FORTY-SEVEN
* * *
THE SUNSET
Billy almost forgot to put on a shirt. His old beater pickup truck didn’t have air-conditioning, so he’d gotten into the habit of peeling off his shirt on the hotter days so he didn’t get out with the cotton sticking to his body. He’d left the doors unlocked and the windows open—you had to. There wasn’t much crime on Bonaire, but petty theft was a problem. Locking the doors and closing the windows just served to signal that you had something valuable in your car and meant you’d come back to find a shattered window. Most locals seemed to think the problem was punks boating over from Curaçao, but Billy didn’t mind. He just made a point of not leaving anything of value in the truck.
Besides, he couldn’t have left anything worth stealing in the truck if he tried. Along with no air-conditioning, there was no stereo, and he didn’t own a cell phone. He carried his wallet in his pocket, and the only time he had his scuba gear in the truck was when he was actually headed out to go diving.
He pulled his shirt on as he walked into the bank. The air-conditioning was unpleasantly high, but at least it made the sight of the Christmas tree seem a little less jarring. December 3. Almost a full year since they’d left Eagle Mansion.
Bonaire averaged highs in the mid eighties and lows in the high seventies every single day of the year. He didn’t miss the snow. He spent all the time he wasn’t working either scuba diving or swimming, and he’d even started running. It could be hard to get fresh fruit and vegetables, but he’d been eating much better, too. If you didn’t count the brutal scar on his arm and hand and the way his hand was always semi-clenched uselessly into a claw, he looked good. The ravages of the years he’d spent drinking would never be completely washed away, but he looked healthy. He felt healthy, too. He was happy.
The manager saw him come in and she waved him to the back office. She thought it was weird that he insisted on doing everything in person instead of operating electronically, but he was the kind of client for whom eccentricities were allowed. It was an easy transaction today, in and out in less than five minutes, but then again, every transaction at the bank was easy. The manager didn’t know how much money he was worth, but she knew he’d paid cash for both a six-bedroom oceanfront house and the business, and she saw how much money he kept in his checking account and how, every time the balance seemed to dip, a large chunk was transferred in. She’d asked him once why he drove such a terrible truck instead of a nice new luxury car.
He certainly could have bought one.
In the end, Shawn had done right by him and Emily. Or, if not by him, by Emily.
They would never have to worry about money again, and neither would Beth or Rothko, and neither would Ruth or Rose or their kids, if Ruth or Rose had kids when they grew up. However much money the woman in the bank thought he and Emily had at their disposal, she was probably short at least one zero.
He stopped at Van Den Tweel on his way back. The grocery store was unusually busy, but he didn’t mind. There was no hurry. He filled up two bottles from the fresh-squeezed orange juice machine. Emily was still harping at him to quit drinking juice and to stick with whole fruits. Citrus did pretty well in transport, so that was something they had plenty of on Bonaire. But, you know, juice was juice. He also grabbed a large bar of hazelnut chocolate, which was the twins’ favorite. He’d sneak them some when they got home from school.
The teenage boy working the cash register stared at his hand. “What happened?”
Billy peeled off some cash and then looked at the scar. It didn’t bother him as much as it used to, but it was still an unwelcome reminder of what they had left behind at Eagle Mansion. “I had a pretty nasty bug,” he said. “An infection. I ended up needing surgery. Ancient history.”
The boy seemed unsure of that, but he gave Billy his change and bagged up the juice and chocolate.
Billy stopped at the house to put away the orange juice. He poked his head upstairs and called out but got no answer, so he went outside to the pool. Down a flight of steps from the pool, they had their own dock and access to the ocean. It wasn’t the best place on the island to scuba dive or snorkel from, but it wasn’t bad, and there wasn’t a property they’d liked more. There was no sign of any of the adults. He looked at his Rolex. He liked having the watch there. It gave him something to look at on his left arm other than his ruined hand.
It itched at him sometimes, but the surgeon swore she’d gotten all the wires out. She’d asked him if he wanted to keep the . . . she didn’t even know what it was. But he’d said no. He knew exactly what it was. It was Nellie’s attempt to climb inside him. She had wanted to make it so that no matter where he went—if he ever left the house—there would be a piece of her with him, forever and always. Not to control him. Not exactly. Just to ensure that he would never be free of her. He didn’t want to keep it, didn’t want to look at it. He wanted nothing to do with it, and it had gone in a biohazard bag, to find its way to an incinerator. He still had dreams sometimes where he’d wake up panicked that there were wires inside him. A couple of weeks ago he’d even driven to the airport and had them run the wand over his arm. The security guard had laughed, but Billy had been relieved when the metal detector didn’t beep.
There was still an hour until the girls were done with school. He stuffed the orange juice in the fridge, thought about it for a second, and then hid the chocolate in the back of the fruit drawer, figuring he’d be able to give some to the twins before their parents found it. He spared a glance for the phone on the wall. The Realtor hadn’t understood why he’d insisted on a corded phone when they all could have just gotten cell phones, and she was absolutely flabbergasted when he’d told her that one of the conditions of closing on the deal was removing the high-speed internet connection the previous owner had installed. No internet, no Wi-Fi, nothing connected, nothing high-tech.
They’d all agreed on that. Call it what you want. Paranoia. PTSD. They didn’t care. It meant that they didn’t have to think about it. Didn’t have to worry.
He got back into his truck and drove down to the coffee shop.
As always, he admired the sign. It was cheesy, but he loved it: the name, Beanaire, such a stupid pun on coffee beans combined with Bonaire, plus a cartoon drawing of a coffee cup wearing scuba gear. It was a great sign. He parked on the far side of the parking lot. There weren’t many customers midafternoon, but that was okay. The money didn’t matter.
There was still a part of him that couldn’t believe Shawn had left all that money to Emily. But there was another part of him that understood. That understood all of it.
He sat in the truck for a second to admire the view. You couldn’t reach the ocean from the coffee shop, but you had a damn fine view of it.
He passed an older black woman who was sitting outside and reading. He could never remember her name, but he knew she’d been a teacher for forty years before retiring on Bonaire so she could go snorkeling every single day. That’s why most people came to Bonaire, it seemed, to snorkel or go scuba diving. Billy had never done either before they set foot on the island, but he’d fallen in love with both. They all had. The girls were still too young for scuba diving, but they liked to snorkel, and they were looking forward to being old enough to get scuba certified. In the meantime, the house had a pool, and they were happy with that, too.
He chatted with the older woman for a few minutes, and he asked after her husband, who had been nursing a cold. When he went inside the coffee shop, he saw a young couple—clearly tourists—sitting at one of the tables and sharing a slice of chocolate cake. Rusty was asleep in the corner of the room, curled up on his dog bed.
Rothko was behind the counter, reading a magazine. He nodded at Billy. “If you’re looking for Emily, she and Beth are out back.”
“Thanks. How’s business been?”
Rothko grinned. “Who cares?”
They both laughed. That joke hadn’t gotten old yet.
He pou
red himself a coffee. He drank a lot of coffee, but he hadn’t, not once since they’d left Eagle Mansion, craved a drink. It was like the desire had been burned out of him by the same fire that had turned Eagle Mansion into a wreck.
The same fire that had set them free.
He and Emily had talked about it only once. Once was enough.
He thought about it sometimes. Thought about how much control Shawn had given Nellie over the mansion. Over his life. And death.
Sometimes he could hear Nellie’s voice. Sometimes he could hear those other, colder, darker voices that had replaced Nellie’s voice.
But not most of the time. Most of the time he was happy.
He went out back to the patio.
“Hey, you,” Emily said. She and Beth were lying on chaise lounges and reading. It wasn’t a large patio, but it was private, and it got shade in the afternoon. It was quiet back there, and there was something about the way it was angled that made it feel like you could just reach out and touch the ocean. That patio was his favorite thing about Beanaire. Next to the punny name.
She started to get up, but he leaned over to kiss her. “Don’t,” he said. “Just stopping to say hi.”
She sighed, clearly relieved. Billy thought she looked beautiful, all swollen and full, but she had reached that point in her pregnancy when she had to grunt to get out of a chair. She reached up and took his hand in hers. The scar on her arm had faded to white, but her arms were tanned, so it stood out. It would always stand out. It didn’t seem to bother her, though. There was no lasting damage other than the scar. When anybody asked her about it, she’d just smile and say it was a silly accident, or she’d joke that she needed something to match the scar on Billy’s hand, and then she’d change the subject.
Beth put down her book. “If you and Rothko want to take the girls out snorkeling when they get home from school, that would be fabulous.”
“Of course.”
“I’d take them,” Emily said, “but I’m worried I might get mistaken for a whale. I don’t want somebody to accidentally harpoon me.”
“You look beautiful, baby,” he said. He meant it, too. She was due just after the new year. They’d already fixed up one of the empty bedrooms in the house as a nursery. Ruth and Rose were plenty excited about getting a cousin.
He’d been worried about Ruth and Rose at first. They were quiet for weeks and weeks, barely speaking at all through January and February in Beth and Rothko’s condo in Chicago. But it seemed like Bonaire had cured them. That haunted look disappeared from their eyes, and Beth said they hadn’t had a single nightmare since they’d come to the island. They’d even started doing things independently of each other. Not often, and it was still almost impossible to tell them apart, but they seemed happy. Their only complaint was that Beth and Rothko had said no to a second dog.
He leaned over and kissed Emily again.
“I’ll see you at home,” he said.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* * *
Thank you to my literary agent, Bill Clegg, and to all the fine folks at the Clegg Agency, as well as to my screen agent, Anna DeRoy, at WME. Thank you to Emily Bestler, Lara Jones, David Brown, and the Emily Bestler Books/Atria family.
As always, thank you to my family.
More from the Author
The Hatching Trilogy
Zero Day
Skitter
The Hatching
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * *
EZEKIEL BOONE lives in upstate New York with his wife and children. He is the author of the international bestsellers The Hatching, Skitter, and Zero Day.
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Skitter
Zero Day
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Boone, Ezekiel, author.
Title: The mansion : a novel / by Ezekiel Boone.
Description: First Emily Bestler Books/Atria Books hardcover edition. | New York : Emily Bestler Books/Atria, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017053605 (print) | LCCN 2017056672 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501165528 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501165504 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501165511 (trade pbk)
Subjects: | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction. | Science fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3602.O6577 (ebook) | LCC PS3602.O6577 M36 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017053605
ISBN 978-1-5011-6550-4
ISBN 978-1-5011-6552-8 (ebook)
The Mansion Page 44
