Catherine Coulter: Split Second

A bagpiper, standing solitary on a small hillock at the edge of the cemetery, played “Amazing Grace” at the close of the service. Everyone turned toward the haunting sounds that always seemed to pull people deep into themselves. Then the last notes sort of drifted away, swallowed by the thick fog that was rolling in through the Golden Gate. Lucy realized she was crying, both for Arnette Carpenter and for her own father, gone so recently, and there was Miranda, who’d died for nothing. And she marveled at how her life had changed irrevocably. She held Coop’s hand tightly. He looked down at her, and she searched his eyes for any sign of discomfort. He’d said nothing, but she’d seen him lightly rubbing his side.

She wanted the bagpiper to play more, but he, too, seemed to fade slowly into the fog and disappear. There was a collective murmur from the people standing near Arnette Carpenter’s grave. Coop and Lucy laid a red rose atop the casket.

Coop pulled Lucy close to his side. Coop saw Sentra Bolger and Clifford Childs standing off at a distance, both in unremitting black, holding hands.

Lucy stood on the walkway of the Markham Bridge overlooking the Potomac. It was very early. The sky was overcast with heavy gray clouds, and the wind off the water was sharp, stinging her face. There was only one lone runner, and she was at the far end of the bridge. A single van drove past, then she was alone.

She stared down into the dark, slow-moving water, wondering how deep it was here.

She pulled the necklace from beneath her turtleneck, opened the clasp, and let the ring slide onto her palm.

She clutched the ring in her hand. It was hers, passed down to her from her grandfather, long dead. She was responsible for it now, she alone. She thought of Uncle Alan, Aunt Jennifer, and Court, devastated by grief, not really understanding, and they never would. They were refusing to speak to her, still blamed her for what happened. Uncle Alan hadn’t left his wife. She wondered if Uncle Alan would ever come to see that Miranda’s suicide wasn’t her fault, if they could ever be any sort of a family again.

There hadn’t been a formal funeral for Miranda, only a graveside service that was small and private. Her aunt had invited her to the cemetery, but she’d stood back, just as Sentra Bolger and Clifford Childs had done at Arnette Carpenter’s graveside service, and watched her remaining family grieve.

She opened her hand and studied the ring, felt it pulse warm in her palm. She whispered, “If you never existed, none of this would have happened.”

Dillon would be dead. She might be dead, too, if she hadn’t had the ring when she’d escaped from Miranda.

She looked at the three red carnelians, duller still in the gray morning light, and at the word SEFYLL —was it a curse or a salvation?

It had cost her grandfather his life, and Miranda.

Throughout the centuries, how many other lives had the ring taken? Had it changed history itself? For the better or for worse? She didn’t know, couldn’t know.

She had honored Miranda’s wish that she not try to use the ring when she shot herself, however bloody and useless trying might have been. Miranda wanted to make her own choice, but she never seemed to realize that everyone should have that right, the right to make their own choices, and live or die by them. Miranda made her realize the future should be determined by everyone, not by any one person, whether a well-meaning person trying to do the right thing or a dangerous one like Miranda who could change the world in unimaginable and tragic ways. No one should have that much power.

She squeezed the ring tightly, then stared at the water flowing beneath her. “Good-bye,” she said, and dropped it into the water. It didn’t even make a ripple in the surface.

She turned to see Coop standing next to his Corvette some twenty feet away. He’d driven her here. She knew in her heart he wouldn’t ask why she’d come. He would accept her and love her, and they’d build a life together, and hopefully it would be a good one.

She waved at him. She never looked back.