A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(211)

China turned her head away further. Deborah saw the trouble she had in swallowing. She said, “The moment we set foot on this island, we were someone’s patsies. I wish we’d handed over those stupid plans and just taken off. But no. I thought it would be so cool to do a story on that house. And I wouldn’t have been able to sell it anyway. It was dumb. It was stupid. It was a just-so-typical China screw-up. And now...I did this to us both, Deborah. He would have left. He would’ve been happy to leave. That’s what he wanted to do. But I thought here’s a chance to get some pictures, do a story on spec. Which was even stupider than anything else, because when the hell have I ever been able to do a story on spec and sell it? Never. Jesus. I am such a loser.”

This was too much. Deborah got to her feet and went to her friend’s chair. She stood behind it and dropped her arms round China. She pressed her cheek against the top of her head and said, “Stop it. Stop it. I swear to you—”

Before she could finish, the door of the flat popped open behind them and the cold evening December air whoosh ed into the room. They turned and Deborah took a step to hurry over to shut it. But she stopped when she saw who was standing there.

“Cherokee!” she cried.

He looked utterly done in—unshaven and rumpled—but he grinned nonetheless. He held up a hand to stifle their exclamations and questions, and he disappeared for a moment back outside. Next to Deborah, China got up slowly.

Cherokee reappeared. In each hand was a duffel bag, which he threw inside the flat. Then, from within his jacket he brought out two small dark blue booklets, each of which was embossed in gold upon its cover. He tossed one to his sister and he kissed the other. “Our ticket to ride,” he said. “Let’s blow this joint, Chine.”

She stared at him and then looked down at the passport in her hands. She said, “What...?” And then as she dashed across the room to hug him, “What happened? Cherokee. What happened? ”

“I don’t know and I didn’t ask,” her brother replied. “A cop came to my cell with our stuff about twenty minutes ago. Said, ‘That’ll be all, Mr. River. Just get your ass off this island by tomorrow morning.’ Or words to that effect. He even gave us tickets back to Rome, if that’s our pleasure, he said. With the States of Guernsey’s apologies for the inconvenience, of course.”

“That’s what he said? The inconvenience? We ought to sue these bastards to hell and back, and—”

“Whoa,” Cherokee said. “I’m not interested in doing anything but getting out of this place. If there was a flight tonight, believe me, I’d be on it. Only question is, do you want to do Rome?”

“I want to do home, ” China replied.

Cherokee nodded and kissed her forehead. “Got to admit it. My shack in the canyon never sounded so good.”

Deborah watched this scene between brother and sister, and her own heart lightened. She knew who was responsible for Cherokee River’s release, and she blessed him. Simon had come to her aid more than once in her life, but never more rewardingly than at this moment. He’d actually listened to her interpretation of the facts. But not only that. He’d finally heard her speaking.

Ruth Brouard completed her meditation, feeling more at peace than she’d felt in months. Since Guy’s death, she’d skipped her daily thirty minutes of quiet contemplation, and she’d seen the result in a mind that careened from one subject to another and in a body that panicked against each new onslaught of pain. Thus she’d been running off to meet advocates, bankers, and brokers when she wasn’t combing through her brother’s papers for some indication of how and why he’d altered his will. When she wasn’t doing that, she’d been off to the doctor to try to alter her medication so as to manage her pain more efficiently. Yet all along, the answers and the solutions she required had been contained in simply going within. This session proved she was still capable of sustained contemplation. Alone in her room with a single candle burning on the table next to her, she’d sat and concentrated on the flow of her breath. She’d willed away the anxiety that had been plaguing her. For half an hour she’d managed to let go of grief.

Daylight had faded to darkness, she saw as she rose from her chair. Utter stillness pervaded the house. The companionable noises she’d known so long, living with her brother, left with his death a vacuum in which she felt like a creature thrust unexpectedly into space.

This was how it would be till her own death. She could only wish that it might come soon. She’d held herself together quite well while she’d shared the house with guests, making Guy’s funeral arrangements and carrying them out. But the cost to her had been a high one, and the payment declared itself in pain and fatigue. The solitude she had now provided her with the opportunity to recover from what she’d been through. It also provided her with a chance to let go.

No one to pretend health for any longer, she thought. Guy was dead and Valerie already knew despite Ruth’s never having told her. But that was all right, because Valerie had held her tongue from the first. Ruth didn’t acknowledge it, so Valerie didn’t mention it. One couldn’t ask for more from a woman who spent so much time in one’s own home. From her chest of drawers, Ruth took up the bottle and shook two of the pills into her palm. She downed them with water from the carafe by her bed. They would make her drowsy, but there was no one in the house for whom she had to be sprightly now. She could nod over her dinner if she desired. She could nod over a television programme. She could, if she wished, nod off right here in her bedroom and stay nodded off till dawn. A few more pills would accomplish that. It was a tempting thought. Below her, however, she heard a car crunch in the gravel as it moved along the drive. She went to the window in time to see the rear end of a vehicle disappear round the side of the house. She frowned at this. She expected no one. She went to her brother’s study, to the window. Across the yard, she could see, someone had pulled a large vehicle into one of the old stables. The brake lights were still on, as if the driver was considering what to do next.