by Mark Stone
My eyes moved over to Gina, who had something like a smirk on her red-painted lips.
“That’s not my fault, either,” I said.
“That’s not something you need to feel bad about,” Gina said, scrunching her lips together like she had just sucked on a lemon. “In fact, it’s been my experience that most people feel pretty damn good about it, should they be given the honor.”
“That’s not what any of this is about,” Miller said, shaking his head at me. “This is about your doing what’s in the best interest of this beach and community.”
“I know that,” I argued. “That’s what it’s always been about for me. That’s why my ass is on this beach every day, saving lives and helping people.”
“And that’s fantastic. It’s why you’re my best lifeguard, bar none,” Miller said.
“Bar None?” Cameron asked, his eyebrows shooting up in an irritated fashion.
“You’ve been here for about a minute and a half. Let’s not get an inflated sense of ourselves,” Miller said to Cameron without even bothering to look at him. “The point is, you’ve always done what’s best for this place, which is to say that you’ve always done what I told you.”
“You’re the boss,” I explained. It was as simple and true an idea as I could imagine.
“Keep that in mind.” Miller sighed.
“I’m not gonna like this, am I?” I asked, my body tensing up even more than it already had been.
“I didn’t,” he answered, grabbing his coffee mug and taking a drink. Swallowing, he sighed and continued. “This woman is in trouble.” He pointed to Gina. “It seems like you can help her.”
“I’ve been helping her,” I countered.
“There’s a couple of different ways to be of help,” Cameron added.
“Why don’t you let the grownups talk?” I asked, scoffing as I turned away from him.
Cameron chuckled hard and loud. “Here’s the thing, Danny. You’re going to find that in this arena, I am the grownup.”
“What is he talking about?” I asked Miller as my mouth thinned into a straight line.
“You’ve made the news,” Mayor Russell said nonchalantly. “And not just the local news. As it turns out, Dateline wants to do a story on you.”
“Dateline? The television show?” I asked, my eyes widening. “What the hell for?”
“A gold medal-winning Olympian saving a politician’s daughter and then busting up a drug ring? Sounds like a pretty good story to me,” Cameron said.
“Except that it didn’t happen,” I replied. “You didn’t do any of that stuff. You weren’t even working on the beach when Gina was pulled from the water, you weren’t at the bar when we were almost run over, and all you did with those low-level drug pushers was lie there and get beaten.”
“No,” Cameron said concisely. “That, in fact, is not what happened. I helped you pull Gina from the ocean. That’s what convinced me to take the job on the beach. You and I went out for drinks after the party to patch things up. That’s where we saw Gina and where we saved her life. Together. And then, when druggies showed up under the pier, we took them out together too. We make a hell of a team, you and me.”
“All of that is a lie,” I hissed. “Every word of it.”
“Tell it to the press,” Cameron said, chuckling again.
“That’s the story they have,” Miller said remorsefully. “That’s what we told them.”
“Because that’s the only way they’d take the story,” Mayor Russell chimed in.
“Who gives a damn if they take the story?” I asked, throwing my hands out at my sides.
“I do, and so should you,” the mayor said. “National exposure on what’s happening to my daughter will put pressure on whoever is doing this to stop it.”
“It’ll also drive them back into the shadows,” I said. “It’ll send them scurrying in wait until that exposure and the attention that comes with it wears off.” I shook my head. “And we won’t have any idea who's doing this when they try their hand at it again.”
“If they try their hand at it again, and that’s a big if,” the mayor said, pounding his fist against the counter beside him. “This is what we’re doing. You’re going with Cameron, you’re doing an interview with Dateline about what’s happened, you’re telling them everything we just said, and then you’re going to do the same thing with every news outlet in the country. By the time we’re finished, your face is going to be plastered beside Cameron’s on a Wheaties box. And you won’t be doing anything else. No beach until further notice.”
Anger ran through me, flushing me out and leaving nothing else. “And what if I don’t? What if I don’t want to lie for you and be your dancing monkey?”
“Then he can’t make you,” Abby said, finally speaking up. “He can threaten to have you fired. He can probably threaten any number of things, but he can’t force you to do anything.” She took a deep breath. “But if you don’t do this and something does happen to Gina, would you be able to live with yourself?”
I looked at the woman and then looked at everyone else. She had me. They all did. “Dammit,” I muttered through a clenched jaw.
“Is that a yes?” Abby asked.
“It is,” Miller muttered, looking over at me. “A ‘dammit’ like that is always a yes.”
He was right, but as I resigned myself to my fate, I wondered if in addition to a yes, it was also a mistake.
19
My mind raced as I tried for the third time in half an hour to put this tie around my neck. Looking at myself in the mirror, I couldn’t help but curse under my breath. I had spent my entire life working harder than anyone else I’d ever known. I was a good son, a great brother, a damn fine co-worker, and maybe the best lifeguard this coast had ever seen. I was an impressive man by anyone’s standards, but being impressive wouldn’t wrap this tie around my neck, and unfortunately, the restaurant Walt was taking Jules to tonight had a strict dress code. That was the reason I had my grandfather’s dinner jacket on, the reason I’d managed to borrow my second pair of dress shoes from Riley this week, and the reason I didn’t toss this tie in the sand outside and forget about it.
With a curse fresh on my lips and my eyes scanning the pinstriped monstrosity the way a surgeon might scan a chest cavity, a knock came on my door.
“Coming,” I grunted in a way that would let anyone know just how pissed off I was.
Letting the tie fall loosely around my neck, I pulled the door open. There, standing in front of me, was the sort of vision that usually only existed on movie screens. Draped in an olive green dress that clung in all the right places, with matching high heels on her feet and a handbag slung over her shoulder, was Jules. The only reason my mouth didn’t fall open was because I was actively willing it not to.
“What?” she asked, reading my face and then looking down at herself. “Do I have something on my dress?”
“No,” I said absentmindedly, lost in the look of her. I couldn’t really believe what I was seeing. Sure, it was no secret that Jules was a good-looking woman. Few days went by that Riley didn’t make sure to remind me of that. This was something different, though. This wasn’t my best friend’s kid sister. This wasn’t the girl who used to chase us around and beg us to play with her. Well, she wasn’t only her. She was someone else, and that someone else was a knockout.
“You look nice,” I continued. “You look great, actually, too great to be going out with garbage like Walt Jermain.”
“I’m doing that for you,” she said, a half-smile passing across her face as she bypassed me and walked right into my house. “Seems I’ve been doing a lot of stuff for you lately.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, closing the door behind her and turning to find that Jules had already crossed the living room and was elbows-deep in my liquor cabinet. She pulled my best scotch out and poured herself a glass, no ice. She could always recognize the good stuff. “I’ll get you that bail money back as soon as I get paid.”
>
“It’s okay. I’m counting that as your Christmas present,” she said, taking a sip. “That is stronger than I remember.”
“You think? I don’t remember your ever tasting it,” I admitted, walking over to her, grabbing the glass from her hand, and taking a sip myself. It was an intimate move but not one that was completely out of the bounds of reason for us. Though there had never been anything romantic between Jules and me—aside from a crush she had on me when we were teenagers, a crush I didn’t even know she’d nursed until years later—we were close. We grew up together. I was Jules’s brother’s best friend, and that meant I was in their house all the time. Though I stopped speaking to him, Jules and I never lost touch.
“Mardi Gras, two years ago,” she said, pulling the glass from my hand. “And this is mine, thank you very much.”
“I don’t remember your being at my Mardi Gras party two years ago,” I said, leaning against the bar and crossing my arms over my chest.
“I must not be as memorable as I think I am,” she muttered.
“Maybe you just weren’t wearing that dress,” I replied.
She chuckled, looking at me with a troublesome grin on her face. “Control yourself, Mr. Chase. In case you’ve forgotten, I have a date with another man tonight.”
“He’s a nightmare,” I said, pulling my own attention back to the present. “I need you to promise me that you’ll be careful tonight. I’ll be there—of course I will—but I can’t have you taking any chances. If this guy is so hung up on Gina that he’d try to kill her over and over again, then I’m not leaving you alone with him, even surrounded by other people.”
“I appreciate that,” Jules said. “But that’s the thing. It wasn’t hard for me to get a date with Walt.”
“Of course it wasn’t. You’re gorgeous,” I said like it was the simplest thing in the world . . . because it was.
“Thanks,” she said, looking down at the floor for just a moment. “If he’s so obsessed with Gina, though, then wouldn’t it be harder for me to get his attention? I mean, all I did was walk by.”
“I’ve never been a sadistic lunatic before, but I’m not sure that’s how it works,” I said. “In any event, you don’t make a move while you’re with him without talking to me about it first. I told you what questions you need to ask him, and I told you the way to act with him. That’s all you do. You don’t so much as go to the bathroom without having me give you the go ahead first.”
“I mean, that’s fine, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here,” Jules said. “I talked to this guy. I know it was only for a couple of minutes, but he doesn’t strike me as a murderer.”
“Most murderers don’t strike people as murderers. That’s how they get their victims,” I said. “Just be careful.”
“I will,” she said. “And you’ll be there the entire time.”
“Of course,” I said. “Now, get going. Your date is in an hour. I’ll already be in the restaurant by the time you arrive. Remember, ask for a table by the far window. Tell them you want to see the beach.”
“I got it, Danny. We’ve been over this,” Jules said, eyeing me up and down. “Drink more scotch,” she said, finishing her glass and slamming it back onto the counter. “You look more nervous than I am.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” I explained.
“Then don’t let it,” she said. Nodding at me, she walked toward the front door, letting herself out.
Not two minutes later, a knock came back on the door. I had already walked into the bedroom, and I sighed as I had to trek to the living room. “Did you leave your purse or something, you idiot?” I asked, sure it was Jules as I pulled the door open.
“Not exactly,” a voice said from the other side. My mouth flew open as I looked him over. There, standing on my doorstep, was the person who had hurt me more than anyone in my life previously.
“Nate,” I growled.
“Don’t punch me,” he said weakly. “Cameron said you punched him, and I just . . .” He shook his head, looking down. “Look, we need to talk.”
20
“I don’t want you here,” I said, staring at the man who was like a brother to me for the first part of my life. In fact, if you’d have asked me to jump in front of a bullet for Nate when we were back in high school, I’d have done it, no questions asked. I wouldn’t have even thought twice. Now, the sight of him was enough to break my heart and make my skin crawl all at the same time. He was a disease to me, and I didn’t want anything to do with him.
“I understand that. I know,” he said with his hands stretched out in front of him and pleading in his voice. “I heard you loud and clear all those years ago, but something’s happened. There’s something we need to talk about, and I—”
“You mustn’t have,” I said, narrowing my eyes incredulously.
“What?” he asked, taking a deep breath.
“You mustn’t have heard me loud and clear all those years ago,” I said. “Because I remember what I told you really clearly, Nate. I told you I never wanted to see you again. In fact, I told you that if I ever had the displeasure of seeing you again, I’d break your damn jaw.” As if of its own accord, my hand tensed into a fist at my side. “And here you are, standing at the door of my house. So, I can only imagine that you either didn’t hear me as clearly as you thought you did or you’re really tired of your jaw being in one piece.”
“You knocked Cameron out,” he said shakily, ignoring what I’d said. “It’s in the newspaper, you know? The gossip column.” He shook his head. “And now the same publication is saying that you’re going to be working with him, with Cameron James.”
“How much of the gossip column do you read, Nate?” I asked. “You know what? Don’t answer that question. Don’t answer any questions. Just get your turncoat ass off my doorstep before I call the cops.”
“I’m not a turncoat,” he said, blinking hard but unable to make eye contact with me. “Don’t call me that.”
I shook my head. “I’m not fighting you about this. It’s in the past. It can’t be changed, but we both remember what you did, and if that doesn’t make you a turncoat, then I don’t know what would.” I turned, going to grab my coat. “I have places to be. I don’t have time to rehash things that don’t matter anymore.”
When I turned back around, I saw that Nate had walked through the doorway and closed the door behind him.
“You’re not welcome in my house,” I said, pointing to the door he’d just walked through.
“You were my best friend in the whole world. Why would I ever—”
“I don’t know, Nate,” I argued, practically screaming as I interrupted him. “I have no idea why you would lie to help that piece of garbage, but you did. You did lie for him. You picked him over me. You picked him over the truth, and that’s not okay.”
“That’s not how it was. Things aren’t that simple,” Nate said.
“They were simple for me,” I replied. “I was his biggest competition. Hell, no, I wasn’t. There was no competition. I was better than him. I was a better swimmer than Cameron James, and he knew it. He hated me for it.”
“He didn’t hate you,” Nate said.
“He ran me over with his damn car, Nate!” Now, there was no doubt that I was screaming. “He plowed me down like an animal on the side of the road. He broke my leg in three places, he ruined my chance at having an Olympic career of my own, and then he just drove away and left me there!”
“Danny, I—”
“And you!” I argued. “You’re even worse.” I pointed a finger at my former friend. “I saw him there. I saw him get out of the damn car and look me over. I saw him telling his friends that this would ruin him, and then I watched him walk away.” Shaking my head, I continued. “I lay there for hours. They didn’t even call the police.”
“It wasn’t hours, Danny,” Nate said, tears welling up in his eyes.
“It was! I lived it! And then I told the police what
happened. I made a report, and you know what happened then?”
“Danny, I’m sorry,” Nate said.
“My best friend in the whole world told the cops he was with Cameron James that night and that Cameron never ran me over. He told the cops he would testify to that in court, and because of that lie, Cameron James was never arrested for what he did to me, much less prosecuted.” I found myself breathing heavily now. “He got to go out and live his life. He got to chase his dream and catch it, and I had to live with knowing what he did to me.” I shook my head. “With what you let him do to me.”
“Danny,” Nate said, tears running down his face, “you’re still my best friend.”
The words hit me like a slap in the face.
“Are you serious?” I asked, rage running through me like steam through an engine. “Get the hell out of my house before I destroy you. I mean it.”
“Danny, I know you’re mad at me, but I need to tell you something. I need to just say it, and when I do, it’ll change everything. If you would just—”
“Out!” I screamed.
Nate looked at me for a long moment and then he turned toward the door. Opening it, I saw a man standing in the doorway. It took me all of half a second to recognize him as one of the men I beat up on the beach the other night, one of the drug pushers. It took me another second, a second too long, unfortunately, to see the gun in his hand.
“Nate, run!” I screamed, but before the words could leave my mouth, the sound of a gunshot filled the air. I watched in horror as Nate fell and as the man turned the gun to me.
21
My eyes fixed on the gun in the man’s hand. I looked not just at the fact that it was pointed toward my gut instead of my chest but also at just how much it shook while it was in this guy’s hand. He wasn’t used to this sort of thing. If he had held a gun three times in his life before tonight, I would have been stunned. If he’d fired it even a single time before he shot Nate, I would have been flabbergasted. Even the look on his face, a pained and hesitant grimace, told me he didn’t really want to do this. That left me with two possibilities. Either this was an act of passion that this guy was starting to regret or this wasn’t his idea at all and he was in someone else’s pocket. Either way left me leeway to try to fix this.
