P. J. Parrish
Thicker Than Water
“Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That parchment scribbled o’er should undo a man? Some say, the bee stings: but I say, ’tis the bee’s wax, for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since.”
November 1986
Chapter One
He stood at the window, looking down at the dark street below. In the orange glow of the streetlight, he could see the black tops of the trees waving in the wind. It was late and a storm was blowing in from the gulf. There was no one out tonight. He didn’t even see the homeless man who usually slept on the bus bench across the street.
The wind gusted, catching a wad of newspaper. He watched it as it swirled and twisted in the orange spotlight, like a madman performing a desperate dance to the demon music in his head.
He turned away and pressed his palms into his eyes.
Jesus…. He was so tired.
He looked at his desk, at the files and papers covering it. His brain was telling him to go home, get some sleep. But there was so much to do yet, so many things he hadn’t taken care of. And sleep, the real sleep that made you whole again, was something he had given up on years ago.
Going back behind the desk, he sat down in the old leather chair. The corned beef on rye and cream soda were still there, untouched. He sat there, hands heavy on the armrests, eyes unfocused, brain working.
What was he worried about?
Cade wouldn’t do anything. Even if he took his threat seriously, the man wasn’t stupid enough to try something. Except sue. He could still do that. The statute of limitations had run out, but with a good lawyer and a sympathetic judge, Cade could still make his life a hell.
But what did he care? It was over anyway. He was tired of keeping the lies to himself, tired of carrying the whole thing around for the last twenty years.
He didn’t care what would happen to him if it all came out. He’d be disgraced, disbarred for sure. He’d lose a fortune. But he just didn’t care anymore.
His wife, she would care. And his partner, he would too. But he didn’t care about them either. Or about anyone anymore.
He shut his eyes.
That wasn’t true. There was still one person he loved, one person who loved him.
He opened his eyes. They focused on the far wall, on an arrangement of framed photographs. No people, no children, just sepia-toned street scenes of old Fort Myers as it looked in the forties, and one picture of a pale yellow Victorian cottage on a sugar-white beach against a cloudless blue sky. Remembering how nice the world can be….
Not anymore. It was over now. Twenty years. . gone.
One decision, one moment, and his whole life had gone down a different road.
He felt his throat constrict. He could make it right though. He could still do right by Cade, try to make up for what he had done. But first, he had to tell someone. He wanted some peace, some absolution, and there was only one person who would give it to him. He glanced at his watch. Nine-thirty.
He picked up the phone.
A sound out in the dark hallway made him look up. He saw someone coming toward him. The person stopped in the open doorway.
He put the receiver back in the cradle.
“You came back,” he said. “Why?”
There was no answer.
“It doesn’t matter. We have to talk anyway.”
The figure in the doorway slowly brought up a hand.
He saw the gun.
He tried to stand.
He heard the shot.
The bullet shattered his right temple, propelling him back against the leather chair.
He felt nothing, but he saw a blaze of light, like an exploding sun. Then he fell onto the desk, twisting as his body slumped forward.
He lay there, his head cocked at an angle. The blood seeped slowly out of his brain, onto the yellow legal pad and the purple blotter, a slow river of red spreading outward, settling into the dents and cracks of the old cherry desk.
His eyes were still open, fixed on the picture of the yellow beach cottage on the far wall.
Chapter Two
There was so much red. It streamed out from the center in slender little arteries, bleeding across the purple backdrop.
He had been standing here for ten minutes now, waiting for just the right moment to do what he had come here to do. He didn’t know much about taking photographs. But he knew that he had to wait until just the right moment.
The red was deepening, spreading.
Finally, he brought the camera up to his eye, aimed and took a picture of the sunset.
A smile tipped the corners of Louis Kincaid’s mouth. Finally. He had finally done it. He didn’t even need to wait for the film to come back this time. He knew this time the picture wouldn’t be blurry, the colors pale or the damn horizon crooked. This time he had finally nailed it.
He looked back out over the gulf. The sun hovered just above the horizon for a second. Then, as if pricked by a pin, the red ball suddenly deflated and melted into the water.
He heard someone applauding and turned to see a couple standing about a hundred yards or so down the beach. They were applauding the sunset. He always thought it was funny that people did that. It was the tourists mainly, who came down to the beach at dusk, wine glasses in hand, to pay homage to Mother Nature or God or whatever deity they thought was behind the light show.
The sunset. He used to notice it. No matter where he was-in his cottage or his car, sitting at a bar or buying groceries. Every day without fail, right around five, his eyes wandered to the west and he would wonder what it was going to be like that night.
But things were different now. He had been here six months and sunsets were now just a scientific phenomenon to be taken for granted, like rain or snow. Nothing but slanting sunlight shooting through a prism of dirt, gas molecules and water vapors.
But he wouldn’t tell Frances that.
He would just send her and Phillip the photograph and tell them that this was what he saw when he stepped out of his cottage and that, yes, he was very happy and no, they didn’t need to worry about him.
The colors were fading and the couple had disappeared. He watched the dark green waves crash and foam. The storm last night had left the water still churning and the tide line was rimmed with rotting kelp, broken shells and dead fish. He turned and started back toward the cottage.
He paused at the crest of the low dune. The sun had turned the weather-beaten gray boards of the cottage to umber, making it look like some rustic hideaway on Cape Cod. He stared at the cottage-his cottage- for a minute then brought the camera up to his eye and took a picture.
The photograph wouldn’t show the torn screening on the porch or the mildew in the shower stall, but, hey, Frances wouldn’t know that. His foster mother would just be happy that he finally had settled into such a nice place.
At the door, he paused to knock the sand off his flip-flops, then went in. His eyes wandered over the old rattan furniture with its faded blue cushions, up over the terrazzo floor to the pale green walls decorated with matching prints of two crazed-looking pink cockatoos.
Settled. . was he settled? He liked his cottage. He liked taking his cup of coffee out to the beach in the morning and getting surprised by the sight of a dolphin’s fin breaking the glass-smooth water. He liked Captiva Island. More than he thought he could have.
But settled?
That wasn’t the right word. Not with that little something that kept gnawing at him inside, that voice that kept telling him twenty-six-year-old men didn’t settle into sleepy little beach towns where the only things keeping a person connected to the real world were cable television and a causeway bridge.