Breach Of Promise

“Paul, just listen to me,” said Nina, shutting her car door. They moved to the sidewalk in front of the restaurant while she gave him an abbreviated version of the events of the morning, handing him the Sly Boy to examine. “What I want to know is, am I crazy to think this means anything? I like Winston. I don’t want him to be a bad guy.”

“Then why don’t you just call him and ask him to explain?” he said. “Don’t you trust him?”

“It’s awkward,” she said. “Me asking him, hey, did you plant a microphone in the jury room? Did you listen to the proceedings? Of course he’ll say no. It’s illegal for starters. And it’s not like he necessarily used the information to win our case. Maybe he just listened. Maybe he didn’t use it for that at all. I can’t believe he would hurt me like this, destroy me…”

But Paul was lost in thought. “What are you going to do?” he asked finally. “If he bugged that jury room, this may go beyond jury tampering. He would know Wright basically sabotaged Lindy Markov’s case. Did you find any peanuts?”

For a split second, it was almost fu

“The money,” he said.

“My money!”

“If you don’t mind,” said Paul, “I’d like to talk to Winston with you. Is that okay?”

She nodded. “Thanks. I didn’t feel I had the right to ask you. But… didn’t you say you had to get to Carmel?”

“I can leave for Washington from Sacramento tomorrow. Skip the stop in Carmel. Where is Winston?”

“I think he’s out on the lake somewhere.” She called Sandy on her car phone. “I’ve got Paul.” She hung up.

“Does Genevieve know about this?”

“I don’t know,” said Nina. “She came in and saw me holding the microphone. I wasn’t paying attention to her, I was so freaked out at what I was holding. And Winston’s too smart and too proud to tell her something like this.”

A new implication hit her. She sighed unhappily. “Maybe she suspected something. It’s possible she recognized the microphone, come to think of it. She did look upset when she came in to say good-bye. I put that down to it being her last day.”

Playing with the plastic lid on a Styrofoam cup in his hand, Paul digested this information. “Where’s Genevieve now?”

“Why do you want to know that?”

“Does it make sense to you like it makes sense to me that Genevieve might just run off and warn Winston that you found the bug? What if she did recognize it, Nina?”

“She might.”

“And how do you think Winston’s going to react to the information if she is reporting to him right now?”

“Mad?” said Nina, light begi

“Threatened enough to want to shut her up? He probably figures he could convince you of anything. He’s got to know you’re dying to be convinced. You’ve got a fortune at stake. But he knows she of all people can nail him good. She probably knows more than she thinks she does, and it’s all begi

“But,” said Nina, “even granting that Winston isn’t who I always thought he was, granting he might even be dangerous,” she thought out loud, “how could she catch up with him today if he’s on an island in the middle of Emerald Bay?”

“Same way we can,” he said, picking up her sunglasses from the backseat, pulling her by the hand, opening the passenger-side door on his van, and pushing her in. “Motorboat, motorboat, go so fast…”

Nina got into the van with him and made some quick phone calls. “Okay, head for Meek’s Bay. I called Richardson’s Resort. They refused to rent us a boat. It’s too late in the day, and the wind’s up, they say. The bad news is, they rented the last one of the day to Genevieve, so we know she probably followed Winston. Oh, God, Paul. By now she’s a good hour ahead of us.”

“Why should we go to Meek’s Bay?”

“Matt offered us his boat, and that’s where it’s docked.”

“You’ve had some unkind things to say about that boat.”

“Last time it went dead out in the middle of the lake I swore I would never ride in it again, but it’s our only option. He gave me some tips about starting her up.” They pulled into the parking lot. “Look for the one called the Andreadore.”

“Catchy name. Didn’t another ship ram that boat?”

“You’re thinking of the Andrea Doria.”

“Your brother has a strange sense of humor.”

“Tell me about it. Usually he’s docked down by Heavenly, but luckily for us, a friend was working to get it ready for the summer season. Some kind of trade. Meek’s is closer to Emerald Bay.”

They found the scarred twenty-two-footer easily. “Nina,” Paul said, untying the ropes that held it to the dock. “I know you don’t really think Winston killed Clifford Wright… but let’s just admit the possibility.” He jumped in, fiddled with the ignition, and started the boat.

“I just can’t.”

“But if he did… he’s not just dangerous to Genevieve, Nina.”

“There’s an explanation. There has to be.”

“Just don’t let friendship blind you. Watch yourself, okay?”

His words evaporated behind the rattle and roar of the Andreadore as she set off for Emerald Bay.

Paul ran the engine at full throttle for about ten minutes. Immediately, the cool wind of late May gusted inside Nina’s clothes to chill her limbs and bite at her neck.

A heavy spray flew off the choppy water below. “Would he swim to Fa

“I believe Matt told me once you can pull up to the rocks in a kayak,” Paul said. “You might be able to get there without even wetting your feet.”

“I wish we weren’t doing this,” said Nina. “I’m freezing already. The lake is getting really wild. And look at those clouds coming in.”

Paul didn’t reply, seeming lost in his own thoughts.

The wind rushed by. Ten thousand white caps adorned the vast expanse of lake. “And I’m scared,” she shouted over the motor and the wind. “Slow down.”

“We’re in a hurry, remember?”

She remembered. She remembered that she should be sitting at a safe desk somewhere, in a warm room, with everything in control, not out here on the lake with the afternoon wind coming up, in control of nothing, with Paul, who was supposed to be gone…

“What’s this?” she said, stopping a leather case that was rolling across the deck. “Oh, good, Matt’s binoculars.”

“Here,” Paul said. “Wrap yourself in the blanket.” He threw a picnic tablecloth to her and she put it around herself.

She pulled out the binoculars and adjusted them to her eyes. For several minutes, she sca

“What drowned sailor?”

She told Paul the story Andrea had told her about the sailor who ended up at the bottom of Lake Tahoe instead of in the tomb he had built on the island.

Something she said must have verified something he was already thinking. “This damn lake. This whole place. It’s so beautiful on the surface.” He looked out at the uneven waves, and hung on to the wheel with fingers so tightly clenched they had turned white. “But underneath…” As if to help him make a point, the engine sputtered, then reengaged.

Before Nina could ask if the comment had some hidden double meaning only a literature major could figure out, he said, “We’re almost at the entrance to the Bay. Get those binocs up.”

And there it was, a boat with the figure of a woman at the helm. “It’s Genevieve,” she said, handing over the binoculars so Paul could look.

“What’s she doing over there? That’s not the way into Emerald Bay,” he said, and for the first time Nina realized that the irritation in his voice, his absorption, probably masked a certain amount of fear. Paul didn’t spend all his time messing with boats either, she reminded herself. An equivalent to her five-minute lesson with Matt probably constituted the bulk of his boat lore.