Those green eyes of his were wide with surprise, and complimented the red hair growing thick on his head and face.
“You going for the lumberjack look?”
“Oh, I, I –”
“Well said,” I replied. “Move over. Please.”
He picked up the flat of flowers, and set it on the ground as I took a much needed load off. He smiled at me, but I was in no mood for it.
“Ramona, hi. How are you feel–”
“Spare the small talk. What are you doing?”
Maddox looked toward the crosses, then back at me. “Paying my respects.”
“What the fuck for?”
His brows knitted. His brows, which I noted, were no longer victims to a dye job. “Should you be talking like that? Here?”
I narrowed my eyes.
He scratched behind his ear. “That's what you do at a cemetery.”
“Why are you dressed like that?” I pointed to the rugged look he was obviously going for, which, if I was honest, looked damn nice on him.
Maddox pulled at the lapel of the jacket. Sheepskin lined. “I guess I don't need business suits anymore,” he replied.
“So I gather. Which leads me to my next question.”
“Which is?”
“Where the hell have you been? Finding yourself?”
“You could say that,” he said, and leaned back on the bench. “I've missed you.”
I opened my mouth to say something, then shut it.
He continued. “I don't know if I should say 'I'm sorry' or not. You know, for disappearing. I figured you'd just rather I drop off the planet, anyway.”
“You could say that,” I replied, unsure if I meant it or not. At this point in time, at this place in time, I was leaning toward the latter. I sucked in a huge draw of air, then expelled it. “Don't take this the wrong way, Maddox, but...” Another draw, another expulsion. “Thanks. For, y'know, covering the expenses.” I held out the cane then pulled it back toward me.
“You're welcome. Is everything going okay? The doctors, rehab, everything?”
“They're little slices of heaven, every day,” I said, and tapped the flat of flowers with my foot. “And, thanks for those. Most people bring bouquets.”
“They're from my mom. Josh has the same kind.” A sad grin crossed his lips.
He clasped his fingers together and leaned his elbows on his knees. Faint marks where the cuffs had nearly strangled his wrists off were still there. White, ghostly bracelets.
“I thought your mom didn't speak to you.”
“Neither did my dad,” he said, and took a look over his shoulder at that beat up old Chevy. “A lot's changed in a little while.”
“I can see that.”
“So, are you having me arrested or what?”
I laughed. Couldn't help it. The overall randomness of the question caught me off guard.
“Funny you should ask,” I said, and pointed to my sister's cross. “That's actually the reason I'm here. I wanted to talk to her about it. Since you're here, however…” I adjusted myself on the bench, putting my hands under my legs, and looked him straight in the eye. “What about you?”
“What about me what?”
“Pretty sure you've got my breaking and entering thing on tape. The pointing a gun at your face deal. Shit like that. Why haven't the agents shown up at my door? Y'know, flashing their badges and asking if they could speak to me for a minute.”
“What I believe you're referring to could be labeled Exhibit A. If I hadn't torched them in my fire pit. Of course, you have a lot of trust issues, so whether or not you believe me is anyone's guess.”
The ocean wind blew across the purple blossoms of the newly planted Angelonia. They bowed and dipped with the breeze.
Maddox continued. “You should see my fire pit.”
“That sounds suspiciously like a proposition.”
“That's where the tapes are. Or, were. No, they still are. Just… melty.”
I kept my eyes on Becca's cross, and Leslie's tiny one, just beside it. “I don't know, Maddy. This whole thing is fucked up.”
“Is that entirely bad? I mean, sure, we started out on a weird foot, and I am not the kind of person that believes everything happens for a reason. Not at fucking all. But...” He reached into his jacket pocket, and took out his phone. Drew his finger up the screen, scrolling, then held it out to me. “Look familiar?”
Yes, it was very familiar. It was our island. The white sand beaches, the bowing palm trees, even the alcove where I'd kept the funky lumberjack on my right prisoner for a while.
“It has a name, actually,” he said, and reached over to scroll up to another picture. It was a perfectly innocent gesture, his arm across me for a moment. The delightful scent of his aftershave blended extraordinarily well with the aromas of surrounding bouquets. “Santa Diabla. Which I thought was pretty great. So I bought it.”
I cocked my head to the side. “You bought it. You just, bought an island.”
“Not just any island. Our island.” He smiled slightly.
“Oh, for the love of shit. Are you fucking with me?”
“What's wrong?”
“How rich white guy bastard can you get? You bought an island? Jesus Christ, Petersen. Just when I thought you had some potential to be a real guy, a real dude, you flash a picture of your own private chunk of the Caribbean in my face and blow any potential respect I may have had for you straight out of the water. Shit head.”
He pointed to the picture I hadn't bothered looking at yet. “Slow your roll, Maria. It's not for me. It's not even for you.”
Maddox tapped the screen, and brought up an article from the American Journal of Medicine. According to the headline, philanthropists J&J Petersen were funding the construction and development of a new nonprofit dedicated to addiction recovery and suicide prevention. Completely self-sustainable, and with no adverse environmental impacts, Cliffside Passages would cater to those in the low-to-no income brackets affected by substance abuse.
There was more. A lot more. But I couldn't read it right now.
“Whose...” I cleared my throat. “Who're the Js?”
“Johnathan
