The Summer Man

Chapter SIX





Inconsiderate bitch, Rick thought, looking at his watch again. Again, because Sadie was late, almost certainly fluttering around with the f*cking details, even after he’d told her ten times—at least—that the details weren’t a big deal. It was a picnic. No one gave a shit if the crackers on the salmon trays went above or below the fish; no one gave a shit if the mint leaf arrangement on the potato salad made a flower or not. Well, OK, considering their target audience, maybe they would, but that wasn’t the point. The point was they were going to care a f*ckload more if the food wasn’t there. They’d care enough to wander over to the other side, faggots, they’ll go right over there to those cocksuckers’ goddamn tapas buffet and fill up, and we’re f*cked for the summer. And, as an afterthought, bitch.

All the town’s eateries were selling food for minimal fees—even with the council footing a hefty portion of the bill, they had to charge something or every white-trash family in three counties would be lining up—but Poisson had stocked up for full lunch and dinner crowds. They had crates of fine food ready to go in the walk-in at the restaurant to impress the summer people into buying their wine and high-fiber organic scones at the shop, into choosing Le Poisson for the season. Both of the head chefs and all the Truman’s deli prep workers had been at it for the better part of a week, and now all anyone would remember was Elson’s foray into Spanish appetizers, because Sadie was f*cking late.

Rick was at the top of the service drive, near the line of cars that were stacking up on Bayside to park in the fairground lots. Teenage town boys weaved in and out of the line, took money from drivers and pointed to the open tracts of packed dirt to the east or south. There were a lot of SUVs and more than a few hybrids, summer cars ferried over for the season, but Rick barely saw them. He watched the turn for their truck, for the first delivery, which should have been unpacked and set out an hour ago. Josh was back at the table now, watching the ice melt and making excuses.

He thought about calling again, even reached for his cell, but he’d already left two messages on Sadie’s voice mail in addition to the half dozen unanswered texts. She wasn’t at the restaurant, and he didn’t want to call the shop; he’d already totally bitched out Randy, who’d simply had the misfortune to answer the kitchen phone. She just left, he’d said, but it had already been more than twenty-five minutes, it was a fiveminute drive, and where the f*ck was she?

F*ck it. He unpocketed the cell and stabbed the redial. Beeping. Nothing. He punched another button and fumed through her bland and tiresome message. God, she was wound tight. Even her voice, that tense, nasal pitch, as if the horrible strain of trying to sound like a friendly, easygoing person was strangling her.

“You’ve reached Sadie Parris-Truman, co-owner of Le Poisson and Truman’s Specialty Edibles. I’m unable to take your call right now, but if you leave your name, number, and the time you called, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you.”

Beep. “Sadie, where are you?” He took a deep breath, tried to control his tone a little better. With things the way they were on the Eleanor development deal and the ordering expansion coming up, he couldn’t afford to lose her goodwill.

“Sweetheart, I know how you like to get caught up in the arrangements, but people are already heading in, and I really wanted to have everything set up in advance.” He forced a laugh into his voice. “You know how I get. If you get this, hurry up, OK?”

He cut the call, cursing under his breath. Bitch. F*cking inconsiderate uptight rich bitch.

Rich. That one little word canceled out the rest of them. He couldn’t afford to leave her, and if she left him he’d be royally screwed. The latter was a possibility, he sometimes thought; their marriage was a dry and stale affair, and he didn’t doubt that she was bored…but she was comfortable enough, and he meant to keep it that way. He worked hard, he took care of the business end of things, he had a place in the small town’s political arena, just like her Daddy’d had, God rest his rotten soul. No f*cking around, either; Port Isley was too small, and he was too busy, anyway. He had no overtly bad habits and was known to provide occasional servicing in the bedroom, with a smile. If she’d take her ridiculous head out of her own narcissistic ass for a single minute and take a real good look, she’d realize he didn’t even like her, let alone love her—but as that never, ever happened, their marriage was essentially sound.

He was about two heartbeats from turning around, heading back to the service lot to get the pickup and go to Poisson himself, when he saw their van join the line of cars.

There was her pinched face behind the wheel, and when she saw him, she gave a cheery wave, as if she was right on time. He raised his hand in turn, deciding for the millionth time that he would leave as soon as the suit settled on the Eleanor deal. That money would be his, all of it. Then he’d hire the best divorce attorney alive and see what he could do about getting a few other things put in his name.

The cars crept forward, and then she was turning in to the drive, crunching to a stop so that he could climb in.

“It looks like those murders didn’t dampen anyone’s appetite,” she said brightly.

“No, everyone came,” he said, aware that he sounded strained, unable to help it. “Early, too.”

“Honey, I’m so sorry about the time,” she said. She smiled at him again, the van idling. “But wait till you see the prosciutto. Remember how I was telling you I didn’t like the arrangement, that it wasn’t just perfect? I stopped at the shop and had Katie redo the melon. It came out—”

“Just drive,” he snapped, the relief of saying it immediately overshadowed by the need to backpedal. He smiled, exhaled heavily.

“I love you, honey, but you’re late. Didn’t you get my messages? We’ve got to get set up.”

“Of course,” she said, and the chill in her tone, in her look as the van lurched forward, told him he’d better step it up.

“I’m sorry if I snapped at you, sweetheart,” he said, reaching over to pat her bony knee. “I’m sure everything looks beautiful. You know how I get.”

She nodded sullenly, not answering, her concentration fixed on the narrow drive as it wound toward the service ahead, the van inching forward.

“I just want everyone to see what you’ve done,” he added. “This is a showcase for your talents, Dee—”

“That’s right, it is,” she said, her voice cool. As if deciding where to put the radish roses was some kind of skill.

“But I’ve worked hard, too,” he said. He hated the slightly hurt sound in his voice, almost as much as he hated having to dance this f*cking dance every time she got her feathers ruffled. “You’re the spark, honey, the artist, but someone has to crunch the numbers, make sure things are on time, and that’s me. And I hate it when we run late, you know that.”

He watched her struggle with her naturally sour disposition for another half second, then nod, not so sullen this time.

Good enough. He patted her leg again, then motioned toward one of the few open spaces as they pulled into the service lot, a good two hundred yards from the fairground walkway. All the other spots were taken, delivery vans and a few small school buses already crammed into place for the day. His own pickup was front and center, right at the curtain of trees that bordered the fairgrounds’ northern edge, where the food was being set up; he’d get Josh to come out, help him change places with the van. Rick had been among the first to arrive, for all the good it had done them.

She parked, then turned a thin smile his way. “Do you mind if I go see what Elson’s brought? You can handle the unloading, can’t you?”

He smiled back at her. No problem, honeybunch. You mingle, I’ll do the shit work. “Sure. Just stop by our table on the way, ask Josh to come give me a hand.”

“Sure thing.” She gave him an obligatory peck on the cheek and handed him the keys before climbing out, smoothing a new and particularly unflattering linen dress over her skinny hips as she walked toward the trees. She was built like a stick figure. He watched her a moment, watched her reach the small path that led to the fairgrounds proper, and wondered what his life would be like without her.

A hell of a lot better, he thought. It wasn’t that he hated her, or even wished her ill—he just wanted her to drop off the face of the Earth so he didn’t have to see her, ever again. Her narrow, mirthless face; her barren, skeletal body; her stupid, boring, debutante wannabe background—everything about the woman was tiresome. If he could hang on a little longer, a year at most…the Eleanor Street project, the old middle school site, was going to be big. Assuming the contract workers ever got what they wanted from the condo company, the buildings would go up, and he was a primary investor. Not Sadie.

A year. One year. He’d spent nineteen of them with her already; waiting through another wasn’t going to kill him.

Sighing, he got out of the van and started to unload the food.





John had three appointments on Saturday morning, all regular clients, all struggling to make their lives better. Tanya had slept with her ex again and was feeling crappy about it—but she had finally taken some responsibility for her actions, admitting that she’d made the mistake. For five months, the sex had just “happened,” and he was glad to see her making some progress. His ten o’clock, Marianne, an incest survivor, had gone through a whole session without making any self-effacing comments, a first for her. And while Dale was still having a hard time with his anger, he’d been surprisingly calm for a change; John’s small incitements hadn’t set him off. A good morning, in all, and John was free by one o’clock and hungry for food he didn’t have to make himself. He headed home to change, then took the Blazer up to the fairgrounds, lucking into a just-opening spot close in, only a few rows from the main trail in the east lot. Both lots were packed, and as he locked up and headed for the trail, he could hear the crowd through the trees, faint music and laughter and raised voices. Elson’s was doing the barbecue this year, and he could smell smoke from the fire pit on the light breeze, something meaty. Le Poisson had done the roasting last year, salmon and sausages spitted around the pit, plus an excellent crab boil. He and Lauren had enjoyed the food, if not each other’s company. That had been one of their last public appearances together, actually right near the end…

He felt a sudden stab of real heartache, remembering that time—the days of polite distance, sporadically interspersed with long and dismal conversations about what she wanted. Turned out, she’d wanted not to be married. They’d been together for eight years; he’d expected to be with her for the rest of his life.

He felt his throat lock up, his eyes sting—and for the first time in months, he really missed her. He shouldn’t be here, he decided abruptly, he should just go home. He could spend the afternoon puttering around the house, watch TV, maybe take a nap.

He hesitated near the last line of cars, frowning. Other than the standard array of maladaptive reactions when Lauren left—sleep issues, a depressive mood episode, some off-and-on body aches—he hadn’t suffered any real adjustment troubles once the final decision had been made. It was a little strange, the sudden re-edged sharpness he was feeling…though that was how emotions worked sometimes. God knew he’d said as much often enough to his clients. Still, it felt…unexpected, somehow.

“Hey, Doc!”

He saw Bob Sayers standing near the trail entrance, smiling widely. John smiled in turn, suddenly very glad to see him. Bob had been an acquaintance before the divorce but had become a friend since. Almost immediately since, actually; John had happened across the older reporter a few days before Christmas the year before, about half an hour after he’d signed the final papers and dropped them in the mail. They’d both stopped at the gas station, were pumping their own in the cold, bitter sunlight, bundled against the icy wind, and when Bob had asked his friendly how’s-things, John had blurted out the inelegant truth—that his divorce was final, and he therefore felt like a big pile of dog shit. Bob had raised his eyebrows, his gaze mild and warm, and offered to bring over a pizza and a bottle of really good whiskey, anytime, so they could chat about it. That very night, as it had turned out, and the dinner and multiple nightcaps had been more enjoyable than John could have expected. One or the other of them had made a point of getting in touch every few weeks after that. Sometimes they went out for a drink, usually they just shot the shit for a few over the phone, but their conversations had proved a welcome break from the loneliness. For both of them, John thought. Bob didn’t talk much about his personal life, but he’d let a few things slip about a long-deceased wife, a relationship he still mourned, however gently.

“Are you leaving?” John asked, as he got closer.

Bob grinned. “Just taking a breather. Seems like everyone wants to talk about the Billings thing.”

John nodded. He’d read the story, even caught the news clip on the local affiliate, and three of his clients had brought it up in the last few days. “Lot of dumb questions?”

“Nope. Lot of people wanting to tell me what I left out,” Bob said. “Billings and the teenager were having an affair. They were in love, he was stalking her, she was pregnant, he was on drugs, his wife liked to watch.”

He lowered his voice melodramatically. “There were videos. Apparently still on the net, if you can believe it.”

“I can’t,” John said.

Bob shook his head. “Buncha gorehounds. I’m as curious as the next, don’t get me wrong, but a lot of our friends and neighbors seem to want to wallow in it, if you know what I mean. Isley, you know?”

“Yeah, I do,” John said. Port Isley wasn’t all that big, and not all that exciting, either. A bit of gossip about the artist’s colony or some scandalous affair would be passed around for weeks in various circles, squeezed for every detail. A double murder–suicide would be making all the rounds well into next winter. He assumed that most small towns were the same…although that assumption was based on fiction, he realized, more than on experience. He’d lived in Seattle most of his life. The Last Picture Show, a high school production of Bus Stop, pretty much anything by Faulkner—his concept of smalltown community was what he’d been fed. He’d been in Port Isley for six years, and while he did have clients who liked to gossip, he’d had just as many of those when he’d practiced in the city. The only difference was now he usually knew who they were gossiping about.

Bob swept his arm back toward the picnic—“Shall we?”—and John nodded. Whatever emotional tic had hit him, it had passed, and he was still hungry. They started walking the short trail and passed a fashionably dressed young couple with two small children, heading back to the lots. The woman carried a young boy, perhaps a year and a half old, on one hip; the father had a six-month-old—a girl, by the profusion of pink she wore—in a chest carrier. Both children were crying, redfaced, and snotty and vaguely adorable in spite of it; the parents seemed entirely exhausted. John had wanted kids pretty early on, but Lauren had wanted to wait. She’d been working on her master’s a few classes at a time, general sociology. They’d fought about it, more than once. Considering how things had turned out, it seemed that she’d had the right idea.

“The best one I heard was that the whole thing was foretold,” Bob said.

John refocused. “What? The murders?”

Bob nodded. An elderly woman walked past them, also headed for the east lot, wearing an expensive lightweight pantsuit. Summer folk. She glanced at Bob’s shapeless shorts and golf shirt and looked away with a sniff. Bob didn’t appear to notice.

“Heard it from more than one source, too,” he said. “The night before, some teenager at a party told the other kids that Ed Billings was going to kill that girl.”

They reached the turn in the trail and stepped around the last stand of trees. Much of the fairground opened up in front of them, vast and green and crowded. There were hundreds of people—brightly dressed families, couples, groups of teenagers. They milled about or sat on blankets or at tables eating off paper plates. At the far side of the grounds John could see concession tables and the large fire pit, presumably manned by one or both of Elson’s co-owners/chefs; they were too far away to tell. Mick was one of his clients. A hundred-plus conversations, laughter, and shrieks from a band of little kids racing by all competed for air, which was pleasantly warm. Nice.

“You believe it?” John asked. He thought he might get a beer first, even if it meant having to chat with Rick Truman for a few moments, which it likely did. John made a serious effort not to try to categorize people, clients or no, but he suspected an array of unspecified personality disorders in Rick’s case; he was passive-aggressive and obsessive in turns. On the other hand, he always ordered top-notch microbrew…

He had expected an immediate no to his question. Registering Bob’s silence, he turned, smiling, expecting a punch line. Bob had slowed, his expression thoughtful.

“You really think someone prophesied the murders?” John asked.

Bob finally smiled back at him. “No, not really. But stranger things have happened. Remind me to tell you sometime about my brother.”

John nodded, keeping his own thoughts on the subject to himself. In his line of work—for anyone’s line of work, really—it didn’t pay to scoff at another’s beliefs. Not everyone had the training he did, understood how the subconscious could create a convincing reality from barely perceived details, give the seer a sense that he or she knew the unknowable—when, in fact, they were only picking up on things that their conscious mind hadn’t registered. Combine that with a universally felt desire to believe in something greater than oneself—God, family, love, government conspiracies, or extraterrestrial life, real or unreal…everyone had their greater-than of choice, and belief in psychic phenomena wasn’t particularly uncommon. Telling that to someone who believed, though, that was beyond patronizing, and while he knew what he knew, he wasn’t in the habit of being as ass.

They walked slowly toward the food tables, stopping several times to chat with other locals. Bob got most of the waveovers; he was well liked and well known. John got a few friendly hellos. He saw several of his clients around and about and was careful to let them acknowledge him first, mindful of their privacy.

“John!”

He turned, smiled. Karen Haley stood up from a rumpled plaid blanket on the ground where another woman and a young boy were sitting. She waved him over, and seeing that Bob had been waylaid by one of his cronies, John headed in her direction.

She looked good, fit and smiling. Karen had suffered terribly after the death of her husband three, four years before. Guiding her through it, watching her slowly regain herself through months of therapy, had been professionally and personally quite rewarding for him; she was a strong, capable woman, a bit blunt at times but a pleasure to work with.

They hugged briefly, exchanged pleasantries, agreed that it had been too long, and then Karen was introducing her sister and nephew. The other woman stood and leaned in to shake his hand. Her own was slender and warm.

“This is Sarah, Sarah Reed,” Karen said. “And my brilliant nephew, Tommy.”

“Jeez,” Tommy muttered, but smiled agreeably. He looked about eleven or twelve. Sarah, John remembered, was four or five years younger than Karen, perhaps late thirties. His age. She was a teacher, married, lived in Seattle. Karen had spoken of her fondly.

“Sarah, this is John Hanover. Dr. John?”

“Oh, right,” Sarah said, her smile deepening. “Karen’s had good things to say about you.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” he said. “Are you here for the summer?”

“Yep. Got a job to get back to in September,” she said. He noticed how blue her eyes were; she had tiny fine lines just starting to etch at the corners, accenting them. When she brushed an errant dark-blonde strand of hair out of her eyes, he saw she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“Not if I can talk her out of it,” Karen said. “I finally got her here, I want to keep her around for a while. Well, and my nephew, of course. He’s the brains of this operation. He’s been working on the inn’s web page for us.”

Tommy managed to shrug without moving his shoulders, a kind of eye flick and smirk, but John could see that a smile lurked there as well.

John nodded at him. “Impressive. Mac or PC?”

Tommy grinned. “Mac by choice, PC by necessity.”

They all laughed. Tommy asked if he could go get a Coke. His mother gave him a

few bills and he mumbled a rote “nicetameetcha” before disappearing. He seemed like a nice kid. Bright. John hadn’t spent a lot of time around children, but he found he generally liked them.

“Susan, you should totally hook up with John,” Karen said abruptly.

Susan raised her eyebrows. “What?”

“You said you were looking for a good therapist since the divorce,” Karen said, matter-of-factly. “You should call John.”

Blunt as ever. There was a brief silence, John trying to think of something to say, but Sarah managed to smooth it over.

“Thanks, Kare,” she said, sarcastically but with no real bite. “Way to make me feel totally awkward. Is your gynecologist around?”

John laughed, deciding he liked her. And those extraordinary eyes…it was the second time in a week that he’d noticed a woman’s eyes, he realized. Or cared whether she was married.

And only a few minutes after you were ready to go home, depressed over Lauren. Aren’t we the bipolar bear?

Bipolar bear. His girlfriend in med school used to call him that. Katherine. She’d been the great love of his life before Lauren…

He shook himself mentally, dragging himself back to the present. Karen suggested that he join them for dinner sometime, and he went through the brief internal dance of whether to explain that it wasn’t likely to happen; even if it had been more than two years since their last appointment, what the APA guidelines recommended, he didn’t feel comfortable socializing with former clients. If one of them ever needed his services again, it could be problematic…not to mention, the client-doctor roles weren’t easily sidestepped, which caused its own set of issues. Luckily, she seemed to pick up on his hesitation, adding a cheery, “or maybe we’ll just run into each other around town.” John nodded, glad that she was as perceptive as he remembered. He said his goodbye and smiled at both women, his gaze meeting Sarah’s and lingering a split-second longer than he meant. She seemed to flush ever so slightly, quite prettily, although perhaps it was just the sun.

He headed back to where Bob was now standing alone, waiting for him, thinking that maybe he was due for a checkin with his therapist.

Maybe you just need to get laid, he thought, and tried to make it fit, but the thought wasn’t very funny, even in his head.

“Sorry about that,” Bob said, as they started walking toward the tables again. “Henry Dawes wants to drag me out on his boat again next week. I keep trying to get out of it; he likes to be on the water by sunrise, but he won’t let up and—hey, there she is.”

Bob nodded toward a couple standing in the shade of a narrow tree stand not far away, a pale teenage girl in black with short, choppy dyed-black hair and a tall, slender young man in a tight T-shirt. They were smoking, and both had the alternative look; the girl wore a ripped skirt and heavy boots, and the boy’s short hair was carefully mussed with product. He recognized the boy as Devon Shupe. The high school counselor had asked his advice two years before about dealing with an openly gay student and hadn’t been particularly careful about keeping the name to herself. Devon had been pointed out to him since then, by someone or another. Being gay, even flamboyantly so, didn’t come with the stigma it once did, but Port Isley wasn’t all that liberal. Not in winter, anyway.

“There who is?” John asked.

“The psychic,” Bob said. “Rita Fergus pointed her out. Said her daughter swore up and down that she—Amanda, I believe—told people that Lisa Meyer would be killed by Ed Billings.”

“Huh,” John said. The girl seemed tense, her shoulders up, her arms folded. As he watched, she dragged deeply off her cigarette and said something to her friend, smoke leaking from the corners of her mouth. “You going to talk to her?”

“No. I imagine some of her friends—or enemies, more likely—are playing a joke on her. I doubt she even knows. And I’d kind of like to get through the rest of my day without being scoffed at by a punk-rock girl.”

The girl looked up then, and right at John. Her face was soft and round and surprisingly innocent. Pretty, really. She stared at him for a minute, then reached up with her free hand and carefully scratched under her eye, using just her middle finger. John looked away, almost smiling, trying to remember if he’d been so hostile at her age. It seemed likely.

“So, beer first or food?” Bob asked, as they reached the small crowd that was breaking into lines, heading for hors d’oeuvres or grilled sea bass or microbrew.

“Beer,” John said, emphatically. It suddenly seemed like the perfect answer to his strangely wandering thoughts. Pure escapism in a top-quality IPA, and he absolutely refused to feel guilty about it. “And I’m buying.”





Sadie Truman ate a water cracker topped with smoked salmon, delicately licking her lips and smiling in Josh’s direction. It had been a busy day, but he was in between customers for the moment, the lunch rush mostly past, the restocking caught up. The beautiful Josh was packing ice around the perishables, but he caught the smile. He glanced around, saw that Rick was talking up some summer people, and smiled back at her, a hint of a leer in the expression. It had been six whole days since they’d had a minute together, with Rick barging around, sticking his nose into every corner, getting things ready for the picnic, and she missed him—missed “it”—terribly. What Josh could do with his hands, once she’d shown him how…

Rick’s boisterous fake laugh assaulted her ears, dragging her away from a particularly pleasant thought. She looked over at him, at his grinning, chunky face, and felt a chill of disgust. He was a wizard at managing their portfolio, seemed to know exactly what to invest in and when, and she had no doubt that without him, her restaurant dreams would have remained just that. Plus, he adored her. But God, she was sick of his lame jokes and aggressive social behavior and sad bedroom antics. If he had any idea how much disdain she felt, even looking at him some days…

Rick was shaking hands with another summer couple, his patented hearty grin plastered firmly in place. Sadie stole another look at Josh, now serving a new gathering of summer people, at his comfortably slouchy jeans, his too-long hair curling behind his ears, imagining the tight, muscular torso hidden beneath his silly Hawaiian shirt, and felt a tingling in her belly. He was fifteen years her junior, he was relaxed and handsome and passionate, everything that Rick wasn’t, and she couldn’t get enough of him. Couldn’t wait to get more of him, either. They only had the summer; he’d be going to graduate school in the fall, and it was unlikely he’d be back next year. There would be another Josh, of course—over Rick’s intermittent protests, she always insisted on doing the summer hiring for the shop—but some years she’d been forced to settle for much less. Worse, some years, there’d been no Josh at all.

A heavy hand crashed across the back of her neck, then rubbed briefly and viciously.

“How ya holding up, sweetheart?”

Sadie smiled automatically, moved away from the pinching fingers. How had he managed to sneak up on her? “Good, I’m good. How are you?”

Rick grinned, his flushed, sweaty face too close to her own. His breath was sour. “Great. Everyone’s raving about the salmon. And half the people I’ve talked to said last year’s barbecue was better. Guess they like our sausages better than Mick and Jason’s.”

She tensed, waiting for the inevitable joke. He dropped his voice slightly, leaned in even closer. “Course, some people are more particular about where they get their sausage, you know what I mean?”

Sadie managed a slight smile. The co-owners of Elson’s, Mick and Jason, were gay, and Rick couldn’t say two words about them without adding some vaguely homophobic innuendo. It was so…so pedestrian, in this day and age. So very like Rick, to be threatened by whatever he didn’t personally benefit by.

“And you were right about the melon, honey,” he added. “Everything was spectacular…beautiful. Look, I’m going to go make a couple of calls; we’re going to need to order more of the smoked salmon, and I’ve got a couple other requests for the shop, some organic stuff…can you and Josh hold things down for a few?”

As if she’d fall apart without his guiding hand, as if she didn’t know how to smile and charm with the best of them. She was the one who’d grown up with money; that kind of thing was second nature for her. It was Rick who had to thrash and struggle to make contacts and kiss ass to keep them. Sadie didn’t know the business specifics as well as he did, true, but she definitely knew more than he thought—and she was learning more all the time.

One of these days. It would be a nasty divorce, she was sure of that. Rick was a bully and miserly to his core, two essential facts that he’d kept well hidden until after he’d convinced her to marry him, so, so long ago. But almost everything was in her name; he’d be left with nothing. She was in no hurry to get to it—Rick worked hard and did his best by her—but the end was inevitable; their lives had been separate for so long, she doubted she’d even notice his absence, assuming she could find a good manager to take his place. And just the right Josh, of course, to attend to her other needs.

“I’m on top of it,” she said, and if her smile was a bit more sardonic than it needed to be, he didn’t notice. He never did.

Rick bussed her cheek and headed for the service lot, already pulling out his cell. Sadie watching him walk away, his square, heavy ass accentuated by off-the-rack khakis, and wished that he was already gone.

Perhaps it was time to whisper a few well-chosen words into Josh’s tender ear. Sadie smoothed her fabulously expensive dress down her slender hips and walked his way, smiling for real.





They’d been at the picnic for almost an hour and still hadn’t come up with a plan. Devon thought they should approach the cops—well, Chief Vincent—and tell him that they’d overheard Brian talking about raping someone…which wasn’t too bad, except that talking didn’t exactly qualify as a crime, and Amanda was worried that the chief would blow them off. Devon’s reasoning was that Vincent would go hassle Brian a little, scare him off the idea, but she wanted something better, something more concrete. They had yet to see Brian Glover at all, and except for a rather sullen-looking Ethan Adcox, there with his family, none of the Dicks were in attendance. Ethan was only a semi-Dick, anyway. Amanda was fairly certain that her dream—her vision—had been of Brian, Todd Clay, and Ryan Thompson. Devon agreed. If anyone was gonna go pro, he said, it would be those three.

They stood in the shade, smoking, still pondering their options, talking it over. What had seemed so clear in the dead of night, her decision to save the unknown woman by any means necessary, now seemed kind of far-fetched. She wasn’t Buffy, she wasn’t a crime fighter or superhero, she didn’t have the resources—or, she had to admit, the credibility—to make things happen. Or not happen, in this case.

“What if I tell Vincent that Brian assaulted me?” Amanda asked. “He’d at least pick him up, right?”

Devon considered it. Amanda noticed a man staring at her, some guy walking to the food lines, and discreetly flipped him off. F*cking tourists. The guy looked away, an expression of mild amusement on his face, and she realized that he looked familiar. Not a tourist, then.

Who cares? Someone is going to get hurt if you don’t come up with something.

“Seems risky,” Devon said finally. “I mean, if he’s got an alibi, you’ll look like a liar.”

She sighed, pulled another cigarette out of her crumpled pack—had to love soft packs, there was always another one hiding in there—and lit it off the butt of the one still burning. She’d been chain-smoking since she’d left the apartment; her mouth tasted like crap, but she was too wired to do anything else.

“Well, technically, I will be lying,” she said, stomping the old butt into the dirt. “But I’m thinking that by the time they figure it out, it’ll be too late. I could talk to Vincent right before dark.”

“Maybe. But what if…”

“What if what?”

Devon shook his head. “Nothing, it’s stupid.”

“Now it’s going to drive me nuts. What?”

“I was just thinking…I mean, what if we tell Vincent, or whoever, and he hassles Brian…and Brian wasn’t going to do anything, but he gets so pissed off about being accused…”

Amanda felt a knot form in her gut. “You mean, what if I actually make it happen by trying to stop it? That—that sucks, Dev. That totally f*cking sucks.”

Devon dropped his own smoke to the ground, tapping it out with the pointed toe of his wingtip. “Forget it. I told you it was stupid.”

“I mean, I can’t just do nothing—”

“I know, I know.”

“—because if I keep my mouth shut and it happens—”

Devon sighed. “I know, all right?”

They were both silent for a moment. Amanda felt entirely overwhelmed. The situation was so unreal, like she was in a movie or something, but everything was taking too long and she still felt like her normal self. Not bored shitless for a change, but otherwise just plain ol’ Amanda Young. Certainly not like some fictional young psychic detective with brilliant plans and a network of talented friends and a handgun.

“Maybe we should talk to Pam, and Ally Fergus,” Devon said. “Couple of the others.” He’d already brought this up like three times. “If we can get them to back you up, then go talk to the sheriff—”

Amanda shook her head. “No way he’d believe us.”

“He’d have to, though, if we could prove that you saw—that you saw what happened before.”

“We talked about this,” Amanda said. “A bunch of teenagers, most of them totally trashed on the night in question—and Pam Roth won’t own up to having a party, you know that. Her parents would shit.”

“Stopping a, a rape totally trumps Pam getting in trouble with her parents—”

“You remember when she took her dad’s car last year, drove it to Port Angeles?” Amanda asked. “She had a f*ckin’ black eye the next day, and she was grounded for like four months.”

“Still,” Devon said, but he didn’t sound as sure.

“We’re children, Devon. They’ll think we’re full of shit; you know it. Not just the cops, either. You think Sid would believe us? Or my mom?”

Devon’s uncle Sid was a good man, but he also had no imagination whatsoever. And her mother…Grace’s solution to anything she couldn’t handle was to get shit-faced and cry about it.

“OK, but there are other people,” Devon said. “If we could get someone with some real credibility to listen to us, maybe they could talk to the cops…like what about Willie?”

Willa Tenungren, Willie T, was the art teacher at the high school. She was maybe the only teacher there who made any real effort to connect with her students, and Devon was a particular favorite of hers.

Amanda gave it a second’s thought, then shook her head. “Not exactly credible.” Willie liked to hang out at the artist colony in the off-season and wrote poetry books in her free time, published by Kinko’s. Amanda had seen her read a couple of times; she wrote poignant odes to wilting flowers and latesummer days and dreams about flying. Someone like Chief Vincent probably thought she was a flaming hippie.

“She’d believe us, though,” he said.

“Dude, her underwear’s made out of hemp,” she said, and in spite of the seriousness of what they were discussing—or, more likely, because of it—they both started to laugh.

The laughter had started to die down when Devon added, “When she farts, midgets get high.”

Amanda choke-laughed out a lungful of smoke, grateful to Devon in spite of the near attack of dry heaves that followed. For making her laugh. For believing her. She’d called his cell as soon as she’d gotten up, told him what had happened in about a dozen words—well, except for the part about her mother and the rat, which was too weird and upsetting and somehow too personal—and he’d immediately changed his plans in order to hang out with her.

When they’d finally calmed down, Amanda felt better. Still freaked, absolutely, but not as tense, not as flat-out terrified. She looked around at the people, the warm day—it’d be hot in their shithole apartment tonight, but it was kind of nice, here, now, in the shade—and she couldn’t help that the live wire she’d had in her stomach, there since Pam’s party, was as exciting as it was terrifying. Something was happening, she didn’t know what, and she wished wholeheartedly that this unnamed something hadn’t happened to her, but her life was changing, had already changed. For the first time ever, she felt…she felt special, kind of, and she didn’t like thinking that, was sure that made her a terrible person, but that was how she felt.

There was a guy over toward the food booths, looking their direction. He was young, their age, rail thin but tall, dressed in baggy jeans and a plain black tee. His hair was a thick, dark brown mop that hung in his eyes and stuck out over his ears. He had a wallet on a chain, the shining silver links hanging over one hip, his thumbs tucked in his front pockets. Picture of cool, a summer boy, and when their gazes met, he gave her a chin nod, that slight raise that told her she was being acknowledged. She nodded back. On any other day, she would have flirted, a smile, a shy look-away-and-back—he was a hottie, hands down, and he was checking her out, and considering her entire lack of a love life since Brooks (who wasn’t at the picnic this year, thank Christ for small favors) a new boy in her reality was nothing to dismiss lightly.

Not today, though. She looked away. When she glanced back in that direction a moment later, he was gone.

“What about Bob Sayers?” Devon asked suddenly.

“Who? The Isley Press guy?”

Devon nodded. “Sandy’s always going on about how cool he is, how he’s respectful of their ideas, doesn’t shoot anything down no matter how out there it is. Remember, he published that whole thing on UFOs they did last year?”

Sandra Mulvey was the editor of the school paper and a good friend of Devon’s. Amanda thought she was kind of pretentious but all right otherwise. The journalism class sometimes wrote little articles for the Press. “Yeah, that was pretty stupid.”

Devon rolled his eyes. “Not the point, dumbass. He published it, didn’t he?”

“Doesn’t mean he believes it,” she said, but felt a faint spark of hope, anyway. She wasn’t entirely conscious of the desire, but part of her wanted very badly to turn the whole matter over to a certified adult, to someone who would know what to do, who would act.

“But he is a reporter, and there’s a story here, right?” Devon asked, obviously warming to the idea. “He could talk to Ally. Scott was there, too, when you—when it happened. So was Joey K, a bunch of people. I mean, worst thing, he doesn’t believe us, we come up with something else.”

Amanda shook her head. “Worst thing, he tells the chief that we’re running around making shit up. Which would blow our shot at getting Brian arrested.”

Devon met her gaze squarely, and his light, airy tone dropped a notch. He rarely used his “real” voice, only when something was important, and it carried weight.

“We have to do something,” he said. “And if we can convince him, maybe he can help. If we—”

He stopped abruptly, looking past her. Amanda turned—and saw Brian Glover walking through the milling crowd, heading toward the restrooms, his upper lip stuck in its perpetual sneer. Amanda suddenly had to catch her breath; her heart was pounding her whole body. She’d never felt anything but disgust at the sight of him, since the day she’d first become aware of his existence, her first week of school after moving to Port Isley—the day he’d been leaning against her locker, talking to some of his dickhead buddies and she’d said, “Excuse me,” because she had to get her math book, and she didn’t want to be late to class, she was still new. He’d turned his mean, piggy gaze to her, the pink of his scalp shining through his eternally crappy crew cut, and grinned a sharp and shining grin. “Why, d’ya fart?” he’d shot, and his friends had laughed, and so had a bunch of other people. Since then, she’d come to know him as a moronic force of high school evil. His mom was a shivering mouse of a woman, and his dad was a mean drunk who hung out with those survivalist psychos out past the lighthouse, probably plotting to overthrow the government or something. Mostly, Brian disgusted her. What she felt now was so far beyond disgust she didn’t know how to express it, how she could even contain it.

“We’ll talk to Sayers,” she said, and Devon nodded, reaching out to put a hand on her trembling shoulder.