Shades of Trust

  “Edward.” Dr. Kent’s soft voice interrupted Edward’s train of thoughts. “We have to focus on Sophia. I’m quite worried about her state of mind.” She turned to Alistair and gently said, “Mr. MacCraig, Sophia has undergone many harsh things during her life. Her mind works on a…precarious balance. Your brother was telling me that she remembered the events leading to her husband’s death. I wish you could explain it a bit better. How it happened and what she told you.”

  12:45 p.m.

  Alistair entered the car and faced Tavish. “I’m going home. I’m in no state to face anyone now. Can you cover for me this afternoon?”

  “Of course. Don’t worry.”

  Why wasn’t I careful enough to empty Ells Hall and Airgead of those things? Can I convince her of my new intentions? He leaned his head on the seat, closing his eyes. He felt hollow, as an enormous sense of loss took hold of his soul. What. Have. I. Done?

  Chapter 3

  Somewhere over the Atlantic

  In Ethan Ashford’s G650

  1:05 p.m. GMT

  “Feeling better?” Ethan helped Sophia sit down on the sofa as she came out of the bathroom. He put his arm over her shoulders, nestling her on his large body.

  Sophia put her head on Ethan’s shoulder, too weak to do anything else. She should have remembered that painkillers had a much stronger effect on a plane. She shouldn’t have taken another codeine tablet.

  He put his hand over her forehead and looked down at her pale face and bluish lips, concerned. “You don’t look well, Sophia.” What did that bastard do to you?

  “I’m okay, Ethan. I told you I’m not going to throw up. I never throw up. I’m just a bit nauseous, because of my low blood pressure. I need some salt.”

  “Vanessa, please bring me some salt and a blanket,” he ordered from across the plane.

  He turned to Sophia. “Lie down. I’m going to make a—”

  She pulled him as he started to rise. “Stay with me.”

  “All right.”

  “Here, Mr. Ashford.” The attendant returned quickly, handing him a small china bowl with some salt and a blanket.

  “Vanessa, please bring an espresso for Ms. Leibowitz.” As he covered her, Ethan probed, “Tell me what MacCraig did to leave you in this state, baby.”

  What Alistair did? He proposed. I couldn’t accept. Sophia’s eyes filled with tears again. “Nothing. It’s not him.”

  Staring into her eyes, he said, “I don’t understand you, Sophia. MacCraig isn’t the kind of man you would be happy with. He’s not—hmm, how can I say this—not normal.”

  I know this now. She closed her eyes and a tear rolled down her face. “Normal? What’s considered normal nowadays?”

  His rage seethed. “Where’s your self-respect?” he asked, in a calm and measured tone. “How far has he degraded you?”

  Ethan realized he’d made a mistake even before he finished his sentence, as Sophia’s face paled even more.

  Sophia felt as if he’d punched her and the shock of the unexpected blow was absolute. “Ethan…he never, ever degraded me, as you put it. It’s not like that. We just broke up. Simple as that.” Simple? She looked up into his azure eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it. Please.”

  You don’t know how to lie, my love. I’m going to kill that bastard. “All right. Here. Drink the rest of your coffee. It’ll do you good. So, are you excited about the ball? I was thinking…we could go to India together when the new Leibowitz center opens there.”

  The rest of the flight passed in relative calm as Sophia’s pressure normalized after they had a light lunch and talked about their plans for the charity.

  Alistair MacCraig’s Apartment

  1:07 p.m.

  If possible, Alistair’s stare would have melted his computer screen with its intensity as he contemplated what to do next.

  “Baptist has a cunning ability to unearth secrets. If there is anyone who can tell me what the fuck this crime is she says she’s committed, it’s him. His reports are classy,” he told his brother on the phone.

  “Aye.” Tavish snorted. “They can be a classy catastrophe for the person he’s investigating. Don’t do this, Alistair Connor,” Tavish admonished. “You may not like what you discover.”

  “Tavish Uilleam. I have three words for you: Veritas vos liberabit.”

  “Oh, man…you stubborn idiot,” he rubbed his hand on his forehead, wondering how a woman as gentle as Sophia could have possibly committed a crime.

  Brazil, Rio de Janeiro

  Copacabana, Avenida Atlantica

  The Goncalves & Espirito Santo Families’ Penthouse

  3:33 p.m.

  The sea was glinting black-and-gray in the afternoon light of the rainy day, mirroring her feelings.

  “Not now,” she said in a strangled voice when she heard the sound of the door opening, not turning to look.

  Strong hands gripped her by the shoulders and whirled her around, turning her away from the view. She winced at the pain on her left shoulder.

  “Heavens, Sis! What happened?” Felipe was appalled at Sophia’s appearance. She had put on makeup to cover up the bruises on her temple and under her eyes and was dressed in black as if in mourning, despite the warm weather.

  She threw her arm around his waist, hugging him fiercely. “Oh, I’ve missed you, Brother.”

  “What is it, Sophia? What’s happening?”

  “It’s nothing. I’m just being silly.” She didn’t want to talk about it. Felipe had enough problems of his own. She wiped the tears from her eyes and asked, “What are you doing here in the middle of the day? Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “Carolina was very worried. She called me as soon as you arrived. She took Gabi to the shopping center, but she didn’t want to leave you alone with Grandma. She said you flew here with a man called Ethan. Is he the guy who gave us that ride from Geneva?”

  “Yes, Ethan Ashford.”

  “I thought you’d broken up with him, Sophia.”

  “I did. But he’s still a dear friend. He seems to sense when I need a ride. And I was lucky I was with him, Felipe. I guess that the painkillers I took lowered my blood pressure. It was really bad.”

  “Carol told me you practically had to be carried upstairs.”

  “No big deal,” she said, waving away his concern.

  “Where is he?”

  “He had a business meeting in São Paulo. He just dropped us off here, but he said he’d come over later. He was very concerned. You know my pressure gives me a scare sometimes.”

  “Yeah. Grandma told me you hadn’t eaten yet. Come—”

  “Felipe,” she interrupted, and put a hand on her stomach, “I feel sick. Don’t insist. Please.”

  “Sophia…” His eyes, so like hers, rounded in surprise. “Are you pregnant? Alistair?”

  How could I be? The memory of him made her break down in wrenched sobs.

  “Oh, Sis, don’t cry.” He tenderly caressed her hair. “You know a child is always welcome—”

  “I-I’m not preg-pregnant,” she stammered between tears and sobs. “That’s not it. Oh, Felipe, so many things have happened these last few days.”

  Ipanema

  The Leibowitz’s Penthouse

  Wednesday, April 7, 2010

  10:10 a.m.

  Sophia dropped the keys on the marble floor and they echoed loudly in the empty hallway. Kneeling outside the door of the apartment she had once shared with Gabriel, she noticed she was starting to shake uncontrollably.

  Damn. Get a grip, Sophia. She took a deep breath and stood up with the keys in her hand. One. Two. Three. Now. She shoved the key in the lock and pushed the door open.

  The silence of the apartment, once so happily filled with laughter hit her hard.

  Tiny black dots clouded her vision as a panic attack threatened to overwhelm her. Not now. Please God, not when I’m alone.

  She knew she had to say good-bye. And she had to face it.

  I’m not
alone. Gabriel is here with me. He will always be. One way or another. Forever.

  This is for him. This is for me. For Gabriela.

  For the future, whatever the future brings.

  Sophia focused on her breathing, wrestling to calm herself. She closed the door behind her and leaned on the wall, taking in the apartment where she had been so happy. The joyful memories were so sharp that if she were a weaker woman she would have lay on the floor and wept for days.

  I’m sorry, Gabriel. To wish you were not dead, would mean to regret meeting Alistair Connor. And…oh, God! I can’t make myself do that. Sophia closed her eyes for a second, pushed off the wall, and started to wander through the rooms.

  She entered their bedroom and looked at a photo of them on their honeymoon. How naïve I was then.

  Sophia never realized that grief and self-pity weren’t the same thing. She thought she was mourning Gabriel and all she had lost, but in reality what she had been doing was hating the world and feeling sorry for herself.

  Sophia’s mind was now putting the memories together like a puzzle. All the time she’d spent angry at the world and asking the universe ‘why me?’ didn’t help. On the contrary, it had kept her away from the pain brought by the loss of her innocence and the death of her husband.

  I don’t belong here anymore. I have to let go. With tears in her yes, she started cataloguing items on her MacAir, with photographs and small notes, listing what she wanted to keep and what she was going to give away and to whom.

  When it all was done, she lay on her bed and cried. I’m so sorry, Gabriel. I’m so very, very sorry.

  For the first time in almost two years, Sophia let herself grieve.

  Rio de Janeiro, Caju

  The Jewish Communal Cemetery

  Thursday, April 7, 2010

  8:51 a.m.

  The sun was hiding behind the weeping heavy clouds, as if they understood Sophia’s mood.

  She stared at the small marble tombs in the front row and her heart broke, even more than it did when she had visited the cemetery with Gabriel many years ago. Now they reminded her of Alistair’s daughter.

  Children shouldn’t die. Her throat closed. She didn’t understand why God would send little angels to earth only to take them back so quickly.

  There were a couple of trees, here and there, a few vines and wisteria that graced the alley that lead to other tombs. That was all.

  The general impression was of a deserted land where black and white marbles were castigated by the inclement heat and rain all year long.

  So different from the shaded green cemeteries in the United States and Europe. So…desolate. She looked at Felipe, with tears in her eyes, utterly lost in her pain, and whispered to him, “I don’t remember where it is.”

  “I know.” His grip tightened around her waist.

  Felipe would never forget his brother-in-law’s burial.

  The raw pain and desperation he had seen in his sister’s eyes when they lowered Gabriel’s coffin made him shiver even now.

  Sophia hadn’t screamed or cried. She hadn’t thrown herself over Gabriel’s coffin. She had stoically stood beside Gabriel’s grave, shrouded in black from head to toe. She looked like a scary wraith, her long hair blowing in the wind and her black veil and dress billowing around her. All hope had left her.

  Felipe glanced at the pouring sky, praying he would never again witness such brutal despair.

  “Come on, Sis. Let’s pay our respects,” he said, picking up two small rocks from a small pile.

  Sophia looked back over her shoulder at Gabriel’s grave and the two lonely rocks on the white marble.

  Widowed are not those alive, but those who are dead.

  The Goncalves & Espirito Santo Families’ Penthouse

  11:11 a.m.

  The warm water of the bath soothed Sophia’s body, but nothing could be done about the ache that resided in her heart. She shook her head and turned to rest her right cheek on her bent knees.

  She felt swamped by an awful loneliness. No Gabriel. And no Alistair Connor. No one. This will be my path. Alone in the world.

  After all those years, she was still baffled by her request to Gilberto.

  And I thought I was avenging Gabriel. No. I wasn’t thinking at all. That was the problem.

  She had gotten it all wrong. The immorality of her act had festered inside her like a gangrenous wound and turned her into a guilty, walking automaton.

  She knew Edward was right. No one could ever prove what she had done. But Sophia decided that she had to confess and ask for forgiveness. Not only God’s, but from the families of the deceased men.

  She hadn’t killed them. She hadn’t started the war, but she felt responsible for their deaths, even though she knew that eventually they would have been killed, just for trespassing on a rival drug lord’s territory.

  Resolutely, she finished her bath, got dressed, and sat at her desk, listing what she had to do to achieve her goal.

  She grabbed the iPhone to talk to Edward. She knew he would try to dissuade her, but she would not give in, not this time. I will appeal to his common sense.

  Her hand hesitated over the screen and she decided to call Dr. Kent first. Mina will understand and she’ll help me with a strategy to convince Edward.

  She dialed her therapist’s phone number and left an urgent message on her voicemail.

  Chapter 4

  Kensington

  Galewick Townhouse

  8:49 p.m.

  He gulped down the rest of his whisky and surveyed the women at his sister’s surprise birthday party. He scowled. He was in no mood for parties, but he couldn’t have refused Elena’s invitation. He was going mad pondering what Tavish had said. I shouldn’t have been so hasty. She was always telling me to take things slow.

  During his brooding, Leonard had been saying something to him. Alistair sighed impatiently and drawled, “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said that you look like you’ll start quoting Dante any minute. So, here,” Leonard took the glass of whisky from his hand and gave him a glass of water. “Either you start drinking water or go home. The kids are awake and I don’t want them to see their uncle drunk.”

  “Water?” Alistair eyed the glass and snorted. “I’d rather kill myself. I need that bottle of whisky. And by the way, I do not spout quotes when I’m drunk.”

  “You do. Even when you’re not drunk,” said Leonard. “In fact, you and Sophia spill quotes whenever possible. Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Dante.”

  Just the mention of her name made his heart squeeze painfully in his chest. “Oh, that. Aye. Maybe.”

  “Your sister is appalled.” Leonard pushed the glass onto his lips and mocked, “Drink. There. Better.”

  “You’ll find another woman, quickly.” Tavish chuckled. “One you can—”

  “I. Don’t. Want. Another woman,” Alistair hissed through clenched teeth, “I want Sophia. Only Sophia will do.”

  Leonard watched, amazed, as Alistair’s gaze surveyed the women in the room with disdain.

  “There isn’t a woman that equals her. No one comes even close. She is special.”

  “So don’t treat her like you did Heather,” Leonard said, throwing the truth in Alistair’s face.

  His face darkened. “You speak out of turn, Leo.”

  “Everyone does but you, right, Alistair? You know, you should be less arrogant and conceited or you really will lose Sophia forever.”

  Alistair sighed deeply and drank the rest of the water. “I think I’d better go home. I don’t want to spoil Alice’s surprise party.”

  Rio de Janeiro, Ipanema

  Fasano Hotel, Fasano al Mare

  11:00 p.m.

  “Could you bring us our check please, Marcos,” Sophia asked the restaurant’s maître d’ and grabbed Ethan’s wrist when his hand delved inside his jacket for his wallet. “You are my guest today.”

  What? Never. “Baby, no woman has ever paid a bill when I’m around. It’s not
—”

  “Let me be the first then.” She smiled candidly at him.

  “You are the first and only, Sophia.” He gave her a crooked smile, entwined his fingers with hers and purred, “I’ll let you do much more than that, darling.”

  Sophia laughed, embarrassed. “Ethan, you are incorrigible. I thought we had decided to be just friends.”

  The arrival of the maître d’ interrupted them.

  Ethan looked around the stylish restaurant designed by Phillipe Starck, with comfortable leather armchairs arranged around Scandinavian wooden tables under splendid Murano chandeliers. The famous Ipanema beach sidewalk could be seen through the glass windows.

  The low and polite conversation buzz spoke of money. Wealthy tourists mingled with Carioca’s tycoons and gorgeous, fashionable women.

  “Cariocas are beautiful, aren’t they?” Sophia was studying Ethan as he examined the room.

  To me, you are the only beautiful one. I have eyes for no one else. “Yes. Definitely. There’s something different. A certain…healthy air, even in older women.”

  “It’s the beach and the weather,” Sophia mused as she put her credit card back in her Valentino black purse. “We walk around almost naked all year round. We have lots of open spaces to practice sports.” She shrugged. “Shall we go?”

  Yes. Up to my room. He shifted in the armchair, sitting more comfortably, and cocked his head, with his azure eyes sparkling. “Do you want to come up to my suite for a night cap?”

  Aren’t we insistent tonight? Sophia stifled a sigh and picked up her glass, swirling the rest of her wine then drinking it, gaining time. “Ethan—”

  “I’ll behave. It’s still early. Just stay with me a bit longer.” He bent toward her, holding her right hand in his, squeezing it gently. “I like your company, Sophia.”

  This time she sighed out loud. “I like yours too, Ethan. But I—I get the impression that we are not talking about the same thing.”

  He raised her hand to his lips and looked at her. When he spoke, his breath caressed her skin. “I won’t lie. My love hasn’t diminished. But I prefer your friendship to nothing. I won’t jeopardize it. That I promise you.”