Safe Harbor (38 page)

She pressed her hands together in a prayerful pose, the index fingers touching her lips. She had beautiful, long fingers, very talented. But not as talented as Holly's. Holly could make bookcases! The thought was a tonic to the dryness Sam felt inside. Just thinking that the woman he loved could perform such a miracle of carpentry, among other miracles
...

"No
... no, you're not being gauche,"
Eden
said in a trembly voice. A tear broke loose and rolled down her cheek; she brushed it away with her clasped hands. "I understand, I do, Sam. Why
wouldn't
you be concerned; a hundred and fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money. Your parents must have been frantic all this time."

"You know what, Eden? They were."

Seven years. He was almost dizzy with the thought of the bouts of melancholy, the evenings spent playing the songs he knew she'd loved. If he never heard Phil Collins again, it was going to be way too soon.

"But Sam, here's the thing," she said with a mournful sigh. "I'm going to have to give it back. All of it."

"Give it—what—back?"

"All of the money that I got for the engraving."

It was like a meltdown at a nuclear power plant: a din of sirens and alarms went off at once, making thought impossible. Sam had to force himself to stay calm. This was
Eden
he was dealing with; he'd need his wits.

He said cautiously, "And why would you do that?"

She shrugged and gave him a look that he'd have sworn was filled with sympathy. "The engraving was a forgery," she explained with a hapless smile.

"What
?" he shouted.
"A forgery
?
Godalmighty
, what next, Eden?"

"Shh, shh," she said, touching her hand to his lips. "Don't, don't, Sam," she begged.

She looked around her with something like panic and began dragging him away from their fairly conspicuous spot to a slightly less conspicuous one behind a tree. People were milling everywhere; it was impossible to get out of earshot, but she did the best she could.

"I sold the engraving to a fairly rough character," she said. "Don't ask me details; you don't want to know, except that I'm sure he's somewhere on the island, which has me terrified out of my wits."

She sounded nervous enough, but she seemed determined to get out her story. "After your parents gave me the engraving, the first thing I did was track down the lawyer who'd handled their inheritance. I found out that he'd been the gay lover of your parents' bachelor Uncle Henry. I suppose because of the intimacy, the attorney knew that Uncle Henry had been given the engraving by an Allied soldier who'd stolen the painting from a museum in
Berlin
. I'm assuming that old Uncle Henry had once been lovers with the Allied soldier, but that's neither here nor there."

Sam was mesmerized. "You managed to find all this out about a long-dead uncle and his now-dead lawyer?"

"Oh, come on, Sam. How hard was it? The attorney's secretary is in a nursing home and desperately lonely; she was more than willing to reminisce."

All Sam could think was, What a waste of smarts.

"I admit," said
Eden
, "that I was going to keep half the money and lie to your parents about how much I got. But then I fell in with Eric, and I was pretty much resolved to give your parents all—well, nearly all—of the money, because I figured I wouldn't need it and I know they did. I'm sure you don't believe me—you have no reason to believe me—but that's what I had planned."

"Uh-huh. Keep talking."

"But then, while I was sailing with Eric on his boat, I got a call on my cell phone from this—" She looked around, then lowered her voice. "This brute I sold the engraving to, and he was furious. He told me he'd had the engraving looked at, and an expert had told him that it was a nineteenth century fake. He threatened to kill me, Sam! I could handle one creep coming after me," she said, "but not two. As it turned out, I'd also pissed off a dealer—but you know how middlemen are, Sam; everything pisses
them
off."

"This would be Stefan Koloman."

"Stefan, yes. You met him? So you know he means business. All I can say is, he doesn't mean as much business as Hans."

"And that's why you faked your death to look like a murder: so that each of the men would think the other had done it."

She looked surprised; surprised and pleased that he was able to keep up. "I've always thought that you and I made the best team, Sam," she said with an irrepressible grin. "Yes, that's what I had planned. I didn't expect poor Eric to be blamed."

Sam, who knew that she'd told Eric only that she had staged the scene to look like an accident to put off Stefan, said, "Did you care that Eric was suspected?"

She shrugged. "Not as much as I cared that Hans and Stefan be convinced I was dead. But when Eric came under suspicion, the state police impounded his boat. That, I
didn't
expect."

"Or you never would have hidden the money there."

"I didn't say that," she said, shaking her head. "Just that I was surprised. Eric had wanted to take me on some voyage or other, so I knew I could talk my way back aboard the boat any time I wanted to. He's having a late-life crisis," she added, sounding utterly bored. "He's obsessed with this dream to sail somewhere far. Which is convenient for me: in the
Bahamas
or in
Bora Bora
, no one much cares who you are or where you're from."

Not a bad plan. Sam could see how she'd managed to keep out of jail all these years.

He said, "And yet Eric suspected that you set up the boat to look like a murder had been committed there. He lied about how the blood got on the deck either to cover for you—or because he was too humiliated to admit that he was out of your loop."

Again she shrugged, and Sam had to admit, she had the most eloquent shrug he'd ever seen. "He lied because he loves me."

"
Eden
, he's such a little fish—hardly worthy of your hook," Sam said softly. "Throw him back to his family. Find someone worthy of your talents."

"How can I, Sam? Maybe if
you
were rich. But I'm giving back all of the money; I'll have
nothing
after this."

Ah, shit: the money. His parents were on the way to being destitute again, if—if—
Eden
was giving back all of the money.

Something in his face tipped her off that he didn't altogether believe her. She became angry; she said, "What does it take to make you believe me? Hans is a
thug.
Do you understand? A murderous thug!"

"But possibly an imaginary one?" Sam asked wryly.

"Oh? Imagine
this,
in that case." She turned away slightly from him and yanked up her already high dress: the backs of her thighs were appallingly black and blue.

"My God," Sam said, his jaw clamping down tight. He touched the massive bruises gingerly, hardly able to believe that someone could punish a woman that way. "Where do I find him?"

"His name is Hans Erlich; he hangs out in
South Boston
," she murmured, pulling her dress back down. "He's an arms dealer, I'm pretty sure, and a big-time collector of
Nazi paraphernalia.
I
guess
he
wanted
the
Durer
because
he's
decided to move into something more mainstream," she quipped. But her voice was quavering as she added, "He said that if I don't bring him his money tomorrow, he was going to... to use the next car to kill me. Sam, I am so scared," she said, hugging herself as she stood before him.

He had never seen her afraid before. She was trembling violently as she said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't want you to see me like this." She made an effort to pull herself together, but she failed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she kept mumbling.

Sam couldn't bear to see a woman in terror. He took
Eden
in his arms to reassure her and said
sympathetically
, "Does Eric know about this?"

She rolled her forehead in a back-and-forth
no
across his shirt. "I didn't tell him I recognized Hans in the Volvo."

"Do you want me to give the money back for you?" he said, holding her a little away and searching her face for some clue what she wanted from him.

"Yes. No. I can't ask you to do that," she said, looking down at the ground. When she raised her head again, tears were flowing down her cheeks. "I can't ask you, even though I know that once you would have gone to the moon and back, if the man in the moon were threatening me. Oh, Sam," she said in a soft wail, "I love you so much. I was such a fool. I've never stopped loving you; I knew I wouldn't, and I never have. We were so good together
... that's why
I
never could bring myself to divorce you
..."

She jerked away from him and made a massive effort to bring herself under control. Wringing her hands desperately, she kept repeating, "I'm sorry, sorry
... I swore to myself that I wouldn't say anything. I know it's over between us, I know that
... but we were so
good
together. Oh, Sam, when I heard you were on the island, I—something happened. I don't understand it, I can't explain it, but something terrible and wonderful happened. I fell in love all over again
... still
... for the first time. I can't explain it. Sam
... Sam
..." she said through her tears. "I
love
you."

It was that last "I love you" that did it for Sam.

Something about it was too insistent, too like
Eden
wanting her way. Maybe she meant it and maybe she didn't, but the amazing thing, the joyous thing, the absolutely liberating thing, was that Sam didn't care either way. He had given his heart so completely to Holly that he had little room for any emotion for
Eden
except pity. He did feel genuinely bad for her: her conning ways had finally caught up with her. He'd help her as much as he could, but not out of love.

"
Eden
,
I
don't know what to say—"

"Say you love me, then!" she cried. "At least say you'll have me! Just once—for old times' sake." She threw herself at him, and before he could unwrap her clinging arms from around his neck, they were accosted by a scandalized, disillusioned s
ixty-two-year-old with a shiner.

"
Eden
!
"

"Eric! Thank God you're here. It's Sam," she said, backing away from him in sudden horror. "I don't know what came over him; he went into this jealous rage," she said, rushing toward
Anderson
.

"Get away from
me!"
he cried in a ghastly voice. He raised his arms so quickly that she ran up against them and staggered backward.

"Eric, how could you? You
... you said you
trusted
me," she said plaintively. Anyone would have thought that poor old Eric had been the one caught cheating.

Sam felt a little like the father of a problematic bride:
Here you go, fella; she's all yours.
"Well," he said, feeling oddly buoyant, "gotta go.
Eden
, if you want me to deliver that money for you, just call Holly. She'll know where I am."

Tonight, tomorrow, for the rest of their lives. All Sam had to do was convince her that he was, indeed, The Right One for her. She had believed it once. If he had to park on her porch until the island got swept into the sea, he was going to make her believe it again.

"You lied to me!" Eric said in a scandalized croak. "You liar! I heard everything. Lies!"

"I'll leave you two to it," Sam said with a polite smile and a shrug. Then he turned and walked out of the swampy mire of
Eden
's influence once and for all.

But he didn't know where he was walking
to.
Holly was in the
Camp
Ground
somewhere, but where? He remembered that she had originally invited him to help her hang lanterns on a cottage whose name had something to do with birds. What was it? Robin's Nest? Chicken Coop? He racked his brain and came up with the owner's name: Renata something. Wren House, yes, that was it; it was a play on her name.

The search began. He went from porch to porch, asking arbitrary guests if they knew where Wren House was and for a while got no for an answer. Finally he hit pay dirt. "Take the next left," said an elderly gentleman.

He turned down the next spoke of the hub that was the park and was lucky enough to spot the Cissy-Sally redhead, getting scolded for standing on the banister of the porch. The scolder was a taller, older version of Holly's other niece. Sam walked up to the woman and said, "Hi; Sam Steadman. Where can
I
find your sister?"