“You know, Ely, I thought I had been through it all with Neal. I thought I had finally got him out of my system for good. And then this happens, and suddenly he’s thrust back into my life. I can’t believe he’s dead, Ely. In fact, I don’t believe it. And I’ve got my reasons.” I shook my head and stared out to sea. “Life’s so strange sometimes.”
“Yeah, I know. I mean, look at me.” She did a little pirouette in the sand. “Who’d have thought, after all the shit I’ve been through, that I’d end up like some little debutante in a sailor suit?” We both laughed loud and hard. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t all that funny.
“Did you know the girl, Ely? The one who was with him. I found out she used to stay out at Harbor House.”
“What was her name?”
“Patty Krix.” As soon as I said the name, I saw the recognition in her eyes.
“Patty was with Neal?”
“Yeah. I guess they’d been seeing each other for a while. When I found out she’d lived at Harbor House, I thought maybe you could tell me something about her. Did you know her?”
We walked past a surf fisherman wearing hip waders, casting his line into the waves. He had white hair and a fluffy white mustache. He looked a little like Einstein.
She took a while to answer, as though she was choosing her words carefully. It seemed so out of character for this impetuous girl. I watched her face closely to see if she was telling the truth. One of the first skills learned in a life on the streets was the ability to lie without any trace whatsoever of moral conflict. Elysia was an artist.
“Yeah, I knew Patty. Not real well, but I knew of her. I saw her around.”
“What kind of girl was she?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.” Her face seemed to close down, and she turned away from me to stare at the sea.
The last of the sunlight was gone now. The sky inland had gone patchwork with swatches of pink and red and bronze, while the sea had already turned the blue-black color of a bruise.
We walked together for quite a while without talking, enjoying the fresh, moist air as night closed in around us. In the past, I had found it useless to try to force Elysia to talk. So I just waited, watching the stars winking their way into the darkening sky, knowing that, like any seventeen-year-old, she would eventually fill the silence.
“I can’t believe she’s dead,” Ely said at last. “I mean, she’s like the last one I would have expected.”
“Why’s that?”
“Patty’s like, or was like, somebody who was always in charge. If you were going to go somewhere or do something with her, you’d always have to do it her way.”
“Mmm,” I said, convinced that the less I said, the more she would explain.
“I didn’t like her at all when she first came to the House. She’d been there less than a week, and she had everybody doing things for her, trying to be her friend. Even James fell for it.”
“Who’s James?”
“He’s the director at the House. You know him, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t think so. I know that lady, the one who’s always at the front desk. Minerva’s her name, I think.”
“Yeah, she really runs the place. James isn’t really there all that much. You don’t see him around too often, but he is the one who’s well known—he’s in the papers and on TV and stuff, he does all the charity events and fund-raisers, and he handles the money side, and, well, he’s just involved in lots of other things.” She turned away and shut down again. It was too dark now to see her face, but I knew the look by heart.
“What do you mean, ‘James fell for it’?”
She didn’t answer for a long time. I was afraid I had pushed her too far. But then her voice started again, with a higher-pitched, childlike quality to it. It sounded like she was afraid. “Patty was one of those kinds of people who just always thought she was right about everything. And she was wild; she always needed excitement. She wasn’t afraid to try anything ’cuz nothing scared her.” She paused for a moment, looking down at the sand. When she spoke again, I could barely make out the words. “There are things that go on there, Seychelle, things you don’t know anything about.”
Before I could find out what she was talking about, a large hand appeared out of the semidarkness, grabbed my left arm just above the elbow, and jerked me back and sideways. I could tell from the little yelp that Elysia had been grabbed, too. My attacker was a big guy wearing a Florida Marlins baseball cap pulled down low on his forehead. He seemed to tower over me—he must have been at least six feet four, but it was too dark to make out any features on his face.
“We just want to talk to you. Don’t scream.” His voice sounded Anglo, oddly high-pitched and gravelly, but I could barely hear him over the loud rasp of my own rapid breathing.
“Where’s Garrett?”
I stared at him openmouthed, frightened, but still not quite able to comprehend what was going on.
He shook me, and I felt like a rag doll as I flopped around at the end of his arm. “Come on, where’s he at?”
At first, it didn’t even register what he was asking me. I tried to twist around to see what was going on with Elysia. Another guy had her by the arm. He was much shorter, but extremely wide, undoubtedly a bodybuilder, and he wore a cap pulled down low over his face. He was holding his hand over Ely’s mouth.
“Hey, bitch, talk to me. We ain’t gonna hurt ya.” Big Guy squeezed my arm tighter, and my fingers started tingling.
“You’re already hurting me.”
The shorter guy holding on to Elysia laughed at that, an incongruously deep chuckle given his height, which only seemed to make the big guy madder.
“Shut up, man.”
At that, Shorty took his hand from Ely’s face and pointed his index finger at Big Guy. He started to say, “You—” but then Ely screamed. He swung his arm, backhanding her in the face, and the force of the blow caused her head to snap back. Again he started cursing in that weird deep voice, and clamped his hand over her mouth.
Big Guy turned back to me.
“We ain’t gonna buy no bullshit disappearing act. We wanna have a little talk with him.” He tightened his grip, and I winced, my eyes damp from the pain. “Where the fuck is Garrett?” He twisted my arm, nearly lifting me off the ground.
Until then, I’d felt afraid, and I’d been sucking for air as though there weren’t enough oxygen in the atmosphere. But between Ely’s slap and my arm nearly getting twisted off, my gut changed from Jell-O to fire.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, asshole. I don’t know anybody named Garrett,” I said as I dug the toes of my right foot deep into the sand.
“I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Ely, I think these guys have mistaken us for someone else. I think we’d better be leaving.”
“You know who I’m talking about.”
“I do?” I tried to look innocent as I loosened a mound of sand on top of my foot.
“Garrett. Your boyfriend. We just want to ask him a few questions.”
All at once I bent forward from the waist, pulling his upper body down with me. At the same time I flipped a footfull of sand right up into his face. I turned my face aside, avoiding getting any grit in my own eyes, but Big Guy let out a bellow, released my arm, and began pawing at his eyes. Straightening up, I glanced over at Ely in time to see her swing those spike-heeled sandals into the crotch of Shorty’s nylon board shorts, hook them, and then yank upward with all her might. He let out a noise that sounded inhuman, more like a cat losing a fight.
We took off running as fast as we could toward the lights and crowds of A1A. Apparently we hadn’t done any permanent damage, as I could soon hear labored panting a distance behind us, mixed with assorted curse words. It seemed to take us forever to get to the highway. I could hear them coming, closer now.