I opened my eyes and found that the sea hadn’t boiled and the sky hadn’t turned blood red while I’d been gone. I blinked a couple of times. The FBI agent was watching me closely.
“How sure are you that it’s Sean?” I asked, amazed at the calm, level tone of my voice.
“Pretty sure. ‘Course we’ll need a formal ID, but there was a wallet in the guy’s back pocket with credit cards and a Brit driver’s licence. He was also wearing a real nice Swiss wristwatch – a Breitling. That should be easy enough to trace. Expensive piece and still ticking, so they tell me, which is quite something given the state the body was in. Those Swiss really know their stuff, huh?”
“Shut up!” It was Trey who spoke, his voice harsh and on the edge of cracking. He broke away from Harriet and stumbled forwards, glaring at Andrew. “Just shut the fuck up, man! Don’t you know she was, like, in love with him? Just leave her alone!”
“Leave it, Trey,” I said quietly, too numb even to feel embarrassment at his outburst. The boy glared between us, his mouth tight and an ugly mottled pink splashed across his cheekbones. After a moment he sighed gustily and turned away, letting his arms flop. Harriet gently put her arm across his narrow shoulders and steered him back towards the kitchen.
Andrew Till wasn’t being deliberately cruel, I knew. He wasn’t trying to hurt or provoke me. Dealing with death on a regular basis gives you a tinge of black humour that it’s sometimes difficult to shake. You grow a thicker skin and laugh it off, or you let the weight of old bones bury you alive in ghosts and nightmares.
I got to my feet, still clutching the flowered bag. Till rose, also. His face, which had started to show a hint of pity, sympathy even, turned wary and his eyes went professionally cool and flat again.
“You and I both know who’s responsible, don’t we?” I said.
“No, but I sure know who you think is responsible.”
It wasn’t much, but at least it showed that he recognised someone else had played a part in all this. It wasn’t solely down to me. A tiny blade of hope began to form, to take an edge from dullness.
“So what are you planning on doing about it?” I demanded.
“We are pursuing a number of leads at this time,” he said, suddenly coming over all official-speak. “We aren’t discounting any theories. It will be thoroughly investigated, Charlie. You have my word on that.”
It was something in his voice that tipped me off.
“Tell me,” I said, conversational, “how long have I got before your SWAT team arrives?”
Walt looked resigned, I saw, almost a little disappointed. Harriet just stood and gaped disbelievingly. Till almost smiled. His eyes shifted slightly to the face of the clock on the far wall of the living room. “‘Bout ten minutes,” he said easily. “Maybe a little less.”
“In that case I’m afraid you’re going to have to shoot me to keep me here,” I said. “I’m not staying to be arrested while you let Sean’s killers walk. If you won’t find them, I will.”
I turned my back and took a step towards the door out onto the back lawn, the one we’d come in by.
“Hold it right there, missy!” the FBI agent’s voice rapped out. “Don’t make me do this.”
I turned back and found he’d finally completed that fast draw and brought his pistol out and up and level in a textbook double-handed Weaver stance. From where I was standing the sizeable opening in the end of the barrel looked like the deck gun of a frigate.
“Andrew, don’t you dare!”
Outrage deepened Harriet’s voice so that, to begin with, I thought it was Walt who’d made the protest, but it wasn’t.
“Aunt Harriet, please, get out of the way,” Till said, the anguish clear in his voice as the old woman stepped, stubborn and determined, into his line of fire. “You know I have to take her in.”
“I know you do, dear,” Harriet said, facing him steadily, “but just not today.”
Trey edged round her carefully and joined me by the door.
“Stay here,” I told him quickly, pleading, one eye still on the FBI agent’s gun. He’d lowered it now, but was still ready if he got his chance. “You’ll be safe here. Special Agent Till will protect you.” Better than I can. Better than I will for what I have to do now.
Trey cocked me a sideways glance. “No way, man,” he said. “That’s your job.”
I looked up, taking in Walt and Harriet and Andrew Till in a fast sweep. I shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry,” I said to nobody in particular and pushed open the outside door.
***
We moved up the beach at a hurried jog, trying to put some distance between ourselves and the house. I stumbled along, forcing my limbs into an uneven rhythm. Ahead of me I could see the pier near the Boardwalk and the stepped sides of the Adam’s Mark hotel opposite the Ocean Center where the car show was taking place. It seemed a long way away, partly shrouded by the morning heat haze, but it became my target. If we could reach there, the bustle and the crowds, we would have sanctuary.
I didn’t look back, didn’t want to see if yet another group of men with guns was chasing us. I didn’t know if Harriet would hold sway over her nephew, would persuade him to let us run, but somehow I doubted it. Not for long, at any rate.
Trey ran alongside me with an easy stride I hadn’t expected for such a gawky kid. I’d thought him too much of a computer nerd to have any flair for athletics. Somehow the two were mutually exclusive.
He kept cocking sideways glances in my direction as we went but I didn’t look at him. I just kept running, my eyes on the soft sand in front of my next stride. It was the only way I could see past the wailing that was going on inside my head.
The heat crushed down onto me, weighting my limbs, making me punch-drunk. Eventually, when we’d covered the best part of a mile, Trey dropped back to a jog, gasping. I vaguely registered him falling away but momentarily couldn’t work out what it meant. There was a pause, then he caught me up again, staggering now.
“Hey Charlie,” he protested, breathless and pained. “Hey c’mon Charlie, slow down.”
Still I ignored him, my only focus on putting one foot in front of the other. It didn’t immediately register that he’d grabbed hold of my arm until I swung, half off balance. I looked round, almost surprised to see him clinging on there.
For a moment I failed to recognise his face. He was a stranger to me. His mouth was moving but I couldn’t hear the words. Then the noises of the beach suddenly rushed in and regained their natural volume.
“Charlie, c’mon man, snap out of it!” Trey shouted. There was something in his voice that it took me a moment to place. Then it clicked – panic.
The identification of Trey’s fear acted as a catalyst. I shook myself, tried to break free of the all-consuming grief that was paralysing my mind. As I surfaced my stride faltered, as though I was diverting energy from my limbs to control my emotions.
I stumbled, going down on my knees in the hot sand. Trey dropped next to me, his skinny fingers still clamped round my upper arm. In the warm gust of breeze from the sea I realised there was a wetness on my cheeks, that the tears were circling my mouth to drip unheeded from my chin.
For a moment Trey seemed utterly lost. He let go of my arm, put a tentative hand on my shoulder instead and gave me a little shake.
“C’mon, don’t go all girlie on me, Charlie,” he said, and that scornful teenage note was back with a vengeance. Before I could respond, he hit me again, caustic. “They said you were just somebody’s girlfriend. Looks like they were right, huh?”
It was the tone rather than the words that cut through and began to bite. I looked up, dazed, expecting to see bitterness and contempt on his face. Instead all I saw was a scared kid who was doing the only thing he could think of to shock me out of my stupor.