When they got home on Friday night, the phone was ringing.
“I’ll get it,” Mindy said, sprinting into the kitchen.
Jim dragged their bags through the living room, then plopped down on the couch and switched on the television. Jim Jr. sat in the armchair and took up a handheld baseball game. Jim started to drift off when he heard the phone ring again.
“Mindy,” he yelled, “I thought you were going to get it?”
He muted the television, heard Mindy speaking in her grown-up telephone voice.
“Hello, Hood residence,” she said.
“Hello,” she said again. “Hello?”
She came running into the living room as though someone were chasing her.
“Who was it?” Jim asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “They hung up. Both times.”
“Huh,” Jim said.
“Daddy, I’m scared,” Mindy said, climbing into his lap.
“Why, honey? It was probably just a wrong number.”
“What if it was him?”
“If he was going to kill us, he wouldn’t call first,” Jim Jr. said, looking up from his game. “Unless maybe he wanted to make sure we were home.”
Mindy stifled a little scream. Jim started to reprimand his son but stopped when he heard the phone ringing again.
“Let me go this time,” he said, lifting Mindy off his lap.
But when he got to the kitchen, instead of answering, he pulled the cord from the phone and took the receiver off the hook. Then he lowered the volume on the answering machine, hit Play, and listened to a long string of hang ups.
Maybe Jim Jr. was right, he thought. Maybe Beauchamp wants to make sure I’m home.
He toured the house, checking that the windows and doors were all double locked.
Back in living room, he found his children sitting exactly as he’d left them, looking anxious and expectant.
“Let’s have some fun this weekend,” he said. “They’re going to hold a fair at the beach tomorrow. Ferris wheels and game booths and cotton candy. How’d you like that?”
* * *
The boardwalk was crowded with people queuing up at the game booths and food booths and fortune-telling booths. Beyond the boardwalk, families spread out on the sand, the children building castles and forts, the adults scouting for shells.
Jim Jr. tugged on his father’s sleeve and pointed to a shooting gallery.
“Can I, Dad? Please? I promise I’ll give Mindy my prize.”
“I can win my own prize,” Mindy said.
“Sure,” Jim said. “We’re here to have fun, aren’t we?”
“Me too?” Mindy asked. “I want to play, too.”
“Both of you,” Jim said. “When you’re done, we’ll find something to eat.”
The game involved shooting duck cutouts with an air gun. Jim always marveled at how his son, whose grades demonstrated no great ability to focus, could lose himself instantly in the most trivial competition. Mindy eyed her brother, let him go first, tried to best him with every shot. Jim watched them, thinking this was the first real family day they’d had since Bonnie died. It was the first day they had nothing to do but be a family. No errands to run. No people to visit or entertain. Life would be good again, he thought. It would just take time.
In the end, Jim Jr. won a rubber whale and Mindy a stuffed porcupine.
They continued farther down the boardwalk and found a booth that sold pizza cones and funnel cakes. Jim bought three of each. They were eating and leaning against a railing when he spotted Beauchamp, or someone who could easily pass for Beauchamp, watching them from a distance. Jim nearly choked on his food. He stood up straight to get a better view, felt his gun pressing against his side.
He managed to stay calm while they finished their meal, talking in a cheery voice about nothing in particular and stealing the occasional glance, trying to determine if the person in question really was Beauchamp. The man was the right size and shape, and he seemed to return Jim’s interest, but he was too far off to be sure; he might just be a stranger who wondered why Jim kept looking his way.
“Let’s keep walking to the end,” he told Mindy and Jim Jr. “You kids can run ahead if you want. Just don’t run so far that you can’t see me.”
He watched them go, then pivoted with the intention of staring down Beauchamp, if it was Beauchamp. But the man was gone. He’d vanished, like the villain in a movie. Jim stood on his tiptoes and searched as far as he could see, but there was no trace. How could a man that tall and broad just disappear? At the very least, Jim should have been able to spot the hunting cap bobbing above the crowd. He wondered if his mind had been playing tricks, if all the sleepless nights since Bonnie died were catching up with him.
* * *
Back home, Jim checked the answering machine. This time there was a message. He looked around to make sure the children were out of earshot, then pressed Play. He recognized Beauchamp’s voice immediately:
“I’ll be at your office on Monday morning, and don’t think you can brush me off ’cause I will sink you.”
Jim listened to the message a second time before he erased it. His mind wasn’t playing tricks: Beauchamp was coming for him.