think?”
“Why don’t you use it for the Cup season?” Kate said.
“You don’t like it?”
“I’m not an RV person.”
That was it. He understood and wasn’t offended and never mentioned it again.
Kate slowed to twenty behind an eighteen-wheeler and a pickup towing dirt bikes. Why was Luke going back up, risking everything? She wouldn’t let herself think about it before. Now she couldn’t think about anything else. According to Dr. Fabick, he’d been severely depressed since the accident. She knew that, but didn’t know how bad he was until the arrest. What did Fabick say? Luke was reliving the trauma over and over. But there had to be more to it. Why would he disobey her and take the car with all the trouble he was in? It seemed desperate. What was he planning to do? Was he going to kill himself? Now that was the only thing that made sense and Kate was frantic. She pictured Luke with her Smith amp; Wesson Airweight, putting the barrel against his head and she pressed down on the accelerator, gunned it around the semi, and then took chances, passing two and three vehicles at a time, forcing an oncoming pickup truck to slow down and let her in, horns honking at her questionable moves.
She made good time through Suttons Bay, passed the casino in Peshawbestown, the Leelanau Sands, going eighty up the western shore of Grand Traverse Bay, the water turquoise where it was shallow and turning dark blue where it got deep-nineteen miles to Northport and then ten minutes more to Cathead Bay.
Bill Wink’s white patrol car was parked next to Owen’s Corvette on the gravel drive outside the lodge. She let out a breath, relieved. She went in and heard explosions and lasers, watching them for a minute: Bill and Luke, with PlayStation controllers in their hands, faces animated, Bill looking like an overgrown kid in his brown uniform. He glanced at Kate, put the controller on the coffee table in front of him, grabbed his hat and stood up. He found the crease; fit the hat on his head.
“Luke, I’ve got to run,” he said. “We’ll finish it another time.”
Bill Wink moved toward Kate now and when he got close, she said, “I’ll walk you out.”
They were on the gravel drive when he said, “Luke seems fine to me. He was playing Halo when I got here. It’s a video game.”
“That much I know,” Kate said. “I really appreciate you coming out, keeping an eye on him for me.”
“Anything else you need,” Bill said, “give me a call, I’m serious.” He grinned and took his hat off and got in the car, closed the door and put his window down.
Kate didn’t know him that well and wondered if he was coming on to her.
“I have an idea,” Bill said. “Think Luke would want to go out on patrol with me, see a real cop in action?”
It sounded like he was kidding but his tone was serious-a real cop in action. “I’m sure he’d like that, Bill.”
He grinned. “Take her easy.”
She watched him roll down the driveway, tires crunching on the gravel. The trees had their leaves and the sky was still bright at five o’clock, staying light longer as the season changed, heading toward summer, but it sure was cold. She felt a breeze blowing in from the lake and pulled her coat closed. Leon barked and chased a squirrel across the yard into the woods.
Luke was in the kitchen when she went back inside. He took a Coke out of the refrigerator and faced her. They stared at each other, Kate hoping he’d give her something-some reasonable explanation at the very least.
Kate said, “You promised me you weren’t going to do anything else.”
“I had to come back,” Luke said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He pulled the tab on the can and took a drink.
Kate said, “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said.
“You came back up here, but you don’t know why?”
Luke looked down at the floor.
“You’re not supposed to drive,” Kate said. “You’re not supposed to leave town.”
“I don’t care.”
Kate decided not to say anything else. She was glad he was all right.
Luke said, “Why’d you call the sheriff? What’d you think I was going to do?”
“Nothing would surprise me the way things have been going.” She was angry and wanted him to know it.
Luke’s face tightened and he turned and walked out of the kitchen. She heard the back door close and moved through the lodge to the big picture window. She could see him heading down toward the lake. She went outside, walked to the end of the yard, stood on the bluff and watched him-regretting what she’d said-Luke on the beach skipping stones across the flat dark surface of Lake Michigan.
She couldn’t believe how much their lives had changed in the past seven months. She was worried about Luke, but maybe this was a blessing in disguise. It was just the two of them now. She could spend time with him and try to help him.
DeJuan parked on the side of the highway, left Scarface on the gravel shoulder and walked-had to be a mile- through the woods. It was cold, too, freezing in his Fubu jersey and Sean John denims. Didn’t have the right clothes on ’cause he didn’t know he was going up north on vacation. His moms said his great-grandfather was Masai, lived in northern Tanzania in Africa. DeJuan looked it up. Masai were the dudes carry spears and herd cattle. Wore bright red cloaks. Young warrior called a moran had to go out, kill a lion with a spear. That’s why DeJuan was freezing his ass off-’ cause it don’t get cold in northern Tanzania.
He could see the cabin through the trees now. Saw Mrs. McCall talking to a sheriff ’s deputy in a brown uniform. It look like she knew him. They friends. DeJuan watched him get in the car and disappear down the driveway. Mrs. McCall went inside. But the dog was running around. Went in the woods and came up behind him, started barking. “Yo, pooch, be cool. Don’t want no starving, skinny-ass black motherfucker.”
He saw the kid come out of the cabin now, scan the front yard.
“Leon… want a treat?”
Dog left DeJuan there, took off running.
DeJuan was so hungry he’d eat a dog biscuit right now. He moved through the woods to the side of the cabin. Could see Mrs. McCall and the kid-looked like they in the kitchen-having a heated conversation. He saw the kid walk out the room, then come out the back of the cabin. DeJuan followed him down to the water, look like the ocean, deep blue out to the horizon. Could see cottages way off-look like miles-in the distance on the other side of a long deserted stretch of beach. Nothing the other way, either.
At first DeJuan thought he going to have to call it off. But now he was thinking, wait a minute-this out-in- the-middle-of-nowhere location going to work out better.
Bill Wink was trying to think of a way to ask Kate out without being too obvious. Invite her to do something. Not make it sound like a date. Maybe include Luke, too. But, what?
He came to Woolsey Lake, took a right, passed a gold car parked on the side of the road. He didn’t see anyone in it. He did a U-turn and drove up next to it-a 1980-something Chevy Malibu with a custom paint job and chrome alloys. He figured whoever was driving it ran out of gas or had car trouble. Lighthouse Point, the national park, was a mile or so down the road, and he guessed that’s where it was heading. Person probably hitchhiked back to the Mobile station in Northport.
He backed up and stopped and punched the license number in his computer. The vehicle was registered to a DeJuan Green, who lived on Fourth Street in Royal Oak. He didn’t check any further. His shift was over. He’d change, go into town and have a couple beers.
FIFTEEN
