Nele Neuhaus - Swimming with Sharks

“What happened the day you disappeared from the Portland Square Hotel?” Connors inquired, and Alex lowered her gaze. Nick felt horrible. In the past, when he’d asked questions like this, he had no idea how painful they were. Each answer forced the person to relive the dread and horror.

“Mr. Vitali barged into my room with four of his men.” She spoke in an expressionless voice. “He beat me and had them tie me up. He left no doubt that he would kill me as soon as he heard everything that he wanted to know.”

All of the men in the room were silent.

“Vitali tried to force me to tell him everything that I’m telling you now. Then he beat me again and had his men beat and rape me. When he thought I was dead, they dumped me in the East River.”

Nick couldn’t take it anymore. For the first time since Alex had entered the room, she looked at him and saw that he seemed almost as tormented as she did.

“It’s okay, Nick,” she said quietly. “I want this guy prosecuted.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t spare you this, Ms. Sontheim.” Connors’s voice sounded apologetic. “But with your testimony, we’ll be able to charge Mr. Vitali with multiple crimes. I don’t want to risk letting him slip through our fingers again.”

Alex nodded.

“Are you willing to testify against him in court?”

Alex nodded again.

There was complete silence in the large room.

“Are you aware how dangerous such a testimony could be for you?”

“Yes,” Alex replied calmly, “I am. But I’m not afraid anymore. I won’t hide, and I don’t want a new identity. He will find me wherever I go. I’ll testify against him.”

The interrogation ended at twelve thirty. Nick and Frank drove to city hall, and the US attorneys started to prepare the arrest warrants. Alex not only identified David Zuckerman’s killer in photographs, but also the men who had raped her. She also identified Luca di Varese and Silvio Bacchiocchi as the murderers of the US marshals and the doctor at Goldwater Memorial. After that, twenty-three attorneys worked nonstop on the indictments and the arrest warrants until evening. They would drop the bomb in a few hours. Vitali had no clue that many of his “friends” had come to the St. Regis that evening because the US Attorney’s Office had forced them to. Very soon, the handcuffs would click around his wrists. Connors was determined to make sure that Sergio Vitali would never ever get out of prison.

Nick left his office at city hall in the late afternoon accompanied by two bodyguards. Connors asked Nick to come with him to the St. Regis to witness Vitali’s arrest, but Nick declined. He was tired, burned out. It suddenly seemed that he’d been robbed of all perspective, and he lost his ability to make even the simplest decisions. The past weeks and days had drained him, and now—with the goal that he’d doggedly pursued for so many years finally within his grasp—he realized that it no longer mattered to him. The price he had paid was too high. There was no one left with whom he could share the triumph of Vitali’s arrest.

And then there was Alex. Nick had a feeling that she would leave the city when this nightmare was over; he could understand why she wouldn’t want to live in this place anymore. She was still young and could start a new life somewhere else, allowing these ghastly events to become a dark shadow of the past. Maybe she had a chance with Oliver Skerritt, who apparently loved her and wasn’t leaving her side.

As his limousine crawled across the Brooklyn Bridge, Nick contemplated his own future. He still had one more year ahead of him as the mayor of this city that he both loved and hated. He would get through this year, because he owed it to the people who had elected him. Then he would be fifty-five years old. He could join a law firm, or even turn his back on New York and start a new life somewhere else.

His thoughts involuntarily drifted back to Alex. How strange life is! He ultimately had Vitali to thank, of all people, for having met her. Dusk was falling as the limousine passed through the entrance gate of the St. Ignatius monastery. Before Nick went to Father Kevin, he turned into the cloistered courtyard to visit the cemetery. There was no one left for him to talk to, but he felt that Mary listened to him when he visited her grave.

As the door to the cloister opened, he caught sight of Alex and Oliver Skerritt sitting on a bench beneath the bare branches of a mighty chestnut tree. The courtyard they sat in was illuminated by the last rays of the setting December sun. He felt a painful sting in his heart when he saw Oliver putting his arm around Alex’s shoulders. He stared at them for a moment; then he closed the door silently and took a different path to the cemetery.

On that bench in the courtyard, Oliver silently held Alex’s hand. Too many horrible things had happened, and the memories were too fresh to talk about.

“Why didn’t I listen to you?” Alex said in a quiet voice. “All of the things that happened to you were my fault. Mark and Justin might not even be alive.”

Oliver turned his head and looked at her. Everything that had happened between them seemed like a different life.

“Mark knew what he was getting himself into,” he replied. “Justin did too, and so did I. You never left any doubt that things could get dangerous.”

She didn’t react to his words; it was almost as if she hadn’t heard them. There was a lost expression on her pale face. Oliver put his arm around her shoulders again. She leaned slightly against him and closed her eyes.

“What will you do once all of this is over?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Alex replied tiredly. “I don’t know anything anymore. How about you?”

“I’m finished with New York,” Oliver said. “I’ll sell my loft and go back home to my parents. My dad’s getting old, so maybe I’ll take over his fishing fleet. And write a book. I definitely have enough material now.”

Alex smiled softly and opened her eyes again.

“Come with me to Maine,” Oliver suggested, “at least for a while.”

“To Maine,” Alex said and sighed. “That sounds far away enough from all of this.”

They were silent for a while. The pale December sun vanished behind the monastery’s church tower. It grew cold.

“I know that this probably isn’t the right moment,” Oliver whispered, “but I want you to know how much I care for you.”

Alex bit her lip and swallowed. Then she looked at him.

“I really like you, Oliver. But…” She fell silent searching for the right words.

“Alex, I don’t mean to put you under pressure in any way. You don’t owe me anything, but you should know that you’re the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met. I could live with it if you told me you didn’t love me, but I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try.”

He smiled sadly, and she turned and looked at him.

“You love Kostidis, right?” he asked quietly. He found no answer in Alex’s green eyes, but then she slowly nodded.

“I think so,” she replied.

“He loves you. I probably don’t have a chance against him.”

Suddenly, Alex wrapped her arms around his neck.

“I wish that we’d met under different circumstances. I wish that I’d stayed away from Vitali. I wish that I never heard of LMI, SeaStarFriends, and all these things. Sometimes I wish that I had never come here from Germany.”

Oliver took her in his arms and held her tight.

“Who knows what good any of this did.” He gently lifted her face and looked at her for a long time.

“Do you promise that we’ll remain friends?”

“Yes.” Alex nodded seriously. “I promise you that. We will stay good friends. Forever.”