With Every Breath

by Beverly Bird

  stuff I don’t remember! I need to see things, feel things, Joe. I need to take pictures."

  "Pictures?" He looked at her blankly.

  She waved a hand helplessly. "I can’t explain it. I see through a camera differently than I see through my own eyes. I know it sounds stupid."

  "No." Actually, he thought, it didn’t.

  "I need to wander around in there. Alone. I can’t do it with you and Josh in my face."

  Joe blew out his breath. His every instinct said to fight it.

  "Gina’s going to come home tonight," she pointed out finally.

  "So what?"

  "So you said that you didn’t want to have to worry about guarding me from her on top of everything else. So we’ve got hours, Joe. Just... hours."

  "There’s no goddamned deadline on this," he argued. "When she comes home, things’ll just be a little crazier, that’s all."

  "I want them a little saner."

  For the first time he really appreciated how stubborn she could be. No one could sway her when she knew— or thought—she was right. He respected it even as it backed him into a comer without too many options.

  He swore again.

  "There’s also Josh," she went on.

  "What about Josh?" he growled.

  "He’s held up remarkably well through all this. If I can end it for him, I’m going to do it, Joe, before he has to hold up too much longer." She looked up, startled, when he levered himself off the bed again. "Where are you going now?"

  "For another beer. I’ll think about it."

  "Joe."

  "What?" he snapped, looking back at her.

  "It’s not your decision to make."

  And that hit him even harder than the fact that after a mere week, she could get so close to him as to feel his absence in her sleep. He pounded a fist impotently against the bedroom door and stalked out.

  Chapter 31

  Gina needed to borrow Cassie’s car. Cassie was the only one she could trust. There was Mildred, of course—Mildred would have helped her. But Mildred didn’t have a vehicle.

  She waited in the dunes behind Welcome Realty for the other cars to clear out of the parking lot. She had been there since dawn, and had nearly managed to intercept Cassie when she’d arrived for work, but then Karen Eagan had pulled into the lot right after her. She was getting cold and she was so very tired, but she still felt better than she had in days.

  She hugged herself against the sea wind, but it still whipped at her long hair, and even that felt good. There had been so little air inside that place, she thought, just the overheated, canned variety coming out of the vents.

  She’d managed to slip out of the hospital Wednesday night without any real problem. The last ferry of the night had just been pulling out of Jonesport when she’d reached it. Harry had said nothing, had just watched her with that jaundiced eye the way he always did, and he’d

  shrugged when she’d promised to bring him the twelve dollars the next day.

  He’d brought her back to the island, and she’d trudged the long, almost-four-mile trek home from the ferry dock to her condo on foot. It had been dark enough, and she had kept well back, out of the streetlights, circling carefully up onto people’s lawns whenever cars passed her. She’d gotten her spare set of keys from the little magnet box beneath the rear bumper of her car, then she had let herself into her condo. She hadn’t dared turn the lights on. She’d showered and washed her hair in the dark, feeling like a fugitive. Then, near three o’clock, she had finally fallen asleep.

  She hadn’t slept long. She had known she couldn’t. She couldn’t risk driving her own car in broad daylight, or even walking, so she’d had to get there before daybreak.

  A feeling of giddiness started to fill her again at how crazy all this was. She had to get to Joe, had to get back on his good side somehow. He was the power. He was the key. He was the one who could keep her out of that place and make everything right again. She peered up over the dunes again for the thousandth time, and this time she finally saw Karen Eagan crossing the lot toward her car.

  The Cutlass pulled out onto the Beach Road, and Gina stood up, shivering as much from nerves as from the cold. She made her way quickly to the building. When she stepped inside, Cassie just about fell out of her chair.

  "What are you doing here?" she cried. She finally managed to get to her feet.

  Gina strolled to her desk. She looked good today— she knew she did. She looked calm, together, fine. The mink would have been too conspicuous, so she wore jeans and her short leather jacket, and the boots with the little high heels. She swung her hair back and waved a hand disparagingly.

  "They couldn’t keep me."

  "But Ma said you had to stay for three whole days, that Joe had signed something."

  "He did." Her face went briefly ugly.

  "So how’d you get here?"

  "I broke out."

  Cassie’s jaw fell, and she dropped hard into her chair again. "Oh, my God."

  Gina grinned widely. "Yeah, it was something."

  "Does Joe know yet?"

  Gina hesitated, then shook her head. "No one does except you. And Harry. But he keeps his nose out of everybody’s business."

  "So what are you going to do?" Cassie asked, and realized belatedly that she was whispering, as though they were in some kind of clandestine plot together. She fought the urge to look over her shoulder. No one else was in the building.

  "I’m going to go see Joe now," Gina answered. "I’m going to straighten this out."

  Cassie’s eyes widened. Everybody knew that Joe had been stuck to Maddie Brogan for days, ever since he’d had Gina put away—even before that, really. Then she smiled slowly. Gina would take care of that in a hurry.

  "I need to borrow your car," Gina said. "They might be looking for me, and I can’t let anybody notice me before I can get Joe to call off his dogs."

  "Oh," Cassie said, bemused. "Okay." She reached for her purse under her desk and dug for her keys. "Can I come with you?"

  "You’ve got to work."

  "I’ll put up the closed sign and say I got sick."

  "I need some private time with my husband."

  Cassie smiled slowly. "Oh. Think it’ll work?"

  "Yeah. I know the buttons to push."

  * * *

  It was late when Joe woke the second time. He heard Maddie’s footsteps downstairs, followed by Josh’s quicker ones. He sat up, feeling like hell. He was too goddamned old to be staying up half the night like this, worrying.

  He went into the bathroom and washed up, then he went to find them. She was in Josh’s room, rummaging through the box of their possessions that Kenny had brought.

  She already had her camera in her hands.

  He moved back around the side of the door quickly, before she could notice him. Maybe she was right, he thought wearily. Maybe going in there was the best thing, the only thing, she could do. What, really, were their alternatives? He’d thought them through last night, throwing out one after another, until only two desperate possibilities remained. There was what Maddie planned to do this morning, and what he planned to do if that and the guys on the mainland failed them.

  And that was sure as hell going to get a rise out of the islanders. He didn’t even want to consider what the reaction of Ellsworth and the counties would be. If they couldn’t give him something concrete to go on when they finished sifting through the evidence, then he would call every citizen into the station and have them printed. Somebody’s prints would match those on the window. Somebody else’s would match those on the pot. There was, after all, only so much you could get away with on an island without a lot of access or population. You could flee, but even then, someone would notice that you were gone.

  No one had fled the island recently.

  So he would throw out the kids, Joe thought, at least until they were a last resort. That left maybe seven hundred people. He would start with those over the age of, say, forty-five, those
who were most likely to have had some contact with Beacher and Annabel Brogan. He’d work backwards through age groups from there. And the islanders would call him a crazy son of a bitch. He didn’t particularly care. They would call him a hard-ass, which he knew he pretty much was.

  At least he would find out who was behind all this, and maybe then he would find a body or two or three.

  He finally stepped into the door. "I’ll make coffee," he said quietly.

  Maddie’s head came up hard and fast. "I didn’t know you were awake."

  "You sounded like a little mouse, scurrying around in the woodwork, trying to be quiet. That gets to me more than thunder. It tweaks all the little wary instincts I’ve been carrying around lately."

  She grimaced.

  "Come on downstairs when you’re through here," he went on, "and I’ll tell you how we’re going to do this." Her eyes flared suddenly, angrily.

  "No arguments," he said shortly. "If we do it, we do it my way. Those are your only choices."

  She rocked back on her heels. Something about the way she did it told him she was up for a fight.

  "I could always do it without you," she pointed out, "on my own terms."

  "If I thought you were going to try it, I’d tie you to the god—" He broke off, glancing at Josh. He was starting to get used to having a kid in the house again. At least he occasionally remembered to watch his language.

  "I’ll tie you to a fence post or something so you can’t get out of my sight," he finished without bite.

  When he was gone, Maddie finally allowed herself to smile. He was so fierce, so hard, in his caring, and it warmed her even as she knew she had to fight it once in a while and stand independently on her own two feet. But when she did, he let her go.

  She put her camera together and went downstairs. He was standing in the kitchen, his hands splayed on the counter, his head down. He spoke without looking up.

  "I’m going to have a look-see around the outside of the place. Maybe I’ll catch something that the county guys didn’t recognize as important. I’ll check the dunes and the ocean side while you’re inside doing whatever the hell it is you think you have to do. If anything bothers you, scream, shout, yell. We’ll leave some windows open. I’ll hear you. I won’t go far."

  For the first time Maddie noticed the service revolver lying on the counter next to the microwave. Her blood seemed to chill and drain.

  Then she realized that he was trying to scare her with it. That made her all the more determined to keep the quaver out of her voice.

  "Fine," she answered shortly.

  He glanced up at her. "You’re sure you want to put Josh through any possible repercussions that might come out of this?"

  "Like what?"

  "Like someone finding out what you’re doing and getting really pissed off?"

  She thought about it. "I’ve got to risk it. What do you want me to do? Hide and cower? I’m through hiding, Joe." Yeah, he thought. She was. With a vengeance.

  He stepped away from the counter.

  "Why do you expect trouble?" she cried, frustrated. "I just want to go in there and look around."

  "I’ve got a feeling."

  "A feeling? "

  "Yeah," he snapped. "They’re not just the domain of artists, goddamnit. Us dumb jocks occasionally get them, too. And I’ve been feeling weird since last night."

  He picked up the gun, went into the family room, and dug into a drawer in the end table for his holster. He strapped it around his waist, glowering.

  "I hate this thing," he muttered. "I feel like goddamned Quick Draw McGraw."

  "Watch your language," she said mildly. "Besides, he was cuter. You look mean."

  He scowled at her.

  "You’re getting all worked up over nothing," she pointed out.

  "So tell me that when we get home and I’m putting this thing away again, feeling like a goddamned fool." "Oh, I will."

  That didn’t earn her any favor, either. "Where’s Josh?" he demanded.

  "Glued to the television again," she answered. "I always rationed his time with it before, but I’ve been a little lax, what with everything going on lately. He’s taking advantage of it before I come to my senses." "Nothing wrong with his mind."

  "No. Just his tongue."

  He gave a sound that might have been a sigh. He looked at the stairs, then looked back at her. "I don’t know if anybody has cleaned up in there yet or not." "Cleaned ... oh."

  He watched the blood siphon out of her complexion and felt a momentary spasm of remorse. But maybe she would change her mind.

  And maybe it would snow in July.

  "In fact," he went on, trying to be brutal, "I’d kind of have to doubt it. They won’t clean up until they’ve gotten everything out of there that there is to get out, until

  there’s some resolution to this mess. And without a body, that’s a little tough."

  "Oh."

  "So there’s probably still blood all over the wall in the dining room. Maybe a little bit of gray matter, too," he went on cruelly, though that would more or less mean that Graycie had died on the spot, so he should have been found there. He went on anyway, hoping she wouldn’t figure that out too quickly.

  "To tell you the truth, I was a little shook up myself when I was in there, so I can’t say with any certainty, but presumably his bowels gave out when he died and—"

  "Stop it!"

  He watched her evenly. "Just thought you ought to know what you’re letting yourself in for."

  "I know. I understand. I’ll stay out of the dining room."

  Joe finally nodded. It made him feel better. Having her go in there, having her see Graycie’s blood, bothered him as much as anything.

  "Try not to touch anything," he cautioned finally.

  Maddie nodded. "Okay."

  There was nothing else to say, he realized. "All right. If you’re so damned determined to do this, then let’s get it over with."

  Gina got into Cassie’s battered old Ford, grimacing. The engine chugged and complained a moment before turning over, and Gina thought it probably hadn’t had a tune-up since Moby Dick was a guppy. She pulled out of the lot and followed Beach to Fifteenth, then she turned west and parked half a block back from Joe’s condo.

  She took her compact out and made sure her lipstick wasn’t smudged. The Ford’s clock wasn’t working, but her watch told her that it was almost nine-thirty. Joe

  was late going to work, but he’d be leaving any minute. She’d catch him on his way out. She worked a brush through her hair, thinking hard, trying to figure out the best way to approach him.

  Tears over Lucy would be good. Old, tired, but good. That always got to him.

  She looked up and her heart leaped as he finally came out the carport door. He always looked so good, she thought, even when he limped. She’d always thought the limp wasn’t half-bad. It made him look like some kind of mean, dangerous desperado, and it reminded everybody of how famous he’d been.

  Oh, she loved him. She loved him so much.

  Then, in the next second, her heart went to shattering stone.

  A kid—Maddie’s kid—came outside after him, and he picked him up like he was his own—no, no, no!— and swung him over his shoulders, giving him a piggyback ride to the truck, as he used to do with Lucy. And even as he buckled him in, Gina knew what she was going to see next. Her own harsh breath filled Cassie’s car in desperate, little pants.

  Maddie Brogan came outside.

  She was staying with him. Living with him? Gina understood then. As soon as they’d gotten her out of the way, the bitch had moved right in!

  "No," she whispered aloud, moaning. "Joe, no, baby, no! Didn’t you understand?"

  The Pathfinder backed out of his driveway.

  Gina couldn’t even breathe.

  Her knuckles turned white on the steering wheel as she watched the truck turn north. She had to do something. she thought, despair raging in her head.

  But what? W
hat was left?

  Chapter 32

  They stepped up onto the deck at 110. "So what exactly is it that you’re going to do?" Joe asked. He reached down and took Josh’s hand with the subconscious thought that if Maddie reached suddenly to open the door, he wanted to hold the boy back.

  But Maddie only played with her camera and frowned.

  "I’m not sure," she said finally, "not beyond what I’ve already told you. I think I’ll just photograph anything that even remotely makes me squirm, anything that makes me feel uncomfortable ... or feel good, for that matter. Then we’ll have to go over to Jonesport so I can develop the film. What I’m thinking is that when I see the pictures, something about the way I photographed things will key me off. I know it sounds farfetched, but—"

  "No," he said shortly, as he had the first time she’d mentioned the approach. He thought of the work of hers that he’d seen, and he realized that it made all the sense in the world.

  "What about you?" she asked.

  "I’ll be on the road and the beach to start with. What I’m thinking is that in order for anyone to have come here to your house—Rick or anyone else—they had to get onto The Wick in the first place, right? Which leaves the bridge and the road, or an approach by water."

  Maddie shook her head. "Wouldn’t those men from the county have thought about that?"

  "Who knows?" Joe shrugged. "They think on their own terms sometimes. Seventeen routes in and out of the city, that sort of thing."

  "Oh."

  "You all right?"

  "No. But I will be once I get this over with, one way or the other."

  He nodded and reached past her for the front door. He rattled the knob and swore. It was locked.

  "My keys are inside," Maddie moaned. "I didn’t think to take them that night."