Just Fall (33 page)

Marcy Clark, clad in black, sat with other friends from work. Ellie was glad Marcy had found it in her heart to come. Marcy had taken Ethan’s death rock hard, disconsolate. She saw Ellie looking at her and gave the first genuine smile Ellie had seen since Ethan’s murder. Then a thumbs-up. The bride turned her attention back to her groom. God, how she loved him.

“Do you, Ellie, take Rob to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

Ellie’s heart swelled. This was the moment she had been waiting for. “I do.”

“You may kiss the bride.”

Their eyes met and then their lips. For a moment there was no one else in the ballroom. It was only the two of them.

The bride and groom turned to face their laughing, clapping guests. There were a couple of good-natured hoots. They had done it. They were married.

Ellie ascends from belowdeck, panting and flushed. The last ruddy trace of sunset flirts with the horizon. On the receding shoreline, dark waves lick wet sand. Looming cliffs explode with vines heavy with flowers, their rich colors muted, their sinewy shapes mysterious. They’re within a mile of the shore, but she feels unmoored in time and space.

Before them, open ocean. Above, a navy carpet of coruscating stars scudded with thick, angry clouds. The wind whips as the first plump, warm raindrops fall. P.J. pilots the boat in a steady course.

Matt offers her a bottle of water from a cooler by his feet. “Have you been running?” he asks with a flicker of a smile.

Ellie accepts the bottle and chugs down the cold liquid. Wipes her mouth, leaving a red smear on her jawbone.

“Not running.” Her voice is flat. “I’ve just killed Rob.”

She shrugs. “I didn’t have a choice. He came at me. He didn’t like what I had worked out. P.J., you’re Pascal, aren’t you? Isn’t that what the man on the dock called you? You’re Carter Williamson’s partner.”

Matt stares at her with hungry, feral interest.

“And you,” Ellie persists. “What’s your real story, Matthew Walsh, good friend, good Samaritan?”

She gazes up at him from under her lashes. “Did you kill Quinn?” she croons. “Simple revenge for what he did to you? Or something more complicated?”

“You are really quite something, aren’t you?” Matt’s face heats with desire. He’s close enough to kiss her. “I see why Rob fell for you.” He traces a finger through the blood on her cheek. She doesn’t flinch. Her gaze locks on him. She’s not the same woman she was an hour ago.

“The question is, what to do with you now?” Matt drawls as he strokes her lips with his blood-tipped finger.

Eyes glittering with admiring curiosity, Ellie trails a languid hand across his chest. “Tell me everything. Tell me about Quinn.”

“Quinn was my protégé, just as Rob was his. I trained Quinn. Ran him. Loved him, really. Until he betrayed me and tried to take over. So you do see why I had to kill him.”

“And P.J.?”

“In my employ since the good old days.” Matt smiles at her with no warmth. “It has always been me. Always. And that will continue. Pascal and I will be entirely new people by the time we leave Caracas.”

Matt’s hands tangle in Ellie’s hair. “But you will join your poor dead husband at the bottom of the sea before we ever get there.”

Matt’s fingers stroke her neck. His hands encircle her throat.

“JUMP!” she hears and whirls toward the sound.

Rob has crested the stairs from belowdeck. The fish knife gleams in his hand. “Ellie, dammit,
jump
!”

She tears away from Matt’s grasp. She hesitates. Then, without warning, she turns and topples into the inky depths of the ocean. Has she fallen? Or did she leap?

The water closes over her. Her head clouds with viscous underwater silence. She thrusts her head up, gasping, just when her lungs will burst. Sound floods in; she feels rather than sees Rob and Matt locked and grappling. Feels rather than sees as they tumble overboard and disappear beneath the waves.

As Ellie fights the pull of the tide, struggling to stay above water, her last moments with Rob belowdeck replay in her head.

“You are my first best memory. Even if you believe nothing else about me, believe that.”

Lucien doesn’t much like to dwell on what happened next.

He had always prided himself on being a good man, an honest cop. But what now became necessary called those qualities into question.

Matt Walsh’s corpse washed up along the black volcanic sands of Anse Chastanet beach, discovered by a honeymooning couple taking a sunset horseback ride. Walsh’s cause of death was determined to be drowning, although the body was torn and battered. From the coral reefs, or something else? The coroner couldn’t say for sure.

Then an exhausted and desperate Ellie and Rob showed up at Lucien’s home one morning at dawn. Lucien ushered them away from the house where his pregnant wife and child still slept, but agreed to listen. Ellie’s persistent inquiries about Thomas’s safety, and her relief upon hearing he was back in his mother’s arms, rang true. As for the rest of Rob and Ellie’s story, including a wild tale of their escape from certain death at the hands of Matt Walsh; their lonely, frantic swims to shore; finding each other at a prearranged spot in Soufrière and hiding in plain sight until Ellie convinced Rob they should appeal to Lucien—well, Lucien didn’t know what to believe. Or what he wanted to believe.

Because then there were the statements and explanations, the half-truths and outright inventions devised to get Rob Beauman and Eleanor Larrabee off the island, all of which still sit with Lucien uncomfortably.

People had died. Murders remained unsolved on his island. Three little boys are still missing.

But she saved his nephew’s life. And for that, didn’t he owe them?

—

Nearly twelve thousand miles away from St. Lucia, the sun has a different glint, the breeze a different sort of lilt. The sand is white and soft as powder, the sea an emerald prism. Bali. The island of enchanted honeymoon dreams.

A woman sits on the beach with her toes burrowed deep into the sand; her fingers rake through repetitively, absently. She stares at the shining waves as if they will bring her an answer.

Stains below her blue eyes hint at her exhaustion. Her bright golden roots transition into a glossy brown. She lifts her gaze from the water to watch a striped parasail hovering distantly against the brilliant blue sky. The beach is otherwise empty, but even if it were filled with picnicking families and entwined lovers, there is something about this woman. She seems spectacularly, singularly
alone.

In the distance, a man trudges through the sand. Sun glints off his mirrored shades. He strides directly to the woman and touches her shoulder. She flinches.

The man snatches his hand away. He sinks down next to her, folding his legs underneath him. They don’t speak. The stillness of the beach is broken only by the occasional call of a bird, the rhythm of the waves.

The woman’s eyes flick toward the man. Her fingers rake the sand again. There is so much to be said, so many secrets to divulge, so many apologies to be tendered. The gulf between them is as wide as the ocean itself.

Only the most fragile tendrils of trust and love connect them. Will that be enough? We don’t know.

Nor do they.

“Well,” she finally murmurs. “Our first fight.”

“Look at it this way: It’ll be hard to top.”

“I really thought you were going to kill me back on the boat.”

“Myself or Matt,” Rob says, shaking his head. “But never you, my love.”

He reaches for her hand, stilling her digging fingers. His larger hand encircles hers; he feels her quickening pulse flutter on the soft underside of her wrist.

So our story has come full circle, from one tropical paradise to another. The sun shines, flowers bloom, waves lap dreamily against the shore.

Two ravaged people will do their best to heal.

But make no mistake; this is not the end. More will be revealed. It always is.

DEDICATED TO G. H.

It is my pleasure to thank my parents, Edward and Jean Sadowsky, who have given me unconditional support even during the wildest turns and twists of my unconventional career. Also thanks to my wonderful and inspiring children, Raphaela and Xander Kleiman (you are and will always be my best creations), and to my stepchildren, Arielle and Daniel Hakman, as well as my bonus daughter, Analia Rey, and my boyfriend-in-law, Darius Margalith. All of you enrich my life. And provide material. I also thank my brothers, Jonathan and Richard Sadowsky; my sisters-in-law, Laura Steinberg and Mary Clancy; and their respective children, Ivan, Julia, Eric, and Katherine, simply for being.

I am deeply appreciative of the feedback from my early readers: Sean Smith, Janet Cooke, Michelle Raimo Kouyate, Carolyn Manetti, Robin Sax, Laina Cohn, Alexandra Seros, and Hannah Phenicie. All of you gave me excellent feedback and affirming love. I also thank my excellent agents, Joel Gotler and Emma Sweeney, and my attorney, Marcy Morris, all of whom rock. I must acknowledge William Meredith (1919–2007), my creative writing professor at Connecticut College, a man who was influential in shaping my confidence as a writer. And thanks to Suzanne Sadowsky, Heather Richardson, Deb Aquila, Betsy Stahl, Brenda Goodman, Shandiz Zandi, Kathy Boluch, Linda Bower, Debbie Huffman, Lisa Kislak, Matthew Mizel, Lenore Kletter, Debbie Liebling, Sukee Chew, Thom Bishops, Judy Bloom, Jeff Stanzler, Mike Ott, Kingsley Smith, Eva Vives, Peter Sollett, Yanni Kyriazis, Robin Swicord, Wendy Leitman, and Ruth Vitale for being my friends and cheering squad.

My respect and affection for my extraordinary editor, Kate Miciak, is unparalleled. Her input has made me a better writer in every way.

I am also grateful to the whole Ballantine team, particularly Libby McGuire, Kim Hovey, Denise Cronin and her entire crew, Dana Blanchette, Loren Noveck, Julia Maguire, and Caroline Teagle (for the beautiful and evocative cover design).

Special thanks must go to my husband, Gary Hakman, with whom I am exploring the pleasures and perils of intimacy (but who also tells me that after reading the novel he sleeps with one eye open).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

N
INA
S
ADOWSKY
has written numerous original screenplays and adaptations for such companies as The Walt Disney Company, Working Title Films, and Lifetime Television. She was president of Meg Ryan’s Prufrock Pictures for more than five years. She was the executive producer of the hit film
The Wedding Planner
and has produced and developed numerous other films. Sadowsky is currently an adjunct professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, teaching both writing and producing. This is her first novel.

ninarsadowsky.com

@sadowsky_nina