Fortunate Harbor (17 page)

“I told you, she’s shrewd. We were friends, not business partners. What’s the harm in going for a sail? It won’t be our first time on a yacht together. You used to love sailing with me.”

She felt trapped. She couldn’t insist that CJ refuse the invitation. And she couldn’t refuse herself, not and live to tell Gladys what she’d done. Besides—and she hated to admit this, even to herself—a beautiful evening on the gulf in Henrietta’s yacht was exactly the thing to ease the funk she’d fallen into since Sylvia moved in with Marsh. Even if CJ was part of the package.

“This is probably more strategizing than we indulged in when we were husband and wife.” Tracy glanced at her watch and realized that CJ had given it to her. The Rolex and the Cartier collection had gone with everything else, but this one, a quirky, clunky silver and lime-green enamel combination from some designer whose name she couldn’t remember, had been far cheaper and hadn’t interested the Feds, so she’d gotten to keep it. She had considered pawning it, but even poor folks had to know what time it was.

“I picked that out,” CJ said, looking down at her wrist. “At some little boutique jewelry store when I was traveling. Boston, I think. Newbury Street. It reminded me of you.”

She steeled herself against sentiment. “Okay, you’ve explained why you’re here at my house. Why are you here
now?
No cocktail parties? No intimate little dinner with Maribel?”

“I tried to call earlier and see if
you
wanted to have dinner with me.”

“I’ve been at work. Your good friend Nanette is some taskmaster.”

“I know. I drove by the center and saw your car.”

“The man always finds out whatever he needs to know.”

“And I figured you were working, and you would end up too tired to go out afterward, even if you agreed.”

“Which I would not have.”

“So I brought dinner to you.”

For a moment Tracy didn’t know what to say. This was unexpected and, despite every instinct telling her to run the other way, welcome. “Here?”

She could tell he heard the interest, the hope. CJ smiled. “The way to a woman’s heart—”

“Do not say it.”

“Do you know about the new Italian place down by the pier? Something or other ‘Tuscan.’ Edward told me about it, and they pack up meals to go. Do you still like lobster ravioli?”

Her mouth began to water. “You found lobster ravioli?”

“I had to beg. I told them it was for a woman who needed it badly. And I got the most incredible antipasto salad you will ever lay eyes on. And tiramisu.”

She started to say no. He so clearly expected her to say yes, and giving CJ anything he was angling for was dangerous. Then she saw two things in his eyes she had never seen before. Hunger, and loneliness. She wasn’t sure which one stopped her.

“Did you dream about a meal like that in Victorville?” she asked at last.

“You don’t want to know all the things I dreamed about. When I could sleep. The noise at night is part of the punishment.”

“I really thought you’d go to some Club Fed, not a medium-security facility. You had so many friends in high places.”

“It’s funny how few remained.”

“Apparently Edward Statler did.”

“Edward has a deep appreciation for everything I’ve learned through the years. I’m really quite useful to know.”

She wondered if CJ was going to be useful for her, or if there was more to this than she’d figured out.

“I’d like to take a shower and change,” she warned.

“I could wash your back.”

“You could hop in that fancy little Aston Martin and eat your lobster ravioli at Statler’s house, too.”

He held up his hands. “Ground rules clear. I’ll warm up everything while you shower. And I’ll pour the wine.”

She still had the bottle Marsh had brought the night their relationship had taken its first nosedive. “I have a good Zinfandel,” she said.

“I bought wine when I bought our dinner. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

“Except you.”

“I’ll behave. Although did you know that statistics show many divorced couples still have sex after the decree?”

She thought of Marsh and Sylvia, and her spirits took a nosedive, too. “How about you? Did you indulge with my predecessors after the prenups were satisfied?”

“You know about the praying mantis and her mating habits, don’t you?”

“You thought one of them might bite off your head in the act?”

“It occurred to me.”

“I’ll remember that image. You remember it, too.”

They walked back toward her house. “How do you like living in Florida?” he asked as he opened the door and she preceded him inside.

“Surely you can see the draw. Sun, sand, surf.”

“I could see Palm Beach, Miami, even Fort Lauderdale.”

“You’re the one who bought this property and planned to make millions off it.”

“But I never planned to live here.”

She thought about that as she showered, and slipped on shorts and a comfortable T-shirt, purposely choosing clothing that was not the least bit provocative.

She went into the kitchen and revived the conversation as if there had been no break. “So where do you plan to live?”

“I guess that depends on the federal government.”

“What are the chances you’ll go back to prison?”

“My attorneys are hoping not good.”

“And you?”

“There are some determined people on the other side. And because all my financial dealings collapsed when they sent me away, there are now a lot more people determined to get me. If I were a praying man, most of the time I’d be down on my knees.”

“My mother thought prison was too good for you.”

“If everything the prosecutors claimed was true, she would have been right.”

For the first time Tracy really wondered about CJ’s guilt. Sure, at the very beginning, she’d denied any possibility he could have done the things the prosecutors claimed. But that notion had passed in a blink.

Now, she wondered if she really had jumped to conclusions. She had been so furious at the destruction of their life together and the looming uncertainty of her future that perhaps she, like her parents and others, had believed the worst as a small measure of retaliation. They couldn’t do anything about CJ’s fate or their own, but they could blame him for both. By doing so, they had absolved themselves of responsibility for their reduced circumstances.

“Can you honestly say you’re not guilty?” she asked.

CJ looked up from a platter where he was mounding marinated mushrooms. “Of course not.”

“Then you
are
guilty?”

“I can say I made mistakes. And I didn’t strictly abide by the law on every single thing I did. But I didn’t do anything other businessmen, developers, financiers, weren’t and aren’t doing. I used money to make money, and I took chances. I cultivated a few friendships I shouldn’t have, because I thought, in the long run, dealing with a few shady people to make money for a lot of good people was an okay price to pay.”

He was talking in generalities, but the complexity of CJ’s case had always made her dizzy. She was just as glad he wasn’t giving examples.

“Where did it all go wrong?”

“I got greedy. I started to think I couldn’t make a mistake. I stopped looking over my shoulder.”

“To see if anybody was after you?”

He grinned. “No, to see where I’d come from so I could remember I didn’t need to leave it so far behind.”

She liked the image.

He placed slices of Italian cold cuts and cheese around the mushrooms, added artichoke hearts and a variety of olives. Finally he held up the plate.

“How’d I do?”

“I think it looks fabulous. Shall I pour the wine?”

“It’s breathing on the counter.”

“It’s warm outside, but we can sit on what passes for my patio, if you’ll give me a minute to put a cloth on the table.”

“Then I’ll pour the wine while you do.”

She pulled a cloth from her linen closet and wet a sponge to
clean off the old metal table that had come with the house. When she finished, she went back in to tell him everything was set.

He held up the platter. “I’ll take this out if you’ll get the rest.”

She took her time, putting the wine on a tray with napkins, plates and silverware. When she joined him, she noted he’d lit the citronella candles to ward off mosquitoes. The table was covered by more than a cloth. He’d added sheets of paper with drawings.

“I wanted you to see what I’ve been up to,” he told her. “Come sit beside me.”

She couldn’t very well refuse. CJ claimed he was doing this for her, and even if she wasn’t convinced, there was always the chance he really was.

“Okay, this is a rough sketch of the property.” He opened up a sheet almost as large as the table, moving the antipasto to a vacant chair to make more room. “Here’s your house, here’s your neighbor, the one across the street….”

“Got it.” She pointed to a circle between Alice and Janya’s cottages. “And what’s that?”

“That’s where you could put one of the three environmentally friendly houses I’ve roughed out designs for.”

“Environmentally friendly?”

“I’ve run these by Edward, and he’s had his own attorney look over the easement. There’s nothing here that would conflict. There were cottages on these sites originally, and the easement requires you to build where they were, but you’re allowed to extend the footprint by about a third, since they were so small. It also requires you to consider your surroundings, use environmentally friendly materials, etc. But really, the easement’s surprisingly liberal. If I’d been on the other side, I wouldn’t have been so lax. I’m not sure that whoever drew it up was much of a businessman.”

Marsh had designed and written up the easement, and he was a crackerjack lawyer. Though known for his fierce desire to eliminate every golf course and housing development in the state, he’d still allowed Tracy these perks. Now she recognized his generosity for what it was. Marsh had been concerned for her future. And he had been kinder than he’d probably wanted to be, most likely kinder than his job required.

For a moment she didn’t know what to say.

She made herself speak. “Well, that’s a great idea, but where’s the money coming from? We’re deep in a recession. When I agreed to the easement, I gained just enough to stay solvent. I didn’t gain enough to build so much as a doghouse.”

“Interest rates are at an all-time low. The land’s your collateral. You’ll get a loan for at least one house. Build it, sell it, and build another.”

“Who’s buying now? Especially out here, surrounded by funky old beach cottages?”

“You probably need to do some renovations first. That’s the best way to start.” He pulled out a stack of papers stapled together and set them on top of the first. “I’ve sketched out plans to improve all the existing houses and bring them more into line with the new ones.”

She leafed through. Lanais, extra bedrooms, carports. A second story on the back of Wanda’s, a whole new wing on Janya’s. And hers? A master bedroom and bath with a lanai opening off it, as well as an expanded living area. She almost drooled.

Finally she turned the pages upside down, so she didn’t have to see them anymore. “I can’t afford this, and I doubt my renters could afford to live in them if I did all that.”

“There are other renters. You’re living on a gold mine.”

“I’m happy with the renters I have.”

“I realize fewer people are in the market for houses right now, but that means the building trades are suffering. We could probably find a crew to do the needed work for about half what we’d normally have to pay. And I think Edward might invest, or some of his friends.”

That was the wake-up call she’d needed. Just what she didn’t want. Edward Statler, CJ’s new best buddy, with his hands on the reins of her finances. And all that talk of “we”?

She busied herself removing the papers and putting the antipasto back on the table. “I remember the night the FBI came to the door with a search warrant. I stood in our bedroom and watched strange men going through my underwear drawer, CJ. Hours later, I locked up behind them. Everything you and I owned had been pawed over and tossed here or there, and left for me to deal with. The last guy out the door told me to do myself a favor and not try to hide any assets, because they would find them anyway, and I’d be in bigger trouble than I was already.”

She looked up. “That was one of the better days. Let’s not even talk about the day the moving van came.”

He reached over and took her hand. “I’m sorry, TK. Sorrier than I can tell you.”

She looked down. Her hand in his looked and felt so familiar. She knew better than to leave it there, but somehow, she couldn’t find the incentive to pull away.

“I told myself it was all your fault,” she said, “but now I know it wasn’t. Not completely. I wanted the things we had. I was willing to look the other way whenever I had the slightest doubts everything wasn’t on the up-and-up. I figured that was the price I had to pay, and it was so small in comparison to everything I got. Beautiful houses, and country club mem
berships, and the way people looked at me when you and I were together. Maybe knowing that, knowing how much I wanted all of that, made it easier for you to just get it for me, for us, any way you had to. I can’t discount that entirely.”

“I cut some corners. I took too many chances. But it was never your fault. And all the things that happened? You didn’t deserve any of them.”

“Didn’t I?” She really wasn’t sure. And she really wasn’t sure she would still want what she’d once had, even if somebody set it in front of her again. No strings attached.

He lifted her hand and kissed it before she could stop him. Then he folded her fingers and let go.

“Wine. Antipasto. Let’s talk about some of the good times.”

“We aren’t going to have any more of those,” she warned. “Not together.”

“I’ll settle for the past right now. Okay? And lobster ravioli?”

“Lobster ravioli
is
the past. And don’t tell me where you got the money to buy it.”

“Nothing for you to worry about, I promise.”

She doubted that. She knew that her job now was to stay so far on the outside of whatever CJ was doing that she didn’t have to worry. At least not about herself.