“Yep. Met him at the house where the dude was hiding.” He shrugged. “We exchange hellos and then we go into the house, grab the dude, and lucky us, we find a big-ass duffel bag of money, too.”
“Lucky.”
“So we do our thing with the guy and I grab the bag of cash to take back to my employer.” He shook his head, his eyes somewhere on the horizon. “Then old Wesley grabs it from me, says that
“Wizard?” I asked.
“I guess,” Carter said. “I didn’t know it at the time, but that makes sense now. So he wants the money, says he’s taking it with him.” His mouth slithered into a grin. “And I said no.”
Carter raised the bottle to his lips and drained it, then set the bottle down on the table.
“I drilled him in the ribs and put him on his ass and he dropped the bag,” he said, still smiling. “I know I broke a couple of them because I felt those fuckers crack. Then I bend over to pick up the bag and he catches me flush in the jaw with his foot.”
“Oops.”
He rubbed his jaw. “I had to get two teeth put back in. Anyway, we heard sirens, figured the
“Of course.”
“Hadn’t seen or heard from the guy until today.”
I shook my head. Carter lived in a comic-book world that the rest of us thought couldn’t possibly be real. He enjoyed proving otherwise.
“Great story, but none of it helps me,” I said.
“You asked, and I didn’t say it would.”
The more I worked over what we’d learned, the more I thought Moreno had made a simple mistake. He knew a guy who could supply him with guns. But he hadn’t checked him out. If he had known that Linc was tied to National Nation, he probably would’ve flat-out tried to kill him.
Carter sat up in the chair. “Dollar drafts down at the Pennant tonight. Wanna go over?”
“Dollar drafts?” I said, a tiny bell going off in my brain. “That would mean today’s Saturday.”
“Uh, yeah. All day, I think.”
The pounding in my head turned into an ugly jackhammer.
I stood up. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I watched the sun fight with the horizon, trying to squeeze out a few more minutes of daylight before it disappeared for another night. I stared at it for a moment, watching the water swallow the last few rays, silently pleading with the water to take me as well.
“Because,” I finally said, wishing hard that it were already Sunday, “I’m having dinner with Carolina Braddock.”
Thirty
Carter left without saying much, knowing that my anxiety level was skyrocketing by the second.
I changed into a pair of shorts and a collared Quiksilver pullover and headed out. I walked up Mission to the small Italian restaurant I’d told Carolina about on my message. I’d been standing out front for about fifteen minutes, wondering if she’d gotten my message, when she came strolling up the sidewalk.
She wore a yellow-and-white-striped cotton sundress, her hair falling on her bare shoulders. A simple gold watch on one wrist and a matching bracelet on the other. White leather sandals glowed against her tan feet.
“You found it,” I said.
“I did.” She hesitated for a moment. “I was surprised at your message. I thought we were going to have dinner at your home.”
“Nah,” I said, putting a hand on her arm and guiding her toward the door of the restaurant. “This’ll be better.”
I avoided her look. I knew she was thinking I was keeping her out of my life. But I didn’t feel like explaining that we might be in danger at my place.
“Whatever you say,” she said.
The hostess took us to a table on the restaurant’s patio that faced the boardwalk.
As Carolina walked by me to her chair, I reflexively sniffed the air for alcohol, but came up empty.
“You live so close to the water,” she said. “What a wonderful view you must have.”
“Yeah, it’s not bad.”
“You always did love the beach.”
“Yep.”
The waitress arrived at our table. “Can I get you all something to drink?”
“Water’s fine,” Carolina said without looking at me.
“Me, too.”
The waitress disappeared.
“You’ve lived down here a long time, haven’t you?”
“Since college.”
She nodded, as if she knew that already. She turned to me. “I should’ve come down to see you.”
I shrugged, not wanting to get angry.
“I should be familiar with my son’s home,” she said.
The waitress came back with our water and we ordered our food.
After she’d been gone for a few minutes, Carolina said, “I’m sorry.”
I sipped the water. “Don’t be.”
A faint smile appeared on her lips. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Thank you for inviting me here, Noah,” she clarified, her thin eyebrows rising just slightly. “For inviting me to your home. Or at least, to where you live.”
I looked across the table at her. As far as I could tell, she arrived sober and she was making an effort. I was straddling the line somewhere between indifferent and asshole, and that probably wasn’t fair.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
When our food came, we ate quietly, the clinks of the silverware on the plates interspersed with the soft falling of the waves out beyond the boardwalk. The silence brought back memories of quiet evening meals when I was growing up, as Carolina more often than not was suffering through a hangover after an alcohol-drenched day. I managed to quell the anger and bitterness that threatened to spill out of my mouth, trying to simply enjoy the moment for what it was.
After we finished, she ordered coffee and we sat there in the still evening air.
“How is your job?” she asked, her voice sounding foreign after the long period of silence.
“It’s good,” I answered. “I like my boss.”
“Who’s that?”
“Me.”
She smiled. “Of course.” Her smile faded to concern. “You wouldn’t tell me about the bruises on your face the other day.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Do you get hurt often?”
“I try not to,” I said. “But sometimes it happens.”
Her hazel eyes focused intently on me, as if she were trying to figure out where a puzzle piece was meant to fit. “You were always tough. Even as a boy.”
