I guess I’ll take what I canget.
I feel a cool gust of wind andthen look up at the changing sky. Dark clouds snuck in without menoticing. I hear a dog barking from shore then, a womanscreaming.
I see a woman with blonde hairleaning over something on the beach, her dog lunging forward andthen jumping backwards. Annie doesn’t look, she just keepswriting.
“I wonder what’s going on overthere?”
“Who knows,” says Annie.
“Maybe we should check it out.That woman sounds pretty freaked out.” I raise my voice and callout to shore. “Is everything okay over there?”
“No,” the woman calls back,sounding panicked. “There’s something here. Please help.”
I quickly reel in my line thenaccelerate towards the frantic woman. As we get closer, I can seemore clearly. The woman is looking at something lying in thesand.
“Annie, look. What is that onthe beach?”
“I don’t know, Jade. Maybe thewoman is just crazy and wants attention.”
Her words are indifferent.
I pull as close as I can toshore and I can clearly make out the blonde woman’s face. She looksdistressed as she covers her mouth and stares at the lump in frontof her. “It’s a body. A dead body. I don’t have my cell, can youplease call for help?”
I hear what she says, but mymind can’t believe it. I quickly tip the engine forward beforejumping into knee-deep water, pulling the boat as I walk. When Ihear sand scrape the bottom of the hull and I’ve pulled it as farup the beach as I can, I hand the rope to Annie and run to wherethe woman and her barking dog are standing.
In front of her lies whatappears to be a male with black hair and no shirt. His back ishigher off the ground than the rest of him—he’s lying on something.A backpack, maybe. His face is buried in the wet sand, and he’swearing green Bermuda shorts. Seaweed wraps around his legs. Iwatch as crabs and sea worms crawl over his bloated, discoloredbody. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell the woman. “I didn’t bring mycell, but if you want to go and get help, I’ll stay here.”
The woman nods then quicklypulls her yapping dog up the beach toward the road.
I can’t believe that I’mstanding only inches away from a dead guy. An eerie shiver runsthrough the inside of my bones. Did he get drunk and fall in thewater? I picture his mother with the same dark hair, sitting at herkitchen table, stunned after receiving the news that her son wasjust found dead, half-naked in a cove. Nobody deserves to die thisway.
My attention is diverted when Ihear the crunching of rocks as Annie walks toward me. Carefully, Iwatch her expression. This is the last thing she needs to try toprocess. “Annie, maybe you should stay by the boat, honey. This ispretty grim.”
She doesn’t hear me. She justkeeps walking toward the corpse. Before I know it, she’s standingover the man, her feet almost touching his side. I gently grab herarm, “Annie, step away. We’ve got to wait for the police to showup.” She yanks her arm forward and out of my grasp.
What she does next completelytakes me off-guard. With one movement, she bends down, grabs ontothe man’s shoulder and flips him over.
The horror sucks my breath outand makes my body freeze. A puffy blue face with cloudy eyes staresup at the sky. His mouth is open and there’s sand and seaweedcoming out of it. Something moving on his cheek catches my eye.There’s some sort of worm or lice crawling out of a hole in hisflesh.
I grab Annie’s arm again andpull her to her feet. “We shouldn’t be messing with him. The copswith be here and they’ll want to check for evidence.”
She still hasn’t taken her eyesoff him.
“Annie, go back to the boat andI’ll stay here and wait. You shouldn’t be here after everythingyou’ve gone through.”
“I don’t mind. It’s notbothering me at all. It’s kind of a gift.”
“Have you lost it? How can yousay that?”
“Because he deserved this.”
“How the hell do you know that,Annie.” I was getting angry—angry and frightened. “I know you’refeeling bitter, but not all men are evil.”
“This one was.”
“How can you know?”
“Because it’s Robbie.”
“What?” I look down at the bodyin disbelief. I can’t recognise anything in the face. It barelylooks human. “Are you sure?”
Without a word, she slides ashoe under the swollen hand and flips it over.
I feel like I’m being suckedinto the eye of a tornado. My head starts to spin, and my visionnarrows as I focus on the back of the filthy hand and its startattoo.
I feel a sudden and veryunexpected flood of relief. It is quickly followed by a smallerwave of guilt. Then, as my vision clears, a slowly buildinguneasiness twists my gut.
In what feels like slow motion,I turn to look at Annie, who is now grinning as she standsstraight, almost proud, like a hunter with her kill.
She couldn’t. He drugged her,raped her and then fled. If she wasn’t in any shape to run fromhim, she sure couldn’t have achieved the physical act of killinghim.
But how, then? How did he die? Ican’t see anything tied around his neck and as far as I can tell,he doesn’t have bullet wounds or stab marks. Maybe he just fell inthe water when he was drunk. The more I think about it, the morethat seems the likeliest possibility.
Thunder cracks overhead. Angryclouds engulf the morning sun, as a dark veil casts over the shore.I take Annie by the hand and lead her to a log that’s been setunder a large tree.
“It’s better we wait here untilthe cops arrive,” I say. “It’s going to rain and I don’t want yougetting wet.” I put my arm around her and press her into me. Thistime, she doesn’t pull away. I want to ask her more about Robbieand how he could’ve ended up this way, but by the look on her face,even if she does know something, she’s not in the mood to tell me.The elation is gone, replaced by a clenched jaw and widenedeyes.
After about twenty minutes wehear sirens in the distance, getting louder.
Annie grabs my hand, and I
