Winner Take All (16 page)

“This is a draft of the convention.” Brent Daniels handed her a bound manuscript. “Germany has become a haven for too many parents who otherwise would never be permitted to retain custody of
young children. The German court system refuses to relinquish the children to American parents, even when our courts have come down in their favor.”

Kirsten’s cell phone chimed again. When she made no move to answer, the senator waited until the ringing halted, then went on, “Word is out, Ms. Stansted. News of this loophole is spreading via the Internet. Citizens of EU countries can reside anywhere in Europe they want. If they marry an American, find their marriage in trouble, and see the American court deciding against them, they grab the kids and flee to Germany.”

“Just as has happened with your client,” Brent finished.

“We’re in the process of enacting punitive legislation against the German government, and we’re working to obtain United Nations backing. But we need a high-profile case to demonstrate just how the court system is stacked against us. Then lo and behold, what happens but we hear about Dale Steadman. A top-notch fellow who’s got himself in this very plight.”

Kirsten’s phone began ringing once more. She did her best to ignore it and replied, “I have to tell you, sir, we’re just not certain how solid a case Marcus has.”

She sketched out what they had discovered. The senator and his aide did not mask their dismay over the news of the fire and the drinking and the local officials’ testimony.

The two men exchanged a glance before the senator said, “This is the problem with divorce issues. There are seldom any clear-cut rights and wrongs.”

“Sounds like you’d best not become publicly involved until we see the lay of the land,” Brent suggested.

“Don’t have much choice in the matter.”

The aide said to Kirsten, “If you’d be so kind as to keep me informed, my staff will help out any way we can.”

“I’ll tell Marcus, but right now I don’t see …” Her cell phone began a fourth ringing.

“Maybe you best see who that is, young lady.”

She retrieved the phone, punched the button. “Yes?”

“Kirsten? Ms. Stansted?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, thank heavens.”

“Who is this?”

“Dale. Dale Steadman.” The man choked over his own name. He took a broken breath. “Sorry. Sorry. When I couldn’t reach you I feared you were dead as well.”

Senator Jacobs leaned forward. “You all right, young lady? You’ve gone white as moonlight.”

M
ARCUS
’
WORLD
was made up of fractured images, knitted together without the comfort of time’s steady flow. Hands lifted and dragged him from the marsh grass. A sun beamed down as voices and shadows came and went in frantic haste. A siren scrambled out of the distance. More hands. The siren blared again, this time closer and constant. A needle like a tiny bone became lodged in his vein. He grew fully awake then, in time to see a man with a worried expression and a stethoscope take his pulse and blood pressure. When Marcus coughed weakly and struggled to rise, the man’s gloved palm gently pressed his chest. Marcus stared into the man’s eyes and saw just how lucky he had been.

The emergency room doctor treated the burns on his neck and scalp, then pulled several pieces of roasted boat from his back. From a filtered distance the doctor spoke to him about possible ear damage and a minor concussion. A policeman came and asked questions that Marcus did his best to answer. But the man recognized Marcus’ state and soon let him be. The doctor, a fussy sort who seemed to enjoy the reflected publicity, gave Marcus a sedative and wheeled him down for a full body scan. Despite the machine’s thunderous noise, Marcus was soon asleep.

Fragments of old dreams rose from the coffin of repressed memories. They gathered with images from more recent times and danced to the painkiller’s macabre tune. Hours passed, perhaps aeons. He heard Charlie voice the dreaded question yet again: What did his heart say he should do about Kirsten? Then the dream shifted and the boat exploded yet again. Instead of the flash of flames and blackening
agony, however, Marcus was battered by loss so potent it flung him back into reality.

Marcus awoke to the sound of that single keening echo. He focused on where Kirsten stood by his bed and reached for her hand. There was no need to ask about Charlie Hayes. Her expression contained all the sad tidings he could bear at that moment.

Deacon stood at the foot of his bed. Dale Steadman hovered by the door, as though uncertain whether he was welcome to the gathering. Marcus lay and waited while the doctor was called. When the doctor ordered them all to leave, Marcus refused to release Kirsten’s hand. The act of awakening had only cemented his certainty. He had to let Kirsten go. If he could not do it for himself, he would make it a final atoning memorial to the friend who was no more.

After the doctor pronounced him in need of little more than a night’s rest, Marcus again spoke to the police. This took less than a dozen minutes, as there was little to describe beyond a flash and a bang and a dive.

Marcus then directed Kirsten to bring the others back. He asked Dale, “Who blew up the boat?”

“My vote has to go for some of the folks I’m trying to roust over at New Horizons. They’re an entrenched group, and don’t think highly of what I intend to do.”

“Which is?”

“Change things,” Dale replied. “Stir things up.”

Marcus listened hard as he could, but detected neither guile nor subterfuge nor motive. “You need to meet me Tuesday for court. Eight-thirty sharp. We need to have the judge see with her own eyes just exactly who you are.”

“You’re flat on your back, near about blown to smithereens,” Dale pointed out.

“Either we show up for court Tuesday,” Marcus replied, “or your ex gets the kid.”

“Didn’t I tell you now,” Deacon said to the room. “We got us a warrior here for the good and the just.”

“If we can find witnesses to refute the testimony against you, the judge will probably issue an
ex partae
order.” Marcus reached for the water by his bed. The motion raised a chorus of complaints from his
body. He drained the cup, then said, “But Erin Brandt won’t be coming back to America. Will she?”

A light gleamed in the dark recesses of Dale’s gaze. “Probably not.”

“In that case, we need to show the judge documented evidence of your ex-wife receiving the order, then refusing to attend the hearing or return the child.” Marcus stretched his back and neck, a test of will as much as muscle. “We’ll serve the court papers in London. She will be out of her comfort zone and vulnerable.”

“About those references. You need to avoid anyone who’s grown fat off the status quo. Which means they’ll probably be reluctant to miss a day’s work and drive to Raleigh to testify.”

Sleep’s gentle lyrics drifted with the scent of hospital chemicals. Marcus looked down to the hand he still held. Kirsten’s fingers were long and delicate and tipped with nails painted the color of live coral. The thought he might never hold her again filled his chest with fires of eternal regret. But Charlie had been right to ask his dreaded question. There was no choice but to give her what she most desired. Otherwise she would wrest it from him. And in so doing she would sever any chance they had for a future together.

Though it cut him with a force far stronger than the explosion he had just survived, he said, “I need you to go to London to serve the papers on Erin Brandt.”

His words embedded themselves gradually. “What?”

“Take tomorrow’s first flight. Locate a detective and have him ready to make the handover as soon as the papers arrive. That is, assuming we win the second round in court Tuesday.”

“But … I can’t.”

“This is important, Kirsten. Vital. I’ll overnight you a copy of the
ex partae
order. Be sure the handover is caught on tape. We may need this evidence in court.” When she wrenched her hand free, he did not have the strength to recapture it. “If we have any indication Erin is not going to show up in court, you need to follow her back to Germany. Be ready to supply documented evidence that she isn’t complying with the court order.”

Kirsten careened off the end of the bed and across the room.

Marcus said, “We both know you need to go.”

She searched blindly for a door handle she could not find. Dale finally opened the door and ushered her out.

Deacon stared at the door and murmured, “Lady’s got some ghosts screaming at her, sure to goodness.”

Her absence was a sudden vacuum. “Somebody needs to get Charlie home.”

Deacon’s gaze contained such sorrow Marcus had to turn away. “Listen to you. Flat on your back, eyes drifting in the wind, and still you got to worry about all the blessed world.”

Strange how the pain could reach him, even though fatigue gummed his words. “If we don’t find some witnesses willing to speak on Dale’s behalf, we’re doomed.”

“You just hush and rest now.” Deacon’s gentle bass sounded in harmony to slumber’s symphony. “I’ll see if I can’t help the gentleman come up with something.”

M
ONDAY MORNING
Marcus awoke to find that Charlie’s family had already come and gone. He could not decide whether this was a blessing or yet another wound to his lacerated spirit. Dale had driven back to Raleigh with Kirsten, there to see if he could stir up answers. Deacon helped him through the torment of rising and preparing for departure. Marcus called his office, assured Netty that he had all his bits and pieces intact, and pretended he had not hoped for word from Kirsten.

The hospital checkout required over an hour and much of Marcus’ strength. The doctor pronounced him as fit as anybody he had ever seen who had just been blown up. He let Marcus go with a smile and a pack of Percodan. Marcus resisted the desire to flee into codeine’s sweet embrace, and instead dozed while Deacon drove.

He opened his eyes to find they had stopped by a red-brick church. A mammoth black gentleman with the eyes of a merry inquisitor greeted Deacon with a long and vigorous embrace. He then turned to where Marcus still sat inside the car and extended his hand. “Reverend Cleve Samson. Deacon here says you’re the young fellow who lit up Motts Channel yesterday.”

“I’m not feeling so young right now.”

“I know that’s the truth.” He showed a pastor’s ability to share deepest sorrow with a look, a touch, a very few words. “Charlie Hayes was a saint. His passage leaves a lot of people ’round here feeling much poorer.”

“Thank you.”

“Deacon tells me you’re in need of our help.”

“Not me, but a client.”

“Any friend of Dale Steadman is a friend of most everybody down this way.” He started toward a massive old town car. “Y’all can follow me, the Biggs don’t live more’n five blocks from here.”

The Biggs residence was down a tree-lined street, a bastion of peace triangulated by the Wrightsville Beach Highway, the hospital, and the ruins of the old port. Deacon parked behind the reverend’s Lincoln. Together they followed him up the drive.

A woman in a faded print housedress stood with arms linked beneath her ribs. “Reverend.”

“Hello, Ida. I believe you know Deacon Wilbur.”

“Nice to see you again, sir. Welcome to my home.”

“And this is the gentleman I told you about.”

Ida Biggs showed Marcus a face shut tight as a vault. “Y’all best come out of the heat.”

The screened veranda ran the entire back end of the house. Ida’s husband, a clean-shaven gentleman with the tensile strength of a willow, rose to greet them. “Good to have you come around, Reverend.”

“How you keeping, Tyrell?”

“Can’t complain.” He did not wait for the pastor to introduce them. “Deacon Wilbur, as I live and breathe.”

“Mr. Biggs.”

“And you must be that lawyer fellow I heard so much about, the one took on New Horizons.”

“Marcus Glenwood.”

“Always wanted to shake your hand. Yessir, took on the giants of this world with one little stone, ain’t that right, Reverend?” Tyrell Biggs was dressed in pleated cotton slacks and a coffee-colored shirt, one shade lighter than his skin. “How about I go fix everybody a glass of lemonade. Ida made some up fresh.”

“Lemonade would be fine, sir. Thank you.”

“Mr. Glenwood’s got some questions he’d like to ask you about Dale Steadman, Ida.”

“Don’t see as how I can talk comfortable about what’s gone on inside somebody else’s house.”

“That’s why we’re here, Ida, me and Deacon both. To tell you this ain’t just right, it’s important. Now sit yourself on down and see if you can help the man help Mr. Steadman.”

Marcus eased himself into the padded chair. Nothing hurt in an excruciating manner. But all his aches bonded together, forming a fabric that stretched and tugged with every motion. “Actually, I need to ask you about his former wife as much as I do about Dale himself.”

Tyrell called through the house’s open door, “It’s all about Benjamins with that lady.”

His wife sniffed. “No it ain’t.”