Between Here and the Horizon(27)

“Should we go through to the kitchen?” he asked, casting a cool, businesslike glance over his shoulder.

“Yes. Please. I’ll make some coffee.”

“Oh, tea, if you have it,” he said in answer.

Amie on my heels, holding onto the back of my shirt, was closer than my own shadow. “Amie, sweetheart, where’s Connor?” I hissed, hoping Linneman wouldn’t hear.

“He’s playing Gand feft Auto. He said I wasn’t allowed to have a turn.” She said this morosely, as if it were the saddest thing in the world, and she had only just remembered to be upset about it now. Her bottom lip jutted out like she was considering crying but wasn’t sure if it was worth it yet.

Connor was too young to be playing Grand Theft Auto. Too young by a decade. Ronan must have bought it for him, though, and I was going to be leaving really soon, so there didn’t seem any point in racing up there to confiscate the game.

“It’s all right, kiddo. How about you sit in front of the fire in the living room and watch Peppa Pig instead, and I’ll make you some breakfast? How does that sound?”

Amie perked up immediately at the sound of breakfast. The kid was a bottomless pit. I turned to Linneman, who was setting himself up at the breakfast counter again, laying out paperwork, pens, a check book and a pair of wire framed spectacles neatly in a row. “That’s okay, Miss Lang. I shall wait right here for you to return.”

And so he did. I positioned Amie in front of the television, turned the gas fire on low to edge the chill out of the air, and made sure the little girl knew not to get too close. There was a glass door on the fire, as well as a huge, sturdy metal grate in between her and the flames, which she wouldn’t have been able to move even if she wanted to, but still…I made her promise not to budge an inch.

Back in the kitchen, Linneman was staring at the coffee pot with a very confused look on his face. I got the feeling he’d never operated one before.

“I wanted to come over and discuss Ronan’s paperwork with you once more before CPS came for the children,” Linneman said, stabbing at a button on the machine. “Now that you’ve had a little time to consider your options, I was hoping you might have changed your mind?”

He was bound to ask this. He didn’t sound like he would be affected either way by my decision, though. He didn’t seem like the sort of man to form an emotional attachment of any kind; it was almost surprising that he had a wife. For all I knew (and strongly suspected), he had probably gotten married because it was the pragmatic thing to do. I briefly tried to imagine him swept away in some sordid love affair and couldn’t bend my mind around the idea at all.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Linneman. I haven’t changed my mind. I booked a flight out of Knox County this evening at seven thirty.” I felt awful admitting that the night hadn’t brought about some miraculous change in me, but it was the truth. It hadn’t. It had scared the living shit out of me, and I couldn’t wait to get as far away from this massive, empty house as soon as possible.

“So be it. Then I have the release forms here for you to sign. That means you can go, that you haven’t accepted legal guardianship of the children. I’ll prepare them for you now.” Linneman sat at the kitchen counter while I boiled water for his tea. A rising tide of guilt swelled inside me one minute, receding the next to be replaced with self-righteous indignation.

Ronan really screwed this one up. Yes, it was sad that his wife died, but he shouldn’t have done something so terrible and left a near stranger in his place to pick up the pieces. That was just downright shitty of him.

I placed Linneman’s tea on the counter, and he placed down three sheets of paper on the marble, and the two of us then sat for a moment and pondered the articles in front of us. Linneman seemed as hesitant and regretful about picking up his mug as I felt about picking up my pen. Still, we both did what we had to do.

I scribbled my name in the spots Linneman had indicated with tiny, colorful tabs, while he gingerly slurped at the pale liquid inside his cup.

“Interesting,” he said under his breath, placing the cup down. “Very…warm.” I’d never made a cup of tea before; I’d clearly messed up some part of the process, but Linneman was too polite to say so.

“If you want to get off the island today, I’d make sure to call Jerry Bucksted and see if he plans on sailing that late. The storm we had yesterday was nothing compared to the one that’ll be rolling in around dinnertime. I’d best be off, Miss Lang. It was very nice to meet you, I’m sure.”

Another storm? Great. Fantastic. Just what I needed. No way I was missing that flight, though. If I had to bribe Jerry Buckwhatever to get me back to the mainland, then that was fine by me. When I saw Linneman to the door, the thunderheads were back, charging across the horizon toward us like a heard of stampeding horses. Foreboding and black, the clouds did not look promising at all.





******





“You’ll be Miss Lang, then?” The CPS representative showed up at eleven o’clock, a little later in the day than I’d anticipated. I thought she’d arrive at the house around nine, but apparently the crossing from Port Creef was already rough, and the boat had to postpone its departure for ninety minutes until a calmer patch of weather presented itself. The woman, Sheryl Lourie, according to the laminated card she showed me on the doorstep, looked so green that I was expecting her to throw up any second. Her shirt was too tight, the material straining to stretch across her considerable chest, and her pencil skirt looked way too constricting and uncomfortable for the morning she must have had, sitting on a boat while the ocean pitched and tossed.