Fortunate Harbor (26 page)

“Of course,” Tracy said, as if she had been on the committee herself. “But so many things can be hidden.”

“I hear this is all about drugs,” the man said, lowering his voice.

Tracy tsk-tsked, then she smiled again and wove her way closer in. By the time she made it to the front, she’d heard theories about slave labor, gunrunning and Cuban cigars.

Wanda looked distinctly out of place with her lacquered semi-beehive, her cat’s eye glasses, her sparkly spandex pants. But Tracy had to hand it to her friend. She looked out of place enough to be right
in
place. Wanda could carry off almost anything.

“They already took Edward Statler away,” Wanda said softly. “We got here too late for that.”

“What about CJ?”

“I heard they’re questioning Mrs. Statler inside. That’s all.”

If anybody in the crowd could understand what Mrs. Statler was going through, it was Tracy. She felt a familiar ache, the way she had the night CJ was taken off to jail, and her house and life were legally ransacked. She hoped Mrs. Statler was as guilt-free as she had been. She hoped the woman would land on her feet somewhere and make a fresh new start.

Although Tracy’s own fresh start was beginning to smell like the beach along the seawall.

Tracy didn’t know what to do next. She didn’t want to ask anyone in authority about CJ. She really didn’t want to align herself with him, having spent too many years in that
position. But she didn’t want to leave until she knew what had happened to him, either. For some reason she felt she owed him that.

“I’ll find Kenny,” Wanda said, noticing Tracy’s expression. “I’ll ask him about that no-good ex of yours.”

“Wait.” Tracy grabbed her friend’s sleeve. She pointed with her other hand. CJ was just coming out the front door, a cop on either side of him. Her heart did a cannonball to her toes.

So he had been questioned, too, and now it looked as if he was on his way to the police station.

Take two
.

“You buck up now,” Wanda said. “You’re divorced from the man. You knew what he was before this. There’s nothing new here.”

Tracy didn’t reply. Maybe there was nothing new, but a replay was painful enough.

The three men stopped just outside the door. Tracy was straining to see if CJ was handcuffed. Then, as she watched, one of the cops clapped his hand on CJ’s shoulder and laughed at something CJ said. As her jaw fell to her chest, the other officer offered his hand, and CJ shook it. She blinked once, twice, three times, because surely something was wrong with her vision. When she’d finished blinking, she saw CJ picking up a suitcase. Then he started down the walkway.

“CJ!” Without thinking, she stepped forward, even though several officers were keeping the crowd at bay, but CJ didn’t see her. She saw Ken Gray come from around the side of the house, and she waved frantically to get his attention. He was obviously surprised to find her there, but she pointed at CJ, then at herself. He seemed to understand. In a minute he had called to CJ and pointed Tracy out in the crowd.

CJ saw her and smiled, a big radiant smile that seemed to chase away the darkness. Then he started in her direction.

“Stop being such a baby.” CJ took Tracy’s ankle firmly in his hand and stretched it over his knee again.

“I’m not being a baby. I have glass in my foot. And you’re making it worse.”

“I am not making it worse. I am removing it piece by piece, and unless I knock you over the head first, I don’t know how to do it without a little discomfort.”

“A little?” She barked a humorless laugh. “You’re poking those tweezers all the way up to my navel.”

“You caught me. This is really all about me getting my hands on your trim little ankle.”

Trim little
did the trick. While she was thinking about how nice it was that at least one part of her was still trim and little, he retrieved another sliver of glass.”

“Ouch!”

“I think that’s it.” CJ shone the desk lamp he’d commandeered at her foot and bent close. “Looks good. Now I’ll wash it out and put some antibiotic ointment on it, and a bandage, and you’ll be all set.”

“I’ll wash it out!”

“And how, pray tell, are you going to do that? You’re not double-jointed.”

“I can get to it well enough.”

“But I can get to it better. You don’t want an infection, do you?”

“Since when did you become Dr. CJ?”

“I’m thinking medicine will be my next career. There are so many new and better ways to fleece the public.” He got up.

“Stay right there and don’t move a muscle, or I’ll chase you down, and it won’t be pretty.”

She didn’t remember a time in their marriage when CJ had been this solicitous. Of course, in those days they’d had plenty of people around to take care of anything that came along. CJ had prided himself on having the largest staff he could manage. And she had to admit, he had been good to them. Generous and soft-spoken. For a man with an overblown ego, he still knew how to make people feel he cared.

Witness this performance.

He returned with a soapy washcloth and a bowl of water, and sat down at her feet again. “You’ve always been squeamish. I think that’s why you never wanted children.”

“Come on, you were the one who didn’t want children.”

“TK, you were always criticizing the young mothers at the club who were preoccupied with their babies and toddlers. You couldn’t imagine anybody getting such a charge out of dirty diapers and breast-feeding.”

“I never gave the whole thing much thought, but that was because you told me you were too old and busy to be a father. The first time we went out,” she added. “Before we even went to bed together.”

“That’s because I wasn’t in the market for some sweet young thing who wanted to chain herself to me with a love child. That was before I realized I wanted to marry you.”

“Well, aren’t you a little late getting around to telling me?”

He was silent, and surprisingly gentle. Even though her foot stung, his hands on it felt delicious.

He dipped a clean washcloth in the water and began to wipe the soap off with slow, circular motions. “I guess I really was too old and too busy.”

Hollywood trivia came with her upbringing. “A lot of men older than you start second families. Tony Randall was in his seventies.”

“They had wives who made a point of wanting children. But maybe staying childless was best in the long run. My future’s still uncertain. What kind of father could I be from prison?”

“CJ, exactly what went on tonight?” Tracy and a skeptical Wanda had removed CJ to Wanda’s car—walking along the road this time, since nobody at the gatehouse cared who departed. Now that Edward Statler was in jail, CJ no longer had a place to live. Especially since, apparently, CJ had helped put him there. Tracy, grateful that he, too, hadn’t been hauled away in a cop car, had volunteered to let him sleep on her couch tonight.

After all, a similar arrangement was working so well for Marsh and Sylvia.

“I admire your self-control,” he said. “I’ve been here nearly half an hour.”

Tracy had showered as soon as they walked in, hot and sweaty, and feet and legs slimy from the walk along the seawall. That was when she’d realized the cut on her foot really needed attention. All of that had delayed their conversation, but there was more to it.

“I figured you must feel pretty beat-up by everything that happened,” she said.

He looked up from her foot. “You’re a nicer person than you believe.”

“So?”

He gently patted her foot with a towel until it was dry. “Edward invited me to Florida for a reason. He needed somebody to do work that he thought I’d be uniquely quali
fied for. Plus he figured I had nowhere else to go and would be so grateful, I’d bury any ethics I had left.”

“Let me guess. The work wasn’t legal.”

“Edward’s been running major scams all over Florida for years, and a lot of people are involved.”

“Maribel?”

He smiled. “Why? Do you have a personal interest in seeing her put away?”

She wondered if CJ had picked who to turn in, based on some code known only to him. She would probably never know, and besides, Maribel didn’t matter. “Go on.”

“Edward was pretty good, so it wasn’t apparent, not with the mess all the banks are already in.”

“Let me guess again.” She pretended to think. “He bought houses, using shills and crooked appraisers, then he got banks to loan him—or rather, the shill—the entire price of the house plus the additional that the appraiser claimed it was worth. Then when the papers were all signed and sealed, and the money was delivered, the shill disappeared, Edward and the appraiser pocketed the extra money, and Edward was that much richer.”

CJ looked genuinely surprised. “How did you figure that out?”

She winked. “My secret.”

“Well, you got part of it. What’s the other part?”

She thought about the papers Wanda had seen. “Fake loan applications?”

“Not fake, but close. Doctored. They were applications from real people filled out as a ‘service’ by Edward’s employees. The applicants didn’t make nearly as much money as the applications claimed. Based on the falsified figures, they were then given adjustable mortgages. Of course they defaulted
when they couldn’t make the rising payments, and lost their homes. After foreclosure, Edward snapped the houses back up at a percentage of what they were worth, then moved to the next and final phase, which you’ve so wisely recounted to me.”

“What a scumbag.”

“Not my choice of terms, but close enough.”

“But what was your part in all of this?”

“Not very complicated. Right away I realized what was going on, and I knew I couldn’t have anything to do with it. First, it wasn’t good karma. Second, it wasn’t even vaguely legal. Third, I’m already in enough trouble. So even though Edward was generous, I went to the authorities with evidence about what he’d been doing. He was already under investigation, and what you know is the tip of the iceberg. They asked me to get more information, and I did.”

Tracy was still trying to convince herself she had heard the word
karma
come out of CJ’s mouth. Plus her foot was still in his lap, and for some reason she was reluctant to ask him to hurry so she could resume ownership.

“And earned some brownie points while you were at it,” she said.

“And earned some brownie points, yes. But really, I don’t know if that will matter in the long run. I helped here, but nobody’s going to call this a wash with what’s going on in California.”

“But you did it anyway.”

“I’d like to leave Florida under my own power, not escorted by marshals.”

She had expected something so different. A repeat performance of their Southern California drama. A fresh chance to despise him. Instead, CJ was now something of a hero.

CJ as bad guy she was used to. That she could deal with. But CJ as hero?

“So what do you think?” He had put ointment on her foot as he talked, then covered it with fresh gauze. Now he fastened tape in place and snipped the ends with her kitchen scissors.

“About my foot or your story?”

“Your ex-husband helping the cops and the Feds?”

“I think I need to sleep on it.”

“Thanks for offering me the sofa.”

For a moment—less than a moment, really, a zeptosecond—she considered telling CJ he could just sleep with
her
. He was the one who had pointed out that divorced couples often got it on after the decree. Familiarity might breed contempt, but it also bred, well, familiarity. And the idea of having familiar, attractive CJ next to her on the mattress again was enticing.

He leaned forward, and she didn’t move away. Instead she put her foot on the floor so he could get closer. His smell was familiar, something earthy enhanced by a touch of expensive cologne. She remembered the first time he had kissed her, how thrilled she had been that he had chosen her. How practiced his lips and hands.

They were still practiced. They grazed hers, just touching her with enough finesse that she felt the tickle all the way to her navel. And, okay, beyond. She couldn’t deny it.

Loneliness could do that.

That was when she realized where her thoughts had led: straight back to the man she was really lonely for. She pulled away.

A sofa was not an invitation into her life. A sofa was not an invitation into her bed. She really didn’t know who this man was anymore, and that was a good enough reason to back away, even without Marsh in the picture.

“The linen closet’s in the hallway,” she said, getting to her feet with a wince. “Towels, sheets, a light blanket. The bathroom and the living room are yours. I’m going to bed.”

“I’ll look for another place tomorrow, I promise.”

“You’re going to stay in Florida?”

“I could go back to California and let them lynch me.”

“Thanks for fixing my foot.”

“Thanks for coming to check on me tonight.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, because in the long run, that was exactly what she had done. Now she had the rest of the night to figure out exactly why.

Dana had a surprise for Pete, and not one she thought he was going to greet with enthusiasm. As much as he liked Lizzie, he, like Dana, had been counting on an evening alone.

In fact, since Monday, Dana had given far too much thought to the subject.

“Why does Pete live so far from us?” Lizzie didn’t sound glad to be traveling north with her mother. Her evening plans, too, had been altered, and not to her liking.

“I think it’s a great place for fishing,” Dana said. “And Pete loves to fish.”

“He could fish near us.”

“He does sometimes. After work. But there are different kinds of fishing. Saltwater, freshwater. He can catch freshwater fish in the lake.” Up ahead, Dana saw her exit and changed lanes to prepare.

Lizzie wasn’t exactly whining, but the sound was similar. “I wish Olivia hadn’t gotten sick.”

As she left the interstate, Dana wished the same thing. Olivia had a full-fledged summer cold, probably picked up on the trip to visit her father, and both Dana and Alice had thought it best not to expose Lizzie to Olivia’s germs. Neither of the girls had been happy about the decision.

“Alice says if Olivia’s better by Saturday, you can spend the night then,” Dana reminded her.

“Is Pete glad I’m coming?” Lizzie still sounded peevish.

Dana didn’t know, because she hadn’t been able to warn him. When she called, as instructed, to tell him they were on the way, she’d gotten his voice mail. Since Lizzie had been nearby, she’d only said she was about to hit the road. As she tried to figure out how to break the news that Lizzie was going to be with her, the window of opportunity ended with a click and a dial tone.

“Pete likes you,” she said, not answering the exact question.

“Was this supposed to be a date?”

Dana could feel her cheeks heating. “Something like that, I guess.”

“You don’t go on dates.”

“Not often.”

“Men look at you like they’d like to date you. I watch them.”

“We need to find better things for you to watch.”

“I’d like to have a father. Course, Olivia has a father, so I guess it’s not always a good thing.”

Dana was silent. She knew her daughter was digging for information. Lizzie was getting better and better at it every day.

“I told her at least
she
knows who her father is,” Lizzie said.

“I doubt Olivia finds that much consolation. And for the record, a date is not the same thing as saying ‘I do.’ Pete and I are friends. But we have separate lives and separate plans. Don’t expect more, okay?”

“Do we have plans? Are we going to move again? Don’t you like your job?”

Dana wondered just how long she could get away with the lifestyle they led. At what point would Lizzie rebel and demand to know why, exactly why and no lies please, they had to move yet again?

“I like my job just fine,” she said, “and I’m not in any hurry to leave. But managing Wanda’s shop isn’t a career, Lizzie. I need to finish my degree and do my student teaching, and there’s no university close enough to make that feasible. Once I can teach, we can really settle down.” She hoped it was true. They would relocate to some isolated community that needed a teacher and finally stay put.

Of course, finding the money to make that dream come true was a nearly insurmountable hurdle.

“Nobody else moves the way we do.” Lizzie shifted in her seat, as if she couldn’t wait to get out of the car.

“If we were a military family, we’d move all the time. And what if I was a trapeze artist in a circus? Did you ever think of that?”

Lizzie didn’t laugh. “Then our friends would travel with us. We don’t have friends, or at least we don’t keep them. I want to be Olivia’s friend forever.”

“Let’s not borrow trouble, okay? Can we just enjoy tonight and not make a complicated life plan before we even get to Pete’s?”

“Why aren’t we there yet?”

Dana slowed at the road sign up ahead, and made a right turn onto a scrub pine and palm-studded country lane. “We almost are.”

A few minutes later they entered a campground. She stopped and went into a combination general store and office, and explained why she was there. The man behind the counter gave
her directions to Pete’s campsite and a red parking tag to hang on her rearview mirror. The speed limit on the grounds was ten miles an hour, but even that was too fast. Children played on the side of the dirt road, and campers walked back and forth between live oak and pine-shaded campsites, talking and laughing. The sites were set a comfortable distance from each other, not like some Dana had seen that were as cramped as old-fashioned drive-in theaters.

“Where’s the lake?” Lizzie asked.

“I think we’re driving toward it.” She was paying attention to numbers on metal stakes in front of each site, but she saw they weren’t close yet.

“It would be fun to live here. There are a lot of kids.”

“Maybe you can meet some of them.”

“Maybe…”

The road wound left past more campsites, rows of oleanders and crepe myrtle, several spacious bathhouses, and a campfire circle that looked big enough for half the residents to gather and toast marshmallows. There was a small zoo, with exotic birds in a large mesh aviary, and what looked like a collection of reptiles. Lizzie was getting interested.

“Why haven’t we camped?”

Dana glanced at her daughter. The only kind of camping she would consider wouldn’t involve a campground like this one, not with so many people, so many strangers. How could she know who these campers were or where they’d come from? How could she trust that one of them might not be someone she had met before, someone who would ask questions?

Someone who might feel compelled to report seeing her to the wrong people.

“Let’s file that away as something fun to try,” Dana said.

“That’s what you say when you have no intention of doing something.”

“Tell you what, we’ll start looking for camping gear at the flea market. We’ll make a list and see what we can find.”

“I wonder what it’s like to just go to a store and pick what you want and not worry about money.” Lizzie sounded genuinely curious but not as if she felt sorry for herself. The same way she might ask what it would be like to live in a grass hut or an igloo.

“I see the lake.” Dana pointed.

Lizzie leaned forward too fast, and her seat belt snapped her against the seat before she caught a glimpse. “Is it big?”

“Big enough for waterskiing, I bet.”

“I’d like to water-ski.”

“Maybe we’ll have time for you to learn.” Dana remembered her own attempts when she’d visited Happiness Haven as a girl. “I had a couple of lessons once. I let go of the rope the moment the boat started to move.”

“That’s silly. I wouldn’t.”

Dana drove a little farther. Pete’s campsite was number four, as close to the lake, apparently, as the campsites went. Here all the campers were larger and looked permanent, as if they were part of the landscape.

“There it is,” she said after a moment. Pete’s camper looked surprisingly roomy, unmistakably an Airstream, with a screen enclosure attached to the entrance to make a mosquito-free porch. She spotted several folding chairs under the mesh. Outside, a grill was heating. Real charcoal, with smoke rising in wisps.

She pulled to a stop, wishing she could explain Lizzie’s presence without her daughter standing right there, but just then Pete stepped outside, and his expression didn’t reflect a moment’s disappointment when he saw he had two guests.

“Hey,” he said, smiling at both of them. “Two for the price of one.”

“Olivia’s sick,” Lizzie said, taking the explanation out of her mother’s hands. “And Mom won’t leave me at home by myself.”

“Your mom. A real pain in the neck, huh?”

Lizzie went to him for a quick hug. And when that was over, he stepped to Dana and kissed her cheek. “It’s good to see you both.”

She heard the message. He understood. He wasn’t upset with her, and he wasn’t going to act as if his entire evening had been spoiled. She’d known a lot of petulant men who acted out in a variety of ways if they didn’t get what they wanted. She’d been married to one.

Any doubts she’d had about Pete Knight vanished in that instant.

“Why don’t you and your mom satisfy your curiosity and take a look inside?” he told Lizzie. “Then, if you want, I’ll introduce you to my neighbor’s daughter. She’s about your age, and I bet she’ll show you around the campground.”

Lizzie peeked at her mother, and Dana nodded. “I’m sure you want to check it out.”

“And tell that mom of yours there’s a salad in my refrigerator, and dressing, if she’s willing to toss it for me,” he finished.

For a moment Dana felt as if she were living the all-American dream. Everything about being with Pete felt so comfortable and right. Dana prayed that in the days ahead, everything would continue to be both.

Rishi had apologized for missing the special evening he and Janya were supposed to spend together. He’d claimed that late in the afternoon, he had fallen asleep on the couch in his office
and slept until well after midnight, when he’d awakened in horror to find the building dark and everyone gone.

Rishi was not a good liar. His eyes had not quite met hers, and he stumbled twice as he spoke, as if his agile brain could not keep up as he manufactured details. Had she felt secure in her husband’s affections, Janya might have attributed both to his shame at disappointing her. But since this rejection was one of many she had lately suffered from him, she knew it for what it was. He was not ashamed; he was hiding something.

Janya had not made her suspicions known. The next morning, after she returned from taking Tracy to retrieve her car, she listened to Rishi’s explanation, nodding. She did not bother to tell him that late in the afternoon, when she had called to remind him they were spending the evening together—and wasn’t it sad that she had needed to do so?—his assistant had reported that Rishi was already gone for the day. She had even complained because he had given her a pile of work, since he would not be back.

When a surprised Janya asked her to check, just to be certain, the woman had further reported that Rishi’s car was no longer in its parking slot, and in fact, someone had seen him drive away.

Foolishly Janya had believed a repentant Rishi was on his way home to spend the afternoon with her, as well. The fact that he never arrived had been that much more disappointing, until anger seeped into its place.

When Rishi’s apology and excuses had finally ended that morning, Janya had nodded one more time, then gone into the kitchen to make coffee. By the time the pot filled, Rishi had already gone to work.

Since then, he had come home each night just in time for supper, but afterward he had excused himself to work in the
second bedroom. Later he’d only come to bed when Janya was sure to be sleeping. Although she wasn’t asleep, she’d made certain to let him think he had gauged correctly.

Tonight he arrived home on time once again. He looked tired when he walked in, and tired when they said their prayers. She dredged up enough courtesy to ask him about his day, although she didn’t follow with more questions. She served a simple supper, having talked herself out of telling him to feed himself, and she refused his help afterward when he offered to assist with cleaning the kitchen.

“I assume you will be working again?” she asked, as she picked up their plates.

“I thought, perhaps, you might like to go for a walk.”

For a moment she thought she had grown so used to English that her command of her native tongue—which Rishi used whenever they were home alone—had declined. Surely there must be an explanation for what she thought she had heard.

“Did you say a walk?” she asked, when she realized he was waiting for her answer.

“It seems cooler tonight. And the humidity is lower.”

She thought about all the things that could be accomplished on walks and settled on the one that seemed most likely. Rishi had something to tell her, and he wanted to do it where she would be forced to listen.

“I must clean up,” she said, turning away.

“Leave it for later, Janya. I told you I would help. But let’s do it after we come back. The sun is setting. I rarely get to see it.”

She nearly suggested he cut a new window in the west wall of his office, since that was where he spent most evenings. Except that was apparently no longer true, and she was afraid tonight he wanted to tell her why.

And didn’t she need to know, so she could make plans for her future?

“I will soak the dishes.” There was only resignation in her voice.

“Good. We can walk along the beach.”

“Give me a few minutes.”

“I’ll meet you on the patio.”

She changed into pants and a long-sleeved shirt, both of the lightest cotton. She fastened her hair back from her face with barrettes but didn’t bother with jewelry or refreshing her makeup. Nothing she did seemed to entice Rishi. She was tired of trying.

“You look lovely,” he said when she joined him.

His response sounded perfunctory, the kind of thing husbands learn to say early in a marriage to keep their homes and lives peaceful. She nodded, but she didn’t smile.

“Shall we walk?”

They strolled down the road, then took the closest path to the beach. The public beach at the other end of the key was sugar sand perfection. This end, some of which Tracy owned, had never been improved and was still the way nature had created it. The beach itself was uneven here. There were places where they could walk abreast and places where single file worked better. They skirted obstacles, the skeletons of boats that had washed up on shore, tree trunks, piles of shells, tangled lines and old tackle boxes abandoned by fishermen. Fiddler crabs darted along the waterline, and seagulls and terns flew low, searching for their last morsels until morning.

The sun was sinking rapidly now on a coral-streaked horizon. Janya was always surprised that the sun took so many hours to sweep across the sky, then rushed through its dramatic exit like a Shakespearean novice, racing through his final monologue as he launched himself toward the wings and his dressing room.