43 #2
The day after Thanksgiving, someone knocked on the door of her room. Conor was out for a few hours, and Kate had been dozing after a particularly grueling round of PT. But the knock woke her up, and when she opened her eyes, she saw Caroline standing by her bed.
“Hi,” Caroline said. “Do you remember me?”
“Of course,” Kate said. “How are you doing?”
“Oh god,” Caroline said, shaking her head. “The real question is, how are you doing? Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Kate said.
“After what she did to you? I . . . I thought you were going to die.”
“I almost did,” Kate said. “But they brought me back. Tell me about you.”
“I got rescued that day,” Caroline said. “I watched the police arrest them all. It felt so good, seeing them in handcuffs instead of us, taken away. I heard them screaming their excuses—telling the police they were making a mistake. Those rich, important people . . . now they’re all locked up.”
“That’s good,” Kate said. She still had pangs about Maeve, who had seemed to have a change of heart at the end, and about Lincoln, whom she had come to like.
She thought of all the years Crispin had been her client, how many paintings she had helped him choose, how she had enjoyed their conversations, how deftly he had hidden the person he really was.
Conor walked into Kate’s room and found Caroline there. At first, he wanted to usher her out, thinking that her presence would bring back too many bad memories. But Kate signaled that she was fine.
“I just hope 1740 eventually gets completely wiped out,” Caroline said. “I’m sure a lot of it is underground, and members are everywhere. They’ve found ways to hide, until they can pop up in another location.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” Conor said. “They’re finished.”
Kate turned her head to look at him. He never talked about the case because she hadn’t wanted to hear about it.
“They are?” Kate asked. “But how?”
“Yeah, how?” Caroline asked. “There are so many members. They protect each other. And they are so good at lying.”
“That is true,” Conor said. “But one of them is going to give it all up.”
“What does that mean?” Kate asked.
“The ultimate insider has a black book with the names and numbers of every member of 1740, the dates of every meeting, every time they assaulted women,” Conor said.
“Every time a Belle met a Beast,” Caroline said softly.
“These are federal offenses because some of the victims were taken across state lines,” Conor said. “And the Feds are negotiating a deal with the insider in return for cooperation in the trials. There will be many trials.”
“Who is the ultimate insider?” Kate asked.
“Nola,” Caroline said before Conor could answer.
“That’s right,” Conor said.
“Nola Aldrich,” Kate said. She still couldn’t believe it.
Although she hadn’t known Nola long, she had trusted her because they had been introduced by Conor’s aunt and uncle.
She knew that Mike and Anne were devastated by the fact that they had brought both Nola and Leo Kennedy into the Old Detectives family circle.
And as much as Kate had tried to reassure them that she understood, they were still gutted.
“Nola knows everything,” Caroline said. “She trained the women, and she knew all the men—friends from her social circle, and their friends too . . . She would get referrals, and as long as the men had the right pedigrees, they were in. And it was never for money. It wasn’t like she was a society madam or anything. ”
“Then, what?” Kate asked.
“She liked the adulation. It made her feel important, in the eyes of Crispin and some of the others, to be able to fulfill fantasies.”
“Not only that,” Conor said, “but when Joe traced 1740 back to that old ad in the Yellow Pages, he found out that Nola’s mother was involved with the original group. Passed down through the generations.”
“They were proud of the lineage,” Caroline said.
“You know, what you did aboard Psyche helped the Feds nail her,” Conor said. “Their negotiating position wouldn’t have been nearly as strong if you hadn’t done that.”
“What did you do?” Kate asked.
“I learned from one of the women who came before me,” Caroline said.
“In what way?” Kate asked.
“I don’t even know her name, but I saw the scratches she had made on the porthole on Psyche, and that gave me an idea.
Nola told us all that the men wanted to think of us as princesses,” Caroline said.
“They gave us jewels and expected us to wear them. I had this gigantic diamond ring on my finger while I was chained down—it was probably the same one my predecessor wore before they killed her. I could just reach up to the porthole, and I scratched NOLAFS into the glass—for ‘Nola Finishing School.’”
“Tom and I saw it, but we were looking from the wrong direction. We read it back to front, and some of the letters were backward. We thought it said Sfalon. Or maybe the S was really a 5,” Conor said. “Even though we didn’t figure it out then, it will help the prosecution nail her—and all of them.”
The conversation had almost finished Kate off. There was just so much she could handle hearing at one time. Her fists must have been clenched, because Conor reached for her hand; she relaxed it, and he kissed her palm.
“Thanks for the visit, Caroline,” Conor said.
“I’d better say goodbye now,” Kate said. “I’m getting a little tired.”
“I understand,” Caroline said. “But, Kate . . .” Caroline closed her eyes tight, and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I want to thank you. You kept me going that day. I don’t think I could have survived whatever was going to happen next.”
“You helped me too,” Kate said.
“You gave me something so important,” Caroline said. “You gave me William.”
“How?”
“I think I told you that we were engaged. We were going to be married, when Crispin killed him and took me. I kept William with me, the best I could, while I was in that place. But I was faking it. I felt as if no love could survive that. No matter how good it had been, it was ruined. But then I met you and Conor.”
Kate glanced at Conor, saw him staring, rapt, at Caroline.
“And I’ve learned what they put you through. What Belinda did and how Maeve and Suzanne helped her stop your wedding, how they tried to keep you from trusting and loving each other.”
“They could never do that,” Conor said. “It was tough, but we made it. We have each other.”
“Just like I have William,” Caroline said. “Knowing you has taken away the poison Crispin tried to pour on our love. I hope . . . you’ll send me a wedding announcement. I want to know when it happens, and I’ll celebrate you from wherever I am. I hope you’ll have a big, wonderful wedding.”
“Actually,” Kate said, “we’re going to elope. We’re going to do it here.”
She looked at Conor to affirm that, but he didn’t. He didn’t nod. He didn’t say he agreed. He just smiled and thanked Caroline for coming. Caroline leaned over to kiss Kate’s forehead, and she left.
Alone with each other, Conor gazed at Kate.
“Really?” he asked. “If that is truly what you want, to elope right here, I’ll do it.”
“It’s not what you want?” Kate asked.
“No, it’s not,” Conor said.
“Then what?”
“I want to marry you at the Ocean House. I want us to stay in the Tower Suite. I want it to be in December, as close to the date when I proposed to you and you said yes,” he said. “I want there to be music. I want to feed you wedding cake. I want to dance until midnight.”
Kate closed her eyes. Thoughts and memories sped through her mind: the tent, the rehearsal dinner, the chapel, the hydrangeas, the dress.
Every single memory hurt, but they also made her smile—because every detail had been decided with love.
She and Conor loved the Ocean House more than anywhere in the world.
It was where they had gotten engaged, and it held magic for them that they never found anywhere else.
“You’re right,” she said. “That’s where we are getting married. The Ocean House.”
“On Christmas Eve?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “On Christmas Eve. Can we have snow?”
“Of course we can,” Conor says.
Did he look a little nervous, making that promise? Kate smiled and kissed him. Not letting him off the hook for snow, but just because she wanted to kiss him.
And so, here they were.
It was Christmas Eve.
Outside the Ocean House, the verandah sparkled with white lights woven around evergreen garlands, wrapping the banisters, and up the stately white columns.
A great, enormous wreath hung from the top of the portico, festive scarlet ribbons whipping in the ferocious winter wind.
Snow blew sideways, straight off the Atlantic.
There was a nor’easter, and Conor swore to Kate that he hadn’t planned it. He had proposed to her right here, in a suite upstairs, in a blizzard, at CeCe’s party.
So, with that history, how could they not have CeCe as their flower girl? And Hadley, CeCe’s aunt, as a bridesmaid? And Sam as Kate’s maid of honor?
Tom, of course, was best man. His wife, Jackie, was a bridesmaid too. Actually, so was Aunt Anne.
Uncle Mike, in his capacity as a judge, would officiate.
Brian Goldrick was there to join them, and to serve Foggy Nights—the special cocktail he had created last summer, just for Kate and Conor’s wedding.
The Watch Hill Chapel was the place Kate had dreamed of getting married, of walking down the aisle under curved beams reminiscent of the ribs of an old ship. She had always loved the messages beside the altar, especially:
The Church is Many
—as the Waves—
But One as the Sea
But the chapel opened in June and closed in September, the lovely building suited only for the warmer weather, so Kate and Conor invited their guests to join them in the Tower Suite for their wedding. Frances, the fairy godmother of Ocean House weddings, made it perfect.