Too late. Abram splashed more water on his face.
“Can you hear me?”
“I’m awake,” he whispered again.
“You’re awake?”
He tried to sit up but it didn’t go well. He’d try again later.
He could see Abram looking down at him. His frame was smaller than the man in the trench coat, and he was only wearing a light jacket. And there was the hat-the red brim looked dark at night, but it was definitely there.
“It wasn’t you,” Jake whispered. “It wasn’t…”
“I got here at 8:15.” He sounded scared. “When we set our appointment. And I looked out onto the beach. At first I thought the man in the trench coat was you, but then I saw that it was one person fighting with another.”
“Fighting’s one word for it,” Jake coughed out. He blinked and opened his eyes again. A little more focus. But it still sounded like he was inside a seashell.
“He was beating you up. As soon as he saw me, he ran away. He was covering his face up with his trench coat. I couldn’t see anything.”
“I can’t…”
“What?”
Jake started to feel it coming back. He closed his eyes and realized he’d seen the man in the trench coat before. The night that Charlotte died. The man had been watching the concession building from a distance. The only problem was that both times, Jake didn’t know who the man was.
“Can you hear me?”
Abram looked worried-Jake didn’t see that one coming. He sat up and wiped the sand off his hands. No blood. He felt his face. No blood, but all bruises.
“What happened?” He felt back for his notebook. It was there and he strained to pull it out. Somehow he’d hurt his back too. It ached to stretch. He opened the pad and wrote what Abram said.
“I got here at 8:15. And I saw that man beating you up. I ran a little closer and then I yelled out.”
“You yelled?”
“Yes,” he said. “I forgot to mention that before. I yelled out ‘Stop’ and I saw his head turn back toward me.”
“Could you see the face?”
“No. Did you?”
“I barely saw the fists.”
“After he heard me yell, he looked down at you and kicked you again.”
Jake felt his jaw-he believed it.
“Then, after he kicked you, he ran off. I saw he was wearing a hat and a trench coat. But that was all I could see.”
Jake looked at his handwriting in the notebook. Nothing better than scribbles. He’d try to decipher it later. Reading anything seemed about as hard as writing. He was scared to touch his face again. He knew that would make it worse. It was like the water in hurricane season. Everything swelled. He finally formed a thought.
“That hurt.”
Abram almost laughed.
“I would guess that. Did he say anything? The man who assaulted you?”
“No.” That seashell sound got old fast. He hit his ear. Sand came off his hair in clumps as thick as cookie dough. “I just said hello, and then he turned around and hit me.”
“I see.”
“What?”
“Well, it leads to interesting conclusions.” He lowered himself onto the sand. Jake breathed in deep for the first time, starting to recover.
“What conclusions does it lead to?”
“Did the man know who you were?”
“I don’t know. He must have, I guess.”
“Why?”
“Because he hit me.”
“Did he see you though?”
“I guess not. But he must have seen me while I was walking up the beach, right?”
Abram paused.
“Well, do you have a cellular phone?”
“Why?”
“We need to call the police.”
Jake stopped leaning on his hands and let his elbows bear his weight. It hurt a little less. Police. He’d hardly worked that beat, let alone been a featured story.
“I don’t know about that Abram.”
“What? You don’t have a phone on you? I do, just in case.”
He pulled it out and started dialing. Jake reached forward. He wanted to grab it, but he couldn’t make his body move quickly enough. Abram stopped anyway.
“Why don’t you want me to call?”
“What would we say?”
“That you were attacked on the beach. We have to report it.”
“No.” He exhaled. “We can’t. Then we’d have to get into everything. Why we were meeting here at night. What we were doing. It would get complicated.”
“We could say that we’re old friends.”
“Sure. Then I’d also have to give up trying to find out what happened to Charlotte Ward.”
Abram looked out at the beach and then back at Jake.
“Didn’t you accuse me of being involved in her death?”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
“This,” he said and pointed to a bruise. “And this…and this…and this.”
“I see.”
“And if you’d been behind it, I don’t think you would have bothered showing up and saving me.”
“I wish I could tell you…” He crossed his arms and held them tightly.
“Abram, you wish what?”
“I wish I could trust you.”
“I wish I could trust you,” Jake repeated.
They looked out at the beach together. Jake’s vision was clearing up a little. He could see the place where the beach and water met. Abram gestured back to the path.
“Sheryl Goldfein knows that I take walks late at night. She knows that I take this route. The route Charlotte took.”
“What are you saying?”
Conclusions were as difficult as steps, right now. He didn’t have the energy for either of them.
“I’m saying that she knew I’d be out on the beach tonight. And the man who hit you didn’t know that it was you.”
“So?”
“I think they would have attacked me, too.”
He didn’t want to believe that anyone would hit a man Abram’s age that hard. But if he could find out who Abram thought was targeting him, maybe he could find out why anyone had resorted to violence on a deserted beach.
“Can we talk about this?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s get up and go somewhere.”
Abram extended his arm to Jake. Both their hands were wet and cold with sand. He couldn’t balance at first, but then he caught himself. Barely.
“God. Can’t believe this.”
“Haven’t you been in a fight before?”
Had he ever been aggressive?
“No, I haven’t.”
“You’ll have some bruises.”
“I just didn’t even see it coming. I wish it hadn’t happened.”
“It might be selfish for me to say this, but you should be glad.”
“Why?”
Abram touched the brim of his hat and led them down the beach.
“You got some bruises. But I might not have made it off this beach.”
“What do you mean?”
“You might have saved my life. I couldn’t have taken those hits.”
They walked along the shore at the same speed-Jake slowed down by a long night, Abram slowed down by a long life.
“We need to trust each other,” Jake said. “If we want to figure out who that person was. If we want to figure out who they meant to attack and why they did it.”
“I want to learn more than that.”
“What?”
“I want to find out what happened to Charlotte.”
“Then we’re agreed?”
“Agreed,” Abram said.
They went up the stairs together, back to Sunset Cove.
CHAPTER 27
They were at Building B by a quarter to nine. Abram did live there. With each step, Jake looked both ways for the man who had attacked him. No one. There wasn’t even a shadow now. This late at night, the paths were all empty-he’d already run into the two exceptions.
Abram’s living room was filled with maps. Maps on the walls, atlases stacked on shelves, and papers spread out on a large oak table. Jake rested his arm on a furled corner. He yelled to Abram, who was in the small kitchen.
“These maps-are they for researching what happened to Charlotte?”
“It didn’t happen in Europe, did it?”