She listened. Effie waited. Both women looked out the windows of the café, and Angelica pointed sharply up the street.
“There,” she said. “Look. An Escalade. Vinny said the car that did the drive-by was an Escalade. And that one’s got a new windshield. You can see the plastic installation tab hasn’t been removed from one side. Nick said something about Bill smashing the windshield of Cline’s Escalade.” Effie raised her eyebrows. Angelica had transformed before her eyes from babbling author to armchair detective.
“What are we going to do?” Angelica asked.
Effie slammed her fist into her palm.
“I have a better idea.” Angelica looked at the car, the reflection of the men in the window beside them, the hillside, and the harbor. “Cause a distraction in exactly ten seconds.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ANGELICA STOOD. EFFIE scrambled, thinking fast. She watched, counting mentally, as Angelica approached the next booth.
“Excuse me, gentlemen. Could I just borrow this sugar? We’re all out.”
She saw Angelica leaning over. Effie shoved her coffee cup and saucer off the edge of the table. The china shattered on the floor, coffee splashing on the legs of a couple at the next table. Everyone turned to look, including the men in the booth. Effie shrugged, made an embarrassed face, and got up to assist the waitress who came over to clean up the mess.
“You know what?” Angelica turned and smiled at the waitress. “We’ll just take our check, if you don’t mind.”
She flashed Effie a set of keys with a chunky black remote before tucking them into her sling. Effie smiled, and the two women left some money on the counter and walked quickly out into the street.
“We’ll need another distraction for cover,” Angelica said, “in case they look out the window.”
The evening winds were sweeping in across the harbor. The two women seemed to have the same thought. Angelica tossed Effie the keys and stopped a couple walking two dogs right outside the window of the café.
“Oh, dachshunds! Look at them! They’re just gorgeous! You know, Radclyffe Hall had dachshunds.”
“Who?”
Effie unlocked the Escalade parked at the top of the hill, put the keys in the ignition, put the car in neutral, and released the emergency brake. She gave Angelica a nod, and the two edged over to the wall beside the café window as the people with the dogs continued on.
Nothing happened. The car remained in position. At the bottom of the hill, by the harbor, a police cruiser parked, and two officers got out.
“Fuck,” Angelica snapped. “We’ll have to push it. It’s not moving! Fucking, fucking shitballs!” She stomped her foot. Effie’s eyes widened. She almost laughed. Angelica looked like she was about to throw herself at the vehicle and push it down the hill with her one usable but injured hand when the car began to move.
Angelica and Effie watched as the Escalade rolled down the hill, gathering speed, and then slammed into the police cruiser; the crash was so loud and thunderous that everyone in the street stopped and turned.
“Triumph!” Angelica whispered fiercely.
The two women leaned forward and saw the men in the café rise from their booth. People were running to the crash, including the two officers who had only made it to the edge of the park.
Effie tugged at Angelica. She resisted at first, seeming to want to stay and watch her work.
“Take that, you murderous bastards,” Angelica snarled. Effie grabbed the sling and dragged her friend away.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
FAT PEOPLE REPULSED Cline. They always had. Unfortunately, he couldn’t look at someone like Sheriff Clayton Spears without imagining the man naked, seeing the alien creases and folds of his figure beneath the tan uniform, the parts of him that excessively sweat or grew hair in unnatural biological reactions to his bulk. He reclined in his wing chair in the third-floor office and eyed the man perched on the settee before him scribbling notes in the stupid little notebook he held with his sausage fingers.
“And could you provide a list of the people who can vouch for your presence and activities at the party?” Clay asked. He sat back, making the settee creak. Cline was thinking how he’d dispose of the piece of furniture after the sheriff was gone. Perhaps he’d burn it. “Was there someone with you for a majority of the event?”
“I didn’t sneak out of my own party, leaving my house and my personal property unguarded in the presence of hundreds of strangers, so I could go and blow holes in the house of a man I barely know, Sheriff.” Cline rolled his eyes. “Everything in this house, everything in this room, is expensive. That lamp at your elbow is Baccarat Eye. It’s worth twelve thousand dollars.”
The sheriff looked at the lamp and seemed startled by its presence. He shifted his bulging body to the edge of the settee, apparently not wanting to make physical contact with anything in the room if he could possibly avoid it. “I can see you’re a man of taste, Mr. Cline,” the sheriff said. “You said you were in the importation business?”
“I did.”
“What do you import?”
“Focus, Sheriff.” Cline leaned his chin on his hand. “You’re not here about me. You’re here about the drive-by and the overdose. Don’t lose track.”
“Mr. Cline, I’ll ask whatever questions I deem necessary for the investigation,” the sheriff said. Cline smiled. He enjoyed a little pushback, flickers of power and protest in the fat man’s eyes, but the sheriff’s tone of voice hadn’t sold what he was saying. He was the mongrel in the room, and Cline was the purebred Doberman.
“What do you make, Sheriff?” Cline asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Your salary. What is it?”
“I make a hundred and eighteen thousand, one hundred and thirty-seven dollars.” Clay straightened on the settee. “That’s the base.”
“And that keeps you comfortable?” Cline let his eyes wander over the creature before him. “I suppose your living costs are meager. Your room at the Inn can’t cost much, and you don’t look like you blow wads of it indulging in the single man’s footloose lifestyle. That watch. Where do you even get a watch like that? Walmart? Dollar General?”
Clay turned the plastic watch on his wrist self-consciously.
“Maybe you lost everything in the divorce.” Cline yawned. Turner was on the phone in the hallway. Cline heard him murmuring, “What do you mean? How badly? A police car?”
“Now I’m the one who feels like we’re getting away from the point of my inquiry here tonight, Mr. Cline,” the sheriff said.
“Haven’t you ever dreamed, Sheriff?” Cline asked, leaning forward, suddenly full of enthusiasm. “Haven’t you ever fantasized about who you could be in the world? Before you started shoveling down Pop-Tarts and Miller Lite to drown your self-loathing, before you realized you’d be stuck here forever in Bumfuck Nowhere because your parents raised you as an unimaginative, codependent hick, didn’t you at least flirt with the idea that you could be something?”
Clay struggled. Cline watched as the sheriff glanced at the men guarding the doorway of his office as though seeking their assistance. Always looking somewhere else for help.
“I’ll give you a million dollars,” Cline said, throwing a hand out as though he were tossing bills into the air. “I’ll even tell you what to do with it so you don’t blow it all on cheap hookers and a yellow Hummer. Go and get gastric-band surgery. Liposuction. A brow shave and some cosmetic dental work. Put some of the cash into fast rollover investments. Hire a personal trainer, a stylist, and a speech therapist and get yourself a decent watch, for fuck’s sake. If you like law enforcement that much, get a cover job—consult for a private security firm, something that gets you into a suit every day instead of a Halloween costume with a toy cowboy badge. In twelve months, your life will be unrecognizable.”
The sheriff’s pudgy mouth opened and closed a few times. Cline waited, but the words that eventually came out were not what he expected.
/> “I like my life,” Clay said. His face suddenly darkened, shifted. Cline was looking at a man for an instant. An equal. “And you’ve just offered me a bribe, sir.”
The sheriff stood. Cline looked up at him, impressed and amused, yes, but mostly annoyed.
“I’m going to forget what you just said and bid you good night,” Clay said.
Cline sat in the dark for a long time after Sheriff Spears was gone. Eventually Cline let a sigh escape his lips. He looked at Turner, who waited expectantly for a command.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
MIDNIGHT, WHEN WE would enact our plan, was approaching. I felt the hour coming on, though that didn’t stop me from checking my watch every ten minutes, meeting Effie’s eyes knowingly across the fire blazing between us in the pit. When we first started the Inn, the firepit in the woods by the house had been regularly in use, the rising gold embers drawing people out of their rooms to the old rickety benches Siobhan had bought and placed around the barbecue area. The warmth of the flames, Malone jabbering in my ear, brought back memories. Those great old times were mingling confusingly with the new as I followed the embers up toward the dark trees above and imagined Marni leaving us, so young, so unfairly, for whatever realm was next.
I gripped my bench hard when I thought of her, imagining her tiny form beneath the sheets on the gurney rolling by me, unnoticed. The hospital had insisted Marni’s mother identify her, and I had followed the woman’s direction not to go and view her body. The last time I saw the child was in the back of Clay’s squad car when I’d promised her better things were coming.
“The guy was a monster,” Malone was telling Susan, the two of them sitting on either side of me. “He used to walk into the break room and go, ‘What’s that smell? I thought this was a police station. All I see around me are pieces of shit.’ He never approved overtime, personal expenses, sick leave. You can’t work with a captain like that. So this guy here comes up with a genius plan.” Malone slapped me on the chest, taking me away from my thoughts. Susan was watching me carefully.
“Tell her what you did.” Malone grinned.
Despite everything, I couldn’t help smiling. “I started sending him presents.”
“Bill starts sending our asshole captain presents.” Malone laughed. “He sends this cute little box with a big red bow and inside is a red lace thong in a size two. The note is from a secret admirer in the E-Thirteen District.”
“I didn’t think it would work,” I told Susan, who was trying not to laugh. “But it did, really well. The captain comes around showing everybody this thong, twirling it on his finger and reading the letter about how the woman can’t wait to wear it for him and the things she’s gonna do.”
“He’s quite the erotic storyteller.” Malone slapped me again. “You’d be surprised.”
“So what happened?” Susan asked.
“I sent him the thong, then a box of chocolate body paint and a pair of those fluffy handcuffs,” I said. “By the time the third gift arrived the captain had put in for a transfer to E-Thirteen District.”
“That is genius.” She laughed. “I could have used that tactic about a dozen times across my career.”
Malone noticed how miserably Angelica was slouched beside him, watching the flames reflected in a glass of wine. He turned to her, and Susan turned to me.
“Are you okay?” Susan asked me. I hadn’t realized I had that thousand-yard stare.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Old memories, you know. They stir things up.”
“Want to go for a walk?” she asked.
We left the group at the fire and strolled through the trees to the beach. It was an unseasonably warm night, and the water was pale glass, the way it had been when Nick walked out here in the tangle of his own nightmares, reflecting an eerie gold moon near the horizon. Susan clutched her coat around her and watched the stones passing beneath her feet, the only sound the lapping of the water nearby and the horns of boats in the distance returning home.
I broke the silence reluctantly.
“You must know what we did,” I said. “Me and Malone.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
“WHAT DO YOU mean?” Susan frowned.
“The Boston thing. The reason I was fired. You must have checked me out.”
Susan stopped walking and smirked almost bitterly at the horizon. I felt bad for accusing her of snooping into my past.
“I was married once before,” she said. “Bureau guy, of course. A fellow recruit. We had been very competitive with each other at the academy, sort of rivals, until graduation, when we realized why we were so obsessed with each other. The relationship was always chaotic, but that was exciting to me, you know? We were sent on assignments all around the country where we had to pretend we didn’t know each other, and it was electric. We’d rendezvous secretly in alley-ways in New York and on beaches in Los Angeles at night, see each other in little hole-in-the-wall bars.”
What she was describing sounded like a spy movie, and she knew it. She laughed.
“We got married too fast. Things changed. He was impossible to live with. Sarcasm became insults, which became shoving, then grabbing. Then he started talking about what he’d do if I ever left him. I got worried. I looked up a couple of his old girlfriends. He’d thrown one of them down the stairs and broken her hip, then later threatened to kill her if she said anything about it to the Bureau agents who did his background check. Another was so scared of him that she moved to Australia and changed her name.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“You’d think it would have made me more cautious.” Susan looked at me. Her eyes were big and full of truth. “But it didn’t. I don’t look people up anymore. I’m afraid of what I’ll find. Once I discovered who he really was, I knew I had to leave.”
“He still works there,” I said.
“He does,” she said. “He’s high profile. So was I. What I did, by leaving—it humiliated him. We had the perfect wedding. There were many important people there, people with power and influence, and I left him to explain where I’d gone. I just cut ties. So I try to avoid dealing with the Bureau as much as I can. I lost a job I loved and a lot of people who cared about me. But I’m … you know. I’m happy here.” She straightened and shook herself in a way that made me think she was lying. Trying to wear the truth of her words.
“Are you just starting again here at the house?” I asked. “Or are you actually in hiding from this guy?”
She chewed her lip, looked as though she wanted to tell me something else. Then she said, “I don’t want to talk about it.” She waved me off.
“If this guy has hurt you or if he’s going to try to hurt you—”
“Then I’ll deal with it myself,” she said. “Like I did the first time.”
“You …” I nodded. “Of course you will.”
“You’ve got the white-knight mentality about you.” She smiled. “Boston cop for a couple of decades. How could you not, right?”
I drew a long breath. “It’s more than that. I know I’m too protective of women. It’s old-fashioned, and I’ve taken it too far in the past.”
“How?”
“Oh.” I shrugged. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, don’t let it get you into trouble with me,” she said. “I can handle myself, and I can handle my business. And so can Effie.”
“Is she connected to your ex?”
“No,” Susan said. “She was a case of mine, sort of. She needed to get away, and so did I, so it made sense to go together. But I’m speaking out of turn now. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” She turned away and started to head back toward the house. But I took a deep breath, put an arm around her waist, and drew her to me.
“Whoa!” she cried.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
“WHOA!” I RESPONDED, my face flushing. I let her go and she stumbled a little on the rocks, put her hand to her lips. We both laughed awkwardly, our faces burning.
“Were you going to k
iss me?” Her eyes were wide, full of hilarity.
“Well, I just … ” I cleared my throat, looked down at my feet, then up at the sky. “Oh Jesus. I just thought you might … I, uh, well, the moon and the water and … ” I gestured. “You know?”
“No.” She laughed. “I mean, yes, I get it! It—it was perfect. I just wasn’t ready for it.” She slapped a hand over her eyes. “I was actually hoping that you would, but I didn’t think you were going to, and then you just did, and—”
“You were hoping I would?”
“Yes!”
“Oh no.” I covered my face. “Now I’ve ruined it.”
“No, I was definitely the one who ruined it.”
We both put our hands in our pockets and looked at the stones beneath us. I thought it was over, and then she grabbed a handful of my shirt and dragged me to her. As soon as her lips were against mine, I was sealed in a moment so perfect, so long desired that I felt like crying. I held her against my chest, and she looped her arms around my neck, and all that I had lost and all the fear and fury at the threat of losing more dissolved.
We pressed our foreheads together, and when I opened my eyes I found she was smiling as wide as I was.
“Now, that—”
“—was perfect,” I said. We looked at each other, and then out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement by the trees near the house.
Effie. She nodded at me, pointed to her watch.
It was time.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
THE BOAT WAS exactly where Squid said it would be, about three nautical miles off Gloucester, cutting laps up and down the coast until it was time to come in. Nick was at the stern of our tiny tin boat, and Effie and I were huddled at the bow, as though by keeping low in the vessel, we might avoid the boat being seen on approach. The moon, high, white, and full, wasn’t good for cover, but the three of us had decided to go that night before Cline got to thinking about what our next move might be. Nick cut the small engine a long way out from the vessel and let the bigger boat drift into our path.
The Inn Page 13
