Jonathon King - Eye of Vengeance

"OK," he finally said to Carly after they'd wandered through the entire exhibit. "Which one do you like best?"

She looked up at him with that delicious look in her eye she used when she knew her father was about to do something she would adore, and then dropped his hand and he had to follow her around a wall to a far corner.

"This one, Dad."

She chose not a photo of the Everglades, but a shot from behind a white-sand dune on one of Florida's empty coasts. The sun was rising, the wind bending sea oats, the tiny ridges of swept sand so clear in relief you swore you could see the individual grains.

Nick studied it, giving the shot his appreciation, but he sneaked a look at the huge dark makeup of a silent river bend draped in a canopy of cypress. His daughter caught the look.

"I like this one because Mom would like it," she said. "It's like her."

Nick quickly shifted back to the seascape.

"Yeah, you're right, sweetheart."

"That one's lonely, Dad," she said, gesturing toward the river that she knew was drawing her father.

"Yeah," he said. "You're right."

Nick had the gallery keeper wrap up the seaside print.

In the car, he took a detour south to Chokoloskee Island and treated Carly to a visit of the one hundred-year-old Smallwood Store, where the original owner's descendants, with the help of the historical society, had maintained the stilted trading post, one of the first in southwest Florida. She touched the old hand-wringer washtubs and the tanned pelts of otters and raccoons still hanging on the walls. Nick read to her from the original ledger that Ted Smallwood had kept in the twenties when his clients paid him in gator skins. Carly especially liked the Seminole Indian dolls, even though she never would have admitted that she was still into that sort of thing. Afterward Nick treated both of them to a stone-crab dinner at a restaurant in Everglades City. The meat of the stone crab claws is the most delicious seafood ever discovered, and having it fresh off the Everglades City docks where the crabbers came in from the Gulf was one of the wonders of the world.

On the trip back across Alligator Alley, it was only twenty minutes before Nick looked back through the rearview mirror to see Carly sound asleep. His cruise control was set at eighty, and he was feeling pretty good about himself. He'd spent the day with his daughter. She'd been relatively pleased with their adventure. He was being the dad he was sure he was supposed to be, the dad he promised to be over and over on moonlit nights when he went to his family's grave site and sat in the grass, and whispered to Julie and Lindsay, "I will do the right thing by her, guys. I will do the right thing by all of you."

When his cell phone rang Nick's shoulders jumped as if a trumpeter had sneaked into the passenger seat and ripped a high C into his ear.

"Jesus!" he hissed and reached over to snatch up the phone. He didn't recognize the number on the readout. He knew no one at the paper would bother him on the weekend, but it wasn't a paper prefix anyway.

He was about to let the cell take a message but then pushed the answer button. Sources, he thought. Can't live with them, can't live without them.

"Nick Mullins," he said, businesslike.

"Mr. Mullins. This is Detective Hargrave."

Mr. Uncooperative, Nick thought. No use for the press.

"Detective. What's up?"

"I'd like to have a sitdown with you, Mr. Mullins. Go over some things that might benefit the investigation."

Despite his reticence, Hargrave knew exactly how to dangle possibilities in front of a reporter. Even if the ploy was new to him in dealing with the media, Nick was sure Hargrave had used it with informants and inmates before.

"I would be more than happy to meet wherever you'd like on Monday, Detective," Nick said.

"You know JB's on the Deerfield Beach oceanfront? Just north of the pier?"

"Yeah," Nick said, picturing the place.

"I figure it's close enough to your home. We could meet there about eleven tonight."

Nick didn't answer. Why would Hargrave know where he lived? And though Nick knew how easy it was to find someone's private cell number, it was unusual for a cop to check out the address and phone of a reporter.

"Detective, I don't usually work on weekends. I like to be with my family."

Nick checked the rearview The sun was going down in the west behind him. Carly was still asleep, her head flopped to one side against the door panel, her mouth slightly open.

"So eleven o'clock, then," Hargrave said and Nick could picture the man's hatchet face, impassive, unaffected by anything Nick had said. The detective had not called to ask. He was ordering, like he would if Nick were a suspect, or a confidential street source, or an underling. Nick didn't like any of those labels. He was about to get pissed off and open his mouth again but stopped himself. A sentence seemed to slip into his head from the back seat: You're not the boss of me! It was the girls' favorite answer to each other when they'd argue and Nick recalled it as being cute. Petty. But cute.

"OK, Detective. If it's that important, I'll see you at eleven," he finally said. Hargrave did not answer and simply hung up.

Elsa met him at the door. Always vigilant when her Carly was away, she had watched for the sweep of headlights coming into the drive. Nick checked his sleeping daughter and then got out and opened the back door. He slipped his hand under Carl's legs and as he lifted her from the seat she instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck and lay her head on his shoulder, her eyes still shut. He carried her in as Elsa held open the door: "Aaayyy, pobrecita, esta cansada," Elsa. said.

In Carly's bedroom, the covers were already turned down. Nick laid her in her bed, took off her shoes and watched her scrunch her body into the pillows and heard her exhale contentedly. He bent to kiss her forehead, then turned out the dimmed lamp and started to leave.

"Good night, Daddy."

Nick turned back.

"Faker," he whispered and knew her smile was there in the dark. "Thanks for going with me."

"You're welcome."

In the hall, he asked Elsa to make him some coffee and then went out to empty the car. It was ten o'clock when he sat alone at the kitchen table and ate the saltenas from the cooler and sipped his coffee. Why did Hargrave want to meet with him in a seaside bar, of all places? Not in his office. Not with Joel riding shotgun. He had been rolling the possibilities in his head since the detective had hung up and wasn't any closer to a solid guess. It was well out of character for the guy, and Nick kept running the conference-table scene through his head, trying to pick out who in that room had gotten the worst of Hargrave's skepticism and distrust, and decided it hadn't been him.

"You are OK, Mr. Mullins?" Elsa said, breaking the silence with her quiet voice.

"Huh? Oh, yes, yes, Elsa. I'm fine," Nick said, shaking his head back into the present. "We had a good day. But I have to go out again."

The housekeeper pointedly looked up at the kitchen clock.

"I'll lock up when I leave."

Elsa did not bother hiding her worried brow.

"It's OK, Elsa," Nick said. "I'm OK."

"You are going to talk to Ms. Julie and Lindisita?"

Nick had once confided in Elsa, told her of his night trips to the cemetery. He guessed that her heritage, her acceptance of the souls and ghosts of the dead, led her to be wary, but not overtly concerned. She wasn't going to call the loony bin to come take him away.

"You will be home to take Carlita to church, yes?"

Sunday was the one day of the week that Elsa spent with her own family since the accident. Her grown daughter and now teenage grandsons would be expecting her. She'd given so much to Nick, he would never deny her that. But he was also feeling an apprehension in the old woman's eyes. His late nights before the accident. The heavy drinking she had witnessed afterward.