Beach Town

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “I grew up on boats. I’ve been around ’em my whole life.”

  “Oh, you’ve driven a forty-foot offshore racing craft?”

  “Well no, but at home I’ve got a twenty-nine-foot Yellowfin with twin three hundred Mercs. Let me just go out this afternoon and me and Patrick will open it up and see how I do.”

  “Not now,” Bryce said, but even Greer could see he was wavering. She balled up the foil containing the remains of her sandwich, threw it in a trash barrel, and went back to work.

  60

  Greer was pulling into the parking lot at the boatyard when she saw Eb’s truck poised to pull out onto the roadway. It was nearly 6:00 p.m. She pulled alongside him and rolled her window down.

  “Headed home?” she asked hopefully. “I finished up prep work over at the pier, and as soon as I finish up a couple things here I’m done for the day. I was thinking maybe I could cook dinner for you tonight.” She waggled her eyebrows in a way she hoped looked suggestive.

  “I’m headed to the market,” Eb said. “Bobby Stephens just called. He’s got a sick kid at home, and Paulette, who usually works till closing, just tried to slice her thumb off with a box cutter.”

  “Oh no,” Greer said.

  “He took her to get stitches, but that means I’m two people short on a summer Saturday night, which means I just appointed myself head cashier.”

  “Could we do a late dinner?”

  Eb shrugged noncommittally. “It’s up to you. I might not get done counting out the registers and making the bank deposit until after ten.”

  “It sounds like you don’t care whether you see me tonight or not,” Greer said. “Is that the message you’re sending, Eb?”

  “The message is that I have to work late. You work late all the time, right? So is it a big deal if I have to run my business tonight?”

  “I understand that you have a business to run,” Greer said, trying not to sound as hurt as she felt. “But we’ve got some pretty important issues to discuss, I think.”

  His eyes were hard and flat, and she knew there was anger there, and that it had been on simmer since early that morning.

  “Is discussion going to change the facts?” he asked. “You’re heading back to L.A. on Wednesday. I’m staying here in Cypress Key. Has any of that changed since this morning?”

  “No,” Greer said, feeling heat rising to her cheeks. Eb pulled the truck forward an inch, as if to dismiss her. But she had to make one more stab at making things right with him. She kept thinking of that faded wedding photo her father had been keeping on his dresser all this time, of the years of longing and regret he’d kept bottled up inside.

  She got out of the Kia and walked over to the truck. “Please,” she said, leaning in, getting right in his space. “Can we please get together, tonight or in the morning? I don’t want this to end like this. I know we can figure out how to make this work. If you want it. Do you?”

  His phone rang. It was sitting on the seat beside him. He glanced over, saw the caller ID screen. “This is Bobby. I gotta go. I’ll call you after closing.”

  * * *

  Although she’d left Zena with a long list of prep work that needed to be accomplished before the next day’s rehearsals and setup, Greer quickly saw that only half the items on the list had been executed, and Zena herself was long gone.

  “Tomorrow, I fire her ass,” Greer muttered, as she set up the pop-up tents that would be used as temporary green rooms for the cast and crew that would be assembled the next day. She lugged furniture, set up tables and chairs, and unpacked coolers full of soft drinks, bottled juice, and water, as well as the coffeemaker from the downtown production office, for the first arrivals. There hadn’t been time to arrange for a catering truck for the morning, so she’d arranged for the Coffee Mug to bake muffins and pastries for delivery.

  The high-ceilinged metal boathouse held the day’s heat like a convection oven, and the work was dirty and heavy. By eight she was so exhausted she had to drag herself out to the Kia.

  Back in her room at the motel she showered, pulled on her favorite sleep shirt, and collapsed into bed. She’d been trying not to think about Eb, wondering if he’d call. She switched the television on and found a documentary about native tree frogs on the local educational channel. Greer had a lifelong aversion to anything that hopped or slithered, but she was too tired even to get up and change the channel. She struggled to stay awake, still hoping Eb would call.

  * * *

  The sound of a door opening and closing down the corridor woke her up. It was still dark, except for the glowing blue television screen. She got up and turned the television off, wondering what time it was. She reached into the pocket of the shorts she’d worn the day before, but her phone wasn’t there. She tried to think about the last time she’d used it, but finally decided she’d track it down in the morning. She dropped down onto the bed and fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  She’d overslept. It was Sunday morning, and bright sunlight filtered through the bent slats of the venetian blinds. She could hear voices outside, crew members on their way to breakfast, or the beach.

  Greer picked up her shorts and searched the pockets again, but found only the key to the rental car. She rifled through her pocketbook. She looked in the bathroom, even got down on her hands and knees to search for the phone under the bed.

  With a sigh she got dressed and went out to the Kia, convinced it must be there, but the phone was not in the car. Had she somehow dropped it at the boathouse yesterday, with all the lifting and lugging she’d been doing?

  That’s when she remembered. Her battery had been ready to die late in the day, so she’d plugged it into the power cord she’d found in Eb’s office. That memory ignited a tiny flame of hope. Her phone had spent the night in his office. Maybe he had called after all.

  * * *

  Greer let herself into the boathouse with the key Eb had given her the day before. She found the phone where she’d left it—plugged into an outlet in his office. She quickly scrolled through the half dozen missed calls, looking for the only one that mattered.

  The call had come at 11:30 p.m. and it was 9:00 a.m. now. Eb had left a brief message. “I’m back at the loft. You can come over if you want to talk.” That was it, brief and to the point. And there had been no follow-up.

  So he’d had the night to fuel his already mounting anger at her. Was there any point in trying to reach him now, to explain that she’d misplaced the phone the previous night?

  She had to try. Friday night was proof of that. Friday night they’d had something wonderful and amazing. Something worth begging for. And she would do that, if Eb gave her the chance.

  Greer tapped the callback number. The phone went straight to voice mail.

  “Eb? It’s me. I missed your call last night because I’d stupidly left my phone plugged in at your office last night and didn’t realize it until just now. Please call me back. Please?”

  She looked at the other missed calls. Clint had called around nine Saturday night and left a message. Her pulse blipped a little. Had something gone wrong? Was he back in the hospital?

  His voice sounded much better, stronger even. “Hey, Greer. Listen, I might be headed over your way tomorrow for a little business venture. I’m feeling a lot better already. Maybe I could take you out to lunch. You’re not shooting on Sundays, right? Anyway, call me when you get this. And thanks for what all you did for me at the hospital. I feel like a lucky man, having you for a daughter.”

  Greer bit her lip at the poignant sound of his voice. At some point later this morning she would call him back to let him know lunch wasn’t in the cards for today. For now, she just didn’t want to have to deal with disappointing one more person.

  She got up and wandered around the boathouse, checking to see that everything was ready for today’s rehearsals. She kept glancing at her phone, praying it would ring.

  Finally she decided to tra
ck Eb down. If he was going to break up with her, he was going to have to do it in person—to her face.

  She was headed for the Hometown Market when her phone began to vibrate. She snatched it up before the first ring was complete.

  It was CeeJay. “Hey, where are you? I came over to your room with a thermos of cold Bloody Marys and hot gossip, but you’re not around.”

  “I had to go back to the boathouse to pick up my phone. I accidentally left it there overnight. But listen, I’m waiting on a call from Eb, so if my phone beeps and I disconnect, don’t get your feelings hurt, okay?”

  “I would never get my feelings hurt over a booty call,” CeeJay promised. “Before you hang up though, I just gotta share. Have you seen TMZ?”

  “You know I don’t read that stuff,” Greer said. “What now?”

  “You’re gonna want to read it today. They’ve got an item saying that Kregg and Zena are an item. A ‘hot item’ to quote their smutty little story. And they’ve got the goods to prove it. Somebody has apparently been stalking Kregg’s backyard pool with a camera with a very long lens. They must have been on a boat. The photo is of Zena and Kregg, frolicking on a chaise by the pool, wearing nothing but some really ugly tattoos.”

  That did give Greer a laugh. Her first one of the day. “I bet I know right when it was taken. Eb and I saw them leaving the Inn Friday night in Kregg’s Hummer, and they were already getting really cozy. Both of them showed up late for work yesterday, and it was obvious they’d had an all-night rager.”

  “I’ve got to say, the girl has a body that is drop-dead gorgeous,” CeeJay said. “Even if she is dumber than a box full of rocks.”

  “Not so dumb she doesn’t know a meal ticket when she sees one,” Greer said. “Zena is one screwup away from a one-way ticket back to the unemployment line, if I have anything to say about it.” Her phone beeped to signal an incoming call. “Gotta go,” she said, and quickly connected to the next call.

  “Hi, Greer, this is Wally, your dad’s buddy? Have you talked to Clint today?”

  She felt another stab of fear. “No. He left me a message last night, but I didn’t get it until just now. What’s wrong? He’s not back in the hospital is he?”

  “That’s just it,” Wally said. “I don’t know where he is. He called me last night and asked if I could carry him over to Roberta this morning to see a vehicle he’d found on Craigslist.”

  “Roberta?”

  “That’s a little bitty town about halfway between his house and Cypress Key, where you are,” Wally said. “He found an ad for a 1942 Willys jeep. Unrestored. That’s like the Holy Grail for Clint. He’s wanted to have one for his picture car inventory for years. I told him I didn’t know. My wife, she likes to go to church on Sundays. Her people are foot-washing Baptists, and I kinda promised—”

  “Wally,” Greer interrupted. “Can you get to the point, please? What are you trying to tell me?”

  “When I got out of preaching just now I saw Clint left me another message. He said never mind, he’d figure it out for himself. I thought that meant he’d gotten somebody else to take him over to Roberta. But I went by his place a little while ago, and he’s not there. And his Blazer is gone too.”

  It took a moment for Wally’s meaning to sink in. When it did, Greer gasped.

  “You think he decided to drive himself, even though he’s half blind and he’s got a cracked rib? An hour and a half each way? Alone?”

  “Yes ma’am,” Wally said, sounding miserable. “I don’t know what else it could be. I called the other fellas who work for Clint, and his neighbors, but he’s not with any of them, and none of them have talked to him today.”

  “God,” Greer moaned. “What do you know about the jeep thing he wanted to see? Do you have the Craigslist ad in front of you?”

  “I don’t know anything about that Craigslist business. That was all Clint. Your dad, he likes hunting the cars down and buying ’em. I just work on ’em.”

  “All right, Wally. I’m going to see what I can find out. In the meantime, if you hear from him, will you let me know right away?”

  “Yes ma’am. My wife said to let you know she’s praying for Clint.”

  Pray for both of us, Greer thought.

  61

  1942 WILLYS JEEP. ALL ORIGINAL. SOME RUST ISSUES. READY FOR YOUR RESTORATION PROJECT. $3,000. Cash Serious offers only. Will not last at this price.

  The Craigslist ad was accompanied by a photograph of what looked like the skeletal remains of a jeep, with weeds growing up through the hood.

  “Really, Clint?” Greer muttered to herself. “Three thousand dollars for that?” But she was sure she had the right ad. It was the only one for a vintage jeep in the Florida Craigslist ads, and the only one from Roberta.

  She’d pulled into a gas station to do a Google search for the vehicle Wally said her father was questing after.

  The ad had no contact phone number, so the only thing she could do was e-mail the seller, requesting that he call her immediately about the jeep.

  She tried calling Clint’s cell phone again, but again it went directly to voice mail. She shook her head in frustration. Two days ago he’d been a sick old man who could barely stand to pee. Now he’d apparently taken off in search of the Holy Grail.

  Greer drummed her fingertips on the steering wheel, trying to decide on a course of action. She didn’t know for certain that Clint was on his way to Roberta, but Wally couldn’t think of any other reason he would have left his house on a muggy Sunday morning.

  It started to rain while she tried to organize her thoughts. Just a light drizzle, just enough to drive the relative humidity all the way through the roof.

  Her mind ran amok with all the things that could have happened to the old man. He could have been run off the road and been badly hurt, too badly hurt to answer his phone, even. He could have ventured out for groceries, true, but she’d seen at least a month’s worth of groceries in his kitchen, and he’d seemed perfectly content with a regular menu of canned soup and frozen Stouffer’s lasagna. Even worse scenarios started to haunt her.

  Clint lived alone, in a remote rural area. Anybody could have broken into his house and abducted him, taken him away in his own car … a terrifying stream of horror movie–inspired possibilities unspooled in her overactive imagination.

  “Enough.” She typed “Alachua” and “Roberta” into the Kia’s GPS and waited for the map to upload onto the car’s nav screen. She started the car and headed off in search of a stubborn, half-blind old man, who was in search of a broken, rust-bucket, World War II–era Army jeep.

  Three miles down the road she noticed a distinctive green golf cart pulled over on the shoulder of the road. She slowed down to get a closer look and spotted what she’d expected, a faded Silver Sands Motel bumper sticker affixed to the back of the roof canopy.

  In another half a mile she saw a slender teenage girl trudging along the side of the road, a small backpack slung over her shoulder. The girl’s hair was plastered to her head. She wore a tank top, shorts, and flip-flops. Definitely not an outfit for a hike in rainy, swampy Florida weather.

  Greer pulled alongside the girl, rolled down her window, and beeped her horn.

  Allie jumped, and Greer could tell she was poised to run, until she recognized the Kia’s driver.

  “Hey, Allie,” Greer called. “I saw the golf cart up the road. Did the battery die again?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get in and I’ll give you a ride home,” Greer said.

  “No thanks.” Allie kept walking.

  “Allie, I know you’re mad at me, but it’s really not safe for you to try to walk all the way back home. We must be four or five miles from the Silver Sands.”

  The girl’s face took on a familiar, stubborn set of the jaw. It must have been a Thibadeaux family trait. “I don’t care. I like to walk.” She kept on going, staring straight ahead.

  The rain had gotten heavier. Water streamed down the teenager’s face.
Greer coasted along the shoulder, still trying to persuade the girl. She pointed toward the sky. “Look at those storm clouds, Allie. There’s a cold front moving in. That means lightning and thunder.”

  Allie looked up and, as if on cue, a menacing rumble echoed in the distance. Still she shook her head and walked on.

  Greer was losing patience. “Damn it, Allie! Get in this car this minute or I’ll call Chief Bottoms and have her send a patrol car to pick you up.”

  The girl snatched the door open and slid onto the seat, crossing her arms over her chest like a petulant preschooler.

  Greer closed her window, wiped away the raindrops that had leaked inside, and drove back onto the roadway.

  Allie stared straight ahead, but Greer could see that her eyes were swollen and red rimmed.

  “You saw TMZ today, huh?”

  “Yes,” Allie whispered.

  “I’m sorry, but Kregg is a sleazeball. And if it makes you feel any better, that girl with him in the picture is Zena. And she’s a lazy slut.”

  The girl’s facade cracked slightly. She bit her lip. “Zena? Zena who I worked with on the set?”

  “That’s the one. He was hitting on her at the Inn Friday night, and then they left together. I know it hurts, to find out he cheated on you that way,” Greer said.

  “You don’t know anything,” Allie cried. “You don’t know what it feels like…”

  Greer shrugged. The sky ahead darkened and a bolt of lightning streaked across the inky horizon.

  Her cell phone dinged to signal an incoming e-mail. She swerved back onto the shoulder again, braked and read the e-mail.

  RE: Willys Jeep. Still available. What information can I give you?

  Greer typed her number and response as fast as she could.

  Please call me immediately at this number. Have reason to believe my elderly father might have contacted you about the Jeep this morning and he has now gone missing. This is not a scam! Thank you, Greer.

  Allie watched what she was doing with feigned indifference. Greer again steered onto the roadway. The storm was moving in. She needed to find Clint before something bad happened. Unless it already had.