MORE THAN THE MOON

by A Rosendale

  ‘What?!’ Ramsey watched wide-eyed.

  “There’s a backpack in the closet there. Will you bring it to me please?”

  The bag was the only thing in the closet. A black, nondescript backpack that looked like Cooper could have carried it to school, heavy with textbooks. But when he passed the bag to Travers, the man opened the top zipper, then unzipped a hidden compartment, which he stuffed with money.

  “Lined with a material that is undetectable by TSA X-ray machines,” Travers explained as he closed the compartment. He passed a stack of hundred-dollar bills to Ramsey. “Thanks for all your help. That should be enough to help you settle down somewhere.”

  Ramsey looked at him incredulously. “’Settle down’? You think I’m just going to find a new hole to crawl into?” He straightened up so he was looming above Travers still stooped on the floor. “I care about Alma and Cooper, too. I went through…” He cleared his throat as he remembered having Cooper pried out of his arms at Dr. Miles’s house. “I went through a lot with them, Travers. Don’t think for one second I don’t want to find them, too.”

  Dirk studied his companion for a moment. “Okay.”

  Chapter 88

  Cooper woke up screaming. Alma scooped him close and shook him awake. He sobbed into her shirt. There wasn’t a night since they’d left Boston he hadn’t woken up to a nightmare. This night spent in a tiny, remote village on the Danube was no different.

  “What about Bailey?” he cried. “Will I ever see him again? Do you think Dr. Miles will take care of him?”

  It hadn’t escaped Alma’s attention: the trauma they’d experienced had caused her son to regress emotionally. She thought of the dog and professor. In reality, she had no idea if they were even alive. Burying her grief, a practice she was becoming quite adept at, she smiled. “Of course Dr. Miles will take care of him.”

  Cooper sniffled and muttered something else.

  “What?”

  “What about Dad?” he repeated in a whisper. “Do you think we’ll ever see him again?”

  Alma bit her lip as tears came to her eyes. She pulled him close and didn’t answer.

  It wasn’t until a month later when the two of them finally agreed to settle down in one place that Alma broached the question again.

  “Cooper?” she said one night. She waited until he looked up from his book. “Cooper, I think we need to prepare ourselves.”

  He raised a brow in a gesture so much like Dirk’s that Alma nearly choked on the knot in her throat.

  “I…I don’t think we’re going to see Dad again.” Pronouncing Dirk’s death for the second time was just as painful as the first.

  Cooper took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and looked back at his book.

  The next day, he asked, “Do you need anything from the store, Mom?”

  “Um, no. Are you sure you want to go alone?”

  “Yeah. I’m good.” He shot her a confident smile that had been absent too long.

  He followed the narrow path that led through the hills to the other side of the island. Even though it was November, the sun shone brightly and the temperature was balmy. He liked the island they’d chosen in the Mediterranean Sea, not only for its beauty, but also for the fact that he could go swimming every day.

  After gathering what he needed from the store, he made his way along the shore to his favorite fishing spot. At low tide, he could hop out nearly a quarter mile on the exposed rocks. The tide was currently going out, so he settled on the shore to write and drink his soda.

  I’ll miss you, Dad. And I love you. –Coop

  Finished with both his note and his Coca-Cola, he rolled the note up and stuck it in the glass bottle. Then he clambered out to the furthest point and tossed the bottle into the waves. He knew no one would ever read it, especially not his father. But it made him feel better to say the words he wished he’d said months ago.

  Epilogue

  “I’m gonna go fishing, Mom.” Cooper already had his shorts and sandals on, a regular outfit anymore, and his fishing pole and tackle box in hand. He brought home enough fish for dinner nearly every night. Everything else they procured from the tiny shop across the island, where the kindly old man smiled sympathetically and cut his prices in half for them.

  “Okay, Coop.” She smiled at him. It had been four months on the island and just three weeks ago, he’d finally stopped crawling into bed with her in the middle of the night. Her vivid, gripping nightmares had faded after a week away from Johnson’s mansion. It wasn’t a far reach to conclude he’d been drugging her, causing those realistic hallucinations. But as the drug-induced delusions disappeared, normal nightmares that reviewed and magnified the terrifying experience of the past several months had sifted into her nighttime routine. Not surprisingly, the same nightmares plagued her son and he turned to her in the dark hours for comfort.

  “What are you going to do today?”

  She raised a brow.

  “Read and go swimming?” he guessed with a familiar smile.

  She laughed lightly. “You know me so well.” The familiar activities brought a modicum of peace. She kept telling herself she should pursue her studies, embrace the wildlife around them and write some articles. But that felt like moving on and she wasn’t ready to do that yet; it made circumstances more permanent somehow.

  Cooper gave her a smile that made her ache for another pair of bright green eyes that matched the sea outside, then disappeared down a gentle slope to the shore.

  Alma finished her coffee with two sugars, read a few chapters of a Cussler book, then donned her swimsuit and followed a trail to a short dock. The crystal water was warm and eased even the memory of aches. It was the only thing that could still her mind.

  She swam across the cove for a while, then flipped to her back to float, eyes shut.

  It wasn’t until a shadow blocked the red haze in her eyelids that she opened them, squinting in the bright sunlight. A silhouette stood on the dock, looking down at her. She blinked and rolled over in the water before looking up again.

  Her breath caught in her chest and she froze, her limbs moving instinctively to keep her afloat. A loose red button shirt rippled in the soft breeze above khaki cargo pants. The figure swept sunglasses away while a brilliant smile lit his face.

  Alma still couldn’t speak. He squatted down and extended a hand, which she took as if in a dream, and he drew her up out of the water.

  “I…” she stuttered.

  But he cut her off with passionate kiss that stole her breath and made the moment suddenly real.

  * * *

  Dirk came awake slowly and gently. It had been ages since he’d been able to savor the feel of Egyptian cotton sheets and the scent of coffee brewing before even opening his eyes. A morning sunray warmed his cheek and he found a foreign smile curling his lips.

  The smile grew when a warm, gentle hand caressed his bare chest. He opened his eyes and turned to Alma. He lifted a hand to run callused fingers through her bleached hair.

  She smiled in return, but hesitantly.

  “What?” he whispered.

  “Johnson…he…”

  Dirk smiled gently and cupped her cheek. “No, he didn’t.”

  She stared at him in confusion. “But…”

  “It was all a farce. He just wanted you to think that.”

  “He’s…”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  Dirk skimmed the months-old memories.

  Flames reflected in the stainless steel blade he wielded. After Ramsey’s vague figure joined the melee, the flames leapt higher, devouring the curtains and reaching out to lick them. Johnson started a diatribe Dirk couldn’t quite remember amidst the roaring wicks. He’d rambled something about sapping his victim’s strength and Dirk had rolled his eyes.

  “You know your problem, Johnson? You never shut up! You could have killed me ages ago, if you didn’t like the sound of your own voice so much!” With that, he’d tackled the man, tumblin
g through the flames with the huge mass. Much of the scramble was muddy in his memory. He recalled Johnson shouting at him, then falling backwards into the kitchen, where flames leapt eagerly at the new fuel. The man’s screams would always echo in nightmares. Next thing he knew, Ramsey was at his side and they were supporting each other on to the lush lawn, sucking in blissful gasps of rich oxygen, patting the remaining flames off each other.

  “The fire,” he answered vaguely.

  She sighed in relief and he pulled her to his chest as the last pent up tension faded. “Ramsey?” she asked.

  A soft chuckled escaped him. “Across the island nursing a hangover, I expect.”

  “Safe?” she said incredulously.

  “Yes.” He’d come to know the man well over the past half year. Ramsey decided to go on the run rather than face the authorities in North Dakota over the death of Sheriff Nolan. They’d shared a handful of drunken nights to drown the reservoirs of painful, career-long regrets, but then Dirk had allowed Ramsey to partake alone. The drinking never bothered him, but he’d rather spend his time raking travel documents for news of his family than burying them in substances.

  “How’s Cooper this morning?” He grinned at the memory of greeting his son. After embracing Alma, he’d followed her directions to the outcropping where Cooper’s favorite fishing spot was located. The boy was clearly more limber than his father, as he’d hopped and scrambled far out on a rocky arm of the island. Dirk went as far as his aging, stiff limbs would allow and waited. After a while, Cooper sensed someone watching him and started to look around. His eyes fell on the shadowed figure close to shore. It took less time than Alma’s startled reaction for the boy to drop his pole and race along the jagged course. He leapt wholly into the air, forcing Dirk to catch him and stagger back into a boulder to keep from falling over.

  “Smiling in his sleep after last night’s surprise. I don’t think Bailey will ever leave his side. And you’re here?” She still felt like she was in a dream too good to be true.

  He smiled again and kissed her. “Yes. Forever.”

  The sigh that slipped through her lips alleviated every doubt.

  “I must applaud your choice of relocation,” he said softly into her hair.

  She raised her brow.

  “Great name choice, too. ‘Sara McCormick.’”

  “My mom’s maiden name.”

  “And my mom’s first name,” he added. “Brilliant. And an island in the Mediterranean.”

  “I couldn’t think of anywhere else outside Puget Sound that would bring an ounce of comfort.”

  He grinned. “But a small island surrounded by the sea. I couldn’t have chosen better myself.”

  “I love you more than the moon,” she whispered.

  “I love you more than the sea.”

  Also by A. Rosendale

  Coming March, 2021

  All’s Fair

  While on a family camping trip in the mountains of northern Washington, fourteen-year-old Will Striker witnesses his parents’ murder.

  Ghosts of the experience follow Will to Colorado where his aunt and uncle provide shelter for he and his sister, Sara.

  Years later, in a chance encounter, Sara Striker runs into a man that reminds her adamantly of her brother Will, deceased several years previously. But the stranger, Bryce Spicer, claims no memory of her.

  Plagued by sudden headaches and flashes of memories that can’t possibly be his, Bryce flees, trying to find answers.

  Memories, old enemies, and new revelations chase him to Durango, CO. Confronted by the certainty of Sara and a friend from another life, Bryce comes to realize the memories he has of his life aren’t his own.

  Demons from the past rear their ugly heads. Truth and memory distort until there’s no telling fact from fiction. Fact or fiction: is all fair in love and war?