43

ALLIE LET GO OF THE LADDER AT THE END OF HER DOCK AND SLIPPED INTO another world. The sound of wind and gull vanished, replaced by the wide silence of the ocean. The only noise was the intermittent gurgle of bubbles escaping her regulator and floating up to the surface.

She kicked her feet and glided several meters from the dock. She had the shallow cove to herself today, except for a handful of semitame groupers that swam up to her in the hope that she (like many tourists) would feed them. Scuba diving alone is a big no-no for the safety conscious, but Allie had never fallen into that category.

The bottom slipped beneath her, a warm tapestry of sand, rock, shell, and darting fish. As she moved farther from shore, the water grew gradually deeper and the profusion of life increased. Brilliant blue and yellow angel fish appeared, darting in and out of the coral. Urchins and starfish hunted among the crannies and hills of the coral landscape.

She imagined bringing Mom, Sam, and the girls here. They’d love it. Mom would sit on the deck wearing lots of sunscreen and a big floppy hat while she drank iced tea and watched her daughters and granddaughters have fun—which was her favorite pastime. The girls would snorkel in the shallows and squeal every time they saw a fish or “Auntie Allie” came up underneath them and blew bubbles. Sam would wear a one-piece suit to hide her stretch marks and would spend most of her time making sure her daughters were safe.

A weightless joy welled up in Allie’s heart. She reveled in the moment, unburdened by memory or worry. Part of her mind knew that she was still hiding, of course, but she had left that fact back at the dock—just like she had left the things she was hiding from back in California. For now, she could live in a warm and brightly lit future.

The heedless excitement she felt as she slid through the water was like snowboarding. Or no, it was more like what she felt that day in Connor’s plane. She reached an open sandy stretch, empty of fish and coral. The water stretched to a hazy sky-blue horizon in front of her. She put her arms out to the side and pretended she was flying. Such a little kid thing to do, but fun. Her nieces would approve.

She smiled and rolled over on her back. The sun shone down on her through the liquid glass surface. So beautiful. So peaceful.

Her family faded from her thoughts, and she imagined Connor swimming beside her. The marine sunlight dappled his lean, muscular body, and his brown hair waved rhythmically as he swam. She’d notice something funny—fat tourists wading hippolike in search of shells—and point it out to him. They’d share a silent laugh. Maybe they’d hold hands as they swam, like the honeymooning couple who rented the bungalow on the other side of the cove last week.

She realized that she hadn’t checked her dive computer in a while and glanced at it. Time to head back.

She kicked back across the cove, her daydreams trailing after her. She rose gradually as she swam, and the blue light grew brighter and lighter. Soon the dock loomed ahead of her, a shadowed grove of weedy pillars in the haze of the marine world. She slowed, letting her gaze drift from the dock down to a school of flashing shad below her.

In a few minutes, she’d be on the hard, hot wood of the dock, stripping off her diving gear while simultaneously trying to avoid splinters. Then she’d rinse at the little shower on her deck, get ready, make herself some toast and tea, and then… what?

Good question. There wasn’t all that much to do on San Salvador beyond diving, fishing, and lying on the beach. Fishing had never appealed to her, and she had already spent more time on the beach than she should. Diving was always fun, but it wasn’t cheap. She’d already hit all the tourist attractions, so her only other options were biking around the island again or getting hit on at one of the Club Med bars.

She’d hinted to a few inquisitive locals that she was a budding author working on the Great American Novel. Maybe she could start hanging out at the tiny local library in Cockburn Town with her laptop. She shuddered. The thought of sitting by herself and writing (or pretending to write anyway) for hours on end struck her as incredibly sad. Better to risk skin cancer and wrinkles down at the beach.

She reached the ladder on the dock and held onto the bottom rung with one hand while she pulled off her flippers with the other. She tossed them up onto the dock and reluctantly pulled herself out of the water. Gravity reasserted itself and the tank and weight belt dragged at her shoulders and hips.

She stopped at the top of the ladder and stared in open-mouthed shock. There he was. “Connor!”

He didn’t greet her or even smile. “Let’s go inside, Allie.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked toward her bungalow.

Allie hurried after him, dripping her way across the deck and the lawn. She was acutely aware of the fact that she was wearing a bikini and no makeup. And she hadn’t brushed her teeth after eating a can of tuna for breakfast.

She caught up with him at the sliding glass door. “Wow, what a surprise!” She laughed, then winced at the shrill nervous sound that came out of her mouth. “So, when did you get in? Where are you staying?”

He turned to her, his face an expressionless mask. “I’m not staying. I flew in this morning, and I’m flying out tonight. There’s a car waiting for me outside right now.”

Her mouth opened and shut, but her brain had no words to give it.

“I’m here for two reasons. First, I hereby inform you that Doyle & Brown is withdrawing from representing you.” His voice was polite and cold as a lonely winter night. “We can no longer ethically continue as your lawyers in light of your repeated misrepresentations to the firm and to me personally.”

“You—you came all this way just to tell me that?”

“A letter sent by process server would have been enough, but I wanted to tell you personally. I wanted you to know exactly what your lies have done—what happened because I was stupid enough to trust you. Deep Seven sued Doyle & Brown and has filed an ethics complaint against me personally. The firm is investigating me and is likely to expel me if they think I had the slightest hint of what was going on. Oh, and we’ll never know what Deep Seven is up to. Max shut down his investigation as soon as he discovered that Deep Seven really hadn’t stolen any state money after all. And, of course, he’s not going to make a criminal referral. Not for them anyway—you and I may be a different story.”

He stopped and his mouth quivered slightly, but when he went on his words were as hard and polished as before. They were like well-aimed stones, chosen with care and hurled at her with all his strength. “So I wanted to tell you that in person. That’s the first reason I’m here. The second is that I wanted to ask why you did it—why you decided to lie to me, to lie to the courts and the Department of Justice, to ruin everything we built together, and then to run away and leave me holding the bag.”

Her throat seemed swollen shut and her tongue felt like a giant sausage in her mouth. She stared at his shoes. Expensive-looking Cordovan leather lace-ups. Perfectly shined, of course.

“Well? Why did you do it?”

She felt the tears coming, but pushed them back. She wasn’t going to cry her way to forgiveness, and she didn’t want him to think she was trying to. “I’m sorry, Connor,” she said to his shoes. “I’m so, so, so sorry. I just… I didn’t mean to hurt you or the firm or any of that.” She shook her head. “It’s just that they were blackmailing me. So I… I did something stupid and wrong and I’m really, really sorry.”

“Who was blackmailing you?”

What could it hurt to tell him the truth now? Every bridge she had ever crossed with him now lay smoldering behind her. “It was Blue Sea—the place I worked before I went to Deep Seven. They told me that if I didn’t go to work at Deep Seven and find fraud there, they’d tell everyone I was behind Devil to Pay and—” Might as well let it all out. “Well, you know Erik smoked meth, right? He also sold some. One night while we were on the road with his band, he sold to a teenager.” Her throat constricted again as she remembered Jason Tompkins’s face smiling at her from his yearbook picture.

“He died,” she forced out. “I broke up with Erik after I found out about that, but Blue Sea wouldn’t leave me alone. They said if I didn’t find a way to sue Deep Seven for government fraud, they’d tell the cops and I’d go to jail. I didn’t want to go to jail, so I—” She shrugged. “You know the rest.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” It was an accusation more than a question. “I could have helped you!”

Sudden anger burned in her chest and she glared at him. “Helped me what? Go to jail for the rest of my life?”

Righteous indignation turned to confusion in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you remember? ‘If you commit a crime, you should pay the price. Every. Single. Time. No excuses, no compromises.’ You expect me to trust the man who said that? To come to him when I’m in trouble?”

Something cracked in his face, but then it hardened again. “Maybe you didn’t trust me, but I trusted you. My mistake.”

His expression made her feel like an insect. The kind you squash with an old newspaper because you don’t want it on your shoe. She couldn’t bear that look. It was worse than anything he could have said.

“I didn’t have any choice!” she insisted.

He shook his head in disgust. “You always have choices, Allie. What you really mean is that the right choice was hard, so you want to pretend it didn’t exist. Well, it did and you blew it. You blew everything. And now I’m going to have to go back and pay the price.”

He turned and walked toward the door.

The tears came now, flooding down her face as great gasping sobs choked her. She buried her face in her hands and wished she could die, that she’d never lived.

The door opened and shut, and she was alone with her agony.