Fast Women (47 page)

"If there's a God," she told Marlene, "that was that bastard, Trevor."

"That was my car," Gabe said, when they'd all gathered in the office two hours later, after the paramedics had taken Trevor off to the hospital and the police had arranged to tow the remains of the Porsche.

"Yeah, it was selfish of him to try to commit suicide in your car," Nell said, cuddling a toasty-warm Marlene to her.

"He didn't try to commit suicide," Riley said. "He was taking the car to search it. Gabe's bright idea."

"Don't remind me," Gabe said.

"Your idea?" Nell said.

"It was the last place you hadn't looked," Gabe said. "I told him that last week, thinking he'd try to get into it. And of course, being Trevor, he waited."

"So what happened?" Suze said. "Why'd he crash into the park?"

"A Porsche 911 is not your average car," Riley said. "The turbo lag is insane."

"He lost control," Gabe said. "It was just his bad luck he was headed for the park and those stone pillars."

"Turbo lag?" Suze said to Riley.

"It hesitates," Riley said. "And for once, Trevor didn't. He must have stomped on that accelerator. Which meant after the hesitation, he was airborne."

"I don't care about Trevor or turbo lag," Nell said, holding Marlene closer. "What the hell happened in 1982 anyway?"

"My dad died," Gabe said.

"Oh," Nell said.

"I don't want to think any more tonight." Riley stood up. "You can all stay up and look for Stewart and the '82 files if you want, but I'm going to bed."

Suze stood up, too. "I'm going to go next door to stay with Margie. I don't even want to think about explaining all of this to her tomorrow."

Riley held the door open for her, and Suze stood close to him for a moment and then left. When Riley had gone upstairs, Gabe said to Nell, "You sure you're okay?"

"No," Nell said, cuddling Marlene closer. "What would you have done if Trevor had locked you in there?"

"Haven't a clue," Gabe said. "Why?"

"I kept thinking you'd have known what to do," Nell said. "I felt stupid, freezing to death in the dark: You'd never have let him put you in there in the first place."

"Maybe. Depends on the circumstances."

"He threatened to shoot Marlene."

Gabe was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "He has a concussion and multiple fractures."

"Good," Nell said. "How did you know I was in there?"

"I called to make sure you'd closed the office, and Suze said you'd come over here, and when there was no answer here, I came back and found Marlene throwing a fit at the freezer door. So I got the spare key out of my desk and-"

"Marlene?" Nell kissed the top of Marlene's furry little head. "Marlene, you heroine, you saved me."

"Well, I helped," Gabe said.

"Yeah, you did." Nell looked at him in the lamplight, the hero who'd saved her. That kind of guy was dangerous, she thought. A woman could start depending on that kind of guy.

He smiled at her, his concern for her plain, and she thought, The hell with it. For tonight, she was that kind of woman. "You get a reward, too," she said and pulled him upstairs, determined to be warm again, one way or another.

The next morning, Nell and Suze helped a shocked and sober Margie pack the things she hadn't managed to sell on eBay and move into Chloe's. As they'd carried the last of her things out, Budge had put his foot down, forbidding her to go, and Margie had stared at him for a moment and then said, "I'm sorry, Budge, I think you just wasted seven years," and left while he'd sputtered behind her. That afternoon, Suze took Margie to the hospital to see Trevor, and Nell came down to the office wrapped in Gabe's thickest sweater. She wasn't cold anympre, but it was still good to have something warm wrapped around her, especially something warm that was Gabe's. It was all of a piece with being rescued, she thought. At least Gabe didn't rescue like Budge did, expecting a lifetime of grateful service in return. With Gabe, it was more all in a day's work. She could live with that.

She went into his office and said, "Okay, I've been thinking."

He was sitting behind his desk, looking tired, staring into space as if in deep thought, and she took the seat across from him while Marlene found a sunny spot on the rug and stretched out.

"You were right," she said. "About me being here seven months and you being here a lifetime. I didn't contribute one thing last night, didn't even leave a trail of bread crumbs-"

"What the hell are you talking about?" he said, frowning as he focused on her. "You were locked in a freezer."

"That equality thing," Nell said. "I want it so I won't get left with nothing again. But I haven't earned it. My seven months is a drop in the bucket compared with what you know. It's okay. We don't need to get married to work together. I can wait until I've learned more."

"You think too damn much," Gabe said. "I saw Trevor this morning."

"I do not think too damn much," Nell said, annoyed at being dismissed. "I'm capitulating here, you dumbass."

"My dad wrote a letter in 1982," Gabe went on as if she hadn't said anything. "One of those in-the-event-of-mydeath things. He confessed to helping Trevor cover up Helena's murder."

"Oh," Nell said, momentarily sidetracked. "In 1982."

"Yeah. The same year my mom died, and Lu was born, and his heart started giving him trouble. I think he…" Gabe shook his head. "Oh, hell, I don't have a clue what he was thinking. I want to believe he was finally trying to do the right thing. In the letter, he said he was going to the police, but first he was going to tell Trevor and Stewart what he was going to do, so they'd be prepared. He also said he was going to tell them that he'd written the letter, to protect himself."

"And then he died of a heart attack," Nell said.

"And then Stewart locked him in the freezer," Gabe said, "and waited until he was dead, and put him in his bed upstairs, and we never knew the difference. The doctor signed the death certificate without an autopsy."

Nell felt her breath go. "How-"

"Trevor told me," Gabe said. "About an hour ago. The police found the letter in the files and took it to him this morning. They also found Stewart thawing in the trunk of his Mercedes. He's trying to explain everything away by blaming it on everybody else: Stewart killed my dad, Margie killed Stewart, Jack killed Lynnie and burned your apartment, and Trevor's just trying to keep the scandal quiet so the family won't suffer."

All that death, Nell thought, all because Trevor didn't want to be married anymore. Helena, getting ready to kill herself because she didn't know who she was if she wasn't married. Margie, hating Stewart but sticking because they were married, and fifteen years later, smacking him with a pitcher because she couldn't stand being married. Lynnie, marinating in resentment because Stewart hadn't kept his promise to come back so they could get married. She and Tim, mutilating each other because they were stuck together, married. Jack imprisoning Suze and Suze not even trying to escape for fourteen years because they were married. It should be harder to get married, she thought. You should have to take tests, get a learner's permit, you should need more than a pulse and twenty bucks to get a license.

"You wouldn't believe some of the explanations he's been giving," Gabe said.

"How much do you believe?"

"I believe Stewart killed my dad. Margie didn't kill Stewart, though. When the coroner unwrapped him, his fingernails were torn. Trevor put him in the freezer alive and then went back and wrapped him up and buried him under his own grilled porterhouse when he was dead. I think he did it on purpose. I think it was payback for my dad."

"Eleven years later," Nell said. "Trevor waited a long time for that revenge."

"It's what he's good at," Gabe said. "I think he killed Lynnie, too. I think she pushed him too far and he hit her and put her in the freezer and then waited to see if anybody would find her. I think he tried to frame Jack for the fire in your apartment. And I know he tried to kill you."

Nell thought of being helpless in that freezer again. "How's he explaining that one?"

"Accident. He didn't realize you were still in the freezer when he shut the door."

"You are kidding me."

"Well, he has a concussion. Also, nobody ever crosses him. He's been getting away with murder for years. Nobody's ever made him accountable." Gabe met her eyes. "He didn't have anybody like you."

"I missed a step there," Nell said.

"I've been thinking," Gabe said. "That letter got lost because my aunt was such a lousy secretary. If my mom had been here, she'd have turned the letter over to the cops as soon as my dad died. There'd have been an autopsy. Stewart would have gone to jail, so Margie wouldn't have stayed married to him for fifteen years and then hit him with a pitcher, and Trevor wouldn't have frozen him to death. Or Lynnie. Or burned your place and tried to kill you. Or wrecked my car." He sounded most bitter about the last one.

"Not just a secretary," Nell said.

"And the reason she wasn't here," Gabe said, "is because she and my dad had fought over what he was doing, over the car, over his not telling her what was going on. If he'd come clean to her in 1978 when Helena died, if he'd listened to her, Stewart wouldn't have been around to kill him four years later."

"If you weren't so controlling," Nell said, "you wouldn't have called to make sure I'd locked everything up. You wouldn't have rescued me. I'd be dead. You can play the 'if game forever. It's the past. Let it go."

"You're not listening." Gabe got up and came around to face her, bending over her to put his face close to hers, his hands on the arms of her chair. "It doesn't matter, seven months or twenty years, that doesn't mean a damn thing. We're not equal partners. We're never going to be. We balance each other. We keep each other in check. We're necessary to each other's survival."

"Oh," Nell said.

"We can get married," Gabe said. "I get it now. No resentment. I need this, too. I don't want to be my dad."

"You're not your dad," Nell said, outraged that he'd think he was.

"Good." Gabe straightened. "We need an office manager. Riley's out on a background check, and Suze went to give Becca the good news. If you want the job, it's yours."

"I want the job," Nell said, and remembered the last time she'd said it, in a gloomy office with the blinds pulled down, thinking he was the devil. She looked around the spotless office at the restored leather furniture and gleaming wood, at Marlene basking trenchcoat-less in the sun, at Gabe, looking as tired as he had then but different now.

Happier, she thought. Because of me. "What good news?"

"Oh. Becca's guy was telling the truth. Suze ran the check yesterday. Becca will be vacationing at Hyannis Port."

"You're kidding," Nell said. "Well, good. Somebody deserves a happy ending."

"Hey," Gabe said.

"Besides me," Nell said. "And you. And Suze and Riley.

"That one remains to be seen."

"You're such a cynic." Nell looked around the room again and thought, The rest of my life. "I, on the other hand, am an optimist. I've decided it's a good thing Trevor burned my china."

Gabe looked taken aback. "You have. And that would be because…"

"It was my past," Nell said. "And you have to let go of your past to make a future. Same way with your car. Trevor did you a favor by destroying it, it was a bad memory. Now you can forget it and go on."

"I liked that car," Gabe said, sounding a lot more exasperated than the situation deserved.

"I liked my china, too," Nell said, equally exasperated since once again he wasn't getting the point. "But it's good that it's gone." She frowned at Gabe. "You have to stop mourning that car."

"I'm over the car," he said, "but I just dropped seven grand on a wedding present you don't want. You have to keep me in the loop on this stuff."

"Wedding present?" Nell said, and Gabe sighed and pointed to a large cardboard box next to his desk.

"UPS just delivered it. Welcome to the past."

She sat on the floor and opened it to see a lot of bubble-wrapped china, and when she unwrapped the first piece, it was her Secrets sugar bowl. "You bought it back," she said and her breath went. "You bought my china back."

He sat on the edge of the desk beside her. "So the past is okay?"

She ran her fingers over the flat side of the bowl, over the two houses sitting close together, looking down over the hill at the river running blue and free. "This isn't the past," she said, knowing that every time she looked at it, she'd remember Gabe had rescued it for her, had been there when she'd needed him. "This is you." She looked at the houses again, balancing each other at the top of the hill, the smoke streaming from their chimneys side by side toward the sky. "This is us."

"Good," Gabe said. "Because I don't think the guy is going to take it back." His voice was light, but when she looked up at him, his eyes were dark and sure.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you, too," he said. "Let's make it legal."