Saving Grace (Katie & Annalise Book 1) (3 page)

“You have any better excuse for not returning my calls than this?” Collin said in a stern big-brother tone. I forced my eyes open long enough to see him gesturing around the living room of my once-beautiful apartment. Collin was my Irish twin, my elder by eleven months. We finished high school the same year, though, because my dad, a good Texan, had insisted on holding Collin back a year to help him gain a size advantage on the football field. Thus we had been classmates as well as siblings. Even so, Collin had always acted paternal toward me, especially in the past year after we’d lost Mom and Dad.

I opened my eyes a slit, enough to see the mess. I supposed it didn’t look good. I’m usually particular to a fault about my surroundings. Collin has always called me OCD, but I don’t agree. I vacuum backwards because I don’t like how footprints look on the rug. I arrange my clothes by season and subcategorize them by function and color, because who doesn’t? And while not everyone combs the fringe on their throw pillows, I think they should. Tangled fringe. The horror. Those last few weeks, though? Well, not so much.

There were—gasp—fast food wrappers on the kitchen table and a couple of empty V8 and Ketel One vodka bottles out on the counter. It wasn’t unsanitary by Dennis the Menace standards, but, if you knew me as well as my brother did, it was troubling. My PJs were yesterday’s work clothes, and the clothes from the days before lay in an undrycleaned heap beside the couch—the couch on which the throw pillow fringe was taunting me with knots and clumps. The television blared Bon Jovi’s “Runaway” over a Direct TV ’80s rock music station. An almost-drained Bloody Mary mocked me from the coffee table, where it sat by my red Vaio laptop, a bottle of Excedrin, and my iPhone.

I sat up in as dignified a manner as I could manage and smoothed out my clothes. “Why didn’t I hear the alarm when you came in?” I asked him. Collin had a set of keys to my place, but my alarm should have beeped when he opened the door.

Bluntly, Collin said, “I guess you were too drunk to remember to set it. Or maybe you had a visitor that left late?”

He looked around for a second glass, but I’d been drinking alone. Collin started picking up my mess.

“Collin, I’ll do that,” I said.

“Nope. You go freshen up,” he said. “I’m taking you to breakfast. That’s an order.”

I stared at him woefully. He was wearing his usual 501 jeans with a Hooters t-shirt, and he radiated “I’ve got no problems.” I didn’t want to go to breakfast with him. I wanted to curl into the fetal position. I wanted to sleep and be alone. I wanted to be so still that I didn’t exist.

He looked at me, motionless on the couch, and something he saw made him put down the trash and come back over to me. Taking my hand, he pulled me to my feet. He held my stiff body in a bear hug, rocking me gently for a moment. Uh oh. At first, I tried to hold it in, but then I folded and sobbed on his big shoulder. Sobs became snorts, then hiccups, then shuddering breaths. He tilted my head back with a big thumb under my chin and looked into my eyes, appraising me.

“Go take a hot shower. We’ll eat somewhere casual, but I’m leaving—with you in the car—in twenty minutes.” He chucked the side of my chin with his knuckles. “Chop chop. You know I’ll come in after you if I have to. Don’t make me do it.”

With a soft push, he sent me down the hall to my bathroom, and then I heard him resume cleaning. Tears rolled down my nose and cheeks. Ye gads, I would have to drink gallons of water at breakfast, because at the rate I was crying and with the amount of vodka I had consumed last night, I was on the brink of a major dehydration headache.

Forty-five minutes later, we took our seats in the Mockingbird Lane IHOP. It was a favorite place from our childhood, but today I noticed that it had a lot of garish orange in its décor, and I liked it a little less because of it. Collin surprised me when he requested a table for three, but I didn’t expend the energy to question him. I understood when I saw Emily’s pageant hair at the hostess stand. She walked toward us in pleated navy-blue pants and a silky yellow shirt cinched with a leather belt that matched her brown pumps.

“Hi, Katie.” She looked at me for a moment, then averted her eyes.

I lifted a limp hand in greeting. Great. Another person to see me in this state. I had shunned my image in the mirror before I left the condo, but the brief glimpse I got was enough. Wet ponytail. An old track suit and t-shirt. Puffy-eyed and sallow. Ick.

We avoided talking by staring at our menus until the middle-aged waitress, who really should have worn a one-size-larger uniform, came for our order. My stomach muscles tightened as she walked away. I almost stopped her to add an orange juice I didn’t want to my order, but I didn’t. No use delaying the inevitable. Collin had assembled us for a reason, and something unpleasant cometh.

“Emily and I have been talking, and she filled me in on what’s happening with you,” Collin said.

I hoped Emily had held some of it back, but I couldn’t fault her for caring about me. Or caving in to Collin. He was a cop, in the fine tradition of our father, and he’d never met a witness he couldn’t crack, he liked to say.

Collin kept the floor. “We’re worried about you. You’re messed up. You’re hurting yourself.”

He looked at Emily for confirmation and she stared at the white Formica tabletop. If I knew Collin, he’d dragged her into this little intervention, and if I knew Em, she was reluctant as hell. Emily was self-confident, but boat rocking was not her style.

I didn’t have the strength to fight Collin on this, and I didn’t actually disagree with him. I was a train wreck right now, for sure. He had me at one of those rare moments when the tough-talking woman wasn’t around to defend the fragile girl inside me. She was probably still sprawled across my couch nursing her hangover.

“You’re right,” I confessed. The words were dust on my dry tongue. “I need to get myself together.”

“I think you should go to rehab.” Collin’s words sounded harsh, because that’s the only way words like “go to rehab” can sound.

So this was how Amy Winehouse felt. And she was dead now. Something to think about it. Except I wasn’t Amy Winehouse.

“I’ve been in the dumps, yes, and I’ve been drinking too much, but only for a few weeks. I don’t think that warrants rehab.” The thought of talking about my problems with all of those alcoholic people made me claustrophobic. AA may work for most people, but I don’t do group activities very well. Besides, I was not an alcoholic.

“These last three weeks were especially bad, but you’ve been on this road for much longer than that,” Collin said. “Like a year. Can you cut back or stop? I’ll bet you’ve already tried that, haven’t you?” I avoided his eyes. “And I’ll bet it didn’t work.”

“No, asshole, I haven’t,” I almost said. Almost. Instead, I said, “I haven’t tried. I know I can, when I’m ready.”

My cheddar omelet came, but I wasn’t hungry. None of us touched our food.

“I admit that I’d have trouble stopping here in Dallas if I did try. When I do try. But I know that if I could get out of my life for a few weeks, I could get this under control. I’m willing to start with that. Rehab’s not for me. Maybe if you’re pulling me out of a gutter someday, but not now.”

“Fine. I’ll give you one chance, sis, so make it count. Do you have anything in mind?” Collin asked.

I sucked in as much air as I could get, then forcibly exhaled until my stomach collapsed in. “St. Marcos. I need to get some closure on what happened to Mom and Dad.” I started to cry, then swallowed it. I opened my mouth to speak, and the tears started again.

“Are you sure?” Collin asked.

I nodded and used the clean side of my paper napkin to wipe my eyes. As I looked up, a young black woman caught my eye, partly because she was staring at me, and partly because she was barefoot in IHOP and her clothing looked a hundred and fifty years out of place. Now
she
had a problem. Drugs, from the look of it. A total rehab candidate. Not me. I wiped my eyes again and when I opened them, she was gone. Nothing there at all. I was going nuts. I gulped air.

I desperately needed to get away. This trip, this solo rehab or mini-sabbatical or whatever it was, would be a godsend.

And so we agreed that I would go. Immediately. As in tomorrow. Yikes. A little sooner than I’d anticipated, but Collin insisted, and Emily promised to help me make it happen. Collin and I shook on it when he dropped me back at my condo, and Emily was right behind us.

Emily and I rolled into work at Hailey & Hart mid-morning, after I had changed into a work-acceptable cream-colored summer pant suit. We didn’t get much done other than booking my trip and clearing my schedule for it. I talked to Gino about the vacation days, expecting him to argue with me, but he didn’t. He patted my hand. Ugh.

“Time off will do you a world of good,” he said. “You’ve worked hard this year under difficult circumstances, and you need to recharge and bring your best self back.”

Great. That was boss-speak for “you’re a hot mess, get the frick out of here.” Well, I was. A humiliated hot mess. Tomorrow wasn’t sounding too soon to get away from that after all.

At Collin’s request, Emily babysat me overnight, leaving her husband home alone. Emily was a far better friend than I deserved, but once upon a time, I had played her role when Rich temporarily broke off their engagement. Life in balance.

Late in the evening, I finally mentioned the name no one had uttered all day. “If Nick asks where I am, please give him the sanitized version.”

Emily was sitting at a barstool, and I was standing across the counter in my kitchen. She leaned toward me. “Don’t even go there. Nick has acted like friggin’ Heathcliff to you ever since Shreveport. Come on, girl. Let it go.”

I was getting a lot of veiled messages today. This one was “he’s just not that into you.” Ouch, but she was right.

But could I leave my feelings about him here and truly go off to St. Marcos with a clear head? I tossed and turned in my bed all night, buffeted between images of my parents and Nick.

“Please turn off and stow away all electronic devices at this time,” came the voice of the flight attendant over American Airlines’ P.A. system. Crap. I was writing an email to Emily promising her a rib-eye dinner from Del Frisco’s, my treat, if she’d remove the leftover sushi from my refrigerator, but I had enough time to hit Send.

I had tucked myself into my first-class upgrade seat on the way to St. Marcos with my essentials around me: passport, red Vaio laptop, iPhone in its zebra-print Otter Box. I know Dell and Blackberry are the technologies of choice for most attorneys, but I liked to flatter myself that I was not like everybody else. Of course, lately I was living up to the worst of the attorney stereotypes: the hard-drinking one. Bad on me.

The email I’d sent yesterday to my non-work friends explained my sudden disappearance as a vacation. They could picture me sipping piña coladas on the beach and dancing the nights away to calypso music with a sexy West Indian man, getting my groove back like Stella. Emily would take care of a similar work announcement for me this morning.

Speaking of West Indian men, the slightly paunchy one next to me in first class was trying to read my screen. I turned it farther away from him. Where were his first-class manners, anyway?

I turned my attention back to my email. Shouldn’t I tell Nick myself? Maybe he had acted Heathcliff-ish, but up until Shreveport, I would have sent him a flirty note about my trip. If he disappeared, I would want to know why. Ipso facto, wouldn’t he? Under the grip of this logic lapse, I shot off a quick email to him.

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Subject: Travel

Nick:

I am letting you know, on the off chance you notice I’m gone, that I’m on a Caribbean vacation. Back in a week. Emily will shepherd my cases while I am out. And Nick, I am sorry. For everything.

Katie

I had promised him I’d tell him the truth from Shreveport forward. Well, I was mostly honest, because this was sort of a vacation. I closed my eyes with my finger on Send, wavering.

“Ma’am, you’ll have to turn that off and put it away now.” The gray-haired flight attendant leaned down, a taut smile on her face. How she must hate repeating those words over and over and over each day to people like me who would lie, cheat, and steal to sneak a few more precious seconds of airtime before takeoff. I was a good girl this time, though.

“No problem,” I said. I hit Send and turned my screen off. Well, sort of a good girl. I readjusted in my seat, pulling my purple maxi-dress out of an uncomfortable twist under my legs.

“My name’s Guy,” the man next to me said. He offered his hand.

Nooo. I wanted to sleep. I took his hand—his very soft hand, Vaseline Intensive Care soft—and said, “Katie. Nice to meet you,” then broke eye contact. I leaned my head back. “Don’t think about dandruff, lice, and other head-borne nastiness,” I told myself. I immediately could think of nothing but.

A toddler screamed. I craned my head around my seatback to find the culprit. A young father was traveling alone with a child in the first row of coach. This didn’t bode well.

The flight attendant was back. Her skin looked younger than her hair, and her eyes were bright. “May I get you a beverage before we take off, ma’am?”

I was anxious after sending that email to Nick.
L’enfant terrible
and the potential lice issue grated on my nerves. I was heading off to conquer demons and confront personal issues in a foreign environment. Even a responsible drinker would order a cocktail in first class under these conditions.

“Bloody Mary,” someone said. Me. Oops.

“Absolutely, ma’am.”

Well, I wasn’t at the resort, I wasn’t even on St. Marcos yet. If you really thought about it, this was the countdown, but the ball hadn’t dropped. I didn’t need to take a break from drinking until I got there. Besides, what were flight upgrades to first class for if not the free drinks? Sure, they served you a microwaved bowl of mixed nuts and handed you a hot hand towel with a pair of kitchen tongs, maybe they even gave you a gooey chocolate chip cookie if you were lucky, but the booze was what it was all about.

“Make that two,” my new friend Guy said. He leaned slightly toward me and said, “That just sounded perfect. I’ve been in Los Angeles to meet with television producers about filming a show on St. Marcos. Most tiring.”

“Isn’t that nice,” I said.

When we landed on St. Marcos, I still felt tipsy-good from my in-flight libations. I wished Guy a fond farewell and lied about both my last name and the resort at which I was staying, to ensure I wouldn’t accidentally see him again.

I took a seat in the taxi-van for the Peacock Flower Resort, bobbing my head appreciatively to the beat of Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff.” When I arrived at the hotel, it was even more beautiful than I’d imagined. It stood proudly, pink stucco, two stories, surrounded by royal palms. I could see why my parents had loved staying here. As I breezed through the entrance, the doorman handed me a clear plastic glass of rum punch with a big chunk of pineapple on the side. Fruit. Dinner. The people here were perfectly lovely.

I checked in and the front desk clerk sent the nicest young man to assist me to my room. He refreshed my rum punch before we set out. “Long, thirsty walk to your room, miss,” he said with a wink. His accent was delicious.

My room was right on the beach, but tucked back into a grove of palm trees for privacy.

“A lot of famous people stay in this room.” He looked at me intently. “Should I know you? You’re awfully beautiful, miss. Are you a model?”

I chose to overlook the fact that he was making this comment only moments before he left me in my room, so it was ideally timed to coincide with my decision about tipping. I said, “Why, thank you,” and pressed a twenty-dollar bill into his hand. He half-bowed appreciatively and wished me a “pleasant good afternoon.”

I surveyed my surroundings. Ah, good, the desk area was just right. I put my purse on the floor beside it and squared my laptop perfectly, just the way I like it. I checked my phone. It had lost its charge. I pawed through my laptop bag for the phone charger and plugged it in. God knows how much time I’d lost waiting for messages with a dead mobile. Probably right when Nick would have emailed me back, too. I unpacked while the phone gathered enough juice for a connection.

I continued my self-tour of the suite. The resort’s website had claimed the bathtub was big enough for two, and it was as billed. Large enough to hold me and my evil sharp-tongued alter ego who drank too much. Earth-hued marble tiles of varying shades, textures, sizes, shapes and patterns filled the bathroom. It should have been too much, but it wasn’t. It was stunning.

The muted tropical palette of the rest of the suite set off the natural tones of the bathroom beautifully. It was the best of outdoors brought softly inside. The furniture and ceiling fan were bamboo, the linens an ivory pinstripe Egyptian cotton of what felt like 1000 thread count, covered by a fluffy cream-colored duvet. I couldn’t wait to get in and roll around in those sheets, to rub crisp cotton on my skin. Most of the color in the room—brilliant yellows, palmetto greens, and fuchsia—came from fresh cuttings of local plants and flowers.

A set of French doors opened from the bedroom onto a patio tiled with almond-colored travertine pavers. The patio spilled out onto a short lawn dotted with coconut palms that ended with private beach access. Beyond the broad beach was the turquoise and sapphire Caribbean Sea. I smiled. This would do nicely.

My iPhone had charged enough for a data download. I picked it up and scrolled through my email. My secretary had sent a few questions, and Collin and Emily had both asked me to let them know I’d arrived safely. I did so, and scrolled through more messages, junk mostly. And then I came to one that cut off my breath: a response from Nick.

I put the iPhone down until I could breathe normally. I wiped my palms on my purple skirt, then picked the phone back up. No biggie. I was fine. The body of the email was short:

“ok”

ok. OK!! Two lowercase letters, one word. Not exactly a lot for me to go by. He could have deleted my email without reading it. He could have read it and not answered. He could have read it and answered by saying something rude (was “ok” rude?). Or, he could have read it and answered with something positive, like “I’ll see you when you return” or “Good luck.” My brain started speeding around its familiar Nick-paths, a NASCAR wannabe around a trailer park. This was not good.

I drained my rum punch and ate my dinner of pineapple garnish. I looked in the mini-fridge. Jackpot. A whole pitcher of rum punch was waiting for me inside. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any fruit. Fruit juice was healthy enough, though. Rum punch would make a perfect island substitute for Bloody Marys. I poured myself a glass.

Nick. The incredibly cold jerk. I fought with myself not to answer him. I drank the rum punch. Fought with myself some more. Drank some more. And then I made up my mind. I was getting out of there. I grabbed my purse, phone, and room key and stomped up to the bar I’d seen during check-in.

The bar was a covered hilltop patio overlooking the beach and the ocean. I hiked up the stone steps and found a good crowd around the mahogany bar and at round tables scattered around the tiled floor. A few people danced, close and sultry, to a reggae band who sounded pretty good. They were playing a song about ninety-six degrees in the shade. The female singer growled the chorus—“Real hot, in the sha-yyy-ade.” I sat down at the bar and turned to watch them when I got my Bloody Mary from the blond-dreadlocked bartender. After one sip, I realized it was all wrong and ordered a rum punch.

“You throwing out a perfectly good drink? What wrong with you, girl?” The voice pronounced girl as “gyal.” I did a double take, then realized it was the singer.

“I changed my mind,” I said.

“Unless you got some dread disease, you can give that thing to me,” she said. Kyan give dat ting.

I pushed the glass to her, fighting back my willies over sharing cooties with a stranger. I didn’t want to appear rude. “I took a sip,” I warned her.

She pulled the straw out of the drink and tossed it toward the trash can behind the bar. She missed. “Thanks. Singing thirsty work.” She stuck out her hand. “I Ava.”

I took her hand and shook. “Katie.”

“My people dem just up and leave before we through our last set. Trouble.”

I tried to follow, but her singsong accent threw me. I missed half of what she said. She took pity on me.

“Lah, you don’t understand me.” She slugged down some Bloody Mary. “I said my bandmates just left me and we hadn’t even done our last set. We’re going to be in trouble with the owner.” She spoke in the Queen’s perfect English this time, enunciating each word perfectly.

“Oh, wow, yes, I understand now.”

“Sorry. I talk Local when I’m performing, or when I’m talking to other locals. But I can Yank just fine, when I need to.”

“Yank?”

“Talk like a Yankee. It’s like speaking two languages. Talking Local greases the wheel and impresses the tourists. It’s part of being bahn yah.”

“What’s bahn yah mean?”

“In Yank, it means ‘born here.’ You may live on St. Marcos for forty years, but you are only truly local if you bahn yah. Which I was. Now, I owe you a drink,” she said, signaling the bartender, “and I always pay back my debts to my friends.”