We’d come back from Germany after New Year, though, with the air clearer than it had ever been, promising we’d try again from the beginning. No more baggage.
And we had, to a certain extent.
The first time Sean and I had got together we’d rushed into a wild and passionate affair that had self-destruct written all over it. Sure enough, it had ended in disaster for both of us.
This time around, he’d taken his time, courted me, and I’d been bemused to discover he had a gentle thoughtful side I’d never previously suspected. It didn’t fit with everything I’d ever known of Sean. It had made me hesitate.
Looking back over the past few months I realised that I’d been holding back, hoping for something that would lend substance to my caution. Failing to find it had only made me more wary, as though I’d been afraid that he was too good to be true.
And then, only the day before yesterday, I’d let my guard down just long enough for Sean to slip through, under my skin again. It had been every bit as magical as I’d recollected. Every bit as magical as I’d feared it couldn’t be.
And now it looked as though circumstances had brought our fledgling relationship to an end in the most final way possible.
I glanced over at Trey, the cause of all this. Drool stringed from his slack mouth. He was beginning to stir, rolling over onto his back with a short grunt like a sleeping dog. As I watched, his eyes fluttered open, squinting against the sunlight.
He struggled into a sitting position, scratching at his neck as he yawned and stretched. The hair sprang up around the back of his head in tufts.
“What’s up?” he said, rubbing at his face, his voice thick with sleep. “You were looking at me kinda weird.”
“Nothing.” I said, turning my face away. I indicated the vista with my hand and added with a touch of irony. “Another day in paradise.”
A flash of black and white further down the beach caught my eye. Tense, I got quickly to my feet, shaking the sand out of my towel. “Time to go,” I said abruptly.
“Aw man, what’s the hurry?” He stared up at me, not moving. “It’s early. We ain’t gonna meet up with the guys ‘til gone eleven.”
“That’s as maybe,” I said, keeping my voice low, “but there’s a pair of cops over there, checking IDs of all the kids sleeping on the beach.”
I’d tried to keep my body language casual, but Trey immediately spun round, staring at the two cops. They were wheeling mountain bikes through the sand. I’d always thought the cosy image of the local bobby on his bike belonged firmly in the leafy villages of Agatha Christie’s England. Looks like I’d been wrong.
These two looked nothing like familiar English coppers. Both men were wearing cycling shorts, gunbelts and trendy sunglasses. The image of Oakley man momentarily overlaid on top of them, sending my pulse soaring.
The pair handed ID back to the group of kids they’d been talking to and started moving towards us. They were barely thirty metres away. I cursed my own lack of attention, that I hadn’t spotted them earlier.
“You reckon they’re looking for us?” Trey asked, jumping to his feet now, nervous.
“Best not to find out, don’t you think?” I murmured.
The only immediate way off the beach was the set of wooden steps we’d slept alongside. Trey snatched up his towel and I led the way up the short flight. I concentrated on breathing evenly, trying not to make it look as though we were in a hurry, or running away. Difficult, when we were doing both.
In the dim light of the night before I’d thought the steps were simply a way up onto the dunes, but once we were at the top in daylight, I could see they actually led to someone’s private garden.
In front of us was a scrappy lawn of tough-looking grass punctuated by stubby palms at the borders. The trees had all grown leaning away from the beach and the prevailing wind. It wasn’t a big area, not like the garden of the Pelzners’ rented mansion back in Fort Lauderdale, but it had a lived-in feel. A child’s plastic slide sat on a paved patio closer to the house, with a brightly-coloured football and a mini trampoline.
The house itself was low and squat and painted white, battered by its proximity to the sea and the salt. A trellis of rust trails ran down the walls from every metal fixing. Almost the whole of the wall facing the ocean was made of glass that tilted downwards, presumably to fend off the glare from the water. I didn’t know much about real estate prices in Daytona Beach, but if the view alone counted for anything, then this was right up there. Until the next hurricane hit, of course.
The two cops had almost reached the foot of the steps. They were studying Trey and me, trying to work out if we belonged in the garden, or if they had a good enough reason to follow us up.
“Keep walking towards the house,” I whispered to the kid. I let my gaze scan casually across the cops, nodded and gave them a smile and a cheery wave. Failing to make eye contact doesn’t work with people who’ve been trained to spot someone acting shifty.
I turned back towards the house, then swore softly under my breath as a grey-haired woman in a loose sacky dress appeared at one of the windows. She stilled, narrowing her eyes and sticking her chin out as though she needed glasses to positively identify us as strangers at that distance.
I glanced round, making the pretence of pointing out a diving pelican to Trey. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the cops lean his bike against the stair rail and put his foot on the first step. His partner stayed on the beach.
A trickle of sweat ran between my shoulder blades. I hunched them, feeling the SIG dig into the back of my belt. The knife I’d taken from the skinny kid the night before weighed heavy in my shorts’ pocket.
Oh shit . . .
“Morning, officers,” said a man’s deep voice at that moment. “Can I help you boys?”
We all turned to find a slim elderly man with a neatly trimmed white van Dyke beard approaching up the beach, his stride long and rangy. He wore a battered Panama hat and a very faded T-shirt that had once advertised the 1989 Daytona 500. In his right hand he carried a bulging string bag.
“Oh hi, Walt, how you doing today?” said the cop who’d been about to climb up after us. He turned and stepped down onto the beach again.
“I’m doing good, Mikey,” the old guy said. “So, you boys smell breakfast cooking, or what?”
“No.” The cop laughed and shook his head. “You have folk visiting?” And he nodded in our direction.
Walt looked up then from under the brim of the Panama and a pair of piercing grey eyes under bushy eyebrows locked onto mine, straight and steady. I stared back at him and tried to impart pleading and desperation. I suppose there was a certain amount of fear there, too.
For what I’d have to do if he said no.
For a long moment, Walt didn’t move, then he gave me an almost imperceptible nod. “Yeah,” he said, his voice was slow and rolling, like he was reading a story on the radio. “You guys hungry?” he called to us. “Harriet’s making her special blueberry pancakes.”
I checked the house again. The old woman had moved to the open doorway now. She was standing just behind the mosquito screen, looking anxious.
Walt climbed the steps and came towards us. He paused a few strides away to turn and wave a small salute to the police. The cop he’d called Mikey waved back and collected his bike. The pair of them began to move off.
Walt watched them go, then turned back to us. Close to, I could see the bag he’d been carrying was filled with seashells.
“So,” he said calmly, “can I ask you folks what you’re doing in my back yard?”