The Daughter-in-Law (16 page)

He recapped everything for Nicole. Alexandra wanted to send down the family lawyers with bunch of legal documents that would establish his financial basis. She was annoyed that he was so casual about critical family affairs. Jack had reneged on his threat to throw
Jonathan’s desk out the window. He’d hold the job open for a while, and keep paying salary. And if Jonathan needed any help, consultants or accountants, he’d send them down right away. And Pam had bubbled with excitement. Nicole was just the best thing that had ever happened to the family. She had encouraged Jonathan into this exciting new adventure in Belize, wherever that was. Pam wanted to talk with her about some of her own ambitions.

“What does it all mean?” Nicole asked.

“Oh, some property transfers for me, a nuptial agreement for you, and probably my father’s meddling in whatever operation we start.”

He kept her up late, filling her in on his thinking. He would start with a simple dive boat operation. There were a lot of small cramped boats run by waterfront captains and dock rats. Great for skilled divers who just wanted transportation out beyond the barrier reef, but there was nothing for tourists. His idea was a luxurious boat with the amenities that vacationers would demand. Hot showers, private rooms, classrooms for lessons, and a cocktail bar for after-dive relaxation. He would team up with the resort hotels, start guests off in the hotel pools, move them out to the underwater parks, and finish up with dives on the outer reefs. “For vacationers and beginners—maybe even families with kids—the resorts will be able to offer a full diving package. They get the room rates, and I get the diving dollars.”

Nicole praised the idea. It would start slow, in cooperation with the resorts that presumably knew the markets.

“But I want the land right away. Something on the water where we can eventually build our own resort. I won’t build right away, of course. But the cost of land down here will be out of sight in another couple of years. I want to buy it now, before anyone knows that I want it.”

He kissed her goodnight and made a few forced attempts to be affectionate. He fell asleep with his head on her belly. But when he tossed awake in the middle of the night, Nicole wasn’t in his bed. He whispered her name, and then called it in a raised voice. There was no response. He got up, walked through the small kitchenette, and found her in the sitting room. She had the plantation shutters thrown open so that she could look across the pool out over the star-
lit water. She was leaning on the edge of the doorway, her arms folded across her T-shirt, her legs bare. She was startled when he came up behind her. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“No, just thinking. A lot has happened in the last couple of days. Maybe more than I can handle. I’ve been toasted as the new bride and then told that it would be better for everyone if I’d just leave. Then I’ve been flown down to a place where I was nearly murdered. And now I learn that I’m going to be living aboard a dive boat for the foreseeable future.”

“And you don’t like what you’re hearing?” Jonathan asked.

“I don’t know yet. It’s only been a few weeks since I was a New York career girl, trying to break through at a brokerage house. You get whiplash when you turn around that quickly.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist. “You said you wanted to get away from everything. So, that’s what I’m trying to do. Build the kind of world that we want to live in.”

“I know,” Nicole said, squeezing his hand affectionately. “But it’s all so confusing. Like these legal papers your mother wants you to sign. Is she disinheriting you just because you married me? Am I being cut off from your money? Where do we stand?”

“Nicole, no matter what they do we’ll still have enough to get a start down here,” he laughed in her ear. “It’s not as if you’re going to have to get a job cooking hamburgers.”

She turned on him abruptly. “Don’t make a joke out of this. How much is marrying me going to cost you?”

“Millions,” he answered, still wearing a sly grin. “I plan to let you work it off in personal services.”

She pushed him away. “You’re losing your whole fortune on account of me, aren’t you?”

“Nicole, I don’t care what I’m losing. We’re together, and we’re both making a fresh start. Isn’t that what we want?”

“Do we know what we want? What does either of us know about starting a business? And in Belize? Do we really have any idea of who’s who down here?”

He pulled her close and kissed her neck. “Not a clue. But we’ll figure it out. Come to bed.”

He started to close the shutters, but Nicole stopped him. “You go back to bed. I need to just stand here and think for a while. There
are things I have to decide for myself. Adjustments that I’ll have to make.”

Jonathan nodded and padded off back to the bedroom, yawning on the way. Nicole resumed her brooding vigil, almost as if she were waiting for a light signal from a distant ship.

She had plenty of time to think during the next few days. Jonathan was off making the rounds of banks and real-estate agents. She was left to lounge by the pool and order lunch in the cabana. He returned each night brimming with exciting tales of his ventures. He had visited all the banks in the city and decided on one that was really a branch of a Chicago bank. His opening deposit had been two million dollars. Then he had been looking over land maps. Property could be had inexpensively at the northern end of Ambergris Cay, but that struck him as too far from the action. “Maybe in ten years the whole cay will look like Cancún, but in the short run I think we need to be at the southern end.” There was a property he was going to visit within the next few days and he wanted her to come along with him. “It won’t be much to look at, so I’m going to need your imagination,” he told her. And then the boat! That might prove to be a problem. The local boats were basically workboats, and there wasn’t a shipyard he would trust to do a conversion. But there was one old yacht over by Belize City that might need nothing more than refurbishing. He’d like to see what she thought about it.

They had romantic dinners by the edge of the pool, or in a small dining pavilion that was right on the beach. They sipped a bottle of wine through dessert and then for another hour as he talked and she listened. Each night, when they returned to their cabana, there were telephone calls waiting, from Alexandra, Jack, Pam, and now even from Ben Tobin. Jonathan made quick work of all of them, but still it seemed to take over an hour before he could join her in the bedroom. He would brief her while he was undressing. Alexandra had to have legal papers signed right away. Either he had to go back or someone would have to come down. Jack had noticed the funds transfers to the bank in Belize. “Those places aren’t any better than hock shops,” he had complained. Pam wanted pictures. Where were they staying? What were they doing? Would they mind if she came down for just a weekend? Ben had been skydiving up in the Adiron-dacks with a guy who claimed he knew Nicole. Did she remember Harry Gillman? He said he used to jump with her?

She didn’t want to play hostess to Alexandra’s lawyers or accountants or whatever they were. She would love to have Pam come and join them for a few days. And no, she didn’t know anyone named Harry Gillman, and certainly had never jumped with him. And then they made love, passionately and aggressively, but not with the same joy they had experienced on their honeymoon. Both of them were nervous and edgy.

Nicole spent an afternoon in San Pedro, browsing in shops that were either too primitive or too touristy. The next day she rode a dilapidated ferry to Belize City looking for down-and-dirty work clothes that would be more suited for exploring land parcels and climbing down to the bilges of old fishing boats. On the ferry, she noticed a man in a tropical sport shirt who had been in some of the San Pedro stores. Then she noticed him again in Belize City. Alexandra’s people, she thought, envisioning the Donners’ private army of security guards. But she became annoyed when he seemed to dog her every movement.

“You’re following me,” she said, turning on him at the entrance to a sidewalk café. He protested, in New York-accented English. “You’re working for the Donners, aren’t you?” More denials. “Then who, Sound Holdings?”

He pushed a card into her hand. “Call him! He’ll explain.” She glanced down at Jimmy Farr’s name.

“I don’t want this,” she said, pressing the card back into his hand.

“Just call him,” he repeated, and then he bolted away.

Nicole settled down at a table and ordered lemonade. Then she thought better of it and switched to a vodka tonic. Jimmy Farr’s name was frightening in itself. The fact that he had known about her romance and then her escape to Belize was terrifying. That was why he had sent someone to stalk her. He wanted to demonstrate that he was watching her every move, and that he had the muscle on the scene to punish her transgressions. She had come into a great deal of money and Jimmy was trying to cut himself in. He wouldn’t be easily dissuaded.

It was time to run again. Except that Jimmy wasn’t easy to escape. For the past two years he had been lurking silently in the background, only to step forward as soon as she had something he wanted. This time, she would have to get farther away. But as she sipped her drink, Nicole had another thought. Maybe she should
call him. His hold on her was the threat of revealing the seamier activities of her past. Wouldn’t he be shocked when he learned that Alexandra Donner had already dug up all the dirt? There was nothing left that he could use as blackmail. And wouldn’t he be devastated to learn that she was probably going to be disinherited. “We’ve been kicked out, Jimmy. The Donners giveth, and the Donners taketh away.”

TWENTY-FOUR

T
HE LAND
agent picked up Jonathan and Nicole at the hotel and drove them in a battered Jeep out to see what he called “The perfect parcel. High priced, but a tremendous value considering the location.” They bumped through underbrush, kicking up swarms of mosquitoes, and sending snakes slithering off behind trees. They splashed through stagnant marshes and sunk into fields of mud. When they reached the water, there was no beach, just tangles of mangroves and thickets of water lilies. The agent kept referring to the ease of “draining some of the swamps,” and “digging canals so that the muck could be used to build up the land.” He clearly envisioned the access roads and the great resort hotel rising out of the jungle. Neither Nicole nor Jonathan could rise to his level of enthusiasm. They agreed to try again and look at different sites.

“I didn’t think we’d get out of there alive,” Nicole said when they were back at their hotel. “It was the first time I ever thought seriously that I might get swallowed up in quicksand.”

“It would cost a fortune just for infrastructure,” he answered, passing over her comments about impending death. “We need something more solid to start with.”

The neglected yacht was an even bigger disappointment. The hull was shabby, flaked with sea growth and rust. The permanent halo of oil that she floated in was an unmistakable indication of leaky bilges. Inside, the cabin plan was attractive even though the spaces were stained with mildew. But the insulation on the wiring crumbled in his fingers, and the twin diesel engines had obviously been pirated for spares.

“I suppose we could tow it up to the Gulf Coast and put her in a yard for a year,” Jonathan mumbled, looking to find some hope for the boat.

“Tow it?” Nicole laughed. “Out into the open sea? I’ll bet she sinks the minute you untie her from the dock.”

Jonathan went off to meet with another yacht broker who claimed to have found “exactly what you’re looking for,” in Galveston.

“Probably an old oil tanker,” he told Nicole when she seemed aghast at the idea of going to Texas. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Why don’t you stay here while I look her over?”

She was back in San Pedro shopping for a straw hat when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She started to turn, but the hand held her rigid. “You don’t need to see me. You know who I am.”

She did. It was the American who had given her Jimmy Farr’s phone number. “You didn’t call,” he said from behind her.

“I’ve been busy,” she answered, trying to sound more confident than she felt. Her knees were unsteady and she knew she had no chance of running.

“This is your last message. Call before you annoy the man. He’s just trying to make you rich.” He reached down and pressed another card into her hand. “Just in case you lost it, here’s the number.” The grip relaxed on her shoulder. She turned, but all she saw was the colorful shirt disappearing into the stream of shoppers. Nicole found a telephone in a hotel and dialed the number. Maybe she could convince Jimmy that she and her husband had gone into exile. But when she heard his voice, she couldn’t manage even a word. She hung up in despair.

Jonathan returned with a dismal report on the boat. “You think the one you saw was a wreck,” he chided. “This one is in the yard. They’re afraid to try and put her in the water.”

To break through the cloud of gloom that was enveloping them, they decided to devote a day to diving. He made the calls, rented equipment, and the next morning brought her aboard a charter boat with three other divers. Two hours later, they were skimming the soft coral gardens inside Half Moon Cay, and plunging down along the coral walls of the Blue Hole.

They went outside the Lighthouse Reef and dove at the very edge of the shelf. They were in twenty feet of water, peering down over the edge of a cliff where the depth fell off to three hundred feet and the light from the sky vanished long before the bottom could come into view. Even the beam from the dive master’s searchlight was swallowed up in the indigo mist before it could find the end of the cliff.

They were rejuvenated on the ride back to their hotel. The diving
had brought them back to the fanciful world they had talked about, and let them forget the harsher realities that awaited them back on land.

But when they entered their cabana, the telephone messages were waiting. Alexandra had someone on the way down with important papers for both of them. Jack had found a better bank that Jonathan should transfer funds to. Pam was planning on coming down the following weekend.