Envy the Night

No. It wasn’t an accident. Couldn’t be. Grady wanted to believe that it was, but he knew better. Frank’s presence on that lake wasn’t a fluke. That was why it was so important for Atkins to intercede now.

“Look,” Grady said, “I’m not going to waste my time or yours discussing what I think about that kid. I’m telling you that—”

“I cannot believe you called him. You son of a bitch, you called a suspect and warned him—”

“He knows where Vaughn is and he knows Devin is coming for him!” Grady shouted. “Would you shut up long enough to understand that, Atkins? You want to bitch and moan about me, do it Monday. Shit, call Quantico, call Washington, call anybody you want. Right now that doesn’t mean a damn thing. What matters is that you’ve got a dangerous son of a bitch headed your way to settle up with his wife and this other guy, and Frank Temple knows that.”

“How does he know that?”

“Because I told him. And I’d tell him again today, and if you want to get me fired over that, knock yourself out. But you’ve got something up there waiting to explode, and you need to deal with it.”

“Temple is at his cabin?” Atkins said, his voice still angry, but lower.

“Yeah. It’s out on some lake—”

“I know where it is.”

“Okay.” Grady hesitated, then said, “If he’s not there, he might be with a man named Ezra Ballard. You need to get him away from Ballard.”

“Who is he?”

“He was in special forces with Frank’s father. They were tight.”

“Special forces with Frank’s father,” Atkins echoed. “You’re kidding me, right? Morgan, this is unbelievable. I needed to know all of this yesterday!”

“You know it now,” Grady said.

“I will you tell you this, Morgan: If you call that kid again today I’ll see that charges are brought, do you understand?”

“I won’t call him, if you get your ass moving and get out there. And I’m headed that way, Atkins. I’ll leave now, but I don’t know how long the drive is.”

“Keep your car in the garage, asshole. I don’t want you within a hundred miles of this.”

“I’m coming up.”

“Yeah? Well, if I see you, I’m putting you in handcuffs.”

Atkins hung up. Grady stood with the phone in his hand for a minute, then set it on the counter, poured his coffee into the sink, and picked up his car keys.

Frank had coffee going by the time Nora woke up. Her hair was fuzzed out an extra six inches from static, and when she looked at him it was with one open eye, the other squinted almost shut.

“What time is it?”

“Ten past seven.”

“Have you heard from Ezra?”

“I expect he’s on his way.” Ezra’s boat had been missing when the sun rose. Frank had even used binoculars to search for it, but found no trace.

“Then we’ll go to the island,” she said.

“Yes.” Frank took the coffeepot and poured a cup, then brought it to Nora. Seeing her this way, bleary-eyed and sleepy, made him want to lean down and kiss her forehead, but he didn’t. He wasn’t sure how she’d react to him this morning, with the alcohol and that brief moment of romance in a tense, fear-filled night now pushed aside by sleep and daylight.

He returned to the kitchen and poured his own coffee, waited for her to express a new concern, wonder aloud whether they should call the cops. She didn’t say anything, though. Just drank the coffee and smoothed her hair with her palm, then rose and went into the bathroom, reemerging five minutes later looking more awake, fresher.

“Did you sleep?” she said.

“No.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“No,” he said, and this was the truth. Anticipation of Devin’s arrival provided more fuel than sleep would have. He was ready for him, but Nora was a problem. He and Ezra had discussed that before Ezra slipped back into his boat and out into the lake.

Frank would not deceive her. Couldn’t do that. But he knew, and had tried to explain to Ezra, that she was not going to be kept off that island. He remembered the steel in her voice when she’d said, If anyone here deserves answers, it’s not you guys. It’s me. She was right. He wished she weren’t a part of it, but she was, and he needed to decide what to tell her, how to explain what he was going to do. That would have to come after they heard what the pair on the island had to say.

He left in her in the cabin and walked out into the day, found the air to be uncommonly still, the gray water like dirty glass. He stood with his coffee in hand and turned in a full circle, took in the lake and the trees and the sky.

Which direction would Devin come from? Would he drive right up to the dam, launch a boat and head out to the island, or would there be more to it than that? He knew they were on the island. Surely his advance team of gunslingers had reported that back to Miami, and while Tomahawk might have been a mysterious destination for them, it would not be to Devin. By now the island was anything but a hiding spot to the two who waited on it. Frank saw the game plan clearer this morning, understood that Jerry Dolson’s murder had been merely routine maintenance, the removal of one of those loose ends he’d been worried about from the start. Either by then or soon after, the pursuit had effectively ended. The men from Miami knew about the island, had to know by now, and yet they had not moved on it. That meant one thing: They were waiting on Devin.

“He’ll be here today,” Frank said. He’d spoken in a soft voice, but it still rang out loud. There was no trace of wind to whip the words away.

Ezra arrived by boat, and when he saw that Nora still intended to go to the island with them, he didn’t object. She watched his eyes go back and forth between Frank and her and wondered what he was thinking. Had he seen them outside the night before, as Frank predicted? Probably. There was something about Ezra that gave you the feeling he’d been watching you for a long time.

“All right,” he said as she and Frank walked down to the boat. “We’re going out there to hear the story. Their side of it, at least. That’s all we’re doing right now. Whatever happens next will depend on what we hear.”

He was staring at Frank while he said it, but Frank wasn’t paying attention. He was looking up in the direction of the road; his gaze seemed unfocused.

“Okay,” Nora told Ezra, because it seemed as if he deserved some sort of response, and then he offered a hand and guided her as she stepped onto the boat. There was a mammoth outboard on the back, a motor of disproportionate size to the actual craft, and Ezra positioned her on the rear seat with her back to it. Frank took the seat in front of her, and Ezra settled in without a word and turned the key and the larger motor came to life with the throaty, muscular sound that reminded Nora of the better cars they’d had in the shop, those with expensive, fine-turned engines.

“Okay,” Ezra said, spinning the wheel and pointing them out into the lake. “Let’s go see what the hell we’re looking at.”

He shoved the throttle forward and the motor behind her roared with delight and then the front end of the boat rose several feet out of the water and if Ezra said anything else Nora could not hear it.

Frank sat staring straight ahead, his clothes rippling as they tore across the lake. Behind the wheel, Ezra was impassive, his face shaded by a baseball cap with a Ranger Boats logo and his eyes hidden by Oakley sunglasses. They both wore light jackets that Nora knew concealed guns. As she sat there clutching the boat seat under her butt and squinting against the force of the wind, she felt a surge of doubt. They were essentially strangers, Frank and Ezra, and she’d put an awful lot of trust in them with this trip to the island. No one, no