Law of the Heart—Alternate Ending

I tried to act normal and I was happy that I had my date with me to distract me from my thoughts about what might be happening at the reunion. We actually had a very good time together: drinks, dinner, dancing and then back to her place for the evening. By the time we finished having sex, we were both tired and we slept soundly.

At 2AM in the morning, my phone rang. It must have rung ten times before I was awake enough to answer it.

"Who's calling me at this hour," I said as I answered the incessant ring.

"Jake! You'll never guess what is happening!" said an overly excited Steve.

Suddenly, I remembered the arrangements I had made for the night, and I was instantly wide awake. Nevertheless, I tried to sound sleepy and uninterested.

"Can't this wait until the morning?" I said. "I was dead asleep."

"No, no! You have to see this Jake," an excited Steve was shouting. "The Mendoza yacht is on fire in the estuary. It's lighting up the whole sky! I'm sending you some pictures and a video. You can't miss this, even if you're in Boston."

Steve signed off and a few minutes later, I received a video clip on my phone. It was spectacular! In the middle of the estuary, the boat was totally engulfed in flames. The whole deck of the boat from bow to stern was ablaze. Steve was apparently standing on the beach in front of the resort with dozens of other people. They were all oohing and awing at the sight of the conflagration. Some were dressed in just shorts, others had on only a bathrobe. They had all been aroused by the noise and the fire and had come to the beach to watch.

The video clip was a full minute long. My date woke up to see what I was watching. I showed it to her. She was as mesmerized as I was. After watching the clip two or three times, she dragged me back onto the bed and my interest in her satisfaction suddenly returned.

I slept very well after that. My date might have thought it was because she wore me out, which she did, but I slept well knowing that Juan and Hector were now minus one multi-million-dollar yacht.

My date made breakfast for me on Sunday morning. After that, we parted ways, promising to see each other again soon.

I was home by 11AM and just walked in the door when the phone started ringing. Predictably, it was Jill.

"Jake, did you hear the news?" she asked.

I told her that Steve called me early in the morning and had sent me a video.

"Meredith called me last night." Jill said. "She sent me pictures. I was going to call you, but then I thought that perhaps you were not alone and I didn't want to disturb you.

"Who would do such a thing?" she asked me.

"I have no idea," I said, "but I imagine the Mendoza brothers have lots of people that dislike them...me included."

I discovered that the incident made the national news. On Sunday, several channels carried stories of the yacht fire...and more. It seems that after about an hour, the first harbor police vessel, a high-speed trawler, arrived on the scene. They could do nothing but observe, but they did take lots of close-up videos of the fire. About an hour after that, the first fire boat arrived on scene. As the fireboat, with its huge water cannons in action, was approaching the burning vessel, there were two underwater explosions only seconds apart. The first one lifted the bow out of the water about four feet and the second explosion lifted the stern up an equal amount. The fireboat was forced to pull back for its own safety. The yacht settled back in the water but it soon became apparent that it was sinking rapidly. After five minutes, the water was up to the gunwales. Then the deck went underwater. Finally, the entire boat disappeared below the surface and was gone from sight.

In an email from Steve, I was told that the Mendoza twins were standing on the beach along with everyone else, watching the fire. Steve said he told Juan and Hector that it looked like their boat that was on fire. They panicked right away and ran down to the marina where they saw that their boat was missing from its slip. They were beyond panic at the realization that their multi-million-dollar yacht was sinking in the estuary. Somehow, they found a run-about boat at the marina and drove out to their vessel. They approached within several feet of it as if they were going to board the ship, but the flames on the deck prevented them from doing so. They circled close to the burning ship for an hour, until the harbor police trawler ordered them to back away. They sat in their small boat and watched it until it sank beneath the surface of the water.

The Mendoza family immediately made the claim for salvage rights and requested that other parties back away from the site of the sunken ship. They were notified by the police and the Coast Guard that, although they may have salvage rights, there was going to be an investigation into the cause of the fire and the loss of the ship. A police boat was assigned to stay on top of the position of the lost boat.

That was the extent of the news until Sunday night. Evening broadcasts of the news had new information on the lost vessel. It seems that on Sunday afternoon, a crewman on the police trawler noticed a bundle of some sort floating on the water. They netted it and pulled it aboard. It contained five kilos of a white powder, triple-wrapped in plastic. A few minutes later, another bundle surfaced and then another and another. A quick analysis by the police lab confirmed that the white powder was cocaine.

Within another hour, divers from both the Coast Guard and the Harbor police were on the scene. They reported that there were two external compartments on the yacht, accessible only from the outside of the hull below the waterline, which contained dozens of bundles similar to the ones that had been found floating on the water. The explosion on the bow had breached the front compartment and allowed the bundles to escape to the surface.

Soon thereafter, a warrant was issued for the arrest of the yacht owners, namely the Mendoza family. It was too late to stop the escape of the parents of Juan and Hector. Their dad and mom had taken a chartered flight to New Orleans that landed, instead, at a small airport outside of Havana, Cuba. Juan and Hector, along with Maria, were arrested at a small airfield on the outskirts of Miami as they were boarding a similar flight to New Orleans.

When I heard that news, I said to myself, "There is a god after all."

The next Wednesday, I was in the park talking with Chief Williams. I thanked him for doing exactly what I paid him to do as if he were a cabinet maker who had out-performed himself on some shelf project. Although I knew it would be best for me not to know how he did it, I had to ask him how he pulled it off.

He told me that the opposite side of the estuary was a regional park. He camped there that weekend. At midnight, when everything was quiet, he moved his equipment down to the edge of the water. He was wearing a black wetsuit and had black greasepaint on his face. Using scuba gear and a battery-propelled towing device, he navigated across the estuary to the marina. He surfaced just enough to use a pellet gun to shoot out the two flood lights illuminating the dock, and waited. When nobody came, he concluded that no one was watching the dock or had any video coverage of the boats.

Next, he went to the slip where The Seductress was moored. First, he took the blue sarong I had given him and tied it to the railing in front of the slip. Next, he boarded the boat, took a small, battery-powered pump out of his equipment bag and set it on the deck. One hose went into the diesel fuel tank. The other end was an octopus of three hoses. Two were stretched out along either side of the upper deck. The third hose was placed in the cabin.

Chief Williams untied the mooring lines on the bow and stern of the ship and threw them in the water. He

quietly returned to the water and secured the stern line to his underwater tug. The tug was not designed to pull a load as heavy as The Seductress, but it slowly started backing out of its slip. When it was clear, he moved to the bow and attached that line to the tug. Ponderously and silently, the yacht floated along the dock, now hidden from sight by the many other boats parked in their slips. Finally, the big ship moved unnoticed through the entrance to the marina and out into the open estuary. From there, the boat was towed downstream toward the resort.

It was past 2AM when Chief Williams climbed back aboard The Seductress and dropped the anchor. The channel in the middle of the estuary was about thirty-five feet deep at that point. The deck and cabin areas were awash in diesel fuel. He said he thought about removing the electric pump and the hoses, but decided against it because the fire was supposed to look intentional.

Returning to the water again, Chief Williams attached explosive devices to the hull--one at the bow and one at the stern. They weren't very big charges, but more than adequate to blast a hole through the superstructure. They were on two-hour timers. He figured that would be enough time for observers to enjoy the fire before the boat was scuttled.

Chief Williams gathered up all of his equipment and moved away from the yacht. Surfacing briefly, he popped a flare and threw it onto the deck of the Seductress. The deck started on fire immediately, and the flames soon spread the length of the boat. He really wanted to stay and watch, but he now had to disappear under the water and out of possible detection by the onlookers who would presently grace the beach.

The Chief navigated underwater back to the site where he had entered the estuary. He quickly stripped out of his scuba equipment and wet suit, bundled everything up and put it in the trunk of his sister-in-law's car. About that time, the sleepy campers were aroused out of their tents by the commotion in the estuary. He followed a group of them down to the shore where they could see the boat on fire. People were oohing and awing, and taking pictures and videos as they watched the ship burn. After it had sunk and the excitement was over, most everyone went back to their tents to get what sleep they could before the sun came up.

Before he returned to his sister-in-law's house, the Chief disposed of all of his underwater equipment in a place and in such a manner that it would never be found.

I asked the Chief what his plans were. He said that his terminally-ill wife had only weeks left to live. After she passed, he and his sister-in-law were going to take her ashes with them to Miami where she would be buried in the same cemetery as her parents. He and his sister-in-law would probably live together in her home for the foreseeable future.

I marveled at the devotion the Chief had for his wife. He loved her to the end of her life.

I followed the investigation into the loss of The Seductress on the news. The only clue that the police were able to find, if it was a clue, was the blue sarong tied to the railing at the front of the boat slip where The Seductress was berthed. Speculation, however, was that the boat was intentionally burned as some part of a drug deal that had gone bad.

The Mendoza twins fought the charges against them very hard. They, apparently, had lots of money and hired a very prestigious law firm to represent them. Unfortunately, they were caught dead to rights. The prosecutor separated the twins and made them each a deal. He said they were both going to jail no matter what, but whoever wanted a plea deal of any sort would be the first one to turn state's evidence. As it turned out, they both took the deal so fast that they trampled on each other, giving up the entire operation in which they had been involved. Nevertheless, the investigation and the arrangements made for them by their lawyers drew out negotiations for months before they were actually sent on trial.

From the very moment I decided I wanted to sink The Seductress, I had a guilty feeling. I was a lawyer, sworn to uphold the law. And I was a court officer with strict rules of ethical conduct. That feeling became stronger the more I acted to make the sinking a reality. I became a criminal.

Once it became evident that I had unknowingly exposed a large drug operation, I lost my apprehensions and my sense of guilt. In fact, I felt good--as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. I was not a sullen, humorless, sulking man anymore. I was happy--as happy as I could be as a divorced father.

Jill was probably the first to note my happy disposition. I no longer looked at her with contempt and animosity. I don't know whether or not she associated my new attitude with the sinking of The Seductress or not. She never asked, but obviously enjoyed the much friendlier atmosphere between us.

We saw each other often, always in association with Little Jake's life and activities. We tried to keep Little Jake's life as normal as possible. We were together for the fourth of July when we took him to the beach to watch fireworks out over the ocean. For holidays, such as Halloween, we did what we did the previous year. Jill stayed at home and handed out candy to trick-or-treaters and I followed Little Jake and his friends around the neighborhood, keeping an eye on them and taking pictures.

It was time for Thanksgiving. This year, it was going to be at Jill's parents' home. Regardless of our divorce, her mom and dad went out of their way to make certain I was coming, too. My parents and brother and sister were going to be there, too, with their kids, Little Jake's cousins. Since their home was about a two-hour drive, Jill suggested we go together. I didn't necessarily want to give the impression to family members that we were back together, but driving together was a logical thing to do. Initially, I was a little anxious about how I was going to be received, but nobody said anything one way or the other. In fact, most of our relatives still looked at us as a couple.

The fact that Jill never took off her wedding rings after she found them contributed to that impression. I asked her soon after the divorce was final why she didn't take them off. She said, "I wear them to discourage men from asking me out." I didn't believe her. I knew how she felt about me and she hadn't completely let go yet. I guess I hadn't either. Although I didn't wear my wedding ring on a leather lace around my neck anymore, it was still prominently visible in a silver bowl on my dresser where I kept cuff links, tie tacks and lapel pins.

It was obvious to both of our families that our hearts were not in the divorce. They never knew the real reason for it. It was officially recorded as "irreconcilable differences." I think they thought it was their mission to get us back together again.

For Christmas, we spent it as a family, just the three of us. Jake was staying at Jill's condo. I had dinner there on Christmas Eve and went home. While there, Little Jake was under the tree shaking and rattling all the presents--even those that were not for him. I returned early Christmas morning. Jill was already up and had made coffee mixed with eggnog--a tradition we had started. Jill and I would sip our morning drinks while Little Jake opened his presents. Finally, Little Jake pulled out a present that I had tucked far under the tree and he gave it to Jill.

"Who is this for, Mommy?" he asked.

Jill looked at the label and said, "It's for me." Reading the rest of the label, she said, "It's from Daddy."

Jill looked at me and her eyes seemed to get moist. "Thank you, Jake. I wasn't expecting anything from you. You didn't have to..."

"Open it, Mommy," Little Jake said.

When it was opened, Jill saw a pale blue amethyst tennis necklace with a matching bracelet and earrings.

"Oh, Jake, it's beautiful!" she said very slowly. Now a tear was running down her cheek.

"You aren't supposed to cry," I said.

Jill didn't respond verbally. Rather, she moved from the sofa where she was sitting over to the easy chair I was in, put her arms around my neck and put her head on my shoulder. "Thank you, Jake," was all she whispered.

Later, after breakfast, Jill was cleaning the dishes and I was drying. Out of the blue and without looking at me, she asked, "Jake, are you happy?"

I didn't know what to say at first but then I blurted out, "I was happier when I was married...before..." I didn't finish the sentence.

Still without looking at me, she hit me with another out-of-the-blue zinger. "My law firm is having a big New Year's Eve party on the thirty-first. I would like you to go with me as my date."

I didn't know what to say at first. This would be the first social event we would attend that had nothing to do with our family. I finally spoke up, "I would be honored to be your date. Thank you for asking me."

"I was so afraid that you already had a date," she said.

"I actually hadn't planned on doing anything," I replied. "I would probably just stay at home, drink too much and watch the ball drop on TV. A New Year's Eve party will be so much more fun."

It was a great party, too. Jill's Law firm was very large and very prestigious. They spent a lot of money on a hotel ballroom, food, an open bar, and a band. Jill really looked good. She was sexy without being meretricious. She wore a dark blue sheath dress that accentuated her amethyst necklace and earrings. We sat at a table with her good friends and co-workers--some of whom I knew and knew me. We danced together a lot and even became a little too comfortable together during slow dances. Occasionally, one of the single lawyers would approach me and ask if they could dance with Jill because they knew she was unmarried, even though she was with me, her ex-husband. Usually, even before I could answer, Jill would intercede and say that she was dancing with me exclusively tonight. I told her that I didn't mind if she danced--fast dances-- with her friends. She explained that most of them were wolves she had been fending off for months. Even her wedding rings did not discourage them, once they knew she was divorced. She went on to say that if I had not agreed to be her date tonight, she would not have come to the party.

At midnight, we were on the dance floor as the last seconds of the year ticked off. When the magic hour came, the balloons went up, the horns were blown, the confetti and streamers sailed across the room. Everybody started hugging and kissing. I didn't let Jill out of my arms. We held each other, looked in each other's eyes and then kissed. It was not a tenuous kiss, but a long deep meaningful kiss that was half love and half lust. Everybody must have noticed how into each other we were, because they didn't try to break us apart for hugs and kisses that celebrated the new year.

When we finally broke apart, we were a little embarrassed. People were looking at us. It was only then that we hugged and kissed a few people and shook a few hands. We returned to our table and the band played "Auld Lang Syne." We stayed for a while longer and danced together a few more times, but we were both tired. I told Jill, "I'll take you home."

"Please take me to your home, Jake. I want to stay the night with you."

The next morning, we were both a little uncertain about how we felt about each other. Since she did not bring any clothes with her except the party dress she had been wearing, she was dressed only in her panties and my long-sleeved dress shirt. Jill was watching me make breakfast while she was drinking coffee. "Jake," she said, "there's an elephant in the room."

Now it was my turn not to look at her as I hit her with an out-of-the-blue question. "Would you like to be exclusive?" I asked.

"What?" was her only answer.