Shadows on the Sand

by Gayle Roper

  “Like new locks are going to keep people out.” Josh swept his hand toward the hole. “It’s a highway through there.”

  “It won’t be after I cover it.” Greg was proud of the even tone he managed.

  Another car pulled into the lot, and a man Greg had never seen before climbed out, cell phone in hand.

  “Wow! That’s impressive!” The man studied the hole. “They weren’t kidding.”

  “They weren’t,” Greg agreed, knowing who “they” were.

  “You okay?” the stranger asked, eying Greg’s scrapes and bruises.

  A total stranger had more courtesy than his boss. How sad was that? “I’m okay.”

  The man nodded. “Looks painful.”

  “Who are you?” Josh demanded.

  “Mac88. Who are you?”

  Josh turned on Greg. “What kind of an idiot name is Mac88?”

  Greg mentally rolled his eyes.

  “Hey, buddy, watch your mouth.” Mac88 scowled at Josh.

  “He’s a tweeter,” Greg explained. “Mac88 is his Twitter name.” Did that mean there were eighty-seven other Macs on Twitter or that he was born in 1988? Or on the eighth day of August, the eighth month?

  “Facebook too,” Mac88 said.

  Josh studied the lanky guy with the BlackBerry and sniffed. “I was right. He’s a twit.” And he turned his back.

  Greg bit back a smile at Mac88’s outraged expression.

  Josh resumed his rant. “You were in charge of this eviction; therefore, this is your fault, Barnes. I expect you to take care of all this mess. Get estimates on repairs, select the cheapest, and get this fixed by tomorrow.”

  “It may take a bit longer, what with insurance and all.” To say nothing of contractors with previous commitments.

  “Tomorrow!” Josh puffed out his chest, the very picture of self-importance. “The sale is finalized tomorrow, as you well know.” Josh was selling every property he owned, and he’d transferred the responsibility for the negotiations with the representative of a consortium of buyers to Greg. All Josh planned to do was show up tomorrow to sign on the dotted line—or lines, as the case may be—and collect his money.

  Which explained the new Escalade. How like Josh, buying the pricey car before he had a check in hand. It seemed he’d never heard the one about “many a slip twixt cup and lip.”

  “Fred will be in town early tomorrow,” Josh said as if he, not Greg, had been the one to work with Fred through the purchase process. “He’ll give you a call. Just make sure he shows at one for the meeting with my lawyers. I’ve got to go.”

  And he climbed into his Escalade and went.

  Greg breathed a sigh as the black car disappeared down the street. Josh always got on his nerves, had from the first time they met.

  “He’s a real winner.” Mac88’s voice dripped with dislike. “I’m going to Carrie’s Café to see what’s happening there.”

  Greg had never heard a more appealing plan.

  9

  It was midafternoon, and I was waving a relieved good-bye to the last of the tweeters, ready to flip the lock, when Greg pulled up to the curb. I pushed open the door and waited for him on the sidewalk.

  “Hey, look,” one of the tweeters exclaimed. “It’s the guy the Hummer guy tried to run down.”

  Greg looked pained as all eyes fixed on him. “How do they know that?” he asked me.

  I shrugged. “I’d guess one of the tweeters at the Sand and Sea posted a picture of you.”

  “He’s also the one whose family got blown up,” another called. “Check this link.”

  Greg looked as if he’d been slapped.

  “Quick!” I grabbed his arm as their heads bowed and they watched something about the event of three years ago, probably footage on YouTube. I pulled Greg inside and turned the door’s lock.

  They looked up, eyes bright with curiosity. Intent on coming back in the café and getting up close and personal with the object of their nosiness, they moved as one, like kernels of caramel corn stuck in a clump.

  “I’ll take another Coke,” one called as he pulled on the door, remembering my admonition about having to buy something to be admitted.

  “Yeah, me too,” several said, expressions becoming those of desperate people dying of dehydration after enduring days under the blazing Saharan sun.

  “And I’ll tell everyone what a wonderful place this is,” another called, holding up his iPad.

  “Don’t let them in!” Lindsay called from the pass-through. As if I would. “There’s nothing left to feed them. They’re worse than a horde of locusts!”

  “Sorry,” I called through the door, giving the tweeters the evil eye. “We close at two and it’s now three.”

  “Not fair,” they called, looking crestfallen.

  “Come back tomorrow.” I waved and turned my back.

  Greg studied the swirling mass pacing outside the door, thumbs working their keyboards both real and virtual. He seemed to have regained his balance. “See the tall, lanky one? Mac88. He followed me here.”

  I nodded. “Feels creepy, doesn’t it?”

  He reached for his sore shoulder. “Maybe he’ll follow me to Home Depot and back, and I can get him to help me nail the plywood over the hole.”

  “You’re too hard on them.” Mary Prudence came up beside me. “It’s a way of staying connected in an increasingly fragmented society.”

  I laughed. “Mary P, where did you read that?”

  She gave me an impish smile. “Who knows? But it sure sounds good, doesn’t it?”

  “Without Twitter how would we know the cops got Chaz?” Lindsay called from the kitchen.

  “TV? The newspaper?” I offered.

  “Yeah, but when? Tonight or tomorrow? Now we don’t have to worry about whether he got away or not. Think of the anxiety not suffered.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure you would have been just one bundle of nerves.”

  She grinned. “Sister of mine, you are an anachronism.”

  “Anachronism. Yowzah, Linds, I’m impressed.” I looked at Greg’s face in the light streaming in the big front window. “That box of vocabulary flash cards was worth the money after all. And you,” I said to Greg. “Upstairs so I can clean those cuts out without a national audience.”

  Several of the tweeters were watching us, thumbs flying as they did so. One had his cell raised and was snapping pictures. I could just imagine their posts. Grouchy lady. Injured man. What fun they must be having.

  “I washed my face.” Greg twisted away from my ministrations. He grimaced and grabbed his shoulder.

  “Maybe, but you’ve still got lots of little cinders embedded.”

  “They’ll work their way out. I’ve got to go get that plywood.”

  I looked at him in exasperation. “If you don’t want to be disinfected, why did you come here?”

  He glanced out the window at our voyeurs. “Sanctuary.”

  I laughed. “Granted.”

  “Should you be driving?” Mary P peered at him. “You’ve got a good-sized egg, all black and blue.”

  His hand went to his forehead. “It’s not bad. I’m not concussed.”

  “So says the man who can’t see the injury. Drive him, Carrie,” Mary P said. “With that shoulder he’s rubbing, he’ll need help even if his head’s all right.”

  “I can manage a sheet of plywood fine.” He sounded insulted.

  Mary P laughed. “I’m not impugning your manhood, you know.”

  He looked unconvinced.

  Drive him. Did I dare? “I have to close out for the day.” I indicated the cash register.

  “Push-tush,” Mary P said. “I can do that with my eyes closed.”

  She could. She’d done it for years when Carrie’s Café was the Surfside. The question was: Could I do it? Could I spend an hour or more alone with Greg and not give myself and my ridiculous infatuation away?

  I glanced at him. He looked as balky as a mule on a path he didn’t wan
t to traverse. He did not want help. Or was it my help he was balking at?

  “When you go, Carrie, don’t forget fluorescent bulbs,” Lindsay called from the kitchen. “The one over my prep table is starting to blink.”

  I glanced at my sister, who was standing in my line of sight but not Greg’s. She was grinning and making “go” signals with all her might. Ricky appeared behind her and made little wiggly movements with his eyebrows that I suspected were supposed to be suggestive but made him look like he had a tic.

  One couldn’t have a secret around this place. It was mortifying. But the light bulbs were all the excuse I needed.

  “It’s me or Mac88 and friends.” I pointed to the sidewalk and the milling tweeters.

  Greg looked ready to protest again, then gave another shrug and another wince. With a rueful smile, he handed me his pickup keys.

  I’d never driven such a large vehicle before, and the lanes on the causeway, which always felt narrow because of the age of the bridge, seemed extra snug. I gripped the steering wheel as if holding it tightly would keep us in our lane.

  “Relax.”

  I glanced at him. He was leaning against the headrest, his eyes closed.

  “How do you know I’m tense? You’re sleeping.”

  “I’m not sleeping, just resting. And I can feel your tension. The cab is crackling with it.”

  “Is not.”

  He snorted at my defensive lie, and a small smile curved his lips though he didn’t open his eyes.

  “So tell me, Carrie Carter. Where do you come from? I know you’re not a Seaside native.”

  I always hated this question. “I grew up in Atlanta.”

  His eyes popped open, though he continued to lounge against the headrest. “Really? You don’t sound like a Southern belle.”

  “Atlanta’s not the South, despite its geography. People there come from all over.”

  “And your family came from?”

  I had no idea where my father came from, since I had no idea who he was. Though my mother never took us to her home or spoke of family there, at least she gave me a place to name. “My mom’s from Camden, New Jersey.”

  “And you ended up in Seaside because she came here on vacation as a kid? You’re keeping the family heritage alive?”

  I grabbed at his comment with both hands, a witness happy to be led. “That’s true. She talked about Seaside a lot. It made Lindsay and me want to come, so when we decided to move, ta-da, we chose Seaside.”

  “Just you girls but not your mom?”

  The trouble with getting to know people better was that they always asked hard questions. “Not our mom.”

  “Or dad?”

  “Or dad.” I’d met Greg’s brothers and parents when they came to visit him and hit the café for a meal. How could someone with a wonderful family like his understand mine?

  “How long have you been here?”

  “It seems like forever,” I said evasively.

  “How long?” He was watching me, without doubt hearing the reluctance in my voice.

  I sighed. I couldn’t lie to him. “Seventeen years.”

  He straightened and stared at me. He’d done the math. “You were a runaway?”

  I swallowed. “Why do you say that?”

  “You’re what? Thirty?” He frowned. “That would make you thirteen?”

  “I’m thirty-three. I was sixteen.”

  “Oh. Big improvement.”

  I shrugged. What could I say?

  “And you brought Lindsay with you?”

  I nodded.

  “How old was she?”

  “Ten.”

  He stared at me, and I felt my stomach twist. I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking. Or maybe I could. Runaways were pathetic druggies. Runaways became child prostitutes. Runaways became thieves. I felt certain he’d met all these sad kids in the course of his career in law enforcement and some with stories more tragic than even I could imagine.

  “It must have been bad,” he said finally, “if you took your little sister along.”

  Tears burned my throat at his understanding. “It was,” I managed, glad to see Home Depot looming. Enough soul baring for the moment. I was happy to concentrate on the challenge of maneuvering through the parking lot. Fraught with potential calamity as it was, with cars and pickups backing up at me as if I were at a demolition derby, it was much safer than talking about my past.

  With great relief I pulled into a parking slot that had empty spaces on both sides. As I eased the keys from the ignition, I breathed a huge sigh. Not one crumpled fender, either Greg’s or some stranger’s. If I looked at the driving situation in a glass-half-full kind of way, I was already halfway home.

  I climbed down from the cab, and we walked toward the store together. Though neither of us said anything, it felt very couple-y to me. Since Lindsay and I had done much of the work in turning the Surfside into Carrie’s, I’d spent a lot of time at Home Depot and Lowe’s. I used to watch the shopping couples as they talked, debated, and argued over which items to purchase. Then I’d go off with my sister and buy our supplies.

  Today I was shopping with a guy, and it felt good. Not that it was the same as being a real couple. But it was a one-small-step-for-man type of thing, and I was determined to enjoy it.

  All right. I was pathetic, but at least I knew it.

  Greg stopped just outside the store’s door. “I’m sorry you got roped into this.”

  Did he mean he was sorry he got roped into having me along? “It’s okay. I like Home Depot.”

  He looked at me in surprise. “Are you serious? I thought all women hated it. Ginny did.”

  “Lindsay doesn’t like it much either, but I do.”

  He still looked skeptical.

  We walked into the store and went to the lumber section. Along the way I snagged one of those carts that allowed you to rest sheets of plywood or paneling on their side. I trundled it after Greg, who was now about half an aisle ahead of me. That felt oh so couple-y too. The only other thing more couple-y would be if one of us started looking up and down the aisles for the misplaced other.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” a man in a Home Depot apron asked.

  “He’ll tell you what we want.” I pointed to Greg, who was leaning over the pile of plywood.

  As the man went to talk to Greg, I heard what I’d said. “What we want.” I was thirty-three, and there’d never before been a we, at least a male-female we, where shopping was concerned. How sad was that? And, frankly, there really wasn’t a we now.

  It wasn’t that men had never shown an interest in me. Several had through the years, but it was back when I was still convinced that all men were drunks, reprobates, and lechers.

  In time I’d realized that romance, at least for me, was a matter not only of a man who made my heart trip but also of timing and healing. I just hadn’t been ready earlier. Too many childhood issues to resolve. I sighed. Now I was finally ready, but the object of my affection wasn’t.

  Lord, Your Word says our times are in Your hands. Will I ever be in a situation where my timing and a guy’s timing—Greg’s timing—are in sync?

  When Greg and the Home Depot man started pulling plywood from the pile, I wheeled my cart to them. They slid two sheets on, and I began spinning the cart around so the steering wheels were in the back.

  The Home Depot man grinned at Greg. “You’ve got her trained real good.”

  I glared at the man though he didn’t see. I didn’t care how couple-y I ever became, trained would never be an operative word. Greg saw my expression, knew how ticked I was, and smiled broadly.

  I scowled back for effect. Three cheers for me. I made the man smile for a second time today! A record.

  We stopped to pick up the fluorescent bulbs I suspected Lindsay didn’t need, and after a small skirmish over who was paying—Greg won—we left the store. With me on one side and Greg on the other, we slid the plywood into the bed of the pickup.

  I was
n’t as nervous driving back to Seaside, and I almost felt comfortable when I pulled into the Sand and Sea lot. Much of the debris Chaz had caused was already cleaned up, and we dumped the little remaining in the Dumpster at the far side of the lot. We lugged the plywood sheets from the truck to the building, and Greg pounded them into place with masonry nails. With every blow, he winced at the stress on his shoulder. I made believe I didn’t notice.

  “Can’t someone just pry off the boards?” I asked. “To get inside, I mean.”

  “They could if they were determined to, but why would anyone want to?”

  “To get Chaz’s stuff?”

  He laughed. Laughed! I felt a flicker of pride, like I’d just baked a cake as wonderful as one of Lindsay’s. Three times!

  “Believe me,” Greg said, “no one wants any of his stuff, not even him.”

  “What happens to it all?”

  “I’d bet most of it’s rented, but what happens is that I set a date with him to let him in to get his things or for the rental company to come pick up their stuff. If he or they don’t come, I put everything in storage until we can arrange a sheriff’s sale.”

  “Well, he won’t come. He’ll be in jail.”

  Greg carried his toolbox to the truck, me trailing him. “He’ll be out on bail as of tomorrow morning.” He sounded resigned. “The only good thing is, he won’t be able to leave the area, so some other town will be spared his presence.”

  “Bail? He tried to kill you!”

  “Did he?”

  Again that uncertainty. “Weird,” I said. “Weird, weird, weird.”

  “Agreed. Now let’s get you home.”

  We climbed into the cab, this time with him in the driver’s seat.

  “Pull down the alley,” I said as we approached the café. “And don’t forget that you’re coming up to let me clean out those cuts of yours.”

  He made a face, but he followed me as I led the way up the stairs to the second-floor apartment Lindsay and I shared.

  How couple-y.

  10

  They say it’s hard to dispose of the dead body of someone you killed. Whether you meant their death or not is irrelevant. Corpses tend to bleed all over you and the surroundings. They’re a dead weight, ha, ha. They release strange fluids and gases. And they get stiff as boards, making lugging them a challenge.