Savage (6 page)

Sidney laughed.

“Hey, I've pretty much caught up here, and the front has calmed down. Would you mind if I took off early today? I've got to take care of something.”

“I don't see any problem,” Doc Martin said. “I was planning on closing early today anyway on account of the storm.”

“Thanks.”

“Everything all right?” Doc Martin asked. “Your dad doing okay?”

Sidney shrugged as she removed her lab coat. “As good as can be expected I guess.” She hung the coat on one of the hooks. Snowy was watching her expectantly from her bed.

“Us old folks can be a real pain in the ass,” Doc Martin said, making her laugh some more. “You'll be old yourself someday. How old are you now? Thirty-two?”

“Eighteen,” she answered, suppressing a smile.

“Going on thirty-two,” Doc Martin said with a nod. “So . . . Cody. Anything new with that?”

Doc Martin knew that they'd broken up, and why, and seemingly supported her decision.

“Nothing new. We're still broken up, but I'm going over to the boatyard to ask a favor for Rich Stanmore and . . . unngh.” She made a face and laughed uneasily.

“Is that a smart thing to do?”

“If I didn't have to do it I'd be ecstatic, but I told Rich I would. And besides, I can't avoid seeing him forever.”

“Yeah, you're probably right,” the old vet said as she walked to the back door, turned the knob, and pushed it open.

The door was practically torn from her grasp in a gust of wind.

“Crap!” she said, attempting to hold on. “The wind's really picked up. You be careful out there; do what you have to do and then get home.”

Snowy jumped up and was now standing attentively by Sidney's side, knowing that they were about to leave.

“If you need any help closing up, call my cell,” Sidney said.

Doc Martin had used her foot to keep the door from blowing wide open again and was trying to smoke, but the wind kept pushing the smoke back in her face.

“I'll be good,” she said. “I'll see you in the morning.”

Sidney gave her a wave and headed out the other door to say her good-byes to the front-desk staff.

“Heading out for the day,” she told them. “Everything cool?”

“A-okay, captain,” Pam said. “Going anyplace good?” she asked as Sidney placed her back against the door, ready to push her way outside.

Again she made the face. “Rather be going to a funeral,” she said, opening the door wide as she and Snowy left the building, escorted out by the laughter of Pam and Michelle.

But in all honesty, she really would have.

In a way, Cody Seaton was glad about the coming storm.

It had little to do with what the damaging high winds, rain, and pounding waves could do to the marina, and everything to do with the amount of work he and his harbormaster father had to do to maintain the safety of the boats still moored there.

It had everything to do with being distracted.

Cody moved down the docks. All the boats that could be removed had been yesterday—hauled back to homes or stored in the nearby boatyard. The remaining crafts were too big to move, and although ultimate responsibility for the safety of those boats rested with the owners, Cody still took it upon himself to make sure that they had been properly prepared. As he walked, he checked that all the lines were doubled and that chafing protection was in place where the dock lines passed through the fairleads and chocks or over the sides of the vessels. He checked to be sure that all the boats had ample fenders to protect their hulls when the waters became increasingly choppy.

Everything was looking pretty good, and he desperately started to go through his mental checklist to find the next thing that he could do to occupy his time.

To keep from thinking about . . .

Too late. He'd already opened that door. Before Cody knew it, his mind was racing, bringing him back to that night when his girlfriend did the unthinkable.

Just the thought of Sidney and what she had done to him filled him with equal parts anger and hurt. She had said that she didn't want to hurt him, but then turned right around and ripped the heart from his chest and threw it into the harbor.

She might as well have just shot him in the head.

Sure, they'd had their problems over the years. Who didn't? No one's relationship was 100 percent perfect, but he was at least willing to work on things.

She had said that she needed a clean break, a fresh start. But what about him? Had she even taken the time to think about what
he
might want? They had been together for so long, he couldn't imagine their lives separately, and that just made him feel sick to his stomach.

The wind was picking up, and rain had started to spatter him and the docks. Cody pulled the hood of his Windbreaker over his head and reached into his back pocket for his phone. He'd promised himself he wasn't going to do this—constantly checking to see if Sidney had called or texted—but he did anyway. She hadn't, and it made him feel all the more terrible.

All he wanted was a chance to explain his side, how he would do anything to be with her. Things didn't have to change so dramatically just because she was heading off to college. He wanted an opportunity to be a part of that life, for them to experience it together.

He looked around the marina. His father expected him to take over as harbormaster once his dad retired, but if he had the opportunity to leave the island with Sidney . . .

His father opened the door of the office at the end of the main dock and motioned for Cody to join him. The young man slipped his phone back into his pocket and jogged over.

“Everything all right?” his father asked, squinting into the rain-swept wind.

“Yeah, everything looks good,” Cody answered.

“I was watching you from the window, just standing there in the rain. You sure you're all right?”

His father knew the situation. Sidney hadn't been one of his favorite people even before the breakup, and now . . .

“Yeah . . . just thinking.”

“I'm sure.” His father stared at him for a moment with those eyes that always seemed to know more than they should. “Hungry?” he asked finally.

“No,” Cody answered. His stomach hadn't felt right for days. He had no interest in eating.

“You need to eat.”

“I know.”

“Did you have anything for breakfast?”

“Yeah.”

“You're lying,” his father said matter-of-factly, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. “Go on to the diner and get us some lunch. Cheeseburger will do it for me; get yourself whatever.”

“I'm really not hungry,” Cody said as he took the money.

“You'll be surprised when you have something.”

“Maybe.” Cody shrugged.

“I'll hold down the fort till you get back,” his father said as he shoved his wallet back into his pocket.

Cody was already heading toward his truck when he heard his father's voice again.

“Has she called you back?”

The young man stopped but did not turn. “No . . . not yet.”

He braced himself, waiting for what the man would say next:
Maybe it's all for the best. . . . You can do better anyway. . . . You were always more serious than she was. . . .
But he said nothing, which in Cody's mind was the best thing he could have done.

Isaac's mother had found some walnuts.

She had been moving a box of cookbooks that she'd bought at a church flea market a few years back and knocked a plastic bag that had been wedged beneath a pile of aluminum pie plates and plastic take-out containers onto the floor. When she bent down to pick up the bag, she'd found the whole walnuts inside.

She had no idea where they'd come from or how long she'd had them, but she couldn't imagine that they weren't still good, and the perfect treat for her squirrel friends in the backyard.

Isaac did not want to go outside. He could hear the wind pounding at the house, the rain spattering against the windows, but his mother insisted.

“Our friends need their treat,” she told him as she put on the yellow slicker that she'd found beneath ten other coats hanging over the back of a dining room chair.

Isaac knew enough not to argue with his mother, especially these days, especially since his sister Barbara had come back into their lives. Instead, he went to his room and grabbed his own raincoat from where it hung neatly in his closet.

His mother called for him again, and Isaac pulled on his coat as he hurried down the hallway to the kitchen, careful not to slip on any of the debris that was in his path. She stood at the back door, hood over her head, plastic bag of walnuts in her hand.

“Hurry up,” she ordered, turning to open the door. There was a rush of wind into the kitchen, and it picked up stray pieces of paper and debris to create a mini tornado of trash.

“Hurry! Hurry!” she repeated. “Before the wind messes everything up!”

Isaac thought things were pretty messy already, but he did as he was told, passing through the swirling litter and closing the door firmly behind him as he joined his mother on the stoop.

From where he stood, Isaac could just about see Sidney's yard and house. He craned his neck to see if she might be out, but then quickly chided himself. Why would she be outside on such a horrible day? Sometimes, like his mother often said, he just wasn't thinking straight.

The backyard was as chaotic as the house. They picked their way over toys and flowerpots as they descended the steps into a large yard overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. Rusty bicycle frames, old tires, car rims, and garden statuary were nearly swallowed up by the overgrowth, and there were enough birdbaths to keep all the birds that called Benediction their home very clean indeed.

Isaac found that thought amusing, picturing cartoon birds scrubbing their backs with tiny brushes as they took their evening baths, but his musings were interrupted as a gust of wind picked up a blue kiddy pool and sent it hovering across the high grass toward them like a UFO.

“You should probably put some rocks in that,” his mother said. “Don't want it blowing away.” She was holding on to the back stairs' metal railing so she wouldn't lose her balance in the wind.

Isaac looked around and found a stone cherub lying on its side in the grass beside the house. One of its wings had been broken off, something his mother was going to fix, but never quite got around to. He walked over to the stone angel, lifted it up, and placed it atop the pool, looking up to see if his mother approved. But she'd already moved on, making her way through the grass to a metal bench just beside the run-down garage.

“Come over here and help me,” she called to him, motioning with a hand. “We've got a lot of hungry mouths to feed.”

He carefully navigated the yard, not wanting to trip on something hiding in the brush. But as he was concentrating so hard on his feet, another powerful gust took him totally unawares, and he stumbled after all, his shoe catching in the metal frame of an old bike and sending him to all fours in the high grass.

“Isaac!” his mother called out with concern.

But he could barely hear her, for the sound—that strange sound that he had heard primarily in his Steve ear—had come back and was louder now, making his head hum and his teeth rattle. He brought a dirt-covered hand up to his ear to turn down the sound, but only managed to make it squeal and crackle all the louder.

“Don't play with your hearing aids!” his mother yelled. “Come here and let me take a look at you.”

He wanted to do as she asked, but the sound had frozen him in place, stealing away his ability to act. The sound had become like a voice, but a voice he could not understand, drifting in and out among the static, like a bad radio station. It was just as much inside his head as it was in his bad ear.

It was like the sound was trying to tell him something, but no matter how hard he listened, he could not understand.

The rain was starting to fall harder now, the moisture of the damp ground under his knees soaking into his pants. He didn't like the fact that he was getting wet, but he could not concentrate enough to move. Even though he knew he was not supposed to touch the hearing aids, Isaac decided that he couldn't stand it anymore. He reached up to his Steve ear to tear the device from his head.

A hand wrapped around his wrist, stopping him. He looked over and saw that his mother now stood there.

“What did I tell you?” she asked, annoyed with him. “Do you know how much those hearing aids cost us?”

He wanted to apologize, to explain what was happening, but he was unable to speak, the sound inside his brain stealing away his ability to communicate. His mouth moved noiselessly as he tried to tell her. She continued to hold on to his wrist, preventing him from reaching his Steve ear.

The sound was growing in his brain, making him feel
wrong
.

It made him feel angry. The kind of special angry that he felt when one or more of the cats got into his room and messed things up. The kind of angry that made him want to hurt things. The sound continued to fill his head with bad feelings, and he could stand it no more.

With a cry of desperation he tore his hand from his mother's grasp, grabbed at his Steve ear, and pulled away the hearing aid. The sound coming over the hearing device was silenced at once, and he could move again, his mind no longer filled with such angry, horrible thoughts.

“You better not have broken that,” his mother snarled.

Isaac looked at his hand, and at the hearing device that he was holding, and hoped that he had broken it.

He never wanted to hear those horrible sounds again.

Janice Berthold held her breath as she ran her still-bleeding hand beneath the cold water from her bathroom sink. She could feel her heart beating in the wounds, as if the powerful muscle had somehow relocated from her chest to her hand, each pulse accompanied by sharp, stabbing pain.