“Think they’ll find her?”
“I hope not. She’s running with enough money to become invisible.”
“You’re that sure she’s running?”
“It’s been weeks, and no body has surfaced. She might be free as a bird, forever.”
“That stepfather…”
“Severs.”
“Yeah, Severs. How does he fit with the bank?”
“For now, only through his stepdaughter’s letters to Carolina about the money. He might have been involved in the robbery planning, or maybe he just stumbled onto the money during the investigation. We’ll never know. The only thing that’s for sure is he was torched in his police car.”
“By those brothers?”
“That’s the supposition.”
“You’d better be careful,” he said.
“The Kovacs brothers don’t know I exist,” I said, “and I gave the letters to Patterson. I’ve got nothing they need.”
“You’ve got that lockbox key.”
“The money’s gone. That box, wherever it is, has already been emptied.”
“You’re probably right.” His voice was barely audible.
“I’ll still come to Michigan tomorrow, to give the house and car keys to Aggert. Afterward, I’ll swing out to Rambling, take a last look around the cottage, and grab that blood sample to send to Patterson, but it won’t do him any good without a known relative.”
“We’re done?”
“She’s on a beach, watching sunsets.”
I let myself fantasize for a few miles, then, about corn, and it wasn’t until I was almost to the Illinois line that I thought to check my cell phone for messages. There were five: the two from Reynolds he’d said he left; two from Aggert, both asking if I’d returned to Michigan; and one from Amanda.
I called Amanda.
“I was thinking we ought to have dinner tonight,” she began.
“That is good thinking, though this incessant violating of our one-week rule might lead to us becoming overcome with passion and trigger chaos.”
“How soon can you get downtown?”
“Where downtown? A restaurant, or that huge bed you have overlooking Lake Michigan? I can get to your bed hours quicker.”
“Restaurant.” She laughed. “We need nourishment for what I’ve got in mind.”
“Your sense of urgency is encouraging.”
“Where are you now?”
“Suspended above the middle of the Mississippi River, on a bridge.”
“You sound like that’s making you chipper.”
“My burden has been lifted. I believe Carolina is alive, with enough money to hide well and long. We will celebrate tonight.”
“Our trattoria, at eight?”
“I’ll fly.”
“I’m sure,” she said.
The last of the orange had gone out of the sky, and it was now appropriately dark enough to call Aggert. He’d left a phone number different from his office.
“Are you back up here?” he asked, right off.
“I’ve found another reason why I’m done being an executor,” I said.
“You found the lockbox?” There was traffic noise behind him; he was on a cell phone.
“Even better. I’m pretty sure your Louise is very much alive. I’ve just been to Iowa, talking to the police in Cedar Ridge. Your client received some money stolen from a bank near there. She was afraid the robbers would track her to Rambling, so she took off, but I think she’s safe.”
“You didn’t find the lockbox?”
“It was a ruse. She would have taken the money with her. Wherever the lockbox is, it’s empty now.”
“For the purpose of the court-”
“Tell the court there’s no corpse.” Traffic was slowing now that I was getting closer to Chicago. I’d need both hands for the steering wheel and the gear shift. “I’ll be up in Rambling tomorrow, for one last look around. I’ll drop off the keys.”
“All the keys?”
“The Iowa police might want that numbered one.” I said it to be a jerk-and maybe to give Carolina just a little more cover.
“What time will you be here?”
“Probably after lunch,” I said, recognizing the reality that a foot of onions served on a stick just across the street would inhibit any attempt I might make to go directly to Aggert’s office.
Traffic congealed almost solid just west of Chicago, so I drove straight downtown. Amanda was already at the restaurant. She’d ordered a bottle of wine.
“Truly, we are celebrating,” I said, sliding into the booth across from her.
“I think so, yes.” She poured me wine. “To survival.” She raised her glass.
I took a sip and set down the glass. “Anybody’s survival in particular?”
“Ours.”
“You’re referring to the fact that, in a scant two years, we’ve gone from being whirlwind lovers to newlyweds to divorcés to recoverers to occasional daters to lovers again?”
“Still a whirlwind.” A smile played on her lips.
“I don’t understand, but I’ve been in Iowa.”
“I’m wondering if we should turn up the centrifuge, start spinning things a bit faster.”
“You mean start seeing each other even more frequently than we have been?” I reached to pour us more wine. I would certainly drink to that.
“More than that.”
I looked at her across the table. What I thought had been a smile was actually a suppressed tremble. Her eyes were shiny. She was about to cry.
“Hey,” I said. “We’re celebrating. We’re survivors.”
“Are we healing?”
“Stronger every day, especially since I took my vow of poverty.”
She didn’t laugh, and I knew why.
“You’re worried,” I said, “because since we met, I’ve gotten poorer, and you’re still…?” I stopped, because it was a topic she liked to ignore.
The unfinished question hung in the air for a minute, until she said, “Rich?”
“Art rich,” I corrected, “which is quite unimpressive, except to snoots. Rubes like me don’t recognize the stuff on your walls as being worth millions. To us, it looks like the paintings they sell at warehouse events.”
“You rubes.”
“Ah, but in our eyes, you are redeemed by your beater Toyota and your cheesy starting-out furniture.”
“I don’t have cash. What I make at the Art Institute goes for condo dues, taxes, and the security system.”
I pounced. “So you see, it wasn’t the money that did us in. As the counselors might say, we had a different, unresolved issue: me. I got duped in a high-profile court case, and the newspapers trashed me. My clients flew away like birds. I sulked, like a child. Also like a child, I took it out on you. You were handy, you came from rich-the daughter of a major executive and political player-and I came from Rivertown. The money difference was never the problem, it was the weapon I used against you. That’s what made us go away.”
“We came back together,” she said, managing a small smile.
“You conveniently forget that I had to help blow up your house to get you to pay attention to me.”
She laughed, and for a moment, it touched her eyes. Then her face turned serious. “Will we ever know if we’re surviving surviving?”
“I don’t understand,” I said. Though, of course, I did.
“We can’t just survive; we have to move on.”
She’d just said the words I’d been living to hear for over a year. But I was wiser now.
“I need to get my livelihood back in order,” I said, “establish thick links to bedrock. Rivertown isn’t coming around like the lizards had planned, which makes selling the turret a ways away. And most of my former clients remember the stories in the Tribune; they’re still reluctant to use me to trace documents or photograph accident scenes. Still, things are picking up-at glacial speed, perhaps, but they’re picking up. I’m wobbling, but I’m upright, and I’m aimed down the right road.”