Sunset Beach(58)

The bird inched forward at a leisurely pace. Finally, it stopped, directly in front of the setting sun, its head raised, poised in what looked like a deliberate pose. She held her breath and clicked three quick frames, catching the elegant creature in profile against the dying light of the day.

She expected it to fly off then, but the heron turned slightly, then continued on down the beach as the light turned lilac and the sand turned gray.

Drue collapsed back into her chair, pulling up the three photos, silently marveling at the beauty of what she’d just witnessed, at the same time amused at her own ridiculous sense of achievement. God, she scoffed. She’d turned into a total tourist cliché in her own hometown. Soon she’d be clipping coupons and eating dinner at five o’clock.

For now, she settled back in her chair. She was watching for the green flash, the moment just before sunset, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Jazmin Mayes and Yvonne. And Aliyah, the mermaid who didn’t know how to swim.





27


Breakfast for supper had been a long-standing Sunday-night staple of her childhood years. As an adult, she now realized her mother’s menu was dictated by economy—eggs and cereal and toast being much cheaper than chicken or steak. But at the time, Sherri made it seem exotic, as though pancakes, or more often, Pop-Tarts, were a delicacy to be reserved for special occasions. Like Sunday nights. Since she’d moved into Coquina Cottage it was a tradition Drue had unconsciously revived.

She stood at the stove, absentmindedly shaking salt and pepper into a bowl of scrambled eggs before pouring the mixture into her grandmother’s cast-iron skillet. The bacon was cooling on folded-up paper towels on the countertop.

Drue stared out the kitchen window, thinking about her last week’s dinner with Brice. Had she imagined his startled reaction when she’d brought up the name of Colleen Boardman Hicks? There had to be a reason her mother had kept that file of clippings about the “missing local beauty.” Was there something sinister there? She thought back to what her mother had said about Brice over the years, which really was surprisingly little, now that she thought about it.

Once, shortly after she’d moved back to Lauderdale after that disastrous year with Brice and Joan, she’d worked up the nerve to ask Sherri what had prompted their divorce.

“He’s a chaser,” Sherri had said in her matter-of-fact way. “Your dad is always looking out for that next best thing—a job, a house, a woman. He’ll never be satisfied with what he’s got. And that includes a wife. Do yourself a favor, Drue. Don’t ever marry a chaser.”

Had Colleen Boardman Hicks been one of the women Brice had pursued?

It had started to rain again and she could hear the wind whipping the branches of the Australian pines that separated the cottage from the beach. At least, she thought, the rain would cool things down inside the house.

She turned off the burner and slid the contents of the skillet onto her plate, adding the bacon and two slices of toast.

She sat at the card table and ate, finally pushing her plate aside and picking up the file folder, where she’d shoved her stack of index cards. One of the cards had a single word scrawled across it—BOYFRIEND—followed by a series of question marks.

At least she had a name to search for now, thanks to Yvonne.

Her cell phone rang and she reached for it.

“Dad?”

“Hey kid. How was your weekend?”

Drue was tongue-tied for a moment. Brice wasn’t in the habit of making wellness checks on his daughter.

“Okay. Ben and Jonah came over and got my car running again, so that was a win.”

“I’m glad,” he said. “So, uh, our dinner didn’t end so hot the other night, did it?”

“Guess not,” Drue said.

He cleared his throat. “I talked to Wendy, and asked her to ease up on you a little bit.”

“I’ll bet that went over like a lead balloon,” Drue said.

“You know, you could try a little harder to get along with her,” Brice said. “Like it or not, we’re family. And we work together. Okay?”

“Terrific!” Drue said. “We’ll all hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’ at the next staff meeting.”

Dead silence on the other end of the phone. “Christ!” Brice said. Then he hung up.





28


July 1976

Her orange Camaro was easy to spot in the Boyd Hill Nature Trail parking lot, even though she’d parked at the far end of the lot, under the thick shade of a clump of moss-draped scrub oaks. It was a hot, sticky Monday morning. Not even eight o’clock. He pulled the cruiser nose out next to her car, the one she said her asshole husband had given her for her twenty-first birthday. For her twenty-sixth birthday, which had been six weeks ago, he’d given her a dislocated shoulder.

She lowered her window and looked over. “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

Brice leaned out to get a better look. She’d gotten good at covering the bruises with makeup, but despite the thick pancake and concealer, he could see her left eye was swollen and bruised. And her lip was cut.

“Damnit, Colleen. Why do you put up with this shit? Say the word, and I’ll take care of him. Jimmy and me, we’ll hurt him bad. And he’ll never see us coming.”