"Not a word," he said.
* * *
While he'd been inside the store, the sky had melted to black. On the drive to his place, fog blanketed the highway, moisture beading the windshield. His brain felt foggy, too. Seeing Alex had lifted his spirits, but now that he was on his own the brooding melancholy returned. Momentum had carried him through the day, but now that energy was spent and he was like a rock rolling to a standstill. Why was he doing this again? She was just some girl. Nobody had come looking for her. If he stopped this ridiculous foray back into his old ways, who would care?
There was something lurking in the gray world of his past, a terrible turmoil waiting around the next corner or the next bend. He knew that if he continued on this road, he risked plunging himself back into all that madness. After Janet was killed, there were whole weeks that passed that he had no memory of—he'd been in a walking coma, living in a world of fog and shadows. He didn't want to go there again. He didn't know if he could go there again, if anything could trigger that kind of strange delusion, but he didn't want to find out.
She was just a dead girl on a beach. It was an awful thing, but it wasn't his responsibility. He was a stubborn man once he'd set himself on a path, but he could talk himself out of it. Maybe, for once, he should.
This was what he was thinking when he parked his van and walked across the gravel to his front door. The air was cold and wet. The porch light was dark, but there was enough light from street lamp on the corner that he saw them right away—pieces of gravel arranged on the smooth gray concrete in front of his door.
His pulse quickened. Up close, he finally saw that the little stones had been arranged into letters, and the letters into words:
THER AR OTHR GRLS
Chapter 7
The firs and tanoaks murmured in the breeze. Crisp leaves skittered down his roof and floated to the ground. The night, an impenetrable murk, closed in from all sides. The thick air felt like a wet sponge, dipped in ice water, pressing against his cheeks. Gage felt a chill run down his spine, but he knew it had nothing to do with the cold.
There are other girls.
He glanced around him, searching for a person in the shadows enveloping his property—in the wall of arbor vitae, in the ivy strangling the trunks of the oaks, in the low-lying branches of the firs. For a moment, a spindly shape next to the metal garden shed looked like a crouching person, giving him a jolt, but then he remembered that it was a maple sapling still in its pot, the one he'd bought from the nursery a few weeks earlier. Bought and forgot, like so many other things.
He stepped over the gravel, unlocked his door—he was relieved it was still locked—and stepped into a dark house. The house was still except for the hum of the refrigerator, the huge uncurtained bay window gaping an ominous black.
"Hello?" he said.
Gripping his cane like a club, he turned on the living room lights first, then did the same in the bedrooms. Nothing had been disturbed. He was going to turn on the light in his bathroom, but when he reached for the switch a terrible nausea overwhelmed him; his eyes blurred, and he felt sharp stabbing pain in his temple.
Not in there.
Never know what he'd find.
Something awful. Someone he loved, dead.
When he stumbled back to the front door, the feeling passed. His back was already greased with sweat; underneath his jacket, his shirt stuck to his skin. He retrieved his flashlight from the closet by the front door, turned on the porch light, and stepped outside.
The porch light cast its amber net over the porch, but the rest of the yard was steeped in shadows. Taking his time, feeling unsteady with his cane, Gage searched the area around the letters first, looking for footprints. He found none other than his own. He shined the flashlight on the gravel, looking for footprints or tire tracks other than those from his van, but he couldn't find any.
He started down the driveway, and there, a dozen feet from his front door, he found a footprint. It wasn't in the gravel, but in the mud sloping in on the drive—a right footprint, pointed downhill, deep like from a boot. The strangest thing was that there were no waffle-iron tread marks; the print was oddly flat and smooth. He held his own right foot over the print; whoever it was had feet quite a bit smaller and narrower than his own.
Could have been someone else, but he doubted it. Not in the winter, with the frequent rains. He walked down the rest of the drive, probing with his flashlight, but he didn't find any other tracks. Even if there had been something, Gage himself may have erased the evidence when he drove up in his van.
Back in his well-lighted house, he fixed himself a bourbon on the rocks and drank it slowly at the kitchen table. His own haggard face gaped at him from the reflection in the bay window. His hand shook when he brought the glass to his lips. What the hell had happened to his nerves? He'd never been rattled this way before, not by anything. Who was this person staring back at him, this old guy with the gaunt face and the thinning hair? Some old cripple, that's who. It wasn't the man he remembered being.
He has other girls.
Finally, the bourbon began to take hold, his cheeks warming, his hands steadying. He racked his brain for who might have left the message there. Already, there was a long line of people who knew he was investigating the girl's death—Alex, Mattie, Zoe, Chief Quinn, Carmen Hornbridge, all the people at the tattoo shops. There were the people in Tsunami's who might have overheard him when he got into that argument with the cop. All the cops probably knew who he was by now. Heck, the gossip had probably spread so fast that half of Barnacle Bluffs knew.
But somebody knew something more.
Not only did they know something, they felt compelled to tell him—without telling him all that much.
But why? Why not just send him a letter with no return address, with all the details he needed to know? Why all the fun and games with rocks? There was a lot loaded into that one sentence. He imagined rows of young women all washed up on the beach, arms and legs tangled. He imagined them all gazing up at the sky with unblinking eyes.
* * *
He didn't remember falling asleep, but he woke to someone knocking. It jolted him upright, his heart racing. He was in the leather recliner, the living room filled with pale, watery light. Rain tapped on the roof and streaked the windows. Yesterday's Oregonian lay on his lap.
It took him a moment to get his bearings—blinking away the bleariness in his eyes, rubbing his sore neck. Whoever was at the door knocked again. What was with all the knocking? He groped for his cane, remembered he'd left it in the bedroom when he'd finally given up on sleep the previous night, then threw off the afghan. His holstered Beretta was on the floor and he covered it with the newspaper. Then he hobbled to the front door. He was dressed in a thin white T-shirt and a pair of boxers, but he could at least peek out and see who it was.
He was glad he'd swept the rocks off the patio the previous night. It wasn't the sort of information he was ready to share with anybody.
When he cracked open the door, cool air jetted inside. Carmen Hornbridge stood on his patio under a black umbrella. A shiny black Camry was parked next to his van. She wore a gray trench coat over a burgundy turtleneck, black pants, and shiny black boots. Her blonde hair, down this time, billowed in the breeze. In the early morning light, her eyes were a bold emerald green. She flashed him one of her million-dollar smiles.
"You look like crap," she said.
"Why, it's nice to see you, too, Miss Hornbridge."
"Can I come in?"
He was going to say something about getting more properly dressed, but it was too late. She was already standing in his foyer, water dribbling from her raincoat onto his vinyl. She folded her umbrella and turned to him, and that's when she finally saw what he was wearing. Her eyes widened.
"Oh," she said.
"I wasn't really expecting visitors," he explained.
"I can tell." Her gaze lingered, then she peered into his house. She noticed his setup on the reclin
er—the mussed-up green afghan, the newspaper open on the floor, the bag of chips, and the half-empty glass of water. She looked at him, eyebrows arching. "Rough night?"
He was glad he'd at least covered the Beretta. "I guess one of these days I should get a phone."
"Oh, why bother entering the twentieth century when it's already gone? Maybe if you wait long enough phones will go out of style."
"Right. If you can hold on a minute, I'll put on some clothes."
"Probably a good idea."
Her eyes twinkled with an inner merriment. He couldn't tell if she liked what she saw or if it was just the comical nature of the situation she found amusing. He caught the scent of her perfume. Jasmine? Feeling off-balance, and his head still sluggish, he left her there in the foyer. When he was in his bedroom, she heard her opening kitchen cupboards.
"Garrison?" said. "Where's your coffee beans?"
"You don't have to do that," he called out to her.
"It's no trouble. Ah, I found them. Go ahead and take your time—shower if you want. I'll make a pot for us."
Gage didn't know her well enough to leave her unattended in his house while he was in the shower, and probably wouldn't have even if he did know her better, considering that she was a reporter, but he did take a minute to splash cold water on his face, shave with the electric razor, and straighten his hair. By the time he returned dressed in tan slacks and a silver-blue button-up shirt, it had been less than ten minutes. Her trench coat had been flung over the back of the kitchen chair. The coffee maker was percolating and Carmen was getting down two mugs from his cabinet. The Irish cream and sugar were already on the counter.
She surveyed his new attire and nodded in approval. "You clean up nice."
"Thanks. Mind telling me what you want?"
"Aww. That's pretty blunt. What if I said I was just stopping by to say hello?"
"Sure."
"I'm part of the official Barnacle Bluffs Hospitality Brigade. We like to check up on all our citizens from time to time to see how they like life here on the great Oregon coast."
"Uh huh. So that's what you do for fun on Saturdays?
"Fun?" she said. "What's that?"
She poured the coffee. He took his with a splash of Irish cream; she took hers with more cream and sugar than coffee. The aroma alone was enough to sharpen his senses and add a little clarity to his thinking. They sipped from their mugs and sized each up across the counter.
"I looked you up on the Web thingy," she said.
"Web thingy?"
"That's a technical term in journalism." She put her mug on the counter and cupped it with her hands, looking into the coffee. Strands of steam threaded past her face. "You have a pretty interesting past, Garrison."
"That's one word for it."
"Why did you move out here?"
"Why does it matter?"
She looked at him. "Was it to disappear?"
"Is there something I can help you with, Miss Hornbridge, or did you just stop by for the free coffee?"
"Touchy, touchy. You knew I'd ask, right? I am a journalist. And you've got a past that's pretty damn intriguing to a journalist. I'd love it if you'd tell me a little more about what led you to move to Barnacle Bluffs."
"I think it should be pretty obvious from what you read."
"That's the official version. I want your story."
He said nothing, letting the silence fill the moment.
"Well," she said, shrugging, "I guess that's fair. Maybe you'll trust me enough in time. I actually stopped by about our mutual interest. I heard you were a busy boy yesterday."
"Oh yeah?" Gage said. "Who'd you hear that from?"
She smiled. "I'll tell you that when you tell me what you learned yesterday."
"Miss Hornbridge—"
"Come on, call me Carmen. It won't kill you."
He sighed. "Carmen, I told you I'd keep you in the loop. And I will. But I'm not going to tell you every time I get some sort of lead. Most of them won't go anywhere, so it would just be wasting your time."
"Oh, so you have a lead then? What sort of lead?"
She grinned like a mischievous pixie. He had to admire her persistence. But the last thing he needed was for her to print something that would make his job that much tougher. He'd been down that road. The press could be a powerful weapon when used properly, but it was often like taking a shotgun to a problem that required a pistol. He had the feeling he was knee-deep in sleeping vipers, and one wrong move would wake them. There might come a time to wake them up, but it wasn't now.
"All right, I'll tell you this much," he said, "I think I might know why she came to the coast. That's it, though. I don't even have a name yet."
"Why she came to the coast?" Carmen said. "How'd you get that?"
"I'll tell you that if you promise not to run any stories on it."
She laughed. "You know I can't do that. It's hard enough these days to sell newspapers without sitting on something juicy."
"Well, then you'll have to wait on the details." He rounded the counter to the coffee pot.
"Aw, come on, Gary—"
"The only person ever to call me Gary was my grandmother. I never liked it."
"Well then, I certainly won't do it again. But you've got to give me something here. Do you know how deep in the red my little paper is? Newsstand sales have picked up since the girl's death, but I haven't had much to report lately."
"So what, you're trying pity on me?"
"No, I'm pleading with you to support a free and independent press."
"Oh, I support it all right. I just don't work for it."
He had his back to her as he refilled his coffee. He could feel her staring at him. It was strange, having an attractive woman in his kitchen. It had been a long time. He was afraid that if he turned and looked at Carmen, she'd see this on his face, and he didn't want her to see that. He opened the fridge and took out a carton of eggs.
"I think I'm going to make some breakfast," he said. "Interested?"
"Tim Paige called me," she said.
"What?"
"The owner of TP Piercings and Body Art. He told me you were asking questions about her tattoo. I know him pretty well. He's run some ads in the Bugle."
He heard something in her voice. He looked at her and saw that it was in her eyes, too. "You know him better than that," he said
"Huh?"
"You two date or something?"
"No! It's nothing like that."
"Hmm. I'd say the lady doth protest too much."
She shook her head, but there was a hint of pink on her cheeks. So she wasn't so unflappable after all. Good to know. It made her seem more vulnerable—and more attractive.
"He's asked me out a few times," she said. "I've always said no. Look, I'm trying to do a little quid pro quo here."
"You're not offering much quid."
She pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes. "Did anybody ever tell you that you look a little like Harrison Ford?"
"Flattery won't work any better than pity, lady."
"Actually, I wasn't flattering you. You've got that same sort of rugged features and sad intelligence in your eyes. It's a nice combination."
"Right."
"I'm serious! Okay, whatever, try to pay a guy a compliment . . . Listen, I gotta go. But can I assume you learned about her from one of the tattoo artists on the coast?"
"You can assume whatever you want."
"Jesus, you're being a hard ass. Okay, fine. But if I get some more quid that's of interest to you, will you be willing to offer up some quo?"
He nodded. "I'd certainly consider it. Anything that helps me get to the bottom of her death faster, the better. I honestly don't care who gets there first."
"Unless it's me, of course."
"No, it's not that. And you're smart enough to know it."
He held her gaze. They were less than two feet apart, close enough that he saw the gloss of her lipstick, the few freckles she had on her nose. Th
ere had been times when he and Janet had made love in the kitchen, when the mood had overcome them when they were standing just like this. It was mostly because of Janet. She'd told him once that there was something about the presence of food, all those tastes and textures and smells, that was a powerful aphrodisiac.
He felt a warmth spreading up his neck to his ears, and was about to say something to break the tension, when she looked away.
"Okay, then," she said, heading for the door.
She grabbed her jacket and her umbrella. He followed her to the door, opening it for her. She passed so close that he got a good whiff of her perfume again. Definitely jasmine. Cool air streamed in from outside.
"What about you, Carmen?" he said.
"Huh?"
"You must have a reason for moving to Barnacle Bluffs, just like me."
They were inches apart. Her smile never waned, but for just a moment her eyes went dead—gray and flat like the sea on an overcast day. It was there for only a second before the bemused twinkle returned, but it was unmistakable. And it was startling.
"Maybe someday I'll trust you, too," she said.
* * *
When she was gone, he gobbled up some eggs and toast, then took a shower. Cold. The coffee hadn't fully swept the cobwebs from his brain, and he needed an extra jolt after talking with Carmen. He had to get a hold of himself. It wouldn't help anything if he let himself get confused. There were some doors that had been closed long ago and he didn't see how they'd ever re-open.
After a quick call to Mattie from the payphone at the gas station—they were sending her home that afternoon, and she insisted that Zoe was fine taking her—he set out that morning to visit every art-related store or gallery in Barnacle Bluffs. If that failed to turn up anything, he'd do what he did yesterday and head south along the coast. Saturday was a big tourist day, even in the winter, so he knew he'd find them open.
The Gray and Guilty Sea Page 6