“I got in a fight. I really don’t want to talk about it. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look like somebody beat the hell outta you! Who was it?” Her eyes gleamed with malice, and she didn’t wait for Joshua to answer. “It was that heifer’s boyfriend, wasn’t it? I knew it! That low-down, triflin’ bitch!”
He wanted to clap his hands over his ears and run into the house. But he couldn’t force his feet to move. He was sick of running from her, sick of tolerating her tirades, sick of her rude intrusions into his life. It would never end. Until he brought an end to it.
Mom hooked her hand around his arm, her fingers like talons. Her voice was soft, lulling: “Come on home with us, baby. Let mama take care of everything.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself.” He paused, and then added: “I’m a grown man, you know.”
Mom stared at him, eyes muddy and confused. Then something shifted in her gaze, the old need to dominate returning, and her lips drew into a stern line.
“Get in the car, Joshua Earl, right this minute. Don’t make me tell you again.”
She pulled at him. Joshua stood firm.
“I’m not going home with you,” he said. “I’ve got business to handle here.”
“The only business you been handlin’ is gettin’ your ass beat! Now get in the damn car!”
“I can’t do that, Mom. Sorry.”
“You damn fool boy.” Blinking quickly, Mom lowered her gaze and rooted frantically in her purse. She soon found what she was looking for: a handkerchief. She had started to cry.
Joshua folded his arms across his chest as his mother dabbed at her eyes. He recognized the tears for what they really were: another weapon in her arsenal of manipulative tricks.
The weeping worked on his father, though. Dad got out of the car, looked at Mom and then at Joshua.
“What you say to your mama, boy?”
“I told her that I’m staying home, Dad. I appreciate your stopping by, but I’m in the middle of something here.”
“That bitch is gonna get him killed!” Mom said, fat tears streaming down her face. She honked into her handkerchief. “Look at our baby, Earl. Look at him! Some man his wife’s been keepin’ up with did this to him!”
Dad scrutinized Joshua as if seeing him for the first time. “You do look like you took a lickin’, son.”
“It’s not like that at all, Dad,” Joshua said. He turned to his mother. “And please do me a favor, Mom: don’t call my wife a bitch again. Or a heifer. She’s the woman I married, and whether you like her or not, you need to respect her as my wife.”
Blotting her eyes, Mom scowled. “Respect her? Hmmph.”
“No more,” Joshua said. “Please.”
Lips curled scornfully, Mom stuffed her handkerchief back into her purse. Her tears had ceased as quickly as if they had been produced by a water faucet that you could turn on or off at will.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Joshua said. “But I have to go inside and work on some important things. I can’t have any company right now.”
“You ain’t even gonna let us in?” Mom looked toward the front door. He could see the curiosity, the desire to pick apart and criticize, shining like hunger in her eyes.
“Not today,” he said.
“Our door’s always been open to you, baby,” she said. “You gonna turn us away like we strangers?”
“Mom, give it a rest, all right? I’ll call you when things settle down again.”
She glared at him, jaws set like stone. He matched her angry stare without blinking.
Finally, she shrugged. “Fine. Whatever you say, Mr. Man. Earl . . .”
“All right, Bernice.” Dad helped Mom get into the car, and shut her door. He approached Joshua and, shockingly, shook his hand.
“I’m proud of you, boy. Needed to tell your Mama all that a long time ago.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Be careful out there, son, whatever you doin’. Call me if you need somethin’.”
“Actually,” Joshua said, “I was wondering if you still have that handgun you used to keep in the house?”
“That .357? ‘Course I do. Man gotta have his guns. Wanted to teach you all about that, but your mama . . .” Dad sighed. “Well, you know how she is.”
“Can I borrow it? I wanted to pick up a piece myself, but I doubt a gun shop would sell me something if I walked in looking like this.”
Dad winked. “Stop by later tonight. After ten. Your Mama’ll be in bed.”
“Thanks.” Joshua smiled, though it hurt his bruised face to do so. “I’ll be there.”
Chapter 48
Joshua was still smiling when his parents drove off. He was pleased with how he had stood up to his mother; a lead weight had been lifted from his shoulders. His dad was right: he should have put his mom in her place a long time ago.
Joshua tilted his head backward—though the movement aggravated his sore neck—and let the afternoon sunshine warm his face.
Lucky to be alive, the cop had said.
Joshua breathed deeply. The winter sky was a gorgeous, cobalt blue. Like a becalmed sea.
The image caused an idea to suddenly sputter like a wavering flame in the back of his mind. He had to go inside right away and look at something.
First, he popped open the cargo door of the Explorer. An aluminum baseball bat was wedged in the back of the cargo space, from when he’d played in the softball league at his former job. He pulled it out with his good hand.
He doubted Bates would be so bold as to return to the house so soon after the cops had left, but better safe than sorry.
Armed with the bat, Joshua went inside.
* * *
Coco was barking her welcome-home bark when Joshua came in. Joshua had confined her in her kennel in the bedroom upstairs until he had a chance to clean up the broken glass in the house, but the little dog’s yaps were as good a sign of any that Bates wasn’t there. When Bates had been around, the dog had been hunkered beneath the bed like a kid taking refuge from a hurricane.
Nevertheless, Joshua kept the bat balanced on his shoulder as he walked deeper into the house.
Bates had done the most damage in the family room, where the largest number of photographs was displayed. Although Bates had gouged the furniture with a knife, broken the lamps, shattered the glass end tables, and knocked down the Christmas tree and stomped on the ornaments, he had reserved his most intense violence for the pictures.
The frames were smashed, many of the photos slashed to tatters. But Bates had left one large photo mostly untouched; there was a crack on the edge of the frame, but that as all.
It was the panoramic photo of the beach. A curve of white sand. An ocean of clear blue water beyond the shore. A boat in the distance, cresting the waves.
Joshua stood in front of the picture, the idea that had flickered in his thoughts gaining substance.
Two consecutive nights, he had dreamed of walking a beach with Rachel and their child. He hadn’t thought the dream had any particular connection to the photo. He didn’t even know where the beach was located. There was no title scrawled on the border of the picture, no indication of where it might be.
But Rachel would know. Because that was where she was hiding.
A chill, not of terror, but of wonder, stepped along the ladder of his spine.
He recalled LaVosha Prescott’s words: I can tell you that Rachel loves her property dearly. It’s been . . . a part of her for a very long time.
This had been the first photo that Rachel had hung in their house. She kept miniaturized versions in her study, and in her office at the salon. She had a screensaver of the beach on her laptop and cell phone, too.
When he’d asked her once about the photo months ago, she’d said only that she loved all beaches, and that it was a picture that made her happy whenever she looked at it. I think I was a beach bum in a former life, sweetie.
All along, the answer t
o where she was hidden had been hanging in front of his face.
He had no proof, yet, only a sense of certainty in the pit of his gut. He knew that was where she had gone. Somewhere she had kept secret from him, and from Bates, too.
If Bates had known about it, he would have destroyed the photo. That he had left it alone was evidence that he didn’t understand its value.
But where was the beach?
The property management company operated exclusively in Georgia. They had a branch office in Savannah. Where could you find a beach in Georgia?
On the southeastern coast of the state. Or on the barrier islands off the coast.
Setting the softball bat against the wall, Joshua lifted the photo off the hanger. He placed it face-down on the sofa, and used a key to loosen the picture from the frame. He peeled out the photograph.
He examined the back of it. There was a computerized inscription from Wolf Camera dated three years ago, but nothing giving him the location of the beach.
He flipped over the photo. He brought it closer to his face.
There was text scrawled on the side of the boat. But it was much too tiny for him to read.
He went into the kitchen, stepping around the detritus on the floor. He rummaged through their junk drawer—it was full of random, miscellaneous items that didn’t seem to fit anywhere else—and found a small magnifying lens underneath old Chinese take-out menus.
He held the lens above the boat in the photo. No good. The text was still blurry. He needed more powerful magnification.
He took the picture into his office. At the doorway, he stopped, cursed. He’d forgotten that Bates had banged up his computer, printer, and scanner. His work files were safe—he backed them up daily to an online file storage site—but his equipment was shot. Bates had destroyed Rachel’s computer equipment, too.
He took out his Blackberry and called Eddie.
Chapter 49
“Man, you look like a POW,” Eddie said as he ushered Joshua inside. “How’re you feeling?”
“I’ve been popping Tylenol like gum drops. It’s been helping a little. I’m sure I’ll feel worse tomorrow.”
“You should go see your doctor, seriously. Get checked out.”
“Maybe later.” Joshua had rolled up the beach photo like a poster. He shoved it toward Eddie. “Here it is. Let’s run it through your scanner.”
Eddie led the way to the basement. He unfurled the picture on the glass surface of one of numerous scanners that he owned. “You’re sure about this, huh?”
“Absolutely.” Joshua lowered himself into a chair. “I’ve never been so sure of anything. She’s staying on a beach somewhere in Georgia.”
“How could she afford a beach house, man?”
“Don’t know. I’ll ask her when I find her.”
Eddie tapped on the keyboard, pulling up the imaging software. After a few seconds, the image of the photograph filled the screen. Eddie centered the cursor on the boat, and entered a command to magnify the image.
Joshua leaned forward, heart throbbing. The text on the vessel was blurry at first, but it gradually became clearer as Eddie continued to increase the magnification. Soon, the digitized boat was the only object on the screen, a reddish blur.
“There it is,” Eddie said.
Concentrating, Joshua deciphered the now-huge, blocky words across the boat’s hull.
“Hyde Island Queen,” Joshua said. “I’ve never heard of Hyde Island. You?”
“Nope.” Eddie pulled up Google. “But we’ll be experts in about five minutes.”
Eddie typed in the search string, “Hyde Island,” and “Georgia,” and was rewarded with close to five hundred links.
“You can skim through these.” Eddie bounced out of his chair. “I’ve gotta go start dinner for the fam. It’s chili night.”
“Go ahead, Emeril.”
Joshua rolled closer to the computer, and started reading.
* * *
Hyde Island, Joshua learned, was a barrier island off the coast of Savannah. It was only about seven miles long, and had a population of less than a thousand people. Most of the island was under the control of the Georgia State Parks department, which operated a marine institute there in conjunction with the University of Georgia. However, the southernmost tip, called Hall Hammock, was a historic community of Geechees who had lived on Hyde Island for over two hundred years.
Joshua had once viewed a cable documentary about the Geechee and Gullah people. They were a small subculture of blacks on the sea islands of Georgia and South Carolina, brought there to work the cotton plantations during slavery times, who had managed to preserve significant elements of their African heritage. They had their own customs, rituals, and way of life. In the past few decades, encroaching beachfront development and lack of a stable economy had caused their numbers to dwindle as they left their island homes and integrated into life on the mainland.
How had Rachel come to find out about this place?
Hall Hammock, in particular, interested him. Her mother’s maiden name was Hall. Could there be a connection?
There had to be, as unlikely as it seemed. Nothing seemed coincidental any more.
Hyde Island was reachable exclusively by ferry. Only locals or registered visitors were allowed to operate vehicles on the island. In fact, you needed to register with the state parks department, or be personally invited by a local resident, merely to visit.
Smart, Joshua thought. Go to an island that, for all practical purposes, is kept private. Clever.
Joshua skimmed a few more web sites about the island, but he’d learned the bulk of what he wanted to know. He knew where Rachel was hiding.
The only thing left was to go there.
Part Three
Chapter 50
Rachel burst out of sleep with a strangled scream and the feeling of strong hands crushing her windpipe.
Springing upright in bed, gagging, she grabbed the .38 revolver that lay on the nightstand. The gun was already loaded. Breathing hard, she clutched it in her trembling hands and swept it across the bedroom.
The lamps were off, but a nightlight burned on the left side of the bed, radiating a greenish glow that cast the room in an unsettling, alien light. The dresser, the bookcase, and the leather club chair might have been mysterious artifacts beamed into the space by an advanced civilization.
But she was alone.
She cleared her throat and drew in several deep breaths. She placed the gun back on the nightstand. The digital clock read a quarter past seven in the morning.
She had gotten into bed around midnight, but she felt as if she had barely slept at all. Dexter haunted her sleep just as he did her waking hours.
Her night terrors meant Dexter was still alive, and at large. If he had been taken into police custody—or killed—her dreams would have been less disturbing. She might have actually slept peacefully.
She swung her legs to the side of the mattress. Her sneakers sat beside the bed, ready to be slipped on at a moment’s notice. She’d gone to bed fully dressed in a pink sweat shirt and matching pants.
Although she was safer here than she was perhaps anywhere else on the planet, she needed to be prepared for anything, at any time.
She squeezed into her shoes, laced them up. Standing, she clipped a leather gun holster to her waistband, fit the revolver snug in it, and pulled her shirt over the gun.
The deadly weight on her hip comforted her. She didn’t dare to go anywhere without the .38. Not even to the bathroom.
She padded across the creaky floorboards, to the balcony door. She disengaged the double-bolt lock, unlatched the security chain, and stepped outside.
It was a broad balcony, constructed of sun-and-salt weathered wood. A circular table woven from rattan and a pair of chairs stood in the center.
There was a chill in the salty air; the thermometer beside the door read fifty-two degrees. Rachel shoved her hands deep into her pockets, and moved to the railing.
>
Beyond the balcony, there was the beach, white, and flat, fringed on the landward side with tall Spartina grass. Beyond the shore lay the vast Atlantic Ocean. The moon rode the pre-dawn sky, giving the crashing waves a pale, eerie radiance.
This time of day, the delicate interval between light and darkness, her aunt Betty had called “dayclean”—for the night sky was being cleansed to make way for the sun and the promise of a new day. It was a sacred period, a time for prayer and reflection.
But since Rachel was a child, no matter the time of day, the sight of the ocean had tended to soothe her spirit. When she stood on the beach and gazed at the seemingly infinite body of water, she felt as if she lingered on the brink of unraveling all of life’s mysteries, of understanding her ultimate purpose in the greater scheme of things.
At other times, however—times like then—when she stared at the water, she felt insignificant in the face of such vastness. As if she could walk down the balcony steps, shuffle across the shore, and wade into the sea until completely submerged, and the universe wouldn’t give a damn, because she was as meaningless as the shells that dotted the sand.
No, she was not meaningless. She was condemned. People had been killed because of her. Aunt Betty. Maybe Thad and his partner. Maybe Tanisha. Maybe many others. All because of her.
If she had never married Dexter, none of those awful things would have ever happened. Everyone would still be alive.
If she hadn’t run away from Illinois, compelling Dexter to initiate his murderous hunt, everyone would still be alive.
Condemned.
Fifty paces would carry her down the steps and into the water. She could put an end to it all. She deserved a watery grave for all the damage she had caused.
She faced the stairway. But she couldn’t make her feet move.
There was the baby to consider. The child she had conceived with Joshua, the only man she had ever loved. Although she herself deserved to die, she couldn’t sacrifice their child on the altar of her guilt.
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