Key West (58 page)

“She’s just a little bit angry with Mr. Giacano,” Whittle said.

“I’ll tell you later,” Sοnnie told Chris. “She believed Frank was going to reward her for watching me and telling him what was happening. She expected him to move in with her.”

Ena.
That explained a lot, Chris thought.

“It is not a sin to change your mind about a woman,” Frank said. “Annette is very sick. She imagines things. She has a history of imagining famous men are in love with her. But what happened was Billy’s idea. She planned everything. She hates my dear wife. They told me about her foot,
cara.
You must not blame yourself. It would be difficult to avoid when she was unconscious.”

“Ι’m divorcing you, Frank,” Sonnie said. Her eyes closed tightly and she started to slip downward.

Chris made a grab. He succeeded in landing her on top of him, and in causing more pain than he could handle. He bent over her and held on.

One of the policemen lifted Sonnie and set her on a chair. “I told you before,” she said to Frank. “You were angry. You said you wouldn’t let me go. But I told you I’d divorce you anyway.”

“You aren’t yourself,” Giacano said. He was too close to Sonnie. “You are imagining things again.”

“I never imagined anything.” Unsteadily, she rose and faced her husband.

“And you were never abducted, Giacano,” Chris said through his teeth. “And when you found out Sonnie was returning to Key West, you got crazy-fan Annette Roberts to take the house next door where she could keep you informed. You knew about me because Annette saw me, and you did some homework on me.”

“You’re guessing.”

“Right before her accident, you were in the car with Sonnie. When she told you she wanted a divorce, you did what you have a history of doing so well: you hit her. You knocked her out, then got too scared to do anything but react. You know all about breaking someone’s foot. That’s what you did to Sonnie. You stamped on her foot—on the gas—and crushed every little bone. Then you jumped. And if you didn’t at least scrape yourself up, you’re quite a man.

“Your brother was there. He’d followed you in his Jag. And he told you what to do. Get on a plane and get the hell out of Dodge. That’s what he told you. And he made up a big fat lie about terrorists. Poor Frank was abducted by terrorists. You were to come back when the time seemed right and sop up the pity and the adoration—and the bucks for your story, and the endorsements you’d pull in.

“But you thought you could do better, so you stuck around, in hiding, having an affair with Billy, laughing at your brother while you plotted against Sonnie.”

“You don’t have any proof,” Giacano said.

“The police have a number of people who will sing without any encouragement. They’ll sing to try to save themselves. Then there’s the man who was there when you rented the moped. After you walked back to the airport.”

“He couldn’t have known I wasn’t Romano...” Frank’s lips remained parted.

Sonnie went for him. With her fists, she beat any part of him he couldn’t cover fast enough. “Υοu killed my baby,” she said. “You murdered her.” She landed a punch on the bridge of his nose, and blood trickled.

“Watch him, Whittle,” Chris shouted.

Sonnie’s last punch got one of Frank’s eyes. He captured her wrists, swung her around to face the room, and trapped her against him with one arm. With the other hand he produced a knife from beneath his sleeve.

“Shit,” Chris said. “Didn’t anyone frisk him?” It didn’t matter that he knew the answer. “Let her go, Giacano,” he said. “Let her go and you’ll make a point or two.”

Frank laughed. “There aren’t enough points to get me out of here if I don’t have her with me. You want her to stay alive?” The knife came to rest against her neck. “You let me walk us out of here. One move to stop me and she dies.”

Chris believed him. His mouth dried and he looked at Whittle. “Let him go.”

Whittle said, “Okay, Giacano, you win.” And Chris could almost feel the way the man’s hand itched to go for his gun.

“Against the wall,” Giacano said. “Both of you cops. Get your hands up and don’t move an eyebrow.”

The two men followed instructions.

Frank edged backward a slow step at a time, never taking his eyes off the police.

Without warning, Sonnie went limp. Giacano hadn’t expected resistance from her. He failed to grab her before she fell to the floor.

He raised the knife. “Nothing’s changed,” he said. “You stay right where you are, and we’ll leave very peacefully. Come any nearer and this knife is in her back.”

“I don’t believe you’d do that to Sonnie,” Chris said. “Try me.” Frank Giacano’s attention wavered for one instant.

A hollow-point bullet from the Glock opened like a flower in the man’s heart.

Epilogue

“You can drown, or you can swim. Decision’s yours, Sonnie.”

It wasn’t that simple.

Nothing ever had been that simple, never would be.

“Roy means you can choose to go down under the weight of hating yourself for what was never your fault,” Bo said. “Or you can look up. If you look up, and open yourself up, you’ll feel the clean wind blow over you and into you, and it’ll fill you with hope. You aren’t supposed to be perfect. Nothing to work on in this world if you’re perfect. Takes us our lifetimes to do the best we can. It’s the trying that counts. The trying turns the ugliest caterpillars into butterflies. You must have been a real pretty caterpillar, and that’s why you’re the most beautiful butterfly I ever saw. Beautiful and good.”

“That’s right,” Roy said. “Only I never knew you were a philosopher, Bo, or so eloquent.”

They sat, one on either side of her, on Smathers Beach. The sun shone; the sea was a perfect calm blue; the wind was as clean as the wind Bo spoke of. Roy and Bo had come to her house and insisted she talk to them, really talk to them. She’d agreed, as long as they brought her here.

“It’s a perfect day,” Bo said. “A day for beautiful butterflies like you, Sonnie.”

“Beautiful day,” she agreed. Her gaze lingered not on the sea or the cloudless sky that met it without a seam, but on scattered rocks some feet away.

“Why did you want to come here?” Roy asked. “Wasn’t this—”

“Yes,” she said, still looking at the rocks. “That’s why. How do you figure out the order of things? Endings and beginnings? It’s all a circle, isn’t it?”

She felt the two men catch each other’s eyes, and she smiled. “No nonverbal allowed, guys.”

“Okay,” Roy said. “Bo, I can’t keep this up.”

“Course not,” Bo told him. “You’re a softie. Sonnie, you haven’t talked to Chris since...Well, it’s been days, and you haven’t.”

“No. There hasn’t been an opportunity. He needed to be left alone to heal.”

“What does that mean?” Bo said.

“He’s never tried to get in touch with me again. I don’t blame him.”

Roy leaned to see her face. “I’m not getting what you mean by that, but you haven’t tried to get in touch with him, have you?”

“That wouldn’t be right. I’ve messed up his life—and I’ve gone against things I believe in.” But she wanted to see him at least once before she tried to do what she’d promised herself she’d do; really make something of herself.

“I can’t stand it,” Roy said. “I can’t. You’re both good people. And you’re both f—friggin’
stupid.”

“Roy,” Bo said. “Go easy.”

Roy stood up. “Do you want to talk to Chris? Don’t hem and haw. And if you cry, I’m going to cry. You won’t like that. Just gimme a simple answer.”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“I...Oh. Okay, then. Just as well, because if you knew what we went through to get him to agree, you’d feel sorry for us.”

“Roy, your mouth will be the end—”

“It’s okay,” Sonnie told Bo. “ If I could sit here on my own awhile, I’d be very grateful. Then, if you’ll take me home again, you can tell Chris I’d like to at least talk to him.”

“He’s on his way here,” Roy said, his face crumpled with worry. “They discharged him from the hospital late yesterday and he flew down here. He’s at our place. I called him while you were doing whatever you do before you go out.”

“Chris is coming here?” She turned around, but all she saw was the nondescript gray pickup that belonged to Roy and Bo. “If he’s smart, he’ll change his mind. He’s not ready for the beach.”

“But you’re going to talk to him?” Roy said.

Sonnie followed the flight of a single gull. “Of course I am.” Even if the thought of facing him stole feeling and left her numb.

Minutes passed in silence. It was Sunday, and few vehicles came and went along South Roosevelt. Despite the sun, the morning wasn’t yet very warm, and they were the only people on the beach.

Bo made patterns in the sand with his fingers. When he grew still, Sonnie raised her head to listen, and she heard the engine of Aiden Flynn’s Mustang. She’d quickly learned its distinctive sound.

Brushing sand from her full blue skirt, Sonnie got up and faced the road. Aiden pulled in to park behind the pickup. Chris was with him.

Sonnie started up the beach. “He can’t come down here,” she said. “The wheelchair won’t want to move on the sand.”

Roy caught her arm. When she paused, he kissed her cheek and said, “My brother’s got great taste.” He and Bo hurried toward the road, but rather than stop to help Chris, they got into the pickup.

What would she say to him? Did he want her to say anything? Whether he did or not, she wanted him to know everything she was thinking and everything she knew now. And she wanted to thank him—and to say how sorry she was for what she’d brought his way.

Chris was a long time getting out of the car. She saw him gradually draw up to his full height, but Aiden didn’t produce the expected wheelchair. Chris settled crutches under his arms and negotiated his way around the hood of the car.

Aiden jumped into the pickup and Roy drove away.

“What—” They wouldn’t hear her, so why ask what they thought they were doing? Anyway, it was obvious. They were trying to throw her together with Chris for as long as possible. And they’d decided that forcing her to drive him home in Aiden’s car wouldn’t hurt.

Chris must need help. He shouldn’t be on his feet like that. It hadn’t been quite two weeks. He could so easily fall and do more damage.

This was one effort that was almost beyond Chris. He might be a strong man, but at this moment he was also an idiot, an idiot for love. Wasn’t that a line in a song? If it wasn’t, it should be.

She had stopped coming toward him.

The doctors had warned him that if he should mess up the good work they’d done, he’d suffer—oh, he would surely suffer.

Damn.
The least she could do was walk beside him and give him an illusion of safety.  “Sonnie,” he yelled, “get over here.”
Oh, great.

Instantly she ran. Blue skirt flying around her calves, hair streaming behind her, she ran. And if he didn’t look closely, he wouldn’t notice she limped. Despite his insecurity on the crutches, he smiled. He was so proud of her.

Proud? As if he had any right to take credit for one thing about this woman.

“You aren’t supposed to be on your feet,” she said, drawing close. “I know what they told you after surgery. Wheelchair for several weeks at least, with only brief periods on the crutches for necessities.”

He didn’t want to be cute, but he said, “This is a necessity.” Frowning, Sonnie stood in front of him. She raised her arms, then let them drop again. First she approached his right side, then his left. “Oh, this is awful,” she said. “Men can be so stupid.”

“So can women.”

“I meant them.” She pointed in the direction Roy and Bo’s pickup had gone. “Leaving you like this. I’d better help you back to that car and drive you home now.”

“Don’t do that,” he said. “Not that you could make me do anything I didn’t want to do.”

She didn’t tell him he sounded petulant. “Aren’t you feeling weak?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’d like to go over there and sit down.” He pointed beyond the scattering of rocks, beyond the wall, to a place where the running of a thousand tides had carved a solid sandbank.

“It’s too far and you can’t use crutches on sand,” she said, but he was already concentrating hard, swinging himself forward to the tennis shoe he wore on his one usable foot, moving the crutches, waiting until the points stopped sinking, and swinging again. He wore cutoff jeans. Dressings swathed his so-called good leg, and he still had heavy bandages on his hands.

“Whatever I say, you’re going to do this.” She caught up with him. “I don’t know how to help you.”

“Stick with me. That’ll help. I’ve got to smell fresh air.”

She jogged along sideways, and he wasn’t about to lie to himself. He liked feeling her worry about him. Beggars grabbed at whatever they could get.

His shoulders strained, and his back. He breathed hard. “Dammit, I hate feeling weak,” he muttered.

“You aren’t,” Sonnie said. “It takes time. Things come back a bit at a time, and you’re going to get completely strong and well again.”

He paused to look at her, and to allow his breathing to slow down. “I know,” he said. “Patience has never been one of my virtues.”

“We could just talk here,” she suggested.

“No way.” He swung forward again. “Over there or bust. This is good for me.”

She wasn’t sure he was right, but she admired him.

Admired?
What a pathetic word.

It took time, but he made it, turned himself to face the sea, and managed to sit without jarring anything loose. When he stopped puffing, he shook his head and said, “God, this feels great. We’ve got a lot to say, Sonnie. At least, I hope we do. Let’s get started.” If he sounded short-tempered, he couldn’t do a thing about it. He’d had to work his way up to being ready for this. Now he was ready. Right now.

“Are you chilly?” she asked. “Do you have a coat in the car?”

“I’m scared. How’s that for honesty? I’m scared about what we’re going to say to each other. How about you?”

“Scared,” she said. So serious. Such a very serious, dear face. “We’ve gone past trying to play with what we say to each other. I know I owe it to you to be absolutely honest—about everything.”