Deeper Than Red (Red Returning Trilogy) (38 page)

She longed to hold her husband and whisper her adoration.
But look at his face. He knows.

Now seated, her hands poised over the keys, she drew a full breath and braced for the purging to come. It was a strenuous piece whose opening was indeed grand, a powerful march. Soon, there was nothing but Liesl and the music. She was enveloped by it, swept into its pounding stride, her fingers striking like steel, as if she had to keep pace or she wouldn’t survive.

Then the march stopped. Her fingers relaxed, and the music turned lyrical. Now she could dance over the keyboard. She was free.

It was early afternoon in Anhinga Bay when Spencer Fremont drove Mona Greyson home from the hospital. Her daughter, Tally, sat in the back seat of the car, quiet and oddly content, it seemed. As soon as they turned in at the old Victorian home, Mona asked him to stop. She stared at the “For Sale by Owner” realty sign freshly inserted into the sandy soil.

Mona twisted in her seat to face Tally. “Already?”

“We agreed, Mom.”

“But so soon?”

“We can’t stay here any longer. Even your doctors said so. And Mr. Fremont knows it, too.”

Mona looked at Spencer. “I’m hoping you’ll seriously consider our offer to move with us. Tally’s never had anyone like a grandfather around.” She looked squarely into his kind face. “And she’s right. You’re part of us now. We sort of belong together … in some way.”

He turned in his seat. “Certainly I’ll come for good, long visits. But for now, I believe I’m where God intends for me to serve him best … for reasons that must be obvious to you by now.”

Tally persevered. “I understand, but when you do come, you’re going to love the Georgia mountains,” Tally said, her tone buoyant, “especially the valley where we live. I’ll take you in the four-wheeler right up to the top where you can see Tallulah Falls and the gorge, and then—”

“Tally,” her mother interrupted, “slow down, girl. You’re almost out of breath.”

Spencer watched Tally in the rearview mirror, her face alight as he’d never seen it before.

“I know, Mom. But we’re going home.”

Sweeping toward the conclusion of the
Grand Sonata
, Liesl felt the thrumming of her heart in beat with the music. She was one with the elation Tchaikovsky must have intended for the players of his artistry. The elixir of relief streamed warm and sweet all the way to every finger, until she lifted them all from the keys, and rose from the piano.

The audience leapt to their feet with an uproar of praise. But Liesl looked only at Cade, with clear confirmation. The demons were gone.

The finale of the program had been saved for Max and the full orchestra in another Tchaikovsky piece, the formidable
Violin Concerto in D Major.
Liesl passed him as he came forward, and he smiled, but absently. He was hurting worse than she’d realized.

The virtuoso violinist, to the untrained ear, played brilliantly throughout the long piece. But to Liesl, Max Morozov had not inhabited his music that night. He simply wasn’t there.

And then it happened.

At the end of the concerto, Max bowed low before his audience’s applause, but his mind was in torment. All these people had come to share his grief and he’d hidden it from them. He couldn’t let them leave yet.

How could he have known early this morning what he was about to do now … and why? What had prompted him then, even before the first shot rang out in the woods by the lake? He’d asked a sound technician to secretly wire a certain spot should the moment arise. And now it had.

In the midst of the applause that showed no sign of slowing, he looked once at Liesl, then gave a prearranged signal to the conductor. To everyone else’s surprise, including Liesl’s and the orchestra’s, he hurried down the stage steps, turned to the empty grandstand behind, and began his climb. The audience abruptly ceased its applause and watched in obvious bewilderment as Max reached a point near the top.

Now, he approached the speaker’s platform high above the crowd and turned into it, tracing Hitler’s footsteps, one at a time, all the way to the place of hate.

As he raised his violin and began John Williams’s haunting theme to
Schindler’s List
, he heard some in the crowd nearest him gasp, surely at the images of the Holocaust that the music summoned. As the wrenching solo soared high over the field, many in the audience wept openly. But at the end of the piece, he transitioned seamlessly into something that caused others to clasp their hands in prayer. It was the powerful
Via Dolorosa.
Now, the bow struck feverishly against the instrument, sounding every step of Christ’s march to the hill outside Jerusalem.

He played on as if the survival of every person there depended on the hope now lifting from the music. In his hands, the violin wailed and mourned. And then it forgave.

E
xodus II
left Charleston Harbor early that morning with a payload of customers angling for yellowfin tuna, dolphin, and whatever else might take their bait. The seas drifted lazily and the offshore run went smoothly.

Ian and Henry had added the latest fish-finder to the boat, and so far, it had paid off. Word had spread about the old sea captains’ knack for hauling in impressive catches, and business was brisk. They’d even hired on a new man to ease the workload.

With three crew and four customers on board, the boat plied its way toward the offshore harvest until Henry finally slowed the engines and showed Ian the sonar signature of a school that looked promising. It wasn’t one of their usual honey holes, but the computer images from below were too good to pass up.

All four customers dropped their lines near the stern and waited. It wasn’t long before the first tuna bit, then another. Soon, though, an ominous shadow appeared off the bow. Ian spotted it first and called to Henry, who was still at the helm.

“We’ve got us a tiger shark out here. Better move on.”

At the other end of the boat, though, the fishermen were still pulling in their catch and didn’t want to go anywhere.

“That shark will chase the other fish away,” Ian told them. “And besides, you don’t want something like that in the water when you’re leaning toward it trying to gaff your catch. You could lose an arm that way.”

“Hey, I’ve never seen a shark in the wild before,” one customer said, putting down his rod and heading straight for the bow. Another customer followed him. They were giddy as kids when they first spotted the dorsal fin about twenty feet off the starboard side.

“We’re just going to leave that thing right there and find us another spot,” Ian informed them. “So come on and—”

A gun blast sounded above them, the magnum round finding its mark on the shark’s head. One of the customers at the bow screamed and the other dropped flat on the deck with his hands over his head.

Ian spun toward the bridge and saw his new crewman standing on top aiming for another shot. “Evgeny! Stop!”

Looking down at the terrified fishermen, Evgeny Kozlov apparently didn’t understand their alarm.

“Come down here, son,” Ian ordered, but gently. He still wasn’t comfortable with the new hire.

Ian helped the customer who was lying frozen to the deck back to his feet and tried to calm the others as Henry cranked the engines and eased from the spot. Leaving them all with something to eat and drink, Ian guided Evgeny to the cabin for a little chat.

“I’m not sure how you do it in Russia,” Ian began, “but we use hooks. We don’t blow holes in fish, even a mean one, unless it’s attached to your leg.” He shook his head slightly. “Now I know you’ve been used to a different sort of lifestyle, and that a gun has solved lots of problems for you in the past.” Ian noticed the corners of the man’s mouth begin to twitch. “But I sure do hope that’s all over now. Liesl and Ava seem to think so.” He looked his new crewman straight in the eye. “What do
you
think?”

Evgeny smiled. “Can I borrow a hook?”

That same morning, Liesl and Cade took their coffee to the porch rockers overlooking Tidewater Lane. The air was laced with cool vapors off the harbor and the leaves fluttered in shades of autumn.

“Was that Max on the phone earlier?” Cade asked.

“Yes. He wanted us to know he’s decided to pay a visit to Berlin.”

“You mean to a certain photographer?”

Liesl nodded. “Erica invited him to come to a gallery opening for her work. And get this, most of the photographs are night shots from the Nuremberg concert.”

Cade was surprised. “I thought she’d left town that afternoon.”

“It seems she did a U-turn at the airport and came back. I think Max is anxious to see her, even though they’ve got a lot of reckoning to do with each other.”

A brilliant gold leaf spun loose from one of the maples and blew onto the porch near Liesl. She picked it up and twirled it between her fingers. “Look at the light in this leaf. It flames brightest just before it falls away and dies. Too bad it couldn’t find that light earlier and enjoy it longer, before it was time to go.”

Cade pulled his wife’s hand to his chest and held it close. “Is this the kind of hormone-induced introspection I can expect for the next seven months?”

“I’m sure of it.” She smiled and patted her abdomen.

After Cade left for work, Liesl strolled into the garden and stopped in front of the playhouse. She could see them all there again, the day they celebrated the last nail driven into the little structure. Her mom and grandmother, her dad, and the little girl he’d called Punkin. She was someone different then, before the clawing things reached for her. Before all the dappled years of wandering in and out of the light, not knowing the difference.

She ran a hand back over her abdomen and the promise of new life inside it. Liesl would teach her child the difference between dark and light. She would do it long before the autumn.

“The pop-pop-pop of surprise resolutions at the end makes a fine coda.”

—P
UBLISHERS
W
EEKLY

“Political intrigue, suspense, and just enough romance to keep readers guessing and interested. Well-defined secondary characters add that extra zing to the plot.”