Nash turned and looked at her. She took off her sunglasses and he now saw the tears sliding down her cheeks.
“I suppose your mother told you that because she was so worried about your safety?” he said in a mocking tone.
Steers just stared at him, the muzzle of the gun pointed directly at his chest.
“Or maybe she wanted to throw a secret she knew into your face, to cause you pain one last time? Which version would you vote for, Victoria-san? The former or the latter?”
“You still call meVictoria-saneven though you have betrayed the trust that we had? That I thought I had with you? From day one you have been planted in my life to spy on me. To take me down, is that not correct, Mr. Hope? I suspected you had an ulterior motive very early on, but then things seemed to change and, as you know, I became far more comfortable with you, more trusting. But now I know that my first reaction was the correct one.”
“If it were that simple, I would have let them kill you back in Hong Kong. I wouldn’t have taken you to the hospital. I would have just let you bleed out in the car.”
She flinched and bit at her lip and her eyes briefly closed before snapping back open. “Then you will tell me right now why you did not let that happen.”
He sat down next to Hiroko’s grave, picked up a twig, and twirled it between his fingers, then looked up at her. “I have every reason in the world to hate you more than anyone else on earth. More than your mother even.”
“I did not even know you before, so how can this be?”
“It’s true, we’d never met. But you stole, brutally and violently, the most cherished thing I had in my life.”
“How could I have done any of this? You are not making—”
She stopped, and her features appeared to be frozen in place. It was not the look of mere surprise, but profound shock.
“You are . . .”
He stood and looked down at her. And her gun, which was still pointed at his chest.
Nash touched, in turn, each of the tattooed links of chain on his head.
“Me. My wife, Judith. And my daughter, Maggie. Now deceased. At your hands.”
“You are. . .Walter. . .Nash?” Steers said breathlessly.
“I am. . .Walter Nash,” he said, and after all this time it felt like he had just released an enormous burden from his soul.
She slowly lowered her gun until its muzzle pointed straight down. Then she let it fall to the ground.
“I thought you were going to shoot me, Ms. Steers.”
“I am trying to understand you, Mr.Nash.”
“That shouldn’t be too difficult after what I just revealed.”
“But back in Hong Kong you let me live, when you had every reason to want me to die. It makes no sense.”
Nash looked down at the stone that lay on Hiroko’s grave. “You’re right. It doesn’t make sense. . .because I can’t make sense of it.” He glanced at her. “After spending all this time with you? Well, I suppose my perception of you became. . .complicated. But I do hate you. For what you did to me. To my wife. And most especially to my daughter. For that I want you to be punished. Severely.”
Steers shook her head, again, as though trying to fling off the imprint of this stunning exchange. But when she grew still Nash watched as fresh tears slid down her cheeks. When she spoke, her voice was tremulous. “I told you long ago that I am not a good person. That I have hurt a great many people for no reason other than money or my own self-protection. You should have let me kill myself,” she added dully.
“It was Hiroko-san who would not let you take your own life. She cared for you. She loved you.” He glanced down at the grave. “Until her dying breath she did. A person must be truly evil to not have one person to mourn their passing.”
“But Hiroko-san cannot mourn my death now, Mr. Nash. She is gone.”
He looked at her. “No, butIcan.”
In the gentle breeze that rippled through the woods the pair stared at each other over the width of the woman’s grave.
“I have never been deceived by anyone as I have been deceived by you. And a great many have tried, including my own mother.”