Unlucky in Law (36 page)

30

Thursday 10/2

S
TEFAN COULDN
'
T BELIEVE, COULD NOT BELIEVE, THAT HE HAD
agreed to return to the cemetery, but here he was, going, dressing in one of the suits he had worn daily to court, which seemed appropriate, given the occasion.

At the door, he said good-bye to Erin, but she wouldn't let him go right away. She took him by the shoulder, forcing him to admire the ring on her finger, the chip of a diamond, really, no more than another promise, but one that he would keep.

The weekend after they let him out of jail, on a windy Saturday, he had invited her to a picnic at Carmel River beach. They walked down toward the ocean and found a place on the sandy slope where they could watch the clouds fly over the water. They talked for hours. He apologized. He begged her to forgive him; then, when the sun had gone down, and Erin was shivering, he had bent down on one knee and proposed. She cried, and then she took the ring. “I'll be able to get a bigger one eventually,” he had told her. But she swore she loved it, and she loved him. He didn't deserve her, he knew that.

“One more kiss,” Erin said, holding onto him. “I never knew one heart could hold so much happiness,” she whispered in his ear.

What luck! He drove back to El Cementerio Encinal, music up loud, this time in blazing sunlight, same scrungy Honda Civic, but without a broken taillight, and nothing in the back seat to make a bored beat cop say what the hell.

When Alex had called to ask him to come, Stefan spent most of the conversation thinking about how guilty Gabe must feel, and how mad he was at his brother, and how sorry he was about the whole damn mess. If it wasn't for Gabe's consult with that lawyer, Christina might not be dead.

But Alex had told him Gabe wasn't responsible. “Christina and Alan Turk were infected by the same sickness. They placed an inflated importance on anachronisms, nobility, royalty, divine destiny. Alan killed to claim his personal piece of royal history, and Christina died because she wanted to claim hers. You know what's sad? The newspapers won't let this story drop. She got the fame she craved so much, but she had to die to get it.”

Today, taking in the salty wind, Stefan would say hello to a brother he had never known and good-bye to a sister and a father he had never known. Erin accused him of being too sentimental lately, but in jail he had squeezed back so many feelings, he now welcomed tears when they came. Singing to himself, feeling alive, smelling the sea air and loving the warm sun on his left arm, he turned into the narrow gate of the cemetery, open this time, and went straight for the Russian headstones.

Alex Zhukovsky and Gabe had already arrived. They stood talking quietly beside a small, fresh mound of earth below the double cross with its slanty wooden stake planted awkwardly below. Stefan parked behind another car, trying to get off the pavement a little in case someone wanted to get by him, but unwilling to intrude too much on those unfortunate dead with positions too near the edge.

“Hey, Stefan,” Gabe said. “Meet your big brother, Alex.”

Alex held out a hand. “Hey, Stefan,” he also said, smiling, getting the accent wrong on Stef's name, saying it like a foreigner.

Stefan took his hand, thinking about how Alex had looked in court, so hunted, and how today, he looked relaxed, maybe even a little happy. “I brought bouquets,” Stefan said, showing them. “Erin made them.”

His brothers nodded. Even though Alex was shorter, older, with much less hair than Gabe, the two men looked remarkably similar.

Stefan looked down at their father's grave, the full force of their history bearing down on him. He and Erin had been reading about the last tsar. “We'll never know, will we?”

“Oh, come on,” Gabe said. “We know. Where'd the egg come from, and the stories? Not from some flunky baker or page. Let's stake our claim. Say it out loud just this once. Our father was tsarevitch Alexis Nicholaevich Romanov, who lived a quiet life in a small place, right here in Monterey.”

“But say it only today,” Alex said. “Like I told that crazy Russian who kidnapped and almost murdered me, this is a final burial. We don't want to be haunted by this part of our past any longer. We don't need crazies coming after us. We don't want anyone messing with our father's remains or our bones for that matter, not if it means death threats and assholes who want to kill us coming around.”

“We abdicate,” Gabe said, and Stefan, smiling, nodded.

“I don't know if Gabe has told you yet,” Alex said, taking one of Erin's bouquets and laying it on the fresh dirt mound. “We sold the Fabergé egg to the Russian who bought the Forbes collection, and along with the settlement we've agreed on, we'll be splitting the proceeds three ways.” He stood close to Gabe, and as he spoke, put an arm around him in a careless way, as if he knew him, as if they had grown up together. Gabe, prickly old Gabe, grinned. “Did Gabe tell you he quit his job?”

“You did?” Stefan asked.

Gabe nodded.

“What'll you do? Travel?” Buy a castle and play lord of the manor? Stefan thought, but didn't say.

But this brother he thought he knew inside out had some surprises in him still. “He's been working with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for a long time,” Alex said. “He quit to work there full-time.”

“One thing I'm good at,” Gabe said. “Squeezing money out of people. I don't want any more kids to die and never live to see a day like today.” He picked up a rock and threw it toward a tree. “And I'll have more for you rich boys on that topic later, when our ship comes in.”

“Gabe, wow. Count me in.” Stef forgave him everything in that instant, every bad thing he ever did. So what if Mom liked him best? Maybe he deserved it.

“Papa would be so proud,” Alex said.

“I sometimes think I remember. His mustache tickled,” Stefan said, rubbing a finger along the letters on his father's headstone.

“I remember his growl,” Gabe said.

“I'm sure he was happy to have two more sons,” Alex said, “but Christina exerted such influence over everyone, including Papa. She never listened to anyone except him, and he listened to her, and was her hero.” He sighed. “I regret you'll never know them, and maybe come to forgive them both.”

“What was Christina—our sister—like?” Stefan asked.

And Alex, unleashed, filled them with stories about their childhood, stories that showed a younger brother's admiration for his smart, dreamy older sister. “She loved the story of the snow maiden. I often think it was because she felt an affinity for this character who went all the way, in spite of the danger she certainly saw coming, who wore that mark of being special, and who died because she couldn't settle down and accept a smaller, happy life.”

They threw dirt on their father's final resting place. They had cremated the last bones, and burned the DNA results. Only ashes lay in the grave now.

Christina's grave was next to her father's and mother's. Stefan left her a bundle of bright fall leaves and flowers. Gabe contributed irises. Alex put down one yellow rose.

“Our big sister.” Gabe ran the sounds around in his mouth. “Well, she would appreciate a good toast. I know she could throw a glass.” He reached behind himself, bent, and brought out a bottle of vodka and three small glasses. “To our Christina,” he said, “almost tsar of all the Russias.”

“Za nashu sestru,”
said Alex, raising his glass. “To you.”

31

Friday 10/3

P
AUL ASKED
N
INA TO GO DANCING.
T
HERE WEREN
'
T TOO MANY
places to dance, but he found one in a hotel with a band and a wooden dance floor. He wanted her to come, so she did.

The dancing, mindless, absorbing, physical, was about as perfect as it could be. Sweat flew off his forehead, and she stomped until her knees hurt and her clothes stuck to her body. The music carried them along, and the evening, had it been a first date, would have been perfect.

Except it was a last date.

Exhausted, ready for a little champagne and bruschetta, they collapsed at a table beside the action. Paul toasted her: “An amazing, courageous, crazy, sexy, cool woman. A winner.”

And she toasted him as her love.

The waiter poured them second glasses, but Nina was thirsty, and drank ice water from a cold, slick glass instead.

Paul downed his champagne, head tipped back, hair too long, neck of the thousand kisses exposed. He was watching the dance floor, flashing lights flicking color on the writhing bodies, and Nina could see how responsive he was to the movement, to the raw physical power out there.

“Paul, we need to talk.”

“Damn. And things were going so well,” he said with a smile.

She took the ring off and put it gently in his hand, where it lay looking sad, unwanted.

“So, this is the answer I waited for so long to hear,” he said slowly. “Mama always said you should be careful what you wish for.” He turned the ring over a few times. “You heard about Susan, didn't you?”

“I don't want to talk about her.”

“I should have said something at the time, but you were involved in that trial.”

“Please, let's not get distracted.”

“That's what she was, a distraction.” He took her hand. “If anything, she put my head back on straight, made me understand that I'd do anything to have things right with you, Nina.”

She couldn't resist engaging. “And anything includes sleeping around?”

“It wasn't like that at all.”

“I didn't want to get into this with you, Paul. She is not the problem. We are the problem.”

“I thought you were a big girl. I thought you would understand. You hurt me, Nina.”

“I know. I should never have accepted your ring and then strung you along like that. I'm sorry.”

“Well, I'm sorrier.” He drank some water. “I want to ask why, then.”

She didn't want to get into explanations. They were always self-serving, and they never explained, but she wasn't ready to go the next step, either. She needed time to stop shaking, and get her heart beating right. “This case . . .”

Plainly, he expected something different, because he interrupted impatiently, “Talk about a distraction.”

“See, I don't see my work that way. It doesn't interfere with living. It doesn't fit in between other things. It is my life.”

He took a breath as if to steady himself, and asked, “Okay, what about the case?”

“It was all about a woman who found her way. Christina finally found her place—it was crazy, maybe, but she felt right. She felt useful.”

“Okay, so this is relevant how?”

He was trying to stifle his impatience, but she heard it in the brusqueness of his words. It firmed her resolve. She was doing the right thing.

“When you offered me that fantastic ring,” she said, “I wanted it so much, I took it. But I shouldn't have. These past few weeks, I've admired it so many times. It's so balanced and graceful. I wish I could live up to it. But I'm not balanced. I'm driven and obsessed and sometimes I sleep better alone. I have a place where I belong already, and it isn't as your wife.” She didn't want to watch him take it all in, so she watched the people on the dance floor dip and spin. “I hate this. I'm not graceful, either.”

He broke off a piece of bruschetta and ate it. “I really hoped the ring would clinch it. I thought we needed the ring, both of us. It was a mistake. Another one among several I've made with you, lately.”

She didn't want to ask but she wanted to know for sure. “You slept with her, didn't you?”

He nodded.

Nina tried to speak again quickly, to keep up the pace, but she felt a rock lodged in her throat. She worked to clear it, but nothing came out. Garth Brooks was singing about being sad and in pain, but how he still would have done the dance no matter what.

“Nina, I'm a proud man.”

She couldn't trust her voice yet, so she nodded.

“On the whole, I like myself. You love me, but sometimes you don't like me. I get no respect, and honey, I deserve it. Remember how, when you met Collier, you married him a minute later?”

Her “yes” came out like a croak.

“Well, I was there before him and I was there after him, but I never managed to swoop down and fly away with you like he did. I guess I figured out what was really going on with us when you wouldn't answer a really simple question a few weeks ago. But you've danced with me, yeah, and you're a really fine dancer.” He took her hand. “You are graceful.”

“I am?”

“Even in those impractical shoes you wear. Nina, I love you.”

“Oh, Paul,” she said, her heart breaking with such force, she hardly thought she could live through the violence. “We're saying good-bye. I can't. This is too hard.”

“Let me help you then, just this once.” He grinned at her, same old Paul, full of tease, hazel eyes twinkling, same as always. “It's over, honey,” he said. He put the ring up so that they could both watch its million colored lights radiate. Then he popped it into his pocket and kissed her hand. “But don't believe that bullshit they feed you about men and women never being friends. I'll always be yours. I'll always adore you.”

She stood. He stood, too. She prepared herself for a run to the car, where she could be noisy in peace, but he took her hand, squeezed it, and led her back to the dance floor.

“One last time,” he whispered.

The band eased into a slow tune. He pressed himself tightly against her, closing his eyes. Swaying slowly, they relaxed into each other, into the painful, familiar-feeling rhythm, his hip slides, her hip slides, their hips slide together.

Finally, he let go. He walked her to her car. “More stars up in Tahoe than in Monterey,” he said, looking into the murky black sky. “You can see the Milky Way up there. I know you miss that.”

“Good-bye,” she said.

“See you.” He smiled and disappeared into the darkness.

Bob had them packed within two hours the next morning.

“Hitchcock misses Tahoe,” he said. “I talked to Uncle Matt this morning and he says our house is in good shape. Snow's coming soon. Hitchcock has to prepare, get that thick coat growing.”

“I need a thick coat, too, come to think of it,” Nina said. The thick skin she also needed wouldn't come along for a while.

She had turned down Bear's offer. With Alan gone, they would have to find a new partner, but there were a million fine lawyers. They could find a replacement. Mostly, she would miss Klaus's retirement party, but the old man seemed to understand when she called him. “Were you really thinking of shooting yourself?” she had asked him.

“I wouldn't have done it,” Klaus had said. “My wife would not have approved. Miss Reilly . . .”

“Yes?”

“Good work.”

“You, too, Klaus.”

Bob was smiling happily. “Plenty of snowboarding this winter, according to the almanac. Troy and Brianna are both really good. Plus, Aunt Andrea makes the best turkey. Plus, we'll get to hang with baby June. You know she's already smiling?”

He packed boxes while she paced, and when she got too overwrought, he said, “Hey, Mom, follow me.”

Stupid, bulging with silent tears, she followed him out to the carport and the artificial turf they had never replaced. She looked around. “Why are we here?”

He pointed up to the rafters above the car. “See that?”

She looked and saw her old surfboard, a long one, bought based on her weight and height, one she had used as a teenager and left with Aunt Helen more than a decade ago.

“Well, September's the warmest month for the water. The waves are good today. Just look out for sharks.”

She put on her old wet suit, too tight, dusted spiderwebs off the surfboard, and stuck it into the back of the Bronco.

“Are you sure you don't need the car so you can pack it?” she asked Bob, worried.

Her son stood on the rickety porch, face beaming bright as the late September sunshine. “I'll stack the boxes out front.”

She drove down the hill to Lover's Point.

The wave rose behind her, a silk sheet, rippling and folding, the blue and gold of a Fabergé egg, collecting the sunset colors. With a sudden heave, it gathered in strength.

This would be the one, Nina decided, admiring its perfect lift, and the hint of a perfect curve to come.

She paddled toward shore, mindless, pushing against the pulling tide, waiting for the right moment, before the wave broke, when it arched in fierce momentum, before it began its wild roll toward shore and its own destruction.

She paddled, breathing, waiting to get caught up by its massive, invisible power. It swelled behind her, a low hump, rising to a hill, surging into a mountain of water. She let go of her hold, and she took it on, standing up on her board to ride all the way in. The shore rushed at her, hard golden sand, soft foam, and churning sea water, and she fell back into the cold world.