Shiver on the Sky

by David Haywood Young

  * * *

  Later, she raised herself on one elbow and gazed at him in the flickering light from the storm outside. He fluffed the pillow behind his head and looked back at her. He reached up to touch her face.

  “What was that we were drinking?” she asked. “In the shower? It was different.”

  “Oh. Lagavulin. Single-malt Scotch, sixteen years old. I had a bottle ready for last Sunday as an experiment, but we never got the chance to drink it. So earlier tonight I was thinking about getting drunk, and I bought another one. Like it?”

  “Yes.” She caressed his chest, and smiled. “It was perfect,” she said.

  He nodded and met her eyes. She closed them and sighed. “I guess we have to talk, don’t we?”

  “Guess so,” he agreed. “Here?”

  “No, let’s go sit at the table. I want to come back here afterwards, and then I won’t want to talk anymore.” She got out of bed and put on a robe the hotel had left hanging on the bathroom door. He got back into his boxers and T-shirt.

  They sat at the table. Owen refilled their plastic cups.

  “Okay,” he said. “What happened on Saturday night?”

  “Junior happened.” A tear formed in the corner of her left eye. “Junior called me on Friday at the office. You remember when he wanted to hire you a while back?”

  He nodded, sipping the whiskey and covering her hand with his own.

  Her smile trembled. “He said he knew more about what was happening at CyberLook. He said he really needed you to come back, just for a while. I told him you wouldn’t do it, and he said he had something to show you that would change your mind. So I asked what it was. When he wouldn’t tell me, I said I wasn’t going to try to talk you into anything without a better reason than he was giving me.”

  Owen shook his head. “Why would he think I would go back? Why would he want me to? I’m done there.”

  “I don’t know. We arranged to meet on Saturday at five o’clock at his place, so he could show me whatever it was.” She met Owen’s eyes. “I didn’t know what was going on, but Junior was always a decent guy. I thought I owed it to him to see what he was talking about.”

  He nodded, not sure he agreed but unwilling to argue the point. Had it been just an excuse to see Shawna again? Jealous anger toward a dead rival was ridiculous and somehow demeaning. He didn’t like it. But…how much had Junior damaged, and who had been killed, because he’d decided to invite Shawna over for a visit? “So what happened on Saturday?”

  “Andrea dropped me off at Junior’s house about forty minutes early. I figured it didn’t matter much. If Junior wasn’t there, I could wait on the porch. When I walked up the driveway—it curves, so I couldn’t see from the road—anyway, I saw your Jeep out front. I wondered why you’d come back from your trip so early. I hoped nothing was wrong. When I got to the house, the front door was open. I walked inside, and it looked like there had been a fight or something.”

  She looked at him. “I thought you’d been fighting with Junior.”

  “I was out in my kayak.” Maybe he shouldn’t have come back. But no, Shawna needed him. Probably.

  “Yeah. I know that now.” She took a deep breath. “So I called your name and a guy came up behind me and knocked me on the floor. I rolled, and he closed the door behind him, with this strange smile on his face. Right then I knew it wasn’t just a fight between you and Junior. Um, there’s stuff I haven’t told you about, stuff about Andrea and—”

  “We’ll get to it,” Owen interrupted. But he didn’t want to, not really. “I thought that might be why you picked tonight to show up. But just go on with what happened.” One form (hah!) of insanity at a time was all he could handle right now.

  She closed her eyes. “Okay. I ran into the living room. Junior was sitting on the floor with his hands tied behind him, and there was another guy in the room. This guy had his back to me, so I grabbed a poker from the fireplace and swung at his head with it. He just stepped out of the way, I guess he heard me or saw me in a mirror or something. I almost fell over. He had a gun.”

  “Junior twisted and kicked at the guy’s legs, and suddenly the guy was falling down right in front of me. I brought up my poker, doing my best to hit him with it, and the guy from the front of the house came up behind me again. He grabbed the poker and kicked me across the room.”

  “I went sprawling on the carpet. They just laughed at me. The guy with the poker went over to Junior and…and he just sort of casually swung it back and forth. Junior looked mad and tried to stand up, and the guy hit him on the head.” She began to cry again. “It was awful, Owen. There was blood everywhere, even on the wall. He just kind of shriveled up. He looked dead.”

  Owen squeezed her hand. God, he wanted to protect her from this. But he needed to know it all first. “Can you tell me the rest of it?” he asked gently.

  She nodded, keeping her eyes closed. “Yes. Because I have to.” She breathed deeply for a moment. Was she about to do some of her meditation exercises?

  But she opened her eyes and ran a hand through her hair instead. “Okay. So Junior was on the floor, probably dead. I was on the floor and these two guys were standing up. At least one of them had a gun. But he wasn’t pointing it at me, it was like they were both floored by what had just happened, so I got to my feet and ran like hell. I had to run between them, and I tripped over…over Junior’s body and fell in this pool of blood. But I pushed off and kept going. I heard one of them yell not to shoot, and I got outside, and Andrea was long gone, so I went for your Jeep. The door was unlocked, and I’d pulled my keys out of my pocket on the way, so I just…drove away.”

  “They didn’t chase you?”

  “Not out of the house. I don’t know why.”

  Owen nodded. “Where’d you go? Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “At first I thought they’d killed you too. There was blood on the seat next to me. But maybe you were okay, maybe you were out on the water someplace and they’d just taken your Jeep. I pulled over and thought about it. It looked like you and I were being set up for something. Junior…well, Junior was a decent guy personally. But I’d known for months that something like this might happen. Anyway, I was safe for the moment and I hoped you were too.”

  “I didn’t know why any of it was happening the way it was, though. Not the specifics. I mean, whose blood was on the seat? Who were those guys? How were you involved? I thought the best thing for both of us was for me to find out what was going on.” She looked at Owen. “If I called the police, that was it, I couldn’t do anything else. And what if it turned out to be a bad idea? I needed more information.”

  Owen winced. Was this what he’d sounded like earlier? “Okay. That makes sense, I guess.” Maybe. But he’d ask his questions later. “What’d you do instead?”

  “I thought about going to your place, but I was scared. I left the Jeep in a parking lot and called Andrea to pick me up. She showed up about an hour later, and I’ve been hiding ever since. She and some other people were running around to find out what had happened. When it turned out I was a suspect it just didn’t seem like a good idea to turn myself in.”

  “But, Shawna—”

  “Don’t you get it, Owen? My fingerprints were on the poker that killed Junior, and how was I going to convince the police that the other guys even existed? They were wearing those clear plastic gloves, did I mention that? If I’d gone to the police, I’d have gone to jail. And I’d probably be dead by now, too.”

  Owen raised his eyebrows at that last. “So you’re still not planning to turn yourself in, are you?”

  “No.”

  He nodded. “Okay, Shawna. You’re planning to leave, not stay here?”

  “Yes. Owen, I have to.”

  “Sure. I get it.” He just didn’t like it. But she was doing okay. He hadn’t found her; she’d found him.

  He squeezed her hand again. “But now…I have some questions. First, what did you mean when you said Junior was a ni
ce guy, but you’d known something like this might happen for months? And second, why would you be dead if you were in jail?”

  “Same question, almost.” She sat back, looking at the tabletop. “But first, I want you to know that after all this happened, Andrea’s…well, somebody checked out your boat and found a dead guy there. But from the description I knew it wasn’t you. Later I found out it was Leon.”

  “But, Shawna—why didn’t whoever found him call the police? Even anonymously? Or you could have done it.”

  She sighed. “Okay. Maybe we should have, I don’t know. But we can’t trust the police, Owen. Let me try to tell you some other things about Junior. Then you’ll know why going to the police wasn’t an option.”

  Owen leaned back. He tried to keep his expression blank. Maybe Shawna didn’t trust the police, but he had a feeling Gordon wasn’t in anybody’s pocket.

  She looked at him. “God, this is hard. The first thing you have to know is that Junior was a shark. Literally. He swam in the ocean.”

  Owen winced. He’d been trying not to think about what had happened by the pier. “I told you, I saw some things tonight. But still, that sounds . . .”

  She nodded, a combative light coming into her eyes. “It sounds ridiculous and crazy, and I damn well know it. But I’m not a nutcase, Owen.” She touched his hand. “Believe me.”

  He stared into his whiskey. He couldn’t just pretend that nothing had happened tonight, or that he hadn’t suspected Shawna’s arrival was connected with what he’d seen, or that he wasn’t beginning to glimpse a new pattern in all of this.

  But life had seemed so much simpler yesterday. Or more comprehensible, anyway.

  “Okay,” he said, looking up at her. “Let’s assume for the moment that Junior was a shark. I’ve seen enough to entertain the possibility.” Was there anything at all in the world that would remain constant, that wouldn’t someday mutate into something else?

  No, forget that. Right now, he had to deal with whatever was actually happening. He could whine and hope to adjust to it all later.

  “But, Shawna? It doesn’t explain anything, not by itself. I don’t have any hooks in the idea. I mean, so what? What does it signify? What does his being a shark mean to us, right here, right now?”

  She started to answer hotly, then reconsidered. “You know,” she said slowly, “I’m not sure.” She held up a hand. “I can tell you what it means in general. He’s what Andrea’s people call a Cold One. We’d say he’s a hammerhead.”

  Owen had been looking away, but at this his eyes darted to her face.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing, I guess…except some corroboration.” He told her about the hammerhead coming after the fish—and his hand—on Saturday. “I’ve never heard of them doing that before.”

  “Me either. But it wasn’t just a hammerhead, it was somebody checking to be sure you were where you were supposed to be.”

  Owen nodded sourly. And maybe trying to eat a few fingers. He’d worry about that later, too. “Go on.”

  “Okay. Hammerheads school, where other sharks swim alone. So they’re somewhat social, and when they’re on land they kind of network.” She waved her hands. “They’re plugged into the local power structure. That includes the police. Really, Owen, you wouldn’t believe the kind of connections they have. And I have no way of knowing who’s on which side in all of this.”

  Yeah, maybe. But Owen was struck by a thought. “Hey, does this mean Junior’s dad, Viktor, would be . . .”

  “Right. Him too. And a lot of other people, I guess.” She stared past him. “But, Owen, being a shark isn’t all there is to these people. Junior was a good man, I think. Some of the others probably are too. It’s just that—well, they’re always struggling for dominance. They don’t even, uh, mate unless they’re strong enough. Otherwise another shark will take their, um, mate away.”

  Owen grinned slightly. “So you’re saying that when you and Junior…that he wasn’t . . .”

  She turned red. “He was strong enough, he was sort of the crown prince. His dad’s a big shot under the water too, apparently. I think their status is sort of tied together, in both places, but it’s apparently pretty complicated.”

  “So if you guys had…what about kids? How does that work? I mean, he was a shark and you were just—”

  “I don’t know, okay? I don’t know everything. I did worry about that a little, though.” She pointed to herself, then Owen. “I was sort of hoping we might avoid that problem.”

  “Um.” He hadn’t seen that coming.

  She grinned slightly. “Just so you know, I did freak out for a while when I found out about him. But anyway, I only went out with him because I was mad at you.”

  “Mad at me?” He was completely adrift.

  She puffed out her cheeks and blew in annoyance. “Yeah, mad at you. You had this dream job, at a great company, and you left. To do what? The private investigator thing is just a juvenile fantasy, Owen. You can do more, be more than that.”

  Owen tried not to glare at her. She sounded just like the Hermit. “So why did we get back together?”

  “Because I’m an idiot,” she said. “No, wait, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I was an idiot for leaving. I should have stuck with you. Because you’ll do things, accomplish things, whether you want to or not. You can’t help it. If you wanted to take a break for a while, I should have just smiled and gone along with it.”

  Flattery, criticism and potential commitment all at once. Owen didn’t know what to say. She smirked at him and brought his hand up to her mouth, then kissed it. “I love you, Owen. I always will. Even when I’m being bitchy.”

  Nearly a year’s worth of bitchiness? Torn between tenderness and irritation, he waffled. “I love you too, damnit.” Talking about this stuff didn’t seem to help. “Did Junior tell you all that—about the sharks?”

  “No, it was Andrea. After I got to know her and she found out about me and Junior. Believe it or not, some of the things I’d seen made a lot more sense after I knew.”

  “Yeah. About Andrea…I guess she and Aaron told you what happened earlier tonight?” Would Shawna have come to him if they hadn’t?

  She nodded, grinning slightly. “I would have loved to see your face.”

  “Have you ever seen them do it? Seen them change?”

  “No. But I want to.”

  “Uh huh.” He waved a hand, letting it go. “Look, Junior could be pretty cold and ruthless sometimes. I barely met Andrea. I did kinda like her, from what I saw.” Of course he’d liked Junior too. “I’m not saying she’s any worse than lots of other people I know—but she’s not human. She’s a shark. I don’t think you should trust her too far.”

  She smiled. “Oh, that’s different.”

  Sure it was. “Different how?”

  “Different because she’s not a shark. She and her people are porpoises. They’ve just started coming on land in the last few years.”

  Owen got his plastic cup and poured more whiskey.