"Or throw them in the water."
"...scared..."
"Yes."
"Scared they'd take her away. Like Ramsey. Then I'd be alone." From somewhere nearby, they heard an automobile engine. "It's all of us, ain't it? The whole family."
"Are you warm enough in that jacket?" Beneath a sky rinsed clear of clouds, they walked on. "It's getting chilly again." His fingers moved deftly, as though by instinct, to turn up the boy's collar. "We'd better hurry."
Heading for higher ground, they rounded a bend, startling a gull into flight. Wing tips slapped the sand, but still the bird barely rose. Then the wind took it, and it soared, swinging out over the water.
"Perry, that morning at the pond, remember? When I first saw you? What were you searching for?"
"Her gold chain." Shell particles and pebbles rained down the embankment, and the boy stared at his shuffling feet. "Daddy gave it to her. It had a charm with her name. She was gone all night that time. First time she ever got out without my knowing. When I got her home, she didn't have it and if they found..."
"You shouldn't have worried. They did find it, but they thought it belonged to the other girl, the one in the pond." He stepped onto the road surface. "Are you ready to tell me what happened to your father? Don't look away. It's all right. I think I know."
"He was going to hurt her again and she called my name and I..."
He let his hand settle on the boy's head, then slide down to cup the smooth cheek. "You're safe now. You can trust me. It's going to be all right."
Hallowed by the pale sunlight, the boy held his stare.
"I'll take care of you, Perry. Don't be afraid."
EPILOGUE
I won't.
Tears ate at her.
I won't cry anymore.
Her throat constricted from sobbing, she felt her lower lip begin to tremble again. Oh, Steve. Her jaw ached, and one leg had gone numb. The feeling had left her hands, and she could barely move her fingers. How could you? An aching cramp crept up her arms and across her shoulders. It had taken almost two hours to work free of the knots.
"Forgive me," he'd said. "It's the boy's only chance, and you can't be involved any further." She'd seen tears in his eyes too, just before his fist caught her under the chin.
The worst part is he meant it when he said he loves me. She rubbed at the rope marks on her arms until the blood surged painfully. I know it. She hobbled into the bathroom. Damn him. Scrubbing her face, she stared at the mirror. It's been hours. No point in going after them now. The flesh of her face hung flaccidly, gray as a cadaver. No point at all. She grinned mirthlessly at herself: a death's head.
Stumbling back into the living room, she pulled on her coat. Damn him to hell. As she shut the outer door behind her, sunlight struck the cord marks on her wrists. She wobbled stiffly into the glare. When she gaped toward the horizon, her mind seemed to hang suspended above the flat and glinting sea. Time to move on. Floating gulls dotted the water in the distance.
Suddenly numb and drowsy with the cold, she started down the stairs, her shadow cascading thinly down the steps ahead of her. Below, everything looked sodden.
Chilling wedges of light fell between the buildings, and she stumbled through them to the jeep. As she fumbled with her keys, a sudden breeze murmured in her ears.
What?
With aching slowness, she turned her head and took a step back toward the duplex. A moment later, she crouched deep in the shadow of the beams beneath the stairs. She listened a moment. Stooping, she squeezed down among the stilts where surf echoed and boomed like the heart of a whale.
"Here. I'm here."
Deep in the rancid darkness, something stirred.
"But you have to come to me."
A faint cry vibrated into the eaves.
"Keep coming. I can't get to you if you don't."
At last, a patch of muck squirmed on the darkness at her feet.
"Come on now." She stepped back into the brittle sunlight, and just for a second, she thought it might be the wrong cat. "Look at you!" Filth clotted the fur, and the beast lifted its face to her, opening its mouth, sharp teeth glinting in a plea pitched too high for human ears. For once, the animal didn't struggle when she gathered it in her arms. Mud smeared the front of her jacket, but the cat purred like an outboard motor. Snapping her jacket open, she huddled the shivering creature to her warmth, and as she carried it back up the stairs, it began to pant like a dog, bright pink tongue curling.
"You go in and get warm." She struggled with the latch, clutching the cat in one arm. "And stay away from that window. I'll feed you when I get back." Putting the cat down just inside the door, she backed out onto the stairs.
The cat screamed.
"No, you have to stay inside." When she tried to pull the door shut, a hooked paw shot out, and the yowl echoed. "What are you doing?" Claws raked the wood. "Stop that." She tried to shove the cat inside with her foot. "All right, never mind. Bad idea. All right. Shut up already. Follow me then. Whatever." She closed the door and started back down the steps, the small beast at her ankle. "Stupid cat. Lucky to be alive."
Her footsteps squished across the mud of the driveway, and the cat pranced lightly ahead. The drive now emptied directly into a broad, shallow pond, and a gust of wind coruscated the surface into advancing lines, each glittering into a gray diamond pattern. The silt around the edges had dried into a reflection of that pattern.
She gunned the engine as the cat sniffed suspiciously around the interior of the jeep. "Another miracle." The jeep started immediately. "You don't get carsick, do you?" As she pulled out, the cat startled her by leaping onto the back of the driver's seat, claws digging in loudly. "Would you settle down, please? Before I drown us both in a ditch?"
Mud hissed at the tires. Everything was water and debris. She steered around the side of the duplex, then had trouble finding a road to stay on. Sounds of activity drifted everywhere. She heard a helicopter and the buzz of a power saw. Around a corner, men in bright yellow hard hats stood in the intersection, and the road crew stared at the police department insignia as she swerved around the barricade. That's it--just nod and smile at everyone like you know where you're going. Down the road, a tractor tugged at something large and muddy, and men with electric company jackets yelled as the jeep splashed past. She glimpsed a state trooper. Just my luck. After all this, I'll probably get shot as a looter. All the poles tilted in the drowned streets, and houses angled on flooded lawns.
But even the deepest pools lay lifeless and still, all violence drained. I don't know this place anymore.
In the center of town, streets had mostly been cleared. They won't stop a police vehicle so fast. She steered around obstacles, trying to avoid a truckload of troopers, tires sloughing through soft muck. This could be the last time I get to use one. She turned a corner. Might as well make the most of it.
At the end of the road, the ocean glowered somnolently, two blocks closer than it should have been. She wondered if the salvage crews knew they had become morticians. Some flicker of life might remain in the town, but fan this drowned ember back into a flame? Never. People would trickle back to rescue what they could, a determined few might even come back to live. But in the long run...