He comes up for air, one eyebrow raised.
I point to the long, reclining lounge chair. “There, actually.”
I see him scanning the grass below, and I grab his head and pull him down to me again.
“Stop thinking so much. It’s three in the morning. Just us and the moon.”
It doesn’t take much selling. I end up on top, with the moon and the North Star behind me. The ocean talks in its low rumble, and Tommy gazes up at me with a look less of hunger than of passion. Toward the end, I lean down and whisper the three words that used to be so hard to tell any man besides Matt. I see his answer in his eyes, and we fall asleep together on the balcony, draped in the bathrobe.
I wake up in bed, languid and refreshed. I have a dim memory of Tommy carrying me inside sometime in the latening of the night. It’s early now; the sun is rising. For whatever reason, we’ve been waking up before 6:00 A.M. every morning since we arrived in Hawaii. I’m not complaining. Our balcony faces west, so we get to see the sunsets more directly; thus, they are more spectacular. But watching the first light from the sun hitting the water is nothing to sneeze at.
I throw on the trusty bathrobe and walk out onto the balcony. Tommy’s already brewed a pot of coffee and has it sitting on the balcony table. He’s wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else, and I stir a little at the sight of him. Tommy is all man, about six feet one, with the trademark Latin dark hair and dark eyes. His gaze is somehow both open and guarded, the result of being an honest man who’s killed people. His face is somewhere between rugged and pretty, with a small scar at his left temple.
“You look delicious,” I tell him.
“Thanks. Coffee?”
Tommy’s laconic. It’s not that he’s uncommunicative. He just feels that if you can say it with less words, so much the better. “Yes, please.”
He pours me a cup as I sit down on a chair and pull my knees up to my chin. I take the cup when he offers it to me, sip, roll my eyes in appreciation.
“Jesus. They still won’t tell you where we can get this stuff?”
“Nope. All they’ll say is that it’s the house blend.”
“Maybe we can take some back with us, get it analyzed by the lab.”
He smiles at me, and we fall into a comfortable silence. I watch the ocean, and time passes without the need to mark it. Clocks seem almost ugly here.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks me.
I glance at him, realize he’s been watching me. “Truth?”
“Of course.”
“I was thinking about Matt and Alexa.”
“Tell me.”
He reaches a hand across the table, touches one of mine, then retreats back to his coffee cup with it. It’s a short gesture, him showing me that he doesn’t mind.
I squint at him over the top of my cup. “This really doesn’t bother you?”
A single dismissive shake of his head. “I’ll never be that guy, Smoky. The guy who gets jealous because you loved the family you had before.”
The words bring a lump to my throat. No tears—I’m pretty much past that, these days. “Thanks.”
“So? What were you thinking?”
I sip my coffee and look out across the ocean. Sigh. “I was thinking that Matt and I talked about getting out to Hawaii one day, but we never did. We’d even considered having our honeymoon in Maui, but …” I shrug. “We were young, just getting off the ground.”
“And Alexa?”
I smile faintly. “She loved the ocean. This would have ‘boogled her mind,’ as she used to say.”
He’s silent, thinking over what I said. “So remember them,” he finally replies. “That’s kind of like bringing them here, isn’t it?”
The lump again. I reach for his hand and he gives it to me. “Yeah. Kind of.”
We watch the ocean, ignore the clock.
I shake my head. “We’re pretty sappy these days, aren’t we?”
He brings my hand to his lips, which are warm from the coffee he’s been drinking. “We’re due.”
He brings up the question again after breakfast, the one and only thing that’s threatened the bliss of our stay while we’ve been here.
“You given more thought to telling them?” he asks.
“Nothing’s changed, Tommy,” I say. “I know you don’t like it, but it’s going to have to be our secret for now. You need to respect me on this. It’s a secret I’ve trusted you with, and I’m trusting you to keep it that way.”
His eyes cloud over at my words. I feel irritated and afraid at the same time. I’m still suspicious of our happiness, fearful it’s going to fly away. I look deep into his eyes and try to find the truth there. Whoever said the eyes are the windows of the soul was never a cop, that’s for sure. Cops know better. Until the masks come off, killers have eyes like the rest of us.
“I don’t understand,” he says.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He looks away, and I can feel his own irritation rolling off him. Then he sighs.
“Fine,” he says. “As long as you promise me it won’t always be the case.”
“I promise.”
It seems to satisfy. The tension dissipates, and the lopsided smile, the one that gives me the good-shivers, appears. He cocks his head at me and my heart skips a beat. God, he’s sexy.
“So, how about it?” he asks.
I roll my eyes. “Jeez, Tommy. It’d be nice to see something besides the ceiling while I’m here.”
“How about the inside of the shower?”
“Been there, done that.” Which was true. Twice.
He shrugs, as if to say,
I giggle. “Fine, Mr. Horndog, but I want to go into Kona this afternoon to do some shopping.”
He holds one hand up, places the other on his heart. “Promise.”
We’re heading for the bed when I hear the chirp from my cell phone that tells me I’ve received a text message.
“No way,” Tommy groans.
“Hold your horses,” I tell him. “I’ll be right there.”
I pick up the phone and open the message. What I see makes me smile, at first.
It’s raining here, and you’re there in paradise. I should hate you, but all is forgiven as long as you’re engaging in endless rounds of monkey sex.
The smile fades as I read the rest.
On the serious side, we just caught up with the big bad man who was stuffing all those dead children into Porta Potties. He was neither big nor bad, no surprise. His name is Timothy Jakes—Tim Tim to his friends. (So he says. I doubt he has any friends. He’s far too creepy.) He blubbered like a baby and wet himself when the cuffs went on. I found that quite satisfying.
Enjoy the sun, honey-love. Be hussified and raise a toast to Tim Tim, who’ll surely be introduced to new and exciting things by Bubba or whoever it is that comprises the prison-rape welcome committee these days.
I close my eyes once, as a feeling of relief rolls through me. The case was open when I left, and it had come with us like an extra piece of luggage with a corpse inside. As beautiful as this place is, all those dead children stood on the far periphery, watching me as I gawked at the stars and communed with the moon. I sense them now, turning away, marching into a faded sea.
“What is it?” Tommy asks from the bed behind me. He’s sensed something.
I flip the phone closed, take a deep breath, and make sure my smile is just a little bit lascivious as I turn around and let my bathrobe fall to the floor.
