by Jack Hardin
Tyler sat on a stool, cleaning a customer’s bolt-action rifle. He sprayed some solvent on a brush and picked up the bolt he had detached from the gun. He ran the brush across in short strokes.
Tyler had been fascinated by guns of every caliber and type since he was a young boy. He loved their elegance, mechanical simplicity, and the refinement of skill that was necessary to use them well. He even loved the smell of the lubricants and the cleaning solvents, much in the same way his father used to appreciate the smell of carburetor cleaner or fresh cut wheat or Dairy Queen on a Friday night. And there was something about the way a grip felt solid in your hand, or the smooth sound of the action when properly oiled, and the crisp snap of a trigger release.
A Liberty safe was bolted to the floor on the other side of the room, and it was filled with his own private collection. In a world of throwaway plastics, where possessions were easily discarded and replaced by a simple and quick online order, old guns, like classic cars or worn-out boats, had a story to tell.
He set down the brush and grabbed a clean cloth, then ran it over the bolt, drawing away old powder and brass fouling. When that was done, he set the cloth down and picked up a cleaning rod. He attached a cleaning patch, sprayed on some solvent, and slid it down the breach end of the barrel, slowly working it back and forth.
Footsteps echoed down the cinder-block hallway, and a young man of about twenty appeared in the doorway. It was Ben Underwood, Tyler’s newest hire.
“Hey, Tyler?” he asked. “Where’s the Coon Punch?”
For the better part of the last year, Tyler had invested tens of thousands of his own money and dozens of hours with a gunsmith in Cape Coral and a first-class fabricator in Sarasota. The collaboration had finally resulted in a solid rifle that he simply referred to as the Coon Punch.
The rifle utilized the barrel and bolt from the AR-15, and Tyler had reduced the overall weight of the gun by employing polymer for the lower receiver in the place of steel. The recoil impulse was still a little stronger than he liked, but it was lighter and quicker than most anything in the carbine family.
He was still testing gas plug diameters, vent locations, and rail mount lengths, but overall he was pleased with the weapon’s handling and performance and had recently made it available for members of his gun range to rent.
“Not sure. Why?” Tyler asked. He slid the cleaning rod out of the barrel, discarded the dirty patch, and slipped off the patch holder.
“Mr. Bennington just put in a reservation for it online, and I don’t see it in the rack.”
Tyler rubbed the back of his neck as he recalled where he’d left the gun. “I’ve got it at my place,” he said, frustrated. “I took it on my hunting trip last weekend. Forgot to bring it back in. When’s the reservation?”
“Noon.”
Tyler noted the time displayed on the wall clock. It was ten after ten in the morning. The simplest course would be to call Mr. Bennington and ask him to reschedule for another day or ask him to consider a different weapon for his time at the range today. But Tyler had founded Reticle on a commitment that members should get the best possible experience. It was one of the reasons the range had seen such rapid success in the wider community. Ted Bennington was a former Green Beret and responsible for referring most of Tyler’s earliest members.
“I’ll just run back home and get it,” he said, and Ben watched him reach across the table and grab the proper size bore brush. Tyler screwed it to the tip of the cleaning rod, sprayed on some solvent, and sent it down the barrel.
“You sure?” Ben said. “I can call him and see if he’s good to use the Widowmaker instead. They’re nearly the same.”
Tyler stopped the rod mid-push and looked at Ben as though he had just been informed that Justin Bieber and George Strait were equals. “They’re not nearly the same. One is a Romanian piece of crap, and the other was built by me.”
“Sorry, Tyler.”
“Just don’t ever put a gun your boss designed in the same category with a Cold War knock-off. Ever.”
Ben smiled apprehensively. “Got it.”
Tyler pulled the cleaning rod out of the barrel and snatched off the dirty cleaning patch. He tossed it in the garbage can beneath the table and came off the stool as he wiped his hands on a clean rag. “I’ll be back in forty-five.” He grabbed his keys from a nail on the wall and motioned toward the rifle he had been working on. “See if Frank has some time to finish cleaning this girl, will you? I don’t want to leave her naked and laid out across the table like she is now.”
Ben sent an eyebrow toward the ceiling.
“And get your mind out of the gutter.”
Five minutes later, Tyler was in his F-150, heading north on Burnt Store Road while belting out Chattahoochee along with Alan Jackson and unexpectedly recalling the dozens of times he and Nick had sung it together during their high school years. Back then, being from West Texas, they didn’t know where the Chattahoochee was or if it was even a real river. But it didn’t matter; the song spoke to them because it spoke of easy times and heartfelt living.
Tyler turned off Acapulco Road onto his pea-pebble driveway and followed it around until the thick vegetation gave way to his wide and open yard. A white heron was standing idly in the marsh behind his house and stared him down as he parked in his usual spot on the side of the house. Leaving his truck door open, he took his front steps two at a time, his boot heels clomping loudly on pine boards.
He unlocked the front door, and as he stepped inside, he looked across the room and saw that the back door was open, along with a man wearing a dark hoodie and loose-fitting blue jeans who was quickly making his way toward the steps at the end of the back porch.
Tyler bolted across the floor and yelled for him to stop, but it only quickened the intruder’s pace, who arrived at the top of the steps, leveraged off the handrails, and took them three and four at a time. Tyler shot out the back door and began his descent just as the man pushed off the final step and started across the back yard.
Seconds later, Tyler’s boots were in the grass. He raced after the intruder, who had already shot into the underbrush and disappeared. Tyler followed him into where the feral hogs had chased Citrus a couple of days earlier. Negotiating trunks of palmettos, pines, and withering cypress, skirting cabbage palms and ficus, he gained, finally reaching out and grabbing at the man’s shoulder just as the latter’s foot snagged on a tree root and forced him into the trunk of a cypress. He stumbled awkwardly, and like a drunkard, fell forward, his face planting hard into a layer of old leaves.
Tyler drew up, panting as he stood over the man. He set a hand on the back of the man’s shoulder and flipped him around. He froze.
The man looked up at him, his face a contorted mess of hot pain from whacking the tree. “Hey...Tyler.”
Tyler’s eyes were suddenly the diameter of a couple of all-you-can-eat dinner plates.
“What the hell?”
The dishes sang a discordant harmony as they clattered into the sink. Ellie rinsed them under the faucet before refilling her coffee and returning to the kitchen table where Tiffany was sitting, her hands wrapped around a cooling mug, her face still reflecting the harsh grief of the last twelve days. Chloe had spent last night with Tiffany and Kayla, and the three of them had come over to Ellie’s for breakfast.
Ellie woke tired from a late night with Jet, but the coffee and conversation had quickly swept the sleepiness away. The girls had helped Ellie lay the cinnamon rolls out on the tray and ice them when they came out of the oven. Tiffany spent the time sitting alone at the edge of the canal with her legs dangling toward the water, lost in thought. She returned to the kitchen table when Ellie finished frying bacon and eggs, and when breakfast was over, the girls tore down the short hallway to Ellie’s guest room where she kept a few plastic bins full of toys and dolls.
The ladies were alone now for the first time all morning. Ellie knew better than to ask a grieving person how they were doing. “What
can I do for you?” she asked.
“Just this,” she said. “It’s good for me to be here.” Tiffany picked thoughtlessly at the corner of her empty placemat. “I know I said that I was thinking about moving back to Texas. But I’m not sure. This place, this island, it’s...healing somehow.”
Ellie could relate entirely. She had been raised on Pine Island, and raised by it. And when her career with the CIA had finally reached the end of its last lap, when she was finished traversing the globe as an elite operative with TEAM 99 and as an undercover agent in Afghanistan, there was only one place on this pale blue planet she wanted to be.
To her, there was nowhere else.
And she had found healing of her own. That was what good people, ocean air, and slow living could do for a person. There was something about the tangy scent of salt water, the piercing cry of a seagull, and the dry rustling of palm fronds that all worked into some kind of medicinal harmony to mend the soul.
“Is Kayla talking about Nick?” Ellie asked.
“Not really. She can’t seem to grasp that he just didn’t leave for a while. Nick’s gone on work trips before. When he came out here to find us a house and make construction contacts, he was gone for nearly two weeks. To Kayla, the only difference between then and now is that he hasn’t FaceTimed with her, hasn’t called and spoken with her. I’m not sure I know how to explain to a child ‘not coming back.’”
Ellie thought back to when her own mother had passed. She remembered her father setting her on his knee and explaining that she had died. She recalled how he had said that it meant she wasn’t coming back, that Ellie wouldn’t see her again, and how her mother didn’t want to leave, but that she would always love Ellie. Ellie hadn’t known what to make of that at the time, and it took years to work it all out in her heart. Thinking back on it now, she realized that when the permanence of her mother’s absence finally did take root, it did not occur in a single moment of comprehension; it was not like a light abruptly being flipped on. Rather, it was more like the way the sun comes up in the morning, touching only a portion of the earth at first, but eventually rising high and bright into the noonday sky, dispelling all shadow.
“She’ll understand in time,” Ellie replied. “She doesn’t need to grasp it all right now.”
“Thank you,” Tiffany said. She took a sip of her coffee, and Ellie noticed something else behind her eyes. Fretting, she thought.
“But there’s something else bothering you.”
Tiffany flashed a quick, uneasy smile before letting it fade as quickly as it came. “Okay,” she said. “This might sound a little paranoid, but I think someone might be watching my house.”
Ellie felt her insides tense and forced herself to maintain an easy expression. She hadn’t said a word to Tiffany about the email, hadn’t told her about the investigation that stemmed from it. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, you know how dark it gets on the island at night. I’m probably imagining things since I’m not used to being alone without Nick. But I was locking up a few nights ago and peeked out the front window. Kayla’s bike was laying behind my car, so I went out and put it in the garage. On my way back in, I looked across the street and could have sworn I saw someone standing at the edge of the treeline.”
“You didn’t get a good look?”
“No. It was the outline of a figure. Could have been a bush, I guess, but then I saw it last night too. In a different spot this time.”
And suddenly Ellie was thinking it was time to take the email to the authorities. If someone killed Nick, then it wouldn’t be a far stretch to think they might have a good reason to go after his family too. “Why don’t you and Kayla stay here for a few nights?”
Tiffany waved her off. “Thanks. I’m sure I’m just imagining things. It’s not like someone tried to break in or grab me while I was outside.”
Ellie decided this was a good time to ask. “Do you know if Nick did any work with a construction company called Breakwater?”
“No. Not that he said anything to me about. Why?”
“No reason, really.” She drained the rest of her coffee and frowned. “It’s too quiet,” she said.
And it was. There hadn’t been a peep from the back of the house in several minutes—never a good thing when small children were in the general vicinity. Tiffany was rising from her chair when the bathroom door opened and the scurry of little feet sounded from the hallway. Chloe and Kayla materialized and stopped near the table. Tiffany gasped and followed it with a mournful groan. Ellie sighed.
The girls were clutching a handful of Crayola markers; all the caps were missing. Their eyelids, cheeks, foreheads, and lips were a haphazard mess of squiggly lines and blotchy ink representing nearly every color of the rainbow. The hackles on Citrus’s back stood up, and he circled the girls with a low growl. Ellie hushed him, then curled her pointer finger toward Chloe. She made a cautious approach, and her aunt placed a hand on her small shoulder and spoke softly. “Chloe. Honey. Let’s just use the markers on paper from now on. Maybe not your face anymore. Okay?” The girl nodded, disappointed. Ellie didn’t have any children of her own, but she wasn’t about to ask a six-year-old what she was thinking. “Were you just being silly?” she asked.
“No. We were trying to look like Lady Gaga.”
“Were you now?” Ellie’s gaze met Tiffany’s, and they both gritted their teeth to hold oncoming laughter.
Tiffany turned to her daughter. “How do you even know who that is?”
“Emery, my friend at school, showed me on her phone. She likes Lady Gaga.”
“Well, I don’t,” Tiffany said sternly, and then muttered, “I can’t believe six-year-olds have their own phones.”
“You don’t think we look pretty?” Kayla asked.
“Yes,” Ellie said enthusiastically. “You look completely amazing. But,” she returned her attention to Chloe, “your mama has beach pictures planned for you tomorrow. Could you maybe go try to clean it off so I don’t get in trouble with my sister? Can you do that for me?”
“Okay! Come on, Kayla!” And they were off again. Five seconds later, the water was running in the bathroom with muted giggles flowing down the hallway.
They left an hour later, and after Ellie loaded the dishwasher and started some laundry, she brought her laptop to the table and opened it up.
She hadn’t heard from Jet yet and was growing steadily anxious to get something back on the license plate and fingerprint. After coming off the events of last night, just waiting around wasn’t in her wheelhouse. She navigated to her browser and started a fresh search for Breakwater Construction, while Tiffany’s suggestion that someone might be watching her house had a red caution flag flapping in the back of her mind.
Her phone lay on the kitchen counter. It rang, and she stood and grabbed it up. It was Tyler. She slid her finger along the glass and set it to her ear. “Hey,” she said. “I miss you.”
His voice was strained, heavy. “Ellie, can you come over to my place?”
It was the middle of a workday. Tyler was never at home before six on a workday. He didn’t even go home for lunch. “Sure,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” His tone contradicted his words. “But I need to you to come over.”
She slapped her laptop shut. “I’ll leave now,” she said.
“Thanks.”
They hung up, and she grabbed her keys from a hook by the coffee maker while addressing her dog. “I’m going over to Tyler’s.” Citrus’s ears stood up. He catapulted to his feet like he’d been hit with a taser and ran to the door leading into the garage. His tail fanned the air around him while he stood there excitedly, his chin up, waiting for Ellie to open the door for him.
“No,” she said. “No, you have to stay here.”
The dog lowered his head. The expression in his eyes swiftly changed from excited animal to entitled human teenager.
“Sorry,” she said flatly.
; He gave a yip of protest and stood up on his back legs, pawing gently at her leg with a forepaw. “Nope,” she said. “That’s not going to work this time. When I get back, I’ll take you on a run. Deal?” Citrus huffed and trotted to his bed in the corner of the kitchen. He nestled in with his back to Ellie. “You’re acting like an adolescent girl,” she said. “You know that, right?”
Citrus didn’t move but uttered a temperamental snort: a dog’s version of giving someone the bird. Ellie rolled her eyes and stepped into the garage.
Citrus waited for the door to shut before giving a final bark. The last word.
A three-car accident on Burnt Shore Road put Ellie back fifteen minutes. She stirred nervously while waiting for the car in front of her to start moving again. Something was wrong, she knew. It was strange enough for Tyler to ask her to come, but more disconcerting was that he wouldn’t tell her what was wrong over the phone. The accident finally cleared, and she pressed her El Camino’s accelerator a little lower, and the world’s coolest vehicle shot down the road faster than the speed limit allowed.
She took Tyler’s front steps two at a time, and as soon as she arrived on his front porch, the door swung open, and Tyler stepped to the side as she went in. She looked in his face, currently a conflation of concern and relief. “Are you all right?” she asked. He shut the door and used his chin to point silently to a spot behind her.
A man was sitting on the couch. The back of his head visible above the top edge of the cushion. Ellie looked cautiously back at Tyler, but he encouraged her forward with an affirming nod.
As she moved slowly toward the couch, the man stood up and turned around.
Ellie gasped and took a step backward.
It was Nick Barlow.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ellie clasped a hand over her mouth and stood at the edge of Tyler’s living room, staring at a ghost. She studied his face, her mind working furiously to reconcile what her eyes were seeing. The person standing before her looked closer to a homeless man than the friend she had had breakfast with less than two weeks ago. He was unshaven, his hair was greasy, and dark hollows had taken up residence beneath scared and weary eyes. He had lost weight. She took a cautious step forward. “Nick?”