“We gotta talk.” He gulped the beer.

“You really look awful. What are you doing out of bed?”

“I’ve got a business to run. Family to support. You don’t look so good yourself.”

I rubbed the bruise on my temple. “Yeah, well, long story.”

“I need the money. Now, Seychelle.”

“Maddy, I’ve got the cops sitting out front watching for me—they’re probably on their way back here right now. I don’t have time for this. You’ve got to get out of here.” Standing over him, I tried to pull him up off the couch.

“I came here to say something and I’m gonna say it. Settle this salvage business and sell the boat. That’s it.”

“Maddy, what the hell is happening with you? You know I’ll fight you any way I can on this—that boat’s my life.”

He lowered his face into his hands. He was still for the longest time.

I sat down next to him and put my arm around him. He shook me off, irritated.

Sinking back into the far corner of the couch, I tried breathing slowly. Stop reacting like a twelve-year-old, I told myself. Calm down, relax. “Maddy,” I said in a soft voice, “can you tell me what this is really all about? What have you got yourself into?”

At first he didn’t say anything. I was tense, poised for flight, not sure what my volatile big brother might burst out with.

“They sent me over here, Sey.” He spoke quietly, his hands on his knees, and then he stuck out his chin, letting me get a good look. “See my face? The people who did this to me—they sent me over here to talk to you. I owe ’em . . . shit, I don’t even want to tell you how much. I know it was stupid, but like every other goddamn sucker out there, I thought I would win.” He shook his head and sighed. “Anyways, they’re threatening to take my boat. I got a family, Seychelle. There ain’t squat I can do besides take assholes out fishing. I know you can always go back to lifeguarding or something. Hell, you’re really smart, you could go back to college and get out of boats for good. You and Pit, you were always the smart ones—you could do anything. Not me. I can’t lose that boat. They told me to make you settle with them—to call in the debt on the Gorda, to put the screws on you so you’d see things their way. They said if you don’t help them out, they’re gonna hurt you, bad.”

“What are you talking about, Maddy? Who are these people you keep referring to as ‘they’?”

“See, that’s just it, Seychelle. You ask too many questions. I’m at the track and I’m losing, and some guy tells me that if I call this other guy, he can loan me some money. I don’t ask for no references. I don’t really want to know who the guy is. The point is, I owe these guys a lot of money. And now they’re sending some dude about as wide as he is tall to play basketball with my head in the track parking lot. He’s saying, ‘Shut your sister up, we want her out of the salvage business for good.’ They beat the crap out of me because I can’t make you cooperate, and they’re going after you next. Only next time it won’t just be a beating.”

“It doesn’t make sense, Maddy. What do loan sharks at the track have to do with what happened on the Top Ten?”

“Like I said, Sey, you ask too many questions. If you want to save both our boats, and butts, then just shut the fuck up, take their money, tell them whatever they want to know, and count yourself lucky.”

Maddy stood and crushed the beer can in his good fist as though to punctuate his sentiments. He walked over to the counter and lifted the photo of me and Neal I had found on the Top Ten. He squinted as though trying to recognize the people in the picture. “What do you reckon happened to Neal?”

“I don’t have any idea, Maddy.” I snatched the photo from his hands and slid it out of sight into the zippered side pocket of my shoulder bag along with the photo of my mother and us kids I’d rescued from my trashed cottage.

“If he was still alive,” he said, “I suppose he’d probably contact you—if he contacted anybody. These guys I’ve been talking about, they’d pay a lot of money to know where Neal is—enough money to get me out of debt for good.”

“I don’t know any more about it than you do.” “Seems Neal was mixed up with these people pretty deep. Wouldn’t make sense for you to protect him, after the way he treated you and all.”

He never was very subtle, my brother but I had always at least thought he would honor family loyalty. It appeared he had sold out loyalty to anybody but himself a long time ago.

“That’s it. Just shut up and get out of here, Maddy. I’m going to take care of it. If they ask again, you tell your ‘friends’ that I don’t know anything about Neal. In the meantime, I am going to come up with some way to get us all out of this. I can’t get you out of debt—that’s your problem—but I am not going to let anybody else get beat up or killed.” With that I shoved him out the door and shut it in his face.

I wished I could believe what I’d just said.

Through the closed door I heard him say, “Leave it be, Seychelle. Listen to me. Don’t fuck with them.”

It occurred to me I had heard almost those exact words from someone else. Burns. He, too, had told me that these were not people to anger.

I took my lukewarm soup out of the microwave and turned on the TV to catch the news. Suddenly, I was aware of the overpowering sensation of being watched. I glanced around at all three windows, thinking I might see the same glimpse of a head as I had that night with James.

I stood upright, opened the front door and scanned the grounds. Stepping outside into the sunshine, I listened. Mockingbirds singing, insects humming, no noises to trigger this sense that someone was out there.

The cops had seen Maddy come in here. They might even have been able to hear him shouting my name.

The back door to the Larsens’ swung open. I started to jump back inside when I recognized B.J. He waved at me.

“Hey, you fugitive, you.”

“What?” I crossed the yard to speak to him.

“You’re a wanted woman. A couple of police officers just came to the front door. I hadn’t worked on the library here in over a week, and I’d just started back to work when they began beating on the door. They’ve got a warrant for your arrest on burglary and evidence-tampering, and the only good thing is, they think you live in the big house—evidently these guys don’t know about the cottage.”

“Thank goodness for that.”

“But they did say they saw a man come back here.”

“That was Maddy. He just left.”

B.J. nodded. “Okay, I told them you weren’t home. I didn’t think you were until I saw you out the window just now.”

“I saw their car out there when I started to turn down the street, so I parked Lightnin’ on the cul-de-sac and walked down the seawall.”

He nodded. “Well, they’re still out there sitting in their car. You need to call Jeannie and deal with this, Seychelle, or you’re going to jail.”

“I’ve already talked to her, and I’m not going to jail, B.J. I didn’t do anything wrong—well, except a little breaking and entering, maybe.” I shrugged.

He shook his head and turned back into the main house.

The soup worked its magic as comfort food, and I felt myself growing drowsy. More than anything, I wanted to crawl under the covers and just sleep—probably not a good idea with the cops parked out front. As I washed my bowl in the sink, I figured I’d better call Jeannie back to let her know about the actual warrant and ask her what to do next.

Suddenly, the face on the TV screen looked familiar. I hadn’t been listening, so I didn’t really know what the story was about. The reporter was interviewing a man leaving a building, and I had seen that face somewhere just recently.

The reporter holding one finger to her ear, turned to face the camera. “Rick, Benjamin Crystal is refusing to answer any reporters’ questions about his arrest or release here at the Dade County Courthouse this evening. The prosecutor’s office has planned a press conference for later this evening, and we will be here to bring it to you live.” The camera panned back to the man climbing into the backseat of a large, dark-windowed car.