When Ghosts Come Home(61)

“Colleen Barnes?” Brad said. He reached out his hand, and Colleen took it firmly in her own. It was soft and warm.

“Colleen Banks,” she said.

“Shoot,” Brad said. “I know who you are. Your daddy’s a good man. It’s a shame that he’s going to lose next week.”

“Okay,” Colleen said, mostly because she didn’t know what else to say.

Brad turned his attention back to Danny. “Danny’s a good man too.” He smiled, and then he reared back his hand and smacked Danny on the ass as if they were on a football field and Danny had just made a game-winning catch. “But he needs to get this sweet ass in gear and start selling some home sites.” Danny didn’t react, just took a drag from his cigarette and then knocked an ash into the empty bottle sitting in front of him. Brad leaned close to Danny’s ear. “What did you dress as, Danny?”

“Dracula,” Danny said, not turning around.

“What?” Brad asked.

Danny turned his head and spoke louder. “Dracula.”

“Is that right?” Brad said. “You out sucking blood tonight?” He laughed, placed one hand on the back of Danny’s neck, and squeezed.

Danny shrugged off his hand. “Just sucking down beers,” he said.

“I bet you are,” Brad said. He leaned forward again and picked up his mask and machete off the bar. “Well, y’all have a good night.” He winked at Colleen. “Tell your daddy I said hello.”

Brad left them and walked across the dance floor to a table on the other side of the bar where two other men sat. They were about his age, but they wore polo shirts and jeans. They looked like old college buddies who’d just left the golf course and had come to the bar to make a lot of noise and look for women to take home.

“What an asshole,” Colleen said.

“Yep,” Danny said. “Always has been. I hope your dad beats his ass.”

“I thought you were about to try.”

“Shoot,” Danny said. “I should’ve.” He looked at the bartender and raised his empty bottle, and a second later she came by and removed it and set down a fresh beer.

“What’s Plantation Cove?” Colleen asked.

Danny took a long sip of his beer and set it down. “What was Plantation Cove, you mean.”

“What was Plantation Cove?” she repeated.

“It’s sinking,” Danny said. He laughed. “In more ways than one.” He picked up a napkin from the bar and wiped his mouth, and then he wiped the beads of cold sweat from the bottle.

“What do you mean ‘it’s sinking’?”

“Well, it’s literally sinking,” Danny said. “It’s a new development off Long Beach Road. Brad came in and cleared swampland and decided to build huge houses on tiny lots. Some of the most expensive waterfront lots are literally under a foot of water, depending on the tide. And he can’t sell the lots and build fast enough to keep it in the black.” He looked over at Colleen, turned his head farther as if making sure Brad wasn’t still looming behind him. “So,” he said, “it is all, therefore, underwater.”

“I thought he was some rich kid,” Colleen said.

“He is,” Danny said. “At least he was, anyway. He’s still an asshole.”

“I’m sorry that he was mean to you,” she said.

Danny waved his hand. “Please,” he said. “I can handle guys like Bradley Frye.”

“I hope my father can handle him.”

“Hell, the only reason Bradley Frye wants to be sheriff is so he can get a piece of whatever’s out there.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“He’s going around telling everybody that that airplane was part of a drug-smuggling operation and that Rodney Bellamy was the ringleader.” He took a drag off his cigarette. “Shit, if that’s true, I bet Brad’s jealous as hell. I bet he wishes he’d thought of it.”

“You think that’s why he wants to be sheriff?” she asked. “To make money illegally?”

“Aside from your daddy, I’d argue that’s the only reason anybody in this damn county would want that job.”

They sat in silence for a moment, and Colleen looked at Danny out of the corner of her eye. For some reason, at that moment, she saw him as the older man he would become, still handsome, still pretending to be as happy and reckless as he was before Bradley Frye had arrived and stolen whatever joy their evening together had conjured. Colleen knew that even as an older man Danny would be alone, at least alone in the way of those who live full lives while never sharing the breadth of their lives with certain people. And Colleen knew that she was one of those certain people with whom Danny had never shared his life. When she was younger, she’d had questions she wanted to ask Danny, but she didn’t have the vocabulary to frame them. Now she had the vocabulary, but she no longer had the questions.

Finally, Danny stubbed out the remainder of his cigarette in the ashtray. Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” came over the speakers, and he grabbed Colleen’s hands and pulled her off her stool toward the dance floor.

As they danced, Colleen couldn’t help catching glimpses of Bradley Frye where he sat with his friends at a table in the corner. He wore his hockey mask pushed back on his forehead now, and she could feel his eyes on her, and that, along with his treatment of Danny and the things he’d said about her father, unnerved her. He was the kind of man who scared her, a man who acted like he had nothing to lose because he lived in a world without consequences.