“It just happened.”

“They always just happen, Jake. That’s the way it is. You haven’t told Carradine that you’re quitting?”

“This came up last night. While I was here.” Jake wanted to tell her more, to fill her in on all the things that were crawling around in his skull, flipping the switches and pulling books off the shelves like an angry child. “It’s important.”

“Oh, Christ, don’t start that with me, Jake. I know that it’s important. They’re all important. But we have plans.”

“I just need to get through this thing with my father and the case and I’m done. I can deal with the Utah headhunter from home. If this thing wasn’t here—right in my lap—I would have said no. Carradine wouldn’t have let me pick it up in the first place. Consider it loose ends.”

She listened to the timbre of his voice. “We’ll leave when you leave. I think that’s a fair compromise.”

Jake turned his focus to the horizon. Somewhere not too far away, hell was rolling in on eighty-foot swells and 200-mile-an-hour winds. “You can stay tonight,” he said softly and kissed the top of her head again. “Then I am sticking your ass on a bus and you’re going back to the city.” She opened her mouth to protest when he added, “I don’t want you two here right now. Not with this storm. Not with my work. I don’t need the vulnerability.”

And something in his tone made her stop. “Okay, Jake.” She brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “Whatever you need. We’ll sleep wherever you slept last night.”

“The sofa.”

“Sleep on sofa!” Jeremy said, and threw a rock with a clumsy overhand pitch. The stone thunked into the ground at his feet and he picked it up, trying the exercise again, this time making it to the edge of the surf. He nodded appreciatively and went back to scouring the beach for appropriate stones.

Kay was quiet for a few seconds, her calm way of processing information at work. Jake knew what she was doing and appreciated it. It was one of the things that he loved about her—she listened to and believed in him. Maybe it was all they had been through together, but she trusted him to take care of himself. And her and Jeremy. Once again he felt the speed of his brain and body magically slowed by just being around her.

“We can camp on the floor if we have to. Don’t worry about us, Jake, you’ve got your hands full here. I know you’re probably overwhelmed—” She paused, smiled again. “Listen to me—you overwhelmed? When have you ever been overwhelmed?” It wasn’t said cruelly, just matter-of-factly. Her grip on his hand tightened and he waited, knowing that she was in the process of asking a question. “How is your father?” The words were tentative because she knew some of what had happened.

He thought about the way a life that had seemed so ordered a few days ago, had somehow tied itself into a knot when he got the call about his old man. What could he tell her? He’s fine. Except for the terror I see in his eyes each time I talk to him. And he’s painting in his own blood. And I can’t forget to mention that they’ve given him enough morphine to tranq a Tyrannosaurus Rex and he’s still making more noise than an army of hungry zombies. Or the X-Acto knives. Yep, shit is just fucking dandy with my old man right now. “It could be better,” he offered in the way of a healthy compromise.

Kay knew him enough to read between the lines and she simply squeezed his hand again. Jeremy threw another rock, this one actually making it to the water, and he clapped with a fervor that Jake was jealous of. He pulled Kay in closer, her hip pressed against his thigh, and their step fell into a comfortable rhythm.

“We have any food?” she asked.

“Sure. Loads. Tons. Tuna, spaghetti, bologna and mustard sandwiches. A few packets of gas-station sugar. We’re set.”

Kay giggled and dropped her head against his shoulder. “We’ll order pizza.”

A middle-aged couple walked on the beach in chinos and matching cable-knit sweaters. They ambled silently, not talking, barely lifting their heads. Their feet kicked up plumes of sand that the wind carried away. Jeremy stopped lobbing rocks and waved furiously, because on television everyone at the beach was friendly. The couple kept their heads down and continued trudging along, even though they had to have seen the boy; he was in their line of sight.

“That’s rude,” Kay said. “Who doesn’t wave at a kid?”

Jake wasn’t looking. He just shrugged and kept walking. “You two aren’t local, those two people are. They don’t wave to outsiders here.”

“Now you’re bullshitting me.”

“Go ahead, wave.”

So Kay waved.

No response.

A second time.

They kept walking.

“You wave,” she ordered Jake.

“I’m from here. They probably know that somehow.” Jake raised an arm, gave one Nixonesque wave, and put his hand back in his pocket.

Both the husband and wife raised their hands, waved, nodded, and went back to their walk.

“That’s creepy.” Kay sounded disgusted. “Welcome to Purgatory.”

“To them,” Jake offered in the way of an explanation, “You don’t even exist.”

“Wait until I flash the husband my boobies. Then see who doesn’t exist, me or that mummy he’s married to.”

And with that Jake realized how glad he was that she had come. Her view of the world was going to be a big help, if only in the cheerleading department.

Up ahead, Jeremy had stopped in front of Jacob’s house and was squatting down, furiously digging at something in the sand. He pulled it out, held it up to the light, and nodded in approval, his tiny CPU calculating that it was the perfect size for throwing.

For an instant, Jake saw the light hit it, saw it glimmer in his son’s hand. There was a pulse, and a red flash hit his eye as if the thing in Jeremy’s hand were a chunk of glass taillight, then the boy threw it. It arced nicely out over the line of weed and foam that rimmed the ocean’s lip, and plopped into the waves.

“Daddy!” he chirped, thrilled with the improved pitch. He danced around the freshly excavated hole at the water’s edge, kicking up sand that the wind carried toward the house.

Jake paused where the boy had pulled the object from the earth and bent down, sweeping his fingers over the sand. Just below the surface he brushed a rough object that his touch told him was a rock. He scraped the surface away and saw a piece of what looked like red glass—the same hue as the one Jeremy had launched into the Atlantic. It was not sharp, but globular, amorphous, a melted chunk of red light, dimpled with the acne texture of sand burned into the surface. Jake held it up, squinted into its depths, something about it asking to be investigated.

Inside, neatly suspended in a red translucent cloud, was a small crescent-shaped inclusion. It was light, much lighter than the material it was encased in, and for a second Jake thought he was looking at a human fingernail. Was that possible? What could—

Then Jeremy pulled it out of his hand and threw it at the water.

It arced beautifully, a red drop of light that hung over the surf for a second. Then it plunked into the ocean. “All gone, Daddy,” he said, and ran up the rickety steps to the beach house.

22

While Jake went back to work on the case, Kay dug into clearing out some of the garbage so they’d at least be able to walk from the kitchen to the stairs without having to negotiate an obstacle course. She had opened the doors to the beach and fresh air funneled through the house, swirling motes of ancient dust and cigarette ashes across the floor. She wanted to hang the Persian carpets over the railing on the deck to air them out but for some reason they were nailed and stapled and screwed down to the floor in an overlapping crosshatch—more of Jacob Coleridge’s handiwork.