Virtue Falls Read online

  He was snappish now. Good. Margaret smiled at the radio again. The boy still had a thing for his wife.

  “For God’s sake, Margaret, this is a ham radio. Anybody could be listening.” That plainly had just occurred to him. “Do you think we could discuss this when I make it to the resort?”

  A strange woman’s voice intruded, “Why wait? Sounds like you need a scolding, young man.”

  Margaret’s smile vanished. She recognized that voice.

  So did Garik, and the little snot sounded delighted. “Annie Di Luca! How are you? Did your resort survive the earthquake and tsunami?”

  Margaret tensed as she waited for the answer.

  Not that she cared. In nineteen fifty-seven, those upstart Di Lucas had come up here from California and a mere forty miles away, on the headland overlooking the long, white beach called Yearning Sands, they built a resort. Not a resort like Virtue Falls, small and intimate, woodsy and personal. No, they built a big, plush resort with exotic gardens, hiking trails, cottages, and a main hotel building that stretched out with a hundred rooms facing the Pacific Ocean. They built whale watching platforms and catered wine tastings from their own Di Luca California winery.

  Virtue Falls resort served the boutique hotel crowd.

  Yearning Sands played to the trendy folks, those damn Californians who wandered north wanting to spend their days pretending to rough it, and their nights cozied up on a fake bearskin rug in front of the fireplace in their suite.

  Margaret wanted to say that in her heart of hearts, she hated the Di Lucas. Except Margaret wasn’t subtle about hating them. Everyone was pretty clear on that, and had been for almost sixty years.

  Both resorts had plenty of business. But it irked Margaret to no end that the Smiths had been here first, and now existed in the shadow of big, beautiful Yearning Sands.

  “We survived the tsunami very well,” Annie said. “The wave came at us from the northwest, and we were protected by a long sandbar that curved around to make a lagoon. The sandbar and the lagoon are gone now, wiped out by the wave, but it lost a lot of its punch there. The earthquake was a little hairier, at least for me.”

  While still in her sixties, rheumatoid arthritis had confined Annie Di Luca to a wheelchair. That had been almost twenty years ago, and Margaret admitted, only to herself, that she worried about Annie. “Were you hurt?” she asked roughly.

  “I couldn’t get my brake locked right away, so I rolled around pretty badly. My poor doggie was trying to help me … Ritter’s my assistance dog, you know. Loyal and determined.” Annie took a betraying breath. “But my fumbling around turned out to be a blessing, because I was in the library, and the straps that held up one of the bookcases broke. The bookcase toppled. We got out barely in time.”

  “The dog’s all right, then?” Margaret grudgingly added, “And you?”

  “We both got beat up by flying books. First time’s a book has ever hurt me.” Annie sounded humorous and self-deprecating.

  Which made Margaret suspect she’d been injured worse than she would admit.

  “How about you, Margaret?” Annie asked. “Did you fare well, you and Virtue Falls? And the resort, of course.”

  “The earthquake was a challenge, but we’ve cleared out the guests and we’re relaxing a wee bit.” Margaret realized her heart was beating faster than her current situation would indicate.

  A panic attack. Margaret had never in her life had a panic attack, yet merely talking about the last twenty-four hours made her breathless and afraid, and to show her weakness to Annie Di Luca … that was unacceptable. And yet, who better to understand than her rival for the last sixty years? Her humorous tone belied her unexpected fright. “I’m ninety-one years old. I’ve been through my fair share of earthquakes here. Nothing like that has ever even been close.”

  “I’m a mere eighty-three, and from California, and I thought I knew earthquakes. Turns out I was wrong.” Annie sounded as if she was breathing hard, too. “Margaret, have you contacted Patricia yet?”

  Yet another reason Annie irritated Margaret; she remembered all of Margaret’s children’s and grandchildren’s names. Margaret had never bothered to learn Annie’s. “I’ve been busy here,” she said testily.

  “She’ll worry.” Annie had that soothing tone to her voice. Always the peacemaker.

  “Then she shouldn’t have sent a real estate woman in to try and talk me into selling Virtue Falls Resort,” Margaret said.

  Annie’s response was prompt and satisfying. “You are kidding. What was that child thinking? Doesn’t she know you at all?” And, “What did you do with the real estate woman? Take advantage of the earthquake and toss her off the deck?”

  Garik guffawed.

  With satisfaction, Margaret reported, “I sent her back to civilization in a small, private helicopter … and told the pilot to scare the hell out of her.”

  “I’ll bet you did,” Annie said.

  Garik interrupted the women’s laughter. “Margaret, this is all very well and good, but if you don’t assure Patricia that you’re okay, she’ll figure out a way to get there and check on you, and you know how much fun that would not be.”

  “You’re thinking of yourself, because you’re coming in and you can’t stand my darling granddaughter,” Margaret said.

  “And what’s wrong with that?” Garik asked.

  “Not a thing, boy. But I don’t actually have a way to contact her. She doesn’t have a ham radio.” Wickedly, Margaret asked, “Why don’t you give her a call before you leave civilization?”

  Annie interrupted his sputtering to suggest, “I’ve already been in touch with my Bella Terra relatives. I can have them transmit a message to her and that will probably halt any precipitous arrivals.”

  “Do that,” Margaret said. “I appreciate it, Annie.”

  “I will. I’ll let you know if she leaves home before they catch her.”

  An aftershock rippled in off the ocean.

  Both women gasped and held their breaths.

  The aftershock rattled, and rattled, then slowly subsided.

  “That’s it,” Annie blurted. “I’ve got to go.”

  “You sound exhausted.” Margaret couldn’t help but add, “You’re no spring chicken, you know.” But she wasn’t being ornery; Annie did sound exhausted, and she might have a mighty spirit, but unlike Margaret, she was fragile.

  “I know. Talk to you later, Margaret. Good to hear your voice, Garik.” Annie clicked off.

  “Nice lady,” Garik said laconically.

  “She should take better care of herself.” Having an enemy die, Margaret had discovered, left as big a hole in your life as having a friend die.

  “She’s got a husband. He’s a good guy. He’ll take care of her.” Garik’s tone changed to brisk. “I need to get on the road before there is no road left. Margaret, give me a list of supplies you need. I’ll bring everything I can.”

  “Right.”

  “And Margaret—find out what happened to Elizabeth.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Margaret made her way to her chair again. She sank down, easing her tired bones into the cushion … and a knock on the door made her groan again. “Come!” she shouted.

  Miklós cautiously stuck his head in.

  Perhaps Margaret had shouted a little too vigorously. “Come,” she said more quietly.

  “There’s a lady here,” he said. “A lady with eyes like a cornflower and hair like the tropical sun. She says her name is Elizabeth Banner, and she knows you. She asks if she can stay.”

  “Elizabeth is well? And she’s here?”

  “Yes, lady. She looks very well.” Miklós spoke with a young man’s awe of a beautiful woman.

  Margaret laughed a little. “What a relief. Of course, she can stay. Send her in.” Garik and Elizabeth here at the resort together. Wasn’t this getting interesting? “In fact, Miklós, prepare the Pacific suite on the third floor. Both bedrooms, please. And send her up.”

 
; Miklós performed his little two-fingered salute, and disappeared.

  In a moment, Margaret heard them coming up the stairs. She wanted to bustle to the door, to welcome and embrace Garik’s wife, and make sure the girl was okay. But she didn’t have the oomph, so when Elizabeth stepped into the doorway, Margaret smiled and held out her hands. “My dear, I’m so glad you came to me.”

  Elizabeth came forward awkwardly, looking remarkably like a teenage girl facing a scolding. “I know it’s presumptuous, but I didn’t know where else to go.”

  Elizabeth’s hesitation made Margaret’s welcome all the more emphatic. “Not presumptuous at all. We’re relatives. What else are relatives for?”

  “We’re not exactly…” Elizabeth put her hands in Margaret’s and lightly squeezed. “Um, thank you for having me. My apartment’s pretty much down to rubble. Last night I stayed at my father’s care facility.” Her voice grew lower and less distinct. “But I can’t do that again.”

  “I’m sure they have their hands full there.” Margaret gestured to the matching chair close to hers. “Those poor souls must have been terrified by the quake.”

  Elizabeth sank into the chair. “Not my father.”

  “No. Charles would never be frightened by an earthquake.” Margaret wouldn’t have thought Elizabeth would be frightened, either, yet the girl looked pale and rabbity, with a quivering nose and mouth and hands that moved nervously over her dress, her face, her hair. “We’ll get you something to eat. Would you like that?”

  “I think so, yes. I didn’t have breakfast.” Elizabeth sounded surprised.

  “Go to the door and tell Miklós to bring up a tray with a little of everything for us both.”

  “A little of everything.” Hope sparked in Elizabeth’s face. “That sounds wonderful.”

  Margaret watched her walk toward the door.

  She liked Elizabeth. Her figure reminded Margaret of the movie stars of the forties. Her intensity reminded Margaret of Charles Banner, back before the murder. Her smile reminded Margaret of Misty … Margaret remembered the newly married couple’s arrival in Virtue Falls, and never had she foreseen the tragedy that had occurred between them.

  Yet sometimes from a tragedy, a triumph was born. A triumph like the marriage between Garik and Elizabeth. Margaret had orchestrated that meeting; she had believed the two would be perfect for each other. Yet now they were apart. Children these days gave up too easily on love.

  Margaret waited while Elizabeth spoke to Miklós, then asked, “What did you do to your hand?”

  Elizabeth lifted her bandaged hand and looked at it. “The earthquake. But this is all. I was lucky.”

  Margaret sighed. “We’re here, so we’re lucky … Have you heard from my boy lately?”

  Elizabeth looked startled. “From Garik? No, he doesn’t call me.”

  “He has barely called me, either”—no use telling Elizabeth that he was on his way to the resort, the surprise would be good for them both—“since the incident that got him put on leave from the FBI.”

  “He’s on leave?” Elizabeth sank back down in her chair. “That must be killing him. Why?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me the details.” Margaret only knew that somehow, his spirit had been broken.

  “That doesn’t surprise me. When I first met him, I thought he was so open. He would talk about things that happened on his cases—the car chases, the gun shots, the tackles. He was such a good storyteller it took me a long time to realize that he never told me about himself, and what he felt and thought. He never told me about the hours spent watching for a suspect, or the paperwork, or the times when a case went bad.” Elizabeth laughed without humor. “It was like living with a bad action movie, all excitement and motion, and no character development.”

  Margaret had to refrain from rubbing her hands together. This was good. Garik asked about Elizabeth. Elizabeth went into an unprovoked diatribe about Garik. Feelings. They still had feelings for each other.

  A knock on the door.

  “There’s our tray,” Margaret said, and called, “Come in!”

  Miklós shouldered his way into the room, flashed his gold tooth at the ladies, and put the tray on the table between them. He lifted the covers and showed them fruit and cheese, bread and olives, fragrant blood orange jam and a pot of clotted cream. In one corner was a plate with tiny squares of lemon tea cakes and small ginger cookies. And … “Mimosas,” he said, and poured champagne into wide, flat-bottomed glasses unlikely to tip in the next aftershock, and added a splash of orange juice.

  “Perfect.” Margaret nodded at him. “This will feed two hungry women. Please tell the kitchen staff thank you.”

  “Call when you want me to take away the tray.” Miklós saluted, and left.

  “We still have fresh food, lots of it, enough to feed the resort guests, so enjoy.” Margaret figured it would be at least two months before she could reopen the resort, and that was probably optimistic.

  There was never good timing for these things, but at her age, with her family wanting her to retire, this was bad. Very bad.

  Elizabeth stood and went to the tray. “What would you like?”

  Ah, the child had good manners. Margaret asked for bread, clotted cream, and fruit.

  Elizabeth filled a plate, handed it to Margaret, and said, “You have staff here still. Don’t they want to be home?”

  “I have eight who live here full time—students on summer break and immigrants I’ve hired. I was an immigrant once myself, so I’ve got a soft spot for them. The rest of my staff are local, and when three of my people went home, they discovered those homes aren’t livable.” Margaret spread a napkin in her lap. “Now they are back, living here, working their hours. Thank God I’ve got them.”

  “And thank God they’ve got you.” Elizabeth filled her own plate. “It’s good of you to accept us refugees.”

  “The good people who work for me, and you, are a blessing on my house.”

  “I don’t know how much of a blessing I will be. I don’t have any clothes.” Elizabeth settled in the chair, spread a slice of crusty bread with marmalade, and placed a slice of Brie atop.

  “Guests leave things all the time, and sometimes they don’t want them back,” Margaret said comfortingly. “We always have a stack of clothes to go to Goodwill. We’ll find you something.”

  Elizabeth chewed, swallowed, and said, “Thank you,” although whether for the food or the clothes, Margaret did not know. Then, as if she couldn’t drop the subject of Garik, Elizabeth said, “I mean, really. Did he have to always be the hero? Couldn’t he simply sometimes be a man?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Margaret sipped her mimosa and meditated on Elizabeth’s obsession with Garik. Promising. Very promising.

  Elizabeth continued, “All I wanted was a man who I could love and who loved me, who I could share my secrets with and know his.”

  “He is private,” Margaret acknowledged. “He doesn’t like to talk about things that hurt him.”

  “But I’m not psychic. If he wouldn’t talk, how was I supposed to figure out what did hurt him?”

  “He doesn’t like cruelty to those who are helpless.” None of that fancy French cheese for Margaret—she piled clotted cream onto her bread.

  “Children. Yes.” Elizabeth leaned forward. “When he dealt with cases where a child was hurt, he got very quiet.”

  “His own childhood was difficult.” An understatement. Margaret ate her bread and watched Elizabeth think.

  “I gathered from the few tidbits he dropped that his father was an alcoholic?”

  “Did you never ask Garik about his childhood?” Margaret countered.

  “Every time I did, he led me to talk about mine.” Elizabeth leaned back with a sigh, and drank her mimosa with thirsty pleasure. “It took me a while to realize what he was doing, never allowing me to know him.”

  “No matter how unreasonable it is, the boy blamed himself for what happened to him.” Margaret
was sprinkling conversational bread crumbs, hoping Elizabeth would follow them back to Garik, and a heart-to-heart that would bring them back together.

  “What did happen?”

  “You should ask him.”

  Like a stubborn mule, Elizabeth set her jaw. “He’s gone. We’re divorced. It was better that way.”

  “Better for who? Not for him. He’s lost his wife and his job, and I think the two are connected.”

  “Better for me. I may be selfish, but in the end, living with him was like being in a five-star restaurant”—Elizabeth waved at the tray—“watching the food go by, smelling the scents wafting under my nose, knowing I was so close to heaven … and starving to death.” For the first time, Margaret saw misery settle onto Elizabeth’s shoulders. “He wouldn’t talk, so I wouldn’t talk. So he stopped listening, so I … left.”

  Margaret hurt for them both. “I had hoped you children would love and help each other.”

  “We did love each other. So much. That made it all the more painful, to live together, yet be apart, only touching in our bodies, never in our minds.”

  “In your souls?” Margaret leaned her head back and allowed herself the old-woman pleasure of reminiscing. “When I first married my Johnnie, he didn’t know what to do with me. He was older. I was very young. He was bone lazy. I worked like a dog. He wanted a playmate. I wanted a man. It took about ten years of me doing what I thought best and him thinking he could go on being the dilettante, but eventually we worked things out.” She smiled. “When I came to the United States with my dear Mrs. Smith, I saw Johnnie as a means to an end, a way to achieve wealth and security. And he was. That we became soul mates was an unforeseen bonus.”

  Elizabeth took the bowl of blueberries and raspberries and ate as greedily as a child. “These are fabulous.”

  “They’re local to Washington, best in the world.” Margaret waved a hand. “I don’t want them. Please finish them.”

  Elizabeth obeyed in record time, and put the bowl down. She blotted her mouth, and said, “I don’t have your patience, waiting on a relationship that may never mature.”