Michael Koryta - Tonight I Said Goodbye

THE JAZZ music kept playing, the waves kept crashing, and the wind kept blowing. Julie Weston kept her eyes closed, and I kept staring. I don’t know how long I sat. My brain had caught up to the realization that Julie Weston-a woman sought by police across the country, a woman most people thought was dead-was sitting within feet of me, but it hadn’t figured out what to do with this information. Eventually, I took a deep breath and looked away, out at the sea. I closed my eyes, took a few more deep breaths, and opened them again. She was still there. So much for the mirage theory. Now I’d actually have to deal with her.

I sank lower in the water, the breeze more chilling than refreshing now. Julie Weston seemed content to remain in the whirlpool for a while, so there was no reason to rush into action. That was a relief, because I hadn’t decided how to handle the situation yet. I was too caught up in trying to process the facts.

Julie Weston was in Myrtle Beach, staying at the hotel where Randy Hartwick had worked. Hartwick was in a morgue in Cleveland. He’d been alive and in Cleveland for a few days prior to being murdered. Where had Julie Weston been during that time? Here? Then why had Hartwick left? And where was Betsy Weston? I’d tried to enter into the case without preconceived ideas of what had transpired the night of Wayne Weston’s death, but deep down I’d always believed he’d been murdered and the wife and daughter abducted or killed. Betsy Weston’s diary entry had given me more hope they were alive, but I’d still anticipated finding them in a situation of danger or crisis. I’d certainly never expected to find one of them here, lounging in a resort whirlpool. For the first time, I wondered if Julie Weston had murdered her own husband. But why? To run away with Hartwick, who then ran away to Cleveland? And where the hell did the Russians come into play? None of it made any sense. But none of it ever had. Tonight, though, I sat across from a woman who could finally make some sense of it for me.

As if detecting the intense focus of my thoughts upon her, Julie Weston opened her eyes and looked directly into mine. I would have expected it to be impossible to distract my thoughts from the questions swirling through my mind, but she did it with one shy smile in my direction. The woman was breathtaking. Her fine-boned face was perfectly proportioned; her dark eyes were enchanting sparkles against smooth skin; her full red lips looked as if they could chase all the troubles in the world away with one soft touch. Her dark brown hair seemed almost black as it fell around her bare shoulders in curls that were wet from the steam of the whirlpool. The water hid her body, but I’d seen it once already, and that brief viewing had been enough to leave it permanently etched into my memory.

“Nice night,” she said. I didn’t speak. She smiled again, seeming slightly awkward now, and I realized belatedly it was from my lack of response.

“Beautiful night,” I said, and I tore my eyes from her with an effort and looked up at the moon, which seemed to hang almost within reach above the palm trees, as if maybe by climbing to the top of the fronds and stretching to your fullest you could pull it down. She followed my eyes and sighed softly.

“The moon’s gorgeous, isn’t it? It seems so different here.”

“So different from where?” I asked, and with that simple question the carefree attitude vanished from Julie Weston. Her eyes narrowed slightly, her shoulders tensed, and she shifted on the whirlpool bench.

“Chicago,” she said, her voice clipped and cold. “I’m from Chicago.”

She hadn’t changed her appearance since she left Cleveland. Her hair wasn’t cut in a different style or dyed to another shade. She’d made no effort to change her complexion with makeup. Maybe that was what surprised me more than anything. She’d vanished from Cleveland more than a week ago, and now she was here, apparently unharmed. If she wanted to hide, why had she not attempted to alter her appearance? Since she hadn’t altered it, how had she avoided being spotted? Her face had been on national news stations. Someone should have recognized her by now.

“Chicago,” I said, and she nodded. “Nice town,” I told her. “I’m from a lake city, myself.”

“Really?” Her bored voice implied a complete lack of interest, and she slid down into the whirlpool and leaned her head back again, closing her eyes. It was forced, though, an act designed to end any questioning.

“Uh-huh,” I said, pretending to be oblivious to her signals. “Similar city but a different lake. I’m from Cleveland.”

She sat so still in the water she seemed not even to breathe. I realized after a few seconds that she actually was holding her breath, whether she was aware of it or not. For a moment I considered joining her in the silence, leaving her with the Cleveland comment lingering in her mind while I thought of a better way to approach her. Then I gave up on that idea. There wasn’t going to be an easy way to approach her. Screw it.

“What are you doing here, Julie?” I said softly.

Her eyelids snapped open like shades pulled down and then released too quickly, and there was terror in her eyes. She pushed herself out of the water and lunged for the purse she’d brought to the edge of the whirlpool. I went after her, the weight of the water slowing my movements. She had her hand inside the purse now, and I dived toward her, aware she was probably reaching for a weapon. My outstretched left arm caught her around the waist as I fell back into the water, pulling her away from the edge and down with me. She had something in her right hand: a small, slim canister I recognized as pepper spray. I chopped at her wrist, harder than I wanted to, but hard enough to ensure she wasn’t going to be able to use the pepper spray against me. She dropped it into the water and turned against me, trying to put her knee into my groin. The weight of the water killed her momentum, though, and the blow glanced harmlessly off my upper thigh. I grabbed her forearms and forced them behind her back, pinning her, as she tried to use the knee again. She opened her mouth to scream, but I got my left hand over her lips, muffling the yell as I held both of her slim wrists in one hand.

“Relax, dammit,” I said, pulling her body against mine to limit her ability to use the knee jabs with success. “I’m not here to hurt you. I work for John Weston. I work for your husband’s father.”

She continued to struggle, but her eyes changed with the words, and she was no longer attempting to scream. She tried to bite my hand, so I removed it from her lips. She didn’t use it as an opportunity to shout for help, though.

“Relax,” I repeated. “If I’d come here to kill you, Mrs. Weston, you’d be dead already.”

I released her and stepped into the center of the whirlpool, rubbing my foot across the tile floor in search of the pepper spray. I found it, bent at the knees, and picked it up, keeping my eyes on her. She backed to the edge of the whirlpool and stood with her arms wrapped around her torso, hugging herself like a small child. Her damp hair hung in her face, and she was breathing heavily, watching me with the wary eyes of an animal that was used to being the prey and not the predator.

“There are a few things you can do now,” I said, returning to the edge of the whirlpool and lifting my body out of the water to sit on the concrete. The moisture on my skin immediately chilled as the breeze caught it. “You can get out of the water and run like hell. But I’ll be right behind you. Not because I want to hurt you, but because it’s my job. You can start screaming like a banshee, and you’ll attract some attention. But do you really want to attract more attention? You’re the woman the world is looking for.” It was a bit of an overstatement, but for a Cleveland resident who had seen Julie Weston on the news every night, it didn’t feel like one. “Or,” I continued, “you can trust me, Mrs. Weston. I’d recommend you take that third option.”