“Paul,” she said.
“Yeah.” He got to his feet again and flicked open the cylinder on the gun, checked the load, then spun it shut and walked to the stairs. It was very dark inside now, lights off and the clouds thickening, and he went up the steps in the gloom with the gun held out in front of him. Five rooms upstairs, five checks, five views of undisturbed furniture.
Back downstairs, he saw Rebecca crawling out onto the porch. He frowned, not wanting her to see that sight again. It was her brother, though, and if she was going to insist on seeing him, he wouldn’t stop her. He followed her onto the porch and pressed the gun into her hand and said, “Here. Use it if anyone comes. I’m going down to check the boathouse for Paul. Then we have to leave.”
She didn’t answer. He dropped her hand and she held on to the gun and stared out at the ocean. He watched for a few seconds and then told himself that there was nothing to be done for her right now, left the porch and jogged down to the boathouse.
It was incomplete, no roof on it yet, the smell of sawdust mingling with the brine of the sea and decaying fish. He checked the boathouse and walked the length of the dock and stared into the water and saw nothing. The boat was where it had been. He looked at it for a minute, hesitating. He didn’t want to take the time to go out to it, but he remembered that it was where Rebecca’s father had been left six months earlier, and maybe the act had been repeated with Paul.
He dragged the rowboat into the water, splashing out in a hurry, thinking that they’d been here for far too long already, and then he rowed out to the fishing boat and climbed aboard. Empty. Before he left he took the two rifles from the gun rack and tossed them down into the boat. They were loaded, but he didn’t see any additional shells and couldn’t take the time for a thorough search. When he reached the beach again, he carried a rifle in each hand as he jogged up the path to the Cypress House. Even the gulls were gone now; nothing could be heard but the waves. Any trace of that clear sky had vanished.
When he got back to the porch, he saw she was standing and was glad of that until she turned to him and said, “Why didn’t you know?”
“What?”
“You’re supposed to know!” she shouted, her face streaked with tears but her blue eyes alight with anger. “You’re supposed to see it coming! To be able to warn, to be able to stop it, why couldn’t you stop it!”
She’d rushed toward him with her hands raised as if she were going to strike him but fell into him instead and began to sob.
“Why couldn’t you stop it?”
“I didn’t see anything,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Rebecca. There was nothing there this morning. Something changed. Whatever happened… whoever came for him… they weren’t coming when we left this morning. Death wasn’t close to him then.”
The truth of that caught him, and he realized what it meant.
Someone had told Wade recently. Had they been coming to kill this morning, he should have been able to look into Owen’s eyes and see the promise of death there. But he hadn’t, and he thought now of the long delay Barrett’s federal contact had put them through, all of them sitting around the garage waiting for an arrival that never came, and understood the source of the leak. It wasn’t Barrett; it was someone in Tampa or Miami. The man who’d sent them back. What was his name? Cooper.
Rebecca was still crying against his chest and he wanted to hold her, but he had a rifle in each hand.
“Find out who did it,” she said.
For a moment he didn’t respond, just stood there numbly. Then he dropped the rifles and wrapped his arms around her and said, “I will. I promise. But right now we need to-”
“No,” she said, her lips moving against his neck, which was now wet with her tears, “find out now. Talk to him.”
“Rebecca… what are you-”
“You can speak to him,” she cried, pushing away from Arlen to look into his eyes. “You know you can, you can do it just like your father did.”
He shook his head, reaching for her again, but she stepped away.
“That’s not real,” he said. “I’m sorry, but that isn’t real, it can’t be done.”
“Yes, it can!” she shouted.
He wanted to argue, but those two words-There’s time-were trapped in his brain and with them the certainty that it was true, always had been true, his father’s gift was real and it was also his own.
“Owen’s dead,” he said in an unsteady voice. “He’s gone.”
“I know that. But you can hear him.”
She began to cry again then, and he held her for a while. He did not let her go on long, though. There wasn’t time. He pushed her back from him and said, “Come on.”
“What about Owen?”
“There’s nothing to be done.”
“We can’t just leave him here. We can’t-”
“I’ll see to him,” he said. “But you’re leaving.”
She shook her head, and he said, “Yes. You’re leaving. You have to.”
He took her unresponsive fingers and tugged her down off the porch and into the inn, retrieved the bag of money from where it lay on the floor, and then led her all the way up to the truck. She wore a face he’d seen often during the war after the shells had stopped, and he knew that her mind was not entirely her own anymore. That would pass, and when it did the real agony would sink its teeth into her. For now, though, it was better that she be this way.
He opened the door to the truck and helped her inside. She didn’t say a word, just followed his guidance, and then, when she was behind the wheel, turned and looked at him with questioning eyes, as if she didn’t understand.
“I’ve got to go for him,” Arlen said. “For Paul. I can’t leave him behind.”
“Don’t make me go on alone,” she said, and for a moment his resolve nearly evaporated. He looked back at the house and the dark clouds blowing in off the sea and thought of Paul Brickhill and shook his head.
“I can’t leave him.”
“I’ll stay with you.”
“No.” He leaned into the truck and put the bag in her lap. Then he took her face gently in his hands and forced her to meet his eyes. “You’ve got five thousand dollars. You can get to Maine easy. But drive fast and drive steady. You need to get far from here.”
“What? I can’t-”
“What’s left here?” he said. “They’ve killed him, Rebecca. Your brother is gone. They’ll come for you next.”
She was silent, her lips parted, eyes hazy.
“Was there a town in Maine?” he said.
“What?”
“Where you wanted to go. Was there a specific town?”
She blinked at him, as if she no longer recognized his face, and then said, “Camden. I wanted to go to Camden.”
“Then go,” he said. “Find your way there. Drive careful and keep the pistol at hand. If anyone tries to stop you, use it.”
“I can’t. Don’t send me on my own. I can’t go alone.”
“It’s not done yet,” he said. “When it is, I’ll join you. But I’m not running out on that boy, Rebecca. He’s with them. With the same men who murdered Owen.”
At the sound of her brother’s name, she winced.
“I’ll go to Barrett,” she said.
“It was going to Barrett,” Arlen said, “that led to this. Maybe it wasn’t him directly, but it was damn sure the men he’s working with. You can’t go to him. You need to leave, and you need to leave now.”
She didn’t answer.
“Drive north,” Arlen said, and then he stepped back from her. “I’ll find you. I’ll catch up soon enough.”
“Arlen, no.”
But he’d closed the door, and now he held it shut and looked through the window and into her eyes and said, “Rebecca, you have to go.”
She was silent, staring at him through the glass. He said, “I’ll settle up for him. Believe that. I’ll put an end to it. To them. Then I will find you.”
She started the engine. He let go of the door and stepped back and lifted his hand in a parting wave. Then he turned and walked down to the house and her brother’s body to make good on his promise.