The Woods

I looked at him.

"Did you?"

"I looked into it, yes." He took a step toward me. "And when I was finished, I told your father that he got it wrong." "What?" "I told your father that your sister died that night in the woods." I was confused. "Did she?" "No, Pavel. She didn't die that night." I felt my heart start to expand in my chest. "You lied to him. You didn't want him to find her."

He said nothing.

"And now? Where is she now?"

"Your sister knew what your father had done. She couldn't come forward, of course. There was no proof of his guilt. There was still the matter of why she had disappeared in the first place. And of course, she feared your father. How could she just return to the man who murdered her mother?"

I thought about the Perez family, the charges of fraud and all that. It would have been the same with my sister. Even before you add my father into the equation, it would have been difficult for Camille to come home.

Hope again filled my chest.

"So you did find her?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"And I gave her money."

"You helped her hide from him."

He didn't answer. He didn't have to.

"Where is she now?" I asked.

"We lost touch years ago. You have to understand, Camille didn't want to hurt you. She thought about taking you away. But that was impractical. She knew how much you loved your father. And then later, when you became a public figure, she knew what her return, what this scandal, would do to you. You see, if she came back, it would all have to come out. And once that happened, your career would be over."

"It already is."

"Yes. We know that now."

We, he said. We.

"So where is Camille?" I asked.

"She's here, Pavel."

The air left the room. I couldn't breathe. I shook my head.

"It took a while to find her after all these years," he said. "But I did. We talked. She didn't know your father had died. I told her. And that, of course, changed everything."

"Wait a second. You…" I stopped. "You and Camille talked?"

It was my voice, I think.

"Yes, Pavel."

"I don't understand."

"When you came in, that was her on the phone."

My body went cold. "She's staying at a hotel two blocks away. I told her to come over." He looked at the elevator. "That's her now. On her way up."

I slowly turned and watched the numbers climb above the elevator. I heard it ding. I took one step toward it. I didn't believe it. This was an other cruel trick. Hope was having its way with me again.

The elevator stopped. I heard the doors begin to open. They didn't slide. They moved grudgingly as though afraid to surrender their passenger. I froze. My heart hammered hard against my chest. I kept my eyes on those doors, on the opening.

And then, twenty years after vanishing into those woods, my sister, Camille, stepped back into my life.

Epilogue

One Month Later Lucy does not want me to take this trip.

"It's finally over," she says to me, right before I head to the airport.

"Heard that before," I counter.

"You don't need to face him again, Cope."

"I do. I need some final answers."

Lucy closes her eyes.

"What?"

"It's all so fragile, you know?"

I do.

"I'm afraid you'll shift the ground again."

I understand. But this needs to be done.

An hour later, I am looking out the window of a plane. Over the past month, life has returned to quasi-normal. The Jenrette and Marantz case took some wild and weird twists toward its rather glorious ending. The families did not give up. They applied whatever pressure they could on Judge Arnold Pierce and he broke. He threw out the porno DVD, claiming we didn't produce it in a timely enough fashion. We appeared to be in trouble. But the jury saw through it-they often do-and came back with guilty verdicts. Flair and Mort are appealing, of course.

I want to prosecute Judge Pierce, but I'll never get him. I want to prosecute EJ Jenrette and MVD for blackmail. I doubt I'll get that either. But Chamique's lawsuit is going well. Rumor has it that they want her out of the way quickly. A seven-figure settlement is being bandied about. I hope she gets it. But when I peer into my crystal ball, I still don't see a great deal of happiness for Chamique down the road. I don't know. Her life has been so troubled. Somehow I sense that money will not change that.

My brother-in-law, Bob, is out on bail. I caved in on that one. I told the federal authorities that while my recollections were "fuzzy," I do believe Bob told me that he needed a loan and that I approved it. I don't know fit will fly. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or the wrong thing (probably the wrong) but I don't want Greta and her family destroyed. Feel free to call me a hypocrite-I am-but that line between right and wrong grows so blurry sometimes. It grows blurry here in the bright sunshine of the real world.

And, of course, it grows blurry in the dark of those woods.

Here is the quick yet thorough update on Loren Muse: Muse re mains Muse. And I'm thankful for that. Governor Dave Markie hasn't called for my resignation yet and I haven't offered it. I probably will and I probably should, but as fright now, I'm hanging in.

Raya Singh ended up leaving Most Valuable Detection to partner up with none other than Cingle Shaker. Cingle says that they're looking for a third "hottie" so they can call their new agency "Charlie's Angels."

The plane lands. I get off. I check my Blackberry. There is a short message from my sister, Camille:

Hey, bro-Cara and I are going to have lunch in the city and shop. Miss and love you, Camille My sister, Camille. It is fantastic to have her back. I cant believe how quickly she had become a full-fledged and integral part of our lives. But the truth is, there is still a lingering tension between us. It is getting better. It will get better still. But the tension is there and unmistakable, and sometimes we go over the top in our efforts to combat it by calling each other "bro" and "sis" and saying that we "miss" and "love" each other all the time.

I still don't have Camille’s entire backstory. There are details she is leaving out. I know that she started with a new identity in Moscow, but didn't stay long. There were two years in Prague and another in Begur on the Costa Brava of Spain. She came back to the United States, moved around some more, got married and settled outside Atlanta, ended up divorced three years later.

She never had kids, but she is already the worlds greatest aunt. She loves Cara, and the feeling is more than reciprocated. Camille is living with us. It is wonderful-better than I could have hoped-and that truly eases the tension.

Part of me, of course, wonders why it took so long for Camille to come home-that's where the majority of the tension comes from, I think. I understand what Sosh said about her wanting to protect me, my reputation, my memories of my father. And I know that she understandably was afraid of Dad while he still breathed.

But I think that there is more to it.

Camille chose to keep silent about what happened in those woods. She never told anyone what Wayne Steubens had done. Her choice, right or wrong, had left Wayne free to murder more people. I don't know what would have been the right thing to do – if coming forward would have made it better or worse. You could argue that Wayne still would have gotten away with it, that he might have run off or stayed in Europe, that he would have been more careful about his killings, gotten away with more. Who knows? But lies have a way of festering. Camille thought that she could bury those lies. Maybe we all did.

But none of us got out of those woods unscathed.

As for my romantic life, well, I am in love. Simple as that. I love Lucy with all my heart. Wearer not taking it slow-we plunged right in, as if trying to make up for lost time. There is a maybe unhealthy desperation there, an obsession, a clinging-as-though-to-a-life-raft quality in what we are. We see a lot of each other, and when we're not together I feel lost and adrift and I want to be with her again. We talk on the phone. Wee-mail and text-message incessantly.