Virtue Falls

  She was torn between wanting to get her beautiful video out to the public, and not wanting to deal with an angry Andrew Marrero.

  Maybe she should trust to fate. The Internet in the area was seriously compromised. There was a good chance Noah wouldn’t be able get his story released, anyway. “I suppose, but—”

  “Good. I’ll let you know when the article goes live.”

  * * *

  He didn’t have to let her know when the article went live. About an hour and a half later, she found out when she looked up and discovered Andrew Marrero storming toward her.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Garik headed into the Oceanview Café, wondering what the hell he was going to say to Elizabeth about her mother’s autopsy, wondering what he should do about Sheriff Foster and his crime, and thinking he felt altogether like a better person than he had been an hour ago. At least he hadn’t killed any of his relatives …

  Garik froze in midstep.

  The memory of his father’s face rose in his mind. The vivid green-and-gold eyes, aflame with rage, the red-mottled cheeks, the blond hair strands soaked with sweat, the mouth open and screaming with rage.

  Garik took a breath.

  His father was dead. The past … was dead. Garik might be guilty of unforgivable crimes, but nothing he did could bring the dead to life. Nothing.

  He opened the door the rest of the way, and walked in. He searched for Elizabeth, then caught sight of something rushing at him from the side. He turned swiftly—and faced Rainbow, her face hard and angry.

  She grabbed him by the arm and in a hurried, hushed voice, said, “Andrew Marrero has Elizabeth cornered and he’s throwing a shit fit.”

  Garik searched the restaurant with his narrowed gaze. “What? Why?”

  “Some reporter put an article in the online papers rehashing the whole Banner murder case—identifying Charles as the world’s foremost geologist, telling how he founded the study, how he killed his wife, what Elizabeth saw, how she says her father didn’t do it.”

  That brought Garik’s attention squarely onto Rainbow. “She said her father didn’t do it?” Talk about creating complications.

  Then he caught sight of Elizabeth at the back corner by the window, backed against the wall, her eyes wide, horrified, and fixed on her boss.

  Marrero stood, his palms pressed flat to the table, every line of his body hostile and aggressive.

  Garik had never seen Elizabeth look like that. Not when they were fighting—she had never been afraid of him. He wanted to rush to her side, to shove Marrero’s face through the wall.

  But that would be the act of a man who was out of control.

  Elizabeth could handle herself for another few minutes, and Garik needed to know the facts before he stepped in. “So what has Charles’s guilt or innocence got to do with Marrero? Why is he picking on her?”

  “Because this reporter said she recorded a mind-boggling video of the tsunami and Andrew won’t let her release it because he’s jealous. The article claimed she is so much more talented that Marrero is afraid he’d be left in her dust.” As Rainbow watched Marrero and Elizabeth, she clutched the sleeve of Garik’s shirt in her fist.

  “I don’t believe it. She didn’t say that.” True, Elizabeth was distressingly honest, and she knew very well how intelligent she was. But he’d never heard her slam other geologists.

  “No, of course she didn’t. But that’s the way the reporter wrote the article. Andrew came charging in here, carrying on about how she sabotaged him.” Rainbow watched Marrero as he leaned farther and gestured with hostile motions.

  Garik shook Rainbow away. “Okay, thanks, I’ll take it from here.”

  She caught him by the back of the shirt. “Earlier, he put the pressure on Elizabeth to make Margaret let him stay at the resort.”

  Garik laughed once, shortly. “You are shitting me.”

  Rainbow looked at him.

  He looked at Rainbow.

  They nodded.

  Then he headed to the table in the back corner by the window where Elizabeth sat, staring at Andrew Marrero.

  Garik heard the phrases Marrero flung at Elizabeth: “You want to be a star, even at the cost of the study,” “Recklessly putting yourself forward without thought to the results,” “Ignoring my recommendations made with nothing but your best interests at heart,” “Proving your inadequacies…”

  Garik slapped his hand on Andrew Marrero’s shoulder hard enough to make him jump. “You’re upset, Marrero.”

  Marrero turned on him with ferocious intent … then saw who it was and backed away.

  Garik had recognized him as a specific kind of coward: the man who picked on women, children, the elderly, and never someone who could beat him.

  Never Garik.

  Garik spoke pleasantly. “A man so upset deserves to take a few moments to formulate his thoughts. Perhaps you should go away and consider how best to handle this situation with the press, maybe approach the reporter and explain your reasons for not wanting Elizabeth to present her video to the waiting world. I’m sure you have good ones. In the meantime, considering how you feel about Elizabeth, I understand how you would be reluctant to stay at Virtue Falls Resort. I’ll express your regrets to Margaret.”

  Marrero needed a few minutes to comprehend and respond. Then, like the selfish bastard he was, he latched onto the tidbit that impacted him most. “Margaret was going to let me stay?”

  “Of course!” Garik used all his FBI-honed acting ability to drive a stake into Marrero’s heart. “Elizabeth requested that you be allowed to move in. You and your team.”

  Elizabeth started to speak.

  He shook his head back, an infinitesimal shake to warn her off.

  Before, when they were married, she was oblivious to all but the most blatant of hints. Now she caught on, and subsided.

  Garik continued, “Margaret adores Elizabeth, so she said she would welcome you into her resort. But after this disappointment, you don’t want to be around Elizabeth.” Taking Elizabeth’s hand, he pulled her up off her chair. “I respect your feelings.” He picked up her bag and slung it over his shoulder. “I’ll tell Margaret not to prepare your room. Good evening, Andrew.”

  “But I can … That is, this is nothing but a misunderstanding.” Marrero backtracked fast, and too late. “The reporter probably misrepresented everything Elizabeth said. I’ve met him before. He draws rash conclusions. Elizabeth is probably innocent of maligning me.”

  “Probably.” Garik smiled tightly. Turning to Elizabeth, he said, “Come on, sweetheart.”

  Her face looked pale and shell-shocked, like someone who had been slapped when she least expected it.

  His wife was in anguish.

  Garik lost his temper. He turned ferociously on Andrew Marrero, and with withering sarcasm said, “Thanks so much for supporting Elizabeth. Next time, make sure of your facts before you start bullying your staff.”

  “No.” Marrero still thought he could repair the situation. “Listen!”

  Putting his arm around Elizabeth, Garik walked with her to the door.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  The truck was parked at the curb.

  Garik put Elizabeth in the passenger’s seat, walked around, and got in the driver’s side. One look at her, at her pale, still face, and he smacked the steering wheel with his palm. “That son-of-a-bitch!”

  She took a quavering breath. “He thought I had slandered him.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Garik said. “He’s not stupid. He knows you would never do anything to harm the study.”

  “Apparently, the article accused him of being afraid I would be the future voice of science.”

  Garik glanced into the diner.

  Marrero was headed their way. Going to make a last ditch appeal for resort housing, no doubt.

  Garik waited until Marrero’s hand touched the café’s door, then he put the truck into gear and peeled out. Squealing his tires appeased his wrath, and his voic
e gentled. “Of course he’s afraid you’re going to supplant him. Is there any other reason why he didn’t want you to release that video?”

  “He said it was because I had just found my mother’s body and I was upset.” She fumbled in her bag, put on her sunglasses. Hiding.

  “Elizabeth, you are upset about your mother. That’s natural.” Garik headed out of town and toward the resort, driving quickly and efficiently. “But what has that to do with the video? The video is your work, and showing it to the public would bring attention and funds to the study. He knows that. So the only thing left is that he doesn’t want to be overshadowed by an attractive woman who took amazing video, who clearly knows her subject, who can explain things in layman’s terms. He doesn’t want to be over shadowed by you!”

  She looked out the window at the passing forest. “He said I’m socially inept and … and that would lead to my collapse and … and my emotional state would reflect badly on the study.” Her voice wobbled more and more.

  “He said a lot of shit, didn’t he?” Garik slammed on his brakes right in the middle of the road, and turned to her in a rush of mingled compassion and impatience. “I’ve been around assholes like this before. The ones who pretend to care and undermine you all the while.” Gently, he pulled off her sunglasses, looked her in the eyes, and pointed at himself. “Do you know who I am? Do you know?”

  “You’re Garik Jacobsen.” But she watched as if she was unsure of him.

  He’d surprised her, with his actions, and with his words. Good, because he was about to crucify himself. For her. “Garik Jacobsen, the boy whose father tried to kill him. Yeah. I’m the kid whose father got drunk and punched him, broke his ribs, his jaw, his nose, and tried to rip off his arm.”

  “Oh, Garik.” Her blue eyes grew wide and horrified—and surprised.

  How about that? She hadn’t suspected. “My father was always like that. He was a gardener, for shit’s sake. I never met a man who knew more about plants than him. I remember the way he would cradle a seedling in his palm. He would tell me the Latin name, how he had prepared the soil to nurture this plant, how much water it needed, and sunshine.” Memories swept up from Garik’s past, from his soul. Emotions, too. The pure, sweet admiration of a little boy awed by his father’s wisdom, his father’s skill, his father’s tenderness. “I watched him plant seedlings, watched them bloom under his loving care.” Garik willed her to understand. “And I remember him coming home drunk, crushing those flowers in his fists, throwing them and cursing, and then, as if that wasn’t enough, flattening them under his heels.” Nightmare emotions, now. Panic. Terror. And guilt. Bleak, overwhelming, useless, stupid, irrational guilt.

  “Your father did that … to the plants.” Elizabeth put her hands to her cheeks and watched him, eyes wide and somber.

  “When he was sober, he was the greatest dad in the world. He treated me like one of his seedlings, said the right stuff, fed me, clothed me.” Garik recalled the pleasure of those times. Recalled, too, the little boy’s futile hope that if he did everything right, said everything that needed to be said, his daddy would love him forever.

  She knew the punch line of this story. He told her that, first. Yet still she led him with a softly spoken, “But…?”

  “But Dad could only do sober for so long. We’d move somewhere, he’d get a job on some posh estate or at a big garden center. He’d impress the hell out of his employers. Women always thought he was sweet. Then he’d start drinking. Again.” Garik talked too fast, remembered too much. “A little at first. A couple of beers. A shot of tequila. All of a sudden, he was out of control. When he was like that, I’d try to keep him out of the way.” Stupid, desperate kid that he had been. “Some rich lady would knock on the door and want cut flowers for her garden party, or to tell him weeds had invaded the roses. I’d try to cover for him. Tell them I was sick and he couldn’t leave me, and she’d get all sympathetic. Trouble was, he had the hearing of a lynx. He’d rouse from his stupor and come roaring to the door, screaming obscenities to the woman he’d spent so much time impressing. ‘I’m independent, I don’t have to take orders from a cunt.’”

  Elizabeth flinched.

  “Yes. His favorite drunken insult to any female. It always worked. He’d always get fired, and…” Garik dangled, bleeding, on the hook of old horrors.

  “He would hurt you,” Elizabeth said.

  “He would hurt me.” Garik felt jumpy, like a cat walking across an iron furnace vent. He was telling his story to Elizabeth, and unlike his father, he was in control.

  He didn’t expect her to stick with him after this. Although he hadn’t admitted it even to himself, he had been nursing some hopes of a reunion. But now she knew how pathetic he really was.

  Still, if he made her feel better about that dumbshit Andrew Marrero, it was okay. Garik did not ever want to see that misery on Elizabeth’s face again. “My father would hurt me. He’d tell me everything was my fault. My fault he started drinking again. My fault his employers got mad at him. My fault my mother ran away. All crap, of course. He was a raging, abusive alcoholic.”

  “What happened to him?” Her voice was soft, slow, kind.

  Great. She did feel sorry for him. Which was exactly why he hadn’t told her earlier. “Oh. That. He beat me, broke my face, broke my arm pretty good. Twisted it, shattered both bones between the wrist and the elbow, then passed out. For that matter, so did I, for a while. Then I got myself to the hospital—I’d had practice. I told the emergency room personnel some craptastic story about how I fell down the stairs. They didn’t believe me. I knew I was in for another stretch in a foster home.”

  “You’d been in foster homes before?” She took her sunglasses back from him and looked down at them.

  “That’s one of the reasons we kept moving. Dad didn’t want me raised in a foster home. And I didn’t want that, either. The kids in foster homes were always … damaged.” With finely tuned irony, he said, “I didn’t want to be damaged.”

  Elizabeth shifted toward him. She stroked his arm as if taking the old, bad pain away with a brush of her hand.

  Deliberately, Garik slowed down his rush of words. The worst was over. He’d told Elizabeth the truth. She felt bad for him. She realized she wasn’t the only one who had had a tough life and been maligned by jackasses like Marrero. Garik’s story had done its job. He was glad. He was proud. Of himself. Really. “Margaret was also in the emergency room—she actually had fallen down some stairs, and Harold insisted she come and get checked out. She heard the medical personnel talking about me, and it pissed her off good. That little Irishwoman doesn’t like bullies. She has a thing about taking down bullies.”

  “I’m sure she does.” Elizabeth seemed to think for a moment. “With her background, I understand.”

  “Next thing I knew,” Garik said, “my father had disappeared and I went to live with Margaret.”

  Elizabeth petted him with more strength, more conviction. “Thank God. He might have killed you.”

  “But I … he was my father.” Garik remembered the way he had cowered at the resort for days and weeks, the tears that soaked his pillow as he waited to be beaten and then discarded. “I was scared, reluctant, amazed to be living at the resort, thrilled to have three meals a day that I didn’t have to scrounge out of a garbage can.” Then more tears soaked his pillow … as he missed his father.

  Elizabeth scrubbed away her own tears with one hand.

  “Don’t cry. C’mon, this is the good part.”

  “I know.” She sniffled. “I’m happy for you.”

  “I went to school, worked hard to catch up. Margaret was strict about that, I can tell you, and she told me the only way a kid like me would get ahead was to be smarter than everyone else.”

  Elizabeth smiled, a wobbly smile of fellowship. “Aren’t we lucky that we are smarter than everyone else?”

  Garik repeated, “But … he was my father, my only parent, and he was gone.” Good, Garik. Tell her the pitif
ul stuff, then moan about your good fortune. She had to be impressed.

  “You missed him.”

  “I loved him. It doesn’t make sense, I know.”

  “He was your father, your kin, your blood. And you missed him.”

  She understood. Garik couldn’t believe it, but she did understand.

  When someone leaned on the horn behind him, she jumped, and Garik was almost relieved to see a cop car in his rearview mirror. Not Sheriff Foster this time, though. Garik waved the boy deputy around, rolled down his window, and called, “Sorry, I dropped a Coke in my lap. We’ve got it cleaned up now.”

  “You don’t need assistance?” The cop was obviously disappointed. “Then move along—it’s dangerous to block the road.”

  Garik watched him drive off. “Right. We’re the only two on the road, but it’s dangerous to block it.” Putting the pickup in gear, he drove slowly, sensibly. No more tire skidding.

  “What happened to your father?” Elizabeth hadn’t taken her hand off his arm.

  Garik should have known she’d want to know the whole story. And he was going to tell her, because … why not? Once he’d come this far, he might as well spill all the beans. No more secrets. No more lies. Give her the straight stuff and let her run as far and as fast as she could to the other side of the world. “When I was a teenager, he came back. He jumped me after school and said he wanted his share of the good life. He wanted me to get money out of Margaret.”

  “Oh.” Elizabeth took a breath. “That’s why you got into trouble. With Foster, I mean.”

  “Yes. I robbed a few stores. Gave my father the money. Got caught and Margaret bailed me out.” He didn’t want Elizabeth feeling sorry for him. Too late for that, of course. “I wanted to handle it myself, and having Margaret bail me out made me … it humiliated me. I swaggered. I shouted. I was a little asshole.”

  “But your father wasn’t gone.”

  Of course she figured that right out. “No.”

  “What did he do?”