Blood of Cain

19

The next morning, as the sun rose over the Atlantic, I jogged along the beach at Ponce Inlet. I ran between the gentle roll of waves breaking, the surge of water yawning and stretching on the cool hard-packed sand under my bare feet. I pictured Andrea Logan’s face, then ran harder for a short burst, the sea foam scattering in the breeze like confetti defying the laws of gravity. The old lighthouse was behind me, Daytona Beach ten miles to the north, my thoughts not in either place. A gull flew over my head, flapped its wings twice, sailing in the cross-breeze and squawking a wake-up call over the crash of waves. I was shirtless, the morning sea breeze already warm across my chest. I glanced at the shamrock-shaped birthmark on my upper left arm and thought of Courtney Burke.

Max followed me at a trot. Twenty feet behind, the tip of her pink tongue visible in her open mouth, panting, short legs moving in a dachshund dash, her eyes bright with the potential discovery of what a new morning by the sea might bring. She stopped to inspect a starfish stranded on the beach. I spun around toward her. “Max, what do you say we return this little fella to the sea?” She cocked her head and stared up at me as I lifted the starfish from the wet sand, walked into the swell of waves lapping over my knees, and lowered the starfish back into the ocean.

I jogged a final fifty yards, Max doing her best to impersonate a greyhound loping along the beach. We stopped and sat on a park bench under a canopy of palm trees. I thought about what I’d say to Andrea when I found her — what I hoped not to hear in return. Then I thought about Courtney again, a girl on the run, a suspect in at least two killings, possible cold-blooded murders.

Where was she at this very moment as the sun peaked over the edge of the world and painted the ocean in rippling brushstrokes of red wine and dark honey? Did it shine light at the end of her dark path? I stared out into the enormity of a crimson sea and felt no larger than little Max resting beside me. I watched the surface of the ocean turn the color of a new penny and I tried to picture what was waiting just beyond the horizon.

The truck driver glanced at the Beretta once again as he slowed the big rig and exited from I-75. He said, “Okay, we’re here. I done what you asked. What the hell else you want?”

Courtney rested her gun hand on her raised left knee, the Beretta still aimed at the driver’s head. “I want you to turn right at the light. Pull into the Shell station.”

The driver went through the gears, and entered the parking lot of a Shell gasoline station and eased to a stop. “What now?”

“Give me your phone.”

“What? Why?”

“Give it to me!”

“All right. Hell, you weren’t jokin’ when you said you were on your period.”

“And I wasn’t joking when I said I’d kill you. The phone. Now.”

He slid the phone across the seat. “You are crazy.”

“Maybe. Now, you listen to me, you pervert. You’re gonna turn this truck around, drive up the interstate to New Orleans or wherever you’re supposed to be heading, and you’re not going to tell anybody about our little road tip. Because if you do, then I get to tell them you tried to fuck a teenage girl, me. Your wife will be the first to know.”

“How’d you know I’m married?”

“I didn’t. But most of you creeps are, I just feel very sorry for the wives.” Courtney scooped the phone from the seat, opened the door, and climbed down from the cab, slipping the pistol into her bag.

I closed the sliding glass door to Jupiter’s salon and sat on the couch with my laptop looking up Senator Lloyd Logan's campaign tour, his fund-raising events. There were a half dozen here in Florida, one was very soon and not far away. A place called The Villages about an hour north of Orlando.

I’d heard about The Villages. It wasn’t a retirement community, but rather a retirement city. High average net worth of its residents. Golf for life. Defibrillators on most corners. A donor pit-stop in every presidential race. Mitt Romney was the last to refuel there. And now it was Senator Lloyd Logan’s turn at the wheel.

All I wanted was a few minutes with his wife, a few minutes to take me back two decades. Maybe it was politically incorrect, but I had to go there, had to go into the past for the sake of a girl whose future was looking very dark.