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“We talking double bed or singles?” He lifted a brow suggestively.
“I’m monogamous, Arlan. I have a boyfriend. I’ve told you that, what? Like a hundred times in the last year.”
“You never know when the answer will be different.” He turned around to watch her go, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Catch you later.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. See if I can talk to my kitty buddy. Maybe find some cat chow.”
Fia smiled to herself as she walked away, wishing she could fall in love with Arlan.
Arlan chatted with the tabby again, gave a half-hearted chase after a mouse in the toolshed with him and then wished the cat good luck. As Arlan walked, in the dark, back toward Fia’s car parked up on the main road, he wondered what would become of the dead family’s feline. Would a distant relative or neighbor think to take him home, or would he be forgotten and left to live on his own? Arlan found it sad, but there were animals all over the world left behind like Tabby. Arlan couldn’t save them all. There were days when he could barely save himself.
There were cat rescue centers, though. Maybe, once he got home, he would give the local rescue organization a call. Surely they could find a good home for Tabby.
Arlan was leaning against the hood of the car, wishing he had a cigarette, even though he rarely smoked, when he heard Fia’s voice. She was approaching the road from the driveway, talking on her cell.
“Ma, listen to me. You have to calm down. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
Fia paused, then responded. “No, no, don’t put him on the phone. Dad’s less communicative calm than you are hysterical. Isn’t anyone else there? One of the boys?” Another pause. Fia was on the street, walking directly toward Arlan. Her high-heeled loafers tapped hollowly on the pavement. “No, not Aunt Mary. She’ll have had her sherry by now. Isn’t there anyone else there? Where’s Fin, Ma?” She looked up at Arlan. “Regan called home,” she told him. “He never made it back from Greece. He’s in some kind of trouble.” She looked down, speaking into the phone. “Ma, either you have to calm down or you’re going to have to call me back.”
She looked up at Arlan again. “I don’t know what to do with her. I can’t understand what she’s saying.”
“She say where he was calling from?” Arlan felt an instant pang of guilt. He shouldn’t have left Athens without Regan. Procedure or not. Fia’s brother had been headed for trouble for months. Arlan should have known this was coming. “She know where he is?” he asked.
Fia shook her head. “Ma, I can’t come home tonight. I have an appointment I can’t—Ma, please stop crying.” Fia ran her hand over her silky hair, obviously at a loss. “Ma…”
“You want me to go home?” Arlan offered. “Let me talk to her. I can get a rental car and be there in less than three hours.”
“Ma…Ma, how about if Arlan comes over? You tell him what Regan said and—” She was quiet for a second; then she looked at Arlan. “She wants me,” she said, seeming nearly defeated. “I can’t deal with this,” she told him, her hand on the mouthpiece of the phone. “I can’t deal with her right now and this case. I need to go home, but—”
“Why don’t you let me meet your Maggie tonight?”
“She’ll never agree to it.” Fia lifted her hand off the mouthpiece. “Ma, just a minute. I’m trying to figure something out.” She lowered the phone to her side.
Arlan could hear Mary Kay Kahill sobbing hysterically. “So we won’t tell her I’m coming. I’ll go to the meeting place, morph, check out the situation and then decide whether or not to attempt the meeting or not. If I don’t think it’s a safe bet, I’ll call you, you call her and tell her something came up.” He shrugged.
“I don’t know,” Fia hemmed. “She…she’s obviously scared. Brittle, I think. She has to be handled carefully.”
“Who better than me to handle an HF with kid gloves?” He raised his hands to her, fluttering his fingers, giving her his sexiest smile.
Fia spoke into the phone again. “Ma, I want you to go to the kitchen and make some muffins. Ma…yes, blueberry would be fine. Then cranberry nut. By the time you’ve got the second batch done, I should be almost home.”
Arlan opened the car door for Fia and she climbed in, cell phone still to her ear. “We’ll find him, Ma. I’ll go get him myself if I have to.” Another pause. “Ma, you know how he is. He exaggerates. I’m sure he’s just drunk. I’m sure he’ll call back tomorrow saying he’s fine and on his way home.”
Arlan got in the passenger’s side of the BMW. Both of his parents were dead and even after all these centuries, he still missed them. Sometimes he didn’t think Fia realized how lucky she was to have her parents, even if her father was a distant, self-absorbed alcoholic and her mother half crazy.
“I’m hanging up now, Ma. Hanging up,” Fia sang as she started the car, racing its engine. “See you in a couple of hours. Blueberry and cranberry.” She hung up.
“You’re a good daughter,” Arlan said.
She tore away from the side of the road, leaving rubber on the pavement, and the dead bodies being loaded into ambulances behind.
Macy left her car, unlocked, windows down, in the gravel parking lot of the state park. During the day, she imagined it was filled with minivans and SUVs; families on vacation or just celebrating a day in the sun. Unlike further north in Ocean City or Rehoboth Beach, there were no concessions, no stores lining the beach, on the Virginia Peninsula. Here were just miles of sand and ocean, for the most part, unblemished by condos, restaurants, and arcades. It was the perfect place for picnics, frolicking in surf, or simply reading a book to the rhythmic sound of the incoming waves.
But this late at night, with the park officially closed, there were no minivans, no families on vacation. The parking lot was empty except for two red porta-potties and a couple of overflowing trash cans.
Macy grabbed a hooded sweatshirt off the floor of her car, pulled it on, lifted the hood, and traipsed up the sandy dune crossing, over the crest of the man-made dunes. She had discovered this beach one day while driving south, after an assignment. Although it was on the ocean side of the highway, there was a scraggly woods line not far off the beach. Somehow, over millions of years, plants and trees had managed to evolve enough to live in the sandy soil, just a couple of hundred feet from the salty body of water. She admired those trees with their prickly needles, and the low-lying bushes with the spindly branches. They had managed to survive in adverse conditions. They had adapted.
Much in the same way Macy had adapted.
On the far side of the grassy dune, the beach stretched out to the north and to the south. As she had promised Fia, the moon was glowing bright over the ocean. But it was no longer full. Teddy had missed his mark. She crossed the clean beach, walking toward the water. She was early. It would be a few minutes before the FBI agent arrived.
Macy had checked into a hotel earlier and sat on the edge of the bed with a yellow bedspread and contemplated what she would say to Fia. She had no real information to provide. All she had was this feeling of being on a high-speed train, rushing forward. A train with no brakes. A train about to derail. So why was she here? Did she really think she could stop the train?
Could she and Fia do it together?
Macy had an idea that Fia understood something about Teddy. She had picked up on the fact that this was too soon for the killer to strike again. Not enough months had passed. She seemed to sense that some sort of urgency was building in Teddy.
Macy