Now & Then: a Donovan Creed Novel

Special Smashwords Edition

NOW & THEN

(a Donovan Creed Novel)

By

John Locke

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

NOW & THEN

Special Smashwords Edition

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Copyright © 2010 John Locke. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Cover Art Design: Telemachus Press, LLC

Cover Art:Copyright © istockphoto/Larysa Dodz (girl on beach)Copyright © istockphoto/Lurii Kovalenko (ancient ship)Copyright © istockphoto/Kirill Vorobyev (cat)

Edited by: Winslow Eliot

http://www.winsloweliot.com

ISBN: 978-1-935670-07-0 (eBook)

Published by: Telemachus Press, LLC

http://www.telemachuspress.com

Visit the author website: http://www.lethalbooks.com

For my mother, Maurine, the remarkable woman who has been a life-long inspiration to me: I have finally written a book that contains less than two dozen truly dirty words.

Foreward

There are people in this world who move through our lives quietly, unassumingly, who, seeking nothing in return, take away our pain.

Prologue

TWELVE MONTHS EARLIER…

The young reporter’s name was Joe, and he was unhappy about the assignment. He had to interview the lead in a college play and try to make the segment interesting enough to fill two minutes on the local TV news. He’d rather be covering a murder or congressional scandal, but Joe was new to the station, and dues had to be paid. He’d come here tired and his back was killing him from the elbow shot he’d taken in last night’s rugby game.

When Libby Vail entered the room he showed her where to sit, and after the camera guy spent a few minutes checking the lighting, Joe tried to sound like he gave a shit about the interview.

But he didn’t.

It was such a small-town production, and Libby, while certainly adequate for this role, was an unlikely candidate for Broadway stardom. As Joe slogged through the list of bullshit questions, he couldn’t help but notice the light tingling in his back where the pain had been. As the pain dissipated, a feeling of euphoria began sweeping over him. Were the anti-inflammatories finally kicking in?

Just before wrapping up, he said, “Tell me something about you that few people know.”

Libby Vail’s face grew animated. She looked from side to side, as if sharing a scandalous secret.

“Well,” she said, “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m a direct descendant of Jack Hawley, the pirate.”

Joe gave her a confused look.

“Gentleman Jack Hawley?” Libby said.

“Sorry, never heard of him.”

Libby giggled. “Oh well.”

Joe signaled the cameraman to pack his gear.

“Sorry I wasn’t more interesting,” Libby said.

Joe took a moment to glance at her. Was she pouting over her complete snooze of an interview? She didn’t appear to be. He studied her a moment longer and decided Libby Vail was a pretty little thing, frail, with big green eyes and an expressive face.

“You did fine,” he said.

“Really?”

Joe prepared to ease himself to a standing position but suddenly realized there was no “easing” necessary. His back was completely fine. There had to be something more at work here than anti-inflammatories. Crazy as it seemed, there was something about being near Libby Vail that made him feel stronger, more energetic. Without giving a second thought to his former back injury, he took up a swashbuckling pose, pretended to cut a swath of air with his imaginary sword. Then he removed his pen and note pad from his pocket and started to write.

“Jack Hawley, you said?”

Libby’s laugh spilled out of her smile. “Gentleman Jack Hawley.”

She stood and brandished her own imaginary sword, struck a pirate’s pose, and said, “Arrr!”

Joe laughed and said, “Aye, Aye, wench. That just might be the angle this story needs.”

That night his station ran the story.

Three days later he had an even better story:

Libby Vail had gone missing.

Part One

NOW

Chapter 1

IT WAS ONE of those arguments you could see coming a mile away.

“Things are going great between us,” Rachel said.

I nodded, warily.

We were on the porch swing of The Seaside, a bed and breakfast in St. Alban’s Beach, Florida. It was early evening, and the light summer breeze from the ocean kept the mosquitoes at bay. We’d had dinner at Chez Vous, a pretentious little grease pit on Cane Street, and though I’d rate our meal somewhere between appalling and insulting, neither of us seemed worse for the fare.

“You love me,” Rachel said.

“I do.”

“And I’m fun, right?”

“Undeniably.”

“Just imagine how much fun we’d have if we lived together!”

I didn’t respond, didn’t so much as lift an eyelid.

“Kevin?”

“Mmm?”

“What do you think?”

It was one of those moments when you have to be honest or happy, and you can’t be both.

“Kevin?”

A train rumbled faintly in the distance. Rachel’s head was in my lap. She looked up at me, studying my face, as I rocked the swing with my feet.

“Kevin?”

Rachel knows my name is Donovan Creed, but she’d met me as Kevin Vaughn, and she’s comfortable calling me that, so I don’t make a big deal out of it.

“Know what I think?” I said.

“What’s that, honey?” she purred.

“I think things are perfect just the way they are.”

Her body stiffened a half-second before reacting—a useful bit of information to file in my brain, since my continued existence often comes down to knowing such details. Compared to most humans, a half-second is quick. In my line of work (I kill people) it’s a lifetime.

Literally.

So Rachel was painfully slow by my standards, a good thing, since her bi-polar personality dysfunction had become more pronounced each day of our vacation, occasionally leading to sudden violent outbursts. I love dating her, but my life could be in danger with a live-in relationship. As long as I remain conscious, she can't seriously harm me. But if we were to live together I’d eventually have to sleep, and all bets would be off.

“You’re a fucking bastard and I don’t want to see you, ever again!” Rachel shrieked.

She jumped off my lap and launched her hand toward my face. I could have easily avoided the slap, but it had been weeks since I’d sparred, and I missed the physical contact. She smacked me two, three times, grabbed her purse, slung it over her shoulder, and stomped off into the dusk.

Rachel had been slightly unstable even before she’d been locked in a Lucite container for two days and nights. I busted her out, what, two weeks ago? Since then we’d been on vacation, making our way down the Atlantic coast, hitting all the beaches of consequence, while her mental condition steadily deteriorated.

You may be wondering how I managed to catch a few hours of sleep while traveling with Rachel.

Simple: I drugged her.

So sure, I could move in and live with Rachel, bring my pills and knock her unconscious every night, but in the long run that’s no basis for maintaining a healthy relationship.

I closed my eyes and listened to her cuss a blue streak as she moved down the road. Her fury was almost poetic, as sudden and dangerous as a cyclone. She was heading north on A1A toward Amelia Island Plantation, the place where my associate, Callie Carpenter, and I killed a woman named Monica Childers five years ago.

Chapter 2

ANGRY OR NOT, Rachel was kick-ass sexy in that mouth-watering, leave-your-wife sort of way, with long brown hair; blonde highlights, and eyes the color of tupelo honey.

I let her get a half-mile down the road before starting after her. When we’d gone about a mile, I moved to within three feet and remained behind her, matching her pace, giving her space in case she wasn’t ready to talk. I shadowed her like that until I suddenly felt something that’s hard to describe. It was a type of serene presence, like a drug-induced high, but calming and blissful. One minute I’m normal, the next I’m practically euphoric, and then it passed.

Rachel felt it too.

She stopped abruptly, but didn’t turn around.

“Am I crazy, Kevin?”

“You might be the sanest person I know,” I said, thinking that was a sad thing to have to admit.

“I’m sorry I hit you.”

“That was a million years ago.”

She turned and put her arms around me and kissed my mouth. Then we turned it into a full body hug, right there in the middle of the highway.

It was a quiet night, the cars few and far between, and we headed back toward the bed and breakfast. The tall grass on the shoulders swayed in the breeze, and I kept us in the middle of the road so the ticks wouldn’t get on her legs.

The feeling of serenity—or whatever it was—lasted maybe ten seconds, and yet it had been powerful enough to make me want to pursue its source. Could there have been something in the air? Some type of flower whose aroma was intoxicating? Either we had moved through a space where it was, or it had invaded our space and moved on. I made a mental note to thoroughly check the area the next morning when I went on my run.

Rachel said, “You remember a couple of weeks ago when Karen said you were a killer, not a thief?”

“Her real name is Callie,” I said.

Rachel didn’t respond, so I added, “Yeah, I remember.”

“What did she mean?”

Rachel knew I worked for Homeland Security, but so far I hadn’t felt the need to tell her that my job involved assassinating suspected terrorists. Nor did I happen to mention that in my spare time I was a contract killer for the mob.

“She was probably talking about my killer smile,” I said.

“I wonder.”

I looked at her but didn’t say anything.

She said, “The way you handled yourself when you saved me and Sam from those guys. Not to mention Lou.”

“Lou Kelly? What about him?”

“You can tell Lou’s a tough guy.”

“He is.”

“But he was afraid of you and Karen. And Karen hit Sam with one punch and nearly killed him.”

“So?”

Rachel took my hand in hers, put it to her lips.

“I’m not wearing panties,” she said.

I took a moment to marvel at her facility for random discourse.

“Always useful information for a boyfriend to have,” I said.

At that moment, for no apparent reason, she bit the shit out of my hand. I wondered briefly if she was really crazy or just messing with me.

“I never wear panties,” I said.

“Did you feel it just now when I bit you? ‘Cause you never yelled or anything.”

“Was that you?” I said. “Yeah, I felt it.”

“That’s why I love you so much,” Rachel said.

“Because I don’t yell when you bite me?”

“No, ‘cause you’re funny.”

“Good to know,” I said, rubbing my hand.

“I bet you’ve got a hell of a history, Kevin.”

“I won’t deny it.”

“Maybe someday you’ll tell me,” she said.

“Maybe I’ll write a book.”

She smiled. “If you do, will you put me in it?”

“Of course.”

“You promise?”

“If I write a book, I’ll put you in it. I’ll call it Now and Then.”

“I hope you’re not married to that title,” she said, “or you’ll never make the first sale.”

It was getting dark. Lights in the beach rentals up and down the highway began popping on. In front of us, to the left, a little boy with a buzz cut raced onto the balcony of a two-story, pulled his pants down to his ankles and tried to pee through the rail. His mother yelped and caught him in the nick of time and dragged him back through the sliding glass door. By then they were both laughing.

Rachel and I smiled at each other.

“Kids,” I said.

“Boys, you mean.”

I looked at her. “What, you’re saying girls don’t pee outdoors?”

“Not from heights.”

We walked in silence while I pondered the validity of her remark.

Rachel said, “I haven’t told my mom.”

“Told her what?”

“About us.”

“What about us?”

“About us getting married, silly.”

“Oh, that.” I said.

“Maybe I should tell her in person,” she said.

“That’s probably a good idea.”

We’d come to an open area, maybe eighty yards from the nearest house. I heard a car coming up behind us, moving slowly. I instinctively moved Rachel to the left side of the road.

“You dudes need a ride?”

Several of them in the car: blue, 69 Camaro Super Sport, dual white racing stripes on the hood.

The driver had done the talking. He was Rachel’s age, meaning late twenties. He had a chipped front tooth, and greasy, stringy hair. His eyes had the glazed look of a pothead who took his weed seriously. When the back window zipped down, a cloud of smoke leaked out and swirled in the breeze.

An alarmingly ugly guy with thick lips said, “We’ll give the girl a ride.” Addressing Rachel, he said, “Hey chica, you want a little strange? Climb in. We’ll give you a ride you won’t never forget!”

“Back off, fuck wad,” Rachel said. “Or my fiancé will kick your ass.”

The ugly guy’s eyelids were at half-mast. He showed me a dull, vacant stare. “That right, pops?”

“Move along,” I said.

“You believe this shit?” he said to someone in the back seat. “Bitch turning down our sweet ride. Pops prob’ly got a Oldsmobile nearby. Maybe we drive around, see we can find it. Maybe we torch that motherfucker for you, eh pops?”

I returned his stare. “Like the lady said: I want a ride, I’ll kick your ass and take your car.”

The scumbags in the car erupted like Springer’s audience when Jerry trots out the trailer trash. There were numerous threats hurled in our direction, and someone in the back seat on the far side—a kid with a colorful bandana—lifted himself out the window and aimed a gun at me sideways.

It was dusk, but not too dark for me to get a good look at the piece.

“Be careful with that thing,” I said.

“Ha! You ain’t so brave now, are you, pops?”

“Braver,” I said. “That piece of shit gun is all wrong. No way it fires without blowing up in your face.”

“You want, I’ll shoot it now.”

“I’d pay to see that,” I said, “but I got a question.”

“What’s that, asshole?”

“You think your friends will take your body to the hospital, or just dump you here on the road?”

The kid looked at his gun.

“Fuck you!” he said, and climbed back in the car.

The driver said, “Another time, pops.”

“What’s wrong with right now?” I said.

“Another time.”

He hoisted his arm out the window and gave us the finger. They laughed and roared away.

“You think they’ll come back?” Rachel said.

“I hope so,” I said.

Chapter 3

THE YOUNG MAN was lying on his back on a sand dune thick with saw grass. Few people knew him. Those who did called him D’Augie.

D’Augie had followed Creed and Rachel from a careful distance. When D’Augie saw them speaking, he knew they were about to turn and head back to the bed and breakfast, which is why he got a running start and dove into the sand dune, face first. After waiting a moment, he rolled onto his back and heard a car full of punks pull up to the couple, heard what sounded like smack talk, but he was too far away to discern the words. When the car drove noisily away, D’Augie kept still, slowed his breathing, and relaxed his body until it virtually melted into the sand dune. He touched the knife in his pocket with his right hand.

He’d be using it soon.

Lying on the sand dune, D’Augie was, for all intents and purposes, invisible. The breeze coming off the ocean blew sand crystals into his face, but D’Augie didn’t twitch. He was one with nature, and nothing had the power to affect him.

D’Augie began a mental chant: Lay here, wait till they pass, then jump up and kill Creed. Lay, wait, jump, kill. Lay, wait, jump -

Some type of insect—an ant, probably—found an unguarded whisper of skin above one of his socks and began crawling up his leg.

Unfortunate, D’Augie thought, but hardly a threat to my willpower.

D’Augie knew Creed and Rachel were approaching the part of the road he’d occupied moments earlier. It wouldn’t be long, a minute maybe.

D’Augie’s pants were baggy, and he was wearing boxers—a combination of clothing that provided the insect a bare-skinned freeway all the way to his waist, should it care to journey that far. D’Augie wasn’t dwelling on it, but he seemed to feel every step the insect made as it crawled past his knee and up his thigh.

Within seconds, a dozen more insects formed a line and began a steady march up his leg. D’Augie ignored them until there were more than thirty of the bastards crawling all over his testicles. He was finding it increasingly harder to remain one with nature. He wanted to scream, wanted to jump to his feet, throw off his clothes, and get the fuck off the sand dune.

But he couldn’t. Creed and Rachel had been making steady progress, and were practically on top of him. He could hear their footsteps on the asphalt. To be precise, he heard only Rachel’s feet, since Creed moved over the pavement as soundlessly as D’Augie himself had moved earlier.

D’Augie strained to hold his position. If he could remain perfectly still for another thirty seconds he could escape detection. Creed and Rachel would pass him, then D’Augie could spring up and catch Creed by surprise, slice his throat, and decide what to do with Rachel after ridding himself of these goddamned insects.

But Creed and Rachel didn’t walk past him. They stopped just short of his position.

Shit!

Could they have noticed him?

D’Augie didn’t think so. Though he was a scant fifteen feet from the road, it was practically dark and the saw grass where he lay was nearly three feet high. The sea oat clusters all around him were bending in the breeze, providing additional camouflage.

So no, they couldn’t have seen him.

But something made them stop.

D’Augie felt another wave of insects crawl up his leg. How many more, he wondered. Fifty? A hundred?

Too many to count.

He heard Creed and Rachel kiss.

Then—Oh my God!—suddenly his nuts were on fire!

Christ, it hurt.

It felt—

Christ, Almighty!

It felt like someone had built a fire in his lap and sent a bunch of bees to put it out.

The pain was horrific. D’Augie’s body started to twitch and tremble. His face contorted involuntarily. His eyes became slits, and his upper lip peeled away, exposing his entire top row of teeth. D’Augie bit his lower lip so hard he drew blood. Then he opened and closed his mouth, faster and faster, raising and lowering his teeth, sinking them into his mangled lip again and again—until he realized this activity was only making things worse.

Lying there with his upper teeth exposed, clenched against his lower lip, D’Augie imagined he looked like a lounge lizard doing the “white man overbite” dance. Except that he wasn’t dancing. He’d love to be dancing, hopping around, squishing the bugs—but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t move because he knew he couldn’t beat Creed from the front. He wanted to move. Had to move! But he couldn’t. D’Augie squeezed his eyelids together, and tears poured out, slid down the sides of his face, pooled in his ears.

The pain was intolerable.

Other-worldly.

D’Augie was being eaten alive.

What the fuck kind of bugs were these? It was as if they’d burrowed a centimeter into his flesh and laid a dozen acid eggs. Then the eggs exploded into flame at the same time. This was worse than bee stings, a million times worse, because it wasn’t a “one and done” burn. No, these little fuckers tore into his skin like shark on chum. They bit and kept on biting or stinging or whatever the hell they were doing to him and he was trembling and shaking and chattering his teeth and—

And his nuts were swelling at an alarming rate, which seemed only to serve the purpose of creating a larger area to accommodate the reinforcement bugs. The more they bit, the more his nuts swelled, and this ever-expanding battlefield encouraged a hundred more insects to join the assault.

Get out of here! he silently screamed to Creed. For the love of God, keep walking down the road!

The woman said, “Kevin, let’s do it right here.”

What?

No! D’Augie thought. Please God, don’t let them do it right here! Twenty feet. Do it twenty feet down the road. Give me twenty feet and I’ll kill them before they get their pants off.

Creed said, “Best offer I’ve had all day. But there’s gravel on the road, and possibly broken glass. You might get cut.”

D’Augie didn’t know why she was calling Creed Kevin, and he didn’t care. All he could think about was how his nuts were twice their normal size and how the motherfuckers wouldn’t stop stinging him. His testicles hurt so bad he almost didn’t feel the insects stinging the rest of his privates.

Almost didn’t.

Holy Shit!

D’Augie’s insides began churning. He needed to vomit. Started to vomit, but swallowed back the bile. The contents of his stomach lurched, preparing for a second attempt. D’Augie realized he was having an allergic reaction to the venom from the bites or stings. Itchy welts were forming on his face and forehead. His upper chest throbbed. His throat started closing up. His eyelids fluttered. Barely conscious, slipping fast, he heard Rachel say:

“We could fuck on one of these sand dunes!”

…And heard Creed answer:

“Not in a million years.”

…And Rachel:

“Why not?”

…And Creed:

“Fire ants.”

…And then D’Augie passed out.

Chapter 4

“YOU HEAR THAT?” I said.

“What, the ocean?” Rachel said.

“More like something in the dune. You got a flashlight in your purse?”

“No. Wait, I’ve got a mini light on my car keys, will that work?”

I waited while she unsnapped the light, then took it from her.

“Stay here,” I said.

I moved through the near-darkness, found the man lying on the sand dune. I kicked his ribs. No response. I leaned over him, flashed her mini light on his face.

“What’s there?” Rachel said.

“A kid. Young man, early twenties.”

“Is he dead?”

“Dead or dying. His body’s crawling with fire ants.”

“You think he’s in shock?” she said, looking at him over my shoulder.

“Shock?”

“Anaphylactic shock. Like maybe he’s having an allergic reaction?”

“Could be,” I said. I grabbed his collar and dragged him to the side of the road.

Rachel fumbled in her purse a couple of seconds and pulled something out.

“What’s that?” I said.

“An EpiPen. It’s for allergic reactions.”

She handed me the pen and I gave her the mini light. She said, “There’s a syringe inside. Take the cap off, hold the pen in your fist, and jab it in his thigh till you hear a click. Then hold it there for ten seconds.”

“You’ve done this before?”

“A thousand times.”

“Really?”

“No. But I read the directions.”

I yanked his pants down to his knees.

“Ten seconds?” I said. “Any magic to that number?”

“That’s how long it takes to enter the bloodstream and get absorbed by the muscles.”

“You got your cell phone handy?”

She did, and used it to call 911. I injected as she calmly gave the dispatcher our location and explained the patient’s condition.

“We gave him a dose of epinephrine,” she said, “and we’re about to start CPR.”

That sounded like a good idea to me, so I slapped the fire ants off the kid’s clothes as best I could, then his face. Then I tore his shirt open and killed a bunch more of them, and started CPR.

“Pull his shorts off,” I said.

“Excuse me?” Rachel said.

“Strip him down. He’s literally crawling with fire ants. We’ve got to get them off his body.”

Rachel put the pen light in her teeth and tugged his boxers off.

“Jesus Christ!” she said.

“What?”

She aimed the beam at his crotch, and I looked at the kid’s nuts. They were swollen to the size of avocados and covered with red, circular welts.

And scores of fire ants.

“Slap the ants off his dick,” I said.

She raised her hand tentatively, poised to strike, then started to retch.

“How about we trade places,” she gasped.

“His mouth’s kind of mangled,” I warned.

“Still,” Rachel said.

We traded places. She gave him CPR, and I slapped the kid’s crotch and thighs like they owed me money. When Rachel paused a moment, I pushed him on his side and slapped the ants on his back and ass for good measure. Then I eased him onto his back and she started in again with the CPR.

“That was so creepy,” Rachel said, while pumping the kid’s chest.

“Creepy?”

“His nuts.”

“Uh huh.”

“You ever see anything that creepy?” she said.

“The Grady Twins.”

“The Grady twin boys?”

“Girls.”

“Hmpf,” Rachel said.

We worked on him till the ambulance arrived. While the two-man crew checked him out, I shook out his pants and shorts, and a large buck knife fell out and skittered across the pavement. I retrieved the knife and put it in my pocket. Then I put his clothes in a ball and tossed them on the front seat. While one of the EMS guys covered the kid in a blanket, the other took down some contact information from Rachel. They placed him in the ambulance, thanked us, and rushed him to the hospital.

Rachel and I stood still a minute before resuming our walk.

“You get stung?” I said.

“I don’t think so.”

“You’d know if you had.”

“I guess. How about you?” she said.

“I’d feel better if we patted each other down.”

She laughed. “You’re just looking for an excuse to touch my boobs.”

“How easily you see through me.”

We brushed each other’s clothing in the dark until satisfied we weren’t transporting any ants to the B&B, then started walking.

“You were fantastic back there,” I said.

“When?”

“The whole time.”

“Tell me.”

“You knew what to do, and you never hesitated. You were completely lucid and rational.”

Dusk had become night, and though I couldn’t see it, I’m sure she smiled.

“I have my moments,” Rachel said.

We were quiet a while. I finally asked, “How’d you happen to have the syringe?”

“I carry it in my purse all the time.”

I knew this to be untrue. Until just recently, Rachel and her husband, Sam, had lived in a huge house in Louisville, Kentucky. Unbeknownst to Rachel, I’d lived in their attic off and on for the past two years, during which time I’d routinely gone through her purse and their medicine cabinets, documenting every detail of their lives, checking their medications. I knew Rachel’s medical history, or thought I did.

“How long have you been carrying this particular syringe?” I said.

“I got it in Savannah, at the drugstore.”

“Don’t you need a prescription?”

“Not when you’ve got a smile like mine!”

I knew about the smile. What I didn’t know was if she’d been planning to kill me with the syringe.

“Why’d you get it?” I said. “Seriously.”

“When I was a kid I got stung by fire ants,” she said. “In the drug store in Savannah, a guy was saying how bad they were this year. I wanted to be ready in case one of us got stung on the beach.”

That’s the funny thing about Rachel. When she wasn’t being crazy, she was quite capable.

We kept walking. I could tell she wanted to ask me something. Finally she did.

“Are you allergic to anything?”

“Cheesecake.”

“What?”

“It makes me fat.”

She might have muttered the word “asshole” under her breath.

We walked some more, and I said, “Nicotine.”

“You don’t smoke.”

“Still, it’s a poison. If you distill it and concentrate it to its purest essence, it’s one of the deadliest poisons on earth.”

“Is that the little black one in your kit?”

I keep a poison kit in my belongings. It’s essential in my line of work. I’d made the mistake of warning Rachel about it early in the vacation when I’d caught her about to dab some Ricin on her wrist, thinking it was part of my cologne collection. When asked why I carried a kit filled with poisons, I came up with the bullshit excuse that I was delivering it to the Justice Department in Miami.

“You need to stay out of that kit.”

“Fine, don’t worry. But is it the black one?”

“It’s the clear one, in the vial.”

“That’s the one that can kill you?”

“It is.” Though it was the clear one in the vial, like most poisons, I had built up an immunity to it over time. The only poison I’m unable to handle is Tetrodotoxin, or TTX. Of course, I would never tell Rachel that, nor would I carry TTX in my kit. I love Rachel, but I couldn’t trust her not to kill me.

“You must really trust me to tell me about your Kryptonite,” she said.

“Of course. How can a relationship thrive without trust?”

After a few minutes we were able to make out the lights and wrought iron balcony of The Seaside Bed and Breakfast. The balcony’s ironwork was famous, unique, and more than a hundred and fifty years old. It had been handcrafted in Boston and shipped to St. Alban’s Beach by rail. The architect who designed it was murdered in the alley behind the local bar the very night the installation had been completed. Local legend had it that the original owner of the Seaside had the architect killed so he wouldn’t be able to replicate the design elsewhere.

I said, “After we shower I thought I’d take the rental car to the hospital to check on the kid.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Just to recap,” I said. “We’ll go inside, strip down, make sure we’ve gotten rid of all the ants, take a hot shower, make wild, passionate love, then drive to the hospital.”

“Whoa, cowboy,” she said.

“Whoa?”

“On the sex part.”

“Why?”

“You owe me an explanation. And an apology.”

“For what?”

“You said a relationship can’t flourish without trust.”

“I said that?”

“You did.”

“Then I stand by it.”

“Prove it.”

“Okay. How?”

“That comment you made about the Grady Twins.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t care how creepy they were. If you’ve had a threesome, I have a right to know the details.”

I laughed.

“Laugh now, pay later,” she said. “I’m not kidding, Kevin.”

“Heeeere’s Johnny!”

“Excuse me?”

“You know the movie, The Shining?” I said. “Jack Nicholson?”

“Uh huh.”

“Remember the kid on the tricycle?”

She thought a minute.

“The one in the hotel that’s riding up and down the hallways?”

“Right, the caretaker’s son.”

“Yeah, I remember. So what?”

“So he’s riding down the hall a hundred miles an hour and he suddenly sees the two girls and nearly shits his pants, remember?”

“Oh, God, yes!”

“The Grady Twins,” I said.

Chapter 5

THE NORTHEAST FLORIDA Medical Center is located on Fifth Street, St. Alban’s Beach. We were standing outside the kid’s room, talking to the attending physician, Dr. Carstairs.

“How is he?” Rachel said.

“Too soon to tell, but he’s on a ventilator, so he’s got a chance. Thanks to you folks and the luck of St. Alban’s.”

“A doctor who believes in luck?” I said.

“We’ve lost very few patients since I’ve been here. I’d call that lucky, wouldn’t you?”

“Some might be inclined to give you the credit.”

“They’d be kind to do so. But there’s something more at work here.”

“Such as?”

“The patients here have the best attitudes I’ve ever seen. They eat more, sleep better, complain less, and most important, they believe they’re going to improve.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it lucky,” I said. “Miracle might be a better word.”

“Then let’s put it this way,” he said. “If you’re going to get sick or injured anywhere in the country, this appears the best place to be. And not because of me.”

Dr. Carstairs was short and squat, late forties. His head was completely bald in the middle, and he’d grown his fringe hair long enough to form a short pony tail in back.

“Incongruous,” Rachel whispered, trying out a word I’d taught her months ago, when she first started cheating on her husband.

“Compensatory displacement,” I whispered back.

She arched an eyebrow and I wanted to take her right there. She caught my look and smiled, then turned back to face the doctor. While she looked at him I studied her profile, and—okay, I know it’s corny, but time seemed to freeze. Rachel nodded her head, responding to something the doctor had said, and I realized I’d been focusing on her sexuality so intently, I’d missed it. Rachel somehow managed to keep her focus on the doctor despite my sexuality. What willpower she must have!

“Sensitization?” Rachel said.

“That means he had to have been stung by fire ants at least once in the past, probably as a child. The first stinging event often fails to cause an allergic reaction. But the second can be deadly.”

“Who is he?” I said. “Any guess how long he’d been lying there?”

“There was no identification, and none of the nurses know him, so he’s probably not local. We were sort of hoping you might know who he is.”

“No clue,” I said.

Something tugged at my brain, making me wonder what kind of kid comes to town and walks around with no wallet, no cell phone, no money in his pockets—but has the sharpest knife I’d ever seen. I could always take it down to the P.D., and have the locals lift his prints. If he had a police record, I’d be doing them a favor. On the other hand, I didn’t want to buddy up to the local police if I didn’t have to. A little town like this, they probably have plenty of time on their hands. If some over-achiever gets a bug up his butt and begins checking too deeply into my background he might find some inconsistencies.

Dr. Carstairs said, “As to how long he’d been lying on the ant hill, I’d have to say not very, because anaphylaxis occurs rapidly, within seconds to a minute. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say two, three minutes, tops.”

Rachel said, “That poor kid must have been walking up from the beach when he got stung.”

I said, “I think you’re right. He was probably walking up from the beach and saw the car full of jerks heading in his direction, got scared, and ducked down for cover. Then the ants got him.”

“Poor kid,” she said. “Alone and scared.”

“Yeah,” I said.

But with a hell of a dangerous knife.

Chapter 6

NEXT MORNING I checked Rachel’s pulse, kissed her on the cheek, and climbed out of bed. I left her a note to say I’d be back in time for the eight-thirty breakfast, then I put on some shorts and running shoes and hit the road.

With a four-thousand-year-old history rich with ancient Indians, marauding pirates, seafaring captains, railroads, shrimpers, saloons and sharks, St. Alban’s, Florida, is a visitor’s paradise.

I headed north on A1A and turned left on Coastal, followed Coastal all the way to the tiny airport that served Amelia Island, turned left again on Farthing, and wound up back on A1A, a couple miles south of the Seaside. Six minutes later I passed the area where we had our run-in with the homeboys and then the place where we saved the kid. I sprinted a half mile, then slowed to a cooling jog and stopped a few yards shy of the Seaside’s front gate. The owner, Beth Daniels, was pulling weeds from the stone path that led to the front door.

“Enjoy your run?” she said, greeting me with a smile.

“Very much so.”

Beth was fortyish, recently widowed, disarmingly attractive. She and her husband were said to have had legendary personalities, but she’d been in a deep funk these past months, consumed by the effort required to keep her husband’s bed and breakfast dream alive. Charles had gone to Atlanta on business, suffered a heart attack, died within minutes, leaving Beth deeply in debt. Within weeks of his untimely death, she’d lost her cook, her waitress, and her caretaker. She had only one staff member left, a part-time cleaning lady.

“One thing I noticed while running,” I said. “In store front windows, on telephone poles, and even a billboard: posters about the girl who went missing last year.”

Beth nodded. “Libby Vail.”

“What I was wondering, the posters say she went missing in Pennsylvania.”

“That’s my understanding.”

“So why place them here in Florida?”

Beth dabbed at the light sweat on her face and forehead with the back of her garden gloves. “When it first happened, the police interviewed Libby’s college roommate. She told them Libby always talked about coming to St. Alban’s to research her family tree.”

“Did the cops trace her here?”

“No, she just seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. But when the story came out about her wanting to come here, the whole town got involved. We held candlelight vigils, and her parents came down and made some appeals on TV. Even the FBI set up a command post for a few days, but nothing came of it. Still, the town embraced the story, and every month since her disappearance, we’ve held a weekend celebration in Libby’s honor.”

“Celebration?”

“Like a festival. People come from all over the country. Some folks have come all the way from Europe.”

“But your bed and breakfast isn’t benefitting from all the business?”

“It’s the only thing that’s kept us going this long,” Beth said. “The whole town, for that matter. But with the economy the way it is, Charles had some investments in Atlanta that went bad, and we mortgaged this place to the roofline. Now interest rates are up and we’re struggling to keep it going.”

I glanced at the parking area. She followed my gaze and said, “Oh, I should have said something. Rachel left about thirty minutes ago. She took the car.”

“She say where she was heading?”

“No. Sorry.”

I waved my hand in the direction of the parking area. “The other guests?”

Beth sighed. “Gone.”

“They left before breakfast?”

“You haven’t had the privilege of tasting my cooking,” she said. “If you had, you’d understand.”

I smiled. “Surely you’re kidding. Breakfast is easy.”

She pursed her lips and made an expression that would have been adorable, had she not seemed so sad. She looked uncertain, as if she wanted to say something, but was trying to work up the courage.

“I don’t suppose you want the chef’s job?” She looked at me like a woman seeking space on an over-crowded lifeboat.

I could only think of two things in life worse than being a cook at a B&B in St. Alban’s Beach, Florida.

“I need a caretaker, too,” she said.

Being a caretaker was one of them.

“And a waitress.”

That was the other.

I looked at the six hundred year old live oaks surrounding the place.

“You’re overrun with squirrels,” I said.

“The one problem Charles was never able to solve,” she said. “Now we’re about to implode from them. Do you have any suggestions?”

“The branches are giving them access. They’ve worked their way into the eaves. Your attic is crawling with them.”

“You’ve heard them?”

“I have.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “In better times I’d offer you a refund.”

I held up my hand. “Not necessary.”

She smiled again. “You’re very kind.”

I motioned to the porch. “Let’s sit a minute.”

She cocked her head slightly, as if trying to decode my meaning.

I ignored her expression and climbed the steps and sat down facing her. Beth stood her ground.

“What are you up to, Mr. Creed?”

“I’m thinking about your offer.”

“You’re joking.”

“Probably.”

She moved closer. “You’d consider it?”

“I am considering it.”

We were quiet a moment. I must have had a curious expression on my face because she said, “What on earth are you thinking?”

I laughed. “I’m trying to picture Rachel as a waitress.”

Beth shared my laugh. She climbed the steps and sat beside me, then thought better of it, and scooted her bottom a proper distance away, just beyond the top of the steps. She allowed her legs to dangle off the porch, and removed her gloves.

She said, “It’s easier picturing Rachel as a waitress than you as a cook.”

“A cook and maintenance man,” I said.

“That too,” she said.

She laughed some more, and let it fade into a chuckle, and then we were silent again. She seemed to be regarding me in a different way, and I could feel her eyes studying my profile. When I turned toward her she quickly lowered her eyes.

“I can’t pay much,” she said.

“How bad are things with the bank?”

Her eyes began to well up. She bit her lip. “I’m on my last gasp.”

I stood. “Give me a couple minutes.”

I walked down the steps and circled the house, checking the foundation. I studied the overhang of the roof long enough to find two places where squirrels were getting into the attic. There were probably others. The thing about squirrels, they attract other pests, like mice and snakes. Who knew what might be living in that old attic?

The Seaside had a private wooden walkway that I followed down to the beach. The footboards were okay, but the handrails needed replacing. At the end of the walkway, there was a charming sitting area with two benches. Just beyond, a dozen steps led to the type of hard-packed sand you find on Atlantic coast beaches.

Today the sea action was moderate. Frothy waves tumbled onto the shore, dumping tiny white coquina shells that wiggled their way into the wet sand. I heard a noise, looked up, and saw a group of sea gulls traveling a straight line just beyond the surf, scanning the waves like supermarket shoppers checking the shelves for their favorite food items.

A sudden gust kicked up from the beach. I closed my eyes and inhaled the salty scent. When I opened them I noticed what might have been sea turtle tracks leading from a nearby sand dune to the water. I viewed the B&B from the back.

It was a gorgeous old home, probably the nicest bed and breakfast I’d ever seen. But a proper restoration would require a serious injection of cash. I wondered if the place could ever turn a profit and decided the answer was no. Nevertheless, I found myself drawn to stay there and do what I could to help. It was almost as though the old home had singled me out and expected me to report to duty. And there was something else. That feeling of serenity I’d experienced the first night back. It seemed to have come with the sudden breeze off the water. I looked around to see if anything had recently entered my space: a bird, a bit of Spanish moss, some insects…but nothing seemed out of place. I turned back to the beach, but there were no answers to be found, in fact the beach was deserted, save for two women in big hats, wading in the far distance. I watched them walking away for a few moments, and suddenly the feeling was gone. I searched again for any clue that something was moving out of my immediate space, but all I came up with was that the wind had died down. I looked out to sea a minute, waiting for another gust. When it came, there was no feeling of serenity with it.

Perhaps I was going mad. Maybe Rachel’s insanity was contagious.

I walked back to the front yard and found Beth where I’d left her.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“You will?”

“Subject to Rachel’s okay.”

Beth’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

I nodded.

“I don’t believe it!” she said. “Thank you!”

She started to cry, softly. I wanted to hold her, tell her everything was going to be all right, but I’d just moved from client to employee, and it wouldn’t be proper. I stood there, feeling as useless as tits on a rooster, till she got herself together.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay.”

“I’m such a baby.”

“You’re doing the best you can, in a tough situation.”

She nodded. “Can I ask you something about your decision to stay here?”

“Sure.”

“Do you feel drawn to…to The Seaside in some manner?”

I studied her a moment. “How did you know?”

Suddenly she seemed younger, almost girlish.

“Can you really cook?” she said.

“Does it matter?”

Chapter 7

RACHEL WAS BACK. I didn’t ask her where she’d been, and she didn’t offer any explanation.

“You want me to be a waitress?” she said.

“Beth needs us,” I said.

“Beth, huh?”

“Yup.”

“She’s pretty,” Rachel said.

“You think?”

“You know she is. Should I be worried?”

“Not for a minute.”

“Just so you know,” she said, “If I ever catch you cheating, I’ll cut your dick off and feed it to a sea gull.”

“It would have to be a helluva big sea gull,” I said.

“In your dreams!”

I frowned.

“Maybe I’ll just toss it in the air and let a flock of sea gulls fight over it,” she said.

I winced at the visual.

“How long are we gonna do this?” she said.

“As long as it’s fun for you.”

“And the minute it’s not?”

“We’ll head to South Beach.”

“Will you wear a big white chef’s hat, like Chef Boyardee?”

“Not even to save my life,” I said.

“In that case, I’ll do it!”

Moments later she was telling Beth, “If I ever catch you fucking Kevin, I’ll burn you up in your bed.”

Beth gave me a look of horror and said, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

“Kevin is a gourmet cook,” Rachel said.

I shrugged.

“Rachel,” Beth said, “I’m about to go broke. Every nickel I own is tied up in this place. I loved—and still love—my husband. I have no interest in developing a romantic relationship with—”

She looked at me. “Is it Donovan or Kevin?”

I shrugged again.

She continued. “Charles loved this place, it was his dream. It’s all I have left of the man I loved with all my heart. But Rachel?”

Rachel looked at her.

“—I don’t want to have to worry that every time Kevin and I are in the same room you’re going to think something’s up.”

“I’m only concerned about the fucking,” Rachel said.

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Beth said.

Rachel threw her arms around Beth and said, “I love you, Beth. And you’ll see, I’m going to be the best waitress you ever had!”

Beth looked at me wide-eyed and mouthed the words, “Is she crazy?”

I mouthed back, “She loves you.”

Chapter 8

BOB POCKET WAS a normal-sized man with an enormous round belly. Sitting in his high-backed banker’s chair, it looked like he was trying to hide a basketball under his shirt. He drummed his fingers on it, and I wondered if it was as solid as it appeared. It was truly amazing, and I couldn’t wait to tell Rachel about it.

“Excuse me?” he said. “You’re the what?”

“Chief cook and handyman.”

“Well, Mr.—”

“Creed.”

“Creed.” He started to sneer, then caught himself and turned it into a broad smile. “It’s wonderful to have you here, you’re going to love our little town. All the people are amazing, the weather’s amazing, the beach is wonderful, and like I say, the people are—”

“—Amazing,” I said. “I get it.”

Bob Pocket seemed about to frown, but again, he found a way to show me a pleasant, though unconvincing, smile. “I’m really not at liberty to discuss Ms. Daniels’ financial affairs with her employees. I hope you can try to understand that.”

I passed him a notarized power of attorney. He studied it carefully before saying, “She’s way behind, but we haven’t begun the foreclosure proceedings yet.”

“Why not?”

“Well, this is hard to explain to an outsider, but our little town has a way of attracting good luck. Good things happen here, things that can’t be explained. We’re just trusting that something wonderful will happen, and Beth won’t have to lose her special inn. Wait, why are you laughing?”

“You’ll have to excuse me,” I said. “I’ve never encountered a benevolent banker before.”

Bob Pocket chuckled. “Benevolent banker,” he repeated. “I like that. I guess we are a trusting bank, with an optimistic board of directors. But after you’ve been here awhile it will make more sense to you. This community has been blessed, and it’s astounding how much good fortune we’ve attracted lately.”

“The luck of St. Alban’s?”

“You’ve heard about it?”

“Dr. Carstairs used the phrase.”

Pocket nodded. “Good man. We’re fortunate to have him with us.”

“He’s new to the town?”

“Came here a year ago, out of the blue, right when we needed him the most.”

“Uh huh. So you’re what, hoping another miracle will occur, and this time Beth’s B&B will be saved?”

“I wouldn’t say miracle, but yes, I suppose we tend to rely on some sort of cosmic balance. We’ve had bad times in the past, and now it’s time for a rebirth. All the signs are pointing to a happy, prosperous community. Beth has had her troubles, but she’s due for some good fortune. She’s an asset to the community and she’s got a charming little business, and we’re just hoping for the best. Maybe your arrival has signaled the start of her good fortune.”

“How much time does she have?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Board meeting’s next Tuesday.” He paused, and broke into a wide-faced grin. “But even if something wonderful doesn’t happen by then, I’m sure Beth will recover. Things have a way of working out in our wonderful town. Beth will be happy and prosperous again, you’ll see.”

“How much does she owe?”

“The total note is a million-six,” he said, “give or take.”

Beth had an interest-only note that ran about eight thousand a month. I knew she and Charles hadn’t made any principal payments in more than a year. I also knew she was six months behind on her note.

Bob Pocket looked over the top of his reading glasses. “Perhaps you should consider finding employment elsewhere until things work out for Beth. There are golden opportunities everywhere, within the city limits.”

I handed him a check for sixty thousand dollars.

“This should catch Beth up and take care of next month’s payment,” I said.

He studied the check as if it held a secret code. “This any good?” he asked.

“Call it in.”

“Count on it.”

“This check,” I said.

“What about it?”

“This is between you and me. St. Alban’s is a small town. I don’t want anyone to know about this. Not even Beth.”

“If the check is valid, Ms. Daniels will see it on her bank statement.”

“By then it will be okay. In the meantime, I’m counting on your discretion.”

“I’m just one part of the group,” he said. “There are a number of local board members who will learn about it.”

“I don’t want any talk.”

“I can’t speak for the whole town,” he said. “But I can assure you, no one will question it.” He stood, took my hand and pumped it vigorously. “You see? It’s just as I’ve said. Every day something seems to happen that can’t be explained. This town attracts good fortune. Has, ever since—”

I looked at him.

He shrugged. “Well, quite a while now. We like to think of it as our turn.” He turned somber a moment. “We had a long dry spell. You can’t imagine.”

Pocket stared off into space. I came prepared to hear him ask if Beth and I were dating, but the possibility never seemed to cross his mind, which impressed me. Surely he wondered why I’d take a cook and caretaking job if I had this type of money. I had two reasons, but planned to keep a lid on them. First, I thought the structure of the job would help stabilize Rachel’s mood swings, and second, I wanted to poke around to see if I could find the source of the power I’d felt twice in this strange little town. Something was drawing me to stay in St. Alban’s, and if the townspeople were going to be seeing a lot of me, it made sense to have a reason for being here. Like a job. After a while Pocket seemed to remember he had company.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “What was I saying?”

“You were saying I couldn’t imagine the dry spell St. Alban’s has had.”

“Oh, right. Well, to be honest, I can’t really imagine it, either. But I’ve heard the stories, we all have. During the worst of it, our forefathers barely managed to keep their families alive.”

“Why’s that?”

“The town was cursed.”

“Excuse me?”

His words had come too quickly, and he seemed to regret having said them. He hastened to add, “But that was then, and this is now.”

“The town was cursed?”

He smiled. “Forget I said that, it’s just an old wife’s tale, a figure of speech. What’s important is the tide has turned, and it’s a new day, a happy time for our town.”

Pocket sat back in his chair and filled the silence between us by drumming his fingers on his belly. Before long he had a rhythm going where each tap produced a hollow sound not unlike a housewife thumping a melon for ripeness. He abruptly brought his concert to a close and looked at the check again.

“This is valid?” he said.

I nodded.

“And you’re a cook.”

“Cook and caretaker,” I said.

He winked. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“We’ve been holding off this foreclosure for six months, hoping something would work out. We’re days away from filing, and suddenly, out of the blue, you and your girlfriend just happen to show up in time to save Beth’s Inn.”

“So?”

“Don’t you find that amazing? I mean, you being a total stranger and all?”

“I’m just protecting my job,” I said.

Chapter 9

I FIGURED BOB Pocket would be on the phone before I got out the front door. I also figured he’d shit his pants when he found out I could buy not only the bank in which he worked, but the whole town as well. I’d been worth a half billion dollars before my recent score, but now my net worth was north of six billion. What could this tiny bank be worth, twenty million at best?

Two weeks ago I put twenty-five million in Rachel’s account, which meant The Seaside’s waitress could buy Pocket’s bank. So yes, the check was good.

I walked across the street to Rider’s Drug Store and purchased three EpiPens, which cut their supply in half. The pharmacist looked blissful. He said, “I just ordered those EpiPens last week.”

“You sell a lot of them, do you?”

“In all the years I been here, I sold one,” he said.

“That being the case, why’d you order six?”

“Just had a feelin’,” he said.

“Got a feeling when you’ll sell the other three?”

“Nope, but they’ll sell before the expiration date, you can be sure of that.”

I didn’t know what gave him the confidence to make that statement, but a day ago I wouldn’t have expected to buy three EpiPens, or even one, for that matter. Nor would I have imagined myself giving an innkeeper’s banker a check for sixty grand. Maybe Bob Pocket was right. Maybe there was something charmed about this town. I just hoped the cosmic balance didn’t depend on me.

I took a different route back to the Seaside, but I don’t know why. Main Street to A1A would have been a clear shot, but for some reason High Street to Eighth felt more inviting. Maybe I was subconsciously trying to get the feel of the little town.

Something happened when I turned on High Street.

I felt a tingling sensation. A good one, like the kind you feel when you first climb under the covers on a cold night. The further I drove the more soothing it felt. By the time I hit Eighth, I was practically euphoric. This was the feeling I’d had two nights earlier, when I’d followed Rachel down A1A, and again yesterday when I stood behind the B&B, contemplating the caretaker’s job. I drove past an empty tailor’s shop, some old houses, and a boarded-up dry cleaning store. At the intersection to A1A, on the left-hand corner, I saw a lady carrying what looked like a picnic basket up the steps of an old church. I remained there a moment, my eyes transfixed on the church. I’m not a religious man, nor even a spiritual one, but the feeling I was enjoying seemed to come from the area of the church.

I wasn’t alone in this, either.

In the churchyard, standing reverently, but still, like statues, were half a dozen elderly people. Their eyes were turned skyward, or perhaps I should say balcony-ward, since the second floor balcony on the side of the church seemed to be their point of focus. As I sat on my brake at the stop sign I noticed a small line of people turning the corner. They weren’t together, and none were speaking. But all were making their way toward the churchyard. There was also a van parked twenty yards to the side with two guys in the front seat. Like me, they appeared to be watching the statue people in the churchyard. They had almost certainly brought the first group of old people to the church and appeared to be waiting for them. I backed my rental car, turned into somebody’s driveway, put my flashers on, and climbed out. Crossing the street, I approached two elderly women and a man bent over a cane.

“What’s the attraction?” I asked.

No one answered.

Suddenly, one of the ladies sighed deeply and started moving her head around. Tears welled in her eyes and began streaming down her face. She rounded her shoulders as if warming up to take an exercise class. About that time the man’s cane fell to the ground and he slowly straightened his back. A look of ecstasy crossed his face and tears flowed freely from his eyes. The third woman broke into a wide smile and started dancing in a tight little circle of space.

I looked around.

The others were making small movements with their bodies. Some of the new arrivals stood stock still, as if waiting for something marvelous to happen. Their eyes were hopeful and glazed over as if experiencing the type of rapture that comes from contemplating divine things. As I watched their faces break into euphoric smiles I was reminded of a tent show I’d been to as a kid, where a preacher offered to trade the town folk miracles for money.

Only there were no preachers around.

I didn’t want to leave. But apparently the guys in the van had seen me trying to talk to the old folks, because the driver climbed out holding a cell phone to his ear, and within seconds, a cop car pulled in front of the church. I waved goodbye to my elderly friends and to the cops and van guys as well, and jogged back to my car. No sense in ruffling feathers my first day on the job.

I glanced at the church again and saw more people heading there. All were old or sickly, though some were being pushed in wheelchairs by younger, healthy people. All of them: healthy or sick, young or old, looked like they came for a miracle. Silently, I wished them well, but couldn’t help thinking they were the same people who’d travel 50 miles and stand in line to see a piece of French toast that looks like St. Paul’s bullfrog.

I backed onto Eighth, made my way to the corner and turned right on A1A. I’d got about a mile before losing the feeling of euphoria. I didn’t know what the power was, or how it spread, but it seemed to emanate from the church. At least today it did. Of course, yesterday I felt it behind the B&B and the night before it occurred a mile further south. So what had I really learned? My life had been filled with strange experiences, but this one took the cake! If the town wanted to make a killing, maybe they could find a way to harness the energy around that church and sell it. I doubted that was possible, but on the chance it might be, I gave serious thought to heading back that way with an empty bottle and a cork.

But that would have to wait.

I drove another half-mile and turned into the parking lot of The Seaside B&B, where, as caretaker, my first order of business was squirrel infestation.

I’d begun my military career right out of high school as a sniper for the Army. In those days I learned how to move stealthily through the woods and tall grass, where distance traveled was often measured in feet per hour. What I’m saying, it was a rare day that I didn’t encounter snakes, rodents and insects of all types, so I had no fear of St. Alban’s tree squirrels.

But I had no intention of climbing into that attic yet.

Most animals will give you a wide berth, provided you don’t back them in a corner. In the wild, there are plenty of escape routes for the big and small beasties, all of who are nervous, frightened, or curious. When they see or hear or feel you coming, the nervous move on, the frightened growl or hiss and move on, and the curious stop to look, maybe piss or defecate near you, but eventually slither or scurry away.

But the Seaside attic was self-contained, with walls, a floor and a ceiling and only a few small holes available to the beasties as escape routes. I had no idea what might be lurking in the eaves and insulation-filled floorboards of that attic, but there was one thing I did know: this was their attic, not mine. It had been theirs for a long time, and I wasn’t going to change that in a day, or even a week.

I had a plan.

My plan involved the ladder I found in the storage shed that was located to the side and back of the property. It looked to be about twelve-feet tall, with an extension that would take it up to about twenty.

Beth had gone to Jacksonville for the day, and guests weren’t scheduled to arrive until after four, so Rachel and I had the place to ourselves. My plan was to make a quick, pre-emptive strike against the squirrels by boxing them in. I’d let them sit there awhile, let them expend some energy trying to scratch their way out, then gas them with a pesticide bomb and assess their response. I gathered some metal flashing, nails and a hammer, and propped the ladder against the side of the house by the openings the squirrels were using to enter and exit the attic. I boarded up the holes I could find. Then I put the ladder and other materials away, changed into a pair of khaki shorts, and swung by the kitchen long enough to crush some ice cubes in a blender and roll them into a hand towel. Then I headed to the beach where Rachel was sunbathing.

“Hey Scatman,” Rachel said.

“Scatman?”

“I looked it up on my laptop,” she said. “Scatman Crothers played the part of the caretaker in The Shining. Dick Hallorann?”

You had to love this girl: two days earlier I’d told her about the Grady Twins, today she was giving it back to me. Rachel had on a black and white striped bikini and was lying on a chaise. She wore her hair in a French braid with a white bow tied on the end. She’d pulled the braid over her left shoulder to frame her face. The glass beside her was empty; save for a small pool of water and a couple of nearly melted ice cubes, remnants of what I guessed had been a pina colada.

“Where’d you get the drink?” I said.

“I made it in the kitchen. They don’t have anyone to serve drinks here, can you believe that?”

“I think the waitress is supposed to serve the drinks.”

She looked at me curiously. “Well, that’s what I did.”

I nodded.

Rachel said, “What’s with the towel?”

“Here, I’ll show you.” I put the frozen towel around her neck.

She gasped when it touched her skin, but within seconds she was murmuring, “God, that feels good!”

I said, “I think I’ll take the car down A1A for a few minutes.”

“Like how many minutes?”

“Maybe twenty. You want to come?”

“No, I’m good. I want to catch some rays today if we’re still doing breakfast tomorrow. Are we?”

“We are.”

She looked up at me and squinted against the sun. “You sure you want to do that? Cook breakfast for tourists and townies?”

“I am. Can I get you another drink before I go?”

“Maybe you could bring me one when you come back.”

I kissed her on the cheek. “As you wish,” I said, quoting a line from our favorite movie, The Princess Bride.

“Thank you, Farm Boy,” Rachel said, not to be outdone.

A few minutes later I took A1A back to the church, but this time I felt nothing. Nor were there any old people in the churchyard. Whatever had happened, if it happened, had stopped happening. But I didn’t care; I knew how to find another great feeling.

I turned the car around and headed to the sand dune where we’d found the boy a couple nights ago. I parked on the shoulder of the highway and made my way to the fire ant colony, and lay on my back next to it the same way the kid had been laying. While I waited I wondered what I’d tell the cops if a squad car happened by.

Within minutes I felt them crawling on my arms and legs.

I closed my eyes and smiled.

Chapter 10

D’AUGIE HAD BEEN surprised to see Rachel sitting at the foot of his hospital bed the morning after his fire ant incident. She’d come to check on him, she said, adding that she and Kevin had come the night before for the same purpose. She’d laughed when he told her his name, and barked a couple of times. Under normal circumstances, he’d have slit a woman’s throat for making fun of him, but with Rachel, it seemed so childlike and cute, he found himself laughing along with her.

“Is it spelled D-O-G-G-Y?”

He told her the correct spelling.

“Is it foreign?”

D’Augie changed the subject. “Did you happen to find my knife last night?”

“You had a knife?”

“More like a pocket knife,” he lied.

So Creed must have found the knife and kept that information from Rachel. Which meant he’d be suspicious, and have his guard up next time D’Augie attacked. D’Augie had been mortified to hear that Creed saved his life. But it didn’t change things. He still intended to kill him, first chance he got. He decided to play it cool with Rachel, see if he could get some information that would help him kill her boyfriend.

He watched her remove a plastic water bottle from her purse and shake it. Then she unscrewed the cap, poured something red and gloppy from it into a plastic cup on his hospital table, and handed it to him.

“What’s this?” he said.

“Red Drink.”

“What’s in it?”

“Water, grape juice, pomegranate juice, cranberry juice, protein powder, birch bark, a bit of citrus, some other stuff.”

He held it up to the light and stared at it. “What’s it for?”

“It’s full of antioxidants, and prevents you from getting sick. But if you’re already sick or get hurt, it heals you quickly.”

“This some sort of family potion?”

“No, it’s Kevin’s recipe.”

D’Augie abruptly put the cup down and silently cursed himself for being so stupid. He must have been reeling from the effect of the drugs they’d given him to have considered drinking this red concoction in the first place. He looked at the puzzled expression on her face. Then again, if Creed wanted to kill him, he’d already be dead. He wouldn’t have sent this girl to poison him.

“What’s wrong?” Rachel said.

Unless she was one of Creed’s assassins.

“D’Augie?”

But if she was one of his assassins, would she be so stupid as to tell him the drink was Creed’s recipe?

D’Augie looked her over carefully, while thinking about the events from the night before, the events prior to landing on the fire ant hill. Such as watching Creed and Rachel at dinner, their tender scene on the porch, and the way she stomped off into the night cursing like a sailor. D’Augie had seen women act like that before, but they weren’t assassins. They were angry girlfriends.

“Kevin told you to give this to me?”

Rachel laughed. “No, silly. I made it. It’s Kevin’s recipe, but I make it for him all the time.”

D’Augie looked at the liquid in cup. “You ever try it?”

“We drink it almost every morning. It’s really good for you. I wouldn’t have brought it if it wasn’t.”

“Show me,” he said.

“What?”

He handed her the cup. “Show me how good it tastes.”

Rachel took it and shrugged. “Seriously?”

“Unless there’s some reason you’d rather not.”

Rachel made a face that would have been adorable had she not been trying to poison him. Then, to D’Augie’s surprise, she drank half the cup, paused, then placed the cup carefully on the table and smiled.

“See?” she said. “Delicious, nutritious, and healthy.” She suddenly made a face, grabbed her throat and said, “Wha…what…Oh, my God, I…I don’t feel so good…I—” then she fell to the floor.

D’Augie jerked himself to a sitting position and peered over the edge of the bed. Rachel jumped up, yelled “Boo!” and nearly scared the shit out of him.

“Sorry,” Rachel said, “but you deserved that.”

She seemed to study his face a moment. “You’re pale,” she said. “Hey, I didn’t mean to frighten you. Are you okay?”

He nodded.

Rachel moved around the side of the bed and, to D’Augie’s utter amazement, she kissed his forehead. Then she stroked his hair a moment before reclaiming her seat. She picked up the cup and drank some more and said, “You sure you don’t want some?”

“I’ve got...” she looked at the plastic bottle on the hospital table. “Half a bottle left. You want to watch me drink that too?”

“I’ll split it with you.”

D’Augie drank while Rachel talked. She told him that she and Creed were on vacation, and had traveled the eastern sea coast for two weeks. That wasn’t news to D’Augie, since he’d been hunting Creed for months, showing his photo to all the private jet operators and airports around the country. A couple of weeks ago a Louisville baggage guy remembered a man who fit Creed’s physical description, who had demanded strict secrecy. But he said the man used a different name and the photo was all wrong. The guy he’d seen looked like a movie star and didn’t have a jagged scar on the side of his face. D’Augie decided Creed must have changed his appearance. He’d heard Homeland Security assassins could do that, but D’Augie’s informant gave him a critical piece of information: the guy who might be Creed was traveling with a young lady named Rachel Case. So regardless of the name Creed was using on the manifest, Rachel was using her real name, and they had left Louisville for Atlantic City a few days earlier. D’Augie had Googled Rachel Case, from Louisville, found her photos, learned her background information. Then he scoped out the nicest hotels in Atlantic City until he saw Rachel lounging at the pool drinking Kashenkas with a guy that had to be Donovan Creed. Sure enough, when he called the front desk, they confirmed a Donovan Creed was registered there.

So D’Augie began following them, and had followed them ever since.

As Rachel talked, D’Augie allowed himself to wonder if the “Red Drink” could be one of Creed’s secret weapons. He’d heard all his life about how Creed seemed impervious to pain, and how he had a miraculous ability to heal after receiving the most savage blows and wounds. His father had known Creed, and had considered him to be superhuman. D’Augie had always assumed Creed’s mysterious powers were more hyperbole than fact. But after drinking this red concoction, he was beginning to change his mind. There was no arguing the way this drink made him feel. He was gaining strength and energy. He was getting better.

“Rachel,” he said, “This Red Drink is to die for!”

“I told you you’d love it!”

They spent the next fifteen minutes chatting about fire ants (neither liked them) and how D’Augie was feeling (much better, thank you). The doctors said he might be able to get out in a couple of weeks, but if she brought him some more Red Drink it might only take a couple of days, he speculated. She agreed to come back the next day.

Rachel wasn’t what D’Augie would call smokin’ hot, but she had plenty going for her. High on the list, she seemed to care what happened to D’Augie, which was something he wasn’t used to. He wouldn’t feel the slightest regret for killing Creed, but he decided he would spare Rachel’s life, if at all possible.

The next morning, Thursday, Rachel brought him two bottles of Red Drink and a book. Even better, she told him that she and Creed had taken jobs at The Seaside to help out the lady who owned the place. Rachel laughed at the idea she was going to be a waitress. D’Augie laughed at the idea Creed was going to start cooking breakfast for the guests. They spoke a bit more, and then Rachel said, “I guess I better head out.”

“Why the rush?”

“I’m going to catch some rays on the beach.”

“With Kevin?”

“I wish! No, Kevin’s going to start getting rid of the tree squirrels today.”

“Tree squirrels?”

“In the attic. At The Seaside.”

She rambled on about how the squirrels had nested in the attic and were making noises, and how Kevin had decided not to climb up there for a few more days, and...

…And that’s how D’Augie figured out how to kill Creed without hurting Rachel.

Ninety minutes after Rachel left, D’Augie finished his second bottle of Red Drink, grabbed his clothes and snuck out of the Medical Center. He walked to the public parking area on Front Street where he’d left his car before following Creed and Rachel down A1A a couple nights earlier. He retrieved a shirt and hat from the trunk and put them on, then drove to a supermarket and bought some peanut butter meal replacement bars, a half-dozen bottles of water, and a boning knife. He put these items and a 9mm Glock in a small carry bag in his trunk and drove to the public beach parking lot. He parked his car, got the carry bag from the trunk and slung it over his shoulder. Then he walked the beach a quarter mile until he saw Rachel fifty yards in front of him, lying on a chaise lounge.

He paused for a moment to look at her. Rachel’s body looked better in the bikini than he’d thought it would a few hours earlier, when she’d come to visit him in the hospital. He allowed himself to imagine her naked. From there it was a short hop to think about making love to her, and he wondered if, after killing Creed, he should contact her and help her get through the grieving stage. After a suitable period of being her emotional tampon, D’Augie could make his move.

Speaking of moves, it was time to decide his next one. D’Augie shook the image of naked, grieving Rachel from his mind and glanced behind her, intending to check out the rear entrance to The Seaside. But what he saw instead was Creed walking on the boardwalk, coming from the B&B, heading toward Rachel, carrying a wrapped up towel.

D’Augie abruptly turned toward A1A, climbed over some sand dunes and slogged his way a hundred yards through shifting sand until he got to the highway. He propped himself against a telephone pole that had a poster nailed to it. He looked at the picture and skimmed the words about a missing girl named Libby Vail. From this position he had a clear view of the side and back of The Seaside. After a few minutes he saw Creed heading back. Then he was out of view for a moment. Then he reappeared in the parking lot, where he got in a car and drove away.

Moments later, D’Augie entered The Seaside, calling out, “Is anyone here?” If someone had answered, he’d ask for a brochure and leave. But he knew there was no one inside because he counted four mice running around on the main floor, and a wharf rat. Rachel had told him that Creed planned to board up the attic, so he’d probably already done it and the rodents were fleeing through interior openings and floorboards.

He headed up the stairs and located the attic entrance in the ceiling above the hallway. He pulled the draw cord that opened the attic door, unhinged the attic steps, pulled them to the floor, and then tested them. Then he reversed the process and closed the attic and checked the floor to make sure there were no tell-tale signs on the carpet, like dust or insulation. Satisfied with the result, D’Augie opened the door again, lowered the stairs, and climbed into the attic.

Chapter 11

THE FIRE ANTS hurt like a son-of-a-bitch!

From the time I pulled the kid off the ant hill I’d been dying to experience the sensation. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t plan to get swarmed like the kid, but I figured a couple dozen or so would give me the buzz I’d been missing these past weeks. Though I had an EpiPen in my pocket, I wasn’t worried about anaphylactic shock, since Dr. Carstairs had said it’s usually the second attack that gets you, not the first.

I let them feast on my flesh a few seconds before standing up and crushing them. A few got into my crotch and bit me hard enough to make my lower lip twitch. I figured to let the bites heal and come back every few days to see if I could build up a resistance.

By the time I got to the car I was feeling dizzy. It wouldn’t take too many bites to go beyond the point of no return, so I made a mental note to be extra careful the next time. According to Dr. Carstairs, each exposure is exponentially more dangerous than the previous one.

I checked my watch; figured Rachel wouldn’t care if I made a quick detour. I drove to the hardware store on Sixth and Coastal, got three feet in the door before the owner asked, “You the one taking over for Rip at The Seaside?”

“Was Rip the old caretaker?”

“Yep.”

“Then, yep.”

The owner was big and burly, with enormous fiery red mutton chops that covered the entire space between his nose and lower lip. He wore a red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Had a tattoo of a ship’s anchor on one forearm, and a dancing girl on the other. Wore his pants low, beneath his beer belly, with no belt. He sized me up. “You don’t look much like a caretaker, you don’t mind me saying so.”

“I’m more of a cook with a squirrel problem.”

“You guys serve squirrel over there? Fried squirrel, milk gravy?”

The assistant manager sauntered over. He was tall and gaunt, with facial skin so leathery you could strop a razor on it. He wore a patch on his work shirt that told anyone who cared that he was Earl. It had been quite a while since I’d seen anyone saunter, and I took a minute to watch him. It’s kind of a lost art and Earl was good at it.

“Let’s start over,” I said. I put out my hand. “I’m Donovan Creed.”

The big man took it. “I’m Jimbo Pim, this here’s Earl Stout.”

I nodded at Earl and concluded the handshake and said, “I’m the caretaker and breakfast chef at The Seaside. I’ve got the breakfast part down, but I need some kind of bomb or spray to kill the squirrels and other varmints in the attic.”

Jimbo rubbed his beard in a practiced manner with his thumb and index finger.

“Is Beth planning to shut the place down a few weeks?”

“No.”

“Then I’d recommend against the bomb. Put’s one hell of a sulfur stink in the air, takes about two weeks to get ‘er gone. Not only that, but sprays and mothballs and the like can cause breathing problems for your customers.”

“In that case, what do you recommend?”

“You been up in that attic?”

“Not yet.”

“Then you don’t know what the hell’s up there. Them live oak branches hang way over the roof. You could have five species of snakes in there, maybe some raccoons to boot. The bomb and spray don’t work on all critters. You kill the snakes you’ll be overrun with rats. You kill the rats, the snakes will work their way into the living areas, and nothin’ says ‘leave’ faster than snakes on a doorknob.”

“Is that a local saying?”

“It should be. A few years back I found a corn snake wrapped around my bed room door knob.”

He waited for me to ask about it, and I was convinced nothing would happen until I did.

“What did you do?” I said.

“Stuffed him in a shoebox, put a bible on it and took him to the woods the next day.”

“You weren’t worried he’d get out in the middle of the night?”

“Snakes don’t mess with The Word.”

I looked at Earl. He nodded and said, “Goes back to Adam and Eve.”

“Something else,” Jimbo said. “It’s against Florida law to kill tree squirrels.”

Thinking Jimbo might be having sport with me, I looked at Earl again. But Earl nodded solemnly, so either they were both joshin’ or they shared the same opinion about the killing of squirrels.

“But, they’re basically rodents, right?”

“In Florida they’re game mammals,” Jimbo said, “so they’re protected under state hunting regulations.”

I shook my head.

Earl said, “I know. What’s the world coming to, right?”

“Any legal way around it?”

“Squirrels chew wires,” Jimbo said. “They’re a major fire hazard. You’re probably close to a serious problem already, so you could go to a state wildlife damage control agent and apply for a depredation permit.”

I frowned. “That sounds lengthy. You got any quick and easy solutions? I’m not hung up so much on the legality.”

“Have you discussed these plans with Beth?”

“She’s turned the squirrel problem over to me. Getting rid of them had been her husband’s pet project, the one he hadn’t been able to solve, and I’d like to do this for her.”

“She’s a hell of a woman,” Earl said. “Charlie was a lucky man.”

Jimbo said, “It pains me to see her so broken-hearted. They had the perfect marriage, far as the rest of us could tell.”

Earl added, “She used to laugh all the time. That’s what she was known for, friendly smile, big laugh.”

“Don’t see her doing much of either these days,” Jimbo said.

We fell silent a moment.

“The squirrels?” I said.

“Look,” Jimbo said. “There’s about five ways to get rid of squirrels in an attic. But none of them work.”

I waited for him to make sense out of that ridiculous statement, but Jimbo just stared at me as though the conversation was over. I didn’t know what to say, so I just said, “Why not?”

“Well, The Seaside ain’t had a caretaker a while and there was a squirrel problem before that.”

The more Jimbo talked, the less sense he made. I said, “I know squirrels and mice tend to inhabit the same areas, and snakes can dig in. But it seems to me if you board them up���”

“Oh hell no!” Jimbo shouted. “You don’t never want to board up a bunch of squirrels!”

“Why not?”

Jimbo became animated, flapping his arms like a heron on a pond, trying to create lift. He wanted to respond, but couldn’t seem to find the right words. Earl beat him to it.

“Pandemonium!” he said.

Chapter 12

I RACED BACK to The Seaside with every intention of changing my clothes, getting the ladder out, and removing the metal flashing so the squirrels and other critters could escape before pandemonium ensued.

But when I went up the stairs toward my room I realized pandemonium had come and gone.

The attic access door had been located in the ceiling above the upper hallway. Now there was a huge hole where the door had been. The attic stairs were still folded up, like they should be, but the access door was on the floor in splinters, and a snake with a crushed head lay on it. The snake looked to be about six feet long, and was likely a rat snake. Wood was splintered all over the carpeting and squirrels were running amok throughout the house.

I propped the front door open and herded the squirrels out the door as best I could. Along the way, I encountered three snakes of similar length, but no rats. I suspected the new guests and I would find some rats later that night.

Rachel’s blood-curdling scream told me she’d found one of the snakes in the back hallway as she tried to enter the house. I raced down the steps for the fifth time in ten minutes and removed the snake from her view while explaining the situation. Rachel turned and ran, and I continued working until I was convinced the squirrels and snakes were out of the house.

I decided Jimbo and Earl were wrong about not boarding up the escape routes, because when I pulled down the attic ladder and climbed up into the attic, I found a few baby squirrels, twenty feet of soiled, feces-soaked insulation, and nothing more. I relocated the baby squirrels to the side yard and drove back to the hardware store to buy some plywood I could use to board up the hole until I could get a new door ordered.

Jimbo said, “I’ll order you one, but we’re talkin’ six weeks, maybe longer. You just don’t see many doors like that no more.”

I also bought a can of paint that seemed a close match to the ceiling color, and figured I had just enough time to secure the plywood, spray paint it, and tidy things up before the guests checked in.

On the way back to The Seaside I started working on an explanation for Beth as to how five snakes and a dozen squirrels could crash through an attic door, and how one of the snakes had gotten crushed to death in the process.

Chapter 13

D’AUGIE HAD BEEN smart to bring bottles of water because the attic was stifling, like a sauna. It was pitch black inside, but when D’Augie had opened the attic door and climbed up the steps, there’d been enough light to take in the general layout. He’d seen there was no floor or furniture to sit on, just beams separated by insulation, which meant he’d have an uncomfortable wait until Creed returned.

No problem, D’Augie could handle discomfort. He was, in fact, a power house of will, a rock of discipline. He’d handled the fire ant bites, hadn’t he? He had underestimated the fire ant threat. In the future, he planned to give them a wide berth. But attic heat and squirrels? No problem. He’d been in saunas before, just as he’d spent time in parks feeding squirrels.

D’Augie sat a minute, felt the sweat accumulating in pools underneath his shirt and pants and realized there was a big difference between saunas and attic heat. For one thing he’d never worn clothes in a sauna. Nor had he spent time in a sauna with fire ant bites that hadn’t completely healed. The cramped conditions and sweltering attic heat was having an effect on his bites. D’Augie’s thighs and crotch were beginning to itch and sting.

No problem, D’Augie would just rub some ointment on the trouble spots. He’d thought ahead, swiped a tube of ointment from the hospital, put it in his shirt pocket a couple hours ago, and…

…and shit!

While the tube of ointment was still in his shirt pocket, he realized he’d left that particular shirt in the trunk of his car when he changed clothes and put on the ball cap. Was it the power of suggestion that made his itching worse? D’Augie hoped so, because if it were an issue of mind over matter he’d be fine. He knew his mental powers were second to none, thanks to the countless hours he’d invested over many months mastering the art of meditation. He’d studied with the best yogis and perfected the art.

D’Augie spent the next five minutes in a deep meditative state. He would have devoted even more time to the meditating, but his crotch was on fire. It hurt like hell and was getting worse. He unzipped the top of the carry bag on his shoulder, took out a bottle of water, twisted the cap, and took a long sip. Then he unzipped his pants and poured some water on his festering blisters.

D’Augie knew there were squirrels in the attic, so he had expected to encounter the scent of feces in the air. He’d been around feces before, had a cat he used to clean up after a few years back. But this attic stench beat anything he’d whiffed in his lifetime. It was unearthly, truly appalling. Made his eyes itch and water and triggered his gag reflex. This odor was rich in feces, but there was more going on here than simple squirrel shit. D’Augie was a city boy, so he couldn’t be certain, but there seemed to be at least two other odors at work, fighting for dominance. He was pretty sure that the more pleasant of the two was rotting carcass, while the other might be something like undigested, regurgitated, decaying animal bits. Whatever the nature of the smell, it was harsh enough to scare a mongrel off a corn dog.

But…no problem, D’Augie would deal with it. He took another sip of water.

The attic insulation was the pink roll-type with paper on top. He had been hearing intermittent scurrying sounds on the paper some distance in front of him, and—there, it happened again—behind him. The sounds were too light to be squirrels, too heavy to be mice. Large mice? Small rats?

Moments later D’Augie heard chattering sounds in one of the eaves that were probably baby squirrels. Though he had spent little time in the country, he knew that in the animal kingdom, new mothers are often fiercely protective and rarely stray far from their litters. So he made a mental note to stay away from the eaves. That wouldn’t be a problem, assuming Creed returned soon. But if he didn’t, D’Augie would be forced to stand and walk around a bit to keep his muscles from cramping up. Nothing ruins the element of surprise like jumping through a plywood door and attacking Creed on your knees.

The itching and burning in his thighs and crotch had escalated far beyond anything D’Augie’s meditation could handle. It felt like someone was repeatedly burning his nuts and thighs with miniature branding irons. Bad as the stink in the attic was to deal with, the fire ant pain in his loins was worse. D’Augie scratched his crotch vigorously, and experienced instant relief.

For about five seconds.

Then the itching and burning returned, and when it did, it was worse than before. D’Augie clenched his fists, gritted his teeth, and handled the itch and burn for about twenty seconds. Then he gave in and scratched his crotch again. And again.

…And managed to scratch the scabs off his wounds.

He’d been sweating profusely since entering the attic, and sweat contained salt, so D’Augie wasn’t surprised that the sweat stung his private area when it seeped into his open sores.

What did surprise him was how badly it hurt.

He wondered why this attic attack seemed like such a great idea earlier in the day. Now he was dealing with itchy crotch, burning crotch, horrific smells, cramping muscles, rats, baby squirrels, and…

What was that?

More scurrying on paper, only much louder.

And then a thwack.

And then the muffled squeaking sound a rat might make if it had been crushed in the jaws of…

…Of a huge snake.

D’Augie felt the hairs on the back of his neck tingle, as if something cold were blowing on them. If that was a snake it was a large one, and very close by. And where there’s one it’s almost certain there’ll be another. The attic was virtually pitch black. Snakes could be slithering all around him, and he would never know it. They could be surrounding him at that very moment.

D’Augie was a city boy, not a country one. But he wasn’t completely clueless. He knew, for example, that most snakes are not venomous. But he didn’t know how many were.

He tried to remain calm. He drained his bottled water and put the empty in his carry sack. Then he did something a country boy would never do: he suddenly introduced a fresh food source into an enclosed attic space where wild animals and reptiles were trapped, fearful, and starving to death. He removed a peanut butter meal replacement bar from his carry sack and tore off the wrapper, releasing the scent of peanuts and chocolate into the air. As he started to move the food toward his mouth, something happened that caused him to forget his itchy, burning crotch and all the rest of his attic problems.

The battle was over as quickly as it started. D’Augie screamed and leaped through the plywood door with a snake on his face and two squirrels biting various parts of his neck and shoulders all the way to the floor. His elbow landed on the snake’s head, crushing it, and the squirrels panicked and ran through the house. Before D’Augie could get to his feet, a dozen more squirrels came pouring out of the opening like lemmings, followed by half as many snakes, representing several varieties. As the creatures landed on or around him, D’Augie scrambled to get to his feet.

But couldn’t.

Along with the numerous cuts, scrapes, bites and bruises he’d acquired before and during the fall, he’d apparently broken an arm and leg at the end of it.

“This is bullshit!” he screamed, covering up and waiting for the last of the critters to stop raining down from the shattered plywood hole above him

When at last things had quieted down, D’Augie secured his shoulder bag and began the slow and painful process of getting himself down the stairs, out the door, and to his car a quarter mile away.

Chapter 14

IT WAS FRIDAY morning, and Rachel was upstairs making herself pretty. I was in the kitchen, cooking up a storm for the guests, and Beth was setting the dining room tables. Wherever the rats and mice were hiding, it worked, because the two couples that checked in yesterday made it through the night without screaming.

“What is that heavenly scent?” Beth asked.

“I’m baking a caramel bread pudding custard.”

She walked back into the kitchen and eyeballed me. “You’re joking.”

“Want to see it?”

I led her to the oven and opened the door and said, “You’ll get the full aroma in about twenty minutes.”

“You’ve made this before, right?”

“Let me put it this way: within a week people will travel from parts unknown just to eat breakfast here.”

“If you cook as well as you brag, my troubles are over.”

I put my hand on my heart and bowed. “No one can brag as well as I cook. Not even me.”

She looked past me, to the box on the far counter. “What’s this?”

“Fresh flowers for the centerpiece.”

Beth used both hands to smooth her hair back. “Custard, fresh flowers. I’m not sure you realize how deeply in debt I am.”

“Relax. It’s my treat.”

Rachel made her way down the steps treading lightly in black, espadrille wedge sandals. She wore pale pink lipstick and had on a white dress shirt with a high button-down collar, and black stretch jeans. The jeans looked particularly hot. She carried a crystal vase that I knew to be Baccarat. Reacting to Beth’s stunned expression, Rachel said, “For the centerpiece.” She spied the box of flowers and opened it and began arranging them in the vase.

Beth hadn’t moved a muscle since entering the kitchen. She continued staring at the vase. “Who are you people?” she said.

Rachel’s lips curled into a smile that resembled a pretty pink bow. She winked at me, and I took the cue.

“We are people not to be trifled with,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

Rachel said, “That’s a line from our favorite movie, The Princess Bride.”

“Oh,” Beth said. “Well, if it’s your favorite, I’ll have to check it out.”

“It’s about a pirate,” Rachel said. “We love pirates, don’t we, Kevin?”

“Arrr,” I said. “And them who likes ‘em, too.”

“And their ships and crew members,” Rachel said.

“Aye, and their families as well,” I said, getting into it.

“And don’t forget their descendants,” Rachel said.

“Aye, especially them—”

And then something creepy happened. Beth slowly turned toward Rachel, turned so slowly I thought she must be imitating a scene from her own favorite movie, except that her face had lost all color and expression. When at last Beth’s eyes met Rachel’s, she spoke in a voice so chilly it seemed to freeze the room.

“What’s going on here?” she said. Then she looked at me.

I shrugged. “We’re saving your bed and breakfast. I’m cooking, Rachel’s serving.”

Beth looked at us a long time, making up her mind about something. Whatever it was, it seemed to go in our favor because a bit of the color came back to her face and she managed a tight smile. “In that case,” she said, “I’d better get out the trays and bowls and serving spoons.”

She headed back into the dining room and busied herself in the hutch. Rachel and I exchanged a glance.

“What was that all about?” Rachel whispered.

“Hell if I know,” I said. “You’re the woman.”

Rachel made a soft singing sound, “Doo doo doo doo,” which I recognized as the theme from the Twilight Zone.

Chapter 15

THERE’S NO POINT in being modest: the guests loved my bread pudding. They also raved about my cream biscuits, sausage gravy, and the French toast I’d stuffed with apple pie filling. But it was the mini BLT rounds that made the guests delirious. I had punched circles out of sliced potato bread with a large biscuit cutter, filled them with bacon, fresh tomatoes and romaine lettuce. Of course, the bacon was distinctively prepared. I started with thick slices, pressed them in brown sugar, and broiled them in the oven over a drip pan. The result was elegant, unique, and tasty enough to make a jackrabbit jump up and slap a hound dog.

“Mr. Creed,” one of the ladies said. “Wherever did you study food preparation?”

“Why, in Paris, of course!” Rachel gushed.

I hadn’t done anything of the kind. I was, in fact, self taught. But Rachel’s lie set so well with the guests I didn’t have the heart to correct her.

This morning she’d been charming and sweet, though I wondered how she’d react to a large crowd and long lines of hungry customers waiting to be seated.

I didn’t need to worry: she had done an excellent job with the serving. She had a natural rhythm about her, an athletic grace that was evident in everything she did. I loved watching her move. She could be walking down a flight of stairs or carrying platters in and out of a busy kitchen, it didn’t matter.

She was, in my eyes, a work of art.

Over the next few days Rachel and I settled into our routines. Afternoons, she’d shop for groceries, and I sawed off tree limbs that overhung the roof. Word on our food had gotten out, and we were doing ten tables of breakfast with the locals, more than half our capacity. Beth hired a teenager, Tracy, to help Rachel with the waitressing duties. Bob Pocket, the banker, had become a regular, and even Jimbo and Earl showed up twice, though they were disappointed to find us fresh out of squirrel both times.

Thursday morning, after our last breakfast guest had been served, I noticed Beth packing leftovers into a picnic basket.

“Hot date?” I said.

She didn’t look up. “Sick friend.”

Though Beth had been pleasant all week, she’d never gotten back to the degree of friendly she’d been prior to Rachel’s comment about the pirate. She added four bottles of water to the basket and headed out the door without elaborating further. But as I saw her step out the door with the basket, my mind flashed to the quaint little church I’d passed the previous week, and the lady I’d seen carrying a similar picnic basket up the church steps.

“Think she’s got a fella?” Rachel said.

“Why would you jump to that conclusion?”

“Might explain why she’s acting so weird.”

Rachel was hand-washing the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. A few strands of hair kept falling over one of her eyes. She straightened up, stuck her bottom lip out and tried to blow them off her face, but that didn’t work. She tossed her head, but that didn’t work either. She sighed, wiped her hands on her apron, and tucked the errant strands behind her ear. Then she said, “Are you still happy doing this?”

She extended an arm when she said it, indicating the kitchen, but I knew what she meant. It was a lot of work, and not the type I’d done before, at least not exclusively. For more years than I care to remember, my days consisted of hunting people or trying to keep from being hunted. I had acquired—okay, stolen—billions of dollars from the world’s wealthiest and most dangerous criminals. Rachel didn’t know I was a paid assassin, but she knew I was pretty comfortable financially. She, herself, had become a multi-millionaire through her association with me.

“We could be anywhere in the world right now,” she said, “doing anything we’ve ever wanted to do.”

“True.”

“And?”

“It’s been a nice break for me,” I said.

“Just to be clear: if you could be anywhere in the world, doing anything you’ve ever wanted to do, this is what you’d choose?”

I glanced around the kitchen and back at her. “At this exact moment in time? Yes.”

“Uh huh. And why’s that?”

“For starters, I’ve always wanted to vacation with a beautiful girl.”

“Not a gorgeous one, like me?”

“I meant to say gorgeous.”

“A gorgeous girl like me that you love with all your heart.”

“Exactly.”

“But?”

“But I’ve also learned that I need to stay busy.”

“You love to cook,” she said.

“I do love to cook. But I wouldn’t want to cook for a large restaurant, or have to prepare more than one meal a day. I also enjoy working with my hands, but I wouldn’t want to be a full-time maintenance guy. This place,” I gestured the way she had, “doesn’t require too much cooking or maintenance. I get to hang out with you, and we’ve got the beach, the sun, the sand…”

“But there’s something else.”

I paused. “There is something else.”

We looked at each other a minute and she said, “Are you going to tell me or do I have to beat it out of you?”

“I feel ridiculous saying it out loud, but…”

“But?”

“There’s something going on in this town,” I said, “some type of mysterious presence. A power that comes and goes.”

“A power.”

“Surely you’ve felt it.”

“Jesus, Kevin. I’m supposed to be the crazy one.”

I shrugged, thought about saying “you’re still plenty crazy,” but didn’t.

She looked at me curiously. “It’s almost like paradise to you, now that you’ve got these projects going.”

“For now it is.”

Rachel nodded, and went back to loading the dishwasher. “You’re expecting a lot from me, after inviting me to go on a vacation with you,” she said.

I let that comment hang in the air, and worked her entire conversation around in my mind as I scrubbed down the kitchen surfaces. The first two weeks of our coastal vacation had been right out of the millionaire’s handbook, and Rachel had loved the five-star resorts in Virginia and Georgia, the limos, fancy restaurants, luxurious pools and spas.

Now that I thought about it, she hadn’t been remotely enthused when I brought up the idea of hitting St. Alban’s and checking out a quaint little B&B called The Seaside. But she agreed to come, and she did it for me. Then, a day into our stay, I’d thrown her into a waitressing job she wouldn’t have tolerated under any other circumstances.

I thought about Rachel’s comment, and what she’d asked me, and realized there were probably a hundred places she’d rather be right now. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but notice her mental condition had improved dramatically since we’d come here. It seemed to change the moment we found that kid on the ant hill. Or maybe the moment just before, when we were exposed to the power for the first time.

“I never thought to check on that kid,” I said.

“You mean Tracy?”

“No, I meant —”

“Where is she, anyway? I thought she was hired to help us clean. All she’s doing is food service.”

“Beth said she starts full time on Monday.”

“She’s kind of creepy, don’t you think?”

“Beth or Tracy?”

Rachel turned to face me. “Both. But this Tracy girl, I don’t know. She’s like a robot or something.”

“You mean because she’s always happy?”

“Exactly. She’s too happy. You know that movie, Stepford Wives? She’s Stepford happy. In fact, everyone in St. Alban’s seems to have that sort of vacant happiness.”

Rachel hadn’t just hit it, she’d knocked it out of the park. I wondered if the collective happiness among the locals had anything to do with the strange feeling I’d experienced.

“I’ve noticed that,” I said. “Everyone we’ve met here is cheery to the point of seeming programmed.”

“Except for the gang guys that tried to rape me that first night.”

“Rape you? They said they were offering you a ride.”

“And you said you’re a pencil pusher for Homeland Security.”

“I —”

“Only you happen to know a lot about explosives and computers and rescuing people from Lucite jail cells.”

“I also know a lot about cooking and cleaning. But anyway, those gang guys aren’t from St. Alban’s.”

“How do you know?”

“Their car had Georgia plates.”

She studied me a moment. “Is that the sort of thing pencil pushers notice?”

I got back on the subject of our kitchen helper. “I’m sure Tracy was just happy to get the job. This is a pretty tough economy for a small town like this.”

“True,” she said. “But that makes it even weirder that everyone in town is stupidly happy all the time.”

I couldn’t argue about that, so I focused on my tasks. Rachel did the same, and we continued working until we’d done all we could to make the kitchen spotless. Then we went upstairs and Rachel rewarded me by letting me watch her change into her bikini.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said, raising my eyebrows.

“Don’t even think about it, horn dog. And don’t bother pouting, ’cause it’s your own fault.”

“My fault?”

“I can’t help it if I used up all my energy being your scullery maid. So I’m going to go relax in the sun and bronze this body until I’m Brazilian.”

“You can do that without feeling the slightest bit of compassion for my, ah, predicament?”

“Yup. Oh, and I’ll be completely unavailable sexually until...” she looked at her watch. “Three o’clock. If you can’t wait that long, you’ll just have to find another way to work off your frustration.”

I smiled. “I know just the thing!”

“Eew.”

“Eew?”

“Men. Ugh.”

I had no idea what she meant, but when she headed to the beach I changed into my khaki shorts, grabbed an EpiPen, and drove back to the sand dune that housed the fire ant colony.

Chapter 16

“ARE YOU ALL set for the pig roast?” Tracy asked, cheerfully. “I’ve never been to a Fourth of July pig roast, never even eaten a roast pig. Have you ever even roasted a pig before, or is this your first time?”

“Tracy,” Rachel said. “Shut the fuck up and let us work!”

“Sorry, I talk when I’m nervous.”

“I talk when I’m nervous,” Rachel said, in a high-pitched voice filled with sarcasm.

“It’s okay, Trace,” I said, and caught a warning look from Rachel.

It was the last Monday in June and we’d had an unexpected run on the kitchen. We’d just finished serving our first standing-room-only when a charter bus pulled up in front of the inn and dumped twenty-four female senior citizens in our doorway. Beth had taken one look at the crowd and raced out the door to make a grocery run. I was frying some maple sausage links with sliced apples to take the edge off their appetite until she returned. Rachel was squeezing oranges as fast as she could, and Tracy was washing a rack of glasses, waiting for Rachel to fill the first pitcher with orange juice.

Oh, and Rachel was getting a bit testy.

“You don’t have to take up for Little Miss Tits,” she informed me. “Though I don’t blame you. She’s done everything she can to get your attention, short of giving you a blow job.”

“Oh my!” Tracy said.

“Rachel,” I said. “Relax. And Tracy?”

“Yes sir?”

“No blow jobs.”

She looked at me without expression.

“I mean it, okay?”

She giggled. “I wouldn’t even know how.”

“I wouldn’t even know how!” Rachel mocked. She grabbed an orange and hurled it at Tracy’s head. It missed by an inch and continued picking up speed until it slammed into the side wall of the dining room.

Tracy’s lip began trembling. Her eyes filled with tears.

An elderly woman screamed in the dining room.

Which caused Tracy to scream and run out the back door. Or maybe it was the knife Rachel held, or the curl of her lip, or the gleam in her eye. I poked my head through the serving area, smiled, and said, “Where you folks from?”

One of the ladies was halfway out of her chair, but she paused when she saw me. The others appeared nervous, but hadn’t bolted yet. She sat back down, tentatively. A lady sitting at her table said, “We’re from Valdosta.”

I glanced back at Rachel and gave her a look of disapproval. In return, she flipped her middle finger at me. I turned back to the ladies, showed them my best smile and, doing my best to imitate the friendly banter used by the locals, said, “Well, we’re mighty glad to have you folks with us today, and that’s a fact!”

“You sure about that?” the lady said, pointing at the dripping orange stain on the wall.

“I’m sorry, I should have warned you,” I said. “It’s an old St. Alban’s custom. Like the ceremonial pitch in a baseball game, it’s our way of welcoming you to The Seaside.”

The group looked skeptical, but rewarded my bullshit with light, scattered applause. The lady doing all the talking said, “I’ve been to St. Alban’s before, but no one ever threw an orange at me, or screamed in the kitchen.”

One of the other women said, “You’d think they’d throw something softer.”

Another said, “Or at least something less messy.”

Another responded, “Well, it’s Florida, after all.”

The Valdosta lady said, “You’re missing the point. They shouldn’t be throwing anything at all.”

I said, “Your appetizers will be out shortly.”

The lady who thought we should be hurling something softer said, “Come here, Sonny Boy, I want to show you something.”

I walked over to her. She pulled out her wallet and opened it to a picture of a baby.

“This is my new granddaughter,” she said proudly. “Isn’t she gorgeous?”

I hoped my wince wasn’t obvious. Was she kidding me? Personally, I thought the little freak looked like Moms Mabley. But I smiled and said, “Wow!”

She kissed the picture and put it away. I turned and started heading back to the kitchen, thankful she didn’t feel obliged to show me the rest of her brood. But after I’d gotten a few steps I saw another photo, one I recognized from the posters around town.

“Is that Libby Vail?” I said, pointing to a small photo another lady was studying.

She smiled a kindly smile and said, “I pray for her every night.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“They sell them at the tourist shops on Main, near the old train depot. Such a sad story.”

I nodded and continued my journey to the kitchen.

Though I didn’t get a chance to tell Tracy, I was, in fact well prepared for the Fourth of July pig roast. A full house for the B&B meant six couples, and they’d been booked months before Rachel and I showed up. We were counting on a double capacity breakfast Saturday and Sunday, and since the Fourth fell on Sunday this year, Beth had talked me into doing a giant pig roast on the beach Sunday night. We’d put a sign in the window and sold a hundred tickets at forty bucks each. After food cost and labor, Beth should net a cool three grand.

Other than losing Tracy and having to clean the orange mess from the wall, we managed to get the charter bus ladies fed without incident. Having one less set of tits in the kitchen seemed to have a calming influence on Rachel, but I knew she wasn’t up to handling the entire food service alone during the busiest week of the year. She’d turn on me for sure, and probably with knives instead of oranges. Knowing the rest of the week would be difficult for Rachel, I persuaded Beth to hire two of her lady friends to start that afternoon and work through the holiday weekend. I even managed to get Tracy back, though it required an apology from Rachel.

“I’m sorry I threw an orange at you,” Rachel said.

“That’s okay,” Tracy said.

“And?” I said.

“And I’m sorry your big fat titties flop out whenever Kevin’s around,” Rachel said.

“That’s okay,” Tracy said.

It wasn’t much of an apology, but Tracy needed the job.

Chapter 17

LIKE SKINNING A cat, there are many ways to roast a pig. The most common is on a rotisserie over a fire pit. But since the right type of rotisserie costs hundreds of dollars and would have taken too long to ship, I defaulted to the ancient Mumu method of burying the pig and cooking it with hot rocks.

The art of cooking an entire animal underground was perfected by thieves in the mountains of Crete, who used to dig pits, build fires in them, and bake large stones until they became white-hot. Then they’d steal some lambs or goats, throw them in the pit, and cover them with leaves and dirt. These pits were so well insulated that the thieves could stand on top of them comfortably in bare feet during the cooking phase, even as the animal’s owners came looking for them. This manner of cooking produced no smoke or odor, so the stolen animals seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Ten or twelve hours later, after the owners had given up looking for their stock, the thieves would dig up the perfectly cooked meat and enjoy the feast. Then they’d bury the remains in the pit, a perfect crime.

I roped off an area behind The Seaside and spent a couple of hours on Saturday digging the pit. Then I filled it with Georgia fat wood and local kindling. Around two o’clock, Hardware Store Earl and two of his sons picked me up in the family truck to steal some cooking rocks off the shore of Fernandina Beach, near Fort Clinch State Park. To be precise, these were ballast stones from 1800’s shipping fleets that had been tossed overboard by crew members in order to make their ships light enough to anchor close to shore. After a few hours of wading, lifting and carrying, we’d gathered enough stones to fill the pit. As we started loading the stones into the truck, the strangest thing happened. The wind that had been blowing from the south shifted slightly to the east, and a chill hit the air for a split second. I looked out to sea and saw a storm gathering on the horizon.

We loaded a few more stones as the wind started whipping the shore, lifting sand crystals into the air and hurling them at everything in its path, including the four of us. I shielded my eyes and chanced looking out to sea. While the sun behind us shone brightly, the sky before us was jet black, above a dark ocean of angry whitecaps and menacing waves.

It was that uneasy moment when one force of nature is about to take on another.

A long, low, distant rumble served as our warning, and another chilling gust of wind hit us from the east. The saw grass around us began bending at a severe angle. Somewhere behind us, a screen door slammed against its casing, threatening to burst its hinges. I’d never seen such a powerful storm appear out of nowhere, but here she was, picking up speed, heading our way.

��Better jump in the truck!” Earl said, so we did, and just as we closed the doors all hell broke loose, and the wind made the most God-awful shrieking and howling noise I’d ever heard. It sounded almost like a child’s shrill wail, and I could have sworn I heard cursing in at least three of the four languages I speak. It was so loud we covered our ears with our hands and winced in pain. The sky was dark around us, and the rain pelted our car so hard I could barely see ten feet out the window. I thought of the fragile screen door and looked to see if it had taken flight.

I couldn’t see the ground floor of the store, because the rain was hitting the street and bouncing up several feet, making the visibility twice as poor. But something on the roof caught my eye, a shape so incongruous and absurd I hesitate to even mention it. Just to clarify, I’ve never seen anything like it before or since, and I’m not even sure I saw it then. As I said, the storm was all consuming, and visibility practically nil.

It appeared to be a young woman.

If I had to guess, the shape I saw could have been a teenage girl, with long black hair and eyes that seemed to glow yellow, with a vertical black line in the center, like a jungle cat.

Fine, I know what you’re thinking, but guess what: it gets even crazier!

She was laughing.

Right, I know. But if it was a young woman standing on the roof with her arms raised heavenward, she seemed to be looking right at me, and yes, she was laughing. Laughing or howling or wailing…and if I hadn’t known better I could have sworn the shrieking sound that I’d believed to be the wind, was actually coming from her! Okay, I’ve told you what I saw, and now you can haul me away, because when I blinked my eyes and craned my neck, trying to get a better look at her, she disappeared.

Yeah, that’s right. She disappeared into thin air.

I was about to ask the others if they’d seen her, but...

But the hail started.

My previous encounters with hail had been small pebbles that grew to larger pebbles, and then back to small as the storms came to an end. These hail storms were loud and fun and sometimes damaged a car’s paint job. Earl’s truck was several tones of rust, primer, and in a few places, actual paint, so paint damage wouldn’t have been an issue in any case.

But the St. Alban’s hail didn’t work that way. It started huge, the size of cranberries, and quickly escalated to golf balls that hit us so hard and loud it actually drowned out the sound of the shrieking. Or maybe the shrieking had stopped when the hail showed up.

Either way, the pounding was nonstop. Unyielding. The damage to Earl’s truck quickly moved beyond a simple paint job, as the windshield cracked in several places and jagged lines were spidering in all directions across the glass. The rear window was faring even worse, with numerous impact points that looked like bullet holes.

Nor was the damage confined to the windows, as hail relentlessly hammered dents into the hood of the truck. From the sound above us, I knew the roof would be even worse. The sound of hail on metal was so intense, it sounded like Blue Man Group was pounding the truck with sledge hammers during a prolonged finale.

“Holy shit!” one of the boys yelled, and the rest of us laughed.

“How you like them apples, city boy?” Earl shouted, though the hail hadn’t got quite to apple size, to my knowledge.

“It’s amazing the windows are still in tact!” I shouted.

“They won’t last much longer,” Earl yelled.

Then, as suddenly as it started, it was over.

Except for one delayed crash, where something fell from the sky and struck the truck bed so hard it shook the chassis and buckled the tires.

“The fuck was that?” Earl shouted.

The sudden silence was so strange, we all just sat there a moment. We looked out the windows, then at each other. We’d come through it, whatever it was, and the four of us had a story to tell for the rest of our days.

“Don’t get out yet,” Earl said. “Whatever that last one was, might not be the last one of ‘em.”

I agreed. “That wasn’t a hailstone,” I said.

“What then?”

I thought a minute. “Could be a meteorite, or a piece of a space satellite falling to earth.”

“In the middle of a hail storm?”

“Best guess. Of course, we could always just get out of the truck and take a look.”

“You first, then,” Earl said.

We started laughing. The sun came back out and I climbed out of the truck and the others followed. Then we looked in the back and found what had made the noise.

Not a meteorite.

Not a piece of a space satellite.

It was a cannonball.

“Someone fired a cannonball at us?” I said.

“Never know,” one of Earl’s kids said. “This used to be a pirate town. Lotta people still think of themselves as pirates.”

“Probably just got picked up by the storm, carried awhile, and dropped on the back of my truck when the wind died down,” Earl said.

“Looks ancient,” I said.

Earl took the ball from me and inspected it carefully. He removed his cap and scratched his head. “Now this here might be worth something,” he said. He placed it on the floor of his truck.

We finished loading the ballast rocks into the back of the truck and talked about the storm, comparing it to everything else we’d experienced in nature.

At four the next morning I built a huge fire in the pit and roasted the stones for more than two hours. Then Earl and his sons helped me wrap most of the pig in aluminum foil and carry it out to the pit. We removed a few of the small center stones and stuffed them inside the pig to facilitate the cooking. The hot stones created a lot of smoke and loud sizzling sounds as the pig seared from within. We wrapped the rest of the pig in foil and placed it carefully in the pit, and covered it with banana leaves and hot stones. Then I removed the ropes I’d used to cordon off the area, and raked a couple of feet of sand over the top of the pit. By the time we finished, if you didn’t know where the pig was cooking, it would be impossible to tell.

Satisfied with our effort, Earl, the boys and me went back inside and I fed them some shrimp grits and country ham biscuits with red eye gravy. We sat and talked about the storm and drank coffee.

At one point I asked them if they’d seen anything on the roof of the store.

“Like what?” Earl said.

“I don’t know, I just thought I saw something up there.”

“Like a cannon?” one of the sons said.

We all laughed and I changed the subject.

Beth came down to start putting things in order for the big Fourth of July breakfast, and I got up to help her. The men left. It felt comfortable, the two of us working together. We didn’t talk much, and didn’t feel like we needed to.

The way I figured, it would take about eleven hours for the pig to be fall off the bone perfect, which meant dinner would be ready around six o’clock. In the meantime our guests could enjoy the beach, play golf, or shop in nearby Fernandina Beach. Rachel and Tracy would serve drinks to the beach group, Beth would run a shuttle service for the others, and I’d handle an all-day food and beverage shift. The pig roast would be over by eight-thirty, at which time we’d shuttle our dozen house guests to the big fireworks display at the Fernandina Beach marina. All in all, it would be a Fourth of July to remember.

At least that’s what I planned.

Unfortunately, none of those things happened.

Except for the memorable part.

Chapter 18

IT HAD BEEN a rough couple of weeks for D’Augie.

First, he’d nearly died on a sand dune swarming with fire ants. Then he’d been saved by Donovan Creed, the man he tried to kill, a situation made no less mortifying to D’Augie after hearing that Creed and his girlfriend stripped him naked during the rescue. And of course Creed had stolen his prized knife, the only gift D’Augie had ever gotten from his father.

Then Rachel told him that Creed took a caretaker’s job at The Seaside Bed & Breakfast, where he planned to rid the attic of squirrel infestation. So D’Augie snuck out of the hospital and hid in The Seaside’s attic, hoping to catch Creed by surprise. But the surprise turned out to be on D’Augie, who broke an arm and leg after being attacked by angry attic snakes and hungry squirrels.

After dragging his broken body a quarter mile to his car, it took a super human effort to make the forty minute drive to Jackson Memorial, where ER personnel set his fractures and re-treated his festering fire ant bites.

During the course of his treatment, D’Augie had an allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics they administered, and nearly died again. He spent more than a week mildly sedated as they pumped him with steroids and pain killers. Eventually they got him back to normal, if you can call an arm and leg cast normal. Worse, both casts were on the right side, which made it impossible for D’Augie to drive a car.

But D’Augie was nothing if not determined, and he aimed to kill Creed. He’d traveled more than a thousand miles over two years to get the man who killed his father, and he wasn’t going to give up because of some plaster.

He hired a cab to pick him up at the hospital and take him to one of the airport motels. He’d wanted to stay at the Amelia Island Resort, or in Fernandina Beach, but it was Saturday, July third, and everything on the island was booked. He got a second cab to take him to Wal-Mart, where he bought a buck knife, a sharpening tool, some food, and several bottles of water. He spent most of the night putting a fine edge on his blade. Next morning he put his supplies in his shoulder bag, caught a cab to St. Alban’s and told the driver to let him out two blocks south of The Seaside Bed & Breakfast. The driver did so and D’Augie gave him a fifty and said he’d catch a ride back with a friend.

D’Augie’s arm cast was more of an inconvenience than a problem. It could actually be considered a benefit, since the sling that held it in place could be used to conceal his knife. But moving around with the leg cast was proving to be an issue. The cast ran from his ankle to the top of his thigh, and forced him to turn sideways every time he took a step with his right foot.

His right foot was bare, since the nature of the cast’s construction prevented him from wearing a shoe. He supposed he could wear a giant sock, but he didn’t happen to own any giant socks and hadn’t thought to buy one.

Now, standing on the street, watching the cab drive away, D’Augie wished he’d thought to buy a dozen socks. The thought came to him when he realized he was standing on a live cigarette. D’Augie cried out and lifted his bare foot off the pavement, hoping to get relief. But his leg cast caused him to pitch forward. In order to keep from falling face first, he had to plant his casted foot back on the street. Even though the smoldering cigarette was inches behind him at this point, the noon sun had rendered the pavement blazingly hot, a situation that worsened the wound he’d received from the cigarette. He yelled again, lifted his leg again, spun sideways and was again forced to put his casted foot back on the hot pavement to keep his balance. Unfortunately, that step burned the tender bottom of his foot even worse, and he screeched. He lifted his foot again, spun sideways again, nearly fell again, put it down again, screamed again, and kept repeating the process, over and over, like some “cast” member from Night of the Living Dead.

D’Augie did manage to accomplish something he hadn’t meant to do. It was imperative, his doctor had said, that D’Augie not attempt to walk forward without first turning his leg to one side. Otherwise, the top of his cast would cut into his left thigh and chafe it badly.

The doctor had been right about the pain. D’Augie could feel the cast tearing into the flesh of his upper left thigh. Up to now, though he’d traveled a distance of maybe five feet in forty seconds, he’d been yelping every time he took a step with the right foot. Now he was also crying out with every step of his left. He knew he must look like some kind of freak show, hopping and spinning and screaming and tearing his flesh as he kept circling round and round.

Eventually, he got dizzy and fell face first into the pavement. The good news was, his arm absorbed most of the blow and his right foot finally stopped hurting. The bad news was, the arm that broke his fall was the same one he’d recently broken. In addition, he sustained a cut forehead and what felt like a severely broken nose.

“Motherfucker!” he screamed to the sky.

The young man making love to the older woman in the rental unit twenty yards away heard the scream as if it were just outside the window. Rattled, he jumped up and ran to the window, looked around the yard, but saw nothing.

“What’s wrong?” his friend’s mother said.

“Someone’s watching us.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Seriously. Some guy just called me a motherfucker, and since you’re a mother…”

“The weed’s made you paranoid,” she said. “Come back to bed.”

He lay bleeding in the street. He wanted to cry, but he was too angry. He screamed the word again, louder this time: “Motherfucker!” – and thought he heard a young man shout “Jason? Is that you?”

He cocked his head, listening, but didn’t hear it again. D’Augie lay in the street, trying to imagine what could possibly be worse, and then came up with this: How about if a truck was barreling down the highway, directly in his path, refusing to slow down?

Because that’s exactly what was happening.

D’Augie rolled onto his side and screamed, then onto his back and screamed, then onto his other side and screamed, then his front and screamed, and repeated the cycle until he’d gotten out of the truck’s path—just in time. He raised his good arm and flipped his middle finger and cursed. The reason for his rolling screams were two-fold: first, he hadn’t realized it at the time, but the recent fall on the pavement had re-broken his arm. Worse, he’d stabbed himself in the chest several times with the knife he’d hidden in his sling.

The one he’d spent all night sharpening.

Inside the rental unit the young man was freaking out.

“You didn’t hear that? It sounded like your son screaming at me.”

“Jason’s in Jacksonville with his father. Look, you’re so wound up; I’m going to do something special to help you relax. Now just lie down and close your eyes…”

Outside the window D’Augie lay on the side of the street and bled a few minutes and tried to formulate a plan of attack. He eventually came to the conclusion that his best bet was to walk into the front entrance of The Seaside and locate Creed. The sand would be hot on his bare foot, but not as hot as the pavement. He should be able to handle it. Once inside the B&B, he’d ask Creed for help stopping the bleeding, and stab him first chance he got. He’d send Creed straight to hell.

As soon as he got to his feet.

Which he suddenly found impossible to do.

“Cocksucker!” he roared at the sky. “You Goddamned cocksucker!”

The older woman heard the word both times. She lifted her head and looked at her lover’s face. His eyes were closed and he was grinning from ear to ear.

“You little bastard!” she shouted. “You think that’s funny? You and your little friend hiding in the bushes, making fun of me? Get out of here! Now!” She ran to the window. “Hey, asshole in the bushes: get the fuck off my property or I’ll call the cops!”

D’Augie removed the knife from his sling and held it in his left hand, then began rolling through the sand and sea oats toward the B&B, wondering how there could be ten thousand people between here and Fernandina Beach today, but not a soul within sight to help him to his feet. Worse, some lady had just screamed at him and threatened to call the cops! D’Augie was astounded by the lack of compassion in St. Alban’s. He heard a young man shout, “What did I do?”

“Get out!” the lady screamed again.

She didn’t sound friendly, but D’Augie could hardly afford to be picky. He needed assistance.

“Help me!” he shouted.

“Help you? Sure, I’ll help you! I’m getting my shotgun. If you’re still laying in the bushes when I get back, I’m going to blow your ass to hell!

D’Augie cursed, and started rolling. It was slow, hot, exhausting work trying to roll two blocks to the inn. Sand had caked on the cuts in his forehead and entered his broken nose. He held his breath and tried to blow the blockage from his nostrils. In doing so, he remembered watching a fight on TV once, where the corner man told his fighter never to blow a broken nose.

But why? D’Augie tried to remember. Oh yeah: because it will swell up and hurt ten times worse.

The corner man had been right.

D’Augie kept rolling. He figured to make it to the gate and use the gate pole to prop himself up. But the gate was a block and a half away, and D’Augie was in serious pain, losing blood, and getting dizzy. His mind was getting fuzzy, and he was stuck amid the sand dunes. He stopped rolling for a minute and took a break, trying to remember what it was about laying on a sand dune that posed a problem.

The fire ants brought his memory back. Ten or twelve of them had gotten in his shirt and began stinging the back of his neck. D’Augie wasn’t about to let them grow in numbers like the last time. He resumed his rolling, and though the dune sand was soft and loose and the going much slower, he made up for it by working harder.

Ten minutes later he found himself not in front of the B&B as he’d planned, but behind and to the side of it. He broke out of the last sand dune and rolled onto the compacted sand behind the inn. He was lying about thirty feet from the boardwalk, near its center. From his vantage point he figured it was a hundred and fifty feet from the beach to the Inn, and he could see the steps at both ends. Eight steps on the left end took you up to the Inn, and however many steps there were on the right end would take you down to the beach. The boardwalk was elevated about two feet above the sand, and there were access points on either side, with three steps each. There were people below him on the beach. He couldn’t see them and couldn’t be seen by them, but he could hear them laughing and playing. He also heard Rachel calling to Creed, hollering for four more Kashenkas, which D’Augie knew to be some sort of drink. He turned his head and saw her standing on the boardwalk, maybe twenty feet to his left. She had her hands cupped around her mouth and was concentrating her attention on the back of the Inn, and hadn’t noticed him lying in the sand.

D’Augie thought about calling out to her, maybe get her to lift him up and help him to the kitchen, but when he heard Creed shout back that he’d bring the drinks to her in a minute, he came up with a better plan, one he’d seen in the movie, Jeremiah Johnson, starring Robert Redford. In the movie, an Indian had buried himself under a layer of snow and jumped out and attacked Robert Redford. It didn’t work, but then again, Redford had been holding a rifle, whereas Creed would be carrying a tray of exotic drinks. D’Augie would simply roll a few feet closer, over to that loose, fresh-raked sand by the boardwalk, bury himself a foot or two into it, and when Creed passed by, he’d jump up and use the edge of the boardwalk to get to his feet. Then he’d come up behind Creed from under the boardwalk and cut the tendon in Creed’s ankle. Creed’s scream would be drowned out by the beach noises, and when he fell, D’Augie would slit his throat and make his getaway.

D’Augie remained perfectly still until Rachel disappeared down the steps to the beach. Then he rolled to the fresh-raked area and positioned the knife in his cast. He began digging the soft sand out from under his body with his left hand. It was easier than he’d expected. Within minutes he scooped out an area about a foot deep and eased his back into it, and started covering himself with the sand he’d dug out of the hole.

After a few minutes of that, he realized it wasn’t going to work. With only one free hand and leg he wasn’t going to be able to cover himself enough to escape detection.

D’Augie would just have to roll out of the hole, make his way to the boardwalk, lift himself up, and intercept Creed from the front. Creed would be probably be taken back encountering the limping, bleeding sand-covered D’Augie, but the last thing he’d expect is to be attacked. So the element of surprise, plus the fact that Creed would be carrying a tray of drinks, would be enough to tip the scales of battle in D’Augie’s favor. So that’s what he’d do.

As soon as he worked his way out of the hole he’d dug.

Which he suddenly didn’t seem capable of doing.

And worse, his back was getting awfully goddamned hot for some reason.

Chapter 19

I WAS ALONE in the kitchen when I heard Rachel shouting a drink order from the boardwalk. I’d served a few of our guests Kashenkas earlier, and knew they’d be ordering them all afternoon.

The Kashenka is a trendy drink invented in Paris twenty years ago to honor a beautiful Polish cabaret dancer who worked near the Ritz hotel. It’s made with pressed strawberries, white castor sugar and Polish vodka and served in a tall glass filled with cracked ice.

I figured if Rachel was calling for drinks instead of sending Tracy to the kitchen for them, both girls were obviously needed on the beach to tend to our demanding guests. My immediate problem was the lack of serving trays. I looked under the sink, in the hutch and even tried the broom closet, but couldn’t find anything suitable for presenting the drinks. Maybe the guests wouldn’t mind if I just used a dinner plate. I had just started trimming the strawberries, when I remembered the picnic basket Beth had taken to her sick friend.

The basket was on the counter, filled with apples. I took the apples out and turned the basket upside down to make sure it was clean, and noticed some scratch marks on the bottom. There was something unusual about them. They seemed to be less random and more of a deliberate design. I took the basket close to the back door to get as much light on it as possible, and realized what I was seeing was not scratches at all, but two distinct Roman numerals. I rubbed my thumb over the woven wood where the scratches had been made, and felt something sharp. I pried apart the area between the weave and discovered something had been wedged in there.

It was that exact moment I heard a man screaming. I cocked my head to the side to listen. It sounded like a Rebel yell, only louder, and more terrifying.

I dropped the basket, tore out the door and raced about twenty feet down the boardwalk and found a man lying in the pig pit. I hopped over the rail and got to him quickly and pulled him out and turned him over. He had a leg and arm cast and his shirt had scorch marks on the back. A few more minutes and this guy would have been burned alive. I turned him on his side and felt his pulse for ten seconds.

Though he was in serious pain, I could see he was going to live. He’d probably have permanent burn marks on his back, and might require skin grafts. His face and hair were caked with blood and sand and something about him seemed familiar. His eyes were wild with pain, and he was grabbing at his sling. I looked around for help and saw that no one seemed to have heard him or noticed me pull him from the pit.

“Don’t move,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

I ran back to the kitchen, grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911 and gave them the details. I grabbed four bottles of water from the refrigerator and a roll of paper towels and ran back to the burn victim, who was trying to roll toward the sand dunes. I stopped him and turned him on his stomach and began pouring water over his back. I decided not to remove his shirt in case the skin might come off with it. I poured a second bottle of water on his back and then turned him on his side and opened a third bottle and poured it on his face and hair. I got him to drink a few swallows from my last bottle of water, and used the remainder to wet some paper towels. I dabbed at his face with the moistened towels, and though his broken nose threw me off a minute, I finally recognized him as the kid Rachel and I had pulled off the sand dune a couple of weeks earlier.

Only this time he had a broken arm and a full leg cast. And he was digging at his arm cast again, and shouting incoherently. Whatever he’d been trying to do to his broken arm, he stopped doing, and grabbed my throat instead.

I could tell the kid was trying to strangle me, but he was so weak he couldn’t have crushed a grape. He seemed happy doing it though, so I let him keep trying. While he did, my thoughts turned to damage control. If he decided to sue Beth, she’d lose everything. But would he sue her? Of course he would—it’s the American way.

Maybe I could buy him off, I thought. Whatever he hoped to gain from suing Beth would be a pittance to me. So we’d be okay from that angle. I’d take care of his doctor bills and give him double whatever he wanted from Beth.

With that concern out of the way, I wondered about the pig roast. I had a hundred paid guests coming for pork in a few hours. Could I salvage the dinner? I looked around and saw a few people here and there, but no one seemed to be paying attention to us, so sure, I could cover the pit up again and no one would need to know about the kid burning in it.

Unless he told someone.

I looked down at him and wondered if I should just kill him. I mean, I’d probably be doing him a favor, since this had to be the most accident-prone kid who ever lived. He’d die on his own if I’d just stop saving him.

But no, it wouldn’t be right to kill someone just to keep from canceling a pig roast. And anyway the kid couldn’t have known there was a pig roasting under his back. Maybe he’d figure it out later, and I could buy his silence before he blabbed it. In that event, maybe I could salvage dinner after all.

Except that the EMS guys would be on the scene within moments, and they’d have questions about the burn marks on his back. Could I set a quick fire and pretend he’d fallen into it? No. A good cover-up requires planning.

I’d just have to cancel the pig roast.

With that decision behind me, I started wondering a few things about the kid. Like why was he trying to strangle me? And why was he here? How did he break his nose and arm and leg? What had he been doing on the fire ant hill with the buck knife?

I thought about the knife a minute, and how it had fallen out of his pants pocket when the EMS came the last time. I reached into his sling and found a similar knife under his broken arm.

I was beginning to think this kid was trying to kill me.

I thought about his broken bones and wondered if they could have been sustained by falling through the plywood attic access door.

Killing this kid might be a good idea after all, I thought.

But then I heard the sirens from the EMS truck heading our way. I ran to the kitchen, hid the knife, and went out the front door to flag them down.

Chapter 20

THE EMS CREW alerted the Health Department about the roast pig pit to make sure we didn’t serve our guests pork that could be tainted—a ridiculous assertion that made me wonder how we ever became such a pansy-ass country. I mean, a guy burns his back on heated sand almost twelve inches above the rocks that are cooking a pig. The guy never touched the pig, so what’s the big deal?

The Health Department contacted the Humane Society, but since they were busy manning a float in the Fernandina Beach Fourth of July Parade we had to wait until after the ribbons had been awarded. They came in third, in case you care.

Eventually they came and confiscated the pig, which meant that I had everything I needed for the pig roast except the pig. After the EMS crew rushed the kid to the hospital I made a run to the closest Winn-Dixie and bought four large, spiral-cut hams and several pounds of bacon. I couldn’t call it a pig roast, but I could fry up the ham in bacon grease and give our customers a meal they’d never forget.

“How many did we end up with after you offered the full refund?” Beth asked.

We were in the kitchen. It was a half hour till midnight on a long, hot day, and I was exhausted. We all were. “Amazingly, we salvaged them all,” I said.

“Knocking ten dollars off the price helped,” Rachel added.

Beth nodded. “Thanks, guys. You were both great today.” She looked at me. “Any word on that kid they took to the hospital?”

Rachel surprised me by saying, “His name is D’Augie.”

“Doggie?”

“Yeah. But it’s not spelled that way. Anyway, I talked to the doctor. He’s going to be okay. He doesn’t need grafts or anything.”

“You ever figure out what he was doing in your fire pit?” Beth asked.

“Not a clue,” I said.

Beth covered her mouth and tried to suppress a yawn, gave up, and let it run its course without apology. “Okay, I’m done,” she said. “Love you guys.”

We said our goodnights and waited a few minutes for Beth to settle into her bedroom and close her bathroom door. When we heard the water running in Beth’s sink I handed Rachel the picnic basket and told her to turn it over.

“You see anything unusual?” I said.

She passed it back to me. “I’m really tired, Kevin.”

She started for the staircase.

“Rachel,” I said. “It’s important.”

She paused and frowned. “Can we do this tomorrow?”

“Ten seconds. I swear.”

“This has been the longest day ever. I hate waiting on people. I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”

I put my finger to my lips, signaling her to quiet her voice. I whispered, “You wanted to know what’s going on with Beth, right? Why she’s acting so weird?”

Her eyes lit up, and she walked over to me. “She’s got a guy? And what, they went on a picnic?” Rachel cocked her head, putting the pieces together. Her face broke into a wide grin. “Oh my God! Little Miss stick-up-her-ass is getting banged by some local yokel outdoors and passing him off as a sick friend! Who is it, someone we know?”

I was amazed how her mind worked. I motioned her to follow me back to the kitchen. I gave her the picnic basket and pointed to what I’d originally thought were random scratch marks.

“Look at these scratches closely,” I said, “and tell me what you see.”

Rachel gave me a skeptical look, but she squinted to bring the marks into focus. “It’s just a bunch of—wait, it looks like Roman numerals. Fifty-five, right?”

“So it would appear.”

“Beth’s boyfriend is fifty-five?”

I smiled. “Maybe she banged him fifty-five times and wanted to mark the milestone.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“I agree.”

Rachel frowned. “You’re an asshole.”

I arched my brows.

She continued. “You’re standing here, letting me go on and on, but telling me nothing. You know I’m tired and you’re deliberately wasting my time.”

I nodded. “Let me get right to it. I don’t think the L and V are Roman numerals.”

“You don’t.”

“Nuh uh.”

“But for some reason I’m supposed to give a shit why.”

“They’re initials.”

She thought about that a moment, then said, “Beth’s boyfriend?”

“If it is, it should be easy to find him,” I said. “Not too many people around here with a last name that starts with a V.”

She eyed me carefully. “But you don’t think it’s her boyfriend.”

“Nope.”

“Because?”

“These initials were scratched by a woman.”

“Uh, don’t freak when I tell you, but Beth’s a woman.” She saw me grinning and added, “Wait. How do you know these marks were made by a woman?”

“They were made by a fingernail.”

“And what, men don’t have fingernails?”

“Let me continue. This is Beth’s picnic basket. If she were labeling it, she’d have used an ink pen, or a knife or other sharp object.”

“And she’d have used her own initials.”

“Exactly.”

“So maybe she’s got a fuck buddy with the initials LV. They go on a picnic, spread out a big blanket, eat some food, and suddenly he’s all over her. She’s all ‘Oh, LV! LV!’ They have wild monkey sex right in the middle of the day in some deserted area tucked behind a sand dune. It’s their special place. They’re lying on the blanket after doing it, thoroughly spent, and our sanctimonious little Beth is all raptured up ‘cause it’s been a long time, and she gathers up her strength and scratches his initials on the basket.”

I looked at her as I often did, with complete amazement. “Why is it that all your scenarios involve sex?”

“Why is it that yours don’t?”

She had me there. I decided to move along. “Let’s frame it a different way.”

She shrugged.

“You still haven’t proven the marks were made by a woman.”

“I’m getting to that.”

“You’re just trying to be dramatic. Like some detective in a stupid movie.”

“It’s my one opportunity.”

“When you fall asleep tonight I might super glue your dick to your stomach.”

I looked at her as I often did, with complete horror. I handed her the little sharp piece I’d put in my pocket earlier, just before the kid burned his back in my fire pit. She looked at it and wrinkled her nose, turned her hand and let it fall to the kitchen counter.

“That’s disgusting,” she said.

“But you’ll concede it’s a woman’s fingernail?”

“Not Beth’s.”

“Right, not Beth’s. But a woman’s. And suppose she was scratching her own initials into the bottom of the basket, and had to use her fingernail because she didn’t have access to an ink pen, a knife, or any other type of sharp object.”

“Like what, a prisoner?”

“Exactly like a prisoner, except that she has a northern accent.”

“A northern accent.”

“Yup.”

“And this you can tell from her fingernail.”

I smiled, enjoying the moment.

Rachel abruptly crossed the floor to the cabinet that housed the odds and ends. She pushed a few objects around with her finger and eventually picked up a small tube and held it between her thumb and forefinger so I could see it clearly.

Super Glue.

She sighed. “I’m tired, Kevin. Just say it. Who do you think made these scratches in Beth’s picnic basket?”

“Libby Vail.”

Chapter 21

A LONG, LOW rumble woke us up an hour before dawn. Remembering what happened the last time I heard that sound, I jumped out of bed and checked the window, wondering if another hail storm was headed our way. Thankfully, all was calm. Patches of heat lightning lit up the distant sky.

“You okay?” I said.

Rachel murmured, “I’m tired. Go back to sleep.”

“How’d you know the kid’s name?”

“What kid?” She seemed half asleep as she said it.

I raised the volume in my voice to a conversational level. “The kid that got burned in the pig pit yesterday, the fire ant kid.”

She lay still a moment, and then yawned. “I went to check on him in the hospital.”

“When?”

“The morning after that thing with the fire ants.”

She settled back into her breathing rhythm and I thought about that morning and how I’d gone for a long run. I remembered returning to the Inn, and Beth mentioning Rachel had gone somewhere in the car. So that made sense. But Rachel had gone to see the kid before I agreed to help Beth at The Seaside. Which meant there was more to the story.

“You saw him again, though.”

She hesitated a moment, then sighed and propped herself up on one elbow.

“Is this really so important we have to talk about it now?”

“That depends on your answer to my last question.”

She thought a minute. “Did I see him again? Yes. Why, you think I’m cheating on you?”

“No,” I said, but her comment made me pause to think about the possibility. Rachel was a sexual being, and while I didn’t doubt for a minute that she was capable of cheating, I didn’t think the kid was physically capable of participating. Then again, he seemed awfully resilient.

Rachel said, “Then what, you think he’s holding that girl captive somewhere?”

“No, I think that’s a whole different thing.”

“Then what’s all this about D’Augie?”

“When you saw him that second time, did you happen to mention I’d taken the job as caretaker and that I was planning to kill the squirrels in the attic?”

She started to speak, but caught herself. She thought about it. “You think he somehow got up in the attic that day when all the snakes and squirrels got out?”

“There was a major hole in the plywood, where the stairs are,” I said. “Him falling through it might explain the casts on his arm and leg.”

“Why on earth would he want to climb up into that smelly old attic?”

“To kill me.”

She laughed. “Kill you? He doesn’t even know you! Kill you for what?”

I kissed her forehead. “That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?”

She looked at me wide-eyed. “Are you for real? D’Augie’s sweet. I think he’s just a weird, accident-prone kid.”

“Remember the knife I found that first night?”

“Yeah. You didn’t tell me about it at first, though, remember? I found it in the dresser.”

“Well, he had another one yesterday, in his arm sling.”

“So?”

“This knife was just as sharp as the first one.”

She shook her head. “Kevin, you’re insane.”

“Why’s that?”

“Every time we see this kid he’s lying helpless on his back in the sand. One day he’s getting bit half to death by fire ants, the next he’s getting burned alive in a pig pit. Not to mention the fact he’s hopping around on a broken leg and has a broken arm. You really think he’s trying to kill you?”

“I didn’t say he was any good at it.”

“Go to sleep.”

I took a seat on the couch and waited until Rachel had fallen into a deep asleep, which didn’t take long, thanks to the sleeping pill I’d given her a few hours earlier. I put on my running shoes and shorts and snuck out of the room and jogged the mile to the little church on Eighth Street. I paused, waiting for the feeling, but nothing was happening. I circled the building, peering through windows, searching for any sign of guards or prisoners, but found nothing.

Maybe the feel-good power hadn’t come from the church after all. On the chance it was further north, I jogged another quarter mile up A1A, gave up, circled back around to Eighth Street, and stopped about two blocks west of the church.

Still no feeling.

Assuming the power could be detected at least a mile from its source, I decided to cover as wide an area as possible on my way back to the B&B. The course I chose took me near the hospital on Center Street.

Which is where I finally felt it.

I didn’t understand how the feeling could be at the church one day, at the hospital the next, but I knew for certain it was emanating from the hospital this time. Wishing I had a car so I could get there quicker, I tore down the street in a full sprint. As I rounded the last corner, I knew I was too late.

The feeling was getting progressively weaker.

I stopped.

Within a minute it was gone.

I jogged back to the B&B more confused than ever. When I got in the room I fired up my laptop and typed a name into the search engine while Rachel slept. In a half hour the alarm would ring to get us up for kitchen duty. I clicked on one of the search choices and began reading. That article led me to another, and I read a half dozen more before the alarm went off. When it did I turned the computer off and shut the lid.

Rachel pushed the button on the alarm and felt the empty bed where I was supposed to be. She sat up and looked at the bathroom, then around the room until she saw me.

“You still worried about D’Augie?”

“I still think he’s trying to kill me, but that’s not why I stayed up. I was thinking about Libby Vail, and how she wanted to come here to learn about her heritage.”

“You really think she’s alive and being held captive here?”

“I think it’s possible.”

“Okay, whatever. So you were wondering what, exactly?”

“There are probably a hundred cities and towns along the coast of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, right?”

“I guess.”

“But Libby wanted to come to St. Alban’s to research her connection to Jack Hawley, the pirate.”

“So?”

“So why St. Alban’s? Why not Fernandina Beach, or St. Augustine, or any of the hundred other cities and towns?”

Rachel thought about it a minute and then frowned. “Kevin, you are so full of shit. I bet you’ve been looking at porn this whole time.”

I laughed. “Not porn, but I did find something extremely interesting.”

“Uh huh,” she said, unconvinced.

“I found a fascinating story about pirates in St. Alban’s, and how a girl named Abby Winter may have saved the town. The story was attributed to Jack Hawley.”

“Attributed,” Rachel said.

“You want to hear it?”

“No. I want to pee.”

She climbed out of bed and trudged to the bathroom. I turned my thoughts away from pirates and concentrated on the day ahead. The kid Rachel called D’Augie may have sucked at it, but he was definitely trying to kill me, and I intended to find out why. But since he was in the hospital in terrible shape, I decided to put him fourth on my to-do list. First on my list was making breakfast for the departing guests. Second was interviewing the most influential person in town I could find, because if Libby Vail was being held captive, the cover-up had to involve a number of people, including those at the highest level. Third was rescuing Libby Vail, assuming she was being held prisoner. Then I’d deal with this D’Augie kid who was trying to kill me.

Chapter 22

I WAS IN no rush to rescue Libby Vail. For one thing, I wasn’t positive where she was. The church was still my best guess, but if she was being held there I’d have to alter my theory that she was connected in some way to the power I’d experienced.

I knew it was a huge stretch to assume she was locked in a church on a relatively busy corner in St. Alban’s. My reason for having made the connection was flimsy, at best: I’d seen a lady with a picnic basket walking up the church stairs a week before Beth left The Seaside carrying a similar basket. When Beth came back I found a woman’s fingernail and scratch marks on the bottom of the basket that might be L and V.

So it was a hunch, more than anything.

Against that hunch, I had to imagine church leaders going along with the kidnapping of a young coed from Pennsylvania and allowing her to be held captive in their tiny building. Since church services are held there, you’d have to wonder how Libby Vail could be rendered quiet enough that none of the church members had ever heard her crying for help. Either that or you’d have to believe the entire congregation was involved. I also had to add the FBI into the equation, since they had set up camp in St. Alban’s after the kidnapping, made a thorough investigation, and came away with nothing.

If I was right about Libby Vail being held captive at the little church all this time, it would require a conspiracy that started at the very top of local government, including the mayor and chief of police.

Which is why, at 1:00 pm sharp, I had Rachel drop me off at the court house. I walked up the three stone steps in front of the building, opened the main door, and walked about halfway down the hall until I found the mayor’s office. The door was open, so I entered and passed the empty desk normally occupied by Milly, the mayor’s secretary. This, I deduced by channeling my inner Sherlock Holmes. To put it another way, Milly’s name plate was sitting atop the empty desk.

I knocked on the door to the mayor’s office, and opened it.

“Mr. Creed,” he said, rising to his feet.

We shook hands. He gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk and said, “Sit down, sit down.” When I did, he pointed at the length of rope draped over my right shoulder. “What’s that for, you planning to hang me?” He laughed.

“You know me as a cook, but I’m also the maintenance man.”

He looked at the rope again and frowned. I couldn’t tell if he was opposed to the rope itself, or the fact I wouldn’t tell him why I had it. He brightened his expression a bit and said, “That corn bread you made was the best thing I ever put in my mouth. I told my wife about it, and she said, ‘Ask him what his secret ingredient is.’”

“Yogurt.”

“Well hell, that can’t be true. I hate yogurt.”

I smiled. According to comments I’d heard from our local breakfast customers, Carl “Curly” Bradford was considered Mayor for Life by the good people of St. Alban’s. He was tall and lanky, mid forties, with sharp facial features and rust-colored hair flecked with gray. He had a stern, professorial air about him. I pointed to the bicycle hooked vertically on the far wall of his office. “You ride to work on that?”

“It’s my exercise routine,” he said. “I ride every day, rain or shine. Like you, except that you’re a runner.”

“Small town,” I said.

“That, plus I’ve seen you running a time or two, out on A1A.”

We looked at each other a minute without speaking. He seemed uncomfortable with the silence, and showed it by making small talk. “You’re making quite a name for yourself as a cook.”

“I won’t lie, I enjoy it.”

“You don’t look like a cook, though.”

“No?”

“Is it stressful looking after that old place?”

“Why do you ask?”

He smiled. “Couple of folks saw your car parked on A1A a few times, thought they might have seen you lying on the sand dunes.”

“Is that illegal?”

“Closer to the beach it is. But not where you go, as far as I know.”

I nodded.

“It’s dangerous, is what it is,” he said.

“How so?”

“Lot of fire ants in that area, as I guess you know. It’s right near the spot where that young man nearly died from fire ant bites.”

“You know anything about him?” I said.

“He’s not from around here, is all I know. That, and the fact he got roasted in your fire pit.”

“I heard he’s going to be okay,” I said.

“I heard the same thing.”

“Mayor Bradford—”

“Please,” he said. “If we’re finally getting to it, you might as well call me Carl.”

“Okay then, Carl.”

He shifted in his chair. “What can I do for you, Donovan?”

“You can tell me about Libby Vail.”

He didn’t flinch. I know because I was watching to see if he would. Instead, he smiled and said, “Well, I don’t know much more than what you’re likely to have heard. Libby was a Liberal Arts major at Penn State,” he said. “Her roommate told the police that Libby had planned to come here to research her roots.”

“She thought she was descended from pirates.”

“Gentleman Jack Hawley,” he said.

I nodded. “You folks have a monthly celebration in Libby’s honor. People come from all over the world.”

“They do,” he said.

“It’s good for business.”

“As it turns out, it is. But that’s not the only reason we celebrate Libby’s life. We do it to keep her memory alive. The whole town has sort of adopted her.”

“I guess most young people want to leave small towns like St. Alban’s,” I said. “But Libby wanted to come here.”

“Well, I don’t imagine she was planning to settle down here or anything.”

“I didn’t get to see the Pirate Parade yesterday,” I said, “but I saw the pictures in the paper this morning.”

“Sorry you missed it,” he said. “It’s quite an event.”

“I was particularly interested in the picture of the pirate ship float,” I said.

“What about it?”

“That’s Hawley’s ship, right?”

He rubbed his face with his right hand and yawned. “Sorry,” he said. “Long weekend, too much grog.”

He winked.

I nodded.

“Yeah, they’ve had that float forever,” he said. “It’s supposed to be The Fortress, Jack Hawley’s ship. Why do you ask?”

“In the news photo, on the bridge of the boat, there’s a pretty young woman standing next to the pirate.”

Mayor Bradford raised an eyebrow. “She’s quite a looker,” he said. Then he added, “But so is your Rachel.”

“I’m quite happy with Rachel,” I said. “What I was wondering about is the significance of the girl on the pirate ship. From what I’ve read about pirates, they didn’t often allow women on board their ships.”

For the first time since I’d entered his office, Mayor Bradford’s face registered concern. He bit the top corner of his lip. “I don’t believe there’s any historical significance to it,” he said. “I think they’re just using the float as an excuse to show off the prettiest girl in Fernandina Beach.”

“Really? Because I think it might be more than that.”

He cocked his head to one side and squinted at me, and as he did so, his face drew into itself and grew as stern as it could without imploding. “Why don’t you just tell me what it is you’re reading into that picture from the newspaper.”

“I’ve been doing some online research on Jack Hawley, and there’s a story, a legend that supposedly happened exactly three hundred years ago.”

Mayor Bradford’s eyes darted around the room. He looked beyond me, to the open doorway as if searching for an escape route. “A legend,” he said.

“Carl,” I said. “Look at me.”

He did.

I said, “You’ve lived here all your life. You have to know what I’m talking about.”

He paused a moment before speaking. “If you’re referring to Abby Winter saving the town, I think that was just a story from a dime novel written back in the 1800’s.”

“The story I read didn’t say anything about a dime novel. But it’s a fascinating story either way.”

“Maybe you should re-write it.”

“Maybe I will.”

We sat there in silence. After a moment Carl clapped his hands and stood. “If that’s it, I guess I better get going. I gave Milly the afternoon off and was about to close the office when you came in. I’m meeting the Mayor of Fernandina for a little surf casting.” He pulled his bike off the bike hook and leaned it against his desk.

I stood and we shook hands again. I turned and walked to the doorway and paused.

“Was there something else?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“What’s that?”

“I think Libby Vail believed she was related to Jack Hawley through Abby Winter.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said.

“Maybe, but it would explain why she wanted to come to St. Alban’s to research her lineage.”

“It’s been done,” he blurted. Seeing my expression he realized he’d said more than he meant to. He hastily added, “What I mean is, back when Libby Vail went missing, that old story came out, the one about Abby Winter and Jack Hawley, and they did a whole search of Libby’s lineage at the library.”

“And?”

“And they couldn’t find any connection, or any evidence that those things ever happened. It’s just an ancient pirate’s tale. Hawley never threatened to destroy the town, and Abby never offered herself up as a sacrifice. Hell, the whole thing’s downright silly, if you think about it long enough.”

“Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I haven’t thought about it long enough.”

Something flickered in Carl Bradford’s eyes. He wasn’t quite angry, but he was getting there. “What’s your interest in all this?” he snapped.

“I’m thinking about resurrecting the old legend and turning it into a promotional event for The Seaside guests.”

His look of great skepticism changed to a derisive sneer. “I sincerely doubt that,” he said, fairly spitting the words.

“And I doubt your account of Abby Winter and Jack Hawley.”

His jaw pulsed. Mayor Bradford was getting worked up, so I shrugged the rope off my shoulder and worked it in my hands a minute. He watched me do that, and it seemed to settle him down. He took a deep breath and said, “I told you about the search at the library.”

“You did.”

“It was quite exhaustive.”

“I’m sure it was.”

“Then what’s your problem?”

“I wouldn’t expect the library records to go back that far.”

Mayor Bradford looked exasperated. “Then why are you bringing this up?”

“Because I think there’s a better place to search for old records.”

“You do.”

“Uh huh.”

“And where might that be?”

“The old churches around town.”

He paused a long time before saying, “Any in particular?”

“Maybe I’ll start with the one on 8^th and A1A.”

Chapter 23

I LEFT A very jittery Mayor Bradford and headed across the courtyard, where I expected to find Rachel sitting in our rental car. I circled the entire building, and noticed a dozen empty parking spaces, but couldn’t spot Rachel or the car in any of them. I pressed a key on my cell phone. Rachel answered with a whisper. “I can’t talk right now.”

“Where are you?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m done with the mayor. Your car’s not here.”

“I had to run an errand. I’ll be there soon.”

“An errand?”

“A girly thing. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“So where are you? And why are you whispering?”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Find a diner on Main Street near the court house and grab a cup of coffee. I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes and we can do the pirate thing together.”

Rachel was right in thinking there’d be a diner near the court house. The one I entered a half block away was nearly empty when I got there. That seemed reasonable, since most of the down-town workers would want to be back at their jobs by one o’clock. I checked my watch: 1:35pm. Rachel had said she’d be back “in a few minutes,” but she’d invoked the dreaded “girly thing,” which meant she was operating on Rachel time.

I picked out a corner booth that overlooked Main Street and pulled a menu from behind the old fashioned sugar shaker. Opening it, my eyes went straight to the Shoo Fly Pie, which, being a pie of Pennsylvania origin, I planned to order in Libby Vail’s honor.

The few customers who were still in the diner were paying their checks, so I expected the waitress would be along to take my order soon. In all probability, the pie I’d be served in St. Alban’s would have crumbs mixed into the filling and topping, which is the southern version. And that would be no problem, since that’s the one I prefer.

Only I didn’t get my pie.

By the time the last customer left, the waitress and cook were gone as well.

And I was alone in the diner.

Two minutes later I saw them: the gangster wannabes from the car that first night, when Rachel and I were headed back to The Seaside after our fight. I’d seen one of them, to be precise, but I knew the others would be hiding nearby. Finding myself in this situation, out of the blue, told me that Mayor Bradford was not only in on it, he was trying to protect it.

I put the menu back in its original spot, unraveled my rope, and walked to the next booth and tied one end to the metal post that held the table in place. Then I threaded the rope around the outside of the booth and kept it tucked against the floor. I reclaimed my seat and tied the other end to my right ankle. When they came for me I’d maintain eye contact, and keep my hands on the table. Entering the booth, they’d be studying my face or hands and weren’t likely to notice the rope. Now all that was left to do was remove my switchblade from my boot, tuck it under my right knee, and wait for the dance to start.

There’s a rhythm to these things, and I don’t care if you’re in Waco, LA, South Jersey or St. Alban’s, it all goes down pretty much the same way. There are always two goons, tough guys. One comes at you from the front, the other hides in the kitchen or bathroom. The first goon forces you into the kitchen or bathroom so his buddy can hit you over the head as you enter, or pin your arms behind you while the first guy roughs you up. If there are three of them, one keeps watch while the others do their thing.

In this case there’d be four goons, though the pot head driver and the kid with the piece-of-shit pistol were basically worthless. The guy riding shotgun would have some enforcement experience, and the dead-eyed guy in the back, the leader, would be dangerous. These two would provide the muscle. Working in my favor was the fact that I’d already disrespected them to their faces. They knew I wasn’t afraid of them, so that would give them pause. Since I was either crazy or dangerous, they’d want to work up some courage before making their move. The two tough guys would come to my table and sit across from me while the others guarded the entrance and exit. We’d chat a minute at my booth while they made threats and showed me how tough they were. They’d pretend it was just a warning, but when I tried to get up from the table, they’d attack. They’d come at me savagely, inside the restaurant, because the place was deserted and my ability to move around would be hampered by the close quarters.

They had no reason to know I prefer fighting in close quarters.

On the other hand, this type of situation could go south in a hurry if I became distracted, and there was one unknown, one random element of the equation that could turn the whole encounter upside down.

Rachel.

Rachel was out there somewhere. She’d claimed to be on her way, but I suspected that whatever she was up to, it was going to be a while before she showed up. I hoped I was right, because these guys were moving so slow I was starting to get annoyed.

Okay, decision time. I had two options: stay or leave. If I hurried, I could still get out the front door before they had time to take up their positions. They weren’t likely to attack me on Main Street in the middle of the day, so I could leave and avoid being attacked, protect Rachel by keeping her safely out of the line of fire, and deal with the gang bangers another time.

That option sounded good except for one thing: if I ran away I wouldn’t learn what they’re hoping to gain. I already knew who sent them (the Mayor) and I knew why (I’d threatened to check out the church). I suspected Libby Vail was being held prisoner in the church, or had been at one time. But I didn’t know who was involved, or why. Usually when an elected official relies on gang bangers, there are drugs involved. But I hadn’t threatened anyone’s drug trade.

I’d mentioned the local economy being boosted by the monthly celebrations honoring Libby Vail. Even The Seaside was thriving now—maybe it was because of me, but maybe I was part of something bigger, and if that was the case, I wanted to know what it was. While the rest of the nation struggled with business closings and high unemployment, St. Alban’s seemed to be growing. Indeed, the whole town seemed to be riding a Kool-Aid high. So this encounter at the diner with the gang bangers wasn’t about drugs. It was about Libby Vail. Were they here to chase me out of town? Beat me up for asking questions? Force me to stay away from the old church records? Kill me in cold blood?

I had to know.

But I was getting tired of waiting.

Chapter 24

IT DIDN’T GO down the way I thought it would.

I figured the two tough guys would overlook the rope, climb in the booth, and start threatening me. While they talked, I’d work my right hand down to the rope around my ankle, get it into my lap, switch hands, loop the rope around the highest part of the base of my table, and, when I stood to leave, I’d pull the rope tight with my left arm to trap them in the booth. By then the switch blade in my right hand would be open and I’d slit their throats before they had time to react. I’d go in the kitchen, avoid the pot head’s attack, and kill him quietly. Then I’d decide whether to kill the kid out front or just make my escape. I’d probably just go, unless he spotted me and tried to stop me.

That was the plan, and I thought it was a good one.

Only like I said, it didn’t go down that way.

I was right in thinking the gang bangers would come in the diner. But I didn’t realize they’d come in the diner with the Sheriff and three deputies, all of whom held shotguns aimed at my face. They fanned out to give themselves a clean shot and limit any damage I might be able to do.

“Keep your hands on the table,” the Sheriff said, “and without moving them from the table, get slowly to your feet.”

I did as he said, and the shotguns moved to within five feet of me.

“He’s got a blade on the seat,” a deputy said.

The Sheriff moved in for a closer look.

“Why’d you tie yourself up?” he said.

The gang bangers and two of the deputies started laughing, the rest of us kept still. The Sheriff got to one knee and slowly reached for my switchblade. Once he had it, he backed away, stood, and tossed a pair of handcuffs on the table.

“Put these on your wrists, but keep your elbows on the table the whole time,” he said.

When I’d done that, he told me to stand and ease my way out of the booth slowly. Then, with the shotguns surrounding me, the Sheriff fitted me with leg cuffs, and secured them to my handcuffs with a chain.

They shuffled me out to a police van and closed the door. The deputy who hadn’t laughed at me in the diner climbed behind the wheel, and the Sheriff rode shotgun.

Literally.

They took me south on A1A, a few miles past Amelia Island Plantation, and turned into the scrub area surrounding a gravel road that had been virtually invisible from the highway. The car slowed and dipped and I noticed a sign that said, “Site of the Little River Crossing, 1684 – 1758.” Just as quickly, the front of the car raised and I guessed we’d crossed the river that used to be there.

No one was talking, but I wanted to plant a seed in their heads. I said, “Killing me might prove harder than you think.”

They remained silent and stared straight ahead as they drove through the thickets and pine knobs. When they got to the base of a huge sand dune, the deputy put the wagon in park and the Sheriff turned around in his seat and looked at me.

“We got a problem,” he said.

“Want to talk it out?” I said.

The Sheriff was a balding man, barrel-chested, powerfully built. He had pale blue eyes and looked like he might have wrestled in college.

“How much do you know about the history of St. Alban’s?” he said.

“Depends on how far back you want to go.”

“Tell me what you think happened here three hundred years ago.”

“Ah,” I said.

Chapter 25

EVERYTHING I KNEW about what happened in St. Alban’s three hundred years ago came from thirty minutes of online research. But it was enough to get me cuffed and shackled and locked in the back of a bullet-proof paddy wagon guarded by two shotgun-wielding law enforcement officers.

“From what I understand,” I said, “Gentleman Jack Hawley, the pirate, used to terrorize these shores in the early 1700’s. He traveled with fifty men, seasoned fighters all, and had a sort of gentleman’s agreement with the town of St. Albans.”

I waited for the Sheriff to acknowledge me. “Go on,” he said.

“Hawley and his men agreed that whenever they came to St. Alban’s, they would confine their activities to the one-block area surrounding the saloon. That area included a blacksmith, a leather shop, a clothing store, three whore houses, two restaurants and a hotel.”

“It did?”

I laughed. “How the hell do I know?”

The deputy laughed. “Sounded like you knew,” he said.

“Why don’t we go outside, sit on one of the sand dunes while I tell the story,” I said, innocently.

“This is fine right here,” the Sheriff said. “Keep talking.”

“It makes sense there’d be whore houses and restaurants and a place to sleep,” the deputy said.

“Percy,” the Sheriff said. “Pipe down and let Creed tell his story.”

Percy nodded. I said, “In return for not looting the town or harassing their womenfolk, the people of St. Alban’s gave Hawley and his men refuge from the Governor of Florida and the British Navy.”

“And then one day,” the Sheriff prodded.

“And then one day the governor of Florida offered a reward: one hundred pounds for the capture of Jack Hawley, and twenty pounds for each of his men. The people of St. Alban’s conspired to capture Hawley and his crew while they were on shore leave and claim the reward. They enlisted the help of some soldiers from Amelia Island, but Hawley somehow learned about the scheme, and quelled the land attack. Then his ship was attacked at sea by the governor’s navy, but Hawley’s crew defeated them as well. After the battle, Hawley pointed his cannons at the town of St. Alban’s and threatened to decimate it”

“Those were our forefathers,” Percy said, and the Sheriff nodded. We all sat quiet for a few minutes, putting ourselves back in time. Finally the Sheriff said, “You know the rest? Why Hawley spared the town?”

“I know the legend,” I said. “A teenager named Abby Winter offered to give herself to Hawley if he agreed to spare the town.”

“Prettiest girl in town,” Percy said.

Sheriff said, “And he took her up on it.”

I said, “Hawley kept his word, and that’s how he got the name Gentleman Jack Hawley.”

Sheriff said, “I think he got the name because of the gentleman’s agreement he had with the town before that incident.”

I said, “Well, whatever.”

The Sheriff said, “The point is, the town carried the guilt of Abby’s sacrifice for the next three hundred years.”

“Three hundred years of bad luck,” Percy added.

“Which brings us to present day,” I said.

“Which is why we’re sitting in the scrub with a major problem,” the Sheriff said. “Any idea what that problem might be?”

“I’ve got a good idea,” I said.

“Thought you might. But let’s hear you say it.”

“I think the people of St. Alban’s decided to change their luck about a year ago.”

“How’s that?” Percy said.

“A girl named Libby Vail happened to mention on TV that she was a direct descendent of Jack Hawley the pirate. Someone in St. Alban’s heard about it, captured her, and a large part of the town is keeping her prisoner somewhere and using her disappearance to boost tourism.”

“Well, that ain’t exactly true,” Percy said. He waited to see if his boss would shush him, but the Sheriff seemed lost in his thoughts. Percy added, “The thing is, the town was cursed. Hawley cursed the town, and it required the blood of his blood to reverse the curse. The tourism thing is just a side benefit.”

“So you would have kidnapped her anyway?”

“Those that did would have.”

“And you support it.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Percy said.

“Is the whole town in on it?”

The sheriff said, “The descendants are. Percy and I are descendants. The other deputies don’t know.”

“What about the gang bangers in the diner?”

“They aren’t our blood.”

“Then why were you working with them?”

Percy laughed. “We aren’t working with them. We were protecting them. From you!”

I looked at the Sheriff. “You know who I am?”

“Ran a check on you.”

“You found me through a police check?”

“Not exactly. When we ran the check a guy named Darwin got in touch.”

I smiled. Darwin is my Homeland Security boss, my facilitator.

The Sheriff continued. “According to Darwin, you could buy this whole town. Or kill it, if you wanted to.”

“And you believe him?”

“Got no reason to believe him, or not to. And don’t care to find out either way.”

“How many of you are descendants?”

The Sheriff and Percy looked at each other. Sheriff said, “What, eighty?”

“Maybe eighty,” Percy said.

“And you’re keeping her in the old church on the corner of Eighth and A1A?”

They looked at each other again. “Told you he knew,” the Sheriff said.

“How do you keep her quiet during the church services,” I said. “Drug her?”

“What? Are you nuts? What kind of man would drug a young woman?”

A guy like me, I thought, since I planned to drug Rachel that very night if I survived.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

The Sheriff shrugged. “Don’t see what difference it makes at this point.”

“I’ve noticed a disproportionate number of people in town are almost insanely happy, including you guys. Why’s that?”

“We’re grateful for Libby’s sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice?”

“Uh huh.”

“Are you kidding me? Abby Winter made a sacrifice. Libby Vail was kidnapped. Hell of a difference!”

The Sheriff gave me a curious look. “You think we’re forcing her to stay?”

“Aren’t you?”

Chapter 26

CONVINCED I WASN’T going to kill them, Percy removed my chains. Convinced they were going to remove my chains, I decided not to kill them.

The Sheriff put his shotgun down and said, “Libby’s not our prisoner, but there is a conspiracy of sorts.”

He paused as if trying to find the best words.

“A bunch of us—the descendants—are helping her hide here.”

“So eighty people are working together?”

“Maybe eighty.”

“And you’ve managed to keep it a secret this whole time?”

“Till you showed up.”

“How’s it possible for that many people to keep a secret?”

“We’re all related.”

“What’s she up to, that requires such secrecy?”

The Sheriff and Percy exchanged a look.

I dove in. “It’s the healing power, isn’t it?”

Percy said, “Told you he knew. That’s why he was at the church, trying to talk to the elders.”

I said, “I felt something myself and was trying to find out what it was. These old people were like statues at first, and then they started moving around. There were two guys in the van watching them. The driver made a phone call and you showed up in seconds. How’d you get there so fast?”

“We were already nearby, north on A1A.”

“Guarding Libby?”

“Guarding her secret and making sure the elders got to her safely. We sometimes help with the driving.”

“Tell me about the elders,” I said.

“Libby’s not a healer,” the Sheriff said, “but she has the power to make people feel better. We’re her people, and she’s our blood. Of the roughly eighty descendants, there are fifteen or twenty older ones. Some are sick, some arthritic. When she’s at the church, if we think it’s safe, we bring them to see her. If we’re not sure, we bring them to the church yard so they can be close enough for her to ease their pain.”

“And you believe this.”

“Doesn’t matter if I believe it.”

“Why’s that?”