The interstate wove past uninteresting towns with forgettable names. He was in Wilmington by ten. He drovethrough the city and turned onto a small, rural highway. Heading south, with the sun coming hard through thedriver’s-side window. He put the gun in his lap and then back on the seat again and kept on going.
And finally, he was there, in the town where she was living. Southport.
* * *
He drove slowly through town, detouring around a street fair, occasionally consulting the directions he’d printedout on the computer before he left. He pulled a shirt from the duffel bag and placed it over the gun to conceal it.
It was a small town with neat, well-kept houses. Some were typically Southern, with wide porches and magnoliatrees and American flags waving from poles, others reminded him of homes in New England. There weremansions on the waterfront. Sunlight dappled the water in the spaces between them and it was hot as hell. Like asteam bath.
Minutes later, he found the road where she lived. On the left, up ahead, was a general store and he pulled in tobuy some gas and a can of Red Bull. He stood behind a man buying charcoal and lighter fluid. At the register, hepaid the old woman. She smiled and thanked him for coming, and commented in that nosy way that old womenhave that she hadn’t seen him around before. He told her he was in town for the fair.
As he turned back onto the road, his pulse raced at the knowledge that it wasn’t far now. He rounded a bendand slowed the car. In the distance, a gravel road came into view. The directions indicated that he was supposedto turn but he didn’t stop the car. If Erin was home, she would recognize his car immediately, and he didn’t wantthat. Not until he had everything ready.
He turned the car around, searching for an out-of-the-way place to park. There wasn’t much. The store parkinglot, maybe, but wouldn’t someone notice if he parked it there? He passed the store again, scanning the area. Thetrees on either side of the road might provide cover… or they might not. He didn’t want to take the chance thatsomeone would grow suspicious of an abandoned car in the trees.
The caffeine was making him jittery and he switched to vodka to settle his nerves. For the life of him, hecouldn’t find a place to stash the car. What the hell kind of a place was this? He turned around again, getting angrynow. It shouldn’t have been this hard and he should have rented a car but he hadn’t and now he couldn’t find away to get close enough to her without her noticing.
The store was the only option and he pulled back into the lot, stopping along the side of the building. It was atleast a mile to the house from here but he didn’t know what else to do. He brooded before turning off the engine.
When he opened the door, the heat enveloped him. He emptied the duffel bag, tossing his clothes on the backseat.
Into the duffel bag went the gun, the ropes, the handcuffs, and the duct tape—and a spare bottle of vodka. Tossingthe bag over his shoulder, he glanced around. No one was watching. He figured he could keep his car here formaybe an hour or two before someone got suspicious.
He left the lot, and as he walked down the shoulder of the road he could feel the pain starting in his head. Theheat was ridiculous. Like something alive. He walked the road, staring at the drivers in passing cars. He didn’t seeErin, even a brown-haired one.
He reached the gravel road and turned. The road, dusty and potholed, seemed to lead nowhere until he finallyspotted a pair of small cottages a half mile down. He felt his heart speed up. Erin lived in one of them. He moved tothe side of the road, hugging the trees, staying out of sight as much as possible. He was hoping for shade but thesun was high and the heat remained constant. His shirt was drenched, sweat dripped down his cheeks andplastered his hair to his skull. His head pounded and he stopped for a drink, straight from the bottle.
From a distance, neither of the cottages appeared occupied. Hell, neither one looked habitable. It was nothinglike their house in Dorchester, with its shutters and corbels and red front door. On the cottage closest to him, thepaint was peeling and the planks were rotting in the corners. Moving forward, he watched the windows, lookingfor signs of movement. There was nothing.
He didn’t know which cottage was hers. He stopped to study them closely. Both were bad, but one lookedpractically abandoned. He moved toward the better one, angling away from the window.
It had taken thirty minutes to get here from the store. Once he surprised Erin, he knew she’d try to get away.
She wouldn’t want to go with him. She would try to get away, might even try to fight, and he would tie her up andtape her mouth shut and then go get the car. Once he returned with the car, he would put her in the trunk until theywere far away from this town.
He reached the side of the house and flattened himself against it, staying away from the window. He listened formovement, the sound of opening doors or water running or dishes clattering, but heard nothing.
His head still hurt and he was thirsty. The heat poured down and his shirt was wet. He was breathing too fastbut he was so close to Erin now and he thought again how she’d left him and hadn’t cared that he’d cried. She’dlaughed behind his back. Her and the man, whoever he was. He knew there had to be a man. She couldn’t make iton her own.
He peeked around the back of the house and saw nothing. He crept forward, watching. Ahead, there was asmall window and he took a chance and looked in. No lights on, but it was clean and tidy, with a dish towel drapedover the kitchen sink. Just like Erin used to do. He silently approached the door and turned the knob. Unlocked.
Holding his breath, he opened the door and stepped inside, pausing again to listen and hearing nothing. Hecrossed the kitchen and entered the living room—then the bedroom and bathroom. He cursed aloud, knowing shewasn’t home.
Assuming he was in the right home, of course. In the bedroom, he spied the chest of drawers and pulled thetop one open. Finding a stack of her panties, he sifted through them, rubbed them between his thumb andforefinger, but it had been so long, he wasn’t sure he could remember if they were the ones she had back home.
The other clothes he didn’t recognize, but they were her size.
He recognized the shampoo and conditioner, he recognized the brand of toothpaste. In the kitchen, he rifledthrough the drawers, opening them one by one until he found a utility bill. It was listed in the name of KatieFeldman, and now he leaned against the cupboard, staring at the name and feeling a sense of completion.
The only problem was that she wasn’t here, and he didn’t know when she would return. He knew he couldn’tleave his car at the store indefinitely, but all at once, he was just so tired. He wanted to sleep, needed to sleep. He’ddriven all night and his head was pounding. Instinctively, he wandered back to her bedroom. She’d made the bed,and when he peeled back the cover, he could smell her scent in the sheets. He crawled into the bed, breathingdeeply, breathing her in. He felt the tears flood his eyes as he realized how much he missed her and loved her andthat they could have been happy if she hadn’t been so selfish.
He couldn’t stay awake and he told himself that he would sleep for just a little while. Not long. Just enough sothat when he came back later in the evening, his mind would be sharp and he wouldn’t make mistakes and he andErin could be husband and wife once more.
35
Alex, Katie, and the kids rode their bikes to the carnival because parking downtown was almost impossible.
Trying to get home, once cars started pulling out, would be even worse.
Booths displaying arts and crafts lined either side of the street, and the air was thick with the scent of hot dogsand burgers, popcorn and cotton candy. On the main stage, a local band was playing “Little Deuce Coupe” by theBeach Boys. There were sack races and a banner promising a watermelon-eating contest later in the afternoon.
Games of chance, too—throwing darts at balloons, tossing rings around bottles, sinking three shots with abasketball to win a stuffed animal. The Ferris wheel at the far end of the park towered above all of it, drawingfamilies like a beacon.
Alex stood in line to buy tickets while Katie followed behind with the kids, heading toward the bumper cars andtilt-a-whirl. Long lines were everywhere. Mothers and fathers clung to the hands of children, and teens clusteredin groups. The air sounded with the roar of generators and clacking noises as the rides went round and round.
The world’s tallest horse could be viewed for a dollar. Another dollar bought admission to the tent next door,which housed the smallest horse. Ponies, walking in circles and tethered to a wheel, were hot and tired, theirheads hanging low.
The kids were antsy and wanted to ride everything, so Alex purchased a small fortune in tickets. The ticketswent fast, because most of the rides required three or four. The cumulative cost was ridiculous, and Alex tried tomake them last by insisting they do other things as well.
They watched a man juggle bowling pins and cheered for a dog that could walk across a tightrope. They hadpizza for lunch at one of the local restaurants, eating inside to escape the heat, and listened to a country-westernband play a number of songs. Afterward, they watched people racing jet skis in the Cape Fear River beforeheading back to the rides. Kristen wanted cotton candy and Josh got a press-on tattoo.
And so the hours passed, in a blur of heat and noise and small-town pleasures.
Kevin woke two hours later, his body slick with sweat, his stomach knotted with cramps. His heat-induced dreamshad been vivid and colorful, and it was hard to remember where he was. His head felt like it was splitting in two. Hestaggered from the bedroom and into the kitchen, slaking his thirst directly from the tap. He was dizzy and weakand felt more tired than when he lay down in the first place.
But he couldn’t linger. He shouldn’t have slept at all, and he went to the bedroom and remade the bed so thatshe wouldn’t know he’d been there. He was about to leave when he remembered the tuna casserole he’d spied inher refrigerator earlier, when he’d searched her kitchen. He was ravenous, and he remembered that she hadn’tcooked him dinner in months.
It had to be close to a hundred degrees in this airless shack, and when he opened the refrigerator, he stood fora long minute in the cool air as it spilled out. He grabbed the tuna casserole and rummaged through the drawersuntil he found a fork. After peeling back the plastic wrap, he took a bite and then a second one. Eating did nothingfor the pain in his head but his stomach felt better and the cramps began to subside. He could have eaten all of thecasserole, but he forced himself to take just one more bite before putting it back in the refrigerator. She couldn’tknow that he’d been here.
He rinsed the fork, dried it, and put it back in the drawer. He straightened the towel and checked the bed again,making sure it looked the way it had when he entered.
Satisfied, he left the house and headed up the gravel road, toward the store.
The roof of the car was scalding to the touch and when he opened the door, it felt like a furnace. No one was inthe parking lot. Too hot to be outside. Sweltering, without a cloud or hint of breeze. Who in God’s name wouldwant to live in a place like this?
In the store, he grabbed a bottle of water and drank it while standing near the coolers. He paid for the emptycontainer and the old woman threw it out. She asked him if he enjoyed the carnival. He told the nosy old womanthat he had.
Back in the car, he drank more vodka, not caring that it was now the temperature of a cup of coffee. As long asit made the pain go away. It was too hot to think and he could have been on his way back to Dorchester if Erin hadbeen home. Maybe when he brought Erin back and Bill realized how happy they were together, he would give himhis job back. He was a good detective and Bill needed him.
As he drank, the throbbing in his temples began to recede, but he started to see two of everything when heknew there should be only one. He needed to keep his mind sharp, but the pain and the heat were making him sickand he didn’t know what to do.
He started the car and turned onto the main road, heading back to downtown Southport. Many streets wereclosed off and he made countless detours before he found a spot to park. No shade for miles, just sun andendless, stifling heat. He felt like he might vomit.
He thought about Erin and where she might be. Ivan’s? At the carnival? He should have called to ask whethershe was working today, should have stopped at a hotel last night. No reason to rush, because she wasn’t at home,but he hadn’t known that then, and it made him angry to think she was probably laughing about that, too.
Laughing and laughing at poor Kevin Tierney while she cheated on him with another man.
He changed his shirt and tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans and started toward the waterfront. Heknew that’s where he’d find Ivan’s, because he’d searched for the location on the computer. He knew he wastaking a risk if he went there and he turned around twice, but he had to find her, had to make sure she was stillreal. He’d been in her house and inhaled her scent but it wasn’t enough.
Crowds of people were everywhere. The streets reminded him of a county fair, without the pigs and horses andcows. He bought a hot dog and tried to eat it, but his stomach rebelled and he threw most of it away. Weavingamong the people, he spotted the waterfront in the distance, and then Ivan’s. His progress through the throngswas excruciatingly slow. His mouth was dry by the time he reached the door of the restaurant.
Ivan’s was packed, people waiting outside the entrance for tables. He should have brought a hat andsunglasses, but he hadn’t been thinking. He knew she would recognize him instantly, but he worked his way to thedoor anyway and stepped inside.
He spotted a waitress, but she wasn’t Erin. Saw another, but she wasn’t Erin, either. The hostess was youngand harried and trying to figure out where to put the next group of customers. It was loud—people talking, forksclanking against plates, glasses sloshing in the bus tubs. Loud and confusing and the damn pounding in his headwouldn’t go away. His stomach burned.
“Is Erin working today?” he called out to the hostess, raising his voice above the noise.