Virtue Falls

  “You’re not Catholic. Johnnie and I were married, and I was stuck with the man. We were like two angry cats in a burlap bag. We had to work it out.”

  “Garik and I had very different careers pulling us in different directions.” A wisp of a smile crossed Elizabeth’s face. “We’re not stuck in the same bag.”

  Yet. Margaret chuckled. Because Garik was on his way.

  “What’s so funny?” Elizabeth asked.

  Margaret lied easily; at her age, she had plenty of experience with it. “I was merely remembering my own refugee experience. Very different from yours, and linked to the Smith family heirloom.” She gestured to the case in the corner. “It’s called the Singing Bird, bought by Mr. Smith for the first Mrs. Smith to express his joy at the birth of his first child, a son. He commissioned it from Tiffany’s when the Smiths were at the height of their wealth and power.”

  Elizabeth set her plate aside, and walked over to the case where the exquisite piece of jewelry rested against a black velvet background. Clasping her hands behind her back, she leaned forward slowly, her eyes fixed on the piece. “A mythical bird. A phoenix.”

  “Exactly. The plumage is emeralds and rubies, the eyes are aquamarines, and the bird stands on the justly famous seventeen-carat Smith emerald.” Margaret had been familiar with the piece for seventy-six years.

  “Whoa.”

  “That is exactly what I thought when I first saw it. I was a chambermaid in Dublin at the time. I had no idea then I would be traveling back to the United States with her.” Actually, the Singing Bird had been Margaret’s ticket out of Dublin and poverty, but she had no intention of ever telling the truth of that story. “I keep it on display here. You’ll note the earthquake didn’t shatter the glass in that case. Nor will any earthquake. The glass is bulletproof, and that brooch is protected by the most up-to-date security in the world.”

  “Why not place it in a museum?”

  What a ripe old disaster that would be. “I’m a selfish old woman. I like to look at it in the morning, when I rise, and at night, before I go to bed. Johnnie and I had four children, and they all went on to do God’s will and populate the earth, and some of my descendants say that with the brooch up here, it’s safe enough and I shouldn’t bother paying the security firm to protect it. Those are the same members of the family who, when they visit, I lock up the silver.”

  Elizabeth looked startled, then horrified, then, when Margaret laughed, she laughed, too.

  Droll and amused, Margaret said, “We like to say they must be in-laws, but in fact, every large family births a few of the light-fingered folk. It’s inevitable.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” With a last glance at the brooch, Elizabeth returned to her seat. She took another sip of mimosa and nibbled on a cookie. “Some people envy whatever others have, be it belongings or intelligence or happiness.”

  Margaret put her plate aside. “You sound as if you have some experience with that envy.”

  “Yes.” Like a tired child, Elizabeth fretfully rubbed her forehead. “I don’t understand how it happened. One moment I was that poor, awkward kid who saw her father kill her mother. All the adults felt sorry for me and all the kids made fun of me, and my cousins beat up on me. The next moment I was fast-tracked for college, guys were hitting on me, and I got a gig in modeling.”

  “Sounds like quite a successful puberty happened.”

  “Yes.” Elizabeth’s mouth quirked. “But my cousins still made fun of me.”

  “That seems cruel.” More than cruel, considering the circumstances. “Didn’t your aunt stop them?”

  “My aunt was frustrated with me. I never did what she wanted.”

  “What did she want?”

  “She wanted me to remember the murder.” Elizabeth put down her mimosa, stood and stretched. “Thank you, that meal was good and I was hungry.”

  “I like to see a girl with appetite. Now—help me make my weary way to the powder room.” Margaret gathered herself to stand. “Then you can have Miklós take the tray away.”

  Elizabeth moved immediately at her side.

  “Give me a little push.”

  Elizabeth pushed.

  Margaret strained. Between the two of them, they managed to get Margaret on her feet and into her bathroom.

  God, she was tired. After this, she had to send Elizabeth away and stretch out for a nap.

  But when she came out, the tray was gone and Elizabeth was on Margaret’s private balcony, leaning over the rail, head tilted, wearing a frown. “There’s debris down there from the tsunami, a whole pod of it sloshing on the swells in that inlet. I can’t figure out what that one object is. It looks vaguely…” She tilted her head the other way. “Vaguely … maybe human.”

  Margaret made her way to Elizabeth’s side, and followed Elizabeth’s pointing finger. “Yes. You’re right. Get the binoculars, dear—they’re in the drawer—and take a look.”

  Elizabeth fetched the binoculars and trained them on the mass of floating debris. “I can’t tell for sure. It looks like someone in an orange life vest, bobbing in the water. Dark hair, head drooping.” Abruptly she pulled the binoculars away from her face, blinked, then brought them back. “I think … I think that’s Kateri.” Her voice rose in excitement. “That’s … Kateri!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The wind blew, waves crashed at the base of the cliffs, a smear of pink clouds glowed against a pale blue sunset sky. The vapor trail of an airplane passed from east to west, leaving the continent and heading for the lush tropical islands or the structured orient, or beyond. The universe was indifferent to the small group of people who lined the cliffs beside Elizabeth, who prayed or cried, and watched as if Kateri’s life depended on it.

  It didn’t. Elizabeth knew Kateri couldn’t be alive. Not after being rolled by the tsunami, snatched out of the cutter, and sucked out into the ocean. Not after so many hours in the frigid Pacific. But if they could at least recover her body, what a relief for her family and friends. Friends like Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth used the binoculars to watch three of Margaret’s bravest employees motor through the tsunami debris field in a tiny launch. Massive logs, floating coolers, overturned boats were in constant motion, the ocean swells lifting them up … and dropping them down. A dislodged forest of kelp bound everything together. And in the middle, a bobbing piece of jetsam that looked so much like a human floating in a life vest …

  Kateri. Could it really be her?

  Elizabeth glanced up at Margaret, standing on her fourth-floor balcony watching intently. The old woman nodded encouragingly at her.

  Elizabeth put the binoculars back to her eyes.

  The crew signaled to Margaret—it was indeed human, a body. Then as they used the grappling hook to catch the life vest, the head rolled back.

  It was Kateri.

  Thank God. They had found her, and she wouldn’t be a name lost forever in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.

  Elizabeth scrubbed her tears away—it was not yet time for that—and focused again on the recovery.

  All of a sudden, the launch was a flurry of activity.

  Elizabeth stared harder, trying to figure out what had happened. Then someone shouted, “She moved. She moved!”

  The crew now spared no attention for the onlookers, but grabbed Kateri’s arms and tried to pull her on board.

  Even from this distance, Elizabeth heard her scream. The horrific cry made the horizon waver, and brought Elizabeth to her knees.

  The crew had no choice. They had to bring her to shore. So they dragged her up and over the side into the launch.

  Another of those screams reached across restless space.

  Elizabeth experienced an anguish and a pity that almost broke her. Almost.

  Instead, she found herself shouting, “We need a stretcher. Blankets. First aid. Down at the dock.” She glanced back at Margaret’s balcony.

  Margaret had disappeared.

  Elizabeth knew why—at the fi
rst sign of life from Kateri, Margaret reached for the ham radio to call in the helicopter and medics. “We’ve got to keep her alive until help arrives,” Elizabeth said to the circle of people around her.

  They broke then, running toward the hotel, all of them showing the innovative attributes Margaret required of her staff.

  When at last the launch escaped from the debris field and headed toward shore, Elizabeth hurried toward the crooked wooden stairway that led down the cliff to the dock. At the top landing, she met Harold Ridley, directing traffic. He handed her a blanket and the first aid kit and waved her on.

  She ran down, two steps at a time, and got there as the launch was pulling up. Even as the crew was securing the boat to the dock, Elizabeth crawled aboard and tucked the blanket around Kateri’s shoulders.

  Slowly, Kateri turned her head.

  She looked as if she’d been beaten, slashed, and mangled. Her swollen, bloody lips were twice their normal size. Her bronze complexion had taken on a bluish cast. She must be suffering from hypothermia, and that perhaps was a good thing, sparing Kateri the worst of her pain.

  But she saw Elizabeth, and recognized her, for her eyes blazed with unexpected, intense need. Her lips moved, and she whispered … something.

  Elizabeth knelt beside Kateri and opened the first aid kit.

  Kateri’s hand latched on to Elizabeth’s wrist. “Not yet. I’m not going to die. Not again.”

  Elizabeth paused.

  That voice. It was so changed. Kateri sounded like a longtime smoker, like someone whose voice had been taken by torment and returned in some different, ruined form.

  The crew slowly climbed out of the launch and up the steps.

  “Can I give you water?” Elizabeth asked.

  “They gave me … now I want to tell you … I want to tell you what happened.”

  But you’re hurt, maybe dying … “Yes. Tell me,” Elizabeth said. For these might be Kateri’s last words.

  “I … saw the wave cresting. Tried to turn the clipper. Too late.” A shudder shook Kateri. “Then I saw him.”

  Elizabeth leaned closer. “Who? One of your crewmen?”

  “The god of below. The giant frog monster who made the earth break apart.”

  “Oh.” Okay.

  “The god broke the clipper’s windows, reached in … dragged me out.” Kateri paused to rest. “And flung me into hell.”

  Elizabeth nodded. In a way, that made sense, that as a Native American, Kateri would see the Pacific Ocean as a god pulling her from the safety of the clipper and into the maw of death. “You were in the water.”

  “I rolled in the wave, over and over, while the god beat me, broke me, stole the breath from my lungs and drank the blood from my body.” Kateri’s breath rasped in her lungs. “Now. Water. Please.”

  Elizabeth feared to touch her.

  But Kateri turned her head to the side and took short sips from the bottle. She swallowed painfully, then closed her eyes as if exhausted.

  Elizabeth’s heart hurt for her friend. “You don’t have to tell me now.”

  “Now. It has to be now.” Kateri opened her swollen, bloodshot eyes. “I woke underwater, in the cave of the god. He was green, with hands and feet that wavered in the currents, and a mouth huge and black. I knew … what had happened. I was drowned. My body was worthless, my soul trapped within. The god reached for me and squeezed me, chewed me and swallowed me.” She whimpered, the low, animal sound of pain and anguish. “And I died.”

  “You’re here,” Elizabeth said in a voice meant to comfort. “You didn’t die.”

  Kateri was not comforted. “I did. I did. I saw things … a person should never see. Heaven and hell. Eternity and beyond. The pain disappeared … and I saw the light. You know … the light I was supposed to go toward?”

  “The light that calls you after death.” Elizabeth didn’t believe, but Kateri did. “Yes. Of course.”

  “I tried to go toward it—and the god snatched me back. He made me return.”

  Elizabeth didn’t know what to say in the face of such delusion. “We’re glad he did.”

  “Not me. I’m not glad. Like a candle, the light blew out. Without warning, bubbles, blue seawater, green kelp surrounded me. I was in agony … again. I was rising to the surface. I saw a shark. I knew I was bleeding and I knew he could smell it, and I thought … I thought he would rip me to shreds.” Kateri coughed, and flinched as if that cough caused her a spasm of pain. “The big shark. Came at me, mouth open, pointed teeth … at the last moment, he veered away.” Tears sprang to her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. “Then I knew what I was.”

  “What are you?”

  “One who has returned.” Beneath the tears, Kateri’s eyes blazed with that terrible anguish. “The shark did not dare touch me. The god would have punished him.”

  Elizabeth nodded as if she understood. She did not.

  “I bobbed to the surface.” Kateri’s voice came easier now. She was talking faster, as if she knew she was out of time. “I took a long, sweet breath. The ocean slid a piece of debris beneath me, and I floated through the night and into the morning. When I woke, the pain was too much, and I pushed myself into the cold water and hoped to die. Elizabeth? Do I still have my legs?”

  Elizabeth lifted the blankets and looked. “From what I can see, you have all your parts. But you are … battered.” Beyond belief. She didn’t know how anyone could live with so many injuries.

  “The god gave me back to the earth, but I am changed. I have been reborn … and transformed. I will never be the same Kateri again.” She closed her eyes, as if the effort of speaking had exhausted her … or as if saying good-bye to her former self. “Listen. The god said to tell my people that the might of the earth would free them from the past.”

  Elizabeth carefully tucked the blankets back around her. “When you’re healed, you can go to your tribe. You can tell them.”

  “Not my tribe. You. The god spoke to you. You are my people. You are like me. We are alike.” Kateri’s eyes opened. “Listen to me. Listen to the earth. No more surprises. You know it all already.” Her lips stretched into a broken parody of a smile. “You don’t have to remember. You simply have to listen … Listen…”

  From far away, Elizabeth heard a sound that shimmered in the air. Louder and louder, until she could identify the chop-chop of a helicopter blade, the roar of an engine. Like a mighty bird of prey, it swooped off the edge of the cliff and lowered over the dock, over the launch.

  Coast Guard.

  They had come for one of their own.

  Two men descended on cables.

  The resort staff scrambled backward.

  Elizabeth found herself shoved aside, then impersonally hoisted out of the launch, out of the way.

  Coast Guard medical corpsmen stabilized Kateri, then signaled for a flat stretcher/basket to be lowered. The corpsmen slid her onto the basket and signaled again. The helicopter lifted her into the air. Above them, more Coasties caught the stretcher and pulled her inside. Within minutes the corpsmen had been winched back aboard, and the helicopter whisked away toward Seattle, toward the hospitals and surgeries that could save Kateri’s life.

  Elizabeth stared into the empty air, in awe of a crisis that had ended so abruptly. Feeling apart, surreal, she climbed the steps.

  At the top, Harold took her arm. “What did she tell you?”

  Elizabeth stared at his inquisitive face, and made a decision to save Kateri’s career and reputation. “She told me how she saved herself. She’s an amazing woman, and I’m proud to know her.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Shit.” At the sight of the dozenth roadblock, where three police officers stood beside a fallen log, Garik rolled his truck to a halt and wondered when his luck had turned from just about wonderful to every minute sucked.

  Oh, wait. That had been about the time Elizabeth left him.

  Now, as he looked through the bug-speckled windshield at Sheriff Dennis Foster, th
e snottiest, most self-important asshole of a law enforcement officer in the continental United States, Garik knew he’d about hit rock bottom.

  But by God, this time he was going to bounce.

  Foster’s fair, freckled skin was burned. His nose was peeling. His green eyes drooped like a drunk’s after a three-day binge. His uniform hung on him. But with one hand on his firearm, he headed toward Garik’s truck.

  Garik got out and slammed the door.

  The two men gave that size you up, you’re an asshole nod.

  Foster spoke first. “Jacobsen, how did you get here?”

  “I drove.” It had been more off-roading than driving, and it had taken Garik as long to get this far as it had to get from Vegas to Portland. “In Portland, I did some recon, plus I grew up here and know the side roads. That helped. Of course, you know I grew up here.”

  “I remember. I remember those years when you should have been in juvenile detention, and Mrs. Smith bailed you out.” Foster never passed up the chance to snark at Garik. “She’s a sentimental old woman.”

  “Don’t tell her that. She’s got power in this community, and you’ve never had quite as much support, have you?” Take that, asshole.

  The asshole said, “Go back. This area is restricted, we’ve got troubles and don’t need another mouth to feed.”

  “I figured. That’s why I brought supplies.” Garik waved a hand at the truck bed, packed full of food, bottled water, and filled gas cans.

  Foster’s eyes narrowed. “I still can’t let you pass.”

  Knee-jerk reaction, Garik diagnosed. Foster was the kind of guy who took a stand and couldn’t back down, no matter what the circumstances.

  Garik didn’t care—one way or the other, he was going to win this. “Sure. The law is the law, and you have to enforce it.” He moved toward his truck.

  Foster stepped forward. “Don’t you want to know if Mrs. Smith is okay?”

  Garik climbed into the cab. “I know Margaret’s okay. In Portland, I got the supplies and had a ham radio installed.” Hearing Margaret’s voice on that ham radio was the best moment of his life.