Sleeping Alone (22 page)

“I’m not saying it’ll be easy,” he said, pacing the length of the room as he spoke, “but I am saying it’ll be profitable.”

“When?” one of the local businessmen asked. “I’m on a second mortgage as it is. I don’t know how much longer I can hang on.”

“Neither do I,” John shot back. “But if we give up now, we’re not going to get a second chance.” It was a cold world out there, he told them. New businesses failed every day of the week. There were no guarantees that any of them would move on to more successful ventures if they turned their back on Sea Gate.

“What difference does it make?” Sally Whitton asked. “Eagle Management’s offering us enough money that it doesn’t matter.”

“Easy for you to say.” Margaret O’Neal, a first-grade teacher, cast a sharp look in Sally’s direction. “You’ve already raised your children and enjoyed a career. If you all move away, my husband and I won’t get that chance. We don’t live down by the water. Nobody’s offering us the big bucks for our place, and they probably never will. We’re here because we wanted to build a life for our kids, and now you tell us the town is dying. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.”

Young families were a town’s lifeblood. Without them Sea Gate wouldn’t stand a chance. But she couldn’t help wondering if John wasn’t tilting at windmills. You needed more than pretty pictures to persuade a struggling young family to stay the course. You had to prove to them that there was a future.

She listened, amazed, as John did exactly that.

“Too bad Eddie’s not here to see this,” Vince Troisi whispered to Alex as John presented a string of facts and figures. “Never thought I’d see Johnny like this again.”

“I’m impressed,” Alex whispered back. “He’s really something, isn’t he?”

“He was a damn fine lawyer,” Vince said. “Could’ve been a real success if he’d stuck with it.”

He is a success,
Alex thought. She just wasn’t sure he realized it.

An entire town was looking to him for help. He had the ability to shape the lives of three hundred families to make an impact that would extend far into the future. In the long run John might not win the fight, but if she sold her house to Brian and Eagle Management, everyone in Sea Gate would lose.

There was only one choice she could make. She had to tell John the truth about the baby and pray he would understand.

“Too bad Eddie wasn’t here,” Vince Troisi said to John after the Save Sea Gate meeting adjourned. “Nobody knows the docks better than he does.”

“
NYPD Blue
night,” John said by way of explanation. “A bomb couldn’t get him out of his chair.”

Vince chuckled. “Haven’t seen much of your old man lately. I’ve been worried about him.”

“Pop’s doing okay,” John lied. “He’s just been sticking close to home.”

“Wish we could get him down here to talk to some of the newcomers,” Vince said. “It’s hard to make them understand what it used to be like around here.”

“Alex has a few ideas on that subject,” John said. “You should ask her about them.”

“Good idea.” Vince headed across the room to the refreshments table, where Alex was pouring coffee for people.

She glanced John’s way and smiled. Smiles like that should be illegal. They made a man forget that life wasn’t always good or fair. They made a man believe he could do anything. Her hair was swept off her face with a pair of tortoiseshell combs. It cascaded down her back in soft waves that reminded him of burnished gold. She wore a pair of black silky pants and a loose blouse in a brilliant shade of emerald green.

Her breasts were round and full. Her belly was clearly prominent beneath the folds of her blouse. The doctor estimated that she was well into her second trimester but couldn’t pinpoint a due date without a sonogram.

So far Alex had canceled two appointments. She always had some excuse—she had a cold, she hadn’t slept well, she was needed at the diner. The excuses were as transparent as the look of apprehension on her lovely face. Lately she’d become so quiet, so secretive, that he wondered if he knew anything about her at all. He wondered what she did at night alone in that tiny cottage of hers. In that lonely bed.

Did she dream about him? Did she make plans for their baby? Did she lie awake and worry about cleft palates and rare lung diseases and drunk drivers careening across four lanes of traffic? He and Libby had talked all the way through her two pregnancies. Sometimes he thought they’d created those beautiful boys with words as much as flesh and blood and bone.

This baby grew in silence and in secrets.

He had made it clear that he wanted to be with her every step of the way, and for a while he’d believed she welcomed his support. Now he wasn’t so sure. Invisible barriers had gone up around her, and by the time this baby was born, he might not be able to reach her at all.

* * *

Mark usually sat on the dock on nights like this but for some reason tonight he boarded the
Kestrel.
He used to spend a lot of time on Eddie’s boat when he was a kid, sailing down to the Chesapeake Bay or up to Montauk Point to see the lighthouse, which was older even than Old Barney, the one on Barnegat Island.

Eddie worked Mark’s ass off on those trips. There was always something to do on boats, and it seemed that as soon as Mark finished one chore there was another one waiting to be done. He’d be real tired when they finally got back to Sea Gate, but it was a good tired.

He missed those days. He wished somebody had told him how quick the good times could disappear. Everything around him was changing faster than he could handle it, shifting like one of those shape-changers in the fantasy comic books he read when he was a kid. He wished things would slow down long enough for him to think.

Mark walked the boat from prow to stern, glad there was no moon out. He liked the shield of darkness. It made him feel like it was just him and the boat and the ocean. Even without moonlight he could see the repairs John had made to the boat. The fresh paint stood out like a neon Band-Aid on the scarred and weathered surface. Sometimes he wished he’d never seen Eddie swing that axe overhead and bring it crashing down into the brittle wood of the
Kestrel.
If he closed his eyes he could still picture Eddie’s face, tears streaming down his lined cheeks, his chest heaving with the effort. And Eddie didn’t even remember afterward. He ragged the local kids and threatened to tell the cops every time he saw them within fifty yards of the marina, when he was the one responsible.

It made Mark feel scared and sad all at once, as if there wasn’t one damn thing in the entire world that he could count on.

He huddled down beneath a canvas tarp that had been tossed in the stern. A stiff wind was blowing in off the ocean, and it cut right through his jacket and pants. He couldn’t count on his mother anymore. Not after what he’d seen tonight through the living-room window. Brian Gallagher was a first-class scumbag, and the thought that his mom would let him touch her made Mark want to puke.

The moorings squeaked mournfully as the wind rocked the
Kestrel
in its berth. They were having another one of those meetings tonight, one of those Save Sea Gate things that John Gallagher had set up. He wondered if they really thought they had a chance. In another year or two the marina would be gone, and then the houses, and by the time Mark finished college, Sea Gate would be nothing more than an ink dot on an old map.

He wondered if there’d be anyone left to care.

* * *

Eddie was running late. The sun wasn’t up yet, but he thought he could make out the beginnings of daylight out beyond the horizon. He was supposed to have been on the
Kestrel
by 4 a.m. to get ready for the trip up to the Stellwagen Bank with a group of deep-sea fishermen from Tuckerton.

The captain set the tone for the trip. If he was late, how could he expect his crew to hop to when he barked out an order? You had to set an example for young people, same way you set an example for your own kids. They had to know the rules, the boundaries, what you wanted them to do and when you wanted them to do it. He treated his crew the same way he treated his own two boys, with discipline and love.

But that didn’t mean he was going to take any crap.

He boarded the
Kestrel
and looked for signs of life. The damn boat was silent as the grave.

They’d be shoving off in less than half an hour, and there was still a lot to do before they weighed anchor.

“To hell with the lot of you,” he muttered after a moment. He didn’t need anybody to help him pilot the
Kestrel.
He’d do it himself.

* * *

It was a little after eleven when Alex and John finally left. John helped her into the truck, and Alex fastened her seat belt. They hadn’t exchanged more than a few words with each other since the meeting ended. The images and words of his presentation lingered with her as John drove down Ocean Avenue, and she felt as if she were seeing the town’s potential for the first time. A heavy fog had rolled in off the ocean. It tumbled across the road, softening the harsher realities, making it easier for Alex to imagine Sea Gate the way it used to be.

The way John wanted it to be again.

There would never be a good time to tell him about the baby, same as there would never be a good time to tell him that his brother was behind Eagle Management’s plans to turn Sea Gate into a giant parking lot.

The one thing she knew was that if she didn’t do it now while she had the nerve, she would never do it, and John deserved better than that.

* * *

By the time the cops arrived at Dee’s, Brian was almost foaming at the mouth.

“Will you calm down?” Dee asked as the squad car pulled into her driveway. “They got here as fast as they could.”

Brian was beyond rational thinking. He pushed past her as if she wasn’t even there. She couldn’t help but wonder what he’d be like in a real emergency. “What the hell took you so goddamn long?” he demanded as Dan Corelli and a rookie climbed out of the car. “Now you don’t have a chance in hell of catching the bastard who did it.”

“Nice talk from a hotshot lawyer,” Dan said after greeting Dee. “You wanna cool down and tell me what happened?”

“Someone took a swing at his car,” Dee said, biting back a grin.

“Looks like someone got a home run,” Dan observed. He glanced over at Brian. “Hope you got insurance.”

“Of course I’ve got insurance,” Brian roared. “What the hell kind of question is that? Shouldn’t you be dusting for prints or something?”

Big mistake
, thought Dee. Dan Corelli had never liked Brian. This would really push the veteran cop over the edge. In a way she almost felt sorry for Brian. For all of his education and success, he still didn’t know the first thing about how to get along with people.

Dan gestured for his young colleague to get something from the squad car. “All right, Gallagher,” he said, leaning against the door of the Porsche. “Why don’t you tell me how it’s done.”

* * *

Mark awoke with a start. The boat was listing to starboard as a wicked, wind-powered rain sluiced across the deck. He felt groggy, his brain fuzzy with sleep, but it only took a second for him to realize the
Kestrel
had broken free of the dock and was drifting away from the marina.

The boat’s lights blazed, although he couldn’t remember switching them on; he wasn’t even sure he knew how. He jumped up, and his feet nearly slipped out from under him on the wet deck. Heart pounding, he tried to peer through the rain and fog. He thought he could make out some lights toward port, but he wasn’t sure. Eddie had told him a long time ago that weather could play tricks on even an experienced sailor, make him think he saw things that weren’t there.

Could it make you hear things, too? The sound of wood splintering filled the air. The fog was so thick he couldn’t see the other side of the boat. He moved slowly across the slick wooden deck in the direction of the sound. His heart thudded at the base of his throat, in his ears, behind his eyes. A form began to take shape near the prow.

“Jesus,” he muttered, feeling like he’d been kicked in the gut. Eddie... it was Eddie... Eddie swinging an axe in a wide glittering arc overhead... bringing that axe down into the side of the boat—

“Eddie, stop it!” His voice rang out. “We’re taking in water.” It swirled around his ankles, lapping up toward his calves.

Eddie brought down the axe again. It slammed into the wood with a sickening crack. Splinters exploded in every direction. One bounced off the old man’s cheek, but he barely seemed to notice. Nor did he seem to know Mark was there. He grunted as he raised the axe again. Mark tried to lunge for the handle, but Eddie dodged him. The air next to Mark whistled as Eddie swung the axe. Mark was so scared he almost peed his pants.

“You’ve gotta stop this,” he cried out as the water reached his knees. “The
Kestrel
’s gonna sink, Eddie. You’re killing her!” He could hear the sound of dishes and pots crashing to the floor of the galley down below as the boat listed to starboard.

Eddie pushed him hard, and Mark fell against the railing. “I didn’t raise my son to talk to me that way,” Eddie roared. “Bad enough Brian broke his mother’s heart. I won’t have you bringing her shame, too.”

“I’m not John,” he cried, desperate for Eddie to recognize him. “I’m Mark, Eddie! I’m Mark!”

Eddie looked at him with wild, drowning eyes. He raised the axe overhead, then started for Mark.

“Jesus, Eddie, stop! I’m Mark... I’m Dee’s son, Eddie. Please don’t—” He ducked as Eddie lunged forward, slipped on the slick deck, then tumbled over the railing into the icy black water.

Mark’s mind went blank. He called Eddie’s name, but there was no answer.

No!
He refused to believe it. Not Eddie. Not like this. There had to be a chance for him. For both of them. There had to be something he could do. Mark made the sign of the cross, then followed Eddie overboard.

* * *

“We need to talk,” Alex said as John swung his truck into her driveway.

Her words didn’t surprise him. Neither did the sense of sadness that seemed to hang over the two of them, as thick and impenetrable as the fog rolling past the windshield.

“Seems like I did nothing but talk tonight,” he said, turning off the engine. “Didn’t you hear enough of me?”

“You were wonderful,” she said, “but that’s not what I meant. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Your roof’s leaking and you want to move back in with me.”

Her smile was gentle and sad, and it made him want to kiss her until she forgot everything but him. “So talk,” he said, leaning back in his seat.

“Not here.” She opened the door to the truck. “Inside.”

“Sounds serious.”

“It is,” she said, her voice soft. “Very serious.”

He climbed out of the truck, then went around to the passenger side and helped her down. “I’m not getting a good feeling about this, Alex. What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”

“Inside,” she repeated. She turned away, but not before he saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes.

He followed her to the front door and waited while she rummaged in her bag for her keys. The urge to throw her over his shoulder and head for higher ground was almost too strong for him to resist.

He looked out toward the marina. It hardly seemed possible, but the fog had grown even thicker. A slight movement caught his eye, and he felt an answering stab of apprehension in his gut.

“Alex.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Look over there. Near slip number one.”