. She could not even pay her rent. According to her contract with Lindy, Lindy had agreed to pay at least her basic attorney’s fees and costs. Even at a discounted rate, that came to over a hundred thousand dollars. Maybe someday Lindy would be able to pay the bill, but it didn’t look like anytime soon.
Or maybe Lindy would just file bankruptcy and move on.
Nina borrowed more money to buy Matt a new boat since Matt hadn’t kept up the insurance on the Andreadore. She borrowed money to pay Winston for his time in the last few months of the case. That money wasn’t enough to save Winston, however. The IRS came after him for tax evasion. He was countersuing for harassment, but everyone knew how difficult it was to get out from under once the government had turned its red eye your way.
They would not be upgrading their offices. They would not be hiring new people. The complete exploitation of every financial resource available to her to get through this case had wiped her out. The boat loan was the last loan the bank would float for her, the bank had said. She needed to start regular payments on her massive outstanding debts.
Without the fee from Lindy, she couldn’t. Instead, she piled the bills in a corner of the office, and watched them mounting day by day.
Genevieve had disappeared, either into the lake, as Paul seemed to think, or into the vast land of California, and the story of her disappearance and her attacks on Paul, Winston and Nina made front page news all over the state. In case by some miracle she had survived the explosion, the police charged her in absentia with murder in the second degree for Clifford Wright’s death, and three additional counts of attempted murder for Paul, Winston, and Nina.
Nina did not choose to think about Genevieve any longer. She was done with her, just like everything else.
Paul delayed his trip to Washington for a week, but she was too down to talk to him. Finally, he left town quietly, without calling to say good-bye.
Nina had risked everything, and lost.
Leaving Comanche safely stabled with friends outside Reno, Lindy moved back to town temporarily to wrap up loose ends. She had decided to leave town. Some old friends had a gold mine they worked in Idaho. She wanted to go up there and soak up what they knew, plus she just needed to get away from Tahoe. It sounded like the perfect getaway for her right now.
The news about Genevieve had been devastating. It had taken her several days to recover from the shock of what had happened. Her own offer of money had somehow triggered the murder of a juror and attacks on her lawyers. She had been criminally obtuse. She was lucky they weren’t charging her with conspiracy or something. Guilt overwhelmed her.
Along with the news of Genevieve came the news that a new trial had been ordered.
And so, even though Nina had advised against it because Lindy would probably get stuck with Mike’s court costs, Lindy had decided to walk away from the case. She felt terrible about what she had put Nina through for nothing, but she didn’t feel strong enough to continue fighting Mike.
She wished she could pay Nina, but lawyers always seemed to have plenty of resources. Nina probably had lots of money tucked away. She wouldn’t have taken the case without a major bankroll, because that would be stupid. Nina would be okay, and Winston would make up his loss in a year.
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Her thoughts went back to that poor man. The whole world seemed to feel that Cliff Wright had died because of her, and maybe they were right. She no longer wanted the money, the business or anything else. She had heard from Alice that Rachel had gone back to Mike begging for forgiveness. So Mike would be fine.
As for herself-she’d finally accepted that her life here, the life she had led for twenty years, had come to a close. She wasn’t exactly young, but she was tough as boiled octopus.
The second week in June she called Mike’s secretary and arranged to come by the house to get the rest of her things. She wanted to warn him ahead of time. She asked him to please get Rachel out of the house as a final favor to her, just for a couple of hours. Then she would go, and they would never need to talk again.
She drove the Jeep down the familiar dusty road off the highway, along the lakeside to the gate of the house. The gates were open. He was expecting her.
Her flowerbeds, in full spring bloom, sprawled with neglect. Fully half the blooms were dead and unpicked. She liked to think Rachel would love them as much as she had, and would soon have things back in order.
Sammy loped up and over her, and she spent a few minutes petting him, saying all the things he liked to hear. From her pocket, she pulled a piece of the beef jerky he loved for a treat, and she left him to eat it on the gravel path.
Mike stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” She walked up the stairs, and he let her by. “Do you have some boxes for me?”
Florencia had stacked dozens upstairs, and dozens downstairs, along with thick stacks of paper for wrapping.
“I won’t need all these.” She planned to take only the most special things, the carved wooden box her dad left her, a blue glass paperweight that belonged to her mother. She would box the photographs up to look at someday when the poison had drained out of them and they could no longer hurt her.
She started with the upstairs. Mike stood on the landing leaning against the banister, hands still in his pockets as she moved from room to room. When she ran out of boxes, he helped her fold and tape up some more. He never objected to one single thing, although he watched her intently the whole time.
The only place she did not go was into the bedroom closet. She couldn’t stand to see Rachel’s things hanging there. She decided to ask Florencia to ship anything on to her if she had left anything important in there.
She felt very tired when the time came to start on the downstairs, but there would be less down there. Those rooms were public, and except for her desk, she didn’t think she’d find much.
“Want something to drink?” Mike asked, following her down the stairs.
She ran her hand over the railing one last time. “No, thanks. I want to finish up.” Strange. For almost the first time since she had met him, she couldn’t read the look in his eyes. He had changed. She almost wished he would complain or get angry, anything to break the tension between them.
She made short work of the desk, shoveling her paperwork into two boxes, swiftly striping them with tape. Mike helped her stack the boxes by the front door.
Giving herself a few seconds to catch her breath, she looked around one last time. Then she opened the front door and faced Mike. Wiping her hands on a piece of wrapping paper, she held out her right hand. “We had a good long run,” she said. “See you around sometime.”
He was hesitating, as if he was making up his mind about something but couldn’t spit it out. She wanted to hear it, hear him say something she could carry away that meant he understood how good a run it had really been.
So she stood there like a fool, her hand out, when she should have turned around with whatever dignity she had left, and the tension grew unbearable.
He took her hand. And then he pulled her toward him and kissed her on the lips.
She jumped back. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” she cried.
“I’m trying to kiss you, to make it better.”
“You’re making it harder!”
She started past him, but he blocked the way. “Will you listen to me?” he said. “Rachel’s gone,” he said, and suddenly he looked like the old Mike, a little shamefaced, but secretly pleased with himself.
“Don’t lie. I know she came back to you.”
“She did, and I’m a big dumb ox, but I’m not as dumb as I used to be.” He gave her a tentative grin.
“She’s not coming back?”
“I had to write her a hell of a check,” he said. “It was always business with her. And I was vain and confused, an easy mark. She’s gone, Lindy. And I-”
She shook her head. “Mike, don’t do this.”
“We could… let’s sit down here on the steps and talk.”
“After all that’s happened? I don’t think so.”
“Just give me a minute, then, and I’ll talk. Though I’m as lousy at that as I am at everything else I do without you.”
Away in the distance, Tahoe gleamed.
“Let’s dump last year in the lake,” Mike said.
Sandy brought lunch in, two salads. She set them down on Nina’s desk.
“I’m not hungry,” Nina said.
“Fine. Don’t eat,” said Sandy. “Now what?” she asked, taking the plastic lid off and pouring dressing.
“Now nothing,” said Nina.
“Is she going to pay us anything?”
“No, and I don’t even have the money to cover the office rent this month. We’re lucky the judge didn’t order Lindy to pay Mike’s attorney fees. She’s already trying to come up with thirty thousand to pay for Mike’s trial costs so that she can drop the complaint. She can’t help.”
“The landlord will carry us for a couple of months. You’ve made the Starlake Building famous. He’s got a waiting list of tenants. Here.” She handed Nina a check.
Sandy’s personal check was made out to Nina for ten thousand dollars. How she could have put together that kind of money Nina couldn’t imagine. And here she was offering it to her boss.
“You are the best,” Nina said, trying not to show her emotion. “No way. But thanks for the offer.” She handed it back.
“We’ll start fresh. Work twice as hard,” said Sandy. “You can just use that money to get us out of the crunch.” As if to illustrate this statement, she crunched thoughtfully on her crouton.
“Forget it!”
“You telling me I work for a quitter? You’ve still got a blanket to keep you warm at night, don’t you?” Sandy turned her pebble eyes directly toward Nina’s.
Nina looked back into their blackness, as if she might find in there the mysterious source of Sandy’s power. She saw only a dark-haired, round-faced, Native-American woman looking back at her, no more comprehensible than she had ever been.
And at that moment, looking at Sandy’s eyes, she felt the full cost of her gamble. She had risked Sandy’s job, Bob’s future here, their home, the work she was cut out to do in life. She had lost Paul…
Because Lindy refused to go to the bed upstairs, the one she had seen him in with Rachel, they had found their way to the boat and made up the bed in the cruiser with fresh sheets. Sunlight poured through the skylight into the cabin.
Later, they found some beer and crackers in the galley. They brought the platter up to a table on the deck, and found a spot in the sun to enjoy the lazy, warm afternoon. A few boats floated in the distance, rocking like lovers with the rhythm of the lake. Distant music drifted toward them.
“I’ll go see Riesner tomorrow,” Mike said. “Tell him to cooperate with the dismissal.”
There was no doubt in him. He sounded like a man fighting for his life. He wanted her back. But she didn’t believe in miracles. Things were far from perfect. She could never trust him as she once had. “I love you, Mike, but I won’t go on with things the way they have been.”
Mike said, “I know. So we won’t. We’ll get married on Sunday.”
There was a very long si
lence.
“Lindy. Marry me. Please,” Mike said urgently. “Any day you want, if Sunday’s not convenient.”
Another silence.
“Lindy?” he said, sounding very anxious.
“Oh, sure, Mike.”
“Please?”
“Why should I believe this?”
“I mean it. I love you more than ever. I need you back in my life. This time for good, Lindy.”
For a long time she looked out across the water, remembering the last time they had been together on this lake, in a boat. The spring wind fluttered through his hair as he stood waiting for her to say something, so very different than he had been that night, a different person, as she was.
He wanted to marry her at last. Here it was, big as Lake Tahoe and just as full of mystery, the happy ending, nothing like she had ever imagined. Underneath the ridiculous, persistent, flickering hope that this time would be for good and forever, doubt and fear had taken the place of faith. She had never known how fragile it all was. She had never known how your hopes could collapse on you, and destroy you. How hard it was to go on, knowing that.
“I’ll promise to marry you…” she began.
“Ah, Lindy.” His face creased into a deep smile.
“If you promise not to wiggle out of it this time,” she finished.
“No more wiggling.”
“I’ll believe that when I see the preacher here on Sunday,” she said.
They kissed, and then sat down on the built-in benches that lined the stern, touching shoulders. “I’m taking you on a real honeymoon,” Mike said. “I know just the place.”
“You want to leave right now? With the business in so much trouble?”
“The question is, what do we want to do? I have a suggestion. I’m thinking we might want to sell out, go somewhere brand-new. I hear there’s a big opal mine in Australia for sale…”
“A new start,” she said. She ran a finger along his chin, refreshing her memory of its shape.
“Just sell out and go.”
Breach Of Promise Page 42
