Sleeping Alone (24 page)

Only Brian seemed unconcerned. He stood near the end of the dock, smoking a cigarette and looking out at the ocean.

Dee followed Alex’s gaze. “Next time anyone says blood is thicker than water, kick them for me. The guy’s father, brother, and son are out there somewhere, and all he can think about is his Porsche.”

But Alex knew better. Brian was thinking about more than his Porsche.

He was thinking about how to destroy the town.

* * *

Water was everywhere.

Swirling black cold water pounding against him, trying to pull him down down down....

Mark’s arms and legs trembled with fatigue. He’d done everything he could to save himself and Eddie, but it looked like it was too late. The tide had them in its clutches and was pulling them out beyond the breakers, and once that happened, they’d be goners.

He could have managed to swim against the tide an hour ago, but that was then.

He was even hallucinating—a while ago he thought he’d heard John’s voice floating toward him through the darkness. It was so cold... the cold was screwing up his brain... making it hard for him to think.

If only he could concentrate, maybe then he could come up with the right thing to do, but the thoughts just wouldn’t come.

Eddie sputtered, then coughed. “What—what the hell...?”

“Don’t move,” Mark said in a hoarse voice. “I’ve got you, Eddie.”

“Jesus... sweet Jesus...”

“We went overboard,” Mark said, feeling his strength ebbing as he spoke. “We gotta keep afloat till someone comes to get us.”

Nobody’s going to come, asshole. It’s over. You tried to save the old man and yourself, and now you’re both going to buy the farm.

He should have used the radio on the
Kestrel
to summon help before he jumped overboard. Maybe then they would have had a chance.

It was over ... over... over—

“Mark, is that you?”

A deep familiar voice penetrated the cold empty place where his brain had been.
Don’t pay attention to it, jackass. It’s just your imagination.

“Mark,” the voice called out again. “Can you hear me?”

His eyes burned with tears. It sounded like John. But not even John could get him out of this mess. Good thing it was only his imagination talking. He didn’t want John to take the blame if he and Eddie drowned out here. It wasn’t John’s fault.

Suddenly a garvey appeared from nowhere, its wide flat bottom bobbing in the choppy water. Garveys were weird boats. They were built real deep, and the seats were so low you were practically sitting on the floor. Duck hunters liked them because they cut through the water without a sound, and only the hunter’s head was visible above the boat line.

From that angle, the garvey looked empty. He wondered if it had broken free of its moorings and been caught by the same squirrelly currents.

He looked again, and his heart tried to punch its way out of his chest.

A man stood in the prow of the boat with the fog swirling all around him like something out of one of those fantasy movies where the hero appears in a puff of smoke to save the day.

Except this time it wasn’t a movie. And he wasn’t imagining it. It was really happening.

John had come to save them.

The coast guard said it would take them at least two hours to reach Sea Gate. They had other, bigger problems to deal with up and down the coast, and the problems of one small town on the Jersey Shore would just have to wait in line.

Up until that point adrenaline had been holding Alex together, but the second she heard about the coast guard, she felt her tightly held control begin to loosen.
They’re going to be all right,
she told herself over and over, a mantra against her fears.
John will find them. They’ll all be okay.

But what if they weren’t? She heard them talking about the wicked riptide and the unpredictable currents. What if John couldn’t find them? He was out there alone in the fog in that strange flat boat—he wouldn’t stand a chance if the surf got rougher.

Dee looked at Brian. “You’ve piloted a boat before, Brian. Do something.”

“What’s there to do?” he asked. “You can’t see two feet in this fog. Let the coast guard handle things.”

Dee’s voice was low and deadly calm. “Your son is out there with your father and your brother. Don’t you give a damn what happens to them?”

Alex watched Brian’s face for any sign of human emotion, but saw nothing. He turned away from Dee as if she weren’t there and continued to look out toward the invisible horizon.

“Go to hell,” Dee said, tears streaming down her face. “I’ll take a boat out myself.”

Dan Corelli blocked her way. “Don’t do it,” he said, “We’re having enough trouble finding the three of them. Don’t make our job any harder.”

“I don’t care about your job,” Dee said, her tears turning into gut-wrenching sobs. “My son and two dear friends are out there, and nobody’s doing a damn thing—nobody!”

That sense of being powerless was worse than anything. Alex had spent most of her life in a position of weakness, and she knew exactly what Dee was feeling.

“I’ll go with you,” she said. “I’d make a good second mate.”

“You’re pregnant,” Dee managed. “You can’t take a chance like that.”

“And you can’t go out there alone.”

“I’m scared,” Dee said. She was a strong woman. Alex could imagine what that admission cost her.

“Mark might not be out there, Dee. Maybe he went to a friend’s house.”

Dee shook her head. “His shoes,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I found them at the end of the dock.”

Alex’s pulse rate increased. “How can Dan Corelli just stand there waiting for the coast guard? He should be doing something.”

Dee’s gaze drifted past Alex. Her eyes widened. “Alex,” she said, “look!”

Alex spun around, and the sight she saw made her spirits soar. It seemed like half of Sea Gate was running toward them. Vince Troisi and Nick Di Mentri. Rich and Sally and Dave. Scores of people she knew from the diner and others she’d never seen before but who would now hold a special place in her heart. The old and the young, come together to help their own.

“How did you know?” Alex asked as they crowded around her and Dee.

“Police band radio,” Vince said. “I called Rich, and he called Nick—you know how it goes.”

She didn’t, but she was learning. This was what it meant to be part of a real community, a family that went beyond connections of blood to include everyone who needed to know there was a place for them in the world.

“We’re going to find them,” Vince was saying. “You can bet the farm on it.”

They began untying boats from their moorings, setting up searchlights to cut through the fog. Dee seemed to be everywhere. She knew what needed to be done before anyone had a chance to bark out an order.

Alex sat near the
Kestrel
’s empty slip, hands cradling her belly. Sally Whitton came and sat down next to her. For once Sally didn’t talk. She just reached over and patted Alex awkwardly on the shoulder, and that simple touch was all it took to release months of pent-up emotion. Alex lowered her head and started to cry.

“There, there,” said Sally, putting an arm around her and pulling her close. “You cry all you want. It’s good for you.”

Nobody had ever said that to her before. Her mother had used tears as a weapon in the war between the sexes, while Griffin had considered them a lower-class affectation. Tears were normal and natural to Sally, same as they were to Dee and everyone else gathered there on the dock.

Sally patted her on the back from time to time, and after a while Alex’s tears subsided. Sally had done more than just comfort a crying pregnant woman—by sitting down with her, she had officially acknowledged that Alex was one of them.

They were a family, all of them, joined together to help their own.

Only Brian stood apart from the rest. He looked out of place in his expensive suit and handmade shoes, like someone from her old life. He smoked one cigarette after another, alternately looking bored and annoyed, as he scanned the horizon. Nobody spoke to him. Nobody tried to include him in the rescue operation. He had been born and raised in Sea Gate and yet he was a stranger to everyone there.

He turned slightly and met her eyes.

You lost,
she thought, not turning away. Even if he managed to turn Sea Gate into the world’s biggest parking lot, he would still be the loser. She almost felt sorry for him. He’d isolated himself from everything that really mattered and he didn’t even know it.

“I see something out there.” Nick trained his searchlight at a point north of the marina.

Dee grabbed his binoculars and peered out through the fog. “I don’t see anything.”

“A little more that way,” Nick said, angling the searchlight.

“Oh, God!” Dee’s voice went high with excitement. “It’s a boat—I think it might be a garvey!”

Alex rose to her feet, then drew in a sharp breath as pain radiated across her belly from hipbone to hipbone.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Sally took her by the elbow. “It’s not the baby, I hope.”

“I’m fine,” Alex assured her. “I slipped before and must have twisted something.”

Sally looked as if she didn’t quite believe Alex, but there was no time to quibble. They hurried to the end of the dock where everyone had gathered to wait. Dec stood next to Nick. They made way for her as Alex approached, patting her on the shoulder, murmuring words of friendship and support, making sure she was here at the edge of the dock with Dee where she belonged.

Let them be safe,
she prayed.
Let them all be safe.
She knew that John had a score to settle with himself, a very personal score that had to do with the deaths of his wife and sons. She’d seen it in the way he took care if her, the way he shouldered burdens another man would have turned away from. He showed his love for her in everything he did, and yet he had never once said the words.

I love you,
she thought, letting the words cut deep into her heart. Not just sexually, although that was a big part of it. Not just because she prayed he was the father of the child she carried. She loved him in a deeper way, spiritually, physically, emotionally. Sometimes she thought she’d been born loving him and it had taken her twenty-eight years to figure it out.

He deserved to be happy. He deserved a woman who came to him without entanglements. He deserved children. He could give so much to a child, she thought. He knew what was important in life. He could teach a child the things Eddie had taught him, about honor and courage.

About love.

“Any second now,” Vince said, keeping the beam of light focused on the approaching boat. “We’ll know what’s what any second.”

The ache in her belly grew stronger.
Think about the baby,
she told herself. Getting this upset wasn’t good for the child growing inside her womb. No matter what happened between her and John, there would always be the baby.

John was safe. He had to be. The world needed people like him, a good man in a world where goodness was in short supply.

“I think it’s a garvey,” Nick said. “Sweet Jesus, I think it is.”

Dee’s fingers dug into Alex’s hand. Alex closed her eyes, too afraid to watch.

Next to her Dee let out a cry, a sharp explosion of sound that Alex felt in her bones.

“Please, God,” she whispered. “Please.”

She opened her eyes. The men were grabbing for the boat, pulling it close to the dock. She saw it all, the boat and the men and the dock. She saw Brian tossing a cigarette into the water, heard the sizzle as it broke the surface. She saw Dee’s face, alive with happiness. She saw Mark, wet and skinny, struggling to man an oar. And she saw Eddie sitting next to Mark, a rock for the boy to lean against.

But she didn’t see John.

A terrible silence fell across the dock. A single sound rose out of that silence, a low keening wail, and she realized in some distant part of her mind that it was coming from her. Her knees buckled, and she felt someone put an arm around her to catch her. Cold... so cold... she wondered if she would ever be warm again. This wasn’t really happening. She was dreaming, trapped in the middle of a nightmare, and all she had to do was wake up and it would all go away.

Dee turned to her, and their eyes met. The look they exchanged was one of triumph and despair and a deep understanding that transcended even sorrow. Dee opened her arms and reached out to her son, gathering him to her breast the way she had when he was a little boy.

Nick and Vince grabbed Eddie and pulled him out the garvey. They pounded him on the back, ruffled his wet hair, did all the things men did to express emotion without words.

Brian tossed another cigarette into the water. Mark looked toward the sound. His youthful features hardened into something fierce and ugly, and before anyone realized what was happening, he hurled himself at Brian, ramming his head into the man’s gut, knocking him to the ground. The look of shock on Brian’s face would have been comical if the situation had been different. He lay there on his back in his big-city clothes while his son hammered at him with his fists.

“You son of a bitch!” Mark cried as Brian covered his face with his arms. “Leave her alone! Nobody wants you here!”

Something inside Brian seemed to explode. One second he was the passive victim, and the next he was a lethal weapon. He threw Mark off him as if the boy was made of feathers. He jammed his thumbs into the soft spot in Mark’s throat, and Dee screamed as her son dangled from Brian’s hands like a rag doll.

“This is the little fuck who wrecked my car,” Brian said to Dan Corelli, who seemed too shocked to move. “I’m pressing charges.”

“He’s a juvenile,” Dan said, still motionless. “And you don’t have any proof.”

“Call it intuition,” Brian snarled. He shook the kid until the boy’s feet left the ground again. “Tell the nice man what you did, you bastard.”

Mark’s face was bright red, and he was struggling to breathe, much less talk.

“Put him down,” Dee shrieked, landing a blow to Brian’s shoulder.

“Put him down?” Brian abruptly released Mark, and the boy fell in a heap at his feet. “You did a great job with him, Dee Dee. You should be proud.”

“You bastard,” she said, bending down to help her son.

Alex watched through a haze of sorrow as Brian turned again to Dan Corelli. “I’m not bullshitting you, Dan. This kid is going to learn discipline if you have to beat it into him.”

“A little late, isn’t it, big brother?” That voice—that wonderful beloved voice!

Years later Alex would remember the moment she saw John stepping out of the shadows as the moment her life began again. Relief flooded through her body, and she sagged against Sally Whitton, but there wasn’t time to savor the joy. What had started as an uncomfortable situation was quickly turning violent.

Brian turned toward the familiar voice. “Stay out of it,” he warned. “It’s none of your business.”

“More my business than yours,” John said, advancing on him with slow, measured steps. He was dripping wet. His jeans and fisherman’s sweater clung to his body like a second skin. Behind him Alex could just make out the lines of the
Kestrel,
bobbing near slip number one. It wasn’t hard to see she had taken some heavy damage.

But, as she thanked God a thousand times, it was easy to see that John hadn’t.

“Stand up,” Brian barked at his son.

“Fuck you,” Mark said, a scared kid talking tough to hide his fear.

Brian grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. “You busted up my car, didn’t you?” Anger stripped away his cultured city tones. “Tell them.”

John loomed over the two of them. “Touch that kid again, and I’ll kill you,” he said to Brian.

“Go to hell,” Brian said. “Tell them what you did,” he ordered Mark again.

Mark pulled away from him. Hatred poured off him in waves. “I threw a rock through your fucking windshield!” His voice cracked and broke mid-sentence. “I wish I’d set fire to it! Why don’t you leave us alone?”

Brian turned coldly to Dan Corelli. “You’ve got your confession,” he snapped. “What more do you need?”

“Not much,” Dan conceded. He turned to the boy. “You admit you wrecked his car?”

“Yeah, I wrecked his car.”

“Do something,” Dee said to John. “Shouldn’t he have a lawyer or something?”

John stepped between Dan and Mark. “You don’t have to answer his questions,” he said to the boy. “You have rights in this situation, too.”