“Something wrong?” Peter sounded worried and wondered if something had happened, or if Waters had been spotted. Or even scared her, or one of the children.

“No, she's fine. They're at the kid's ballgame. She doesn't do much, does she? And she's always got one of the kids with her.” It was going to complicate things for them eventually, not that it really mattered. She was too small to give them any trouble. “I just thought of something. Who's getting the weapons?”

Peter looked blank for a moment as he thought about it. “I guess you are. I can ask, but he probably doesn't want to supply us anything that can be traced back to him. Can you handle it?” Peter knew Addison had the connections to supply them. But he also knew Addison wanted no link whatsoever to this project.

“Maybe I can. I want automatic weapons.” Waters was clear about it.

“You mean like machine guns?” Peter sounded startled. “Why?” The kids weren't going to be armed. Nor was she. But the cops would be if there was ever a showdown. To Peter, machine guns sounded excessive.

“That keeps things nice and simple,” Waters said bluntly, and Peter nodded. These were the professionals Addison had wanted.

“You take care of it,” Peter said, sounding worried. He told him about the house then, and Waters agreed with him. It sounded perfect. They were all set now. All they needed to do was pick a date in July. And go for it. It all seemed so simple, but as soon as Peter hung up, he had the now familiar pain in his stomach. He was beginning to think it was his conscience. Following her around from ballet to baseball games was one thing. Taking her children away from her, using machine guns, and demanding a hundred million dollars ransom for them was another. And Peter knew the difference.





Chapter 11


In the first week of June, on the last day of school, Fernanda had her hands full. Ashley and Sam both had performances at school. She had to help them get all their art projects and books home afterward. Will had a playoff game for his baseball team, and later that night he had a lacrosse game, which she had to miss, in order to attend Ashley's ballet recital. She felt like a rat in a laboratory, running all day, to get from one child to the other. And as usual, there was no one to help her. Not that Allan would have, if he were still alive. But until January, she had had a nanny to help her cover the bases. Now there was no one. She had no family, had lost touch with even her closest friends for a variety of reasons, and realized now how totally dependent she had been on Allan. With him gone, all she had left now were her children. And their circumstances were too awkward for her to want to contact their old friends again. She might as well have been living on a desert island with her children. She felt completely isolated.

Peter had spoken to her twice by then, once in the supermarket on the first day, and another time in a bookshop, when she glanced up at him and smiled, and thought he looked vaguely familiar. She had dropped some of the books she was carrying, and with an easy smile, he handed them to her. After that, he had stood watching her from the distance. He sat in the bleachers at one of Will's games in the Presidio once, but he was behind her, and she never saw him. He never took his eyes off her.

He noticed that she had stopped crying at the bedroom window. He saw her standing there sometimes, looking out at the street vacantly, as though she were waiting for someone. It was like looking straight into her soul, when he saw her there at night. It was almost as though he knew what she was thinking. She was almost certainly dreaming of Allan. Peter thought he'd been a lucky guy to have a wife like her, and wondered if he knew it. Sometimes people didn't. But Peter appreciated every gesture she made, every time she picked up her kids, and every time she hugged them. She was exactly the kind of mother he would have wanted, instead of the one he'd had, who had been an alcoholic nightmare, and had eventually left him unloved, unwanted, and abandoned. Even the stepfather she'd left him with had ultimately left him stranded. But there was nothing abandoned or unloved about Fernanda's children.

Peter was almost jealous of them. And all he could think of when he saw her at night was how much he would have loved to put his arms around her, and console her, and he knew he could never do it. He was confined to watching her, and condemned to cause her more grief and pain, by a man who had threatened to kill Peter's children. The irony of it was exquisite. In order to save his own children, he had to risk hers, and torture a woman he had come to admire, and who aroused a flood of powerful emotions in him, some of which confused him, and all of which were bittersweet. He had a sense of longing every time he saw her.

He followed her to Ashley's recital that night, and stopped behind her at the florist where she had ordered a bouquet of long-stemmed pink roses. She had bought one for the ballet teacher as well, and emerged carrying both of them. Ashley was already at the ballet school. And Sam was at Will's game, with the mother of one of Will's friends, who also had a son Sam's age and had volunteered to take him. He had announced that afternoon that ballet was for sissies. And Peter realized, as he watched them leave, that if Waters and the others had been planning to hit that night, they could have gotten both boys, if not Ashley.

By then, Waters had bought the machine guns, through a friend of Jim Free's. The man they bought them from had shipped them from L.A. by Greyhound, in golf bags. They arrived undisturbed, and it was obvious that no one had checked them. Peter had been shaking from head to foot when he went to get them. And after he picked the guns up, he left them in the trunk of his car. He didn't want to risk keeping them in his hotel room. Technically, he was obliged to submit to a search of his premises, without warrant or notice, if his parole agent ever decided to show up, which so far he hadn't. He wasn't worried about Peter, especially now that he was employed. But there was no point taking chances. Up till then, everything had gone smoothly.

Peter waited for Fernanda and Ashley outside the ballet school that night, and saw Ashley come out beaming, carrying the bouquet of pink roses. Fernanda looked incredibly proud of her, and after the performance, they met up with Will and Sam for a celebratory meal at Mel's Diner on Lombard. And once they were sitting down, Peter slipped quietly into a corner booth, and ordered a cup of coffee. He was so close, he could almost touch them. And when she walked by him, he could smell Fernanda's perfume. She had worn a khaki skirt that night, a white cashmere V-neck sweater, and high heels for the first time since he'd seen her. Her hair was down, she had lipstick on, and she looked happy and pretty. Ashley had makeup on, and was still wearing her leotard from the performance. And Will was in his lacrosse uniform, while Sam told them all about the game. Will's team had won, and earlier that day, his baseball team had won the playoff. They had multiple victories to celebrate that night, and Peter felt sad and lonely as he watched them. He knew what was coming. And his heart ached for Fernanda. He felt almost like a ghost watching them. One who knew the future, and the heartbreaks that would come, and could do nothing to stop them. In order to save his own children, his voice and his conscience had been silenced.

They hung out at the house for the rest of June. Friends came and went. Fernanda did errands with Sam, and went shopping with Ashley for a few things for Tahoe. She even went shopping herself one day, just for the fun of it, but all she came home with was a single pair of sandals. She had promised Jack Waterman in January that she would buy nothing, or close to it. He had invited her and the children to spend a day in Napa with him on the Memorial Day weekend, but they couldn't go, since Will had a lacrosse game, and his mother wanted to drive him. She didn't like him driving to Marin on holiday weekends. Jack had given them a rain check for the Fourth of July weekend, when Will would be away at camp, and Ashley would be in Tahoe. Fernanda had promised that she and Sam would come, and Jack was taking them to a friend's Fourth of July picnic. She and Sam were looking forward to it. As Jack was, more than she imagined. Their friendship always seemed innocent to her, and always had been. But things were different now, in his mind, if not hers. As far as Jack was concerned, she was single. Ashley had teased her about it when her mother told her about the picnic. She said Jack had a crush on Fernanda.

“Don't be silly, Ash. He's an old friend. You're disgusting.” Ashley had said in no uncertain terms that Jack Waterman had the hots for her.

“Does he, Mom?” Sam had looked up from a stack of pancakes with interest.

“No, he doesn't. He was a friend of Daddy's.” As though that made all the difference. But Daddy was gone now.

“So? What difference does that make?” Ashley commented, as she took a bite of Sam's pancakes, and he swatted her with his napkin.

“Are you going to marry him, Mom?” Sam looked at her sadly. He liked having her to himself. He was still sleeping in her bed most of the time. He missed his dad, but he had grown even closer to his mother, and he wasn't anxious to share her.

“Of course not,” Fernanda said, looking flustered. “I'm not going to marry anyone. I still love Daddy.”

“Good,” Sam said, looking satisfied, as he stuffed a forkful of pancakes into his mouth, and dripped syrup down his T-shirt.

On the last week in June Fernanda hardly left the house. She was too busy packing. She had Will's lacrosse gear to organize and pack, and everything Ashley was taking to Tahoe. It was endless. It seemed like every time she packed something, one of them took it out of the bag again, and wore it. By the end of the week, everything was dirty, and she had to start over. Ashley had tried on everything she owned, and borrowed half of her mother's clothes. And Sam suddenly announced that he didn't want to go to day camp.