Текст книги "Summer Rental"

Автор книги: Mary Kay Andrews

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

At some point, the wind picked up, and the waves began crashing harder into the sand, the tide creeping up. Ellis stopped, turned around, and stared up at the cluster of unfamiliar buildings at the edge of the dunes. She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. Just how far had she come?

Time to turn back. The encroaching tide had driven her closer to the dunes. She tried walking faster, struggling as her feet sank into the powdery soft sand. Each time she came to a set of stairs leading up and over the dunes, she looked up, trying to decide if it was her stairway, leading back to Ebbtide.

But now, in the dark, all the dunes and stairways looked alike. She felt her heart racing, and told herself this was silly. She wasn’t lost. Couldn’t be. After two weeks, she knew her own stretch of beach perfectly. There was a faded, pale yellow catamaran pushed into the beach rosemary and sea oats below Ebbtide. The battered red metal trash barrel bolted to a piling near their house was crisscrossed with painted-on graffiti: “TIGERS RULE, COCKS SUCK” and “RENE LOVES BUSTER.”

And her shoes! Her lime green flip-flops. She’d left them right at the base of the steps. All she had to do was find those flip-flops. She powered onwards, squinting in the dark, looking for the catamaran and the red trash barrel. After another thirty minutes, her calf muscles burned, and she was nearly out of breath. The tide kept inching closer, until it was lapping right at the base of the dunes, and still there were no familiar signs.

Finally, exhausted, she stopped and sat on a worn wooden step. The water swirled around her ankles, and she realized it would have swept her flip-flops away. What should she do? She stepped into the water and craned her neck to look up. These steps led up to a boardwalk similar to the one at Ebbtide, and a house that looked nothing like Ebbtide. Should she climb up, cross the boardwalk, and find her way to the road?

And then what? Walk barefoot on the asphalt for who knows how far, with cars whizzing past and God-knows-who looking at her in her soggy shorts and windblown hair, not to mention the fact that she was braless?

No. She’d stick to the beach. She stood and started trudging. Ten minutes later, she heaved a sigh of relief when she spotted the yellow catamaran. Thank God! She almost felt like kissing the paint-spattered red trash barrel. Almost. Instead, she grabbed the handrail of the staircase and heaved herself up the steep first step.

It wasn’t until she’d reached the top step that she smelled it. Cigar smoke. In the darkness, she saw the glowing red tip first, and then the outline of the beach chair. And Ty Bazemore, beer in hand.

29

He’d been sitting on the deck for at least an hour, smoking a cigar, nursing a Heineken. After the disastrous aborted date, he’d gone up to the garage, shed the jacket and khakis, and tried to forget about it and just get some work done. He’d been reading about a small agribiz company in Kentucky that had recently patented a new kind of grass seed with promising drought-tolerant qualities. But he was glassy-eyed from reading all the technical reports, not to mention the company’s P&L statements.

Ty’s heart wasn’t in it, anyhow. He’d tried to shake off the depression that was settling over him like a thick woolen blanket, but didn’t have much luck. And anyway, he was seriously starving. So he’d jumped in the Bronco and hit the drive-through at the burger joint up the road.

Sometimes, a good greasy cheeseburger and fries were the only antidote to misery. He’d eaten the burger and half the fries, and lit up the last of his good cigars, but he wasn’t feeling that much better about life. He was, however, developing a bad case of heartburn.

The wind had picked up, and the surf was pounding away at the beach below. And suddenly, he looked up, and there she was, climbing up the last stair.

Cinderella was gone, and in her place the old Ellis Sullivan seemed to have washed ashore. The carefully arranged hairdo had been blown all to hell. She was barefoot, her baggy pink shorts were soggy, and her damp T-shirt clung to her body. It was apparent, even from where he sat in the darkness, that she’d been crying.

“Oh,” she said when she spotted him. “It’s you.”

“I live here,” Ty said. He stubbed out the last of his cigar on the top of the beer can. “Are you all right?”

She looked down at her sandy legs, wiped her nose with the sleeve of her T-shirt, and nodded. “I think the tide took my shoes. Other than that, I’m just peachy. I thought you were gone.”

“I was,” he said, gesturing to the paper sack with the remnants of cheeseburger and French fries. “I ran out for a little midnight snack. But now I’m back. What were you doing down there? Going for a midnight swim? Not to scare you or anything, but there are sharks out there.”

“I went for a walk,” Ellis said, leaning against the deck railing. “What time is it?”

He consulted his watch. “Nearly midnight. Must have been a hell of a stroll. I’ve been out here for over an hour.”

She slumped down onto the deck, her legs suddenly rubbery with fatigue. “I guess I lost track of where I was going. God, I must have walked a couple of miles along the beach. And then the tide started coming in, and I sort of freaked out. At night, in the dark like this, all these stairways look alike.”

“I’ll give you a tip,” Ty drawled. “Tomorrow, when you go out on the beach, look up at the stairways. Most of ’em have metal address numbers attached to ’em. Ours even says EBBTIDE, although you have to really get pretty close up to see it.”

Ellis leaned her head back against the railing and stretched her legs out on the deck planks, which still retained some of the heat from the sun. She wanted to jump up and run down the walkway, back to her room, away from Ty Bazemore. But she was exhausted. Physically and mentally.

Ty sat back in his chair and looked at her expectantly. Waiting for her to blast him again.

“Maybe,” she said, after a couple minutes of awkward silence, “maybe we could just pretend tonight never happened. You could go back to your garage and computer, and I could go back to … whatever.”

He got up from his chair and sank down onto the deck beside her, sitting so close that they were brushing shoulders.

“Why would we want to do that?” he asked. “I mean, was there any part of tonight that you enjoyed?”

“Seriously?” she asked, shaking her head in disbelief. “Are you telling me you had a good time tonight?”

“You didn’t?”

“I asked first,” she pointed out.

“But I paid.”

“Okay,” she relented. “Are you sure you want me to go off on you again?”

“Why not? Everybody else does.”

“As far as first dates go?” she said, brushing at the sand on her shorts and her legs. “This was pretty awful. Catastrophic, you might say.”

He tilted his head and looked at her. “If you had to pinpoint it, where would you say it all started to go wrong? The jacket? I guess it has gotten a little short in the sleeves.”

“The jacket was fine,” Ellis said. “Except for the dry-cleaner’s tag attached to your right sleeve.”

“You coulda said something.”

“You could have told me you own Ebbtide,” Ellis said. “So we’re even. Anyway, it was a first date. You don’t tell that kind of stuff on a first date.”

“Oh.”

Ty went back over the evening in his mind again. “I did notice you didn’t eat very much. So, you didn’t like the restaurant? I considered a steak house, or Italian, but then I thought, seafood. Who doesn’t like seafood at the beach?”

“I loved the restaurant,” Ellis said, hesitating.

“But?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Swordfish. Ugh. Hate, hate, hate swordfish.”

“Again, you could have said something.”

“I was trying to be polite,” Ellis said.

“Next time, just tell me what you want to eat,” Ty said, exasperated.

“Next time maybe you could ask me what I want to eat. Wait,” she said. “There’s going to be a next time?”

“I only ordered the swordfish because it was the most expensive thing on the menu,” he went on. “I was trying to impress you, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Really?” She tilted her head and considered him. “That’s sweet.”

“Okay. Aside from the swordfish, and the dry-cleaner tag, and the finding out about Mr. Culpepper thing, what else was bad?” Ty asked. “You know, so I can improve on my technique.”

Ellis rolled her eyes. “It’s not your fault, I suppose. But it’s still pretty awkward running into your old girlfriend and her husband when we’re on a date.”

Ty made a choking sound. “That wasn’t an old girlfriend.”

“No? You could have fooled me. I definitely sensed some history there. Also hostility. Not so deeply repressed hostility, I might add.”

“Oh, Kendra and I have history, all right,” Ty said ruefully. “If you consider two years of marriage to be history.”

“Marriage? You were married? To her? For two years?”

“It seemed a lot longer at the time,” Ty said.

“Wow. Just … wow.” Ellis said. “How long have you been divorced? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“It was a long time ago.”

Ellis hugged her knees to her chest, to warm up a little. “She’s beautiful.”

“She certainly thinks so,” Ty agreed. “And I guess most people would agree.”

“You must have thought she was pretty at some point,” Ellis said. “You did marry her.”

“We dated in high school, got married after college,” Ty said. “Everybody always said we were perfect for each other.”

“And then?”

“Kendra is the kind of girl who always has a plan,” Ty said. “I guess she gets that from her old man. Boomer used to be in politics, was in the state house, like that. Now he concentrates on running his law firm. And his daughter’s life. And that’s fine with Kendra, fits right in with her plans.”

“But it didn’t fit with yours?”

“It did at first,” Ty admitted. “Law school seemed like a great idea. I made decent grades in high school and as an undergrad. We got out of college, worked for a couple years, mainly so I could save money to go back to grad school, but then Kendra got the bright idea we should go to law school together. I thought, why not? We both applied to law schools. Kendra got accepted a bunch of places. Me? Looking back on it, I think Boomer probably pulled some strings to get me in at Carolina. He was on the board of visitors.”

“And then what? If you don’t mind my asking?”

“Ancient history now,” Ty said with a shrug. “It just wasn’t a good fit for me. Kendra and I were doing okay. We lived in a ratty little apartment off Franklin Street, and we were starving law students, just like all our friends. Or at least, I was. Kendra had a separate bank account, and her daddy kept it filled up all the time. So we fought about that. And a lot of other stuff. And by the time I was halfway through my second year, I knew, absolutely, that law school was not the place for me. But I stuck it out, finished the year. Then, when I told Kendra I was dropping out, she announced that she was dropping me.”

“Ow,” Ellis said. “Ryan?”

“I prefer to think of him as Fuckface,” Ty said. “They were on the law review together. According to Kendra, things just … happened.”

“Where have I heard that before?” Ellis sympathized.

“She claimed they were ‘just friends,’” Ty said. “Of course, when she moved out of the rat hole, she moved in with him. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.”

“Again, ow. What did you do then?”

“I got a job working as a glorified office boy at a stock brokerage firm in Chapel Hill. Kept my eyes and ears open, started doing some trades, and figured out I kind of liked it. Turns out, I’m an information junkie. The guy I worked for taught me a lot, and I hit some lucky breaks. I stayed with his firm for a couple more years, then moved to Charlotte to work for another couple years. But I always missed being on the coast. I lived lean, saved my money, and eventually moved back here to Nags Head.”

“To Ebbtide,” Ellis said.

“Nah. I moved in with my dad,” Ty said. “Ebbtide belonged to my mom’s family. When my grandmother died, she left it to my mom’s brother, my uncle Ralph. He lives out west and didn’t really have much interest in the place. He was gonna sell it last year. By that time, real estate prices here were in the tank, and I’d managed to squirrel some money away, so I got the bright idea to buy it and keep it in the family.”

“I think that’s nice,” Ellis said. “Has your family always owned it?”

“Always,” Ty said. “And until I bought the place, virtually nothing had been done to it in all those years. Turns out, the joint is a money pit. It needs a new roof, new plumbing, new electrical. And you see the shape the kitchen and the bathrooms are in. I moved in right after I bought it and started working on it, but then the stock market did a nosedive, and I ran out of money.”

“The economy sucks,” Ellis said sympathetically. “I know, that’s what happened to me at the bank I worked for in Philly. We got swallowed up by another bank, and everybody in my department got pink slips.”

“Have you got another job lined up?”

“Not yet,” Ellis admitted. “I’ve got résumés out, but…”

“Yeah,” Ty said. “I feel your pain. When I first moved back here, I tried finding a job, but let’s face it, Nags Head ain’t Charlotte. It’s all about tourism here. Anyway, I’m tired of working for other people. I’d rather figure it out on my own, even if I have to live on next to nothing while I do that. That’s why I moved into the garage apartment and started renting out the big house. But it was too little, too late.””

Ellis shivered and hugged her knees tighter.

“You’re cold,” Ty said. He slipped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her to him. “We could go inside,” he offered.

“I’m all right,” Ellis said. She looked up at him. “What Ryan said tonight, about Ebbtide? Is it really in foreclosure?”

“Prick,” Ty muttered. “Yeah, that’s right. I got in over my head, pure and simple. I don’t want to sound too melodramatic, but if I don’t figure out a way to raise some money, fast, by September fifteenth, I’ll lose Ebbtide. That’s why I’ve been moonlighting at Caddie’s.”

“It would be so sad to lose your family home,” Ellis said. “Isn’t there anything you can do? Have you talked to anybody at the bank? I mean, I was never in the mortgage side of things, but it seems to me the last thing a bank wants right now is to have to manage another foreclosed property. Maybe you could work something out with them?”

“I’m trying,” Ty said, “but they’re not local. The bank I got my mortgage from got taken over by another bank, in Virginia. I’ve called and written letters, but I can’t ever seem to get in contact with a real human being. And in the meantime, the clock is ticking. The legal ads have started to run. And the vultures have started to circle.”

“Like Ryan and Kendra,” Ellis said.

Ty’s face darkened. “I’ll burn it to the ground before I let them get their hands on my house.”

Ellis’s eyes widened at the ferocity of his response.

“Not literally,” Ty said. “I’ll think of something. Anyway, could we change the subject?”

“What did you have in mind?” she asked.

Ty pulled Ellis closer. He nuzzled her hair and her neck. “I was hoping maybe we could discuss your giving me a do-over on this evening.”

Ellis reached for the paper bag he’d left sitting beside his chair. “Only if you agree to share whatever’s in this bag. I didn’t have much dinner, remember?”

“Later,” Ty said. He turned her face to his and found her lips in the dark.

30

There was a knock at Julia’s bedroom door. When she opened it, Madison stood there, holding her cell phone in her hand. “We need to talk,” Madison said, her dark-ringed eyes still and serious. Her unwashed hair hung from a center part, and her cheap brown T-shirt was wrinkled and shrunken from the wash. She limped into the room without being invited, and sat down on the edge of a rickety orange-painted wooden chair.

The chair was one Julia had found at a charity thrift shop on Croatan Highway over the weekend, and in a fit of boredom, painted a shade called Valencia.

“Hey,” Julia started to say, but Madison held her hand up, palm outwards, stopping her before she could get started with any fake outrage.

Julia sank down onto her bed, which she’d just made up with a cheap cotton spread with bright pink, orange, and turquoise stripes, picked up at the Target store on her way back from the paint store.

“What’s up, Madison?” Julia asked, smoothing out a nonexistent wrinkle in the spread.

“What did you say to him?” Madison asked.

“Who?”

“Him!” Madison said, thrusting the phone at Julia. “Look, I know you think you’re smart, messing with my phone, checking my messages. But you have no idea who you are messing with here. So just cut the act and tell me exactly what he said. And what you told him.” She crossed her legs and added, “Please.”

Julia sighed. “Is Maryn your real name?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Julia leaned forward. “Oh, but it is my business. You’re living under the same roof as me. I’ve got a right to know who you are and what you’re doing here.”

“Okay, fine. You got me. I lied. Now tell me what you told him.”

“You mean Don? I didn’t tell him anything. Who is he, anyway?”

Madison’s face was taut. “He told you his name?”

Julia thought about that. “No. He asked for Maryn, I told him you weren’t there. He asked who I was, and then he hung up.”

“You’re sure that’s all that was said? Julia, this is really important. What did you say when he asked you who were?”

She shrugged. “I said I’m Julia Capelli. Who the hell are you? When the phone rang, the caller ID just said ‘unknown caller.’ After he hung up, I listened to some other messages on your phone from ‘Don.’ It was the same voice.”

Madison crossed and uncrossed her legs. She nibbled on a ragged bit of cuticle. Julia noticed that she wasn’t wearing the big diamond engagement ring. “You actually told him your name?”

“Why wouldn’t I tell him my name?” Julia asked. “Madison, why don’t you just tell me what’s going on here and stop with the twenty questions? Who is this Don guy? And why are you running away from him? What’s got you so scared?”

Madison shook her head violently. “You wouldn’t understand. Anyway, it’s not your problem.”

“The hell it isn’t! I told him my name!”

Madison looked down at the phone. “His name is Don Shackleford. He’s my husband. I found out he’s into some bad stuff. So I left. End of story.”

“Nuh-uh,” Julia said. “You didn’t just leave. You ran. And you’re traveling under an assumed name. I think you owe us an explanation.”

“The only thing I owe you guys is the rent on that crappy room upstairs,” Madison said. “Which I already paid. And if you hadn’t been so damned nosy, messing with my phone and snooping in my private life, none of this would be an issue.”

“What kind of bad stuff is he into?” Julia asked, her eyes glittering with excitement. “Drugs? Gun running?”

“You watch too much television,” Madison said. “It’s nothing that exciting. He’s … dishonest, that’s all. I should have known better. I did know better, once.”

She stood up abruptly. “Look, my rent’s paid up. I’ll leave as soon as I figure out my next step. Probably by the weekend. In the meantime, could you please keep this to yourself? The less people who know my real name, the better. Don doesn’t have any reason to think I’d come someplace like Nags Head. I didn’t know I was coming here myself until I saw the sign on the interstate for the turnoff.”

Julia followed her to the door. “I already told the girls I know Madison isn’t your real name.”

Madison rolled her eyes. “Another big surprise.”

“You don’t have to go, you know,” Julia said. “Maybe we could help. You know, help get you out of whatever kind of jam you’re in.”

“No!” Madison said quickly. “I don’t want any help. I’ll be out of here by the weekend. Just do as I ask—don’t be running off at the mouth about me, and stay out of my business.”

She left the room as quickly as she’d come, leaving Julia with more questions than answers.

31

Maryn slammed her bedroom door and locked it. There was no getting around facts: she had to leave Ebbtide and Nags Head. What if Julia was lying about her conversation with Don? God knows what she might have told him.

Her mouth went dry at the prospect. But no, she sternly told herself. Julia might be a nosy little sneak, but she was well-meaning. And besides, she had no reason to lie once she’d been confronted. Not that it mattered now. No matter how innocuous Julia’s comments to Don seemed, she couldn’t risk staying.

She took the duffle bag out from beneath the bed, propped it on the wooden chair by the door, and started to pack. She was surprised and irritated at how sad the idea of leaving this place made her. This cruddy little room in this big, crumbling old house had become her refuge, a home in a way that the gaudy, nouveau riche town house where Don had installed her would never be a home. And these women—Ellis, Dorie, and even Julia—they weren’t friends, not really. But they were decent, generous women who might have become her friends if she’d dared to let down her guard. But she couldn’t. And now it was too late.

She had no idea where she would go next, but go she would. Maybe she’d head west? Mexico was too obvious—and anyway, she didn’t speak a word of Spanish. And what about all that money? The stacks of cash terrified her. She was no Pollyanna, but she was sure Don hadn’t earned that money legally. So far, except for her rent, she’d mostly resisted spending it. She’d need money to get as far away as possible.

The ring. Her engagement ring. She dug the black velvet box out of her dresser drawer and flipped the top open. The huge solitaire seemed to wink impishly at her. Don was a phony. Their marriage was phony. She only hoped that the diamond was real, because it was looking like her ticket away from both Don and the marriage.

Maryn was making a mental list of all she needed to do before leaving—gas up the car, find a decent road map, look up a jeweler who might buy, or at least appraise, the ring—when she realized that her cell phone, which she’d tossed onto the bed, was buzzing.

For a moment, she felt paralyzed. But then she grabbed the phone, and when she saw the caller ID on the readout, she could have cried with relief.

“Adam!” she said, fighting back tears. “Where are you? All you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m in Philly. But where the hell are you? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“Don … he didn’t hurt you?”

“No. Why would he?”

“He caught me, after I left his office. Oh God, you were right about him. I took his key and I went over there, and I found some of the Prescott files. He’s been robbing them blind.” The words tumbling out of Maryn in a torrent. “Don flew into a rage. He … hurt me. And I couldn’t help it, I told him what you’d told me, about the auditors and everything. Of course, he denied everything. He even wanted me to go to dinner with him and Robby Prescott that night. As though nothing had happened. But he told me if I didn’t do exactly as he said, he’d kill me, and hide my body where nobody would ever find me.”

“So you ran?” Adam said. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I tried to call you,” Maryn said accusingly. “I left messages, didn’t you get any of them? I was frantic with worry, afraid he’d come after you next. Where were you?”

“Oh, Maryn,” Adam said. “I am so sorry. I was on vacation. Don’t you remember? I told you I was going hiking with my brother and some friends. I just got back and saw all the missed calls.”

She had no such memory. Adam, hiking? But it didn’t matter now.

“Listen,” she said. “Has Don called, looking for me?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice dripping disdain. “I think he must think I’m hiding you or something. Prick.”

“He’s more than just a prick,” Maryn said. “He’s a lunatic. A dangerous lunatic. And what’s worse is, I married him.”

“So … what are you gonna do?” Adam asked. “Get a lawyer and divorce his ass?”

“Eventually,” Maryn said. “But right now, I’ve got to get as far away from him as I can.”

“Aren’t you being a little overly dramatic?” Adam asked.

“You didn’t see the look in his eyes when he was threatening me,” Maryn said. “I did.”

“Okay,” Adam said quickly. “I get your point. What can I do to help? Where are you, anyway? You still haven’t told me.”

Maryn hesitated. But Adam was her best friend. He’d tried to warn her about Don, but she’d refused to listen. And look what had happened.

“I’m on the Outer Banks,” she said. “Nags Head.”

“That’s in North Carolina?” Adam asked. “What made you go all the way down there?”

“Nothing in particular,” she said. “After I ran, I’d been driving all night, and I was exhausted, and I saw a billboard, so I just headed east and ended up here.”

“Here, where?” Adam wanted to know. “Are you in a hotel or something?”

She looked around the barren little room and laughed ruefully. “Not hardly. I’m renting a room in an old house, right on the beach. I’m sharing it with three other women. It’s too long a story to go into right now. Doesn’t matter, anyway, because I’m leaving here just as soon as I can.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s not safe,” Maryn said. “One of the women happened to pick up my cell phone, and Don called, and she answered it. She swears she didn’t tell him anything, but I just can’t risk staying here.”

“Just what is it that makes you so terrified of him?” Adam asked. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be afraid, but you just sound … so … unhinged. Why not just come back home, get yourself a good lawyer, and proceed to take him for every last dime?”

“You don’t get it,” Maryn said, her voice growing shrill. “Don is a criminal. And no, I am not overreacting. Adam, when I left the house, I was terrified. I threw some clothes into a suitcase, grabbed my laptop case, and got the hell out. When I got down here, I went to unpack my laptop, and that’s when I discovered it—I’d grabbed Don’s computer instead of mine.”

“Did you find any secret documents or smoking guns?” Adam asked.

“Not really,” Maryn said. “Don’s too cagey for anything like that. I didn’t find anything on the computer—it’s what I found in the computer case that’s got me nervous.”

“Like what?”

“Like a hundred thousand dollars,” Maryn said. “Neat little bundles of hundred-dollar bills.”

“Holy shit,” Adam breathed.

“Now do you get why I can’t come back there?” Maryn asked. “That money is dirty. It has to be. And Don knows I have it. And his computer.”

“So … give the money back,” Adam said. “Tell him you don’t want it, and you don’t want him, either.”

“You make it sound so easy, so rational,” Maryn said. “But Don’s not rational. And I don’t think he’ll just let me walk away—not from any of it. I don’t know where I’m going next, but the one thing I do know is that I’m not coming back there, or anywhere near where Don can find me.”

“Where will you go? And what’ll you do?” Adam asked.

“I don’t know,” Maryn repeated. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. Somewhere. I’ll get a job again. Earn my own keep. I did it before I met Don Shackleford, and I’ll do it again.”

Adam laughed. “You’re telling me you’re going to go back to driving a ten-year-old Honda and wearing markdowns from Loehmann’s? Living in some cruddy studio apartment like that dump you were in when you met him? All just to prove you don’t need a sugar daddy?”

Maryn’s eyes rested on her Louboutin sandals, which she’d found outside her bedroom door when she’d gotten up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. They’d cost eight hundred dollars, and she’d bought them without a second thought after Don gave her the American Express Black Card. She wished now that she’d told Ellis to keep them.

“I damn well don’t need somebody like Don!” Maryn cried. “I don’t understand why you’re talking to me like this, Adam. You’re the one who always accused me of only dating Don because of his money. I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend,” Adam assured her. “But I just want you to stop and think things all the way through before you do anything else drastic. Why spend your life on the run if you don’t have to?”

“I don’t see any other way,” Maryn said, rubbing her eyes. She was suddenly exhausted, physically and emotionally. And now, damn it, she was crying. And she’d never, ever been a crybaby.

“Look,” Adam was saying, “I’ve still got a few days of vacation left. I’m not due back at work ’til Monday. Why don’t I come down there? We’ll have a couple of drinks, take a walk on the beach, and talk. We can figure it out together. Okay? What do you say?”

“I don’t know,” Maryn said, feeling her resolve weakening. “What if Don figures out where I am? He talked to Julia. She swears she didn’t tell him anything, but now she knows my real name. It just doesn’t feel safe anymore.”

“You’re giving Don too much credit,” Adam said soothingly. “He’s just not that smart, Maryn. You say you’re not staying at a hotel, so you’re not registered anywhere, right? How’s he gonna find you?”

“He is that smart,” Maryn retorted. “You don’t know him like I do.”

“Whatever,” Adam said. “Will you do that for me? Just hang for another day or so. I can drive down there tomorrow. We can hang out, talk. And if you still feel like you’ve got to take off, fine. I can help you figure that out. I know you, Maryn. You put on that tough girl front all the time, but at some point, you’ve got to quit being a loner. You’ve got to trust somebody. Right?”

“I guess,” Maryn said, relenting. Maybe Adam was right. Maybe it was time to lean on somebody else. At least for a little while.

“Okay,” she said, sniffling. “I’ll wait here. You’ll leave tomorrow?”

“First thing,” he assured her. “But you’ve got to tell me the address there.”

“You know, I don’t even know the address,” Maryn said. “Just the name of the street. South Virginia Dare. Oh yeah, and the house name. All the beach houses down here have names. It’s Ebbtide.”

“Ebbtide,” Adam repeated. “I’ll leave here first thing in the morning, and I’ll call you when I’m about an hour away. Get some sleep, okay?”

“I’ll try,” Maryn promised. “See you tomorrow.”