Deception Cove

by Owen Laukkanen

  I never deserved you, girl, Jess thought as she continued to try to paddle. None of us did.

  Then the lights went out, a battery dying somewhere or a wire shorting, and the boat was plunged into darkness. There was only the intermittent red light on the rocks in the distance, and the noise of the ocean as it clawed at the cruiser.

  They didn’t say anything, any of them. Jess figured she might have done different if Sweeney weren’t there; she might have bundled up with Burke and watched the floodwaters rise and kissed him one last time before she brought out her pistol and took the easy way out, Burke and Lucy first, and her last—but Sweeney was here, and the kid was still paddling hard. She could hear him breathing, hear how scared he was, and it didn’t seem right to just give up with him there. The mood wasn’t quite right for melodramatic goodbyes.

  So they waited in silence, left to their own thoughts. Jess tried to make her peace and discovered she couldn’t, not after everything she’d been through, everything she’d risked and lost, every battle she’d won.

  Damn it, it made her angry, fighting so hard and it all being for nothing, finally opening herself up to someone and him dying too.

  It pissed her right off, and she couldn’t do anything with that anger but just keep paddling harder, even as she felt the first fingers of cold water wrap around her boots.

  She paddled, sweating, breathing heavy, busting her ass and nearly busting that flimsy paddle—working so hard she nearly missed the sound of the engine in the distance, the lights on the horizon.

  But Sweeney heard, Sweeney saw them. “There,” he said, standing and nearly falling overboard. “There’s someone out there.”

  They were north in the strait, about a mile away, headed west toward Dixie Island and the cape beyond. From the sound and the speed, Jess could tell it was another powerboat, some kind of cruiser, and she felt sudden relief as she watched it, imagined they were all as good as saved.

  But the cruiser kept going, and she realized it couldn’t see them, not with the lights out. It came abeam of the Grady-White and continued without slowing. Just another colossal fuck-you, she thought. Kicking us when we’re down.

  But then she remembered the flare gun.

  “Come on back here,” she said, scrambling up to the cabin, now two-thirds flooded, the water rising quickly. She muttered a quick prayer and dropped down into the cabin, which was choked with detritus, garbage and guidebooks and loose fishing gear, and she prayed the gun had somehow stayed dry.

  It had.

  She’d left it in a locker above the galley table, far removed from the rushing water, and she swam her way over, navigating by memory in the dark, and reached high and searched and nudged it with her fingertips, every second more distance between their boat and safety.

  Finally she gripped the gun and swam it to the stairs, climbed up into six inches of water sloshing around in the cockpit. She hurried back to where Burke lay with Lucy, Burke’s head above water but not for much longer, Sweeney still paddling like it would do any good, the lights of the cruiser receding now.

  “If God owes you any favors, Burke, now’s the time to call them in,” she said, and she raised the flare gun and pointed it in the air above the lights in the distance, muttered a quick prayer of her own, and pulled the trigger.

  The flare screamed skyward, the sudden light blinding, and she could see the fear on Sweeney’s face, and the resignation on Burke’s, see Lucy scrambling for somewhere dry, somewhere safe, and finding nothing.

  Jess watched the flare, and she watched the lights in the distance keep moving, wondered if the people on board were even looking in her direction, if they’d even notice.

  Come on, she thought. We’re over here. Come on back and get us, please.

  The lights kept moving westward. The flare burned overhead. Jess heard Sweeney sigh and reach back for his paddle, but Jess didn’t move. She kept watching the lights, and she kept trying to pray. She kept watching, and praying, and the lights kept receding—and then, almost imperceptibly, the lights seemed to slow, and the pitch of the motor changed.

  Yes, yes please, please, God, send them our way.

  Gradually the lights came about. The engine in the distance revved higher. The flare burned high above, and Jess handed Sweeney a flashlight to wave over his head as they watched the boat turn and speed toward them. Then she sat down on the deck beside Burke and held on to his hand, and it might have been her prayers, or it might just have been sweet relief, but she knew all of a sudden, just knew, that this rescue here was the last one they’d need, the last miracle, that everything from here on out was going to be better.

  Sixty-Seven

  Sometime later Mason Burke and Jess Winslow sat across from each other at a small table outside a small coffee shop in Neah Bay, sipping good coffee and nibbling on some kind of pastry and steadfastly avoiding eye contact with each other. The sun was shining for once, and the air was warm enough to make sitting outside almost pleasant, and Lucy lay curled up between their feet, her head on her paws, catching a sunny snooze.

  Across the street, a Greyhound bus idled outside the Shell station, waiting on a departure time that was approaching too quickly. Mason and Jess sipped their coffees and didn’t say much.

  There wasn’t much left to say, Mason figured. The story was over; the book was closed. He’d passed out about the time the rescue boat arrived, heard from Jess it was Hank Moss in his old Hubert Johnson thirty-two-footer, spotlight shining blindingly bright on the wrecked Grady-White, a rifle on his shoulder.

  “Hands up,” he’d called over the water. “Put them up, all of you, and no sudden moves.”

  It wasn’t until he’d idled closer that Hank had figured it out, seen it was Jess and Burke and Lucy at the stern, and not just Cole Sweeney and the boys. He’d lashed his cruiser to the wreck and, with Jess’s help, wrestled Burke across the rail and into his cabin, a settee and a blanket. He’d helped Lucy aboard too, and Jess, and then—grudgingly—Sweeney, and they’d untied Kirby Harwood’s pride and joy and left it to drift or sink, and Hank had hauled ass for Neah Bay.

  He’d told Jess he’d come to retrieve his guns, instead of reporting them stolen; he’d suspected Jess and Burke and Lucy might need a hand, given how every deputy in Deception Cove had vanished that morning. He’d set out from the harbor in the cruiser at dusk, made steady time, and was just about at Dixie Island when he happened to glance back and see the flare over the water.

  “Luck,” he’d told Mason later. “Just dumb luck, all it was. Another ten minutes and you all would have been swimming.”

  They’d woken up the nurse in Neah Bay, Sheriff Wheeler, too, and hauled Mason up to the Indian Health Center on the Makah reservation, beaten the door down and set about saving Mason’s life.

  According to Jess, it hadn’t turned out to be much of a challenge, the bleeding all but stopped, and the rounds in his chest and stomach having missed anything too important. She was a marine, though, and her standards for “life-threatening” were apparently pretty high; he’d been out three or four days before he opened his eyes, and it was another three or four more before he was walking around.

  Even now, sitting at this little table in a rare patch of sunlight, Mason could feel in his side where the first round had hit, shattering a couple of ribs and glancing off to parts unknown. He could feel in his stomach where the second round had passed, the entry wound like a bad itch when he shifted around, the exit wound dull and ever present.

  Still, he was lucky to be alive, and that was more than could be said for Kirby Harwood, or the Whitmer boys, or the other guy, Joy. Or Shelby Walker and her mother, for that matter, or even Ty Winslow. All things considered, Mason figured he had no cause for complaint.

  There was still the matter of the law, of course, and those bodies on Dixie Island and the million-dollar package hidden there too, and if Cole Sweeney hadn’t survived, Mason knew, the federal agents who’d descended upon Makah County might have been some
what less inclined to believe a story peddled by a convicted murderer and a war veteran with severe PTSD, especially when the opposition party was composed of lawmen. But Sweeney was alive, and he apparently held Jess in some kind of esteem for not blowing his head off, because he’d copped to the whole fiasco when the DEA got him in an interview room.

  Sweeney would walk with a limp for the rest of his life, but he wouldn’t do all of his walking in prison; the prevailing opinion in the coffee shops and watering holes in Makah County put the young deputy out of prison around the time he’d turn fifty. Which was bad, definitely, but it could have been worse, in just about every way.

  Lucy shifted beneath the table, her collar jingling, and Mason bent down to rub her flank. The dog sighed and stretched out, content, her black fur warm in the sunshine.

  “She’s going to miss you, you know,” Jess told Mason. “She’ll think I scared you off, and she’ll hate me for it.”

  Mason didn’t look up. “Nah,” he said. “She’s your dog. She’ll be happy enough when you get a new couch.”

  “That’ll take a while. There aren’t too many competent builders left in this county, and there damn sure aren’t many good furniture stores.”

  She’d been staying at Hank Moss’s hotel with the dog while she figured out what to do about more permanent accommodations, the house she’d shared with Ty being a total write-off.

  “Plenty of builders back east,” Mason said, and he still couldn’t look at her. “You all could join the party and come home, meet my kin.”

  Jess sighed a little bit, rueful. “I wish I could, even just for a visit,” she said. “But they want me in the office first thing Monday morning, see how the whole system works.”

  He looked up. “Who, Hart?”

  She nodded, and he saw she was nervous, but she was pleased, too. The events of the last month had inspired Sheriff Wheeler to finally pull the trigger on his retirement, it being strongly suggested by the county commissioners that a sheriff who couldn’t keep his deputies out of trouble might be better suited spending his time fishing instead. In Wheeler’s place, in the interim, came a man named Aaron Hart from nearby Clallam County. Hart would take over until the next election, still two years off, and his first order of business was filling the office in Deception Cove, replacing Kirby Harwood et al.

  Hart had chosen Jess Winslow, with the county’s blessing. Who better than a war hero to whip a lawless town into shape? And Mason figured Jess was perfect for the job, even if it meant she had hard days ahead, cleaning up what remained of Harwood’s little empire. She wouldn’t be taking any vacations, not anytime soon.

  Across the street, the Greyhound bus driver emerged from the gas station, zipping his pants and wiping his hands on them. Mason finished his coffee, checked his watch. “I guess it’s almost time,” he said.

  She looked across at the bus and didn’t say anything. He watched her and felt rotten, and then she turned to him and took his hand across the table.

  “I guess it’s better that you’re going,” she said. “Who knows what kind of mess we’d make if you stayed?”

  He smiled sadly, knew she didn’t mean it. “Not too many jobs out here for a guy like me anyway.”

  “Not cleaning houses, that’s for sure.”

  “Not sure I’m qualified for much more,” he replied. “Plus, I owe my sister and her husband a fair pile of cash; I’ve got to make right on my debts.”

  She reached below the table, into the bag at her feet. Came out with a sheaf of money and laid it on the table.

  “Ten grand,” she said. “I found it on Kirby’s boat. I didn’t think anyone would mind so much if we split it.”

  He stared at her. “I can’t take that.”

  “You can damn well take half, Burke. You earned it.”

  He didn’t say anything. It would have been easy. The cash was just lying there, $10,000 in hundreds, and half of it, by some logic, rightfully his. Enough to pay Glen and Maggie back, start a new life. Enough to stay here with Lucy and Jess for a while.

  But he knew what Kirby Harwood had done to earn that money, and he knew he’d never feel right making a profit off of all that blood and misery.

  He shook his head. “You keep that money,” he said. “Rebuild your house with it, or heck, donate it to charity if you want to. But I can’t take that money, Jess. It just wouldn’t be right.”

  She held his gaze for a long beat, and then finally she blinked. Reached out for the money and took it back, shaking her head. “I guess you can suit yourself,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, standing. “I have to do this part honest.”

  She watched him stand, squinting up at him a little bit, her mouth twitching like she wanted to say something but she couldn’t decide what. Finally she let out a long breath. “I lied, Burke.”

  He looked at her and she was looking away now.

  “I don’t want you to go and I don’t think it’s better,” she continued, quick, like she was rushing to get the words out before she thought better of them. “I know if past is any precedent, then I’ll fuck this up, but God help me, I still want to try. And I know it’s selfish of me, but I don’t want you to leave yet, not until we know dead to rights that we can’t make this work.” She met his eyes. “You know?”

  He came around the table. Took her hands, pulled her up into his arms. “You don’t want this,” he said. “Not with someone like me.”

  She slipped away. Slapped him, light, but hard enough to sting. “Don’t you go telling me what I want and don’t want again, Burke,” she said. “I’ve said my piece now. If you’re walking away, it’s on you.”

  He made to reply, couldn’t think of an answer. Then the bus driver honked his horn, and the moment was gone anyway, and he bent down and kissed her, and scratched behind Lucy’s ears, and turned and walked across the street to where the bus waited.

  He’d made it almost to the door when he heard Jess call his name, and he turned around and she was standing there, radiant in the sun, the dog beside her with ears perked and tail wagging, watching like she, too, was waiting on him to turn around and come on back.

  “There’s plenty of kids in this county need guidance,” she said. “Probably just as many as Michigan. Not too many positive role models around here anymore.”

  He didn’t say anything, and she shrugged. “You think on it,” she said. “Think about that kid Rengo, alone in the woods. If there’s anyone in this world who needs a kick in the ass…”

  “I’ll think on it,” he said. He waved goodbye, and then he stepped onto the bus and handed over his ticket, walked up the aisle and found a place to sit down. Looked out the window to see Jess turning to leave, trying to pull the dog along behind her.

  Lucy didn’t want to go, though. She stayed staring at the bus no matter how Jess pulled at her, staring and wagging that tail, until the bus driver shifted into gear and pulled out of the lot, and even then that dog was still waiting.

  Sixty-Eight

  It wasn’t going to end like that. Of course it wasn’t.

  As soon as that bus started moving, Mason Burke realized he’d made about the dumbest mistake of his life, realized he’d gotten caught up in some bullshit self-pity, telling himself Jess was better off without him.

  He was trying to escape Makah County because he was scared, like she’d said. Because he was worried he’d never be the man in real life that she’d seen on that island, the man who’d fought beside her when no one else would.

  He was afraid that he wasn’t much to be proud of when there wasn’t a war to be fought, that when it came to normal life, buying groceries together, cooking dinner, going on dates, she’d see right away he was still something less than a man. She’d realize her mistake and curse her shit luck all over again.

  He was afraid she would figure out he had nothing to offer, nothing except strength and a bullheaded stubbornness that worked fine in a street fight but meant nothing at all when it came to bala
ncing a checkbook and remembering anniversaries.

  He was afraid he would disappoint her, and he wasn’t sure he could stand taking the risk.

  Easier to escape. Get on a bus and ride two thousand miles and take a job cleaning houses, live in Maggie’s basement. Pay Glen back his money and gradually build a life, maybe rent an apartment, buy a used truck. Work an honest day, and come home and eat dinner, watch a hockey game, drink a beer. Shovel snow in the winter, try to forget the rain.

  Keep to himself, keep his eyes down. Avoid looking at people, avoid conversation. Stay out of trouble, and just try to survive.

  He’d done it fifteen years. He could do it some more.

  That was his thinking, and he played with those thoughts as the bus trundled east, ran his mind over them like how you run your tongue over a sore tooth, testing the pain, playing with it, trying how it feels.

  Then the bus rounded a corner and drove past the old Whitmer compound, now put up for sale, and continued down the highway into Deception Cove proper. And Mason stared out the window and wondered how he was ever going to forget this place, and then the gas station went by, and Hank Moss’s motel, and parked out front was the Chevy Blazer Jess had purchased from Hank’s cousin. Somehow she’d beaten the bus here, though Mason couldn’t see her anywhere.

  Still, he knew she’d sped home on purpose, knew she’d parked in his line of sight just to tease him, give him one last painful thought to mull over in his mind. And then the motel was gone too, and the Blazer gone with it, and shortly after, the town faded into the forest and it was highway again, nothing but highway and the odd dirt road disappearing into the woods. Nothing but the apparitions of old houses, torn, ragged nets, someone’s beached troller: the ghosts of Deception Cove come to watch him go.