Breaker's Reef

  “I won’t because she doesn’t.”

  Sheila broke into a smile again. “Can you believe it? He actually hired me!”

  Morgan tried to mirror Sheila’s excitement as she led her into the house. “So tell me about this interview. What was Marcus Gibson like?”

  “Weird. Eccentric. A little scary. Remember the crazy scientist guy in Back to the Future? He reminds me of him.” Caleb, who’d been sleeping on the little cot inside the office off the kitchen, was just waking up as they went in. Sheila went to pick him up and kissed his rosy cheek. “Hey, bud. You have a good nap?”

  He nodded and laid his sleepy head against her shoulder. She sat down at the table and cuddled him close. Morgan got his sippy cup of milk out of the fridge and gave it to him.

  “You can hardly hold a conversation with the guy,” Sheila said, her voice softening. “He goes from one random thought to another, like he’s trying to think of twenty things at once but can’t quite finish a thought. Talk about a poster child for ADHD. I can’t imagine how he writes novels.”

  “What will you do for him?”

  “Typing, mostly.” Caleb slipped out of Sheila’s lap and went to play with his toys in the corner of the room. His mother followed him and sat on the floor behind him as he played. Stroking his curls, she said, “The great thing is that I won’t be working nine to five every day. He said it would be forty hours a week, give or take, but that he doesn’t really want me there when he’s there.”

  That was good news. “Then you won’t see him that much?”

  “He said I wouldn’t. He likes to write in other places on his laptop.” Sheila looked up at her. “It’s not true, what Clara said, Morgan. He didn’t hire me for my looks. He’s not interested in me at all. He probably couldn’t tell you what color my hair is. He hardly looked at me the whole time, and when he did, he had this blank look, like he was seeing something else. He was more interested in the word for the switch on a lamp. I’m telling you, he’s weird. But the job pays really well. And if you haven’t noticed, it’s the first offer I’ve had. It’s not like people are beating my door down to give me a job.” She leaned over and kissed Caleb’s forehead. “Are you sure you won’t mind keeping Caleb while I work?”

  “Of course not. You know I love Caleb.” How could she not? She’d been a mother to the child for almost a year. As she’d watched Sheila resume that role herself, Morgan had had to force herself to step back. But she longed to have time alone with him again. “Sheila, are you sure this is the right thing for you? There’s no hurry for you to find a job. You’ve only been out of school a few weeks. Maybe you should just take your time and look for something else, something a little more predictable.”

  “He’s paying four hundred dollars a week, Morgan. Everything else I’ve looked at has been minimum wage. And the temptations aren’t going to be as great working there, alone most of the time, as they would be if I worked in a restaurant or around people who may do drugs. I could actually use my brain. I used to be smart, Morgan, until I went off the deep end and started doing drugs. If I hadn’t gone that way, I might have gone to college. I can do this. I’m trained on the computer, I can do word processing, and I’m a fast typist. I’m excited about it.”

  Morgan chose her next words with care. “If the writer were a woman, I wouldn’t be concerned. But I don’t want you to be vulnerable.”

  “I can take care of myself. I have street smarts, don’t forget. If he comes on to me, I’ll quit.”

  “Unless your heart gets involved.” Morgan sighed. “Marcus Gibson must be making a fortune. Being around a man like that, with money and fame and power, might be a little dangerous for you.”

  Sheila covered her face as if the thought disgusted her. “He’s not my type, okay? He’s not even attractive to me, and he’s way too old. And if you could meet him just once, you wouldn’t think of power, or even money or fame. He’s just … flaky. I’m going to try it, okay? Just give it a week or so to see if it’s something I can do. I promise, if it’s too weird or things get crazy, I’ll quit.”

  Morgan just watched as Sheila stacked some blocks for Caleb to knock over. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe it was a good thing, after all. Sheila was going to take the job with or without her blessings.

  She only hoped her fears would be proven wrong.

  CHAPTER 8

  Marcus Gibson wasn’t answering the door. Sheila looked down at her watch. She was ten minutes early for her first day of work. She had left extra early since she had to walk and she wanted to make a good impression. Marcus Gibson’s car was there, so he had to be home. Maybe he was so quirky he wouldn’t answer before the prescribed time. She decided to wait until nine o’clock sharp, then knock again.

  The day was already growing warm and muggy, and the walk hadn’t helped. Still, it was a beautiful day. Over the last year, she’d grown to love the ocean and even found the muggy heat worth it.

  She heard the sound of a child’s laughter and walked to the side of the porch. From that vantage point she could see the beach behind the writer’s house. A young family—probably from one of the neighboring cottages—played there, the mother and father holding a toddler between them, dipping his feet into the foam as the waves rolled across the sand.

  A scene from long ago came back to her—her own mother, wobbling in the lapping waves as the breeze lifted her hair. Her mother was drunk, as she so frequently was, and her lecherous companion was three sheets to the wind as well. Still, Sheila, probably six or seven years old, had sat with her red bucket, shoveling sand into it and pretending she was part of one of the happy families playing in the surf.

  Did that little family at the water’s edge have any idea how rare and special they were?

  She reeled her thoughts back in, determined not to feel bad today—and went back to the front door. It was straight-up nine now. She knocked and rang the bell, waited …

  Still no answer.

  Had he forgotten he’d asked her to report this morning? Had he thought better of hiring her? Had the information he’d gathered on Google finally registered in his mind?

  What should she do? Maybe he’d gone out. If she just waited, maybe he would come home soon.

  She sat down in the white rocker on his porch and tried to think. If he didn’t show up, should she assume that the job was just a figment of her imagination? Would she have to tell Morgan she’d misunderstood? Would Sadie be disappointed in her all over again?

  Minutes ticked into half an hour, and the sun grew hotter. The clothes she’d dug out of Morgan’s donation closet felt sticky, and her hair clung to her neck. If he did finally come home and let her in, she wouldn’t look like someone ready for a full day’s work. She’d look like someone who needed a good bath.

  After forty-five minutes, she decided that waiting was useless. He’d forgotten about her or simply changed his mind. Or he was in the house flipping through books in some mad search for a piece of trivial information.

  She got up and started down the porch steps, when she saw a man trudging up the road toward her. Was that him?

  It was. She watched as he grew closer. He wore a pair of camouflage pants, a big wrinkled T-shirt plastered to his body with sweat, army boots, and a vest that hung open, its pockets full of stiff-looking items. On his back, he carried a huge knapsack.

  He made his way up the driveway and looked up at her, sweat dripping down his face. “Oh, yes. You’re here.”

  It wasn’t the greeting she’d imagined, but she swallowed hard. “Hello, Mr. Gibson. You told me to report for work at nine this morning, remember?”

  “Is that what I said?” He shrugged off the pack and left it lying on the porch, then slapped his pockets, probably searching for his keys. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

  “Is it a bad time? I could come back when it’s more convenient.”

  Finally, he pulled out some keys and opened the door. “It’s never convenient. But there’s work to be done. It has to be d
one.”

  He led her into the dark house, flipping on lights as he went, revealing unopened boxes in the front room, furniture that looked as if it had been carried in and set down anywhere. It was as if he hadn’t noticed that the couch was in the center of the floor, the coffee table against a wall, the grand piano rolled in and left just inside the door.

  He led her into the kitchen and went straight to the cabinet. He pulled out a box of Fruity Pebbles cereal and poured it into a bowl.

  He’d forgotten her again. “Would you like me to go on into the study? I could start filing, or …”

  He looked up at her, as though annoyed that she was still there. He patted his pockets again. This time she had no idea what he was searching for.

  He hesitated, unzipped a pocket, pulled out four microcassette tapes and a handheld tape recorder, and thrust them at her. “Type these. I numbered them. Should be five hours’ worth of dictation.” He counted the tapes in his hand. “Only four. Grief. I must have dropped the fifth one in the woods.”

  The woods? She took the tapes and the recorder. Glancing down, she said, “There’s one still in the recorder.”

  “Ah, yes. Five. I didn’t drop it.”

  “Were you … camping last night?” She knew she shouldn’t have asked, but curiosity was killing her.

  “Yes. Slept in the woods, no food, no water, just like Ryan Casings.”

  “Ryan Casings?”

  “My character. I had to feel what he felt … However, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking no character named Ryan would be roughing it in the woods, prowling around like a soldier in enemy territory, eating only what he could kill …”

  “I didn’t—”

  “And of course you’d be right, which is why I’m going to change his name today. So after you type it all up, do a find-and-replace and change his name to—”

  He froze, agony twisting his features as he racked his brain for the perfect name. She wanted to help. Rocky, Rambo …

  “Reed,” he bit out finally. “Name him Reed.”

  Reed? That was it? “Okay. Reed, it is.”

  “Yes, Reed.” He stood over the sink and dug the spoon into his cereal.

  She went into the study and cleared off the chair in front of his computer. Taking out the fifth tape, she loaded number one.

  His voice, deep and rumbling—and a little creepy—narrated the opening pages of his book. Sheila smiled as she typed. She felt part of something important, something big, as if her work contributed to a piece of art that would take shape until it was something huge, immortal—something millions would share in.

  After a while, she heard him leaving again and looked out the window. Still wearing his camouflage, he trudged through the sand toward the water, walking like a man on a mission. He walked straight into the waves, still fully dressed, until the water was over his shoulders. Waves beat against him as they slammed toward the beach. He swam into those waves, stroking, stroking, until she lost sight of him in the sun’s glare on the water.

  Weird. Did he even realize he was fully dressed? Would it occur to him when his boots began weighing him down?

  She went back to work, typing as fast as her fingers would move, hoping to get it all done before he came dripping back.

  CHAPTER 9

  The funeral visitation had been somber, as hundreds of kids came and went, paying their respects to their dead classmate. Sadie heard the others talking about meeting at the ballpark that night to commiserate. Though she hadn’t been invited, she knew it was a good place to get more for her article, so she armed herself with her camera and walked over as night fell.

  Cars lined the parking lot, and one baseball game was already going. A crowd of her classmates had gathered on the bleachers at one of the empty fields.

  The concession stand—where Emily had worked—was closed in honor of her memory, and several bouquets of flowers had been laid around the little building.

  Sadie looked toward the kids clustered in the stands. Crystal Aimes and Kelly Jackson, two of her nemeses who often ridiculed her in front of others for being a former dropout and the daughter of a convict, were there. Some of the football players and cheerleaders mingled with the class nerds and the group so proudly dubbed the “freaks.” They all hugged and cried together. Death had a way of bringing unlikely people together.

  Carrying her legal pad and pen, Sadie started toward them, her heart pounding in her chest.

  “Sadie.”

  She looked toward the voice. Courtney and April, whom she’d last seen in Emily’s yard, gestured for her to join them. She started toward them.

  “I’ll bet she knows,” someone said. “Sadie, do you know where Emily was shot?”

  Everyone turned to look at her.

  “Sadie, set all the rumors to rest and tell us what you know.”

  She felt like a celebrity of sorts, the gatherer of facts …

  As the kids gathered around her, Sadie pulled her notepad out of her back pocket. “The police haven’t released details of how she was killed yet. They had an autopsy scheduled for today. Did any of you see Emily Wednesday night?”

  “I did.” Cameron Ward looked as if he might burst into tears. “I had a soccer game that night, and Emily worked concession.”

  Sadie jotted that down. “Did you see her talking to anyone unusual?”

  “No, not that I can think of. I’ve racked my brain, but nothing. There were so many people here. It could be anybody.”

  “How did she leave?”

  “She was still here when I left. She usually was one of the last to leave the park.”

  The police probably already knew that. Chances were someone approached her after the crowd cleared out. “Emily seemed pretty straight. She was, wasn’t she?”

  “She was.” Emily’s best friend from school looked like she’d been crying all afternoon. “She mostly worked and went to church and hung around with her friends.”

  “Sadie, who found her?”

  That she could answer. “Remember Scott Crown, who graduated last year? He’s a cop now, and he found her.”

  “Scott Crown, a cop? No way!”

  Sadie nodded. “That’s right. He was on patrol and saw the boat in the water. The boat wound up belonging to the Craven family who lives upriver, on the Tybee side. They said it was stolen from their dock last night.”

  Even the girls who’d made themselves her enemies had lost their looks of disdain and hung on her words as if she were an authority.

  “Sadie, did anybody tell you about the memorial service tomorrow night after the funeral?” Courtney asked her. “Emily’s youth group at the Methodist Church is putting it on.”

  Were they telling her as a reporter or inviting her to participate? “No, I didn’t know.”

  “They want people to stand up and tell stories about Emily. They’re taping it so they can give a copy to her family.”

  Sadie swallowed. She didn’t have any stories that would comfort Emily’s brokenhearted parents. What would she say? Emily was nice. She treated me like I mattered.

  No, she couldn’t say that, but she wanted to be there anyway.

  She took down the information, then sat there with the kids as they talked about Emily in low voices—each person accounting for the last time they’d seen her, what she’d said, what she’d sold them at the concession stand.

  Finally, when Sadie couldn’t hold her emotions back any longer, she left the group and headed home. She didn’t choose to walk on the sand along the beach as she normally did. Even though it was still light, she walked along the road, afraid to be alone.

  Not wanting to go home just yet, Sadie walked to the scene of the crime and sat on the Cape Refuge side of the river, staring across to where Emily’s body was found. The police were still there. The Craven property—where the boat had been stolen—was taped off as officers searched for clues.

  The place where the boat was found was also blocked off, but several people were t
here with binoculars, watching the police activity across the water.

  A couple of boats drifted downstream, as other oglers strained to get a look.

  Sadie sat in the grass, leaning against a tree, her arms around her knees, praying for Emily’s parents, her closest friends, her siblings. What a terrible time they must be having.

  “You here for business or just killing time?”

  Sadie looked up to see Scott Crown. She’d known of him in school, since he’d been a senior just last year. He wasn’t in uniform, so he looked like he had in the hallways of CRH. “Hey. I didn’t see you coming.”

  “You were a little preoccupied.” He sat down on the grass next to her, leaning back on his hands. “Weird, huh? All this excitement over a girl we actually know. Whoever would have thought?”

  “Must really be weird for you, since you found her.”

  “Yeah, it was awful. Never expected to find a homicide victim my first week out of the gate. Especially not someone I knew.”

  “It must have really freaked you out.”

  “You have no idea. I was just patrolling around here and I saw that boat floating in the middle of the water. A turkey vulture was circling, which was strange. Vultures are normally afraid to strike at night since they can’t see to protect themselves. I knew whatever that bird saw in that boat had to be dead, and he wanted it bad enough to take a risk.”

  She must have winced, because he stopped himself. “I’m sorry. I forget that others don’t want to hear the gory details.”

  “No, I do. I work for the paper, you know. I need to know.”

  He grinned then. “You can quote anything I say, if you want.”

  She pulled her pad and pen out of her back jeans pocket and crossed her legs Indian style. “So you went to Tybee to pull the boat in?”

  “Yeah. I headed across the bridge to Tybee. The boat was just a few feet out from the Jacksons’ pier. I started trying to catch the rope with a pole and pull it in, but then I saw what was in the boat. I about died.”

  “Good police work.” She jotted it down. “I’ll bet you got a lot of pats on the back.”