Boar Island (37 page)

This was what it would be like all the time. Once they had a place of their own, safe in a warm part of the world, every night they would laugh and tease, watch movies and eat popcorn. That wasn’t part of Denise’s childhood, yet she’d done that sort of thing with Peter. At the time it must have been nice, but that recollection had been rotted and discolored by the times between then and now. As a memory, it was a corpse, and that corpse stank like carrion.

Paulette plugged the blow-dryer into an outlet on the counter. Hot air blew over Denise’s neck, breathed past her right cheek and ear. She closed her eyes. Her sister was fixing her hair. Right out of one of those books she used to vandalize at the library when she was a kid. The happy family bullshit that infuriated her. Maybe it wasn’t fiction after all. Maybe all those Dick-and-Jane children’s authors weren’t lying through their teeth.

The new Volvo was parked behind the shack. The back porch light was off. Still, it was a risk for Denise and Paulette to be together. The closer they got to endgame, the more dangerous it was to be seen in one another’s proximity. People didn’t remember much about random days. They remembered where they were when Kennedy was shot, what they were wearing when the World Trade Center towers came down, what they had for dinner before they’d gone to see
The Dark Knight Rises
in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Denise didn’t want anyone popping out of the woodwork and saying, “Yeah. I saw Denise Castle and Paulette Duffy together right before the shit hit the fan. You know, they were real chummy. They even kind of looked alike.”

Denise wanted to leave Maine unremarked and unremembered. She wanted Paulette to drift out of the minds of the people who knew her the way perfume drifts out of a bottle. The best way to get away with murder is never to be suspected in the first place. Once law enforcement decides on a person of interest, they keep sticking their noses up that person’s ass if for no other reason than it makes it look like they’re doing something when they don’t know what the hell to do.

Unfortunately, they had to be in the house; the bleach job required running water. That turned out to be a perk. Denise didn’t want Paulette going out past the Volvo and seeing all the things she had bought. Later, Paulette would be glad, grateful even, but it might be hard for her to understand at the moment. Besides, they were having fun! Good, clean family fun. Like a couple of Mormons, Denise thought, and was taken aback at her sourness.

Having fun must be like a lot of things in life. To do it right required practice and training.

Denise’s hair was dried. Paulette had set the electric rollers next to the sink and plugged them in. She insisted Denise wasn’t to look in a mirror until the process—she called it a “transformation”—was complete. After the transformation would be the “reveal.”

Though she’d lost the thread of why they were happy, while the curlers heated, Denise went on pretending she was. Paulette rolled her hair as the television played a reality show where people made assholes of themselves and a laugh track, like Denise, pretended it was funny.

Paulette combed out her hair and insisted on putting makeup on her. Feeling like a clown, Denise went on pretending. Maybe fun was like faith for alcoholics, fake it till you make it.

Eyes closed, promising not to peek, she let Paulette lead her through the bedroom and into the bathroom.

“The mirror’s smaller than the one on the bureau, but the light’s better,” Paulette said, excitement bubbling in her voice. “You can look now.”

Denise opened her eyes, expecting to see hair like Paulette had, broken and dried out like an overused broom. Regardless of her decaying attitude, Denise was impressed by the reveal. In the mirror was a beautiful woman. Smooth, blond, gleaming hair waved down past her chin. Soft rose colored her cheeks. A darker hue made her lips look fuller, younger. Mascara rimmed her eyes, turning the muddy hazel to dark green.

For a long, long moment Denise didn’t know who she was looking at. She knew she was in the body of the person reflected in the mirror, but that face, that hair, those lips had no connection whatsoever with Denise Castle, dour and green and gray to the shattered remnants of her soul.

“Do you like it?” Paulette asked anxiously.

Denise nodded. The beautiful blonde in the mirror nodded.

If she’d had Paulette five years ago, if she’d gone blond, curled her hair, worn makeup, would Peter have needed space? Would he have chucked her out? Fallen in love with Lily?

“Doesn’t matter,” Denise snarled, and the plump pink lips in the mirror snarled with her.

“You hate it!” Paulette cried. Over her shoulder, reflected in the glass, Denise saw her sister’s eyes fill with tears, her open happy-face curl into a pained wad.

“No. I love it. I was thinking of something else.” Denise tried to undo the damage, but the moment had gone.

Though she primped and complimented her own reflection over and over, Paulette wouldn’t cheer up. Denise was never so glad to see the back of anyone as she was to see the last of the pink scrubs disappear out the front door when Paulette left for work at seven forty-five.

“I’ll lock up,” Denise promised from where she sat on the sagging dirty couch. “I just want to finish this episode of…” Denise had no idea which show was on. Assholes. That was what was on. Fortunately, Paulette was more intent on leaving the dudgeon than she was on what Denise was saying.

The moment Denise could no longer hear the burr of the Duffys’ pickup truck on the asphalt, she leapt to her feet.

She worked quickly, not because she was afraid Paulette might come back for some reason but because she wanted to get out of that house, out of the room where she’d killed Kurt, and away from the ammonia fumes of her new persona.

Under the bed, she found a suitcase. Rummaging through drawers with the insensitivity of a hardened burglar, she grabbed what she thought Paulette would need. One suitcase would have to be enough. What Paulette had was cheap and tired. They would both buy new wardrobes once they were settled. Cosmetics, shampoo—all the gooey stuff—they could pick up on the road.

Suitcase slammed shut and zipped, Denise snatched a set of scrubs and a pair of Crocs out of the closet. Stopping, she looked around the room. This was the last time she would see it. If things went as planned, Paulette would never see it again.

On the back porch, suitcase in hand, scrubs over her shoulder, Denise stopped again. Turning back, she stared at the weathered wood on the side of the house, the torn screen door, the peeling paint of the trim. Too bad a fire would call attention to the place. But for that, she might have thrown a match into the tinderbox.

Given her mood, if she could have, she might have burned down the world.

FORTY-TWO

Cybercreep had mandated a night meeting. Because it was the height of the season, bars, cafés, and many shops were open until eight or later. Cecelia’s Coffee Shop was open until nine thirty. The cybercreep said they needed to be there at nine.

Everything about the time bothered Heath.

Poor little creep probably was hoping for darkness, she thought. Too bad the sun wouldn’t set until nearly ten o’clock. That failed to comfort her. Dusk was probably worse. Often it was harder to see at dusk than it was in the middle of the night. Dusk was like a gray fog; normal shapes fooled the eye, strange shapes appeared familiar.

Of course, Bar Harbor would be lit up for the tourists.

Light was probably worse than dusk. Light meant shadows. Black shadows under docks, between boats floating in black water.

Everything about the place bothered Heath.

Why not midnight in a haunted house, or in the deep dark of the forests? Anna said the lonelier the place, the easier it was to spot the bad guy coming, to see where he parked, to hide in place until the appointed hour. In towns there were crowds; plenty of people that wouldn’t be him, and only one son of a bitch who would. Hard to tell the good guys from the bad guy.

Meeting in town probably meant that he wasn’t planning on kidnapping E. That, too, bothered Heath. Since it was almost a guarantee he meant Elizabeth no good, if he didn’t intend to take her, then he must intend to harm her. An attack in town would be sudden, like a lightning bolt from a cloud of tourists, all but one of whom were innocent. A gunshot? A head shot? Heath shuddered at the image and gasped.

“You okay, Mom?” E asked. They were just rounding Bald Porcupine Island. E was seated beside Heath in the stern of John’s boat as it turned toward the dock at Bar Harbor. They were holding each other’s hands, leaning close to be heard over the noise of the engine. Gwen was at the console with John.

“Never better,” Heath muttered. “Never better.”

“Would it cheer you up if I told you that you look like a whale that got spray-painted at a ‘Back to the Sixties’ party?” “Elizabeth asked.

Heath stared down at her lap. She was wearing Dem Bones beneath a riotously colored maxiskirt. Over that was a long fuchsia tunic with turquoise embroidery down the front that Anna had picked up at the thrift store where she bought the skirt. Heath’s punishment for insisting on being part of the festivities. Sunglasses were out since Cybercreep had opted for night ops, but she wore a moderately battered purple sun hat with a wide brim. All in all she was, if not a perfect picture, at least a pretty good likeness of an overweight tourist with a good heart and bad taste.

If the pervert did recognize her, she would never forgive him.

He won’t, she told herself, as she had insisted to Anna. For the past seven years—all of her life with Elizabeth—anyone who knew her knew her in a wheelchair. Many never saw past the wheelchair. Upright, walking, even with canes, was the ultimate disguise. Heath Jarrod was “the lady in the wheelchair,” not “the fat lady hobbling down the sidewalk.”

“And you look like a fourteen-year-old boy,” Heath teased her daughter.

Elizabeth smoothed her palm down the flat front of her shirt, her breasts squashed beneath the Kevlar. “This thing is more uncomfortable than a bra. I’m surprised Anna wears one.”

“I don’t think Anna’s worn a bra since she burned her last one in 1971,” Heath said.

“The bulletproof vest,” E said with exaggerated patience. Heath had known what she meant; she’d just wanted to make herself think things were a joking matter when they weren’t.

“Regulations,” Heath said. “Otherwise, I expect she wouldn’t.”

“Will she have somebody else’s tonight?” E asked. “I hadn’t thought about that. If I have hers, will she be, like, vulnerable and stuff?”

“Anna can take care of herself,” Heath said. As the words came out of her mouth she remembered Anna tied to the lift, naked, unconscious, and covered in blood.

As if her mind were running along the same channels, Elizabeth said, “Anna isn’t getting any younger.”

“Older is tougher, like beef and redwoods,” Heath said.

“Do you know where she’ll be?”

“No. Not exactly. She’s sort of wandering the general area. But she’ll be close.”

Cybercreep had insisted Elizabeth come alone. Unless he was a total idiot, he had to know that there would be watchers, that this was a trap as much for him as for E. He must be gambling that no one would dare be too close, that he would have space to do whatever it was he wanted to do, then get away before they could catch him.

“Maybe he just wants to talk,” Elizabeth said.

“Let’s hope so,” Heath replied grimly. “We’re here.”

John had cut power. Under his experienced hands the boat was gliding effortlessly alongside a dock below a large parking lot that served the picturesque downtown area of Bar Harbor. Nimble as his own grandson, John Whitman leapt over the gunwale to snick two yellow lines fast, one at the bow and one near the stern.

Walt had wanted to be a member of the party. Anna had nixed that. Heath had no doubt the nixing was a waste of breath. What red-blooded young hero wouldn’t want to save the damsel if he got the chance? Walt would be lurking somewhere around the town square. Since he had been unknown—even to her—until the previous day, Heath wasn’t worried his appearance would scare the cybercreep into hiding or precipitous action. In fact, Heath hoped he would disobey Anna. If Heath had her way, the town would be full of young, strong, kind, brave boys in love with her daughter.

Young, strong, kind, brave,
sane
boys.

Were boys who bullied, took sexual advantage, loved pornography, and the shame and subjugation of women, technically insane? Given that society at large behaved in much the same manner, didn’t that make the nasty boys the norm? Was virtue, once its own reward, now a symptom of a mental disease?

Physical demands chased away the bitter thoughts as, with the help of John and Elizabeth, Heath disembarked and got herself squared away on the pier: hat firmly on head, crutches in hand, tunic over thick waist and legs, feet pointed toward the landing ramp.

From the low dock, Heath could see that the town was lit up and the parking lot was full, but little else. It wasn’t more than a couple hundred yards—and two ramps—to where she had chosen to plant herself for the duration. Over the past couple of weeks, she’d gotten good with Dem Bones. Two canes were still needed for balance, but her gait was relatively smooth and her endurance far greater than it had been at the start. Still, she didn’t want to use up her strength getting up to city level and through the parking lot, so she waited while John unloaded Robo-butt and Gwen unfolded it.

Gwen stayed with the boat while John rolled Heath up to the pavement, then halfway down the long parking area. There, he took the wheelchair and left her and Elizabeth standing in the shadow of a Chevy Suburban. He and Gwen would wait with the boat, ready to leave if leaving suddenly became necessary.

The time was eight fifteen; the sun was low in the west, veiled with clouds, the sky a deep lavender. Heath’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the bright lights and big city. They had expected some foot traffic at this hour, but the square was packed with bodies. “What in hell…”