The old man wasn’t in sight, so Mark sighed in resignation and made his way slowly down the stairs to the garage. He liked Bowen. He also respected him for not betraying his grandson, and for being a tough old guy and not being intimidated by the four of them. He stopped at the garage door, and then realized that he couldn’t get in that way without an opener, so he searched around and found the side door, which swung open easily.
“Mr. Bowen, sorry about rushing you, but Eve says breakfast is ready. She doesn’t cook very often, so she gets pretty touchy about all of us sitting down at the same time to eat when she does. I know you don’t want to leave Bugsy, but I’ll come back out here with you afterward. Maybe we could even take her for a little walk if you feel up to—” Mark’s words broke off as he realized the only thing in the garage was the sporty Miata and a bunch of woodworking equipment.
Mark backed out of the garage quickly, scanning the area nearby. With a terrible feeling of dread, he looked down and read the story in the sand.
The cane was there, discarded as superfluous. Near the cane were the tracks of a large, excited dog and a man who was clearly not injured or frail. They disappeared, side by side, into the sand and sea grass that stretched between the garage and the dunes that began several yards away.
Cursing under his breath, Mark sprinted back to the house.
“He’s gone!”
Luke and Matthew looked up disbelievingly as Eve hurried out of the kitchen. She wiped her hands on a dish towel; her expression was a storm cloud.
“What did you say?” she asked ominously.
“Bowen. He’s not in the garage. Neither is the dog. Their tracks lead off into the dunes.”
Luke laughed sarcastically. “Well, I don’t know what all the rush and fuss is about. The old bastard could barely walk.”
Matthew closed his laptop and stood, stretching like a lazy cat. “Yeah, the biggest pain in the ass about this is going to be hauling his crippled ass back here. Old geezer is thick. Probably weighs two-ten.”
“That fucking dog’s a pain in the ass, too,” Luke said. “I think it’s time fire had a little talk with her. It’ll be payback for Bowen running away.”
“Running!” Matthew made a show of laughing and wiping his eyes. “Luke, you crack me up.”
“Shut up. Both of you,” Eve said. “Let’s go get him.” She paused. “Luke, Matthew, there’s a bag of zip ties in the kitchen pantry. Get them. Grab some rags and rope, too.”
“It’s damn handy that old man has a stash of tie-’em-up crap,” Luke said.
“Just do it,” Eve said. “Come on, Mark.”
Beside Eve, Mark descended the front porch stairs.
“They’re wrong,” Mark told his sister.
“No, I was wrong. Letting you handle Bowen was my mistake. You’re too softhearted for this. I should have gone out there with him myself.” Eve was obviously annoyed, but she touched her brother’s shoulder reassuringly. “He won’t be hard to find, and then I’ll handle him from here on out.”
“You’re not understanding me,” Mark said as he led her around the side of the garage to the abandoned cane and the tracks. Mark pointed down at the sand as Luke and Matthew jogged up to them. “He’s not limping. He’s not a frail old man. These tracks don’t just say he walked away. They say he ran.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” Luke said, peeking around Mark at the tracks. “Like Matthew and I said—the old bastard’s a pain in the ass.”
Eve looked at Mark and in her eyes he saw a hardness that before had been liquid, flowing around the fringes of her expressions. This morning it solidified, choking out the gentle, broken, compassionate sister he’d loved for as long as he could remember.
“We’re going to get Bowen and bring him back here, and if we need to break his hip to get the old man to stay when we tell him to stay, then so be it. He brought this on himself.”
Mark heard his brothers high-five each other, but his gaze didn’t leave Eve’s.
“I won’t do that, Eve. He doesn’t deserve it. I won’t hurt that old man.”
“I’m aware of that, Mark. I don’t expect you to. That’s why Luke and Matthew are coming with us. All I expect you to do is handle water. Bowen thinks he can run away from us on the beach when we control water? Let’s show him how mistaken he is. You don’t need to hurt him. You only need to slow him down. Make it rain, Mark. Now.”
Mark bowed his head and reached for his element. It was a simple thing, especially right there on the beach. He was so close to the vastness of the ocean that he could feel it calling to him—feel it drawing him into it where he could finally lose himself—finally give in to the Frill that lurked just below the surface, circling, calling, anticipating …
“Mark! Snap out of it!” Eve’s voice shredded his concentration and he blinked several times before he refocused on her face. “I didn’t ask you to call a hurricane. Just some rain, that’s all. It’s really the least you can do.”
“Okay, yeah, fine.” Mark followed the connection with his element—not out to sea as he so longed to do—but up, up, into the atmosphere where he coaxed droplets to condense from vapor and then he made them become heavy enough to fall under the pull of gravity. Warm rain drifted lazily downward, caressing Mark’s skin and causing polka-dot patterns in the sand.
Eve barely acknowledged him with a nod. Instead she smiled warmly at Matthew. “Now, air, please take those sweet, soft little raindrops and make them troublesome, but if you start disappearing I’m going to be very angry with you.”
Matthew took a step back from Eve’s intensity. “Hey, no worries! Whipping up a little wind is no biggie.”
“Then stop talking about it and do it,” she said.
“Okay, okay. Sheesh, everyone’s a critic,” Matthew muttered. He lifted his face and his arms to the sky and shouted, “Blow, baby, blow!”
Wind responded instantly, blowing from the ocean in a growling rush of briny air—causing the otherwise tame droplets to slant, elongate, and pummel against them with enough force to be uncomfortable.
“Luke! Not now. Save it. We might need fire later and we don’t have time to haul a case of Gatorade with us so you don’t flame out,” Eve snapped at her brother.