The dentals were a match.
No surprise.
It was almost ten when I finally got home. After I showered, Harry and I ate Thai from the corner restaurant, then I excused myself. She understood and did not press.
Again, my brain resisted sleep. When I finally drifted off, it was into a landscape of disjointed dreams. Anne Girardin. Evangeline. The skeleton from Sheldrake Island, Hippo’s girl. Pawleys Island. Ryan.
Then I was awake. I checked the clock. Two-forty. I closed my eyes. Checked again. Three-ten. Three- fifty.
At four, I gave up. Throwing back the covers, I went to the kitchen and brewed a cup of jasmine tea. Then I booted my laptop and began researching Sheldrake Island.
Dawn lit the shade when I finally sat back. Stunned. Appalled. Certain of two things.
Sheldrake Island was, indeed, Ile-aux-Becs-Scies. Hippo’s girl had suffered a hideous death.
26
I SUSPECT LACK OF SLEEP MUDDLED MY THINKING.
Or maybe it was Pete’s early morning call about grounds. And filing papers. And young Summer’s inability to find a caterer.
Or maybe Hippo’s shocker.
In looking back, there’s always the mental cringe. The suspicion that I could have done better.
After speaking with Pete, I woke Harry and explained what I’d learned on the Net. Then I apologized for abandoning her again.
I need to be certain, I said.
We could be back to square one, she said.
Yes, I agreed.
Harry went shopping. I went to the lab.
It took only an hour with the skeleton. The diagnosis seemed so obvious now. How could I have been so dense about the lesions?
It’s the horror of other places, other times, I told myself. Not twentieth-century North America.
True. Nevertheless, a sorry defense.
When I’d finished with the bones, I logged onto my computer, wanting to arm myself fully for the upcoming conversation with Hippo. I was closing the Web browser when a
Contacting a government office on a weekend is like phoning the Pope on Easter morning. Curious who’d e- mailed on a Saturday, I clicked over to my in-box.
I didn’t recognize the sender: [email protected].
When I opened the message, icy-hot barbs shot through my chest.
Temperance:
Death. Fate. Mutilation.
A photo had been inserted below the text.
Thursday night. Harry and I, backlit by the bulbs at Milos’s entrance.
I stared at the photo, breath stuck in my throat. It wasn’t only the shock of seeing myself. Or the idea that I’d been watched by a stranger. Something was off. Wrong.
Then it registered.
Harry’s head was on my body, mine on hers.
My gaze drifted to the italicized line in the message. Poetry? Lyrics?
I did another browser search using the words “death,” “fate,” and “mutilation.” Every link pointed me the same way.
Death was a heavy metal band formed in 1983, disbanded in 1999. Its founder, Chuck Schuldiner, was considered the father of the death metal genre. The group’s
When I brought up the lyrics, my pulse jackhammered. The line from the e-mail was there. And the refrain. Over and over.
Jesus Christ! Where was Harry?
I tried her cell. She didn’t answer. I left a message. Call me.
