“She was my friend. As soon as she came off the sedatives, she grew so determined. I mean, the very same day. Over and over she said she had to find some way to make them pay. It was like some kind of chant, I heard it that often. Some way to give meaning to Gary’s death. She talked about it all the time. I didn’t mind so much, at least she was eating again and making sense and getting better. At least she was involved with life. Or so I thought.”
“Then she found out about the joint venture.”
“Gloria had been working for almost a year on her thesis about New Horizons’ labor practices when Gary died. The company was a natural target for her. She had friends from church in almost every corporate department. New Horizons is a foul breed, always had been. Just the kind of group to suck money from kids.” She stopped for a breath. “Gloria had pretty much stopped work on her thesis and was spending all her time protesting against the Chinese. Then two things happened at once. An assistant manager at the company heard from somewhere that Gloria was fighting the Chinese on human-rights issues. She handed over documents about the joint venture.” Another shaky breath. “And then came the first rumors about New Horizons’ wanting to demolish the church.”
“You mean the cemetery,” Marcus corrected.
She gave a minute shake of her head. “It was never about the cemetery. That was just their opening salvo. Gloria knew because the secretary to the board has a sister in the congregation. Randall Walker appeared before the New Horizons board and said, Complain about the cemetery and ask the city council to condemn it. Do it just before you leave for the conference in Switzerland and let the lawyers take the heat.”
“Randall,” Marcus said. “I should have smelled his hand in this.”
“Once the cemetery was condemned, the plan was to move immediately to include the church as well. They needed the land for further expansion. It was all mapped out. The city council knew and approved.”
“Of course they would.” The thought of his grandfather’s land being handed over to those vultures on the hill sharpened his outrage. “It meant more jobs.”
“Jobs and investment and development. The works. Then you showed up, bypassed the council and the local judges, and had a new federal judge overturn all their carefully laid plans.”
Marcus rose from his desk and went to inspect the darkness without. “Back up to Gloria and her plan.”
“She worked at it night and day. Six months, eight, all the time I was waiting for her to find some reason to live. Something that would keep her here. I thought at times that she’d found it in this battle. But I was wrong. Then she discovered something new, something so urgent and exciting she dropped all her work in my lap and said, I’m going and I’m not coming back.”
Marcus said to the night, “General Zhao.”
“I should have said something. I should have stopped her. I should have warned her parents and called the police, something.”
Marcus shut his eyes to the agony of wrong choices. “The bed in the guest room is made up. You’re welcome to stay if you like.” When she did not answer, he felt driven from the room by his own lack of answers. “Good night.”
FORTY-FIVE
For once it was an idea that woke him, and not the nightmare. Marcus was on his feet and moving before he was even fully awake.
He was halfway down the stairs before he registered the change to his home. He sniffed the air, turned, and walked back to the top landing. Marcus walked down the hall, and stood staring at the closed door. The fragrance was stronger there, a taste of softness and light that rested easy on the palate. Marcus knocked on the door. A clear soft voice said come in. Marcus opened the door and stood looking down into eyes that spoke of a heart that was wounded yet still found the strength to care. He found himself thinking of words old Deacon had spoken on the phone the night before, utterances drifting through his mind in time to the faint trace of Kirsten’s perfume. Words like turning and hope.
He said to her, “I’m flying up to Philadelphia. There’s something I need to do.” When she merely nodded her response, he added, “You need to tell Alma and Austin what you told me.”
Clearly this had occupied her thoughts and kept her there the previous night. The pain of resignation was clear in her voice. “They’ll never forgive me.”
This time Marcus felt certain enough of the people involved to know he was offering more than just words. “Kirsten, they already have.”
Marcus had not been to the Rice estate in two years, not since the last time he had come to pick up Carol and the kids. He had never been welcome there. After four years of futile attempts to enter his in-laws’ good graces, he had accepted defeat and restricted their meetings to dinners on neutral territory. The manor had not changed in his absence. The same gardener stooped over the same immaculate flower beds; the same butler opened the door they had stripped off some castle in France. The entrance hall was flagstoned and the arched ceiling rose four stories over his head. Sounds mingled with the scents of furniture polish and fresh-cut flowers. It might be autumn outside, but seasons made little difference within this tightly controlled and sterile universe.
Carol’s mother appeared in the doorway beside the curved stairway, dressed in silk and gold. Her gaze was as coldly furious as it had been in court. “Get out of my house.”
“I’d like to have a word with your daughter.”
“She doesn’t want to speak with you. Not ever again.”
“Nonetheless, I would like to see her.” Marcus planted himself, his stance saying what his words would not. “Please, Mrs. Rice. This is important.”
“There is nothing you could ever say to any of us that would hold any interest whatsoever.” She did not scream. Did not shout. Her breeding permitted no such outburst. But the words cut like daggers. “I await the day your name will be erased from the earth. My greatest regret is that you were ever born at all.”
He did not move. “Please, Mrs. Rice.”
A voice from the study called out, “It’s all right, Mother.”
“It’s not all right. Nothing about this man is right, and nothing ever will be.”
“Let him come in. He’ll leave faster if we don’t fight him.”
“Thank you,” Marcus said, taking it as the only invitation he would ever receive. He entered the long side room, with its handmade windows taken from a Kentish palace. He crossed three antique Persian carpets and passed beneath two chandeliers, his way flanked by bookshelves stuffed with leather-bound volumes. He approached the figure seated by a fireplace burning logs thicker than his waist. “Hello, Carol.”
“What do you want?”
Marcus halted before his ex-wife. She sat with the regal bearing of a queen. Her chair was drawn up close to the fire, high-backed as a throne. The surgeons had done a wonderful job on her face. With her professional hand at makeup, only a single tiny scar was visible just below her left temple. She held her head precisely as he remembered, the chestnut hair pulled back so tightly it seemed to draw her eyes into a habitual squint, her chin tilted and ready for war.
“Thank you for seeing me.”
“I asked you why you were here.”
“I’ve come to apologize.” He did not bother to take a seat. Supplicants did not seek chairs or comfort. “You were right about many things. A lot of our arguments happened because I was being too much of a lawyer in our own home, and not enough of a father and husband. You were right about the weekend. I should never have drunk so much the night before. You were right about the accident. If I had been better-”
“You come up here and tell me this and think I won’t tell the newspeople what a snake you really are,” she fired back. “I know you. There’s got to be some ulterior motive to make you grovel like this.”