The Inn(11)

“Oh, man.” Squid laughed. “You keep your hands off me, bro. You don’t know who you’re dealin’ with right now.”

“Oh, really?” I said.

Squid lifted his white T-shirt and dragged an enormous gun halfway out of the front of his jeans.

“Yeah,” the boy said. “Really, bitch.”





CHAPTER TWELVE





THE STREET WAS full of people. There were kids gathered around the ice cream stand, families looking in store windows, Marni watching curiously from the other side of the street, only two stalls down from where I’d left her. I saw a trumpet player on the corner, his instrument case open in the sun, heard the clatter of quarters as someone threw change onto the pile. I was suddenly overwhelmed by the noise around me. The gun was comically big in the kid’s hand; the tendons of his wrist strained as he flashed the butt at me.

I made a grab for the gun. He shoved at me with his other hand and tried to drag the pistol up above his belt.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said.

“Fuck you, man,” Squid snarled in my face. He raised his voice. “Get your hands off my dick, old man!”

I didn’t flinch. “You get your hands off the gun or I’ll blast your dick all over the pavement.”

Nick stepped in, shielding our struggle from the crowd. All we needed was for someone to spot the gun, start screaming, and cause a mass panic. The kid released the gun and I realized for the first time that every muscle in my body was frozen with terror. I pulled the weapon all the way out of his jeans and tucked it into my coat.

“Where the hell did you get a gun like that?” I eased a breath from my tight lungs. “What are you, fifteen years old? Who are you working for?”

“Doesn’t matter where I got the gun.” Squid sniffed, trying to act tough after I’d disarmed him. “I’ll have another one next time you come knocking. I see you again, I’m not gonna wait, bro. I’ll just start poppin’ at whoever’s around. You got that?”

He gestured with his chin at the crowd, at the children bouncing with excitement in the line for ice cream.

“Now let me go before I start screaming,” the boy said. “You ain’t the cops. All I gotta do is tell all these nice people here you got a big-ass gun and you’re stickin’ it in my face.”

People had stopped to stare. I backed off, and Squid walked away. Nick and I watched as Squid tried his best to swagger confidently through the crowd, sucking hard on his lollipop.

“I think Susan was right,” Nick said. “This is bigger than we thought.”





CHAPTER THIRTEEN





I KNEW EXACTLY who killed my wife. In order to get to the bar where Nick and I planned to think through our problem, I had to drive past the house of the woman who’d killed Siobhan. Since the accident, I’ve felt a tightening in my stomach and a pressure on my brain every time I go by, but there was no way around it now. I gripped the steering wheel as we approached. Nick, his boots up on the dash, looked out the window on the passenger side.

Siobhan had been walking along the strip of grass by the side of the road when she was hit. She was on her way back from the grocery store, a trip she’d made a hundred times, something she enjoyed. She liked the chance to be alone and the little mission of going into town, checking things off her list, talking to people in the supermarket aisles, making connections. It had been a clear, crisp evening, the sun not yet behind the hills, kids riding their bikes in the street, and birds announcing their return home to their nests for the night. The contents of the bags in her hands ended up scattered all over the road, red wine and roast beef for a dinner we would never have.

Some things didn’t add up about what had happened to Siobhan. The young woman who had hit her, Monica Rink, had been driving to a party. She’d tested negative for alcohol and drugs after the accident, but in the footwell of the passenger side of the car, there’d been a six-pack of vodka coolers with two missing and one open. The road was isolated but dead straight. Monica had swerved a long way off the asphalt, somehow not seeing Siobhan on the wide strip of grass. The paramedics told me that Monica had been playing with her radio, unable to get the Bluetooth to connect to her phone. She rammed the car into a road barrier after she hit Siobhan and then got out and ran back to assist her. My wife died in a stranger’s arms while I was at home on the little porch, watching the purple light settle over the ocean and waiting for her.

I’d never spoken to Nick about my nervous, angry avoidance of Monica Rink’s house, but he seemed to get it.

“So I have a confession to make,” he said as we got closer to the house.

“Oh yeah?”

“The memorial this morning.” He leaned back in the seat. “Marni said Siobhan used to grab her and make her dance with her in the kitchen to her crappy music.”

“Mmm?”

“Well.” He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Siobhan might have made me do that a few times.”

“Really.” I looked over. He was smiling to himself.

“Maybe I didn’t fight her off so much,” Nick said.

“Did you dance close?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“How close?”