Christie Ridgway - Beach House No. 9

“Did someone try to talk her out of it?”

“Sure.” He’d thought he’d convinced her not to go, too tired to recognize the set expression on her face and the determined light in her eyes. When she’d left, he’d been sleeping, dosed up on the pills they all swallowed down to find a few hours of relief from the high temperatures and the tension. Until he woke up and found her note tucked between his fingers, he hadn’t known what she’d been planning. “She didn’t listen.”

Erica had only heard what she wanted to hear. About the wisdom of going out that day. About what was going on between her and Griffin.

Jane picked up a cookie from the glass plate in front of her, then put it back down. “What happened?”

“Ambush. Particulars are a little sketchy, as everyone was busy trying to stay alive. They took fire and jumped off the trail. But when they realized she wasn’t with them, they headed back, at their own considerable risk. They found her sitting down, holding her arm. She’d been hit in an artery. Bled out in a matter of minutes.”

Jane pushed the platter of cookies farther from the table edge. “Oh.” Her voice was tight, as if there was a hand around her throat. “That’s terrible.”

Griffin gazed off into the distance. “This one kid, Randolph, he put her body over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Her blood stained his vest from his shoulders to his waist. It was the first thing I noticed when he returned. That, and the way tears had turned the dirt on his face to mud.”

Griffin had been sitting against a wall of sandbags, idly watching another guy squeeze cheese onto a granola bar, razzing the man about how the combo made him sick to his stomach. They’d been laughing.

Then Randolph had been standing there. Without a word, Griffin had known. He’d gotten to his feet, then stumbled toward the spot where they’d placed Erica. “I saw her,” he told Jane now. “The dirt in her hair, the stiffening wetness of her sleeve where the blood was already drying, the dusty laces of her boots. One had come undone, and as I stood there, Randolph knelt down and retied it for her.”

His brain had clicked away, cataloging each of those items and more, as if storing them for some later test. The details had seemed to fill a yawning black chasm opening up inside him—leaving no room for anything beyond those cold, bare facts. Leaving no room for any feelings. He’d gone icy inside then, and three days later become completely—perhaps permanently—frozen.

At the time, he’d thanked God.

He was still grateful.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jane said.

Puzzled, he looked at her. His loss? It was Erica who had lost everything. But he nodded, knowing it was expected of him, knowing a man who hadn’t been rendered entirely numb would be expected to acknowledge Jane’s expression of sympathy.

“That’s the kind of story you signed up for,” he said. The librarian in her would surely back away from it, right?

“No,” she answered, calm. “That’s the story you signed up for.”

The reminder tapped at the ice inside him. Why couldn’t she leave this alone? His jaw clenched. “Jane—”

“I worked with an author who is a famed outdoor adventurer,” she said. “In his book, he related a tragedy that happened to one of his teams on a mountain climb. They’d stopped for lunch. As they finished, she stood up to reach for something—but had forgotten she’d unclipped from the safety line. Just like that, she went off the side of K2. Gone.”

Griffin pressed against the wall, his shoulders digging into the plaster. “And?” he said, wary.

“And he wrote it just like that. He put it on the page with as much emotion as if he was describing the wind catching his sandwich wrapper. I had to help him include the emotion. You’ll have to do that too.”

He didn’t have the emotion! He didn’t want the emotion!

Shaking his head, Griffin pushed away from the wall. “I don’t need your help, lady.”

“Aw.” She no longer appeared the least bit sympathetic. “And I was just getting used to honey-pie.”

Advice, mockery, he didn’t need any of it. He set his sights on the door. He only had to pass her and her flapping mouth and nosy manner and governess tone and be gone—his composure, his chilly control, still intact.

As he went by, she caught his arm. “You know I’m right,” she said, her voice steady. “And you won’t have to do it alone. I told you. I’ll do whatever you need.”

“And I told you—”

“Griffin, Erica deserves this.”

Erica. Despite his best intentions, his gaze dropped to her photo. It was not how he’d seen her last: lifeless, dirtied, bloodied. It was Erica, vitally attractive. Full of expectations.

Deserving.

As if from a distance, he saw himself wrench his arm from Jane’s hold. Then he scooped up the ruby-colored plate. In a gesture that betrayed a rage and frustration he could swear he didn’t feel, he flung the platter against the wall. Cookies flew. The plate broke, and glass shards rained like drops of blood.

He hurried out of the house, telling himself the mess he’d made was no reflection of his inner self.

* * *

AT THE OPPOSITE END of the cove from Beach House No. 9, Jane sat railside at Captain Crow’s, a restaurant/bar that was one of only two commercial establishments on the beach—the other being an adjacent gallery that sold plein air paintings and beautiful handmade boxes, frames and jewelry crafted from items of the sea. She’d poked her nose inside, taking in sun-drenched landscapes and rainbow-hued earbobs of abalone and beach glass, but her urge to admire couldn’t overshadow her certainty that the open floor plan made it a lousy place to hide.

Now Captain Crow’s, that was another matter.

It was as if Party Central had moved north by a couple miles. Pleasure-seekers peopled the open-air tables and sat elbow-to-elbow on stools pulled up to a narrow, westward-facing counter. Dressed in her usual conservative wear—cropped khakis, a thin, bottle-green button-down shirt and a straw hat settled low on her brow—Jane went unnoticed among the rhinestoned tees and short shorts, the boho skirts and macraméd halter tops. The typical California confluence of Hollywood high culture and laid-back hippie fashion. Nearly overpowering the scent of salt air were the mixed aromas of SPF 30 sunscreen, Rodeo Drive perfumes and top-shelf tequila.

She’d collected a glass of white wine from the bar and slipped onto a free stool, unsure of her next move in her goal of getting Griffin to work. The only short-term certainty was her need to steer clear of him for the moment, giving him a chance to cool off following the plate-throwing incident. Seeing her again too soon might antagonize him further, causing him to do something rash, like ordering her from the cove altogether.

As she took a sip of her straw-colored beverage, she caught a glimpse of Skye Alexander strolling through the restaurant, her roaming gaze suggesting she was looking for someone. Jane pulled her hat lower on her brow and fixed her attention on the orange orb in the blue sky, tracking its descent. She figured it was better to avoid Skye too. Jane wouldn’t put it past Griffin to send the other woman to scout her out…and then toss her from the beach colony, despite the fact that it was his own agent who had hired her. Slumping in her seat, she tried lifting her shoulders to her ears, going Quasimodo as camouflage.

But the world hadn’t gone her way in ages, so she felt the tap on her back with no surprise. Turning, she consoled herself with the knowledge that there wasn’t a free space on either side of her. That thought came too soon as well, though, because someone shouted, and the crowd around her scattered, people rushing down the steps to the sand.