Breach Of Promise

bait. We’re finished,” Paul said. “Jesus Christ, kick your feet, Winston. Help me!”

But Winston, who had taken in a good gallon of water during their most recent underwater struggle, was far too busy trying to expel it to answer.

“We gotta go down again!” Paul said quickly. “Ready?”

“I can’t!” Winston spat. “No!” and in his panic he managed to extricate himself from Paul long enough to sink from sight.

Down under he went.

Genevieve bore down on them.

Paul floundered around hopelessly for the other man’s shirt, found it, and aimed for shore, flapping like a fish already dying on the hook. He pushed, he shoved, he tried his best to keep Winston above water and breathing, but all his awareness was in fact acutely focused on the sound of motors getting louder and louder…

The Andreadore passed, giving them wide berth. He saw Nina, intent at the wheel, her long hair tangled and flying out behind her, a flag of faith. But Genevieve wanted them dead. She would mow them down first, and then go after Nina. She was close, so damn close…

He touched an underwater rock with his toe. Hurling Winston violently to one side, he fixed his last hope on the rock jutting around the left end of the cove. He sprinted for it and lifted the dormant, waterlogged body of Winston behind him.

Genevieve’s boat cut so close it whistled by, sloshing a great whale fluke of water to douse them. Then, robotlike, as if totally undeterred by the minor setback of failing to kill them yet again, it swung back in line to renew its inhumanly unemotional pursuit of Nina.

Genevieve knew they were safely trapped on the island. Paul watched helplessly as Nina headed for the beach by Vikingsholm. She had a hundred yard lead on Genevieve by now. She could get in close, jump out, and hide somewhere in the woods or climb the hill up to the road. She could go for help…

But as he watched, the Andreadore pulled up short and swung around, heading back to the island.

What was Nina doing? She couldn’t rescue them, could she? he thought, confused. Why come back?

She was heading for these rocks, he thought. Had the rain blinded her to the rocks and shallow water here?

She would die! He tightened his grip on Winston. Should he wave her off?

Maybe she would turn away at the last minute. But then he saw Genevieve’s boat cut the same wide arc. Without Paul and Winston in the water to distract her, Genevieve quickly narrowed the space that separated the two boats.

Thirty, twenty, ten yards from the rocks, Nina closed the distance between her and the rocky peninsula of the islet where Paul and Winston lay, the Andreadore chugging steadily along.

Gripping the droopy lawyer at his side, Paul hauled him-bumping, grinding, and screaming-up and over the rocky tip onto the beach at the far end of the cove, then dropped him with a thump. He ran up a steep rock a safe distance from the point, and held up a hand to his forehead to keep the rain from streaming into his eyes.

He tried to see into Nina’s mind as she flew into the wind toward him, but her fixation on her target left no room for anything except determination.

The rain pounded down hard now, and Paul no longer knew to trust his eyes.

He thought he saw the small figure of Nina stand erect on the edge of the Andreadore and then soar like an angel out into the deep water beyond the point just as Genevieve’s boat, directly behind, connected.

He thought he saw Genevieve’s terrified face.

He felt rather than saw the tremendous crash as she struck rock with an explosion so violent it stopped time.

And then, almost leisurely, he saw the rest in detail, slowed like animation examined frame by frame: Genevieve’s boat flipping, coming to rest upside down, whomping down crossways over the Andreadore. The infinity of splintered wood sailing into the air. Fire where boats had been. Heat and light where dark had been.

Amid the splinters, aglow in the glare of ignited gasoline, the silhouette of a woman boneless as a rag doll coming to rest in the lake, poising on the surface, and sinking into its depths.

38

Summertime in Tahoe. Kelly greens and chartreuses mixed with green as dark as charcoal. The forests had soaked up the melted snow that rolled off the mountains. Memorial Day came. The tourists arrived for vacation fun and did not leave.

Nina didn’t notice. She came into the office that Tuesday morning in June and closed her door to everything. She did not answer the phone when it rang. She did not touch the papers that were already beginning to look musty, like something from her past. In jeans and a sweatshirt, she propped her bare feet on her desk and looked out the window toward the lake, but the picture window insisted on acting like a projection screen and the events of the past seven months imposed themselves again to interrupt her line of vision.

Sandy, parked at her own desk outside her door, did not disturb her. She knew that even on a summer morning you could have a dark night of the soul.

Genevieve had advanced through their lives like a landslide, destroying everything.

Paul had helped Nina get out of the water and climb onto the islet. There, they had waited, watching the speedboats burn. Winston woke up in time to observe with them as the burning embers of the boats sizzled in the rain, sinking into the lake in eerie silence. The kayak had floated away. It was hours before Matt notified the Coast Guard and they were rescued.

Paul and Winston had taken their stories to the police. Jeffrey Riesner had requested that the verdict favoring Lindy be vacated based on “irregularities” in the proceedings, and Judge Milne granted the request, ordering a new trial. Removing Jim Colby as receiver, he placed all assets and business management back in Mike Markov’s hands.

The catastrophic outcome of the trial, since it was caused by a member of Lindy’s legal team, exposed Lindy to judicial sanctions. At least she should have been ordered to pay Mike’s legal fees. Instead, Judge Milne delivered a stinging lecture to Nina in open court, widely quoted in the media, that made her red to the roots of her hair, beamed Jeffrey Riesner up to the moon, and yanked out the last shreds of her self-confidence.

Mike had most of his money. Lindy had nothing.

Nina had less than nothing.

A year of her life had been completely blasted into oblivion along with Genevieve’s boat.

What was left of Markov Enterprises after Mike’s neglect was now his to run again until a new trial went one way or another.

Whatever happened, Nina was no longer in the picture. Her business had been shattered by the Markov case. Clients had drifted away to lawyers who had more time to return their calls. Her checkbook featured a negative balance. She could not begin to afford to represent Lindy in a retrial. She could not even pay her rent. According to her contract with Lindy, Lindy had agreed to pay at least her basic attorney’s fees and costs. Even at a discounted rate, that came to over a hundred thousand dollars. Maybe someday Lindy would be able to pay the bill, but it didn’t look like anytime soon.

Or maybe Lindy would just file bankruptcy and move on.

Nina borrowed more money to buy Matt a new boat since Matt hadn’t kept up the insurance on the Andreadore. She borrowed money to pay Winston for his time in the last few months of the case. That money wasn’t enough to save Winston, however. The IRS came after him for tax evasion. He was countersuing for harassment, but everyone knew how difficult it was to get out from under once the government had turned its red eye your way.

They would not be upgrading their offices. They would not be hiring new people. The complete exploitation of every financial resource available to her to get through this case had wiped her out. The boat loan was the last loan the bank would float for her, the bank had said. She needed to start regular payments on her massive outstanding debts.

Without the fee from Lindy, she couldn’t. Instead, she piled the bills in a corner of the office, and watched them mounting day by day.

Genevieve had disappeared, either into the lake, as Paul seemed to think, or into the vast land of California, and the story of her disappearance and her attacks on Paul, Winston and Nina made front page news all over the state. In case by some miracle she had survived the explosion, the police charged her in absentia with murder in the second degree for Clifford Wright’s death, and three additional counts of attempted murder for Paul, Winston, and Nina.

Nina did not choose to think about Genevieve any longer. She was done with her, just like everything else.

Paul delayed his trip to Washington for a week, but she was too down to talk to him. Finally, he left town quietly, without calling to say good-bye.

Nina had risked everything, and lost.

Leaving Comanche safely stabled with friends outside Reno, Lindy moved back to town temporarily to wrap up loose ends. She had decided to leave town. Some old friends had a gold mine they worked in Idaho. She wanted to go up there and soak up what they knew, plus she just needed to get away from Tahoe. It sounded like the perfect getaway for her right now.

The news about Genevieve had been devastating. It had taken her several days to recover from the shock of what had happened. Her own offer of money had somehow triggered the murder of a juror and attacks on her lawyers. She had been criminally obtuse. She was lucky they weren’t charging her with conspiracy or something. Guilt overwhelmed her.

Along with the news of Genevieve came the news that a new trial had been ordered.

And so, even though Nina had advised against it because Lindy would probably get stuck with Mike’s court costs, Lindy had decided to walk away from the case. She felt terrible about what she had put Nina through for nothing, but she didn’t feel strong enough to continue fighting Mike.

She wished she could pay Nina, but lawyers always seemed to have plenty of resources. Nina probably had lots of money tucked away. She wouldn’t have taken the case without a major bankroll, because that would be stupid. Nina would be okay, and Winston would make up his loss in a year.

Her thoughts went back to that poor man. The whole world seemed to feel that Cliff Wright had died because of her, and maybe they were right. She no longer wanted the money, the business or anything else. She had heard from Alice that Rachel had gone back to Mike begging for forgiveness. So Mike would be fine.

As for herself-she’d finally accepted that her life here, the life she had led for twenty years, had come to a close. She wasn’t exactly young, but she was tough as boiled octopus.

The second week in June she called Mike’s secretary and arranged to come by the house to get the rest of her things. She wanted to warn him ahead of time. She asked him to please get Rachel out of the house as a final favor to her, just for a couple of hours. Then she would go, and they would never need to talk again.

She drove the Jeep down the familiar dusty road off the highway, along the lakeside to the gate of the house. The gates were open. He was expecting her.

Her flowerbeds, in full spring bloom, sprawled with neglect. Fully half the blooms were dead and unpicked. She liked to think Rachel would love them as much as she had, and would soon have things back in order.

Sammy loped up and over her, and she spent a few minutes petting him, saying all the things he liked to hear. From her pocket, she pulled a piece of the beef jerky he loved for a treat, and she left him to eat it on the gravel path.

Mike stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” She walked up the stairs, and he let her by. “Do you have some boxes for me?”

Florencia had stacked dozens upstairs, and dozens downstairs, along with thick stacks of paper for wrapping.

“I won’t need all these.” She planned to take only the most special things, the carved wooden box her dad left her, a blue glass paperweight that belonged to her mother. She would box the