Steven James - The Queen

Sean stared into the wok. “It’s called what, again?”

“Tofu,” Tessa said.

“Tofu,” he mumbled.

“Yes.”

Amber slid some of the firm white squares onto his plate.

Sean tentatively prodded at them with his fork. “And it’s… you said it’s curd?”

“Soybean curd,” Tessa answered. “You’ll like it. Trust me.”

“Soybean curd.”

“It’s really not that bad,” I assured him. From across the table Lien-hua gave me a wry smile.

Margaret had wanted me to rest for a few days, Tessa didn’t mind missing a little school, and Amber needed family around, so it’d been an easy decision to stay at Sean and Amber’s place for the week. Additionally, with all of the follow-up on the cases, it hadn’t been hard to get Margaret to sign off on letting Lien-hua stay in the area for a few extra days as well.

Obviously, Sean and Amber had a rocky road in front of them, but I figured if their marriage could survive everything that had happened last week, they might just be able to make things work after all.

“Mmm, not bad,” Sean said, referring to the tofu. “It’s kind of tasteless, but that’s better than I expected.” He offered Tessa a friendly wink.

“Hey,” he said to me, “I’ve got something for you.” He reached under the table. “The description you gave me of the tree wasn’t perfect, but…” He produced my. 357 SIG P229, retrieved from the snowbank near the Chippewa River, cleaned, just like new.

“Oh yes.” This morning when he’d offered to go look for it, I hadn’t thought he was serious, and when I realized he was, I hadn’t thought there was any chance he’d find it.

“You’re amazing.” I took the gun from him.

And it was happy to be home in my hands.

Alexei made his decision.

A Rossi 351. 38 special. “Good choice.” The clerk unlocked the cabinet to get the gun. “Simple. Small. Perfect for concealed carry. Reliable.”

Reliable wasn’t really the issue since Alexei was only going to use it to fire one bullet, but he decided he didn’t need to mention that.

While the clerk pocketed his money, Alexei left for the motel, carrying the gun, the holster that came with it, and the cartridges, which only came by the box.

We’d put a moratorium on watching the news.

Listening to the ways that America and Iran were spinning the incidents of last week, watching the atmospheric rises and falls of the volatile stock market, hearing the political analysts drone on, was just too much.

Honestly, being here, isolated in the winter wonderland of northern Wisconsin, it felt like we were in another world.

And I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go back to the old one.

After supper, when I was on my way to talk to Tessa to show her what was in the package from Denver, Sean called me aside.

“Listen,” he said, “I’m driving over to Green Bay tomorrow-Tessa said she’d be glad to stay with Amber.” They’d been taking turns making sure Amber wasn’t left alone. It was part of the deal for us bringing her home from the hospital.

“Green Bay?”

“I’ve decided to tell him-to tell her son-the truth.”

I still wasn’t following. “Her son?”

“Nancy Everson. She had a twenty-two-year-old son when she died. I’m gonna tell him the truth about that night-that I’d been drinking, that I lost control of the car, and that’s the reason his mother is dead.”

“Sean, I’m really not sure you need to do that. There are statutes that-”

“Yeah, he could press charges. I know. I’ve thought about that. But he deserves to know the truth. It matters. I need to do it. Resolve this thing. It’s as simple as that.”

I realized that whatever the outcome of my brother’s meeting with the man in Green Bay tomorrow, I was proud of him right now for choosing to entrust his future to the truth.

Yes, I was proud of my brother.

And for the first time I could ever remember, I told him so.

Right after my brief conversation with Sean, I headed down the hall and knocked on Tessa’s door.

“Yeah, come on in.”

I went in, closed the door behind me. Tessa was lying on the bed, writing in her journal, her teddy bear, Francesca, nestled up beside her.

“I have something to show you, Raven,” I said.

Curious, she scooted forward, sat on the edge of the bed, and I held up the box containing the ring.

“What!” Her eyes were wide. “Can I see it?”

I gave her the box.

“It finally arrived this morning. I’m about to go ask her right now.”

Tessa opened the ring box and let out a long, slow breath. “You did good.” She admired it longer than I thought she would. “You did real good.”

At last she handed me the box, and I slid it into my pocket. “Anyway,” I said, “that’s why I stopped by. I just wanted, one more time, to make sure that you’re cool with-”

“Patrick.” Tessa had chosen a parental tone. “It’s been almost two years since Mom died. You have a life to live. Lien-hua is great. I couldn’t ask for a cooler stepmom.”

“Thanks.” I gave her a light kiss on the forehead.

“You gonna tell her about DC?”

“Yes.”

“A new adventure.”

“That’s right.”

A small silence. I saw her tapping her leg. “Hey,” she said, “did Amber ever teach you that game of hers, Guess the Plot?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Well, you watch, like, a little snippet of a movie and then you try to guess the rest of the story. I was just thinking… you, Lien-hua, me-if this were a movie, how it would end.”

“And?” I said, somewhat apprehensively.

“It looks like the guy finally gets the girl.”

“That’s my kind of story. What about the precocious teenager? Does she live happily ever after with the dashing and brave geospatial investigator and his exotically beautiful kickboxing bride?”

Tessa looked at me with mock incredulity. “You’re dashing and brave, she’s exotically beautiful, and I’m precocious?”

“In an endearing, fetching sort of way.”

“Humph.” She folded her arms but wasn’t really angry. “Well, I think maybe she stops having trouble falling asleep.”

“Really?”

“I think so. Yes.”

“This is turning out to be the kind of ending I like.”

“But as far as living ‘happily ever after,’ let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t happen?”

“Yeah, I mean, just sitting around being happy all the time? Boring. I’m more into an ongoing adventure kind of thing.”

I patted her arm. “Don’t worry. I’m sure something bad will happen soon enough to keep things interesting.”

Then I left to go ask Special Agent Lien-hua Jiang for her hand in marriage.

In his motel room, Alexei Chekov addressed the six envelopes.

Each contained over $150,000, all of the money he had left from his trip to Wisconsin.

As a small way of showing recompense for the death of their husbands, he left one envelope to Mia Ellory, the deputy’s wife, another to Annette Clarke, the wife of the truck driver he had killed. The third envelope he addressed to Erin Collet, because he had attacked her and allowed her father to die; the fourth was for Kayla Tatum, for mental duress suffered during her abduction and captivity; the fifth, for the maid who would find his body tomorrow. The final envelope contained enough money to pay for cleaning up the motel room.

Then, Alexei sat at the desk and carefully wrote a note to each of the women expressing his deep regret for the pain and grief he’d brought into their lives.

Lien-hua was already waiting for me outside the front door in the lightly falling snow. Quietly, I took her mittened hand and we left the house, choosing the trail that led past the woodshed and toward the forest. Faint light from the patio glowed around us, gently illuminating the peaceful winter landscape.