Envy the Night

away.”

“He makes a good point,” Ezra said, the blood flowing down his cheek. “Perhaps it would be best to save the gunplay for those gents of whom he speaks.”

The blond woman, Renee, was staring Ezra in the eye, their faces separated only by the length of her arm and the gun.

“What I’m saying is, the way things are developing, y’all are going to need your bullets,” Ezra said. “Hate to see you waste one on me.”

“Maybe if I took out my gun and set it down,” Frank said, his voice loud, and he made the slightest motion with his arm. It was enough, as he’d hoped it would be. She looked at him instead of squeezing the trigger as she’d promised, and when she did Ezra snapped his head sideways and his arm moved with the speed of a whip, laced up and then down and then Renee’s hand was in his own and her gun was pointed at the ground. Frank had the Smith & Wesson out by the time that was done.

“Damn, son,” Ezra said. “You think you’d have gotten that out fast enough if she didn’t look your way?”

“Felt pretty sure she would.”

“Me, too, but I was a little less excited about testing the theory. Always the man with the gun in his eye who’s the bigger fan of patience, though.”

He said all this with the casual delivery of a man in a barber’s chair, working the gun out of Renee’s fingers as he talked.

“Now, we got lots of guns around, everybody noticed that? Way too many guns. I’m thinking it’d be nice to put ’em all away, every one, and then just do some talking. Hell, this porch is nice enough. Let’s have us a seat out here, enjoy the day.”

He stepped back when he had possession of her gun, put it into his waistband, and motioned at the porch. She hadn’t moved throughout all of this, seemingly hadn’t blinked, just stood there and held his eyes with a stare so cold it seemed like it could pass through Ezra and carry out to the lake, put a skim of ice on the water.

“I could have killed you, and I didn’t,” she said. “Now let’s see if that was a mistake.”

She turned from him, walked to an old wooden bench beside the door, and sat down. Vaughn sat beside her and reached for her arm, but she shrugged away from his touch and slid to the other end of the bench.

“All right,” she said. “Talk.”

“I think that’s your job,” Nora said. The sound of her voice surprised Frank; hell, it seemed to surprise everyone. She’d been so still and quiet it was as if they’d forgotten her presence. When they all turned to look at her, she met the stares with a shrug.

“What? We didn’t come out here to tell them who we are. We’re not the ones responsible for getting good, innocent people killed. I want to hear their story, not mine.” She jabbed a finger at Renee and Vaughn.

Renee looked at Nora for a long time, as if she were intrigued. Frank tried to guess her age, and couldn’t. She had the body of a young woman, but her face carried some lines and her eyes were those of someone older. Or were they just tired?

“Where are the police?” she said. “You found us, so why not tell them to come out here and ask the questions?”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Nora answered, “but I listened to it.”

Renee nodded as if that made sense, then turned to Ezra. “You’re really the caretaker? You’re how these two found us?”

“Yes.”

“Then your name is Ezra.”

“Uh-huh.”

She nodded. “I’ve heard about you.”

“From Devin,” Ezra said, and Frank felt an unpleasant tingle at the sound of the name. “Where is he?”

“Dead,” she answered.

Frank and Ezra had agreed the previous night that they wouldn’t share any information at first, just hear the story as these two were prepared to tell it. Now, after hearing Renee proclaim her husband dead, Ezra merely nodded in Frank’s direction.

“You don’t know young Frank, I take it?”

Renee turned her cool gaze to Frank and searched his face. He was standing about five feet from her. She shook her head.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know who he is.” Talking as if she and Ezra were the only people on the porch.

“Last name of Temple,” Frank said. “That help you any?”

Vaughn looked from one to the other with confusion on his face, but Renee got it.

“Your father,” she said. “Devin and your father—”

“Killed people together.”

“The way I heard it, that wasn’t a joint project.”

“Then you heard it wrong,” he said. “And allow me to be the first to congratulate you on Devin’s demise. You’re better off with him gone. Everybody is.”

She came up off the bench in a smooth, fast motion and slapped him in the face. The sound of the blow made Vaughn step toward them, hands out, but he didn’t touch anyone. Nora made a soft sound of surprise, and Ezra just stood there and watched. Frank took the slap and looked down at Renee with his cheek stinging, didn’t say a word.

“Now that we got the greetings out of the way,” Ezra said, “maybe we ought to talk about the people who are still alive, sort out things with the dead at another time. Seems that you two have led a pair of unfriendly types into the area. Some innocent people suffered as a result. I think it’s time to hear what it’s all about.”

The woman stood where she was for a long time, staring at Frank, challenging him to say another harsh word about her husband. He had none. His mind was too occupied by what that slap meant, by the way she’d risen so fast to defend Devin. It was not the action of a woman who’d wanted him dead. The idea he’d had, then, that they would come out to this island and meet with the two people who’d put bullets into Devin’s back, no longer seemed to be the case. The reality had just spun away from the expectation, driven by the palm of her hand against his face. He looked at her and felt the tingle on his cheek, the heat of the blow fading into cold needles, and with it the truth he’d wanted.

“I’ll tell you what it’s all about,” Vaughn said as Renee finally turned and stalked back toward the bench, “it’s about these two innocent people”—he waved his hand between Renee and himself —“suffering for Devin’s mistakes.”

“Explain,” Ezra said.

“You know about Devin, you know what he does.”

“Right,” Ezra said, “but what do you do?”

Vaughn leaned forward on the bench, ducked his head so his eyes were hidden.

“I work—worked—at a prison in Florida. I’d been at it for about twelve years when I met Devin. Or when he approached me, would be a better way of saying it. I’d done the job right until then, too. I had.”

“Because nobody had ever offered him any money before then,” Renee said, and the scorn in her voice seemed to drop Vaughn’s head even lower.

“What did he pay you for?” Ezra said. “Smuggling to people on the inside?”

“Right idea,” Vaughn said, “wrong direction.”

“You were taking something out of the prison?”

“Instructions,” Frank said. This made sense already, had since Grady’s call the night before. “He was a postman, Ezra. A messenger. For Manuel DeCaster.”

An image of a newspaper photograph was trapped in Frank’s mind, a picture of DeCaster as he was led out of the courthouse on the eve of a guilty verdict. The man’s sallow, jailhouse skin was contorted into a sneer of contempt. He looked nothing like a man whose world had crumbled, and more like an emperor amused by the weak efforts of peasants hoping to overthrow him. And why not? With men like Devin Matteson to handle business on the