The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

'Above our heads, the rooms stand shut, the furniture covered. Jade. Ivory. All those beautiful old things, screens and carvings, the framed scrolls. Alone with the dust.' She contemplated the fireplace. 'Forgive me if I try my memoirs out on you. Truly, it's just as well I can't get upstairs now. All those years, I never grew accustomed to sleeping in that big bed alone...though I'd had ample experience of it even while he lived.'

'He was at sea that often?' Her friend didn't answer, only listened to the crackle of the fire, and finally, Kit spoke softly. 'Sometimes, just at dawn, it's like I wake up in a different life or something. For just a second, anything seems possible. Then I remember who I am.'

'Katherine...'

'You're always telling me what a romantic I am. But you're the one. The way you go on about my old boyfriend. If you could have met him, you'd know how silly that is. He'd have bored you into a coma in five minutes flat.'

'I can't recall whether I've asked you this before, my dear, but was this young man also a police officer?'

'Hell, no. Sorry. All day long, I hung out with rookies and hoods who spent all their free time pressing weights. All of them on the make all the time. All of them convinced they were God's gift. Maybe the contrast had something to do with it. I mean, he did nothing all day but work on his philosophy dissertation. Or pretend to. And he hated himself, so of course he had nothing but contempt for anyone who loved him, which is where it gets funny, because I'm pretty sure I never did really. Not really. Besides, you can't make somebody happy against their will.'

'I'm glad you see that at least.'

'It's just his killing himself that makes it seem like such a big deal.' Resolutely, she kept her back turned.

'And who am I to lecture you on love, dear?' Her laugh sounded like fluttering cloth. 'I'm the original widow on the beach, waiting for her dead husband. After a lifetime spent studying our local folktales, I've turned into one.'

'You still have the best view of the lighthouse from here.' Shadows drifted like rent silk across the dunes. 'Waiting for her dead husband.' At last, Kit let the curtains fall. 'Do you say things like that just to give me goose bumps?'

Brooding, he slid down lower in the front seat, and the shoulders of his coat bunched around his ears. For hours, he'd cruised, searching, parking on one dead street after another, waiting, watching. Pointless. He switched on the radio, spattering through choppy static to a news broadcast. Never find him again.

Something darted beyond his windshield.

For just an instant, he froze. Then his trembling hand shifted the car into drive.

From the end of the block, someone approached, hurrying along the sidewalk. The face remained a pale blur, getting closer, like a corpse drifting toward the surface. Wait. Now he saw the slim figure clearly, and his chest tightened. Slouching behind the dashboard, he eased up on the brake. Don't spook him. Peering back over his shoulder, the boy never seemed to glance toward the car. Did he limp slightly? Just keep coming, kid.

The Volkswagen rolled forward. Don't even look this way. Gunning the engine, he jerked the wheel, and the car lurched up onto the sidewalk.

The boy spun away.

Rear tires lodged, skidding along the curb, and a cloud of exhaust flooded the street. The Volks bucked forward.

The boy dodged, circling across the street behind the car. As the car surged backward, he ducked behind the trunk of a maple tree.

The man leapt from the still-rolling car. 'Damn!' Behind the tree, an alleyway sliced between houses, he now saw. Arms outstretched to feel the walls on either side of him, the man plunged in. No sound drifted back to him. He might have been chasing a cat. The passage twisted once and abruptly emptied onto a back street.

No! Naked trees twitched around a single street lamp, their shadows struggling on the ground. You won't get away again! As he raced for the end of the block, wind swept away the noise of his footsteps.

Around the corner, he glimpsed a dim form, already disappearing halfway down the next block. He began to run.

He is limping! How close could he get before the boy heard him? He kept to a patch of hardened mud along the curb, muffling his footfalls. I've got him this time!

His shoes struck a particle of glass that rattled invisibly across the sidewalk, and the boy twisted with a bleating cry. The man lunged.

The boy's thin body tensed like a whip, changing direction in quick jerks. Darting for the street, he leapt a low fence.

The man labored after him. Taunted by the boy's back, he cleared the picket fence. For a moment, their footfalls matched, beating across the asphalt in rapid tandem. The boy angled into a garden, then swerved toward a row of rooming houses across the street, porches stacked to the sky.

Can't let him reach it! He saw it clearly in the dim cast of the street lamp--a wedge of emptiness between the buildings.

Too late, he dove into the mouth of the alleyway seconds behind the boy. But he could hear him this time, just ahead, and he pounded after him. Crumbling walls leaned into the center of the rutted passage, and desiccated grapevines twisted along the tops of wooden fences that reeked of mold and rot. Just ahead, the footfalls ceased abruptly, and he heard a grunt of despair.

Glinting in the faint moonlight, an expanse of new chain link connected the weathered fences of the yards on either side, completely blocking the alley. The boy reeled blindly, crashing back into the fence. He hung on it, shaking.

'Okay now.' His own voice sounded so calm it astonished him. 'Don't be afraid.'

The boy's back pressed against the fence. Feral despair lit his face, and the fence made a chittering sound.

'Take it easy.' Chest heaving, he stepped closer, his shoulders brushing the rough wood on either side. 'I won't hurt you.' He held his hands open in front of him. 'Just want to talk to you.'

Damp breath warmed the back of his neck.

For an instant, terror flared, turning his guts to molten slag; then blood exploded behind his ear. As he slumped, agony burst through him, and the high-pitched screams of a child filled the alley. Even with his face pressing the ground, he could feel the furious shaking of the fence.

Frigid darkness oozed into his body. Something leapt over him, some dull and bloated form that rattled the chain link as it climbed after the boy with ungainly speed.

His thoughts slurred into a dwindling hum as night closed around him, and the side of his face iced against the fading ground. Failed...failed them all...

Finally, only one thought stirred his fading consciousness.

Who killed me?

XII

'Lie still.'

Warmth trickled agonizingly into his legs. A hammer blow of pain stopped his rising.

'Whoa, boy.'

The voice sounded farther away this time, and he heard something clatter.

'Don't move till I get this ice pack on you.'

He felt fingertips probe the muscles at the base of his skull. There seemed to be a snarl of barbed wire beneath his flesh, and a spasm lanced through his skull. Features hovering before him refused to focus. 'Who...?' The fog dissipated slightly. 'How did I...?' An aching misery washed over him, and his senses returned, slowly, as