The Storm King(75)

If Nate had gone through a bachelor phase, his home might have looked similar. But at this stage in their lives, it pained him to remember that Tom had once wanted to be an architect.

“Looks comfortable.”

Tom didn’t bother replying. He’d already placed two mismatched glasses on the coffee table next to where he’d deposited his wallet and keys. His back was to Nate, but the squeak and pop of a liquor bottle explained itself. Nate wasn’t interested in a drink, but he had to play nice until he understood why Tom had brought him here while murderers were loose and grandmothers were critically injured. He shrugged off his raincoat and folded it across an arm of the battered couch.



“To Lucy,” Nate said after he accepted his glass. Bourbon. He took a sip and watched Tom drain his.

As Tom refilled his tumbler, an explosion of thunder rattled the windows, and the lights went out. The noises of the house wound down in a shuddering final breath.

Tom gulped his second glass without pausing. He’d barely finished swallowing when he began to speak.

“I killed her.”

Nate frowned.

“You heard me.”

“Cut it out.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“Look at me, Nate.” In the dark room, Tom’s face was nothing but shadow.

“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.” Nate didn’t know this game, but he knew he didn’t want to play. He placed his glass on the coffee table and stealthily grabbed Tom’s keys while he was at it. If the Internet was still accessible, he’d try Googling Adam’s address from Grams’s computer. If he found Adam, he might have an easier time getting what he needed from him without the burden of Tom’s chaperoning.

Nate was halfway to the garage when Tom surprised him with a body slam. They crashed into an end table, and a lamp tumbled to the carpet. Before Nate could regain his balance, Tom gripped him by the shoulders to shove him against the wall. A framed photo fell from a bookshelf and shattered across the floor.

“Look at me!” Tom screamed. Slicks of tears carved the hollows of his face. “I killed Lucy.”





TOM TORE THROUGH the forest like a razor through flesh. Fast, straight, leaving a wake of pain.

The pain was his own.

A howl reverberated in his ears, though the only sound he made was the crash of his feet against the gnarled ground.

In the distance, Nate called for him, and for once Tom wouldn’t answer. His friend’s voice faded with every step. He couldn’t bear to think about Nate, though it was impossible to think of anything else.

Had he really? Had he really?

Tom didn’t know where he was running to until he got there: the Night Ship. It was two miles from the glade, but then it was in front of him. An island citadel silhouetted against the moonlit clouds.

The others had always been drawn to its creaking halls. They found solace in its stories and took comfort in the endless sigh of the lake against its pilings. Tom had never understood this. Maybe tonight he would.

He ran down the warped pier and didn’t stop when he reached the promenade. The long hall was void of all light, but he didn’t slow. He felt as if there was nothing left to fear.



A finger of illumination pointed from the Night Ship down the promenade. Inside, Tom saw that one of the camp lanterns was lit.

“Johnny?” he called into shadows. “Owen?” He wanted to be by himself, but he didn’t want to be alone. He had to run or stop or sleep or think or obliterate himself.

Tom climbed onto the scratched expanse of the bar and knocked over candlepins of bottles with a clumsy landing on the other side. They rolled and clanked as Tom groped at them. He squinted at their labels, looking for anything the sight of which didn’t turn his stomach.

He found a fifth of triple sec, took a swig, and immediately ejected it through his mouth and nose. When he went to wipe his face, he remembered that he’d left his shirt back in the glade along with his shoes. He curled into himself on the ravaged floor. Against his ear, the wood trembled with the groans of the lake.

Footsteps tapped through the planks.

“Nate?” he asked. His voice was slurred with hope and fear. Using the knobs of drawers and cupboards as handholds, Tom hoisted himself into a position to see the dance floor.

A figure appeared just inside the doorway to the boardwalk. The kimono wrap draped over her shoulders made her shadow into that of a winged creature.

“Oh,” Lucy said when she saw him. Disappointed but also relieved.

Lucy’s face was streaked with makeup. Her tousled hair, wet and plastered against her neck. A mash of pulp that had once been a cluster of lilies hung above her ear. But she was still beautiful. She and Nate, they glowed with the same light.

“What are you doing here?” Tom asked. The words were petty and stupid, and he hated them and he hated himself for saying them.

Lucy lurched to the bar. The tumbler she held made a dull clank as she half-dropped it on the counter. She studied him for a moment before lighting a tiger’s smile. “What’d he do to you?”



“Who?”

“Please. Look at you.”

“Look at yourself.”

She made a sound like a laugh. “Fine. Look at us. Look what he did to us.”