Chapter 43 The Good Lawyer Is Free
The Good Lawyer Is Free
“You should have told me,” I say.
“Hannah, not here,” Nicholas says. “Not anywhere near here.”
We are walking at a fast clip down the cobblestone path, away from the hotel—back down the steps, which are taking us past the Nietzsche Path, out of the main village. Away from all this.
The municipal police follow ten yards behind. A strange, silent escort. It doesn’t seem like anyone is following behind them, but we wouldn’t know, would we? We wouldn’t know for sure, not yet. The shadowy figures have been following me too long for me to trust they’re no longer following me still.
So I don’t say anything else. Neither of us says anything again until we are down those steps, leading out of the village and down the hill, the hotel far behind us.
Then it’s Nicholas who speaks first. He leans in toward me, keeping his voice low.
“It would have been far too risky to clue you in to Frank’s involvement ahead of time,” Nicholas says. “Plus, I needed to see if you bought it. So I could judge whether Quinn and Teddy bought it too.”
They did buy it—I am sure. Quinn wasn’t focused on what her father knew. She was focused on her own safety. Her safety, and her family’s safety. She was subsumed by it. She and Teddy both were now.
It’s nice to not be alone in that—to not be alone in the rest of it either. We will be okay now. Bailey and I both will. We will be okay, if we are careful.
“I just… I’m trying to understand…” I pause, trying to move myself closer to what’s getting to me. “Why would Frank move against his own family?”
“He doesn’t see it like that,” Nicholas says.
“He’s shoring them up for the loopholes they seem to keep missing.
The bad decisions they keep making. And he trusts that I’m not going to hurt his family, not without provocation.
I’ve organized my life to avoid it. He’s just giving me the leverage to make sure they don’t hurt mine. ”
I nod because I understand that part. I understand how he could convince himself he’s doing something else. But the part I don’t understand is what I feel in my gut—Quinn’s words pushing around in my head like a current. In my heart.
There’s always a cost.
“But what about you?” I say. “What happens to you now?”
“We’ve been through this,” he says. “You know what happens now.”
“That wasn’t my question. You heard my question. What happens to you now, Nicholas?”
I turn and watch him, waiting for him to speak.
If the answer is that he is coming with us, he would readily volunteer it.
If it is that he is going back to Austin, he’d offer that up too.
But he says nothing. He says nothing and keeps his eyes straight ahead as we turn into the parking lot, the car coming into view.
Our car and the small police station and the road that will lead me out of here.
That will lead me to Bailey. To Owen. The pounding in my jaw is worse though. Worse when it should be better.
“You don’t get out of this, do you?”
He doesn’t answer me. But I do the math anyway.
I do the math on what is happening back at that party.
Frank is walking his family through our delivery—the tablet, the documents—as if they need to walk through it.
They all know that they don’t have a choice, not anymore.
All of Nicholas’s family gets left alone, forever now—or Quinn and Teddy will seal their own fate as well.
Except for this. When they demand a price for this level of betrayal, Frank will echo that demand. He will demand Nicholas. And they’ll start going about it, all the ways they can try to get to him.
“I wouldn’t have agreed to this,” I say. “Not if I had known you’d be in danger.”
“Why do you think I didn’t tell you?”
He is trying to be light, but I don’t feel light. I feel heavy.
And I see it—the blood soaking through his shirt, the bandage beneath it, sticking to his neck and his skin.
“I’m serious, Nicholas.”
“Then be serious about the right part,” he says. “I walked out of there tonight because you insisted on coming with me. I owe you a thank-you for that.”
I put my hand on his arm, gently. I put my hand below the wound. “You shouldn’t be walking anywhere,” I say. “You need a doctor.”
Nicholas pulls the car keys out of his pocket, and hands them to me.
“What I need is for you to drive us,” he says. “Away from here.”
“What do you want me to tell Bailey?” I say.
We’re driving down the Moyenne Corniche, the winding road that will lead us toward Antibes. The world around us is stunning and quiet: the precipitous cliffs winding us past the historic Hotel Cap Estel, the Silva Maris Port—the Mediterranean Sea glistening as we move closer to where we’re going.
“She thinks you’re coming back to her…” I say. “She’s counting on you coming back to her.”
“So tell her I will be back,” he says. “One way or another.”
I turn and look at him. “I won’t lie to her…”
“Then tell her the truth.”
“Which is?”
“That I’m spending tonight driving down one of the most beautiful roads in the world with one of my favorite people. And I’m heading to one of my favorite places on this planet…” He pauses. “I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. I really am. Tell her that. Tell her that I’m good for now.”
“Nicholas…”
He reaches out, touches my hand. “Hannah. I’ll take now.”
He looks at me, but he doesn’t have to say it. This is a bargain he’s happy to make. He would have given up more than that for one more day with his daughter. For the last day that he just got with mine. He would give them both everything he had. So would Owen. So did Owen. They had that in common.
Nicholas turns toward the window, and we are quiet, both of us, because suddenly there is too much to say. Too much to say, and not enough time.
I drive into downtown Antibes, into the city center, and turn down a side street, pulling into the parking garage. I drive toward the spot in the corner where the other car is waiting—the car Owen left here.
The engine is running. Seth is sitting in the driver’s seat. And two people, dressed exactly like us—the woman in a black dress, and the man in the same sports jacket—are waiting in the back seat.
In a moment, I’ll hand them the keys to this car and they’ll get into it and pull out of the parking lot and head down the highway toward the airport in Nice.
Just in case they are following us, we will give them someone else to follow. They can follow them back to that airport in Nice, where Nicholas Bell is scheduled on the first morning flight back to America, ultimately landing him in Austin, Texas. A flight he will of course never get on.
His plan, both of our plans, leading us somewhere else.
Nicholas will get into the car with Seth.
Seth who will drive Nicholas the six hours to Tuscany.
To tend to his wound. To walk with him around the farm where he will be now.
Where he will be buried now. Where, for as long as possible, we can hope that he stays safe.
And I’ll head out to the street here and take a short walk to the hotel three blocks over—where I’ll get in a taxi to Old Town.
To the marina. To where Bailey is waiting for me.
And her father. Her grandfather made sure of it.
The three of us will be together again and safe to be together again because of what he is willing to do here.
What he has insisted on doing here. For his family.
“You know, maybe it’s not my place…” I say.
“When has that stopped you before?”
I give him a smile. “You should try to forgive yourself, Nicholas, if you can. You deserve it.”
“Come on, I…”
Nicholas starts to argue, but his voice catches in his throat and he just shakes his head. Because he can’t hear that. Of course he can’t. None of us can hear anyone else when—despite our best efforts, despite all evidence to the contrary—we still think we’ve failed our children.
“I think maybe that takes a bigger person than me.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say. “I mean, at the end of the day, you’ve forgiven him, haven’t you?”
“Owen?”
“Owen.”
He tilts his head, back and forth, as if to say sort of. And we both laugh. I’ve come to love it. That laugh.
“Have you?” he asks.
For which part? I want to say. The list is long and involved, the way it gets to be when you’ve been apart longer than you’ve been together.
I can cull it down to the few largest injuries, as if those encompass all of it, anyway.
As if it’s really possible to encompass what it means to have the person you love disappear (even if he had to); to leave you to relive the time you were together (as if it didn’t count); for thinking your life was safe when it wasn’t.
For the knowledge you carry now—that you will always carry now. That we’re never safe, not when we love someone. That, one way or another, we’re always waiting for someone to disappear.
Seth gets out of the car, nods toward Nicholas. He wants to get going. They need to get going.
Before they do, I want to try again to get through to him. I need to say it in a way that he will hear it. Because this may be my last chance. It may be my last chance to tell him what I’ve come to believe. About him. About Owen.
That maybe, at the end of the day, it’s not even about forgiveness.
Or, at least, it’s not only about forgiveness.
It’s about something deeper than that. Deeper than any limited understanding of being angry or hurt or deceived.
Deeper than any understanding we may have of what we’ve gotten right and wrong.
It’s about our effort. The effort is the thing, isn’t it?
What effort will you make to be forgiven?
What effort will you keep making, regardless of the cost, to show up for the people who need you?
I put my hand on his forearm, hold him there. He puts his free hand on top of mine, his eyes bright with tears.
“We’ve got her,” I say. “I promise you. We’ve got Bailey forever. And that’s thanks to you.”
“If you need something to tell Bailey…” he says. “Start with that.”
He smiles at me, and waits for me to let go of him, which I don’t do. I move closer to him instead.
He pulls back.
“Enough of this. Bailey’s waiting for you,” he says. “They both are.”
“They can wait a little longer.”
He laughs, that gentle laugh. Then he kisses me on the forehead, holding there for a second too long. Holding there for a second too long for me to forget what’s really happening here. A final memory.
“I don’t want to say goodbye to you,” I say.
“So let’s just agree then,” Nicholas says. “This won’t be goodbye.”
Which is, somehow, when it is.