“I didn’t ask you to put up the bond. “He pulls his head free of her grasp. “I asked you to butt out and you didn’t.”
Her arm swings back and his arm flies up and he grabs her wrist before she can strike him. He grips it so hard that it hurts. “Listen carefully, Al. You don’t call the shots in my life. I do.” Then he throws open the passenger door and gets out and starts walking.
Wacko backed away from Mira, her face frozen in shock. “How—how. . . ,” she stammered.
Mira realized she had spoken what she’d seen, that she’d blabbed it all. She couldn’t pick up anything on Wacko by touching objects she had touched; the contact had to be direct, immediate, and then it was explosive.
And now the wacko’s hands shook as she raised the gun, her mouth moved and no sounds came out, and in an instant of strange and surreal clarity, Mira saw her finger tightening against the trigger. She hurled herself to the floor and, a heartbeat later, an explosion rocked through the basement.
“Don’t you ever say his name, “Wacko shrieked, and fired into the mattress, the ceiling, the wall, one deafening blast after another.
She ran over to where Mira lay, curled up in a ball on the floor, and kicked her savagely in the ribs. Be careful dean went south. Mira reared up and grabbed onto Allie’s leg... and she and Nick are locked together on the floor of the garage and she moans and writhes
and the wacko danced about like a stork, an amputee.
Nick’s mouth is on her. . . Nosy Neighbor, Divine Lover...
Then Wacko lost her balance and crashed backward, into the bedside stand. She gasped, her arms flailing in the air, and the stand rolled and she struck the floor.
Mira scrambled toward her on her hands and knees, her ribs on fire, explosions of pain in her thigh, and threw her body across Wacko’s legs...
. . little Ray, gone today, little Ray, who will pray ?And she’s kneeling over a child’s body that lies next to a swimming pool, hair wet, beads of water glistening against his lifeless body.
. . and scooped up the fallen gun. She pushed the barrel up against her neck and ground it into the skin until Wacko gasped. Until her eyes widened. Until her mouth formed a perfect 0.
“Don’t,” Mira said, her voice like nails against chalkboard.
Wacko’s body went slack, but her eyes turned to granite and Mira could see her own reflection in the pupils. “Do what you did last night. Make your eyes roil back in your head. Speak in my dead brother’s voice. C’mon, Freak, do it. And then pull the fucking trigger.”
Mira’s finger ached to apply pressure, to press the trigger and just be done with it. But she couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t take a life. And her hesitation, brief as it was, gave Wacko all the room she needed. She jackknifed her legs, her feet slammed into the back of Mira’s neck, knocked the gun out of her hand, and it skittered across the floor. Wacko leaped up, scooped the gun off the floor, and backed away from Mira as she lay there, her neck feeling as though it had been severed from the rest of her body.
“You should’ve shot me”—Wacko’s voice trembled—”while you had the chance.”
Mira raised her eyes and watched Wacko back away, shaken. “And bring myself to your level? No thanks.”
“You and Sheppard deserve each other. You’re both assholes.”
“Now I’m a psychic freak asshole. Hey, that’s good.” Mira remained on the floor, on her side, rubbing the back of her neck. She realized that as long as she didn’t make any threatening moves toward Wacko, she probably would be okay. Her best defense, in fact, was that Wacko seemed to be terrified Mira would read her psychically.
“Hot sex with Nick, Nosy Neighbor, Divine Lover. “Mira spoke softly, evenly. “Considering the number of laws you’ve broken, that was careless. Risky. But even killers get horny, I guess. Even Wacko needs sex. Bundy needed sex. Richard Speck too. So if you need sex, then some part of you is still human, right? But Nick, that could be your biggest mistake.” And now she sang in the same small voice she’d heard seconds ago. “Little Ray, gone today, little Ray, who will pray? Who’s Ray, Wacko?”
“Shut up, Freak.” She looked as if she’d been punched in the stomach and couldn’t draw in her next breath of air. Then she was moving backward up the stairs, biting at her lower lip.
Mira stayed where she was, rubbing her neck, and moments later the door slammed and the lock turned with a sharp, echoing click.
Chapter 13
It’s not my business, not my business, my business, business...
…Keith Curry woke to the worst hangover of his life, his mouth moving to the words that he heard in his head. He lifted his arm and glanced at his watch: 7:27 A.M.
He reached blindly for the bedside stand and patted the surface, looking for a joint he was sure he’d left here last night. Odd, that he could remember that, that he could remember rolling the damn thing, taking a couple of hits, putting it out and crashing. Odd because he couldn’t recall much of anything else that had happened.
He found the joint, lit it, puffed on it several times, then ground out what was left and fell back against the pillows—and into a dream. Allie was in his face, shouting at him, accusing him of not giving a shit about Dean, about the Family, about anyone except himself. And in the dream he agreed with her completely, he was a no-good, selfish fuck and he refused to spend his life trapped in Miami or on Tybee, fretting about the Family.
Then the dream suddenly faltered and skipped and he was racing into his parents’ house, past the paramedics, the police, following his mother’s wails, and he exploded through the patio doors to the chaos around the pool. There his sister was kneeling over little Ray, trying to resuscitate him, shouting at the paramedics to get her some epinephrine, fast, she didn’t have a pulse.
Curry came to suddenly, gasping for air, unable to breathe, his brain locked in a wild, white panic, and he knew that he was dying, that he had finally had one too many drinks, one too many joints, one too many lost nights in paradise. He flipped onto his side and slammed his fists against his chest, as though he could jump-start his lungs or his heart or whatever was wrong. Suddenly the air in the cabin felt like Vail in January and the cabin exploded with whiteness and Dean emerged from the whiteness. Please help, Keith, he implored, and then he threw himself over Curry’s body and air rushed into his lungs and he sucked and coughed, sucked and coughed, and collapsed against the pillows again.
He breathed in. Breathed out. In and out, again and again, until his head started to clear. What the hell just happened?
Curry could make out the geometric shapes on the ceiling caused by the light that spilled through the venetian blinds. He could hear the long, mournful bleat of a boat’s horn, coming into the yacht club’s slip. He tasted the sourness of last night’s binge in the back of his throat. But he wasn’t hung over.
Impossible. Seconds ago, he definitely had been hung over, thought he was dying, couldn’t breathe, and he’d seen Dean. Please help, Keith.
The joint, of course. He’d taken a couple hits off a joint and fallen back to sleep and now it was hours later. He looked at his watch: 7:27. His watch had stopped.
“Shit.”
He threw off the sheet and sat up. His head didn’t spin. He didn’t feel like puking. The alarm on the night-stand appeared to have stopped, too, and at the same time. 7:27.
Okay, jig’s up, Curry. You’re dead and the momentous event happened at precisely 7:27.
So, could a dead man brush his teeth? Wash his face? Walk? He got up and went into the head, aware of how his bare feet felt against the floor, if he was dead, why did the floor feel real? Why did his body feel real? Could a dead man taste toothpaste and feel water against his face? The toothpaste was mint, the water was cold.
He emerged from the head, convinced now that he hadn’t died. In fact, he heard noise in the galley and smelled coffee. From the bundle of clean laundry he’d picked up yesterday, he pulled out gym shorts and a T-shirt and quickly dr
essed. He never locked the boat at night, few people did. In this community, “mi casa es su casa” was the rule of the land. Even so, this was a bit much, some boater in his galley, making himself right at home.
Curry paused in the doorway and took in the sight of the gringa knockout, moving with utter ease around the galley. Her magnificent blond hair was caught up in a ponytail and she wore a sleeveless cotton dress that hugged her hips, revealed her magnificent legs, the curve of her breasts, the soft, slender lines of her neck and arms. She was barefoot and he kept staring at her perfect feet, her ten perfectly sculpted toes.
“Make yourself at home,” he said.
She looked around, those huge blue eyes of hers neither startled nor apologetic, and her lovely mouth swung into a smile. “Hungry?”
“Starved.” He went over to the table and sat down. “Smells fantastic.”
“I’m not much of a cook, but I make a really tasty omelette.” She put one on a plate with a slice of papaya and a corn arepa. “Coffee?”
“You bet.” Curry couldn’t remember the last time a woman had made him breakfast. “So tell me what your fortune-teller pal said after I fled the Caribe.”
“That you’d had too much to smoke.” Faye brought the coffeepot and her own plate over to the table. ‘That you’re self-destructive. That you’re a man of many secrets.”
“A rave review,” he said, and cut into the omelette.
It was already warm and sticky in the galley and she reached back and turned on the counter fan and opened the galley windows wider. “It’s going to be a scorcher today.”
“Does your watch work?” he asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“My watch and my alarm stopped. What time do you have?”
“It’s just after eight.”
How was it possible that within a span of just twenty-four minutes, he was now sober? And why had his watch stopped? And why did I dream of Ray? He’d had that same dream before, which was really more like a replay of what had actually happened on that black day in 1985. He’d gotten a frantic call from his old man that something had happened to Ray, and by the time he’d gotten to the house, it was too late—Ray was dead.
“So let me guess. We were together last night and you stayed here,” he said. “And I was so drunk I don’t have a clue what happened.”
Her beautiful mouth twitched with annoyance. “Don’t flatter yourself, Keith. We went barhopping, you drank too much, and I drove you back here and got you to bed. But I sure as hell didn’t stay. There’s nothing worse than screwing a guy who’s drunk.” She leaned across the table, arms resting against the surface, and smiled. “But I have to admit, you look damn good for a guy who put away so much booze he could barely walk.”
“That bad, huh?”
“What do you remember?”
He thought about it. “The early part of the evening is clear. You were drinking Dos Equis with a twist of lime. I was drinking rum. We were dancing. I remember thinking that you dance well, but was wishing the music was slower so I could hold you close.” Shit, fuck, what am I saying? The first rule in his world was to never, never confess what you felt about a woman. But now that he’d started, he didn’t want to stop. “I remember sitting outside at one bar, under the stars, just you and me and the sultry air. My hand was on your thigh. Your dress was very short. We were, uh, kissing.”
“We were?” She frowned, her magnificent eyes guileless. “Are you sure?”
Curry reached out, touched his hand to her chin, and leaned forward and kissed her. A chaste kiss, as far as kisses went, but the shape and texture and taste of her mouth were so exquisite that he knew if he died in the next ten minutes, that would be okay. To kiss a mouth like this. Christ almighty. “I think it was like that,” he said, pulling back slightly.
She gave him the strangest look, as if she suddenly understood something about him that had escaped her before. “You’re right. That’s exactly how it was—”
“And then I screwed it up by getting loaded,” he finished.
She shrugged, their eyes locked. Hers reminded him of sunlight on the Pacific waters just outside the galley windows, an incomparable and impossible fusion of one element with another. “You just redeemed yourself,” she said quietly.
He didn’t have any snappy comeback to that. Her piercing gaze made him squirm inside, as though his skin had shrunk and was now too small for his bones, and he looked quickly down at his plate and finished up his omelette. She scooted back her chair and got up. She brought the pot of coffee back to the table and refilled their mugs. “You don’t seem like a Cunningham,” she said suddenly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, remember Richie Cunningham on Happy Days?”
“Ron Howard.”
“Yeah. But that character he played was always up, happy. Ever since, I’ve associated Cunninghams with that character and you don’t seem so up and happy. I mean, you do now, but not usually.”
“I didn’t realize you even knew my last name.” He didn’t remember telling her that. But hell, he didn’t remember half of what he’d said to her.
“Everyone around here knows your last name,” she said with a laugh. “The party’s at Cunningham’s boat. The best music is at Cunningham’s. No one has to say anything about what slip you’re in or what kind of boat you own. Cunningham this, Cunningham that. I know that you sailed to New Zealand with a couple of Aussies. I know that you sailed to the Caribbean with a couple of women from Spain and a guy from Barbados. You fund children’s clinics in Panama; you have a lot of military and government contacts; you’re an expat but you speak the language like a native. I’ve heard all the boating stories, Keith, and I’m sorry, you’re not a Cunningham.”
Gorgeous, smart, and insightful to boot. “You’re right. I’m not. I changed my name from Curry before I left the States twelve years ago.”
She winked an eye shut and her index finger shot out at him. “See? I learned a lot from TV.”
He had the feeling then that she was playing with him, teasing him, and then she broke the moment by getting up and clearing the table. She stood at his sink, washing off his dishes, on his boat, and yet he was the one who couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Why’d you change your name?” she asked.
“To separate myself from my family.”
“They’re so awful?”
“It’s a long story.” He got up to get more coffee and for moments they stood side by side in the galley, their elbows brushing.
“Do you have a dish rack?” she asked.
“Down here.” Curry stooped to open the cabinet under the sink. As he straightened up and set the rack on the counter, the sweet scent of her hair and her skin filled his senses with such a profound desire that he needed to touch her. He ran his fingers across the back of her neck and along the seamless line of her jaw. She scooped suds off the top of what she was washing and touched the end of his nose and dotted each cheek and his forehead with more suds.
Curry skimmed suds out of the sink and dabbed them lightly all over her face and they both laughed. He touched his soapy hand to the back of her neck and brought her face toward him and kissed her. Nothing chaste in this kiss. Their mouths opened, her soapy hands slid into his hair, his left hand dropped to the small of her back and over the beautiful curve of her ass, and her dress hiked up, and she pressed her magnificent body up against him and slid her hands down inside his gym shorts.
Even though the air steamed with the heat their bodies threw off, the silk of her panties felt as cool and light as mountain water against his hands. Curry slipped his hand between her thighs and she leaned back, gripping his shoulders, arching her back against the pressure, her mouth slightly parted, her eyes locked on his and filling with tears.
Then she suddenly twisted away from him and ran her hands over her clothes, smoothing them back into place.
“This is moving a little fast for me,” she said, her voice husky,
thick, choked. “I didn’t come here for this.”
Blew it, I blew it. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s not your fault. You just remind me of someone.” Curry wasn’t about to touch that one.
She turned back to the sink, to the dishes, to the dish rack. After a few uncomfortably silent moments, she said, “Keith, I need to get back to the States.”
He felt relieved to talk about something else. “You didn’t buy a round-trip ticket?”
“No. I stupidly thought I could get a cheaper fare by buying a return ticket here.”
“I liked your Caleuche story better.”
“Yeah, me too.” She glanced up at him and smiled. “I’m on standby for three different flights. I heard you’ve got connections, that you can get back to the States whenever you want.”
He laughed. He could just imagine where this rumor had gotten started, deep in some pot-infested cabin where nomadic gringos sat around trying to impress women who looked like Faye. “My connections,” he said, “are always purchased. Not outright—a hundred bucks here, a thousand there, five grand for some local cause, everything under the table. To get a flight out between Christmas and New Year’s Day is practically impossible. You’d be better off finding a boater who’s headed back to the States.”
“So you can’t help me?”
“I doubt it.”
“Christ,” she said softly, biting at the side of her nail.
“Well, there’s a military guy I know. He’s done me favors in the past.” Please help, Keith. Maybe it was time to see if his sister actually had blown her cork. “I’ll see if I can get us seats on a military transport plane.”
“Us?”
“I need to get home, too,” he said, and wondered if he would regret the words the moment he stepped on American soil.
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