Burden of Proof

by Davis Bunn

  “Ethan?”

  His heart felt ready to grow wings and burst free. Unlocking his limbs and rising to greet her was quite possibly the hardest thing he had ever done.

  “Wow. Mom said you’d changed. But this . . .” She rounded the chair and hugged him hard. “Look at you!”

  As soon as she released him, Ethan’s legs gave way. He was glad the chair was there to catch him. “You are so very, very beautiful.”

  She did a quick little pirouette. “You like?”

  His voice sounded strangled. “Very much.”

  He remembered now. Gina’s last stop had been four weeks of intensive language school in Paris. She’d returned with her hair bobbed in the latest French fashion. She wore a striped, off-the-shoulder top and navy shorts that were fashioned like a small skirt.

  Gina slipped into the chair next to his and took hold of his hand. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  He remembered her beauty, of course. She had inherited her mother’s lithe form and her father’s stature. What he did not remember was . . .

  Everything that their years together had stolen.

  Her dark eyes sparkled, her face shone, her smile for him was unbound by cares or hurt or disappointment. She was so free, so full of joy and promise. Her incredible eyes, the dark depths that had always invited him to dive straight in and lose himself, were filled now with unshed tears of happiness over seeing him again.

  And yet . . . overlaid upon this Gina was the way he had last seen her.

  Eight years after their divorce, Gina had sent him the formal notice of Marie’s death. He had come out of respect and spent the entire service regretting the deed.

  He remembered how pale Gina had looked then. Almost ghostlike, as if grief and exhaustion had combined to form an affliction that would finally claim her as well. He remembered how she had looked at him. Like he was a stranger drawn from some long-forgotten era. Like a shadow of former times. Just another mourner to greet in her mother’s long procession.

  “Ethan? What’s wrong?”

  He bowed over his knees, cupped his face in both hands, and wept.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  Half an hour later, Gina was the one weeping. “But you can’t be dying!”

  There was nothing Ethan could do about it except press on. “I’m sorry you have to learn this so soon after your return—”

  “You’re twenty years old! And I love you!”

  Hearing her say the words, after so many years of loveless acrimony, lanced him with a pain so fierce he cradled his heart with the hand not holding hers. Even then, he did not shift his gaze from her face. Because there in her tragic beauty was the truth. She did. She really did love him.

  Gina was so young and eager to be with him. And so certain that he was the one for her. Yet he knew the utter ruin he had made of her world. So many of those lost years came down to Ethan’s selfish determination to live his life exactly as he had intended.

  Ethan kept a loose grip on her tear-dampened fingers and remembered his dawn paddle. He recalled how crimped his motions were. He had been determined to make that final journey without his morning meds, even when each stroke was a trial by fire. Out there on the water, there was nothing ahead for him except, well, dust. Having his ashes sprinkled over the Sebastian Inlet break. And after that, a world of dawns he would never see.

  Ethan had spent much of that pre-dawn paddle looking back, seeing the stubborn pride and iron-hard determination not to change, not to give in. To be his own man.

  Now, seated here, he saw what those years had cost him. He had turned Gina’s love to ashes. He might as well have made that final paddle-out for their relationship.

  And for what? Because he wanted to stay a waterman? Was there no way he might have compromised? Been flexible enough to fulfill her dreams as well as his own? Helped her through the crises of losing her beloved parents? Been there in her hours of need? Accepted that a love as beautiful and fierce as this deserved to be nurtured and fed?

  Apparently not.

  Ethan realized he was crying again when Gina’s mother went out of focus. She hovered just inside the kitchen doors, arms clasped tightly across her middle, her porcelain features crimped so tightly she looked ready to shatter with shared grief.

  He spoke the only words that came to mind. “I’m so sorry, Gina.”

  “But I want to marry you!”

  Gina’s mother jerked forward, ready to halt that before it took hold. Ethan lifted his free hand, stopping her approach. “I’m not marrying anyone. But you will. Just not me.”

  He allowed her to weep a bit longer. Then he pried his hand loose, gestured to Marie, and rose so that she could take his place. “I have to get back to Jacksonville.”

  Gina cried, “You can’t just leave.”

  “Sonya, my brother’s wife, needs to run some more tests.” That much was true. “I’m staying at the Casa Marina.”

  Marie’s voice dropped a full octave. “I know it.”

  “Call me whenever you—”

  “How long do you have?”

  She had already asked him that. Three times. But some truths required more than one telling. “Sonya thinks about a month.” He watched Gina melt into her mother’s arms. “Goodbye, Gina.”

  Ethan drove north feeling distinctly removed from the trip. His mental and emotional fog only cleared when he arrived back at the hotel and accepted two message slips from the receptionist. Gary Holt had phoned to confirm he was putting things in place, and he would call again at seven the next morning. The second message was from Sonya, saying it was urgent that he call.

  Ethan waited until he was upstairs and had ordered room service to phone Sonya back. As soon as she answered, he asked, “Is Adrian there?”

  “He’s still in the office, preparing for tomorrow’s hearing. Why?”

  Sooner rather than later, Ethan needed to tell her all the missing fragments, including why she had sent him back. Only not now. “Just asking.”

  “You sound exhausted.”

  “I am.” And more besides. Ethan rubbed the hollow place over where his heart formerly resided.

  “Does Adrian have something to do with what you haven’t told me?”

  “No.” Another half-truth. Adrian had everything to do with it. “Sonya, I need to ask about these investors and the case against your company.”

  The harsh judgmental tone he remembered so well came back in a rush. “You need? You need? I’m handed confirmation that my research is actually founded in reality, and you want—”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “No, don’t!” A hard breath, then, “Ethan, you have to answer my questions.”

  “I will. Just not now, okay? Give me two days. Forty-eight hours. There are issues I have to work through. As soon as they’re done, I will tell you everything.”

  “Your word?”

  “Yes, Sonya. You have my word. Day after tomorrow, you and I will talk. No holds barred.” He gave her a moment to protest, then asked, “Will you please tell me what’s happening with your case?”

  “I don’t understand why you need . . .” Another hard breath. “Cemitrex is a Washington-based financing group that funded my early research. Adrian and I met when he replaced my original attorney.”

  “I remember that.” Actually, what he remembered was how Adrian had gone on and on about this scientist. Stunning was the word he had used to describe Sonya.

  “Cemitrex has announced they want to buy me out. They already own fifty-one percent—that was the price I had to accept to obtain their investment funds. Adrian thinks my original attorney made some serious mistakes. He’s gone to court to try to save me from losing everything.”

  “And tomorrow?”

  “It’s just more of the same.” Talking about her court case clearly aged her. “Adrian says it’s just a question of time.”

  Ethan rubbed his forehead, wishing he was not so tired. “I don’t understand.”


  “Neither do we. I answered your question. Can I ask you one in return?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Why did I send you back?”

  He nodded. Leave it to the scientist to see to the heart of the matter. “Two days. I promise.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Amazingly, Ethan slept.

  He had expected to spend the night pacing. Instead, he lay down after setting his dinner tray in the hallway outside his door, and was gone. The next thing he knew, a hand holding a gun emerged from some indistinct dream and fired off a single shot.

  Ethan jerked awake to discover dawn painting pale watercolors over the ocean. The clock read a quarter past five. The hotel restaurant would not open for another forty-five minutes. He dressed in shorts and sandals and a T-shirt and went for a walk along the shore.

  He felt enormously guilty taking such pleasure from having the beach and the sunrise to himself. His heart tripped an electric beat every time he thought of what this day would hold. But for the moment, he felt strangely comfortable with himself. It was an odd sensation, one he had not felt in, well, years. A mile or so down the shore he turned around and wondered if perhaps, just perhaps, this was his reward for having done right by Gina. This time.

  The previous day’s sorrow was gone now. As he returned through the strengthening light, he felt a distinct separation between himself and all that had gone before. Not just in this latest encounter but in his entire relationship with Gina. The ashes of a failed marriage and the deeply embedded pain were so much a part of who he was, he had simply learned to live with the inevitable. But as he started back up toward the hotel, Ethan wondered if this was what it meant to heal.

  He ate breakfast, then returned upstairs and showered and dressed. As he knotted his tie, the phone rang. Gary greeted him with, “Everything’s in place.”

  “You’re sure?”

  The detective’s tone was languid and tough. “This is me doing my job. I’ve hired a team from Sinclair Security. You know them?”

  “The name, sure.”

  “They’re costing you a bundle.”

  “Money’s not the issue here.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve run through the situation half a dozen times with their team. We’re prepped and good to go.”

  Ethan turned to the window. The beach was still there. The sunlight sparkled on the open waters. The only thing missing was his former calm. “I guess that’s it.”

  “Unless you decide to tell your brother what’s going down.”

  “That’s not happening.”

  “You’ve got a rumor of a hit. You come to me, I do what you say, which means spending a ton of your money. I say alert Adrian to the threat, according to this source you won’t identify.”

  The previous day’s irritation returned. “Just for one moment, let’s assume I’m not some punk who’s wasting everybody’s time. On my dime, let’s not forget. Say my source is real and the attack is happening today. We tell Adrian and he actually listens. And he doesn’t show. Then what? We have a gunman we can’t identify who may or may not have accomplices. And Adrian of course refuses to take any further precautions, since the initial attack never happens. Then the next time—”

  “Okay, okay, I got it.” Gary chuckled. “You sound, I don’t know . . .”

  “Older. I’m getting that a lot.”

  “I was going to say ‘like a pro.’ So what now?”

  Ethan had been thinking about that as well. “Check with your pals in the firm. See if there’s any unexpected development in Adrian’s case.”

  “Something to do with his wife’s company, right?”

  “Correct. I’ll meet you at the courthouse at nine.”

  After Ethan hung up, the phone rang again so quickly he assumed Gary had forgotten something. He answered with, “What now?”

  “Ethan?”

  It took him a moment to recognize the voice. “Gina, now isn’t—”

  “I don’t care! We have to talk!”

  In truth, he didn’t need to be anywhere for another hour and a half. “What is it?”

  “What is it? For starters, the way you left yesterday! First you drop your bombshell, then you walk out on me. That was terrible, Ethan! You should be ashamed of yourself!”

  Ethan lowered himself onto the edge of his bed. He took a mental tumble through half-forgotten memories. How many times he had heard Gina’s tone rise like that. He used to call it her Cajun launchpad. She fired up her emotional engines long before he came into view. Then he came within range, and she took aim.

  He said softly, “Not today, Gina.”

  “How dare you take that tone with me—”

  “Either you quiet down or I’m hanging up. And I’m telling the front desk to refuse all calls from this number.”

  Gina went quiet.

  “I’m leaving now for an extremely high-stress day. You can’t add to it. You just can’t.”

  A trio of seagulls floated past his top-floor window. One backed up slightly so as to glance inside. Ethan liked the sense of floating with the bird. Sharing an impossible moment, caught in forces neither of them could fathom.

  Gina asked with little-girl weakness, “Don’t you love me anymore?”

  It was Ethan’s turn to go quiet.

  “We said we’d take the summer to decide. Well, I’ve decided. And then you say . . .”

  Ethan finished the sentence for her. “That the decision has been made for me.”

  He knew she was crying, but he could find no words that might comfort her. Truth be told, his own emotions were such a tumble, it was hard to say what he felt. There was certainly an affection, strong as the sorrow and the ashes. But it was all a very long time ago. And she was so young and so fresh.

  Ethan breathed in and out. The gull swept out of sight, but Ethan remained hanging there, trying to find his way through the invisible lines of force.

  Gina sniffed, took a shaky breath, and said, “I want to see you.”

  He nodded to the empty sky beyond his window.

  “Ethan?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Of course you can. I’d love to see you. But there are conditions, Gina. You’ll stay in your own room. We’ll see each other as friends.”

  “But I love you.”

  “And I love you.”

  Her voice took on a new timbre. “You’ve never said that before.”

  “Really?”

  “You think I would forget such a thing?”

  “Of course not. It’s just . . .”

  “It was one of the reasons why I left for Europe. Because you wouldn’t commit. I had to decide whether I could stay with you as you are. Because I thought . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Gina. So sorry. You deserve better.”

  “I don’t want better. I want you.”

  Ethan rubbed his chest. “It has to be this way. You know it does. And you have to agree to my boundaries before I will see you.”

  He let the silence linger for a time, then said, “Call me when you decide.” Another empty space, then, “Goodbye, Gina.”

  He tightened his tie, checked his collar in the mirror, and found himself inspecting the sadness in his gaze. He wondered if every conversation with her would hurt him so terribly. Even so, as he grabbed his jacket and left the room, he was filled with the comforting sensation of having gotten a very important moment very right.

  This time.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  The Jacksonville courthouse was a dramatic mix of the city’s Southern roots and its rising ambitions. The original section dated from the early twentieth century and would have looked at home on Mount Olympus. Corinthian columns and broad central stairs led to a shaded portico and huge bronze doors. A high-rise office building was connected to the back, as bland and bold as all the other towers that dominated the city’s changing skyline.

  Gary Holt was waiting for Ethan j
ust inside the main entrance. He sat on one end of the foyer’s long bench with his back on the stone side wall. His legs were stretched out, his heels resting on the marble floor. One of the security guards leaned on the wall beside him and laughed at something Gary said. When Ethan entered, he waved a languid hand and motioned to the bench beside him. The guard took that as his cue and sauntered off.

  Ethan asked, “Should we go somewhere private?”

  “What for?” Gary waved at the domed portico. The stone floor and walls formed a massive baffle. “No one beyond arm’s length can understand a word we say.”

  Ethan seated himself. It took a moment for him to realize what was missing. No security. No metal detectors. No tension, no lines, no ID’s. The two uniformed officers were basically playing at guard duty.

  Gary brought him around with, “I just checked on our preparations.”

  “And?”

  “Everything is good.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Gary smirked. “Do I look stressed to you?”

  “If you were any more relaxed, you’d be snoring. And that worries me.”

  “I’m telling you, everything is in place.”

  Ethan’s perspiration defied the building’s cool wash. “It better be. My brother’s life hangs in the balance.”

  “If your source is giving you the straight dope.”

  “You’re being paid to treat this as credible. You and your team, who better be out there and ready.”

  Gary inspected him carefully, his eyes searching deep. But all he said was, “Your brother’s in courtroom seven.”

  Adrian’s courtroom was in the modern sector and as cold as a meat locker. Gary led Ethan into the next-to-last row. When they were seated, he murmured, “Judge Durnin insists it stay one degree off freezing in here. His regulars think he does it to make things move faster. He’s not one to let attorneys waste the court’s time.”

  Ethan had no interest in discussing the judge’s preferences. “Did you find out anything about this case?”

  “Not a lot to tell, according to people around the firm. When Dr. Barrett incorporated, her primary investor was Cemitrex, a DC-based fund manager. They went in for fifty-one percent. Now they want to buy the rest. She doesn’t want to sell.” Gary’s low drone carried the same air of boredom he’d showed in the front hall. “No fireworks, no drama. Your brother is fighting the good fight. But the odds are stacked against him.”