“And you know how Nick loves it when his ‘girls’ are getting along,” Jennifer said.
“Don’t push your luck,” said Barbara.
Jennifer tried to make small talk on the way out of the house and down the wooden stairs to the beach, but it was hard. And Barbara, wondering what was up, wasn’t very responsive. Finally they reached the beach. “Come closer to the water,” Jennifer urged. “In case these thugs who work for your husband have those long-distance listening devices.”
“They probably do,” she said. “Nick gives them free rein with their toys.”
“Walk along the water’s edge with me. So, you want to get out of here?”
“If I really wanted to go, I could go. It’s not like we’re locked in.”
“Listen to me, Barbara, because this is your only chance. Whatever you know about his illegal dealings, he’s having cleaned up as best he can while he’s got you under lock and key. As soon as the coast is clear, he’ll unlock the door and then you know what? He’s going to drop you like a hot potato, take his prenup to court and cut you off without a dime. And it will be too late for you to leverage anything.”
She turned in a huff, hands on hips, and stared at Jennifer. “And you know this how?”
Jennifer grabbed one of her arms at the elbow and pulled her along the waterline. “Well, for starters, he told me. You know, you’re so damn busy fighting with him all the time, you’ve forgotten how to use your feminine wiles to get what you want. I can’t believe you were a mistress!”
“So what are you saying?”
“You have to make a choice. Either you’re going to give him up, or you’re going to be given up. I’m only here because he threatened my friends. I don’t know anything about his work.”
Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Sometimes life just isn’t fair,” she said. “You know, one of the things he was always throwing in my face was that you amused him. You were smart, he said.”
“Well, obviously not that smart.”
“No kidding. You were doing the actual work, you know. It’s the business property. The office space. He has five or six different property managers collecting rent for the same investment properties. You were just one of them.”
As the facts became clear, so did Jennifer’s eyes. Money laundering. Pouring money into those business accounts for business that wasn’t actually taking place.
Barbara began to laugh. “That was just one of his schemes. I can’t believe you never caught on. Smart. Humph.”
“Okay, look. You’re obviously the smart one. The only one who knows where the bodies are buried. You have to decide. You going to give him up and salvage at least some of your lifestyle, or are you going to let him, as he so eloquently put it, shit-can you?”
Funny how that was the term that got Barbara’s attention. She recognized it. From the look in her eyes, she now believed that Nick had told Jennifer that was his plan. She’d heard him use the term before and it never failed to bring the desired results.
“I can get you out of here,” Jennifer said. “If you leave this house and get hooked up with the FBI, you can tell them what you know before he’s done cleaning up his mess. And then he gets arrested, and instead of getting dumped with nothing, you can at least have whatever is left after they seize all of his ill-gotten gains.”
“I don’t have a passport, you dumb bunny!”
“Oh, Barbara, I’m pretty sure they’ll come to you,” she said with a smile.
“Well…”
She turned Barbara around, heading back toward the house. “It’s your only chance.”
“I have a feeling you just want him for yourself,” Barbara said.
“Oh, Barbara, I wondered. You love him.”
“No. No, I hate him. But I didn’t want my marriage to be over.”
“I don’t want him,” Jennifer said. And then came the lie that would send Barbara to the feds. “But he wants me. And he’s not going to let me go.”
They were at the water’s edge, in front of the house. She faced the house and waved at Frank. Frank waved back.
“I’m going to go up there tonight, and whoever is on watch is going to let me use that telescope to see the stars. I’ll distract him. You go around the house to the road out front. Someone will pick you up.”
“Who?”
“Just trust me, they’re watching. What’s a good time? Eleven?”
“Sure. Fine. But how are you going to—”
“Now we’re going to do some exercises. Okay? Watch me.” She spread her legs out, bent at the waist and stretched her arm left, then right. She did this again and again, pointing at the sides of the house. “Come on,” she told Barbara.
“Jesus, I think you’re a nutcase,” the woman said, but she complied.
After about ten of the right-left stretches, Jennifer straightened and said, “Okay, eleven jumping jacks. Exactly. Ready? One, two, three…”
They stopped, still facing the house, and did more right-left stretches. Then stopped and did exactly eleven jumping jacks. Jennifer looked up and saw that Frank was quite enjoying the exercises.
“Have you lost your mind?” Barbara asked her.
“If this doesn’t work, I have given someone way too much credit,” she said, finally determining that if they didn’t get it by now, they weren’t going to.
“Tonight, at eleven, I’ll be on the veranda. Leave. Go either left or right around the house and out to the road in front and start walking toward town. And good luck, Barbara.”
“Yeah,” she said, heading toward the house.
“Really. I mean it.”
Barbara turned around, walking backward for a moment as she looked at Jennifer. There were tears in her eyes.
Jennifer did her part, going to the veranda and using a little of her flirtatious skills to get Lou to let her look through the telescope, but she wasn’t up there long, and although she tried to look at the sides of the house as well, she never saw Barbara. It occurred to her that the woman could have gone straight to Nick and sold her out.
At eleven-thirty she went to bed, but it seemed like hours before she slept, and when she did, she dreamt of the bighorns and the lambs. She was up at dawn, but stayed in her room, where breakfast was brought to her. She ate on the veranda, watching the sea. There were the fishermen and the occasional pleasure boat, but no sign of the boat that had carried Paula and Alex the day before.
At nine-twenty all hell broke loose. There was shouting, running through the halls, doors slamming. Jennifer opened her bedroom door. It was the household staff and Nick’s men doing the running and door slamming, but downstairs she could hear the booming, angry voice of Nick.
“Where the hell is she? You better find her or all youse asses is grass, you hear that? I mean it.”
The voice was getting closer as he was coming up the stairs. He saw Jennifer standing in her opened door. “Where the hell is she?” he demanded.
“Who?”
“Your new best friend, Barbara? I wondered what the two of youse was up to, out there on the beach! I guess we know now!”
Years of being under complete control, knowing what to say and when to say it, didn’t fail her now. She feigned confusion. “Nick, what are you talking about?”
“She’s gone!” he shouted.
“Did you check the pool house? The beach?”
He grabbed the front of her peignoir and scrunched it up in his hands, bringing her nose to nose with him. “If this is your doing, you’re gonna be so sorry, baby.”
“Nick,” she said, “if it were my doing, I’d be gone. Not Barbara.”
He shook her off. “Pack your things,” he demanded.
It was four hours before Nick had himself convinced that Barbara was not somewhere on the property, but really gone. He secured a private jet to take them off St. Martin and they were soon on their way to the airport. He handed Jennifer her passport and said, “You know how to act.”
“I know,” she
said with a sinking heart. No way the FBI could act fast enough to turn Barbara’s information into an arrest in a few hours. “Where are we going now?” she asked.
“The less you know, the less you have to worry about.”
They got out of the car at L’Espérance Grand Case Airport, leaving Lou, Jesse and Frank to worry about their luggage. This wasn’t the international airport, but a regional airport—for inter-island travel. The international airport was on the Dutch side of the island. So, either they weren’t going far, or he had another transfer or change of destination on his mind. Who knew where she might end up?
He grabbed her hand to pull her into the airport. “Nick, don’t,” she said, resisting. “I’m not going. This doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Don’t fool around with me—I’m in no mood.”
“I’m no threat to you. I don’t know anything.”
“You’re coming with me, and if you argue, I’m gonna—”
“Yeah, you’re going to terrorize little old ladies and teenage girls. We’re going to have to take our chances. I can’t let you hide me on some isolated little island—one you might never leave!”
“You’re coming with—”
“Nick!” They both turned to see Alex coming rapidly toward them. “Let her go! She doesn’t want to go with you!”
“Alex,” she cried, reaching toward him with her free hand. But Nick wouldn’t let go. He was pulling her into the small building.
“Lou!” Nick called. “Frank!”
The big men left the luggage sitting on the curb and ran to their boss, arriving at about the same time Alex did. There were suddenly four men surrounding Jennifer.
Jennifer’s wrists were in a lock—Lou had one and Nick the other. Alex took a swing at one of them, but he was grabbed in a bear hug. Paula was watching this from just a few feet away, because she had convinced Alex that she should carry the Taser, that she was the more stable of the two of them. She was going to use it on someone, she was just trying to decide who. If one of the big guys went down, she could help Alex wrestle Jennifer away from the remaining two men. They were past caring if Nick got away—let him be the FBI’s problem.
Jennifer screamed; a couple of island police officers from inside the airport came jogging toward them. Paula’s moment of opportunity was passing. She fixed the red dot from the Taser on Lou’s back and pulled the trigger. The darts attached to wires shot out of the Taser, but Lou moved just as Frank flipped Alex around. The Taser got Alex right in the butt. He went stiff and fell, the jolt rendering him completely useless. In the five seconds the electric shock lasted, Nick, Lou and Frank dragged Jennifer into the terminal.
Alex rolled over with a groan. “Oh, jeez, Alex,” Paula said, trying to get the darts disengaged. Before she could complete that process, they were hoisted to their feet by a couple of island cops.
“Don’t let them get her on the plane,” he said weakly.
Alex and Paula had their hands pulled behind their backs like common criminals, and the Taser darts were pulled none too gently from his behind and confiscated. “They’re not going anywhere,” Paula said, looking inside the terminal to see the party of four detained by uniformed guards. Standing off to the side, wearing his signature black pants, thick-soled shoes and thin tie, was Dobbs. “Never thought I’d be happy to see him.”
Alex looked at her. “You shot me in the butt!”
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m going to have to practice up on that thing.”
“You shot me in the butt!”
They were being roughly pulled toward a police vehicle. “What did I tell you, Alex. You. Me. Screwed.”
The next twenty-four hours were filled with recriminations toward Alex and Paula. There were a lot of unhappy people around. The FBI was not happy with them, even though they had notified their local bureau office that they were going to try to bring Jennifer home. The island police were very unhappy that a weapon—even though it was a nonlethal weapon—had been discharged at the airport. Sergeant Monroe was rather looking forward to chewing their asses in person when they got home.
Although they didn’t have to endure his recriminations, Nick was understandably upset. Dobbs had convinced the local constables to detain him until it could be determined that Barbara’s evidence would indict him of federal crimes punishable in the United States, to which the kidnapping of Barbara and Jennifer could possibly be added. And given his ease with travel, bail was not a possibility. The law enforcement of St. Martin was most cooperative.
It turned out the only person genuinely happy with Alex and Paula was Jennifer, with whom they were reunited the next day.
Of course, Paula may as well have been invisible. They met outside the local courthouse; Jennifer flew into Alex’s arms and met his lips with overwhelming relief and hunger. He held her clear off the ground as he devoured her mouth. Tears ran freely down her cheeks, and his breath was ragged as he fought his own emotional urges. And this went on, and on, and on…
“Okay, yeah, ah, you’re welcome,” Paula said.
Yet they kissed. And kissed. They broke apart only long enough for Jennifer to say tearfully, “You came for me!”
“You think I could let you go?”
“You believed in me!”
“I’m in love with you. It wasn’t a temporary thing.”
“I was so afraid I’d never see you again!”
“Okay, guys,” Paula said. “That should do it, huh?”
Yet they kissed again and again.
Paula made a sound of impatience and turned away. “I’m getting a cab,” she yelled. “I’m going to the airport! You can stand there and eat each other alive or come with me!”
They turned reluctantly in her direction, but their eyes were still on each other, their arms around each other’s waist.
Paula hailed a cab and instructed the driver to take them to Princess Juliana International Airport. Then she said to Alex and Jennifer, “Do not sit with me on the plane.”
They both gave her brief, weak smiles and then went right back to kissing in the back of the cab.
“Because that’s why,” Paula said.
The flight was long, but of course the reunited lovers didn’t care. Jennifer’s welcome back to Boulder City was heartwarming—Adolfo and Buzz threw a little last-minute party for her at the diner the first night she was back. Even though they weren’t sure what was to become of Nick Noble until indictments were filed in court in Miami, it appeared that the only role Jennifer might have in his life would be that of witness for the prosecution. And with the way the court moved, that could be years away. But everyone was there to find out who she really was, and what dramatic story had brought her to them.
Someone was missing from the celebration, however.
“Why isn’t Hedda here?” she asked Buzz.
“I thought she was coming. She just hasn’t been herself since you left—but now you’re back, I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“Do you think maybe she went home to get Joey?”
“Probably,” he said.
But another hour passed with no sign of Hedda. Jennifer could have asked someone to go check on her, but her house was close to the diner. She ducked out and walked quickly in the direction of Hedda’s house. Daylight lasted a long time now and the temperature was barely dropping.
She found the girl sitting in the opened front door, her feet on the steps. She was crying.
“Hedda?”
“I’m so glad you’re back,” she said.
Jennifer went to her. “What’s the matter, kiddo?”
“We had some trouble when you were gone. My mom—she got in an accident.”
“Oh, no!”
“No one was hurt.”
“Oh! Thank God!”
“But she was DUI.” She shrugged. “I guess I always knew that was going to happen someday.”
“Oh, honey,” she said, realizing Hedda had told no one. She wasn’t just out of sorts be
cause Jennifer was gone—she had this huge trauma, and bore the weight of it alone. “Didn’t you tell even Buzz? He would have helped you!”
“It’s no fun always needing help.”
“Oh, kiddo, I’m so sorry. Where is she now?”
“Well, that casino she worked for, they have real good benefits. She’s in treatment. It’s probably going to be a month. Maybe longer.”
“And where’s Joey?”
“They took him,” she said, breaking down. “They’re going to get his grandparents to come for him.” She rested her head on her knees and just let it go.
“I know this hurts like mad right now—but this is going to work out for the best. Especially if your mom somehow gets better.”
“I haven’t even seen her. I talked to her, you know?”
“What did she say you were to do?”
Hedda chewed her lip and raised her watery eyes upward. “She said, ‘Why don’t you just go live with your precious Doris!’”
Jennifer smiled a small smile. She put the palm of her hand against Hedda’s damp cheek and said, “I think that can be arranged. That can most definitely be arranged.”
One Year Later
There was too much excitement in the air for anyone to sleep in. It was graduation day. Hedda was the first one up to let Jeb, the puppy, outside. The sun was barely rising. Jennifer couldn’t just lie there quietly. Even though she made a few grumbling noises about early risers, she was grateful she could finally get out of bed. In less than five minutes they were dressed and banging on Alex’s door, getting him up for a ride.
“Do you think he’ll be mad?” Hedda asked.
“If he is, he’ll get over it fast. Any day now, we’ll have lambs.”
“What if Jeb barks at them?”
“Then you have to take him around the block. We don’t want a stampede.”
“You won’t bark, will you, buddy? That’s a good boy.”
Alex answered the door fully dressed, newspaper in hand. “I guess no one felt like sleeping in.”
“Not today,” Jennifer said. “Get your bike.”