Jack said, “Know where the Red Lion is?”
And Kate said, “That’s on the other side of Suttons Bay, isn’t it? You can stay here, if you want.”
She took him up to the guest room and he put his arms around her and tried to kiss her again. She pushed him away. “Come on.”
“I can’t help myself,” Jack said.
“Luke’s right across the hall. That’s all he’d need-open his door and see his mother making out with somebody.”
Kate went to her room and locked the door, thinking that, in his current state of mind, Jack might sneak down and try to visit her in the middle of the night. What made it more difficult-she wanted him too-knew she was interested in him again. Maybe this time it would work. It was the third time their paths had crossed in twenty- some years, and wasn’t the third time a charm?
When he finished his breakfast, she walked him outside and they stood looking at each other. “You all right?” she said.
“Fine. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “You seem like you’re somewhere else.”
“Maybe I’m tired,” Jack said.
“I can understand-all your effort trying to get me in bed. That can tire a guy out.”
“Now, you know what you do to me and always have,” Jack said. “I can’t control myself around you.”
Kate said, “I guess it’s my fault, huh?”
He flashed his famous grin.
Kate said, “Where’re you going?”
Jack said, “Back to Tucson.”
“You sure?”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Jack said. “But you never know.”
With him you sure didn’t. She put her arms around him and kissed him.
“Be careful,” he said, “I’m in a weak physical state.”
“You’ll be all right,” Kate said. “Call me, will you? Let me know what you’re doing.”
Jack stopped at the market in Omena to get something for lunch. He was paying for a sandwich and a Coke when a deputy sheriff came in and looked around. He saw Jack and stepped over to the counter. He had his hands on his hips, showing off his arms, staring at Jack, sizing him up. He wore the brim of his hat low over his eyes. Jack assuming this was his intimidation pose.
The cop said, “That your Lexus out front?”
Jack said, “Yeah.”
In that stupid uniform, he reminded Jack of the two Tucson cops who’d arrested him at a picnic table outside Guero’s Taco Bar. He was taking a bite of a soft chicken taco when he saw two nine-millimeter Glocks aimed at his face.
Jack saying at the time, “You mind if I eat this? I’m starving.”
They must’ve,’ cause they put him flat on the patio stones and cuffed his hands behind his back. He hadn’t eaten in twelve hours. He thought about that taco for three and a half years, and it was the first place he went when he was paroled.
Jack met the deputy’s gaze and said, “What can I do for you?” Jack thinking he was going to say, “You’re under arrest for driving a stolen vehicle.”
“You’re a friend of Mrs. McCall’s, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Jack said.
“You staying there?”
Jack couldn’t figure out where he was going with this. “I was.”
“Where you headed now?”
“Is there a point to all this,” Jack said, “or you just making conversation?” He resented this yokel getting in his face.
The deputy stiffened up. “You’ve got a broken taillight,” he said. “That enough of a point for you?”
Jack regretted what he said. Had always had trouble keeping his mouth shut in certain situations.
“Have your license and registration with you? I’m going to have to issue you a citation.”
He took a pen out of his shirt pocket and opened his ticket book.
Jack said, “I got tagged last night in a restaurant parking lot in Suttons Bay. Dealership isn’t open till Monday. Think you could cut me a little slack?”
“I’ll give you forty-eight hours,” the deputy said. “After that, I’m going to give you a ticket. We understand each other?”
Jack just stared at him.
“I didn’t hear you,” the deputy said with a grin.
“Yeah,” Jack said. But, no, Jack was thinking, we don’t. He didn’t get why the deputy was being such a hard-ass. It didn’t make any sense. But in his experience, it didn’t have to-cops could fuck with you anytime they wanted.
Kate had to give Luke time to cool down, come to his senses. At eleven o’clock when he still wasn’t back, she drove into town. Stopped at Tom’s and bought cold cuts and Italian bread for lunch and a whole chicken for dinner. She’d fill the cavity with onions and lemons and thyme and roast it in the oven.
She expected to see Luke playing a video game on the big TV when she walked in the door. But it was quiet. She called his name. Nothing. Leon was stretched out on one of the leather chairs, eyes following her into the kitchen. He heard her putting groceries away and came in wagging his tail.
Kate squatted and held Leon’s face in her hands and said, “Where’s Luke? Have you seen him?”
Leon stared at her with sad eyes and an expression that said, I don’t have a clue.
Kate went upstairs and checked Luke’s room. No sign of him. She went back down and checked the garage. The Corvette was there. She opened the door to the storage room and saw Owen’s bloodstained jacket hanging on a hook, and the memory of his death came flooding back, her adrenaline pumping now as she put a leash on Leon and went into the woods looking for Luke. They followed a trail for a while till it disappeared, Leon going crazy, sniffing and pulling her. They went up a slope to a ridgetop and down the other side. Kate yelling, “Luke,” her voice sounding strange in the dense silence of the woods.
By four it was getting dark, difficult to see under the canopy, and she realized there was no way she was going to find him. She took Leon back to the lodge and fed him. Then she sat in a leather chair and warmed her hands by the fire, wondering what to do. She got up once and called Luke’s cell phone and got his voice message. She looked at her watch-it was 4:45. He’d been gone for almost eight hours.
There was one more place she hadn’t looked. She grabbed a flashlight from a kitchen drawer and walked out to the shed behind the lodge, opened the door, and went in. It smelled like aged wood. There was a worktable with tools on it and more tools hanging from a pegboard on the wall. It was a place where Luke liked to spend time. She hoped she’d see him sitting there, tired, ready to come in for dinner. But he wasn’t there. He wasn’t on the beach either, where Kate stood, facing directly into the wind. The sky overcast, lake water dark and heavy, wind turning up whitecaps that rolled in, pounding the shore. It was cold and the air was clean, smelling of pine trees.
Bill Wink had given her his cell number and she tried it now and got his voice mail and left a message.
Luke knew the woods, she told herself-knew how to survive. Owen had made sure of that. Even if he was hurt he could make a fire and be okay till morning. Still, she felt guilty. Should’ve done something earlier and now there was nothing she could do.
Kate stoked the fire and thought about being pregnant with Luke. He was ten days late when her water broke, and then labor-eighteen hours of contractions before he popped out and the pain was gone, and then complete elation, Owen by her side to help, but it was all Kate and Luke.
She thought about chasing him after his bath when he was four or five, running through the upstairs of their first house, saying, “I’m going to get your fanny,” and Luke laughing and saying, “No, Mommy.”
She thought about telling him the facts of life when he was eleven. He was going to have a sex education class at school the next day and she wanted to prepare him. They were in his bedroom. He was at his desk doing
