The Angels' Share, Page 3

  A set of headlights coming at her got her to pitch the Porsche to the right, and the other vehicle's horn was like the terror in her head, a screaming distraction that might have derailed her but for her laser focus on getting to Lane.

  Lizzie took the exit ramp at eighty miles an hour, and by some miracle, no one happened to be heading up it to get on the highway. At the bottom, she pulled another illegal turn and got herself heading the right way, but more traffic laws got broken as she hopped the curb, tore across a grass verge, and bottomed out on a two-laner that ran down to the river's edge.

  Lizzie took the Porsche up to nearly a hundred miles an hour.

  And then she slammed on the brakes.

  One of the region's favorite ice cream parlors was located on the shore, in a Victorian house with a storied past--and in addition to slinging scoops, they also rented bikes . . . and boats.

  She didn't park the 911 so much as dump it at the side of the road on the grass shoulder as cockeyed as a drunk's hat. She left the headlights on and facing across the water as she vaulted a fence and gunned across a shallow lawn for the floating docks. There, she found a variety of Boston Whalers, none of which had keys in them, of course--and one measly, tippy flat-bottom with a pull-start outboard.

  Which, blessedly, somebody had not chained to the posts.

  Lizzie jumped in, and it took her two yanks to get the engine cooking. Then she ripped off the tethers and headed out into the river, the tin can slapping against the waves and kicking spray into her face. With the dearth of artificial light, she could see a little, but not a lot--and the last thing she wanted was to run him over.

  She had gone only a hundred yards or so into the river--which seemed to be the size of an ocean--when she saw the most miraculous thing on the horizon.

  A miracle.

  It was a miracle.

  THREE

  The Ohio River was so much colder than Lane could ever have imagined. And the shore was farther away, like he was swimming the English Channel. And his body heavier, as if there were cement blocks tied to his feet. And his lungs weren't working right.

  The current was carrying him fast, but that was only good news if he wanted to go over the falls like his father had. And as luck would have it, the relentless draw was pulling him into the center of the channel, away from any kind of land, and he had to fight against it if he hoped to get to--

  As a piercing illumination hit him from behind, he thought for a split second that his momma's faith had turned out to be real and her Jesus was coming to take him to the Pearly Gates.

  "I got him! I got him!"

  Okay, that voice sounded way too ordinary to be anything biblical--and the Southern accent was a telltale that it was probably a mortal and not God.

  Spitting water out of his mouth, Lane rolled onto his back and had to put an arm over his eyes as he was blinded by the glare.

  "He's alive!"

  The boat that pulled up beside him was a good thirty feet long and had a cabin, and its engines were cut as the stern swung around toward him.

  He was pulled over thanks to a net grappler, and then he helped himself out of the river and onto the platform over the propellers. Flopping on his back, he looked up at the night. He couldn't see the stars. The city's glow was too bright. Or maybe his eyes were just too clouded.

  A man's face appeared in his vision. Gray beard. Shaggy hair. "We saw you jump. Good thing we was coming under--"

  "Someone's approaching from starboard."

  Lane knew without looking who it was. He just knew it. And sure enough, as the spotlight was manually spun in that direction, he saw his Lizzie in a flatboat coming at them, the flimsy, metal craft clapping against the water, her strong body crouched by the outboard motor, that high-pitched whine of the overworked little engine the perfect sound track to the panic on her face.

  "Lane!"

  "Lizzie!" He sat up and cupped his dripping hands to yell. "I'm all right! I made it!"

  She pulled up like an expert right across the stern, and even though he was in wet clothes and cold to the bone, he jumped at her. Or maybe she jumped at him. It was probably the both of them.

  He held her tight against him, and she held him back. And then she jerked away and punched him in the biceps so hard, she nearly knocked him back into the river.

  "Ow!"

  "What the hell were you doing up there--"

  "I wasn't--"

  "Are you out of your mind--"

  "I didn't--"

  "You almost killed yourself!"

  "Lizzie, I--"

  "I am so pissed off at you right now!"

  The fishing boat was tipping back and forth as they stood with feet planted on the gunnels. And he was dimly aware that there were three fishermen popcorn-and-Coke'ing it on the larger vessel.

  "I could just slap you!"

  "Okay, if it'll make you feel better--"

  "It won't!" Lizzie said. "Nothing is going to--I thought you were dead!"

  As she began to cry, he cursed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry . . ."

  He brought her back against him and held her tightly, stroking her spine and murmuring things he wasn't going to remember even if the moment itself was unforgettable.

  "I'm so sorry . . . I'm so sorry . . ."

  Typical of Lizzie, it wasn't long before she pulled herself together and looked up at him. "I really want to hit you again."

  Lane rubbed his biceps. "And I'd still deserve it."

  "Y'all okay?" one of the guys said as he tossed a faded towel that smelled like bait over. "Y'all need nine-one-one? Either one of you?"

  "It was already called," Lizzie answered.

  And yup, sure enough, there were flashing red and blue lights up on the bridge now, as well as ones coming down to the river's shore on the Indiana side, too.

  Great, he thought as he wrapped himself up. Just frickin' great.

  "We're going to be fine." Lane put out his hand. "Thank you."

  The man with the gray beard shook what was offered. "I'm glad no one's hurt. You know, people, they jump from there. Just last week, this guy, he jumped and kilt himself. They found him down on the far side of the falls. In a boathouse."

  Yes, that was my father, Lane thought.

  "Really?" Lane lied. "There hasn't been anything in the press."

  "It was my cousin's boathouse. Guess the guy was important or something. They ain't talking."

  "Well, that's a shame. For the man's family, whoever they are."

  "Thank you," Lizzie said to the guys. "Thank you so much for getting him out."

  There was some conversation at that point, not that Lane paid much attention to it--other than them wanting him to keep the towel and him thanking them for it. And then he was lowering himself onto the bench in the middle and tucking everything he had into his torso to conserve body heat. Meanwhile, Lizzie restarted the outboard motor with a couple of powerful yanks and reversed them away, the sweet smell of gasoline and oil tinting the air and making him think of childhood summers. As they turned around, he glanced back at the bigger vessel.

  And then laughed.

  "What?" she asked.

  "The boat's name." He pointed to the lettering on the stern. "Unbelievable."

  Aurora, was spelled out in gold lettering.

  Yup, somehow, even when she wasn't around, his momma was protecting him, saving him, supporting him.

  "That is eerie," Lizzie said as she hit the gas and they slapped their way back to the shore.

  Every time Lane blinked, he saw the abyss below the bridge, relived that moment when he went into a free fall. It was strange to realize that even though he was heading for solid ground with the woman he loved, he felt as though he was back in that no-man's land, all security gone, nothing but careless air between him and a hard, hard impact that he was fairly sure was going to kill him.

  Focusing on Lizzie, he measured the strong lines of her face and her sharp eyes, the way her blond hair wisped on the breeze, the fact
that she didn't care that he'd gotten her wet when they'd hugged.

  "I love you," he said.

  "What?"

  He just shook his head and smiled to himself. His momma's name on that stern . . . his woman behind this wheel . . .

  "Did you steal this boat?" he said more loudly.

  "Yes," she hollered back. "I didn't care what it took. I was coming to get you."

  As they pulled up to a dock, she maneuvered the boat like a boss, driving the outboard by pushing its handle in the opposite direction from where she wanted the bow to go, then reversing things with such skill that in spite of the current, the metal teacup just kissed the pylons.

  Lane anchored the bow with a line, Lizzie took the stern, and then he held his palm out to her to help her onto the dock. She didn't come to him right away. Instead, she shoved her hand into her loose jacket. Taking out something, she tucked it into the gas cap.

  As she jumped onto the dock by herself, he said, "What was that?"

  "A five-dollar bill. I used some of their gas."

  For a moment, Lane simply stood before her, even though he was cold to the bone, and they were trespassers, and he'd just taken a swim in the Ohio.

  Oh, and then there were the cops pulling up in front of them.

  And that little free fall, am-I-going-to-die thing.

  Reaching out, he cupped her beautiful face in the illumination from the headlights. Lizzie was everything his family was not. On so many levels.

  It was one of the many reasons he loved her. And it was strange, but he felt an urgency to make things permanent between them.

  "What?" she whispered.

  He started to sink down on one knee. "Lizzie--"

  "Oh, God, are you passing out?" She dragged him back to his feet and rubbed his arms. "You're passing out! Come on, let's get you to an ambulance--"

  "Put your hands where we can see them," came the demand. "Now!"

  Lane looked into all those lights and cursed. There were times and places to ask your woman to marry you. In the crosshairs of the Charlemont Metro Police, soaked with dirty water, and two minutes after a death spiral into the Ohio?

  Not. It.

  "Hey," one of the cops said. "I know who that is. That's Lane Bradford--"

  "Shut up," somebody hissed.

  "They did this article on him--"

  "Hicks, shut it."

  As Hicks went quiet, Lane lifted both arms and stared into the brilliant illumination. He could see nothing of what was ahead. Kind of apt, really.

  "Can they arrest me for taking that boat?" Lizzie whispered as she put her palms up.

  "I'll take care of it," Lane said quietly. "Don't worry."

  Shit.

  FOUR

  Easterly, the Bradford Family Estate

  "I hate you!"

  As the youngest of the Bradford family's three living Virginia Elizabeths lunged for a lamp, Gin Baldwine, soon-to-be Pford, did not make it. Probably for the best. The thing was made out of an Imari vase she had always been rather fond of and the silk shade was handmade with her initials embroidered in real gold thread.

  It would have been a pity to destroy such beauty--and God knew there would be nothing but shards and shreds left after she was done throwing it.

  What stopped her was her fiance's hand grabbing at her hair, catching hold, and whiplashing her right off her stilettoes. After a brief moment of weightlessness, which was kind of fun, there was a smack down that stung her shoulder blades, clapped her teeth together and reminded her that the coccyx was in fact a very unnecessary body part.

  The resulting pain down there also took her back to her father spanking her as a child with one of his alligator skin belts.

  Of course, she had resolutely refused to learn anything from those slap-happy sessions or alter her behavior in any way. Just to prove he didn't run her life.

  And yes, things had worked out so damned well since then.

  Richard Pford's thin, angular face came over the top of her head. "Hate me all you like, but you will not disrespect me like this again. Are we clear."

  He was still pulling on her hair, forcing her neck and spine to counter his strength or risk her being decapitated.

  "What I do or do not do"--she grunted--"will not change anyone's opinion of you. Nothing ever has."

  As she glared at him, she also smiled. Behind those rat eyes of his, right now, he had gone on a little trip down memory lane, his low self-esteem running through the script of insults that had been ladled out at him while they had been classmates at Charlemont Country Day. Gin had been among the name-callers, very much a mean girl who had run in a pack. Richard, on the other hand, had been a scrawny, pimply kid with a grating sense of entitlement and a voice like Donald Duck. Not even his family's extraordinary wealth had saved him socially--or gotten him laid.

  And indeed, nineties slang had yielded such stellar nomenclature, hadn't it: loser, scrub, tool, dork, fucker.

  Richard shook himself back into focus. "I expect my wife to be waiting at home for me when I have a business engagement she is not welcome at." He yanked on her hair. "I do not expect her to be on a jet to Chicago--"

  "You're living in my home--"

  Richard snapped his hold on her again, like he was schooling a dog with a choke chain. "Especially when I told her she was not permitted to use any of my planes."

  "But if I'd taken a Bradford one, how could I have been sure you'd find out about it?"

  The look of confusion on his face was worth everything that was happening--and what was going to come next.

  Gin tore herself free and got back on her feet. Her Gucci dress was twisted about, and she debated whether to leave it that way or straighten it.

  Disheveled, she decided.

  "The party was divine," she said. "So were both the pilots. You certainly know what kind of men to hire."

  As Richard exploded up from the floor and raised his hand over his shoulder, she laughed. "Be careful with the face. My make-up artist is good, but there are limits to concealers."

  In her mind, throughout her body, crazy mania sang like a choir at the altar of madness. And for a split second she thought of her mother, lying in her bed just down the hall, as incapacitated as any homeless addict on the streets.

  When a Bradford became hooked on opiates, however, they got them from their private physician and it was Porthault rather than cardboard, private nurse rather than shelter. "Medication" instead of "drugs."

  Whatever the vocabulary, one could appreciate how it might be better and easier than dealing with reality.

  "You need me," Richard hissed. "And when I buy something, I expect it to function properly. Or I throw it out."

  "And anyone who wants to be the governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky someday should know that beating his wife presents a terrible PR problem."

  "You'd be surprised. I'm a Republican, remember."

  Over Richard's shoulder, the oval mirror above one of her pair of eighteenth-century Italian Louis XV commodes presented her with a perfectly framed image of the two of them: her with her lipstick smudged like blood on her jaw, her blue dress hiked up to the lace tops of her thigh highs, her brunette hair in messy waves like the halo of the whore she was; him in his old-fashioned nightshirt, his hair eighties Wall Street-side part, his Ichabod Crane body strung like a wire about to get tripped. All around them? Silk drapes like ball gowns next to windows tall as waterfalls, antiques worthy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, a bed as big as a reception hall with a monogrammed duvet.

  She and Richard in their dishabille and their disregard for polite discourse were the wrong note in a sonata, the tear through the center of a Vermeer, the flat tire on a Phantom Drophead.

  And oh, Gin loved the ruination. Seeing her and Richard together, both trembling on the edge of insanity, scratched the itch that she had been seeking to redress.

  They were each right, however. With her family's abrupt reversal of financial fortune and his gubernatorial ambit
ions, they were the union of a parasite and its host, locked in a precarious relationship based on his decades-old crush on the most popular debutante in Charlemont and her unexpectedly finding herself on the red side of the ledger.

  Still, marriages had been built on far lesser bases . . . like the illusion of love, for example, the lie of fidelity, the poisonous Kool-Aid of "fate."

  At once, she became tired.

  "I am going to bed," she announced as she turned away to her bathroom. "This conversation bores me."

  When he grabbed her this time, it was not by the hair. "But I am not done with you."

  As he spun her around and pulled her against him, she yawned in his face. "Do be quick, will you. Oh, that's right. You're nothing but fast--it's the only thing I enjoy about having sex with you."

  FIVE

  Lizzie's Farmhouse

  Madisonville, Indiana

  "You didn't actually think I was there to jump, did you."

  As the man Lizzie loved spoke up from the other end of her sofa, she tried to pull herself together . . . and when she got nowhere with that, she settled for stroking the handmade quilt she'd tugged across her legs. Her little living room was in the front of the farmhouse, and had a big six-paned window that looked out onto her porch and across her front lawn and dirt driveway. The decor was rustic and cozy, her collection of antique farm tools mounted on the walls, her old-fashioned upright piano across the way, the braided throw rugs done in primary colors to bring out the color of the wooden floors.

  Typically, her sanctuary never failed to calm her. That was a stretch this dawn, however.

  What a night. It had taken about two hours to tell the police what had happened, apologize, get the cars sorted, and head back.

  If it hadn't been for Lane's friend, Deputy Sheriff Mitchell Ramsey, they'd still be out at the river's edge by the Victorian ice cream place--or maybe down at the police station. In handcuffs. Getting strip searched.

  Mitch Ramsey had a way of taking care of difficult situations.

  So, yes, now they were here on her couch, Lane showered and in his favorite U.Va. sweatshirt, her changed into one of his button-down shirts and some leggings. But jeez, even though it was May in the South, she felt cold in her bones. Which was the answer to Lane's question, wasn't it.

  "Lizzie? Did you think I was going to jump?"

  "Of course not."