“Because something would be different,” he said, turning back to stare at her. “Something in the O’Riley household would be different. Whoever killed Eddie would…well, they wouldn’t be a part of the household anymore.”
She walked over to him. “Maybe a stranger killed Eddie. Isn’t that what we’re all hoping? Maybe Sean getting sick was just coincidence.”
She was staring at him earnestly, as if wanting could make it so.
He sighed. “We don’t know anything. Except that someone else is looking for whatever Nigel Bridgewater might have buried. Let’s get to it, shall we? We’ll start over by the rock where we got a couple of potential readings.”
“Maybe there’s nothing there except for some kind of tarp protecting the documents he was delivering. Maybe there’s no metal to find,” Caer said.
“I’m willing to bet there are coins.”
He started with an area by the south face of the rock, digging industriously. However long it took, he was going to keep digging until he found something.
Caer started working alongside him, but he was so preoccupied that he didn’t realize how hard the going was until she set down her shovel and let out a sigh. “I’m sorry, but my muscles aren’t accustomed to this. This is hard work,” she said. It wasn’t a complaint, just an observation.
“I shouldn’t have brought you. I’m sorry. This is real labor.” He was developing blisters himself, he realized.
“I don’t mind. I just need to stop for a bit.”
“Go ahead, take a break,” he told her.
“I’m going to walk around a bit, see the island.”
“All right. Stay within yelling distance.”
“Zach, we’re the only idiots out here.”
He leaned on his shovel, indicating the dug-up area of the beach. “Someone else has been here—and they could come back.”
She stared at him, then at the previous dig, and shivered. “Good point. I won’t go far.”
She walked off, and he started digging again. After a while, he realized that even though he was in good shape, his muscles were aching, too. Time to take a break himself.
“Caer?”
He couldn’t see her.
“Caer?”
He dropped his shovel and walked north, toward a copse of trees, skeletal and forlorn in winter.
He still couldn’t see her, and he looked out toward the water with a sense of rising unease. The Sea Sprite was still drifting at anchor just off shore, and no other boats were near.
A screeching caught his attention, and he looked up.
Birds. More birds. And not gulls. Gulls would have belonged.
They were black birds.
“Caer?”
His unease became an inexplicable fear for her, and he hurried into the copse of trees. Barren branches, pathetic in the winter air, brushed his shoulders. He looked up and realized that the sun was already beginning to set.
“Caer!”
Then he saw her. Her back was to him, and her head was bent over. She was staring at something in her hands.
For a moment he thought she had made a discovery in the sand, but then he realized that she had taken her letter from her pocket and was reading it.
He approached slowly. She was studying the words as if disturbed by whatever they said.
“Caer?”
She jerked, hearing him at last, and looked up.
“Is something wrong?” he asked her.
“Oh, no.”
“Then what is it?”
“Just…my friend. He’s here. In the States. I have to figure out how to meet up with him somewhere along the line, that’s all.”
She quickly folded the letter and shoved it back into the pocket of her jeans. “I’m sorry. I was just distracted.”
He knew he generally had a good poker face, but it must have failed him then, giving away his suspicions, because she quickly smiled and rose. “I’m sorry. I should have been digging, not reading my mail.”
He nodded, but he held his arms still by his sides as she came closer and pressed the full length of that glorious body against him.
The wind picked up. He heard that wild screeching again and looked up to the sky.
It was a scene out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. There were birds everywhere.
Black birds.
High above the winter-barren trees, they swooped high, then low, circling and making that terrible noise.
Caer obviously didn’t like them, staring up with what could only be dread in her eyes.
The sun was well and truly setting, he saw. It was time to abandon their efforts for the day and get back to the wharf. And since he hadn’t managed to find anything on his own, he needed to speak with Morrissey.
“Want to help me pack up?” he asked her.
“Of course,” she said, looking embarrassed by his unresponsiveness, and moved away.
She headed back toward where they’d been working. Zach pulled out his cell phone, keeping an eye on her and praying that he would get a signal this far out.