“And I yours,” he said, smiling. “And I don’t think you have anything to feel guilty about. What happened at sea wasn’t your fault; you did the best you could in the circumstances. You go right ahead and look forward to that new life.” If you have one, he thought. If I can somehow pull off an acquittal.

“Are you going to be in this new life of mine?” she asked.

“That remains to be seen,” he said. “I do have some unresolved issues to take care of.”

“When they’re resolved, I’d like to know about it.”

“I think I can promise you that. But you’re going to be a very popular lady, you know. Men are going to come out of the woodwork. They’ll all want your money; you’ll have to be careful.”

“I will be. You want to go to bed?”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll sleep on my boat tonight.”

“Going off me?” she asked, pouting.

“Not in the least.” He kissed her lightly. “I’m awfully tired, though; the negotiation with Libby seems to have taken a lot out of me, and I ought to write to Arrington. She probably thinks I’m sulking.”

“Okay, you do that; I’ll see you in the morning.”

He got up. “By the way, you should fax the Libby document to your lawyer and have him let your banker know that check is coming through. It’s a very large amount, and it will make him nervous if he’s not expecting it. And whatever you do, don’t have second thoughts and stop payment. All hell would break loose.”

“I’ll write him a note and take it over to Thomas tonight,” she said.

He kissed her again, and left her yacht for his own.

He wrote Arrington what was, for him, a long letter; the longest he had ever written anybody—two pages. He apologized for being incommunicative and told her about Allison’s case, though he knew she would have seen the papers. Then he got romantic—unusual for him—and by the time he had signed the letter, he began worrying about faxing something so personal to her L.A. hotel; he didn’t want some clerk reading it. Then he had a better idea. He would take care of it in the morning.

Some time after he had fallen asleep he stirred, hearing footsteps on the dock; Allison returning from the inn, he guessed. Then he fell asleep again and heard nothing else.

Chapter
29