Blackwater Sound (29 page)

Saturday morning, April twenty-ninth, Thorn woke before dawn and went out on the porch with his coffee. The pink buffalo was staring at Blackwater Sound, watching it brighten, then begin to turn silver. The buffalo seemed fascinated by the way the light seeped through the bay, spreading below the surface like a thousand underground rivers of molten lava. Thorn watched along with the pink buffalo as the silver turned to tin and then quickly dulled to a series of increasingly darker greens. Not that transparent blue of the Bahamas, but beautiful in its own way.

Thorn sipped his coffee and listened to her move around inside the house. She was clinking in the cupboard, rejecting the mug Thorn laid out for her, choosing her own, stirring in the half-and-half.

Down on the
Heart Pounder
he could see Lawton stretching his arms. Father and daughter on the same circadian cycle, sharing that
biological connection. And lots of others, too, that he'd noticed. Similar handwriting, little tics and gestures, the cadence of their talk. He wondered if they noticed it. Wondered if that's how it was with every parent and child. Nobody as free as they liked to believe, just a helpless bundle of inherited traits. Even Thorn, an adopted kid who never knew his parents. Still, doing things he couldn't control, destined to repeat the behaviors of people he'd never met. Which, when he considered it, was a lucky thing. His one way of getting to know them, by being himself, doing what their genes whispered in his ear.

He stared out at the bay and watched the green turn deeper, richer. Listened to the toilet flush, the scuff of her leather sandals on the wood floor. He could smell her coming, the quiet scent of late-blooming jasmine, a subtle change in the force field. Feeling that lift in his pulse that he'd forgotten, that he'd thought he was too old for, or too jaded. He'd been afraid that one too many women in his past had dulled his longing.

Then the screen door yawned as she came outside, and the slap of it behind her. He wanted to swing around and see her standing there. He wanted to sweep her up and carry her back to the mattress where they'd fit together so naturally, so instantly. Without a lot of talk, even in the afterglow, both of them panting, sweaty, even then, when talk was okay, even expected, they hadn't felt the need. Just lay there in the silence, barely touching, but closer than he'd been to anyone in years.

But Thorn held still. Didn't want to scare her with his intensity. She sat down beside him on the picnic bench. She sipped her coffee. Cream, no sugar. She lay her hand on top of his hand, scratched the skin lightly with a nail. The pink buffalo kept her vigil, guardian of whimsy, god of all large, unfathomable beasts, as if she were gazing out across the vast pasturelands searching for her mate, the other pink buffalo who would some day come thundering across the whitecaps of the bay and in a cloud of dust would halt beside her and nuzzle her and begin to recount his adventures.

“Is he up?”

“For a few minutes. Same as you.”

She cleared her throat. Cut a glance his way, then returned to the bay.

“You feeling anxious?”

“About what?” he said, trying for nonchalance, but hearing the edge in his voice.

She thumped an admonishing finger against the back of his hand.

“No, I'm not worried,” Thorn said. “I've never seen so many federal agents swarming in one place.”

“They should shut down the airport.”

“They can't do that.”

“Yeah, yeah. The panic. Worried the press will find out. Still it seems like the prudent thing to me. What I would do if I were in charge.”

“Thank God you're not.”

“Why?”

“You wouldn't be here, you'd be up in Miami.”

She patted Thorn's hand again.

“They'll catch her,” he said. “She's out of control. It'll be over by lunch.”

“I turned my cell phone off. I don't want to know. I just want to be here, be with you and Dad. I can read about it in the paper next week.”

“Maybe we'll take the boat somewhere, go over to the ten thousand islands, poke around the oyster beds. Stay overnight, count the constellations.”

“The three of us.”

“Of course.”

“He likes you. He never liked Stan, my husband. He hasn't liked any of the men in my life until you.”

“It's the boyish grin.”

“You take him fishing,” she said. “None of the men in my life knew the first thing about it.”

They looked out at the bay some more. A boat passed. It was going
slow, a Mako with a family of four and a dog. Everybody was talking at once.

“There's a gun in your bedside table, Thorn. Did you know that?”

“You were snooping.”

“I'm a cop. I can't help it.”

“Sugar let me borrow it. Just until Morgan's caught.”

She looked at him for a moment, then nodded.

“Maybe I should call Dan Romano, check in, see how things are going.”

He looked out at the cloudy sky, at the sun spearing through the chinks.

“If that's what you want.”

Lawton was walking down the dock, headed for the house. He had on his favorite outfit. Blue sleeveless T-shirt and yellow Bermuda shorts. He stopped and studied the pink buffalo. He bent down and got eye to eye with her and said something to the beast, then he straightened up and came up the lawn and up the stairs. Everyone exchanged good-mornings.

“Got any eggs?” Lawton said. “I was thinking about a cheese omelette. Or pancakes would work, too. Even better, how about both together? And bacon, I love bacon. I know it's no good for you, but at my age, what the hell?”

“I've got a full larder, Lawton. You name it, we'll whip it up.”

Thorn got up and followed him into the house. Lawton went over to the refrigerator and started hauling things out. At the kitchen window, Thorn looked out at Alexandra. She was standing in a corner of the porch, her cell phone to her ear, her head bowed, shoulders hunched over as if she were trying to duck a bullet that she saw streaking out of the sky.

 

Morgan spent the week in a motel on Biscayne Boulevard near downtown Miami, watching the hookers come and go. Hearing the johns through the thin walls, their groans, their baby talk. She got her hair
colored. Now she was blond. She bought bright new clothes in a Cuban department store, pink horn-rimmed sunglasses. She used the last of her cash and charged nothing on plastic because they'd trace her instantly. She knew they were looking, knew the whole thing was exposed, even though there was nothing on TV or in the papers. They had to know. She could feel it, the weird barometric pressure shifting in her gut. And she knew who was to blame. The same one who killed Johnny. The asshole who'd wormed his way into their lives and corrupted everything.

With the last of her money she bought a pistol. A pawn shop on Biscayne sold her a .38 Colt with a box of shells, no questions, no wait. She stayed in her room at the Sinbad Motel and aimed the pistol at herself in the tarnished mirror. Her hand was steady, never wavered. She emptied the cylinder, aimed at the mirror, and squeezed the trigger and didn't flinch when the hammer hit. Aiming at herself. Killing the weird blond girl in the mirror, over and over.

On Saturday morning before dawn, she drove up to Palm Beach, parked five blocks from the house and took a route through the neighbors' backyards. She didn't think they'd have her father staked out. But she was careful anyway. Coming down an alley that connected her street with the two adjacent ones.

There was an FPL van parked a block away from her house, but nobody working on the lines. And she saw a man in an upstairs window across the street. He was looking through a narrow part in the curtain, smoking a cigarette. Not Mrs. Schaffer, the old lady who lived there. And she doubted the cigarette man was a visiting relation.

She moved down the alley, bush to bush, and ducked into an enclosure of wood lattice that shielded a neighbor's garbage cans. The Waste Management truck came at seven-fifteen. In twenty years the truck was hardly ever late. When the skinny black man jumped down off the back and started for the cans across the alley, Morgan slipped around the front of the truck and cut through the hedge and entered the Braswells' yard.

All views were cut off from both directions. If the cigarette man
was watching, he saw only the rear of the garbage truck. If the FPL crew had their binoculars out, they saw only its side. She used her key and was inside the house in seconds.

Her father was in his study. He was wearing striped pajamas. He sat at his desk staring into the computer screen. He'd logged onto the site that relayed his satellite information and he was staring at the screen, a nautical chart that showed a sprinkle of islands. Looked to Morgan like the Virgins. A blue ping was pulsing below the largest island. Big Mother was making good time, headed somewhere fast.

She stood behind him for several minutes and watched him staring at his screen. Finally he sighed, sensing her presence, and he swiveled around and looked at her. He looked at the gun in her hand, then back at her eyes.

He held her eyes for a long time before bowing his head.

“I deserve this,” he said. “It's all been my fault.”

“You're right, Dad. You're absolutely right.”

He looked back up.

“I shut down after it happened. After losing them, I simply shut down.”

“You did, yes. You shut down.”

“And you had to figure out everything on your own. Without a father, a mother. You had to struggle with it all by yourself. No guidance.”

“I did okay,” she said.

He shook his head.

“Johnny's dead.”

“I know he is.” She raised the gun but didn't point it at him. The garbage truck would come down the alley on the other side of the house in a minute and it would use its crusher, very loud, fifteen to twenty seconds. She'd heard it from her bedroom window every Saturday morning since she was a girl. Waking her up as it compacted the garbage from their street.

“They're looking for you.”

“I know.”

“A great many people. There's no escape from this, Morgan.”

“Don't be so sure.”

“What're you planning to do, shoot me?”

“I left something in the attic I needed to get. And I wanted to see you one more time. That's all.”

“I'm sorry, Morgan. I wish I could say something, make it all better.”

She shook her head. She was feeling fine. Amazingly clearheaded. Seeing her father for the first time. A man who had been unprepared for the cruelty that befell him. Just like everyone else. No one was ready. Even though they had to know it was coming. It was always coming.

“You can't fix this, Dad. Maybe you could have fixed it back then, but you didn't and now it's too late. The family is finished. We're all gone now. Andy, Mom, Johnny. Now you and me. We're gone, too.”

“Do you need anything, Morgan? Money? Food?”

She smiled.

“I needed something once,” she said. “But not now. I've learned to do without it.”

She heard the truck rumbling around the corner, headed down the alley.

“Andy's death, you know, that wasn't an accident.”

“What?”

“You were going to split us up. Mother told him you were going to send me away to school.”

Her father absorbed her words slowly.

“We talked about it. I remember that.”

“Ship me away and keep Andy at home. Like I was some spider-woman. Some pet you could discard.”

“What do you mean, it wasn't an accident?”

“Andy and I,” she said. “We loved each other.”

Her father peered at her.

“We loved each other in every way.”

Her father lowered his eyes and studied the floor at her feet.

“It was beautiful, joyous. I didn't feel guilty about it.”

He looked up, shaking his head. His eyes shining.

“Andy's death was an accident, Morgan. A terrible accident.”

“No, it wasn't. Andy was smarter than that. He never made mistakes. He took an extra wrap on purpose. He wanted to die.”

“No,” her father said. “No.”

“That's what he did,” she said. “A grand exit. Such a romantic.”

Out in the alley the garbage truck's brakes squealed. She heard one of the men whoop at the driver, then the clatter of cans on the pavement.

“But that's not why I'm here, Dad. All that's over and done.”

The color had drained from his face.

“You invited those men aboard our boat, Dad. Why did you do that?”

He wiped the dampness from his eyes.

“Morgan,” he said as if trying to stir her awake. “Morgan.”

“That wasn't right, Dad. We were still a family. We were damaged, we had our faults, sure, but we were still a family. A unit. And you violated that, Dad. You invited that asshole aboard. He was there to destroy us and you fell for it and let him onto our boat. And look what he did, he killed Johnny. He killed my brother.”

She aimed the pistol at her father's chest.

Her father stood up and raised his right hand toward her as if he meant to touch her cheek, wipe away her tears, wrap her in his arms, give her the hug he'd neglected to give her before. But the bullet knocked him back into his chair. Outside in the alley, the garbage truck was compressing its rubbish. She shot him a second time. Two in the heart. The second slug swiveled him around until he was half facing his computer screen again.

She stood there for a moment watching his last moments leak out of him. On the screen, the blue ping was blinking. Big Mother was on the move.