Breach Of Promise

She heard rocks falling around her, then the thump of heavy steps.

“Where?”

Paul’s voice sounded right beside her. She pushed a loose pile of rock away and stepped out into his arms, covered head to toe with dirt and dust. After a short moment, all too short, he stepped back.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked.

“Where is Genevieve?”

“I think I heard a splash back there. Someone dove off a rock near the cove,” he said.

“Her hearing aid. It wasn’t real.”

Paul seemed to understand immediately.

“Where are the boats?”

“Tied together in the cove.”

“She’ll take them both.”

“Let her, Nina,” Paul said, pushing the mop of her hair away from her eyes. “We can wait here. We’ll keep each other warm. I told Matt where we were going. He’ll find us.”

“What about Winston?”

“Oh, shit!”

“You left him tied up?”

The expression on his face gave her her answer.

“She’ll kill him!” Nina said.

“Why is she trying to kill Winston?”

“He knows more than we do about her. Maybe she knew when we found the bug he would co

They tore back over the hump of hill to the pathway and ran down to the cove.

When they reached the small sandy beach, Genevieve had already unhitched the rental boat from its mooring on a rock and was climbing in. Banging against some rocks, the Andreadore bobbed behind. The kayak was by now a small yellow sliver on the horizon, heading toward the main body of the lake to the east.

“Where’s Winston?” Paul yelled.

“There!” Nina shouted. “She dumped him! He must have been trying to swim away from her and got caught in the current.” Out beyond the cove, also caught in the drifting waters they saw him flailing, the dark orb of his head dipping below the surface.

“I’ll go after her,” she told Paul. “I’m not strong enough to lug Winston back. You get him.” She started to jump into the water, but he held her back.

“Let her go,” he said.

Nina looked at Genevieve in the boat, and back at Paul. “We can’t leave Winston out there.”

“I’ll get Winston.” He held on to her.

“You’re no good to me or anyone else dead!” Nina cried. “She’ll run you both down if I don’t stop her!”

With a look of agonized indecision, he let go.

Nina dove, swimming as fast as she could to cover the few short yards between her and the speedboat. In spite of the pain, she ordered her injured wrist into action, kicking furiously to make up for the weakness in her stroke. Behind her, she dimly noted splashing as Paul set off to rescue Winston.

Rain broke from the sky, battering the water below and the people in it. Wet already, Nina hardly noticed. Within seconds, she reached the boat. Genevieve was searching frantically for something. Alternately kicking, cursing, and screaming at the boat, she lurched from side to side and front to back. Within a few moments, she stood up, triumphant, key in hand.

Meanwhile, Nina pulled down the ladder by the propeller, straightened up, and hauled her dripping body into the boat, into air as wet as the lake, her injuries forgotten, feeling like a monster rising from the deep, larger and more powerful than the disheveled person facing her now.

In the fleeting seconds when they faced off, Nina could find not even a hint of the youth and charm and personality that was Genevieve. She faced a stranger.

“Genevieve, why?” she asked, rain ru

“Remember that little private meeting we had way back when? She promised me three million dollars,” said Genevieve, twisting the boat key savagely.

“Who?” asked Nina, looking around for a weapon and discovering only one, the knife held fast in Genevieve’s free hand.

“Lindy.”

“Lindy bribed you to bug the jury room?”

“Of course not. She offered me a bonus if we won. That’s a perfectly legitimate incentive in the business world. Too bad I had to open my big mouth and go bragging to Winston about it before I knew Wright was going to cause me such trouble. Even then, Winston never would have figured out what I had done if you hadn’t found that damn bug.”

“Lindy knew about Wright?”

“She didn’t want details. She wanted to win. And she did, didn’t she? I won it for her and by God, I’m going to get my money out of the deal.” The engine started up. “You know I always thought I’d do like the other ants because that’s what I was raised to do. But I am my father’s daughter. I just couldn’t resist the opportunity when it came along.”

While Genevieve talked, Nina edged in closer. “What are you going to do now?”

“Take care of Paul and Winston first, then you.”

“I thought you cared about Winston. And even me, a little.”

“Stay back,” Genevieve commanded, stabbing the knife in the air toward Nina.

Nina backed up quickly.

“You’ve got to go, Nina. I was stupid, losing track of that microphone. But I can fix everything right here in the tragic boating accident that’s just about to happen. You accidentally run down your friends and take your own life. It’s feeble, but the only witness will add substantiating details.”

“The attack on Rachel Pembroke?”

“She was Mike Markov’s muse, and way too influential. Without her pushing him to fight hard against Lindy we’d have had a much better chance to win the trial. And of course, she was a crucial witness. I hid in the backseat of her car, thinking I’d get her alone and stage a suicide. But she spotted me and cracked up the car before I could do anything. Then Lindy showed up out of nowhere, so I never finished the job. So I decided to trust my usual research method, listening in on the jury. This was the first time I’ve had to intervene to such an extent. I really am very good at my job. No one could have predicted Wright’s change in attitude. It wasn’t my fault.”

She wouldn’t look at Nina, although she still held the knife poised in one hand. With her light hair pasted to her head and water streaming down her face, she looked half drowned, half something supernatural. Moving the boat around in a circle, she searched for Paul and Winston.

Nina couldn’t see them anywhere. Where were they?

“You know there are all kinds of old shipwrecks out there,” Genevieve said, “bits of flotsam from Vikingsholm on the bottom of the bay around here.”

“Please, Genevieve,” Nina said, eyes straining out into the rain, her fright reaching fever pitch.

“Maybe, if you aren’t drowned already, when you get to the bottom you’ll see something down there.” As Genevieve reached the end of the cove and open water, she said, almost to herself, “How did everything get so out of hand?”

Nina pounced, silently invoking God, ghosts in the lake, and anyone else who might take an interest, to help her shove Genevieve away from the wheel. Genevieve took the onslaught like a redwood, without budging. Swiping the knife efficiently, she slashed deeply into Nina’s arm. “Stay back,” she said, angling the boat out of the cove, “or I’ll cut your throat. There’s a perfect cemetery down there, one that never, ever reveals its secrets.”

Fighting tears brought on by the pain in her arm, Nina turned her back to Genevieve and took hold of the rope that still held Matt’s boat attached to the marina boat. The Andreadore bounced behind like a child’s sled on a suicide run down a mountain. She untied it awkwardly, using her slashed right arm since the left remained almost out of commission. Then, lifting herself to the edge of the seats, she jumped for it. One knee slammed into a bench, and the other collapsed under her as she came in for a landing.

Watching Nina get away, Genevieve cried out with frustration.