CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER
THE PRISON WAS IN THE middle of nowhere, not a scrap of cover to hide any inmate trying to escape.
The walls were brick, tall, and weathered.
Guards carrying rifles manned the four stations at each corner of the parapet.
It was a grim, foreboding place that seemed to have sucked away any hope, any happiness for a hundred miles in all directions.
A car pulled up and stopped in front and a man got out.
Walter Nash leaned against the fender and waited. And reflected.
Temple was right. Steers really had fought the battle of wits of her life leading up to the events at that warehouse. He had respected the woman greatly before that had happened. Afterward, that respect had reached a whole new level.
And now here he was. Waiting. For her.
Twenty minutes later the front gates of the prison opened and out walked a woman with a buzz cut and a long, lean frame.
Walter Nash pushed off the fender and walked toward Victoria Steers, who stood there with a small bag containing the few items she had brought with her to prison.
She looked surprised to see him, a fact that Nash noted.
“You thought I wouldn’t be here?” he said.
“I didn’t think they would tell you.”
“I have a friend who kept me in the loop.”
He took her small bag and escorted her to the car. Before he drove them off Nash turned to look at her. She was thinner, her face drawn, but the hair really caught him.
“Your idea?” he said, pointing to the ultra-short cut.
“Inside there you do not have ideas. You just do what they tell you to.”
“You want to get some food? You look like you could use a good meal.”
“Thank you, yes.”
“Anything in particular?”
“It doesn’t matter, so long as it’s not in there,” she said, glancing apprehensively at the prison.
After their meal he drove her to a small residential apartment building two hours from the prison and in a small town with rugged mountains in the distance. He walked up the stairs with her and unlocked the door to the apartment.
They stepped inside and Steers looked around. “Who furnished it?”
“I did, but the government footed the bill. I hope it’s comfortable.”
“It is very nice, Walter, thank you.”
“And there are new clothes in the bedroom closet, things for the kitchen and bathroom. I tried to be thorough.”
“I have no doubt of that.”
He led her to a back room, opened the door, and turned on the light.
The room was empty except for an easel with a canvas on it, a stool, and a cabinet on wheels loaded with art supplies.
He pointed to the sole window, which looked out onto the courtyard, where a single magnificent oak soared to the sky.
“I thought that would be an inspiring subject to paint.”
She walked to the window and looked out at the specimen. “It truly will be, Walter. But I must work up to it. I have become rusty.”
“Like riding a bike, for someone like you.”
As he looked her over, he noted the lines etched more deeply on her face, how she held her arms rigidly and had shuffled along when walking, which he concluded probably came from being shackled to move from place to place.
There was an elevated distance in her gaze, as though objects near her did not really come within focus.
In her voice, he had detected the diminishment of her spirit that no doubt came when one’s liberty was taken away.
“How about some hot tea?” he suggested. “It’s chilly out there.”
“Yes, tea would be good,” she said listlessly.
They sat in the kitchen. He poured the hot water over the tea bags, and they let it steep for a few minutes. There was a small balcony accessed by a sliding door off the kitchen. On the balcony was a raised planter that Nash had put together and filled with dirt.
“You mentioned the garden you worked at with Hiroko-san back in Japan. This is nothing like that, but you can get your hands dirty come the springtime.”
“It was very thoughtful,” she replied. “Very thoughtful.”
“I wanted this to be. . .as. . .hopeful a day as possible, Victoria-san.”
“I am to be called Jenny Lee now,” said Steers as she took a sip of her tea. “I received this information from the authorities. “
“Well, I can tell you from experience that a new name and life isn’t so bad.”
“I have always liked the name Jenny. I am sure I will get used to it.”
“I understand they’ve lined up work for you?” said Nash.
She nodded. “Ironically, as a drug counselor. I received some training while in prison. I will receive more before I start. It is close by here, they tell me.”
“Actually, close enough to walk or ride a bike,” said Nash. When she looked at him in surprise he said, “I asked them. And I got you a bike, with a basket and a bell. It’s in the laundry room off the kitchen.”
She smiled at him. “Thank you, that was very kind.”
She drew up a sleeve. “They wanted me to have surgeries to fix my damaged flesh. It was the only time I refused them while in that place.”
“Why did they want that?”
“It is an identifier of Victoria Steers. They wanted to do it for my protection. Against my enemies still out there.”
“Why did you refuse then?”
She looked up at him, and in her expression Nash saw a little bit of the old Steers: defiance, pride, resoluteness.
“Because I do not deserve to be protected. I am what I am. And if I live many years in peace, or die soon and violently, it will be on those terms. My terms.”
They both stared off for a few moments and then Nash asked the question he had been waiting to ask: “Did you know Connor Lord had figured out so much?”
“You must assume that a man such as he will know as much as you know, if not more.”
“So when you let him capture us? He could have killed us. Not taken us to the warehouse.”
“I was counting on the fact that at that point, I knew a little bit more than he did. About himself.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He was the new head of what was my empire. Some would have doubts as to his capabilities. By showing everyone that he bested me? He would have removed all lingering uncertainty about his fitness.” She looked earnestly at him.
“But it was your idea to have an FBI agent inserted into the security detail at the warehouse. And have Temple request from this man his gun.”
“Well, we had to make sure it wasn’t a real gun that would be used to shoot you, but the Lynn Ryder version of firearms.” He eyed her chest. “The CIA has interesting technology—inserting the detonation device into your clothing and not on your skin. Because Lord’s men searched us thoroughly for weapons and surveillance devices.
And Rhett had Lord fire at your heart and not anywhere else. ”
“Yes, it was a team effort,” she replied in a desultory voice. “And since I suspected Lord was watching us, I had the CIA slip these items to me in a women’s dressing room while I was shopping.”
“The feds desperately wanted to get Lord on a charge of murdering you. But you told Rhett to give the gun to your mother. How did you know she would pass it on to Lord?”
“Because I know my mother.”
“You’ll need to explain that.”
“From the moment Lord took over, she had been seeking ways to undermine him, with, no doubt, the eventual goal of pushing him out. By giving the gun to him and challenging him to kill me, she was attempting to show him up in front of the others. The fact that he hesitated and had to be shown how to fire the weapon? It humiliated him in front of everyone. Which was her goal. But I’m sure it was a struggle for her. ”
“Why?”
“Because I know how desperately she wanted to kill me herself.”
Nash shook his head and said, “I know mother-daughter relationships are difficult, but I think Masuyo took it to an entirely new level.”
She played with the handle of her cup. “Did you. . .see your family?”
Nash looked off for a moment. “Yes, at my funeral. Only they didn’t see me.”
“But—”
“It was the only way, Victoria.”
“Jenny,” she corrected. “We must be consistent.”
“Yes,” he said. “They have their lives to lead, and the resources to lead good ones.”
“But without you there, I fail to see how good it could be.”
They eyed one another over the width of the small kitchen table he’d ordered online. He had painstakingly put all the furniture together upon arrival and set up the apartment for this very day. Nash felt he owed her that. And perhaps a lot more.
But now he sensed that she was not speaking of his family being without him.
Steers was speaking of him not being with her.
“It’s just the way it has to be, Jenny,” he said, perhaps answering her actual query. He eyed her curiously. “Why did you keep Maggie’s things in that box?”
Steers met his gaze. “I planned to return them to her. Indeed, I was told she now has the items. The ring, I know, must be special.”
“I see. Thank you.”
She set her teacup down and looked out the window at the bleak day. “And what of you, Walter?” she asked.
“Actually, it’s Dillon,” said Nash, drawing her gaze to him. “At least for now, between you and me. We have to be consistent,” he added with a tender smile designed to bring the woman a bit of relief from all that she was no doubt feeling.
“Yes, Dillon,” she said. She bent down and lifted her pants leg. Revealed was an electronic monitor.
“How long do you have to wear it?” he asked quietly.
“They told me probably for as long as I remain alive.” She looked up at him. “It is no more than I deserve. I was surprised that my prison term was not of longer duration.”
“You sacrificed a lot. Everything, really. That worked substantially in your favor. They showed Rhett the same preferential treatment. He’s out now too.”
“It does not make up for what I did. You know that as well as anyone.”
“I know that you were brave and honest and brutal on yourself. And that anyone else who had to endure the life you did would not have managed to get to this point.”
“That excuses nothing,” she replied bluntly.
“But redemption is possible, Victoria. And I use your real name because I want you, Victoria Steers, to realize where you started and where you ended up. Hiroko-san said that you were a shy, curious, full-of-energy, and stubborn little girl who loved to draw pictures. I believed Hiroko-san because she was a good person who knew you better than perhaps you came to know yourself. Had your mother not proceeded to control and destroy your life, you would not have turned out like you did.” He reached across the table and took her hands in his.
“I need you to understand and then believe those words. You need to understand and believe the truth in those words.”
“I can promise to you that I will try, Walter-san. I will try my very best to do so. Because a chance at redemption is all that I have left.”
He gripped her hands even more tightly. “No, that’s not so.
With your job you will be helping many desperate and hurting people.
That work will have worth and value, and it will be you who does it.
Now, that is a way to reach redemption for your past, yes.
But it is also a way for you to move forward in your life.
To be the person you started out being.”
She nodded slowly. “To go forward, I need to go back in my life. To. . .to where I cared.”
“I don’t think you ever really stopped caring. You cared for Hiroko-san; I saw that for myself. You cared for your father.”
“And I care for you,” she said. “I care for you, Walter Nash.”
“And I care for you,” he replied.
Later, he left her in front of the easel as she was contemplating how to begin transferring the image of an eighty-foot-tall tree onto a three-by-three-foot canvas. Nash had promised to return to visit her soon. He hoped he could keep that promise. He desperately wanted to.
Nash stopped and looked back at the building where on the third floor resided a woman who was easily the most complicated person he had ever known. Her future would not be easy.
Nor will mine.
But they both had a chance. Nothing guaranteed, but a chance.
And in this world, that was likely as good as it was ever going to get.
He drove off toward a sky teeming with dark clouds directly overhead, but with a horizon that might actually be brightening.