“Oh, Paul,” she said, her heart breaking with such force, she hardly thought she could live through the violence. “We’re saying good-bye. I can’t. This is too hard.”
“Let me help you then, just this once.” He grinned at her, same old Paul, full of tease, hazel eyes twinkling, same as always. “It’s over, honey,” he said. He put the ring up so that they could both watch its million colored lights radiate. Then he popped it into his pocket and kissed her hand. “But don’t believe that bullshit they feed you about men and women never being friends. I’ll always be yours. I’ll always adore you.”
She stood. He stood, too. She prepared herself for a run to the car, where she could be noisy in peace, but he took her hand, squeezed it, and led her back to the dance floor.
“One last time,” he whispered.
The band eased into a slow tune. He pressed himself tightly against her, closing his eyes. Swaying slowly, they relaxed into each other, into the painful, familiar-feeling rhythm, his hip slides, her hip slides, their hips slide together.
Finally, he let go. He walked her to her car. “More stars up in Tahoe than in Monterey,” he said, looking into the murky black sky. “You can see the Milky Way up there. I know you miss that.”
“Good-bye,” she said.
“See you.” He smiled and disappeared into the darkness.
Bob had them packed within two hours the next morning.
“Hitchcock misses Tahoe,” he said. “I talked to Uncle Matt this morning and he says our house is in good shape. Snow’s coming soon. Hitchcock has to prepare, get that thick coat growing.”
“I need a thick coat, too, come to think of it,” Nina said. The thick skin she also needed wouldn’t come along for a while.
She had turned down Bear’s offer. With Alan gone, they would have to find a new partner, but there were a million fine lawyers. They could find a replacement. Mostly, she would miss Klaus’s retirement party, but the old man seemed to understand when she called him. “Were you really thinking of shooting yourself?” she had asked him.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” Klaus had said. “My wife would not have approved. Miss Reilly…”
“Yes?”
“Good work.”
“You, too, Klaus.”
Bob was smiling happily. “Plenty of snowboarding this winter, according to the almanac. Troy and Brianna are both really good. Plus, Aunt Andrea makes the best turkey. Plus, we’ll get to hang with baby June. You know she’s already smiling?”
He packed boxes while she paced, and when she got too overwrought, he said, “Hey, Mom, follow me.”
Stupid, bulging with silent tears, she followed him out to the carport and the artificial turf they had never replaced. She looked around. “Why are we here?”
He pointed up to the rafters above the car. “See that?”
She looked and saw her old surfboard, a long one, bought based on her weight and height, one she had used as a teenager and left with Aunt Helen more than a decade ago.
“Well, September’s the warmest month for the water. The waves are good today. Just look out for sharks.”
She put on her old wet suit, too tight, dusted spiderwebs off the surfboard, and stuck it into the back of the Bronco.
“Are you sure you don’t need the car so you can pack it?” she asked Bob, worried.
Her son stood on the rickety porch, face beaming bright as the late September sunshine. “I’ll stack the boxes out front.”
She drove down the hill to Lover’s Point.
The wave rose behind her, a silk sheet, rippling and folding, the blue and gold of a Fabergé egg, collecting the sunset colors. With a sudden heave, it gathered in strength.
This would be the one, Nina decided, admiring its perfect lift, and the hint of a perfect curve to come.
She paddled toward shore, mindless, pushing against the pulling tide, waiting for the right moment, before the wave broke, when it arched in fierce momentum, before it began its wild roll toward shore and its own destruction.
She paddled, breathing, waiting to get caught up by its massive, invisible power. It swelled behind her, a low hump, rising to a hill, surging into a mountain of water. She let go of her hold, and she took it on, standing up on her board to ride all the way in. The shore rushed at her, hard golden sand, soft foam, and churning sea water, and she fell back into the cold world.
A man who claimed to be the last page to the last tsar of Russia is, in fact, buried in El Encinal Cemetery in Monterey. He said he taught the tsarevitch to ride a pony, and knew Rasputin. Our character and his descendants, while inspired by this story, are entirely fictional.
The facts regarding the Romanov family’s execution at Ekaterinburg and exhumation of the remains of only five of the family in the 1990s are true. Alexis and one of the princesses were allegedly cremated, and their deaths have continued to be hotly disputed over the decades that followed, as no evidence of cremation has ever been found.
It’s an unusual fact that a bone-marrow transplant gives the recipient, permanently, the blood DNA of the donor while the skin and hair DNA remains that of the recipient. Our thanks to Deej Dambrauskas for these facts.
Others, especially on the Web, have advanced the theory that the tsarevitch did not have hemophilia. He suffered from high fevers as part of his attacks, which is not characteristic of hemophilia but is characteristic of thrombocytophenia.
The last tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, loved to give unique, elaborate Fabergé eggs as gifts to his family.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, grateful thanks to our exceptional publisher at Bantam Dell, Irwyn Applebaum, and our insightful editor, Danielle Perez.
We owe too much to our agent and friend, Nancy Yost of Lowenstein-Yost Associates Inc., to express in a few words, but hey, thank you, you terrific woman.
We thank Dr. Ellen Taliaferro, co-founder of Physicians for a Violence-free Society, for related ideas. We consulted research on strangulation by Dean A. Hawley, MD, George E. McClane, MD, and Gael B. Strack, JD. (All errors are our own.) John Farrelly, cemetery coordinator at Cementario El Encinal, kindly shared his memories.
Pam would particularly like to thank the talented writers who taught, entertained, and kept her going during the writing of this book, all to be found at The Critical Poet’s Final Polishing site (http://pub8.ezboard.com/fthecriticalpoetsmessageboarfrm12): dmehl808 (Dave Mehler), Drgib, Ashersimeon, jaxmyth, posthumous, cyberwrite, antidora, arabianlady, kdkaboom, eliashoi, ameuc, and all the rest.
Kudos to the members of Windward Oahu AAUW, who help so many; and to the unique characters in the Ladera Book Club, who provide such amusing intellectual distraction.
Thanks and love to the family and friends who sustain us: Andrew, Ardyth, Nita, Elizabeth, Brad, June, Connor, Cory, Stephanie, Joan, Meg, Patrick, Sylvia, and Frank.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PERRI O’SHAUGHNESSY is the pen name for two sisters, Pamela and Mary O’Shaughnessy, who live in Hawaii and on Lake Tahoe, and in California and on Lake Tahoe, respectively. Pamela graduated from Harvard Law School and was a trial lawyer for sixteen years. Mary is a former editor and writer for multimedia projects. They are the authors of Motion to Suppress, Invasion of Privacy, Obstruction of Justice, Breach of Promise, Acts of Malice, Move to Strike, Writ of Execution, and Presumption of Death, coming in August from Delacorte Press. Readers can contact Perri O’Shaughnessy at perrio@perrio.com.
