A Stranger on the Beach(36)

Murder? It wasn’t murder. Tommy knew that.

“Manslaughter, Tom. I was convicted of manslaughter. It’s not the same. You’re a cop. You know that.”

“Yeah, well whatever they call it, someone died, and you went to jail. I don’t ever want to go through that again.”

“You think I do?”

Aidan’s mind flew back to the past, to the event that had ruined his life. The day he found out the love of his life and his best friend had been together behind his back. There had been a fight. A fight between two guys over a girl. Happens so often it’s almost a cliché. Aidan didn’t even throw the first punch. Matthew did. Then Aidan fought back, and Matthew wound up on the ground, unmoving, having hit his head on a rock. Aidan would never forget the panic when he realized that Matthew wasn’t breathing, that there was blood on the back of his head. It was a terrible tragedy that Matthew died that day. A tragedy for Matthew and his family. A tragedy for Aidan, too. He’d loved his friend. He hadn’t meant for him to die. It happened in the blink of an eye. Every day since, Aidan wished he could take it back. Hell, he wished it had been him who took the punch and hit his head, him who died.

Aidan crushed his beer can and threw it hard against the water, where it bobbed in the waves. The wind had picked up, and clouds were rolling in. The water looked cold and threatening, even in the shelter of the cove. Aidan’s mood swung with the wind. It seemed impossible to stay caged up on this boat with his brother, listening to the litany of his sins for the thousandth time.

He tore off his shirt, kicked off his sneakers, and stepped up onto the gunwale.

“What are you doing?” Tommy said.

“Getting out of here. I’m done with this bullshit,” he said, and dived overboard.





25


I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of me, working up the courage to listen to Aidan’s voicemails. My hands were shaking, and I’d double-locked the doors. In the past twenty-four hours, this man I did not know well, with whom I’d shared a single night of passion, and who had a probation officer and a gun, had: been borderline violent at the beach, refused to leave my car, bashed his head bloody on my dashboard, followed me to the restaurant and posed as a waiter in front of my family, entered his number into my phone and done God knows what else while he had possession of it, called my phone a total of seventeen times, leaving three voicemails. The voicemails were likely to be threats. I dreaded hearing them. But I had to listen. If I didn’t know what I was facing, how could I protect myself?

The ticking of the clock on the wall was loud in the silence of the kitchen. I picked up my phone, feeling very alone. I’d love to talk to Lynn, who was coming back from Florida today, and get her advice. But Lynn told her husband Joe everything. And Jason and Joe were golfing buddies. Jason was already suspicious because of the repeat phone calls. If he thought about it for two seconds, he might connect Aidan? to the intrusive waiter at the restaurant last night. I couldn’t risk sharing this burden with my sister. I was too worried that telling her would lead to blowing my secret to my husband. I’d have to handle this alone.

The first voicemail had been left late last night. I squared my shoulders and pressed play.

“Hey, uh, Caroline,” Aidan said.

The sound of his voice had an oddly calming effect at first. I remembered his smile at the bar, his laid-back ways. This guy was chill, right? He wouldn’t hurt me.

“Sorry for getting into it with your husband last night,” he said. “I promised to protect you, and help you get your money back. So, I followed him, and the bastard got wise to it and slugged me. That’s why my head was cut up last night. Did he say anything to you? Give me a call. Also, uh, when can I see you?”

Aidan’s head was cut because he bashed it against my dashboard, not because Jason punched him. That couldn’t’ve happened. Jason would have said something. Wouldn’t he? What did Aidan mean, that he’d followed Jason? Followed him to the restaurant? I assumed Aidan had gotten to the restaurant by following me. This guy was out of touch with reality. I remembered crying to him in the shower about Jason taking my money. God help me if Aidan had taken it upon himself to go after my husband out of some misguided sense of chivalry. If that was true, I had to call off the dogs before Aidan did something crazy.

But there were two more voicemails still to listen to. I queued up the next one.

“Hey, we have things to discuss. I need to hear from you, Caroline. Don’t freeze me out, or I’m gonna get upset.”

And the third: “Why aren’t you returning my calls? I don’t like the way you’re treating me. I go out on a limb for you, and this is what I get. It’s not okay. I’ll be out on the water this morning with my brother. Then I’m coming to find you.”

I’m coming to find you. Oh, my God. I’d been warned. I should have listened to my mother’s nagging voice. I should have paid attention to the accumulated horror stories of forty-three years of life as a woman. Never trust a stranger. Never let a man you don’t know into your house, your car, your pants. I’d ignored them all, and picked Aidan up instead, for a night of wild sex. Now an obviously mentally unstable felon with a gun in his drawer was coming for me. It was no better than I deserved.

My only option was to appease him somehow.