Reilly 04 - Breach of Promise (52 page)

Watching Nina get away, Genevieve cried out with frustration.

Amazingly, the key remained in the ignition of Matt’s boat. Fighting lances of pain in her arm, Nina turned the key and took hold of the wheel.

Nothing happened. The
Andreadore
had died without even offering up its usual nose-thumbing, the smell in the air of gasoline. Matt’s boat began to drift east, following the route of the kayak, going out to the big lake beyond.

But maybe it was okay, Nina thought. Maybe Genevieve would forget about hurting any of them, dock on land near Vikingsholm, and climb to the highway. Maybe she had a car stashed up there. She could be in L.A. by evening, gone from their lives forever, buried in its anonymous millions.

But even while she told herself this story with a happy ending, Nina didn’t believe it. Genevieve had come too far. She had listened in on the jury. She had already killed. Now she would collect her pay.

The same thought must have occurred to Genevieve because she turned the boat back toward the island.

Paul saw Nina reach the boat and heard voices, but he had no further attention to spare on Nina’s troubles. The cove was tiny, but once he reached the deeper waters beyond where he had seen Winston, he had to concentrate on locating the head that had resurfaced once already. Stroke, stroke, steady.

Out of breath, and so cold he had to remove himself mentally from his body to go on, he finally reached him.

Grabbing first by the hair, then by the shirt Winston still wore, Paul began to tow the other man. “Winston,” he said, gasping for air. “Can you help me at all?”

A gurgle, then a strangled voice. “My hands are literally tied, man!”

Genevieve had removed the ropes around Winston’s ankles but she had left the ropes Paul had tied around his wrists. Paul tried but could not remove them. He had done a very good job tying them. “I’m just going to have to drag you in,” he said.

“Get these ropes off!” Winston pleaded, frenzied. “I’m drowning! Get them off!”

“Hang on,” Paul said. He had no energy left, not enough to argue, and certainly not enough to lug a football player across this melted continent to safety. He began to kick his feet, trying to paddle with one arm.

“You’re going to kill me!” Winston sputtered, as his head dipped into the churning lake.

They had gone no more than fifty feet before Paul heard it: the motorboat returning.

Well, dark or not, Genevieve could see them easily. The moon had risen, and above the silvery water and raindrops he imagined his head as the light side of the moon, to Winston’s dark.

“We’re going down,” he said, “out of sight.”

Winston struggled violently until he was out of Paul’s grasp. Held aloft by sheer will, unable even to paddle, he faced the boat that was coming at them. “Augh! Augh! Genevieve stop!” he shouted. “No!”

Rushing at them like a locomotive, big as an ocean liner, the immensity of death obliterated their small horizon.

Nina watched in horror as Genevieve plowed straight into Paul and Winston. So immersed in emotion she felt she, too, had been hit by Genevieve’s boat, she twisted the starter on Matt’s boat like a crazy person who had only one obsessive task to attempt and never complete. After inspecting the water for the reemergence of Paul and Winston, Genevieve brought the boat around swiftly and started back for Nina. She planned to crash her speedboat into the
Andreadore.

“Start, damn you!” Nina jammed the key into the ignition once again and twisted, but the boat did not start.

What had Matt said on their last trip out, while she squawked and complained and swore she would never get it? The boat will start. What starts the boat is not technique, it is confidence. Here’s confidence right here, see it? The black lever to the right of the wheel. Now take that confidence and mess with it. Give it a sip of gas. Move it here . . . She moved it, swiveling the key back and forth with her other hand. Nothing. Put it here, more toward the middle of the slot. . . .

Genevieve was so close, Nina could see into her eyes. What she saw there moved through Nina’s body, making her tremble. She saw total concentration, pure violence coming at her. Why, those merciless eyes practically glittered with it. . . .

The engine caught.

Swinging the wheel wildly to the left, Nina thought she could feel Genevieve’s cold breath as she passed, missing the
Andreadore
by inches.

With a few seconds’ grace, Nina turned to look at the cove. There, on the far edge, she saw two heads popping up with a huge splash. Paul and Winston. They had somehow managed to duck under the boat. They were still alive.

Crying out in pain, she swung the boat around, pitching in the wind and tipping way to the right, so close to going over she could count the foam bubbles forming around the raindrops on the surface of the water. She would get there first. She would save them all somehow.

Behind her, Genevieve advanced.

“It’s Nina!” Paul cried out. “She’s coming this way.”

“Nina?” Winston coughed. “She’s after us, too?”

“No!” Paul said. “She’s trying to lure Genevieve away from us.” The muscles of his arms were wired so tight to keep him and Winston aloft, he thought they might snap. “Genevieve’s not taking the bait. We’re finished,” Paul said. “Jesus Christ, kick your feet, Winston. Help me!”

But Winston, who had taken in a good gallon of water during their most recent underwater struggle, was far too busy trying to expel it to answer.

“We gotta go down again!” Paul said quickly. “Ready?”

“I can’t!” Winston spat. “No!” and in his panic he managed to extricate himself from Paul long enough to sink from sight.

Down under he went.

Genevieve bore down on them.

Paul floundered around hopelessly for the other man’s shirt, found it, and aimed for shore, flapping like a fish already dying on the hook. He pushed, he shoved, he tried his best to keep Winston above water and breathing, but all his awareness was in fact acutely focused on the sound of motors getting louder and louder. . . .

The
Andreadore
passed, giving them wide berth. He saw Nina, intent at the wheel, her long hair tangled and flying out behind her, a flag of faith. But Genevieve wanted them dead. She would mow them down first, and then go after Nina. She was close, so damn close. . . .

He touched an underwater rock with his toe. Hurling Winston violently to one side, he fixed his last hope on the rock jutting around the left end of the cove. He sprinted for it and lifted the dormant, waterlogged body of Winston behind him.

Genevieve’s boat cut so close it whistled by, sloshing a great whale fluke of water to douse them. Then, robotlike, as if totally undeterred by the minor setback of failing to kill them yet again, it swung back in line to renew its inhumanly unemotional pursuit of Nina.

Genevieve knew they were safely trapped on the island. Paul watched helplessly as Nina headed for the beach by Vikingsholm. She had a hundred yard lead on Genevieve by now. She could get in close, jump out, and hide somewhere in the woods or climb the hill up to the road. She could go for help. . . .

But as he watched, the
Andreadore
pulled up short and swung around, heading back to the island.

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.

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.