“He was going to hurt her again and she called my name and I…”
He let his hand settle on the boy’s head, then slide down to cup the smooth cheek. “You’re safe now. You can trust me. It’s going to be all right.”
Hallowed by the pale sunlight, the boy held his stare.
“I’ll take care of you, Perry. Don’t be afraid.”
EPILOGUE
I won’t.
Tears ate at her.
I won’t cry anymore.
Her throat constricted from sobbing, she felt her lower lip begin to tremble again. Oh, Steve. Her jaw ached, and one leg had gone numb. The feeling had left her hands, and she could barely move her fingers. How could you? An aching cramp crept up her arms and across her shoulders. It had taken almost two hours to work free of the knots.
“Forgive me,” he’d said. “It’s the boy’s only chance, and you can’t be involved any further.” She’d seen tears in his eyes too, just before his fist caught her under the chin.
The worst part is he meant it when he said he loves me. She rubbed at the rope marks on her arms until the blood surged painfully. I know it. She hobbled into the bathroom. Damn him. Scrubbing her face, she stared at the mirror. It’s been hours. No point in going after them now. The flesh of her face hung flaccidly, gray as a cadaver. No point at all. She grinned mirthlessly at herself: a death’s head.
Stumbling back into the living room, she pulled on her coat. Damn him to hell. As she shut the outer door behind her, sunlight struck the cord marks on her wrists. She wobbled stiffly into the glare. When she gaped toward the horizon, her mind seemed to hang suspended above the flat and glinting sea. Time to move on. Floating gulls dotted the water in the distance.
Suddenly numb and drowsy with the cold, she started down the stairs, her shadow cascading thinly down the steps ahead of her. Below, everything looked sodden.
Chilling wedges of light fell between the buildings, and she stumbled through them to the jeep. As she fumbled with her keys, a sudden breeze murmured in her ears.
What?
With aching slowness, she turned her head and took a step back toward the duplex. A moment later, she crouched deep in the shadow of the beams beneath the stairs. She listened a moment. Stooping, she squeezed down among the stilts where surf echoed and boomed like the heart of a whale.
“Here. I’m here.”
Deep in the rancid darkness, something stirred.
“But you have to come to me.”
A faint cry vibrated into the eaves.
“Keep coming. I can’t get to you if you don’t.”
At last, a patch of muck squirmed on the darkness at her feet.
“Come on now.” She stepped back into the brittle sunlight, and just for a second, she thought it might be the wrong cat. “Look at you!” Filth clotted the fur, and the beast lifted its face to her, opening its mouth, sharp teeth glinting in a plea pitched too high for human ears. For once, the animal didn’t struggle when she gathered it in her arms. Mud smeared the front of her jacket, but the cat purred like an outboard motor. Snapping her jacket open, she huddled the shivering creature to her warmth, and as she carried it back up the stairs, it began to pant like a dog, bright pink tongue curling.
“You go in and get warm.” She struggled with the latch, clutching the cat in one arm. “And stay away from that window. I’ll feed you when I get back.” Putting the cat down just inside the door, she backed out onto the stairs.
The cat screamed.
“No, you have to stay inside.” When she tried to pull the door shut, a hooked paw shot out, and the yowl echoed. “What are you doing?” Claws raked the wood. “Stop that.” She tried to shove the cat inside with her foot. “All right, never mind. Bad idea. All right. Shut up already. Follow me then. Whatever.” She closed the door and started back down the steps, the small beast at her ankle. “Stupid cat. Lucky to be alive.”
Her footsteps squished across the mud of the driveway, and the cat pranced lightly ahead. The drive now emptied directly into a broad, shallow pond, and a gust of wind coruscated the surface into advancing lines, each glittering into a gray diamond pattern. The silt around the edges had dried into a reflection of that pattern.
She gunned the engine as the cat sniffed suspiciously around the interior of the jeep. “Another miracle.” The jeep started immediately. “You don’t get carsick, do you?” As she pulled out, the cat startled her by leaping onto the back of the driver’s seat, claws digging in loudly. “Would you settle down, please? Before I drown us both in a ditch?”
Mud hissed at the tires. Everything was water and debris. She steered around the side of the duplex, then had trouble finding a road to stay on. Sounds of activity drifted everywhere. She heard a helicopter and the buzz of a power saw. Around a corner, men in bright yellow hard hats stood in the intersection, and the road crew stared at the police department insignia as she swerved around the barricade. That’s it—just nod and smile at everyone like you know where you’re going. Down the road, a tractor tugged at something large and muddy, and men with electric company jackets yelled as the jeep splashed past. She glimpsed a state trooper. Just my luck. After all this, I’ll probably get shot as a looter. All the poles tilted in the drowned streets, and houses angled on flooded lawns.
But even the deepest pools lay lifeless and still, all violence drained. I don’t know this place anymore.
In the center of town, streets had mostly been cleared. They won’t stop a police vehicle so fast. She steered around obstacles, trying to avoid a truckload of troopers, tires sloughing through soft muck. This could be the last time I get to use one. She turned a corner. Might as well make the most of it.
At the end of the road, the ocean glowered somnolently, two blocks closer than it should have been. She wondered if the salvage crews knew they had become morticians. Some flicker of life might remain in the town, but fan this drowned ember back into a flame? Never. People would trickle back to rescue what they could, a determined few might even come back to live. But in the long run…
The cat bumped its head against her shoulder insistently, and she shifted gears, coasting down a side street. “Yeah, I love you too, Gruesome. Now, settle down.” At last, she pulled over.
Not a bad house. Water stains rose only a foot or so up the yellow walls, she noticed, slamming the door behind her. “Settle down in there,” she called to the cat as she squelched up the garden path. Near the porch, inchoate purple and white forms butted through sodden soil, lured out by the flood. Too soon. The frost would wither them, she knew, but now the stalks looked pliant and brave.
“I know you’re in there.” She pounded on the door. “Don’t ask me how I know. I just do. Come on, open up.” She pounded again. “I’m not going anywhere until I see you.” She glanced back at the jeep. Through the window, the cat stared at her, and she saw the mouth open in that silent cry. “No use pretending you’re not home.” Finally, she heard the metallic sliding of locks.
He peered at her from behind the chain. A mass of curls hung in a tangle over the bandaged forehead, and blue crescents mottled the flesh below his eyes.
“About time. Aren’t you going to invite me in for coffee? Or don’t you have water yet? Better still—get cleaned up as best you can, and we’ll drive out the highway to the diner. Come on. Cops always know the best places to have breakfast.”
“Oh.” Tully’s face barely focused. “It’s you.” The effects of medication still showed in his sluggish expression, and his clothes looked like he’d been sleeping in them. “Sorry. I don’t want to go out…now.” His laugh sounded like he was choking on ice cubes. “Or ever. Please, go away.”
“C’mon. We’ll sit and talk, listen to each other make plans. Maybe you’ll help me figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. Maybe I’ll help you.” She grinned then, and it made her face feel strange. “C’mon. You can’t just hide in there, you know.”
He shrugged stiffly. “Why not?”
“Look. No, not at me, idiot. Look out there. The sun is shining. It’s all over, and we’re what’s left. That’s all. We survived. Right? So let’s go. Time to move on. C’mon now.” She tried to smile encouragingly. “Don’t be afraid.”
Other Leisure Books by Robert Dunbar:
THE PINES
Copyright
A LEISURE BOOK®
July 2009
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Copyright © 2006 by Robert Dunbar
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have beengranted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
E-ISBN: 978-1-4285-0699-2
The name “Leisure Books” and the stylized “L” with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpub.com.
The Shore Page 29