“My dad used to give me two shots,” Clare says. “He didn’t like to waste bullets. Especially when the target’s already dead.”
A small smile creeps over Douglas’s face. “I like the sound of your dad. He was a good teacher.”
“When it comes to guns, yes.”
Next to her, Douglas steps into his booth and gears up. Clare studies his form: elbows too loose, grip on the gun too tight. He fires six shots in quick succession, his grip bouncing with each one. The target buckles and shakes. When it settles, Clare notes the exact pattern she’d have predicted, a scattering of holes around the target’s middle. You’ve only wounded him, Clare wants to say. Made him mad. Now what?
Douglas sets the gun down and examines his handiwork.
“Not exactly accurate,” he says. “But consistent?”
“Yes,” Clare says. “Definitely consistent.”
“How does that one feel?” Douglas points to the gun in her hand.
“Good. Light. Easy to handle.”
“You want to empty the rest of your chamber before we head back in? No need to scrimp on bullets. Your dad’s not here.”
Clare puts her safety equipment back in place and lines up again. As a young girl, she aimed her gun at inanimate objects, tin cans or overripe pumpkins, and thought nothing. But this time, as she squints to the target, she imagines a human in its place. Jason. Clare fires until the chamber is empty, then removes her muffs and glasses.
“You okay?” Douglas asks.
“Fine.”
“I’ll buy it,” Douglas says. “You can pay me back.”
Clare nods, grateful. They busy themselves collecting their gear and return to the store, where Danny waits at the counter. As Douglas completes the paperwork, Clare wanders through the racks of hunting vests until she is out of sight. She checks her messages to find one from Austin.
Can we meet?
Clare writes in response,
Where?
He writes with a smiling emoji,
Obviously not The Cabin Bar! My house?
Clare responds,
No.
Oh, come on. Charlotte and Kavita will be here. I’ll send u the address. We can clear the air.
Another smiling emoji. Clare doesn’t respond. Her cell phone clock reads 4:03 p.m. This day bleeds into yesterday, so little sleep in between. And yet, she cannot stop moving. She will ask Somers to meet her at her next stop. Clare wanders back to the counter just as Douglas has finished the transaction.
“Ready?” he asks her.
“Ready.”
With a nod Douglas takes Clare by the arm and leads her out of the store.
The retaining wall that separates Roland’s parking lot from the rocky beach is coated with mist from the ocean. Clare lays out her sweater and sits on it to wait for Somers. She tugs the elastic from her ponytail loose until her hair releases around her face. The wind catches it and whips it upward. Clare so rarely wears her hair down, unruly as it can be. But right now she’ll take any small change that might render her slightly less recognizable.
On the drive back from the sporting goods store, Clare sat in Douglas’s passenger seat and loaded the gun, using the box of ammunition he’d bought too. If he minded her performing such a precarious task in the confined space of his car, Douglas said nothing. He only pointed to the weapon as he pulled into the parking lot at Roland’s.
“That thing’s registered in my name,” he said.
“I know,” Clare responded.
He needn’t elaborate. Clare understands that whatever risks she takes with this gun will implicate him too. As she rose from his car to face the empty parking lot, the ocean beyond it, Clare couldn’t bring herself to say anything more. Now the gun is in her bag, and Clare watches the ocean from her perch, gnawing at her fingernails. The froth of the waves disconcerts her. In the farmland where Clare grew up, everything was demarcated, every swath of land and water marked by clear boundaries. The endlessness of this ocean horizon feels inconceivable to Clare.
Roland’s won’t open for another twenty minutes. Somers pulls up and parks. She emerges from the driver’s seat looking down at her phone, her thumbs typing a message. She looks up and waves. Clare stretches her sweater out to provide dry seating for Somers too. Somers sits and squints to look out to the waves.
“What a beautiful spot,” she says. “I haven’t seen the ocean since my honeymoon. How pathetic is that?”
“I’d never seen the ocean,” Clare says. “Until about six weeks ago.”
Somers smiles. “You win. Shall we?”
“Wait,” Clare says. “Before we go in. Do you need to tell me something?”
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
“What was the issue you had to deal with?” Clare asks. “Back at Bentley’s house?”
“Nothing, Clare. Really. We should get inside before the restaurant opens. We can talk about this later.”
“I thought I heard you say Jason’s name,” Clare says. “When you took that call at Douglas’s house. I thought I heard you say Jason.”
Somers is silent. She tracks a flock of gulls that flies over the crashing waves, diving and rising in chaotic unison.
“Is it about the calls?” Clare asks. “The ones you were getting?”
“Well,” Somers says. “I got a call from that contact of mine in a detachment not far from your hometown. I’d asked him to keep track of this Jason of yours. Once a day, twice. I did some real grunt work on a case for this guy a few years ago, before he relocated east. So he owed me.”
“And?” Clare says.
“He claims Jason hasn’t shown up to work in a few days.”
“Sometimes that happens.” Clare’s voice wavers. “He goes on a bender that outlasts the weekend by a few days. A week if it’s a bad one.”
“Right,” Somers says. “Sure. Yeah. But he doesn’t seem to be at home either.”
“So what?” Clare says. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because they can’t find him.”
“But it was a woman calling you, right?” Clare’s words are sharp, desperate.
“Yeah. Hey, I haven’t totally pieced this together.
