He looked down to his right, greeted the ceramic frog. “Morning, sir. Fine weather we’re having, wouldn’t you agree?”
The frog said nothing, but Lance thought its face was in agreement.
He made his way down the stone steps and through the wrought-iron gate, and when he got to the corner of the sidewalk, he looked across the road and saw Loraine Linklatter sitting under the sprawling tree in the small park he’d walked through the night before. Her back was to him, and she was very still. Her meditation, Lance remembered the Keatons saying.
Lance didn’t want to disturb the woman, but he also didn’t want her to think he’d dined and dashed. He checked both ways for traffic and, finding none, walked briskly across the street, his body feeling strong and energized after the rest and a good shower.
There was a stiff breeze blowing off the water and overtop the dunes, and Lance was thankful for his long-sleeved t-shirt. He wasn’t one to get cold often—hell, he wore shorts year-round—but a breeze could be an irritation if nothing else. He stepped over the curb and walked along the path until he reached the nearest bench, then he sat, figuring he’d enjoy the weather and the sound of the waves and maybe try his own moment of self-mediation until Loraine Linklatter was finished.
She was still facing away from him, sitting cross-legged on the ground, wearing yoga pants and a tight-fitting tank top. Beneath her was a faded blue blanket with white and yellow flowers.
Lance looked away, and then quickly looked back to the blanket.
Daisies
He felt an all-too-familiar twinge of sorrow and closed his eyes, breathing in the cool ocean air and trying to relax his mind.
It didn’t work.
He had too many thoughts bouncing around. Too many questions he needed to ask, with no clue who to ask them of.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Loraine Linklatter had stood, her bare feet flat on the blanket while she bent at the torso, first leaning left, holding it for a few seconds, then leaning right and doing the same. “I’m about to start my yoga, Lance, so this would be a great time to tell me whatever you’ve come to tell me.” She turned around to face him. “Unless you’d like to join me,” she added.
“Um, no, thank you, ma’am. Flexibility isn’t one of my strengths. I’d end up pulling something, and then you’d have to call the rescue squad to move me. Best for everyone if I decline.”
She shrugged. “Alright.”
“I really didn’t want to bother you, but I wanted to make sure you knew I wasn’t trying to run off without paying. I’m just headed into town for a while, but I’ll be back. I can pay you now if you’d like. You know, if you don’t trust me. I wouldn’t blame you. I’m a stranger.”
She waved him off. “I trust you. Call it a gut feeling. You ever get those?”
You have no idea.
“Yes, ma’am. I do.”
“Okay, then. I’ll see you back here later. Are you planning on staying another night at the Boundary House?”
“Yes, ma’am, if that’s alright with you.”
“Of course,” Lori said. “This is the off-season. Plenty of room.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Lance wasn’t sure when he’d decided that he would be spending another night at the Boundary House, but the words had tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he knew they were the truth. He wondered how many other truths he’d discover today.
Sensing the conversation was reaching its end, Loraine waved goodbye to Lance and started to turn back around, facing the dunes.
“I like your blanket,” Lance blurted, surprising himself. He’d instantly understood the meaning behind the blanket, the flowers, but for some reason he wanted to hear it from Loraine Linklatter. Wanted to see what she’d tell him. “Daisies are one of my favorite flowers.”
This was what you’d call a white lie. Lance didn’t have any real interest in any flowers, but it was a tactic he thought might prove useful. He didn’t know the specifics—did he ever?—but he was certain that the little girl he’d read a story to last night had more to do with him being here than she realized.
Lori turned back to him, glancing first down to the blanket beneath her feet and then back to Lance. She smiled, and Lance thought maybe it was the first real smile he’d seen from her. “They’ve always been my favorite,” she said. “I named my daughter after them.”
Lance nodded. “Very pretty,” he said, holding back his questions. He didn’t want to probe, didn’t want to invade her memory. He’d accept only what she wished to offer him.
“She died,” Loraine said, turning to look toward the dunes. A single seagull flew over the water, diving down out of sight and then quickly emerging again. “Cancer.”
Lance swallowed. “I’m so sorry.”
Loraine turned back to face him. “She was a fighter, though. Right till the end.”
Lance nodded. What could he say?
Loraine Linklatter gave off a laugh that was half amazement and half frustration. “God, she was so beautiful.”
Lance was quiet for a beat, letting Loraine compose herself. Then he said, “Just like the flower.”
Loraine looked up at him. Nodded once. “Just like the flower.”
Lance turned and started to walk toward the donut shop.
* * *
He walked past the regular houses he’d seen from the beach the night before, ones with secondhand cars in the driveway and the remnants of the spring and summer’s landscaping still clinging to life. Houses that looked lived in, yet tired. Charming, yet full of history, and maybe secrets.
They reminded him of his own home back in Hillston, and a quick passing of memories washed through him and then vanished, like the scent of a woman’s perfume as she walked by you. A momentary pleasure you couldn’t quite latch onto.
After these houses came an expanse of two blocks that sat vacant and empty, the only signs of life the weeds and fescue that grew through the sand. It was clearly meant to be a dividing line between the residential homes and the sprawling vacation homes, segregating the work from the play, fantasy from reality.
Lance paid little attention to the homes. A quick glance here and there to shake his head at their enormity, their excess, and then he moved on, continuing down the sidewalk, heading back into the heart of Sand Dollar Road.
A donut waiting for him.
He’d made it one block past the last vacation home when the black Ford Excursion nosed its way to a stop sign from a side street to Lance’s right.
The massive black SUV was like a mole on an otherwise unblemished patch of skin, its darkness a stark contrast to the bright sunlight and blue sky and colorful buildings waiting in the distance.
Lance kept walking, not wanting to stop and have it be noticed that he was staring.
Could be a different car, he thought. But he knew deep down it wasn’t. This was the same vehicle that had picked up the girl with the piercing blue eyes from the corner outside the diner last night.
The SUV made a right turn without using a turn signal, and Lance wished there’d been one of Sugar Beach’s finest in uniform parked nearby to see. If the Excursion had been pulled over, the driver would have to roll down the window. If the window was down, Lance could hopefully catch sight of a face.
Alas, the violation went unnoticed, and unless Lance planned on attempting a citizen’s arrest, he was left with no choice except to walk fast and try to keep his eyes on the SUV.
It was impossible to do, even as the Excursion hit two stoplights and waited its turn. Sand Dollar Road’s traffic was moderate this morning, and as Lance got further down the strip, with its restaurants and shops and motels, he started having to dodge other people on the sidewalk as well. After only a few blocks, the SUV was only a black speck on the horizon, fading fast.
Lance sighed and continued his walk, mostly staring down at the sidewalk and thinking. That was one of the best parts about walking everywhere—it gave you a lot of time i
n your own head to think things through.
It took a lot longer than he’d expected to make it back to the Sand Crab, which was locked up and dark this morning, sleeping off its hangover while it waited for the party to start all over again tonight. He again marveled at how far he’d managed to walk last night after leaving the lifeguard stand, especially as exhausted as he’d been.
But this thought was quickly pushed away, because as he approached the donut shop, there on the corner of the intersection was a girl in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, sitting on a cooler and holding a cardboard sign.
The black Excursion was just pulling out of the donut shop’s parking lot.
It was heading in Lance’s direction.
12
The sun was not on Lance’s side this morning, because when the Excursion drove past him, the glare on the windshield was perfectly positioned over the driver’s side of the windshield, almost like when they blur out faces on TV to protect someone’s identity. All Lance got through the windshield was a glimpse of an arm raised and then moving down, a to-go cup of coffee in hand. And then the SUV had moved on, headed the opposite direction.
Lance did not turn to watch it go, though he had a sudden longing to know where it parked itself at night, where its driver lived. He kicked himself for not trying to get a license plate number. Then maybe he could do like they did in books and TV, do some sort of research and find out who the car was registered to.
But who did he have to call? Where would he look?
He sighed and walked across the donut shop’s parking lot, beginning to think more and more that he needed a smartphone. Information at the tips of his fingers was something he was beginning to understand the value of now that he was constantly on the move, constantly presented with questions. Plus, it might be nice to be able to take a picture of something that didn’t always end up looking like a bigfoot sighting photo because of the poor camera quality.
He paused for a moment as he approached the door, standing to the side as a family of four walked out carrying a large box of donuts and laughing with each other—“Good morning,” the mother said cheerfully to Lance—and watched as the girl on the opposite corner at the intersection stood from her cooler as the light changed, holding up her sign as a few cars lined up.
Her hair was blond and her face was striking, sharp angles and clear skin. And though the sweatpants and sweatshirt were baggy, you could tell she had a decent figure.
But this was not the same girl from the corner near the diner.
The light changed and the cars drove on and the girl returned to the cooler, casting a glance across the street and making brief eye contact with Lance before she sat down.
Lance went inside to get his donut.
And to watch the girl.
* * *
Inside, the shop smelled of dough and sugar and freshly brewed coffee, and despite Lance’s large breakfast, his stomach made a noise that Lance recognized as its Feed Me voice. He ordered two chocolate glazed and a large coffee from a teenaged girl who looked half-asleep, yet was very polite, and took it all to a booth in the corner by the one of the front windows, sitting so he could look almost straight ahead and see the girl at the intersection.
He took a sip of coffee and a bite of donut. Both were very good.
From this angle, he could also read the girl’s sign when she stood and held it for the oncoming traffic to see:
COLD DRINKS - $1
GOD BLESS
Lance had seen enough panhandlers in his life—yes, even Hillston had occasionally had spurts of drifters stopping by and begging for assistance, whether warranted or not—and one thing most of them had seemed to learn was that when you said GOD BLESS, you managed to play some people like a fiddle, instantly drawing sympathy. It was like a cheat code for beggars. And though Lance was certain some of these people were good and truly down on their luck and meant the words on their sign, he was also sure some of them were simply pandering to a group of people they felt would be most likely to give them something. God bless ’em.
Lance sat and ate his donuts and sipped his coffee and watched as the girl sat and stood, sat and stood, working each passing stream of cars.
Nobody rolled down a window. Nobody bought a drink.
After about fifteen minutes, a thought poked his way into Lance’s brain and, though he hadn’t really needed further emphasis of this, stirred that feeling that something was wrong.
It’s almost winter, it’s still morning, and the high temperature today will be lucky to hit fifty-five. Why sell cold drinks?
He thought about the SUV driving around picking up and dropping off the girls throughout the day. It was some sort of operation, dare he say business. But in doing some quick math in his head, he figured there’d have to be an army of girls selling a completely unrealistic number of drinks at a dollar a pop—especially at this time of year—to even begin to make some sort of profit.
His first thought was drugs. That would make the most sense.
But then a police cruiser pulled up to the red light and rolled down its window, a hand waving a dollar bill in the air.
The girl got up from the cooler, opened it, and pulled out a can of soda. Walked over and swapped it for the dollar. Then the window went back up, the girl returned to the cooler, and the police cruiser drove on.
Right into the donut shop’s parking lot.
The officer parked, got out, and headed for the door.
He was carrying the soda can with him.
13
The police officer was a big man, standing at least as tall as Lance and weighing somewhere in the ball park of three hundred pounds, and Lance could tell that most of it wasn’t good weight. There might be some strength and power beneath it all, but Officer Soda Can was not setting any physical fitness records at the Sugar Beach station, Lance would bet his last donut on that.
He was middle-aged, maybe a bit older, similar to what Lance had guessed for Jon Keaton back at the Boundary House this morning during breakfast, and his hair was a sloppy gray mop atop his head. Big nose that looked as though it might have been broken a time or two, along with dark circles under his eyes and pasty skin that was shockingly pale for somebody who lived at the beach. His leather shoes squeaked as he walked across the floor to the counter, and the keys attached to his belt—along with the handcuffs, pepper spray and, yes, pistol—jingled along with each squeaky step.
His clutched the soda can in his right hand with fingers like sausages.
Sausages that could probably squeeze the life out of you without trying very hard.
“Morning, Mr. Tuttle,” the sleepy-yet-polite girl behind the counter offered. “The usual this morning?”
Officer Tuttle offered a weak grin and nodded. “Yes, please, April. That would be great.” Then he handed over a five-dollar bill and told April she could keep the change and waited while she handed over a tray with a single custard-filled donut and a large coffee.
While Lance was trying to figure out how a man Officer Tuttle’s size only ordered one donut, while somebody Lance’s size had ordered two—after eating a hearty breakfast—the man thanked April and squeaky-walked his way to a booth along the front wall of windows, a single empty booth separating him from Lance. He set everything down carefully, first the tray, and then his soda can, and then slid into the booth with a grunt and a sigh.
He ordered coffee, Lance thought. He’s got his soda right there and he ordered coffee.
Either Officer Tuttle had a very strange idea for a new mixed drink, or he was only going to be drinking one of the beverages while he ate his donut and planned on saving the other for later.
But why bring the soda can in with him?
Lance swallowed the last bit of his second donut and then washed it down with a sip of coffee, watching Officer Tuttle’s every move while trying not to be obvious, his eyes casually darting back and forth between the girl on the corner outside and the man in the booth in front of him.
Another bite a moment later, his eyes still cast down. Then his head shifted slightly to the right, like he was noticing something different. It stayed there a while, then darted back to face in front of him. Back and forth a couple times, just as Lance had been doing, spying on the man and the girl outside.
If only I could see his hands, Lance wished. At the angle he was seated, with the backrests of the booths rising up high, blocking anything but the view of Officer Tuttle’s chest and head, Lance was completely blind to what was happening on the table.
Finally, Officer Tuttle raised the cup of coffee into view and took a long sip, followed by another wipe of the mouth with the napkin.
Lance leaned back into the booth and sighed. It meant something, the fact that Officer Tuttle was drinking the coffee, yet had brought the soda can inside with him like some sort of pet. It was sitting right there on the table—though Lance couldn’t see it—and not in the car, which meant … what, exactly?
It means it’s valuable, Lance thought. It’s more than just soda. He doesn’t want it stolen … or lost.
Another follow-up thought, one that almost completely diminished the previous one: But who would break into a police cruiser in broad daylight? He can’t honestly think somebody would be able to steal it while he sits and watches from the window.
Lance downed the rest of his coffee and looked out the window. The girl was up again, holding her sign for the row of stopped traffic, which was now more than just a couple cars. It had grown to a long line stretching far down the road. Traffic was picking up, growing dense. Lance closed his eyes and tried to remember what day it was, coming around to the idea that it might be Saturday.
The Lance Brody Series: Books 3 and 4 Page 7