Catherine Coulter: Riptide

She knew that she should run, that this man, whoever he was, would end up killing her and there was nothing she could do to stop him. If she stayed here. Certainly the police weren’t going to do anything. But no, she wasn’t about to leave her mother.

She rose, leaned down, and kissed her mother’s soft, pale cheek. She lightly patted her mother’s hair, so very thin now, her scalp showing here and there. It was the drugs, a nurse had told her. It happened. Such a beautiful woman, her mother had been, tall and fair, her hair that unusual pale blond that had no other colors in it. Her mother was still beautiful, but she was so still now, almost as if she were already gone. No, Becca wouldn’t leave her. The guy would have to kill her to make her leave her mother.

She didn’t realize she was crying again until a nurse pressed a Kleenex into her hand. “Thank you,” she said, not looking away from her mother.

“Go home and get some sleep, Becca,” the nurse said, her voice quiet and calm. “I’ll keep watch. Go get some sleep.”

There’s no one else in the world for me, Becca thought, as she walked away from Lenox Hill Hospital. I’ll be alone when Mom dies.

Her mother died that night. She just drifted away, the doctor told her, no pain, no awareness of death. An easy passing. Ten minutes after the call, the phone rang again.

This time she didn’t pick it up. She put her mother’s apartment on the market the following day, spent the night in a hotel under an assumed name, and made all the funeral arrangements from there. She called her mother’s friends to invite them to the small, private service.

A day and a half later, Becca threw the first clot of rich, dark earth over her mother’s coffin. She watched as the black dirt mixed with the deep red roses on top of the coffin. She didn’t cry, but all of her mother’s friends were quietly weeping. She accepted a hug from each of them. It was still very hot in New York, too hot for the middle of June.

When she returned to her hotel room the phone was ringing. Without thinking, she picked it up.

“You tried to get away from me, Rebecca. I don’t like that.”

She’d had it. She’d been pushed too hard. Her mother was dead, there was nothing to stay her hand. “I nearly caught you the other day, at One Police Plaza, you pathetic coward. You jerk, did you wonder what I was doing there? I was blowing the whistle on you, you murderer. Yeah, I saw you, all right. You had on that ridiculous baseball cap and that dark blue sweatshirt. Next time I’ll get you and then I’ll shoot you right between your crazy eyes.”

“It’s you the cops think is crazy. I’m not even a blip on their radar. Hey, I don’t even exist.” His voice grew deeper, harder. “Stop sleeping with the governor or I’ll kill him just like I did that stupid old bag lady. I’ve told you that over and over but you haven’t listened to me. I know he’s visited you in New York. Everyone knows it. Stop sleeping with him.”

She started laughing and couldn’t seem to stop. She did only when he began yelling at her, calling her a whore, a stupid bitch, and more curses, some of them extraordinarily vicious.

She hiccuped. “Sleep with the governor? Are you nuts? He’s married. He has three children, two of them older than I am.” And then, because it no longer mattered, because he might not really exist anyway, she said, “The governor sleeps with every woman he can talk into that private room off his office. I’d have to take a number. You want them all to stop sleeping with him? It’ll keep you busy until the next century and that’s a very long time away.”

“It’s just you, Rebecca. You’ve got to stop sleeping with him.”

“Listen to me, you stupid jerk. I would only sleep with the governor if world peace were in the balance. Even then it would be a very close call.”

The creep actually sighed. “Don’t lie, Rebecca. Just stop, do you hear me?”

“I can’t stop something I’ve never even done.”

“It’s a shame,” he said, and for the first time, he hung up on her.

That night the governor was shot through the neck outside the Hilton Hotel, where he was attending a fundraiser for cancer research. He was lucky. There were more than a hundred doctors around. They managed to save his life. It was reported that the bullet was fired from a great distance, by a marksman with remarkable skill. They had no leads as yet.

When she heard that, she said to the Superman cartoon character playing soundlessly on the television, “He was supposed to go to a fundraiser on endangered species.”

That’s when she ran. Her mother was dead and there was nothing more holding her here.

To Maine, to find sanctuary.

Riptide, Maine

June 22

Becca said, “I’ll take it.”

The real estate broker, Rachel Ryan, beamed at her, then almost immediately backpedaled. “Perhaps you’re making this decision too quickly, Ms. Powell. Would you like to think about this for a bit? I will have everything cleaned, but the house is old and that includes all the appliances and the bathrooms. It’s furnished, of course, but the furniture isn’t all that remarkable. The house has been empty for four years, since Mr. Marley’s death.”

“You told me all that, Mrs. Ryan. I see that it’s an old house. I still like it, it’s charming. And it’s quite large. I like a lot of space. Also it’s here at the end of the lane all by itself. I do like my privacy.” Now, that was an understatement but nonetheless the truth. “A Mr. Marley lived here?”

“Mr. Jacob Marley. Yes, the same name as in A Christmas Carol. He was eighty-seven years old when he passed away in his sleep. He kept to himself for the last thirty years or so of his life. His daddy started the town back in 1907, after several of his businesses in Boston were burned to the ground one hot summer night. It was said his enemies were responsible. Mr. Marley Senior wasn’t a popular man. He was one of those infamous robber barons. But he wasn’t stupid. He decided it was healthier to just leave Boston and so he did, and came here. There was already a small fishing village here, and he just took it over and renamed it.”

Becca patted the woman’s shoulder. “It’s all right. I’ve thought about it, Mrs. Ryan. I’ll give you a money order since I don’t have a bank account here. Could it be cleaned today so I can move in tomorrow afternoon?”

“It will be ready if I have to clean it myself. Actually, since it’s summer, I can round up a dozen high-schoolers and get them right over here. Don’t you worry about a thing. Oh yes, there’s the most adorable little boy who lives not far from here, over on Gum Shoe Lane. I’m not really his aunt but that’s what he calls me. His name is Sam and I watched him come into this world. His mother was my best friend and I-”

Becca raised her brow, listening politely, but evidently Rachel Ryan was through talking.

“All right, Ms. Powell, I will see you in a couple of days. Call me if there are any problems.”

And it was done. Becca was the proud renter of a very old Victorian jewel that featured eight bedrooms, three spacious bathrooms, a kitchen that surely must have been a showplace before 1910, and a total of ten fireplaces. And as she’d told Rachel Ryan, it was very private, at the end of Belladonna Drive, no prying neighbors anywhere near, and that’s what she wanted. The nearest house was a good half mile away. The property was bordered on three sides by thick maple and pine trees, and the view of the ocean from the widow’s walk was spectacular.

She hummed when she moved in on Thursday afternoon. She even managed to work up a sweat. Even though she wouldn’t use them, she cleaned the bedrooms just because she wanted to. She wallowed in all the space. She never wanted to live in an apartment again.