“What’s your problem?”
“My problem,” Brandon said, “is that I’m soaked to my fucking marrow, I’m tired, and I miss my own bed—and I’m sick of you disrespecting the roof I’ve put over your head.”
Aaron blinked. The dimple vanished. “Dude, I appreciate it. I appreciate you taking me in.”
“Then stop dropping your bullshit on my doormat. I hear the word ‘dump’ again, you’re—”
A threat? An abuse of hospitality, to his own brother? They hadn’t gone there before. Boris had pushed Brandon to the verge of taking back that extra brass key he’d had made at the local big box hardware store.
“I hear it again, and you’re sleeping in the tub.”
“All right, man. Fuck,” Aaron said.
“And on this subject, how about you pick up after yourself, you fucking slob. Maybe then it wouldn’t be such a dump. I’m not your maid.”
Aaron flashed a cocky smile. “No, my maid would have bigger tits and less chest hair.”
Unable to bottle his laughter, Brandon fired a good-natured punch at Aaron’s shoulder. He didn’t want a son but mostly he liked having a brother.
“Ow,” said Aaron.
“Ow?” Brandon parroted. “Maybe you should be the maid. As a matter of fact, tomorrow bright and early you get the honor of cleaning the apartment, front to back, top to bottom.”
“Oh, man…” Aaron started. He choked down the words he clearly wanted to stay and, instead, settled for, “Fair’s fair.”
“It sure as fuck is,” Brandon said, killing any further debate on the subject.
The chop rocked Avello. Final approach wasn’t nearly as bad as maneuvers through the harbor; still, water chugged and glugged in that thin strip between pier and ferry.
He’d donned his rain slicker, readied to caution an unknown number of passengers to watch their steps, and headed down from the pilothouse to the middle deck, and from there to the main, forced to remind himself of those same words when his right sneaker slid, the grooves making the glide forward a short one.
From the main deck, he made out numerous bodies—a rapid headcount totaled twenty-one, though the figure grew by the time he reached the last, according to the bent shapes hurrying through the rain, toward the awning. The storm offered one final lightning flash, distant and diminished, and a grumble from the clouds that caused the bodies cowering beneath raincoats, suit coats, and one trench coat to quicken pace.
Captain Laighton moved aside the soaking-wet sandwich board that blocked the gangway.
“Folks,” he called. “Now boarding for Hyannis. Have your tickets ready, and watch your step.”
He took their tickets. Passengers boarded.
“This way, folks,” Rading said. “It’s gonna be rough out there tonight, and we ask you to exercise caution and not linger on the open deck—not that you’ll want to. There’s plenty of room inside.”
“Thanks,” Brandon said, not sure why. Maybe because he was so thankful to be at the absolute farthest tip of a vacationer’s paradise he never planned to visit again; that he was twenty feet closer to mainland Cape Cod, where his truck was parked in the long-term lot, waiting to take him and Aaron home.
The apartment was a dump, but it was his, and he was running on fumes. After plunking his butt on the length of hard bench inside the passenger section on the first deck, it struck him that Boris had been a real bastard on Cardigan. What made him think the jerk had been any more of a gentleman on the coast of Massachusetts? He’d paid for two days’ worth of parking, a real rip-off as that was. Had they ticketed or towed him? What about the trees? There were trees, big ones, along the pebbled edges of the lot. If one had fallen, smashed in his truck—
A squat man dressed in waterlogged loafers and a trench coat shoved past him. He’d seen the dude back at the Here and Now. The backpack hanging from the man’s fat sausage fingers socked him in the shoulder.
“Hey,” Brandon said.
The man tipped a disquieting glance over his shoulders from raccoon eyes ringed in deepening purple bruises. What emerged from the rabid animal’s lips in response was more snarl than sentence. Adding to the terrible image was a smell Brandon associated with something dead and rotting. In that sliver of a second after their gazes locked, he wondered if the sound came from the man or the backpack.
The raccoon continued on his way, up the staircase to the middle deck and, mercifully, out of sight.
“Douche,” said Aaron as he slid onto the bench beside Brandon.
“Be careful of that douche,” Brandon said. His eyes lingered on the patch of metal staircase, empty now of its first user.
Aaron made that snort again. His dimple blossomed, arrogant though without much to justify its existence.
Lester made it to the bathroom, thinking the middle deck would be the safest of the ferry’s three. The crew would be in and out of the top deck. Passengers fed up with waiting for the first ferry in three days would, he assumed, grab the first available seats on the lower deck. The middle seemed his best bet for crossing the Atlantic to Hyannis unnoticed, and from there to the rented car he planned to take across state lines, conveniently fail to return, ditching it at the earliest opportunity in some small town with a forgettable name populated by people absent of imagination beyond their single-lane roads and lone stoplight.
The galling irony of it all. The absolute and utter bullshit, he thought, plunking his ass on the toilet, the metal icy through the damp seat of his pants. Bullshit wasn’t even in the ballpark for the depth of the word he needed to describe the situation between Rona and their old man, the late Larry Lester, who’d willed the bitch all that he owned, every filthy cent. He was the first born, the son for fuck’s sake. Bullshit, and beyond.
Of course, Jack had gone at the old prick with a chair a week before father disowned son, because son had asked for a loan and father had denied the request.
“Bitch,” Lester said, and kicked the backpack for effect. The toe of his loafer jabbed the space he imagined that contained her mouth, hanging open with her fat tongue extended like a dog. He recoiled, because that dead old dog’s teeth were still hard enough to hurt.
Closing his eyes, Lester drew in a breath and waited. The ferry’s engines idled, their vibrations pulsing up through the deck plates, the toilet, through his goddamn bones. The waves sent his heart into a gallop. His right temple hammered close to his ear, unleashing a nagging whine like that made by a fly or mosquito.
Lester jabbed a fat finger into his ear. The opening wasn’t large enough to accommodate more than the very tip, enough to squelch the oily mix of wax and rain, maybe even blood. Rona’s blood. He’d never liked her, the bitch, but for a terrifying instant, he was back in that house, that big, beautiful house with its gargantuan rooms and top-of-the-line features, everything new, no residue of past family history infecting the life of the person who lived there. There sure would be a layer of ugly for the next owners of “Blue Breezes” to contend with.
Without warning, the wind shrieked. So did his sister, screaming to Get out! Just get the fuck out of my home! All along, he’d known he would kill her—he’d planned everything to lead up to that goal, hence why he brought along the gun, only he’d never added up the rental, the light travel, the actual steps to the front door until he’d swung that bit of statuary, cracking her skull open. Boris was both a bonus and hindrance.
The biggest surprise had been that whole twist about cutting off her head. He’d enjoyed that part at the start, but by the end when the designer carving knife, something big for fish, cracked through the last bit of resisting neck bone and her destroyed head plopped into the big plastic freezer bag, he was screaming, too.
Hurry up, hurry up, thought Lester.
The ferry seemed in no great hurry to comply with his wishes simply because he wished them. He’d wished for his share of the fortune his father made in technology and internet-based ventures. After the old prick croaked, all had gone to Rona.
To Rona, who wasn’t his first-born. Wasn’t the son. Hadn’t worked a day in her life, hadn’t suffered—not until, of course, the one two full rainy dusks behind.
“You idiot,” a wet voice gargled. Familiar. Female.
Jack Lester’s eyes shot open. His heart attempted to throw itself into his throat as he tracked the direction from which he believed it had originated.
The backpack twitched.
Lester froze.
It’s only settling after you kicked it, he tried to sell himself on the explanation. Or, and this he truly hoped, the ferry was pulling away from Cardigan Island, long last opening the way for escape.
8.
5:38 p.m., Saturday the Thirteenth
Cary approached the lone figure standing on the gangway, the ticket-taker. The captain. The rush of so many hasty steps and the stings of his wounds made speaking almost impossible.
“A man,” he said between sips of breath. “Come through here? Carrying a backpack?”
The eyes located between the yellow hood narrowed. “What?” the captain asked.
“Guy. Short. Wearing genie slippers and a trench coat?”
As soon as the words were past his lips, Cary regretted them.
“I’ve seen a dozen men in raincoats—it’s raining,” said the captain. “And twice as many backpacks. Are you okay?”
Cary reached for his face, aware of the captain’s scrutiny and the various aches from his features. The pounding inside his skull ramped up. His glasses made the bridge of his nose throb. “I’m a resident of the Sugar Beach Artists’ Colony.”
“I know the place. Are you traveling to the mainland? Because we’re both just getting wetter and wetter standing out here. So—”
“This guy broke in, attacked me. Crazy dude with a backpack and—”
“Look, shouldn’t you be speaking to the police? I’ve got a boatload of anxious passengers.”
“—genie slippers!”
Silence.
The rain fell.
The two men locked eyes. In that bottled gaze, Cary realized that he sounded like the real crazy guy.
He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out his pass. That prick was on board, he was sure of it. And once Cary found him, he’d make sure that miserable ogre-genie was the one bound to a length of rail by the time they reached Hyannis.
Cary navigated the ramp and entered the lowest of the indoor cabins, drenched as were most of his fellow passengers, anyone who hadn’t brought an umbrella and some who had, for Boris had twisted more than a few spokes inside out. He wiped his face, scanned the bedraggled huddles. A short line had formed off to one side near the bottom deck snack bar—men in suits that looked slept in. Cary did a double take. Both men were attractive. Brothers, he guessed, given their resemblance. The one he assumed to be younger, presently scratching at his chin, was so ridiculously handsome in his raw masculinity that it hurt Cary to look at him.
Cary told himself the ache owed to the ogre, the beast, not this male beauty. Blinking himself out of the spell, he scanned the rest of the passengers. The evil genie wasn’t there. He spied the stairs to the upper decks and moved toward them, past the two brothers, and up to the ferry’s next level.
* * * *
A hand tested the bathroom door, jolting Lester out of the fog. He blinked, and the backpack stabilized, just that and no more. He coughed to clear his throat. That sufficed to coax the unknown hand on the other side of the door to move along without the need for actual conversation.
It was only in his imagination, the result of overworked nerves and the knock to the noggin he’d suffered thanks to that queer’s unexpected show of resistance. Rona hadn’t said anything. Neither had her head, because its vocal cords had been severed, the bitch’s voice forever silenced. The trophy in the backpack with all that money, all those ill-gained diamonds, pearls, and other jewels, was dead.
A surly little smirk broke at the corners of Lester’s mouth. Dead, and he’d killed her. He only regretted that the current state of his affairs would necessitate a life of luxury some place hot and south of the border. He preferred the cold, though extradition treaties pretty much nixed the notion of Europe, except maybe for Russia—and that tired gray twat of an option held all the appeal of jerking off with a handful of broken glass for lubrication. South. The safe, deep remote places of South America. He could afford air conditioning now.
The hammer of his pulse slowed and vanished into the background. His head hurt, but the pain had diminished. Dare he think it? He felt one degree better. He might just make it off this patch of overpriced Hell and to Hyannis, and from there to his own little Heaven where he would rule and indulge and luxuriate.
Seeming to confirm Lester’s belief that the worse was over, the floor shook and the walls vibrated. Idle time had ended. The Avello’s engines roared to life.
The ferry began to move.
* * * *
Avello drew into reverse, glided atop the turgid surf, and crashed through waves, creating whitecaps. The ferry pushed out, pivoted, and rode the churned-up surface. She aimed her bow at the Cardigan Narrows, navigated the winding line between markers, and charged. Forward momentum building, she thrust ahead, passed the treacherous landmark of Halfway Rock that had feasted on so many keels dating back two hundred years. June-uary hung over the island in the form of dense gray clouds and a drilling rain. A brisk wind blew. Avello marched into the headwinds, turning her bow toward Hyannis, her aft toward the brick-lined avenues of downtown Cardigan Island, where the Here and Now served the best cheeseburgers and decent coffee.
Brandon tipped a look at the nearest of the cabin’s four windows. Beyond the raindrops spattered across the glass and a mile of gloom, blue lights flashed. Police cruisers, he realized. In the direction of the big houses out past the artist’s colony. Maybe one of the people still squatting at Claudia’s place had finally gone bat shit. He huffed a humorless chuckle under his breath, leaned back, and closed his eyes.
Avello chugged on.
Erin Wanamaker checked the sonar display. Seven images flashed, a pod of small whales, maybe Atlantic porpoise—well enough to starboard that their course didn’t pose any threat to the animals.
Cary Labonte scanned the upper deck. Empty. So was the men’s bathroom. No one braved the benches outside the relative warmth and dryness of the small cabin at the rear of the pilothouse. He checked the men’s head on the middle deck a second time and found the door still locked.
Cary wandered back to the lower deck, checked out the thinning line at the snack bar—still no dark genie present. Sensing the entire visit was wasted, he got into line and ordered a hot tea. A few stiff, mildly painful sips warmed his insides and put some context to the chaos. In Hyannis, he’d contact the cops, file a report, hop the next ferry back to Cardigan, and resume his stay. A wasted—
—only it didn’t seem like such a wasted effort after Cary sat on the hard wooden slats of the nearest bench, and his eyes wandered over to the brooding young man who clenched his jaw, conjuring forth a dimple that sent his heart into a gallop and his hands reaching into his messenger bag for a sketchpad and charcoal pen.
Cary began to sketch.
Aaron Dunne noticed the bedraggled young man staring from the cut of his eye.
Less than a mile to Avello’s starboard, the hungry, primitive monster tracking its next meal latched onto the sound of the ferry’s propellers and mass, and pursued.
Avello sped toward Hyannis.
The sea monster moved faster.
9.
6:11 p.m., Saturday the Thirteenth
“What the fuck are you looking at?” asked Aaron.
The unexpected anger in his brother’s voice roused Brandon out of his thoughts regarding the beautiful woman in the red polo shirt and khaki slacks standing in line at the snack bar. She’d ordered tea, dunked the bag. His brother’s question and the obscene way it was delivered drew her glances. She forced a smile, but the gesture
seemed tentative. Their eyes briefly connected.
Brandon smacked Aaron across the shoulder with the back of his hand. “Cut the shit. Seriously.”
“He’s staring at me,” Aaron grumbled. Then in a louder voice, he addressed the other young man directly. “Yeah, dude, you.”
Brandon tracked Aaron’s focus to the shaggy-haired youth sitting to their left, beneath the portside windows. He wanted to glance back, cross paths with her again, a woman in a basic nautical uniform that punched all of Brandon’s buttons. She wandered over, visible from the corner of his eye.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
Her voice robbed Brandon of his. Before he could respond, Aaron said, “You—why don’t you snap a picture. It’ll last longer.”
Shaggy shifted and adjusted his glasses. “It’s not what you think.”
“What I think,” Aaron started.
And then the young man who’d inspired such righteous rage held up the sketchpad. Captured in charcoal pencil was a perfect representation of Aaron Maynard Dunne, a moody, brooding snapshot captured in stunning detail.
“Whoa,” Aaron sighed, all anger gone from his voice. “That’s fairly fucking amazing!”
The artist smiled, tore the sheet from the book, and handed it over. “A peace offering.”
Aaron hesitated from accepting. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come off like a total dick.”
The artist tipped his chin, indicating for Aaron to accept the gift. “Total, no. Quarter, maybe. I had my encounter earlier in the day with the total dick. He was wearing a trench coat and carrying a backpack.”
Aaron started to take the drawing.
“Beautiful,” said the woman in the red polo shirt.
“I agree,” said Brandon, though he didn’t mean his brother’s portrait.
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