“All right,” Owen said, “I’ve got strong patience for you, Rebecca, because you’re my sister and I love you. But I don’t need a mother.”
No, Arlen thought, what you need is a swift kick in the ass.
“I’m not trying to be your mother,” Rebecca said. “I’m trying to be the one who keeps you from behaving like a fool any longer.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” Owen said, stepping toward the door.
“You’re going to hear it,” she said, cutting him off. “I’ve got some things you better hear. Like how your father died. My father. Our father.”
He stopped and tilted his head and stared at her. Then he flicked his eyes over to Arlen, a suspicious look, and stepped back.
“What are you talking about?”
“He didn’t drown,” Rebecca said. “He was murdered. His throat was cut. And Solomon Wade did it, or had it done.”
Owen gaped at her. He looked at Arlen again and forced a laugh, as if maybe Arlen could join him in appreciating this ludicrous situation.
“You are so full of shit,” he said.
She was calm. Even-keeled, the way she was so often. She’d grown remarkably good at holding her emotions at arm’s length. Arlen wondered if that was a healthy thing.
“He was trying to run away,” she said. “To fake his own death. He owed Solomon money, lots of it, and he was tired of the way he had to pay it off. Tired of the way his life had infected yours, tired of what you were becoming. I was supposed to get him off the boat that day, and we were going to sink it, and he was going to disappear. I’d stay long enough to sell the idea that he had drowned. Then I would take you and leave, and we’d find him again.”
Owen shook his head. Not believing it, not wanting to hear it.
“I saw him,” she said. “I saw him lying on the deck of that boat, I saw his blood drying in the sun, I saw his eyes, Owen, I saw it all!”
Her voice was trembling, and he was still shaking his head.
“You don’t want me working for Wade, fine, say your piece, but don’t you dare tell a story like that.”
“Look at me.”
He shook his head and stared away.
“Look at me.”
This time he met her gaze. There was a wet sheen to her eyes, but no tears fell and she stared at him and did not speak. Arlen could see the resistance dying in him. His bravado and bluster couldn’t hold off the truth that was in that look.
“I want you to read something,” she said. “Then you tell me I’m lying.”
She took a piece of paper from the pocket of her dress. It was a sleeveless dress, and though the day was warm Arlen could see a prickle along the flesh of her arms. She unfolded the paper and passed it to her brother.
Arlen knew what it said by now. She’d shown it to him while they waited for Owen and Paul to return. It was a letter that had been mailed from Corridor County more than a year earlier, when Rebecca’s father was still alive and she was still in Savannah, a two-page lament of the life Owen was falling into. I don’t believe he has a dark heart, David Cady had written, but I fear he has a dark mind. I fear he can rationalize so much evil away, and perhaps I’ve put that in him… surely I have. But if we can get away from this terrible place and these terrible people, Rebecca, I know that he is not lost.
Owen took his time reading. He didn’t say anything, but Arlen could see his jaw tightening as he read, and when he finally folded the letter and passed it back to her, his movements were very slow, controlled.
“Neither of you ever told me a thing,” he said. His voice had gone huskier.
“He thought that was safest. We would tell you when we were away.”
Before you could get them into trouble, Arlen thought, and it’s the same damn plan she had this time around. I’m the one who talked her into this change, who talked her into this trust. So don’t let me down. Don’t you let me down.
“Was likely McGrath that did it,” Owen said eventually, his eyes vacant. “Or one of his boys. I never did think they could be trusted.”
“Whoever did it,” Rebecca said, “did it at Solomon Wade’s instructions.”
He shook his head. “I’ve worked with Wade many a time, Rebecca. He’s not what you believe.”
Her eyes went wide. “Not what I believe? He’s what I’ve lived with for the last six months! Don’t tell me it’s about what I believe. Do you know why I’m still here? Why I’ve not gone back to Savannah or somewhere, anywhere, else?”
Owen didn’t answer.
“Because I’d been told he would have you killed if I did,” she said. “He explained it to me very clearly, told me all of the power he had at Raiford and that he could make your stay as easy or as painful as he wanted. That was up to me. It depended on whether I continued to help him. While you were in prison, I was here. I was watching drugs and fugitives pass through my doors, I was counting the drugs and the money and providing the records to Solomon Wade. He won’t get his hands dirty; if anyone ran into trouble with the law, it would have been me. I played our father’s role for him because our father had left an unsettled debt. That’s what Wade told me. So I paid his debt, and they kept me here paying it by promising me what would happen to you if I didn’t. That is Solomon Wade.”
Owen said, “He wouldn’t have done that. Not to someone in my own family. Solomon respects me. Likes me and respects me. He wouldn’t have-”
Rebecca turned to Arlen and said, “Go get the shovel, please. I’d like to see the box you buried.”
He led them to the dead tree along the shore, walked off the paces, and began to dig. It didn’t take long to find the box. Owen spoke once, asking what the hell they were looking for, and Rebecca just told him to be quiet and wait. When Arlen had found the box, she said, “Owen can open it.”
Owen took the shovel. There was a vague unpleasant smell coming from the box, but it was nothing like that of the body in the creek.
“This is what Solomon Wade delivered to me,” Rebecca said. “In person. This is the sort of care Solomon Wade showed me while you were away. Now open it.”
Owen wet his lips and turned back to the box and used the shovel blade to pry the lid off. He gave it a final toss and flipped the lid away entirely, and what he saw made him stumble backward and lift a hand to his mouth. He kept his body turned sideways when he looked again, as if he couldn’t face it directly.
“Solomon Wade brought that to me,” Rebecca repeated. “Those hands belonged to Walter Sorenson. You remember Walter?”
Owen nodded, still staring at the box, still with his hand at his mouth.
“I thought you would. He was a nice man. Kind. Wrong sort of man for this sort of business, just like Daddy was. Just like you are.”
Arlen took the shovel from Owen’s hand and knocked the box and the lid back into the hole and began to cover it with sand.
“You’ve known this for so long,” Owen said, looking at Rebecca.
“What was I supposed to do, write you a letter and say it? Tell you on one of my visits to Raiford, the ones that you ordered me to stop making?”
“You could have told me.”
She shook her head. “Not while you were in that place. I couldn’t tell you until you were out. And then you got out, and you wanted to go right back to the life you’d led before, Owen. You rode in here with Solomon Wade, told me what a great man he was. Can you imagine how that made me feel?”
Owen stared out at the sea. There was a good breeze blowing, and the waves were hitting hard, pounding the beach as if angered by its existence. The sun was a smudge on the western horizon, and shadows lay all around them.