Dark and Shallow Lies(56)

Honey keeps the radio on all day, and late that afternoon someone breaks in over the music to tell us that Elizabeth is now officially a hurricane, about to make landfall north of Miami. Seventy-five-mile-per-hour winds. Category 1.

The news makes me look up, but it’s still not my problem.

I’ve got a category 5 shitstorm on my hands right here at home.

By five thirty, when Honey flips the sign on the door to closed, I’m a complete mess. I make it through dinner, and then I help Honey clean up before I escape outside.

I figure I’ll head out toward Li’l Pass. Toward Zale. But I don’t. I can’t.

Something stops me.

All day I’ve been thinking about the tender honesty in Zale’s eyes. The flicker of his lips against my cheek.

And about his twin. Aeron. Lost in the fire.

How he swears his father couldn’t have murdered Ember and Orli.

My mother’s hummingbird hair clip cradled in his hand.

It’s all too much. I don’t know what any of it means. I don’t know what anything means any more.

So I choose the devil I know instead and swing toward the downriver end of the boardwalk. In the direction of Hart and Elora’s house. And the old pontoon boat. I don’t really expect Hart to be there. I don’t even know if I want him to be. We’ve hardly spoken in over a month, not since the night he almost killed Case.

He is there, though. And I know it before I get to the end of the boardwalk. His cigarette is like a smoke signal. I freeze and consider turning back. Because I don’t know if I want to have this conversation. But it’s too late. My feet on the boards have already given me away.

“You might as well come on down,” he says. “I fixed the ladder.”

I sigh and slip off Elora’s ring before I climb down into the boat. Then I take my usual spot on the broken seat, and the two of us just sit there in silence. Trying to not to look at each other.

“Well, Greycie,” Hart finally says as he stubs out his cigarette on the heel of his boot. “I’m glad we had this little talk.”

And that sounds almost like the old him. It makes me smile. A little.

“You been okay?” I ask. But his only answer is a hollow laugh. “I’ve missed you.”

“Yeah,” he says, and lets out a long breath. His voice is full of rusty hinges. Like these are maybe the first words he’s spoken in days. Or weeks. “I guess I missed you, too, Shortcake.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Case’s medal,” I offer. “I should’ve told you as soon as I found it.”

He looks up at me then, studying me with those familiar hazel eyes. It’s startling how much weight he’s lost just since the beginning of the summer. His cheekbones are sharp, and he looks paler than I ever remember seeing him.

“So why didn’t you?”

I shrug. “I guess I couldn’t stand to see you hurt any more.”

His jaw hardens, and I realize I’ve said the exact wrong thing.

“I don’t need you to protect me, Greycie.”

“I know,” I tell him. But I’m not sure he’s right about that.

“Is that what you came down here to tell me?” he asks. “That you’re sorry for keepin’ secrets?”

“Not just that.”

Hart raises one eyebrow at me and pulls out another cigarette. “Then you might as well spill the rest of it.”

“She talks to Evie,” I blurt out. “Elora. She whispers in her ear.”

“Shit.” Hart flicks open the lighter, but his hands are shaking too bad to get the cigarette lit. “What does she say?”

“I don’t know. Evie won’t tell me. But whatever it is, it’s got her all freaked out.” I look down at my empty finger. Where Elora’s ring should be. “I wish she’d talk to me instead.”

He flicks the lighter closed, and his flame goes out.

“What if she said things you didn’t wanna hear?”

I don’t know how to answer him, so I change the subject.

“She’s in love with you, I think.” Hart stares me. “Evie.”

“Nah.” He shakes his head. “She thinks she is. Maybe. That’s all. ’Cause of what I did for ’er.”

“What you did?”

“To Vic.” Hart grimaces, then he runs one hand over his face and sighs. Deep. He sounds as exhausted as he looks. “That piece of shit was beatin’ her black and blue.”

“Oh, God.” My stomach turns. “Evie told you that?”

“She didn’t have to. I could feel it, Grey.” Hart puts the cigarette to his lips. Then remembers it isn’t lit. “I could fuckin’ feel it. That fear of hers. And the pain. Thinkin’ nobody in the world cared if that bastard killed ’er.”

“Jesus, Hart.”

One more wound that wasn’t his, but that cut him just the same.

“And this whole town knew it, too. Not just me. You didn’t need a psychic gift to see those bruises.” Hart tries to light the cigarette again, and this time he makes it work. He sucks in smoke like oxygen. “Only nobody said a word about it.”

Psychic Capital of the World or not, people down here still live by a certain kind of code. You don’t get mixed up in what goes on behind closed doors. That’s the way it’s always been.