An Adrien English Mystery: The Dark Tide (18 page)

“If you're okay with it?”

“Hey, I'm at your disposal.”

And dispose of him I had, right? I pressed my lips closed on that as he continued. “The second break we caught is, Argyle recognized your photos, although how the hell he did is beyond me. Guy is clearly no relation to Ansel Adams. He says your Henry Harrison is a retired PI by the name of Harry Newman.”

“Oh wow.”

I heard the faint smile in his voice. “I figured you'd like that. You'll like this even better.

The reason Argyle remembers Newman is because Newman was hired to find Jay Stevens after he disappeared.”

“Hired by whom?”

“Hired by Stevens's girlfriend.”

An Adrien English Mystery: The Dark Tide

85

Chapter Nine

Jake was waiting for me when I got out of cardiac rehab the next day.

I thought seeing him leaning against the side of the Honda, long legs encased in faded denim, arms folded across the broad chest beneath the navy polo shirt, sunglasses reflecting my slightly disheveled approach, did my heart more good than all the previous hour of team effort.

“You're smiling. Good session?” he asked as I reached him.

It was unsettling how easy it would have been to walk into his arms. It was as though we were operating on the same brain wave; he shifted, as though prepared to draw me close, and I almost forgot and reached for him. I wasn't not sure why it was so hard to remember that all that was over now. I settled for giving his arm a friendly punch.

“It was, yeah. They're going to let me start swimming.”

Jake smiled one of those rare, warm smiles. “That's great.”

“Yep. I love swimming.”

“You do?”

I could see why he might be surprised, as I'd never gone swimming or done much of anything in the way of athletics during the ten months we'd gone out. “There's a pool at Lisa's old house. I'm going to swim there.”

I saw caution flash across his face, and I knew exactly what he was thinking, but he didn't say it, which I appreciated. “I'll have to bribe someone to go out there with me at first, of course.”

“I'll go with you.” He added offhandedly, “If you can't get anyone else.”

“Thanks,” I said quickly, awkwardly. I hadn't got that far along in my plans. I figured I could persuade Lauren to go with me a couple of times a week, or maybe Natalie in the evenings.

Assuming she ever spoke to me again.

Mel on the weekends? Somehow thinking about Mel with Jake standing right in front of me felt wrong.

He let me off the hook, saying, “You must be making pretty good progress if they're letting you swim this early.”

“It's been five weeks.” Well, that was pushing it a little. I'd be starting week five tomorrow.

Still. “Apparently I've turned the corner.” Funny how I hadn't felt the proof of that until this very moment, with him smiling at me in the bright July sunshine. It brought a smile to my face.

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” I was grinning like a goof as we got into the car, and I didn't think I stopped chattering for the next half hour. As happy and energized as I was, I gradually felt that familiar 86

Josh Lanyon

sleepiness steal over me. I thought I would close my eyes for a bit, and the next thing I knew there was a hand on my shoulder, a light, warm weight that worked itself into my dream.

I opened my eyes, blinked up at Jake. “Hi.”

His mouth twitched. “Hi.”

I lifted my head. We were in a mostly deserted parking lot. Beyond wind-tattered eucalyptus trees, I could see the hazy blue of the ocean. Overhead, gulls mewed. “Where are we?

We can't be in Santa Barbara already.”

“No. We're near Point Dume. I thought we might as well stop for lunch. I figured you'd want to stretch your legs.”

“Oh right.” He must have left the 101 at Las Virgenes Canyon. Not exactly on the way. In fact, about an hour out of the way. Not that I didn't prefer the coast road to inland freeway. I opened the car door and unfolded. The breeze off the sea was cool and salty. The scent of burgers mingled with the ocean and eucalyptus.

I walked to the edge of the parking lot and looked down. Sandy stairs led to a stretch of pale beach. A silvered pier sat crumbling in the green-blue water. A few yards away from the tumbling surf was a battered-looking restaurant. POINT DUME CAFÉ read a pitted sign.

Something about the outline of the building caught my attention.

“
Hey
.”

Jake's grin was crooked. “I thought you might enjoy a look at the original Tides.”

“Is it still open?”

“Looks like it.”

“This is the actual building?”

He nodded.

“Wow.”

We walked down the rickety steps to the pale sand. The gulls soared and dived against the blue sky. Far out on the water, sailboats skimmed along like seabirds.

“You want to walk on the pier?”

Jake shrugged, although he didn't look thrilled.

We walked out to the end of the pier. It was solid enough underfoot, but the railings looked pretty wobbly. I stood at the end, staring down at the green water, the seaweed floating atop like a golden net, sun spots flashing off the surface.

Something glimmered beneath the water. Something else, long and pale, glided silently past. A shark?

I leaned over, careful not to rest my weight on the railing.

Jake's hand fastened around my upper arm, and I looked back in surprise. His expression was unexpectedly stern.

“We ought to eat and get going.”

“Okay. Sure.”

He let go of me as I turned away from the railing. I smiled quizzically. But then it occurred to me that whatever this was, maybe it wasn't something to kid him about.

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We walked back to the shore, our feet pounding the wood planks. The sand was cushiony and slippery beneath our shoes. When we reached the café there was a sign in the window.

TO ALL OUR LOYAL CUSTOMERS:

THANK YOU FOR TEN YEARS OF YOUR BUSINESS AND FRIENDSHIP. IT IS

WITH GREAT REGRET THAT WE WILL BE CLOSING OUR DOORS ON JULY 19TH. WE

WISH YOU EVERY SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS.

EARL AND PETA

“Sad,” I said. “Ten years.”

“Things change.”

I threw him a quick look; his face was impassive behind the sunglasses. His cop face.

The door to the café was white now, but beneath the milky white was a blue shadow. We went inside, went up the short flight of steps to a big room remarkable for the enormous windows looking out over the ocean. There were a number of plastic chairs and tables though only one other couple was eating lunch—and complaining about the food, if I read their expressions correctly.

I recognized the old decor—what was left of it—from the photos I'd seen on the Web. The zigzagging wood inlays and wavy wrought-iron handrails were long gone, but the blue-and-gray-tiled mosaics of the sea still adorned the long walls, and the ceiling was covered in the remnants of grimy, dust-coated latticework meant to counterfeit fishing nets.

A skinny, leathered woman in shorts, halter top, and flip-flops took our order. I ordered grilled cheese and asked to substitute the fries for a piece of fruit. Her expression was priceless.

Jake ordered the fishwich.

I stared out the big picture windows at the boats dotting the blue water.

“Thanks,” I said to Jake.

He smiled back, that wry grimace. I thought of Guy's comment about Jake's humoring me.

I thought Guy probably had a point. But in certain ways Jake had been humoring me for as long as I'd known him. Maybe not when he'd suspected me of murder; certainly from our time at Pine Shadow Ranch. For such a hard ass, he had always been strangely indulgent with me.

Lunch arrived on paper plates. We dug in.

“How's the fishwich?” I inquired.

“Old. How's the grilled cheese?”

“It's hard to go wrong with grilled cheese.”

He nodded.

“But somehow they've managed.”

He laughed.

The play of sun on the water was almost hypnotic. It glowed softly against the old dance floor. I really had to get over my desire to sleep all the time. I glanced at Jake and caught him studying me.

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Josh Lanyon

I thought of something I'd been wanting to ask him. “You never said how your family reacted to your coming out.”

He leaned back in the plastic chair, which gave a protesting squeak. “You know those stories you hear about someone finally coming out to their family, only to hear that their folks knew it all the time?”

“Yes.”

“That's not how it was.”

“Oh.” I looked at the greasy remnants of my grilled cheese. “Lisa claims now she always knew, but I remember how it was. She was flabbergasted.”

“This was when you were in college?”

I nodded. “She did come to terms with it pretty fast. Within the course of a weekend, as I recall.”

“I think it's harder to accept coming from a forty-three-year-old married man. They think I'm having some kind of midlife crisis.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“My dad and Danny, my youngest brother, are having the hardest time with it.” He shrugged. “And Katie, of course.”

I swallowed hard. I didn't like thinking about Kate. I resented feeling guilty about her, because I'd seen Jake first—or at least about the same time she had—and, right or wrong, had convinced myself I had as much a right to him as she did. Of course that was all bullshit. He'd married her, made a commitment to her, and that had changed everything—should have, anyway.

“Do you think they'll come around?”

“I think they're disappointed and shocked and confused and angry.” His powerful shoulders moved beneath the navy polo. “I hope they'll come around.”

“They love you.”

“Yeah, well.” His eyes met mine levelly. “It's not always enough, is it?”

No. Unfortunately.

“Did she—Kate—know about me?”

“She does now. Before? No.” He gave me another of those clear-eyed, direct looks from beneath his brows. “That's the problem, isn't it? If I'd been able to tell people about you, about us…”

It was too late for this. Too late to keep wandering down memory lane, crashing into the same old dead-end barricades, wondering why we hadn't turned left or right or reversed when we still had a chance.

And yet I heard myself say coolly, “You told Paul Kane about me.”

He reddened. “Yes. Inadvertently. And I'm sorry for that, for putting you in his crosshairs.

Please believe that I never gave him your name or discussed you. He just knew enough to put the pieces together when I got drunk and maudlin one night. He was very good at filling in the blanks.”

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“Wasn't he, though?” I brooded briefly. If I were completely honest, there was a part of me still jealous of Paul Kane, still curious about their relationship, still—no matter how much I denied it—angry.

Jake pushed his plate away, wiped his hands on his paper napkin. “We should get going.”

I nodded and dropped my crumpled napkin on the paper plate.

* * * * *

The parking lot was fenced by tall boxwood hedge. On the other side of the hedge was a gloomy-looking hotel, also built in the Spanish style, but by depressed Spaniards.

Jake and I strolled up the front walk lined by yellow-edged agave succulents. Ahead of us, nurses pushed elderly, bent patients in wheelchairs.

“I hope this isn't going to be too much of a shock for the old guy,” I remarked.

“Death doesn't usually frighten the very elderly.”

I thought about how much cooler I'd been about the possibility of death when I'd figured it was inevitable. Not that it
wasn't
inevitable. As Christie wrote, “Death comes as the end.” For all of us.

We were greeted in the breezy main reception area by a crisp young man in Brooks Brothers trousers and shirt who introduced himself as Mr. Vaughn. “Welcome. Mr. Hale is looking forward to your visit. We were surprised to hear he was having company. He doesn't have many visitors.” He smiled. “You're not family?”

We denied being family.

“Well, he's quite a character. You'll see.”

That sounded promising.

“How is he today?” Jake asked.

Vaughn looked thoughtful. “Today is one of his good days. He's very frail, though. You'll have to keep your visit short.”

I asked, “What's wrong with him?”

“His heart mostly. He has emphysema as well. Most people have multiple issues at his age.”

I thought of that dapper young man with the constant cig in his smiling mouth.

Mr. Vaughn summoned a young woman in a pastel jumpsuit, who led us down a rabbit warren of tiled and antiseptic hallways to a small room overlooking the garden. There was a hospital bed, but there was also a nice little patio on the other side of a sliding-glass door. Yellow bougainvillea cascaded like a golden waterfall over a low stucco wall. A green hummingbird was dive-bombing its reflection in the glass door.

The nurse or attendant asked us to ring for her when we were done visiting, and she departed.

“And who might you be?” inquired the stooped figure in the wheelchair, turning away from the kamikaze hummingbird.

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Josh Lanyon

The years had not been kind to Dan Hale. You could still see the ghost of the fierce young man in the gnarled ruins of the old. Unlike Nick Argyle, who was probably around the same age but still hale and hearty, Hale looked every one of his years. In fact, he looked uncannily like the skeleton in the floor of Cloak and Dagger: prominent bones, sunken eyes, sparse hair.