Patricia Potter (32 page)

Kurt had an excellent teacher in Stefan Kranz, who was both charming and witty and yet possessed a cold, calculating intelligence. Stefan had come from a good family who only reluctantly followed Hitler, but Stefan had quickly recognized the opportunities to become powerful and rich under the regime, and he grabbed at both. He was a master at thievery, and had emerged from the war a very wealthy man, mostly from confiscation of property, both of Jews and dissidents. But he had lost his power and he wanted it back, and he saw a way of doing it through young Kurt.

He taught Kurt good manners, how to converse, how to charm, how to dress. Stefan, impressed by Kurt’s abilities and loyalty, sent the boy to the university. He guided Kurt’s academic career, telling him that if one knew how to manipulate money, one could manipulate countries. Odessa had huge financial backing, the result of stolen art and property and money; someone would be needed to guide its investments, to use its funds to buy foreign government leaders who would assist members of Odessa, and to weaken those who refused to cooperate.

When he graduated from the university with the highest of grades, Kurt was employed by the West German Finance Ministry where he rose rapidly. He made a name for himself in economics, all the while guiding enormously successful investments for Odessa. He knew many of the organization’s secrets, the location of its members. He knew how to subtly blackmail them into providing more and more funds.

At thirty-two, he was considered one of the leading lights of the West German government, an impeccable liberal, an anti-Nazi. If a rumor ever surfaced, its carrier was quickly and efficiently eliminated. Odessa had a very long and influential reach.

But through each step of his success, Kurt Weimer had never forgotten his father, had never stopped wondering exactly what had happened to him in the spring of 1942. In 1957, he finally found several pieces to the puzzle, although all files concerning his father had evidently been destroyed. By accident, he encountered a former intelligence officer who had recognized his name and told him what he knew of the landing on an island off Georgia. The mission had been aborted suddenly when the German agents, including his father, had failed to transmit the final code. Subsequent attempts to locate either of the agents failed, although there had been two articles in the paper which were noted by Nazi agents. One described the heroic shooting by a young woman of a man attempting to kidnap two children. Another was a brief account of a drowning. Both were reported because they involved deaths at the same approximate time.

Kurt had sent someone to check both articles. The story of the kidnapping included a photo of the supposed kidnapper, and Kurt recognized his father. He had been killed by a woman named Meara O’Hara, now Evans. As Stefan hated Americans who he blamed for the deaths of his wife and son, now Kurt felt the same rage toward the woman who had killed his father. He had learned charm from Stefan. Now he learned revenge.

He would take from Meara O’Hara Evans what she had taken from him: the person closest to her.

I’ve got to get my life in order.

Meara knew it had gone awry long ago, and she’d never quite managed to put it back together again.

It was her dreams, she thought. Once they were gone, she hadn’t known where to go.

She’d tried. She tried to be a good wife, a good mother. She’s even, belatedly, tried to be a journalist. But the big dreams were gone, and the ones taking their places never quite fit the big jigsaw puzzle she’d designed as a child.

You’ve been lucky, she told herself. You had Sanders for twenty years. You have Lisa.

But she was so empty, lost, alone.

So much was her fault. She’d stood at a distance for such a long time, and she had tried to protect Lisa in all the wrong ways, becoming too much of a strict disciplinarian, secretly afraid that Lisa might some day succumb as she had. Lisa reminded her so much of herself: emotional, stubborn, determined.

Meara had strengthened herself against emotion, and she tried to make Lisa the same way. While she still enjoyed the sun trailing over water or a splendid sunset or feeling Sanders’s arm around her during a walk, there was something inside that held back, which watched, afraid to participate. She couldn’t forget the one mistake, the one that ended in murder and betrayal, the one that almost caused the death or capture of her adopted family, the children she loved. How could she ever trust her judgment again?

Lisa had felt it and had turned to Sanders, and his unqualified and open devotion.

But Sanders had always understood, and that was why his loss had been so devastating. He had been a buffer, teasing her until she allowed Lisa to do whatever it was that she wanted so badly. But now the barrier had no gates, and Meara didn’t know quite how to tear it down. Or even whether she could. Her mask of confidence, of tranquility, was such a complete fraud.

Meara looked out over the ocean. Maybe it was time to leave the island behind. Forever. Return to Virginia. But what did she have there now? She had always expected eventually to live here full-time. It was why she’d had Sanders buried here. Now she wondered whether it had been wise.

Sanders had been the one to bring her here years ago, saying she had to face the island, the ghosts, that he would help her. And he had. The island had reclaimed its magic, its peace and rhythm overwhelming the bad memories.

She thought of Lisa’s words.
He got such a sad look on his face when he didn’t think you were noticing.
Was it true? Had he only pretended these years to like the island? For her sake. Or was it Lisa’s imagination? He had often seemed as pleased to come as she, saying the island was a tranquil change from his often unpleasant job. Had she really fooled herself that much? Had he thought she saw Michael Fielding here? She had, probably too often, but she had also enjoyed the time with Sanders—their long walks, the soft sunsets and even gentler sunrises, even the violent storms that lit the sky with pyrotechnics which would put the best fireworks to shame.

Meara shook her head. Jekyll held altogether too many reminders of the two men who had so influenced her life: one with such bitter results, the other with soothing ones.

She called Raggedy Andy, their dog. He’d been curled up under a table during the short argument with Lisa. Andy, Meara knew, did not like dissension and usually hid when any was in the air, a leftover, Meara often thought, from his earlier days of likely mistreatment.

Now he emerged, his tail wagging tentatively, his whiskered face poking anxiously at her leg. She leaned over and reassured him, thinking she needed it as much as he did. As if he understood, Andy pushed his body next to her leg, trying to get as close as possible. It was, she knew, his way of trying to comfort.

“It’s all right, Andy,” she said, and his tail wagged with a little more enthusiasm.

“Want to go for a walk?” she asked, wanting to make someone or something happy. Andy responded with delight.

“All right.” She would finish her article tonight and get it in the mail tomorrow afternoon after polishing it. She would send out queries to other magazines. She had done well in the past few years as a freelance writer for regional magazines and had sold several short stories to
Redbook.

And she would think seriously about selling the cottage.

She had to break the hold of the island. She was only forty-three; there was time to explore new worlds, to do more writing, perhaps even a novel.

But not, she knew, as long as she stayed here, locked to the past.

Next week, she would call a realtor. Next week, she promised herself.

Chapter Seventeen

L
ISA KNELT BY
the grave, and placed a fresh rose there.

Other flowers, laid there only last week, were now brown, their color gone, the stems brittle. The sight magnified the hollowness inside her.

She missed him. So much. He had always been there for her, even when he was out of town on assignment. He called nightly, always listening to her litany of real and supposed disasters with patience and sympathy. He was warm arms, loving smile, and comfort.

It was difficult to believe him gone now. Whenever he came into a room, he filled it with uninhibited affection. She had been his girl. She still expected him to appear any minute, his eyes crinkling with a smile as he saw her.

She’d wanted to be like him. She would go to law school in the fall, having finished college in three years by doubling up on courses. She’d wanted to join the FBI; it didn’t yet admit women, but the time was coming. He’d said it was. And she would be ready. She knew it required either a degree in accounting or law, and she’d never been good with numbers.

In the meantime, her father had urged her to consider practicing law, and she had worked with Kellen’s firm for the last several years during the summers. She’d always been in a rush for everything, like her mother, Daddy said. But she wasn’t like her mother at all. Her mother was too cautious about everything, cautious and often overly protective, always urging her to slow down, to discipline her emotions and enthusiasms. Lisa didn’t want to discipline them.

“Daddy,” she whispered.

But there was no answering voice.

She stood there for several more minutes. She felt rather than heard the man behind her. A hand rested on her shoulder, and she knew it was Kellen.

“I went by your house to ask you to dinner tonight,” he said. “Your mother said you might be here.”

Lisa merely nodded, her body tensing slightly.

“She’s hurting too, you know,” Kellen said.

“I know,” Lisa said. But we can’t seem to talk, she wanted to continue, but couldn’t. It was too private. And she didn’t understand it herself. There had always been an invisible shield between herself and her mother. Oh, her mother did all the right things, but there had never been the closeness, the spontaneous touching and hugging that her father had considered such an essential part of life.

Kellen reached down his hand to hers and pulled her up.

“Let me take you to dinner tonight.”

“It’s too soon,” she said.

“It’s been more than a month, and it’s Saturday night,” Kellen said. “I don’t think your father would have wanted you to become a hermit.”

Tears filled Lisa’s eyes again. “Oh, Kelly, I miss him so.”

“I know,” he said. No one could miss the closeness between the father and daughter. It had been one of the first things he had noticed when the Evans family started spending the summers at the house next to his, that and the startling blue of Lisa’s eyes. She’d been a charming, precocious imp who, over succeeding years, had grown even more lovely, with eyes like the midnight sky and hair the color of gold. She’d always asked the damnedest questions. And each summer she seemed to grow prettier. When she was eighteen, he’d decided that he would marry her some day.

But she was not ready for that yet, he knew, and so he’d held his words and waited until the time was right. She had grown up in the shadow of her father’s work and thought it adventurous and fascinating. She was determined to have a career of her own, unlike her mother, she said, who lived such an uneventful life. She, Lisa, was going to do more with her life.

So he merely teased and lightly courted her, listening to her innermost thoughts and dreams. They both dated others, but often depended on each other for escort to island oyster roasts and other events. He’d kept his kisses light, except for one evening when a kiss had gotten away from him, deepened far more than he’d ever intended, and she had responded with far more fervor than he’d expected. He’d been careful since then, taking everything a step at a time. He cared about her too much to risk forcing her into a marriage she didn’t yet want. The exercise in self-restraint, however, was often torture, a test of willpower that was straining against the limits he had set.

Time. Time was all he needed. As an attorney with offices in Brunswick, his practice was varied and interesting, and he was convinced that he could eventually dissuade her from her current goal of law enforcement and into the firm if he didn’t rush or push. She had worked for him as a receptionist/secretary for the past summer and was remarkably quick and able.

His hand tightened on her shoulder, and she leaned back against him.

“Go to dinner with me,” he repeated.

Lisa relaxed, feeling at home there. In some ways, he was like her father, uncomplicated and warmhearted and dependable. And so nice. As long as she could remember, he had always been there for her. She had told him her dreams, her hopes. He was, and always had been, her very best friend.

“All right,” she said.

“The Cloister?”

Lisa didn’t care. She only knew she needed to get away from the house for a while. She nodded.

“I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“Okay.”

“May I have a smile? Even a small frog one,” he said, referring to an old joke of theirs. Soon after Lisa’s family started coming here for the summer, she had been furious at her mother at not being allowed to spend the night at a home of a family Meara didn’t know. Lisa had angrily run from the house, straight into Kelly, who was then eighteen.