Heartbroken (33 page)

But then it was four o’clock, and then it was five. One couple walked through quickly. He could tell by the woman’s shoes and bag that it was a curiosity sweep. They didn’t have the money to even
dream
about a house like this. As he stood at the bay window, a few cars cruised by, obviously attracted by the open-house signs. They slowed down, but no one stopped to come in.

Closer to six o’clock, Sean was sitting on the couch, looking out the picture window to the beautifully landscaped pool and hot tub. He didn’t bother to wait by the door.

“If you don’t need me,” said Jane at six-thirty, “I think I’ll go.”

Jane was younger than Sean by about ten years. She was usually bubbly, unflappable. But tonight she looked tired, too. She hadn’t yet ridden the highs and the lows of the market; she’d come in on the boom. The last year had been really hard. Sean was disappointed that the open house had been a flop. But Jane looked devastated.

“It’s just the first showing,” said Sean. He put on his pep-talk smile, but it felt as fake as it was. “Don’t be discouraged.”

“I’m not,” she said. She gave him a quick wave, forced her expression to brighten. “Oh, no. I’m fine.”

She was sweet, a nice girl with a husband and small kids. She was great with clients, but this was just her sideline. She was all about staying home and being a mom at the moment, which was nice. So few people seemed inclined to do that anymore.

“You’ll see,” she said. She gathered up her bag, her reusable coffee mug. “Next week it’ll be a mob scene.”

“Definitely,” he said.

She headed toward the door, then turned back to him. She had a wild head of copper curls, a face of freckles. Everyone loved her, both women and men. It was a good trait in a salesperson, to be able to connect with everyone. If you were too sexy or good-looking, same-sex clients hated you and opposite-sex clients hit on you. She was right in the middle, attractive enough but solid and real, reliable. She had a mom-next-door energy.

“You okay?” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m great. The house looks good, the price is right. We’ll get some action next week.” He got up to see her out.

“Have a good trip,” she said. “Try to disconnect. I’ll call right away if there are any bites.”

And then she was gone. He watched her climb into her late-model
BMW and drive off. Her husband made money, something to do with finance. She didn’t have to worry. He was glad about that, at least.

When he couldn’t see her car anymore, he let himself deflate. He was too experienced to be this disappointed by a bad open house. But he was. He cleaned up the deli platter, the cooler of water, and carried them to his car. He called the clients and told them that things had been a bit slow, no bites today, but the ads would all start running on Monday, and he was sure the week ahead promised good things. He wasn’t sure of that at all.

After the call was finished, that was when the fatigue set in. He’d let the girls go on alone to the island for nothing. He hadn’t felt good about it, but it might have been worth it for a killer first showing. Since things had gone badly, he felt like he’d wasted his time and let Kate down. He tried to call, but it went straight to voice mail, which meant that either her battery was dead or service was out. Kate would not be out of touch when she was separated from him and one of their kids. A tickling sense of unease started inside him.

But when he’d picked up Brendan, the kid looked like death warmed over. His ankle was more swollen and he was in more pain than when Sean had dropped him off.

“What’s up, buddy?” he’d said. “Did you take it easy today?”

“Yeah,” Brendan said. “It just hurts.”

Sean had known as they pulled out of his mother’s driveway that they should just get on the road. Brendan could rest in the car and take it easy on the island. But on two past occasions, Sean had fallen asleep at the wheel. Once, he drove onto the shoulder and came to a harmless stop. The next time, he’d nearly drifted into oncoming traffic, pulling out just in time. Kate and Chelsea had been in the car. He could still feel that rocket of adrenaline, the weak relief after disaster was avoided. He knew he couldn’t take a chance. And Brendan easily agreed to wait until morning, which meant his ankle
really hurt. If Kate had stayed, they’d be canceling the trip. But she was already up there.

At home, Sean gave Brendan some Tylenol and parked him in front of the television. He ordered Chinese food and tried to call Kate, then Chelsea, then the house. The calls to the girls went straight to voice mail. He got a perpetual busy signal at the house. It was normal for communications to be haywire on the island. It was like the place wanted to isolate you, to keep you for itself.

“Can we call Mom?” asked Brendan during dinner. They tried again. Still nothing. “I want to talk to Mom,” he said miserably.

Sean put a blanket over him, a fresh ice pack on his ankle, and sat beside his son. “I know, pal,” he said. “We’ll get her in a bit.”

The kids were attached to Kate in a way they couldn’t be to Sean. It was a mom thing. He didn’t take it personally—he had his own special bond with each of the children. But when comfort was needed, Mom was the only one who would do. Hell, even Sean wanted to talk to Kate and metabolize his feelings about the shitty open house. He wanted to hear her say, “Hang in there, babe. It’s a great house, and you’re the man to sell it.” Maybe it wasn’t fair that they all leaned so heavily on her, but that’s the way it was.

While watching
The Lord of the Rings
for the hundredth time, they both fell asleep on the couch. When Sean opened his eyes again, it was midnight. He managed to get Brendan up to his room and into bed. After that, he found an e-mail from Kate, telling him that service was intermittent and he shouldn’t be worried that he couldn’t reach them and she hadn’t called.

But Sean
, she wrote.
Leave first thing, if you’re not on your way already. This place … I don’t want to be here without you. Mom’s not feeling well and things are weird. I’m worried about Brendan. How’s his ankle? Why didn’t we just wait and come with you?

He wrote back:
I was too wrecked to drive tonight. I’m going to get some sleep and be on my way before the sun comes up. Hang in there. I love you and I’m with you
.

There was no response. He set his alarm to get four hours of sleep, but he just lay there staring at the ceiling, where a hairline crack was starting near the light fixture.
A crack on the ceiling had the habit of sometimes looking like a rabbit
. A line from a book he used to read to Chelsea. What was it?
Madeline
, of course.

He closed his eyes finally and fell asleep with the phone and laptop on the bed beside him. He began to dream fitfully. He was on the island with Kate. They were standing on the dock, looking up toward the house.

“I don’t want to come back here anymore,” she said.

“We don’t have to,” he answered.

Just as he said those words, he saw flames jutting up from the roof of the main house. He smelled smoke, hot and acrid in his nose.

“It’s on fire,” he said. He felt utterly calm.

“I did it,” Kate answered. She looked peaceful in a way she never had there. “I’m burning it to the ground.”

In his pocket, his phone was ringing and ringing. It was a strange, bubbling noise, like an electronic ripple underwater. “Aren’t you going to answer that?” said Kate. But Sean couldn’t find a phone in any of his pockets.

It went on and on until Sean woke up and saw that it was the Skype phone on his computer. The window on his screen said,
Chelsea’s laptop calling
. He dove for it and clicked on the accept button. He expected to see Kate, but it was Chelsea on the screen. She looked pale and tired; she was looking at something off camera. “Dad?” she said. “Daddy?”

“Hey, kiddo,” he said. He was so glad to see her, felt flooded with relief. “What’s going on over there? I’ve been trying to reach you guys all night.”

“Dad, listen,” she said. She moved in close to the camera, but she was looking at his image on the screen, not into the lens, so it had the effect of her looking down. There was something odd in her tone of voice.

“What is it?” He felt the first jangle of alarm.

“Dad,” she said. “There’s someone on the island. I saw them walking toward the main house. We’re in trouble.”

“What are you talking about, Chelsea?” he said. Was this some kind of joke? It didn’t seem real. “You’re freaking me out.”

“Something woke me up, and I was looking out the window,” she said. “I saw Mom go to the main house. Then a little while later, I saw two other people. I don’t know what to do. The phones aren’t working. But I got Skype to work with that rocket stick you gave me. Should I go after her?”

“No, no,” he said. He felt a blast of adrenaline; pure fear pulsed through his system. “Just stay on the line with me. Tell me what you heard. I’ll call the cops.” He was reaching frantically about for the phone. Where was it? It had fallen to the floor. “Daddy?” she said. “There’s a bad storm, but I don’t think what I heard just now was thunder. What should I do?”

“Listen—”

“Can you hear me?” He saw her pick up the computer and give it a little shake. “I can’t hear you.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Dad,” said Chelsea, “I’m scared. I think there’s something really wrong.”

In the next second, her image froze. The screen read,
Connection lost
.

chapter twenty-five

R
oger Murphy had always been a deep, heavy sleeper. Once upon a time, he used to lie down beside his wife, Lydia, at ten
P.M
. and wake up exactly eight hours later in the same position, on his back, arms over his head. But since his wife had died two years ago after a protracted battle with cancer, insomnia was his new roommate. He knew the night in a way he never had. With Lydia, he lived his life in the daylight hours, like everyone else. Without her, he roamed the house in the dead of night, sifting through their drift of photographs, old cards, and love letters, waiting for the first break of dawn. Grief was too shallow, too weak, a word for what he knew after Lydia’s death. He was halved, cored out. He was the walking dead.

He was so relieved for her when she finally passed. Her illness had taken over their lives, turned their home into a hospital, every shelf and surface a resting place for bottles of pills, books on dealing with cancer, holistic remedies, meditation CDs—later, the morphine ampoules he’d learned to inject, the final soldiers in the legion of pain-relief drugs.

When she released her last breath, he’d been so happy that she didn’t have to suffer anymore that he’d actually experienced a few hours of joy for her. It was as if she’d gone off on a wonderful journey, and he was so relieved for her that it hadn’t dawned on him yet that he’d been ruthlessly left behind. The next two days, he thought about joining her. But in the end, he was a coward, rooted to this death in life without her. She’d always been the brave one, the adventurer,
the daredevil. He was always on the ground watching her skydive, or ride the roller coaster, or climb the bridge.
You’re my rock
, she told him.
You’re the place where I am moored
. They had no children. It had just never happened, and neither of them spent much time trying to figure out why. He was glad for that, too, after she passed. There shouldn’t be anyone else left in her wake, floundering, wondering how life could possibly go on, angry that it did for everyone else with such ease. Lord knows he wouldn’t have been much use to anyone needing comfort from the loss of her.

Now he was just marking days. His pension was fully vested; he could retire anytime. He knew his superiors
wanted
him to retire, that he was widely regarded as so far past his prime as to be a liability. He was pushing sixty-five and dangerously out of shape. Still, no one in the department knew the town or the community the way he did. That could not be denied. He was mainly behind a desk, anyway. Besides, if he gave up the job, the only constant in his life now that Lydia was gone, what would he become?

The younger guys took the occasional calls for break-ins—recently an armed robbery, some domestic complaints. It was a small town with little crime, and the young guys were sitting on their hands until they transferred out to someplace with more action. But today he took the ride out to Heart Island because he hadn’t seen Birdie Heart in years. John Cross had made it clear that it wasn’t an emergency situation. Roger was fine on calls like that.

Insomnia had given him the gift of reading. He’d taken to buying books online, since there wasn’t a decent bookstore for miles. He had a great stack collecting around the big old recliner by the fireplace. Lydia had always begged him to get rid of that chair. It was a terrible eyesore, brown and morphed to the shape of his body from hours of unapologetic lazing and dozing. Lydia claimed that it gave off an odor, which he had never been able to detect.

Now that she was gone, he sat in the thing most nights, reading—Lee Child, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Stephen King, and
Elmore Leonard. He liked the old greats, such as Ross Macdonald, James Lee Burke, and Raymond Chandler. He liked his books dark and easy, written by men, full of guns and women. He didn’t mind Patricia Highsmith. Even though she was a woman, she wrote like a man. He wanted to go someplace when he picked up a book, anyplace but where he was.

He’d read almost all the Richard Cameron books. The author had spent his summers on the island now owned by John Cross. Roger remembered, as a kid, seeing Cameron and thinking he was a weird one. Cameron had come and gone without a word of thanks, never tipped Roger at the fuel dock.

There had been rumors that he and the Heart woman were lovers. Roger had never seen any evidence of that. He’d always tried to ignore local gossip. Of course, the rumor mill had gone wild when Richard Cameron’s body was found. Some people said that Jack and Lana Heart had visited their island in the beginning of winter on separate boats. Some suspected that their visit had something to do with Richard Cameron’s death.