The Wanderer. Робин Карр

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      “Cee Jay, how’m I supposed to work and take care of the kids?”

      He remembered the sound of a horn honking. She zipped her bag. “I don’t know, but you’ll figure it out. Call your aunt—she always hated me anyway.”

      He had grabbed her by the shoulders and shaken her. It was the harshest hand he’d ever laid to a woman. “Are you crazy? What is this? Is that some guy picking you up?”

      When he stopped shaking her, she said, “There’s no guy! That’s a cab! You want me to call the cops? Let go of me!”

      Of course there was a guy. It took him all of three weeks to figure it out—some pro golfer. At first, the mystery was how she had found the time to have enough of a relationship with him to talk him into taking her away. But he caught on—girlfriends. Young mothers like Cee Jay, running around, swapping kids, stealing time for themselves. Once Mac learned his name and began following his movements through the news, the second mystery followed: why she didn’t come home to her family once the relationship was over, which took only a month or so.

      He fantasized how he wouldn’t make her beg much, just enough to be sure she had had a change of heart and was ready to commit, ready to promise never to do it again. No one could ever know the depth of humiliation at not being able to hang on to the mother of your children. At the time he had lived in Coquille, and it took roughly forty-eight hours for everyone who’d ever heard of him to be talking about how Cee Jay McCain left her young husband and three small children to run off with a golf pro. He spent the next five years nurturing a fantasy that she’d eventually come to her senses and be back, if only to see her children. Then it finally dawned on him to be afraid of that very scenario—that once he’d figured out how to manage, she’d stalk back in and stake some kind of claim. So he got himself a divorce. He had to locate her to do that—she turned up in Los Angeles. They didn’t communicate. She signed the papers, relinquished custody and he let go except for a couple of tiny threads. He hated her for what she’d done to their children. And he was terrified of ever getting involved with a woman again.

      It was with the divorce that they moved to the outskirts of Thunder Point, about thirty minutes east to Coquille, the sheriff’s office. Even if Mac had to go back to the central office, he could commute. It was here, in a down economy, that he managed to find a larger home, one big enough for his family—three kids, Aunt Lou and two Labs.

      Since Mac had lost his parents young and had lived with Lou during junior high and high school, you’d think she’d be as terrified as he was that Eve would slip and fall into some horny football player’s lap and end up with the mess of a life her mother had. They had never talked about it; it had never been voiced. But they both knew what was eating Mac. He wanted Eve to be twenty-seven, settled and safe. Real. Fast.

      And just then his daughter dashed through the kitchen, wearing her barely there cheerleading uniform. Short, pleated skirt, V-neck sweater, letter jacket, long, beautiful legs, and a head full of thick dark hair she wore down most of the time. She had the biggest blue eyes. Her smile was positively hypnotizing; he’d barely paid off the orthodontist’s bill, just in time to start on the next two mouths. Blue eyes ran in their genes but not perfect teeth. If not for the dental benefits offered by the Sheriff’s Department, his kids would have teeth growing out of their ears.

      “I’ll wave to you at the game, Daddy,” she said, rising on her toes to kiss his cheek. “We’re going out after,” she said.

      “Midnight, Eve,” he reminded her. As if she couldn’t get into trouble before midnight. It wasn’t that. It was just that it was all he could take. He needed his kids home and tucked in so he could relax.

      “How often have I been late?”

      “A few times,” he said.

      “Well, not very late,” she reminded him. Then she beamed. “I think we’re going to kick some Raider tail tonight!”

      And he grinned at her. She was his doll; he’d die for her, it was that simple.

      When she was out the door, Lou was shaking her head. “I wish you’d get a life,” she said.

      “This is my life,” he said, and sat at the table, commencing to build himself some tacos.

      “You need a little more going on. Like a woman.”

      “Why? You have somewhere to go?”

      “I just might,” she challenged.

      “Well, knock yourself out,” he said. “I can manage.”

      She laughed at him. “I’d love to see that,” she said. She pulled a cold cola out of the fridge for him and sat at the table with him. “Tell me about the crime in Thunder Point, Mac. I haven’t heard anything interesting all day.”

      “Well now,” he said, sprinkling cheese on top of four large tacos. “No interesting crime, but an old friend of Ben Bailey’s came to town, wanting to know what happened to him. He’s sitting in his fifth wheel out at the bar. Says he’s going to hang around a few days.”

      “Ray Anne mentioned something about that. She’s not one to miss a new man in town.” Lou clucked and shook her head. “Still can’t believe Ben’s gone.”

      “No one can believe it,” Mac said. Then he dove into his first taco.

      * * *

      Cooper moved his trailer around to the far side of Ben’s bar on the parking tarmac, pretty much out of sight of the road to 101. The small parking lot could only accommodate twenty or thirty cars, but he discovered a road toward the front of the structure that led to the beach. More of a downhill driveway, really. The road to the beach looked much kinder than that trip up Bailey Pass and Gibbons to the highway.

      He roamed around the locked-up property, peeking in windows. The newest and nicest part of the whole structure was an impressive deck, complete with tables and chairs surrounding the two sides of the building with a view. But a look through the windows revealed what he considered a dump. There was a long bar lined with stools, liquor bottles on the shelf, but only a half-dozen small tables. Life preservers, nets, shells and other seaside paraphernalia hung from the walls. A few turning racks of postcards and souvenirs sat about. The place looked like it hadn’t been improved in years. He could see the dust and grime from the window. This came as no surprise. Ben had been kind and generous to a fault, good with engines and just about anything mechanical, but he wasn’t exactly enterprising. He could be a little on the lazy side, unless he had an engine maintenance job to do. And he hadn’t been too good with money; he spent what he had. When Cooper first met him, he was living a cash existence, just like his father had. He sure hadn’t been classy. Cheap Drinks. Just a kindhearted good old boy.

      Cooper unloaded the WaveRunner, his all-terrain vehicle—the Rhino—and his motorcycle. There was a large metal shed at the end of the parking lot, up against the hill, but it was padlocked. He stored his toys under a tarp, locked up in chains so they couldn’t be stolen without a blowtorch and trailer.

      He wandered down to the beach to the dock. There was a fueling tank perched on the end and a paved boat launch. He wondered if Ben had a boat in the shed, which was as big as a garage. The sun was lowering and it was getting damn cold on the water, unlike the Southern climate he’d come from. He encountered a few people out walking or jogging and gave a nod. He was glad he carried a Glock in his back waistband, under his jacket. After all, he was alone out here, no one knew СКАЧАТЬ