The soup bowl
hit the floor with a crash.
"Are you all right?" The Shadow's voice came from behind the bedroom door. "What was that noise?"
"Nothing." She picked up the pieces of the broken bowl as quietly as possible.
"Are you hurt?" he asked. "Do you need help?" She heard the brass bed creak. He must be trying to get up.
"No!" She swallowed hard, then tried it again, in what she hoped was a calmer voice. "No, thank you. I just dropped the soup bowl. I don't need any help. Go back to sleep."
"Okay," he said. "Be careful not to cut yourself."
She held her breath and waited until she heard the bed creak again as he presumably lay back down.
She spent a sleepless night at the kitchen table, with one hand on a heavy, snow-globe paperweight in case he came for her in the middle of the night.
At least she intended for it to be a sleepless night. But the strain of the day must have finally gotten the better of her.
She woke up with a stiff neck, her head resting on the
kitchen table. Ophelia's fluffy tail waved about, slapping her across the face.
"Ack! Move, beast!"
Ophie jumped down off the table, then up onto the Aga.
She looked around the kitchen. The lights were on. Rain pattered against the kitchen window, and the foghorn was sounding. The kitchen clock said 10:15. There was some light outside the window, so it must be 10:15 in the morning, not evening. But why was she holding a paperweight?
She was dressed in her jeans and tee-shirt. Her latest batch of photos were scattered across the table. She must have been working and dozed off.
She got up and shuffled over to the Aga to put the kettle on. Wow, there sure was a lot more cat hair on the pine floor than she ever remembered seeing before.
And it was black.
Dog hair.
It all came back to her—the howl of the dog, the seizure by the cliff, the injured pirate sleeping down the hall in her brass bed.
The paperweight in her hand was to protect her from the Shadow.
A paperweight wouldn't be much help against a murderer. She set it down on the table.
She had a whopper of a headache. She'd had a seizure yesterday. No wonder she kept falling asleep. It was amazing she'd stayed conscious as long as she had.
She felt like she was going to be sick. What kind of monster had she brought into this house?
During their dinner at Matteo's Restaurant, Aunt Zee had been reluctant to give her details about the DiPietros. She had thought it odd that the great-aunt who always joyfully regaled
her with gossip about every Hollywood star and jet-setter would balk at telling the story of one local boy gone bad.
But Aunt Zee had said this was different. This was a genuine tragedy: the story of a small-town family that had worked to give their kids a better life, only to have their eldest son become one of the most despicable gangsters on the West Coast.
Matt DiPietro. The Shadow. She wished she had been able to drag more info out of Aunt Zee.
It wasn't like she could go wake him up and ask him what the story was. 'So, I hear you murder people,' she might start. 'Is there much money in that line of work?'
What had Aunt Zee said? She tried to remember every detail of that dinner at Matteo's.
He had been a high school football star (she'd been right in thinking he was a dumb jock), had gone off to college, but had gotten involved in some sort of drug gang and had killed some rival gangster. He had gotten off on a technicality or something—No! He'd been acquitted because the witnesses were scared to testify. It was like something out of The Godfather.
He had earned the nickname Shadow because he could slip past the cops without getting caught, Aunt Zee had said.
She was out here alone with an evil, dangerous man who had brought his family nothing but grief and shame.
And from the sound of the foghorn outside, she wasn't leaving the island any time soon.
How had she gotten herself into this mess?
Simple. She had been stupid, and reckless, and impulsive, and a dozen other things she was smarter than to be, and now she was paying for it.
Cut yourself some slack.
Okay, so she had been a bit foolish running off to this island alone, but she had handled things
pretty well, all things considered. After all, "helpless little Lori" had saved a man's life.
It was just her bad luck that saving this particular life hadn't done the world any favors.
She briefly pondered the logistics of pushing the brass bed outside and dumping its occupant back over the cliff whence he'd come.
"Nah," she said to Ophie. "The seals are dying often enough without that slime mucking up their tide pools."
Speaking of the slime, she'd better figure out if he was still asleep, or (she should be so lucky) if he'd gone sleepwalking during the night and wandered off the edge of the cliff.
She needed a plan.
She reached for the little AM/FM radio she kept on the kitchen counter, and turned the dial.
Rock music, some weird old radio program (that was the Pajaro Bay channel), mariachi music, commercial, commercial. Where was that news station?
There. Traffic report. She reached for the opened package of chocolate cookies on the counter while she listened.
There was something voyeuristic about hearing a report of traffic jams on the Golden Gate Bridge from a hundred miles away. All those people out there stuck in traffic thought they were having a bad day. She'd be glad to trade places with them.
But the weather report following the traffic update announced her doom. How dare that reporter say "small craft advisory still in effect—storms continuing throughout the day" with such an obscenely happy sound in his voice?
She had to get out of here, she realized as she switched off the radio. It was one thing to come out here alone to prove she could be independent, but she couldn't possibly stay on the
island with a murderer. There had to be some way to get a message to the Coast Guard. She'd better check out the ruined radio and see if there was a chance she could get it working. Without that, she was stuck.
She rubbed her stiff neck. How long had she slept? More importantly, was that man still unconscious in the bedroom, or was he creeping around here somewhere?
Lori knelt over him. "There, there," she whispered in that throaty voice. The moonlight made her a pale siren: her hair wisps of platinum, her body all soft curves in a silvery beaded gown that skimmed her figure from shoulder to ankle. Cool jazz music wafted through the air, echoing her every movement. The lighthouse seemed bigger than he remembered it, like an art deco ballroom with marble floors and a giant fan-shaped window through which the moon lit the scene with a shimmering silver light.
The night was freezing—a bitter cold that left him lying on the floor, too weak to move. Lori's skin was luminescent as the moon itself, but he hadn't enough strength to lift his arms and touch her. "There, there," she said again. Her hand brushed over his leg, but he felt no pain, even where his blood oozed out, gray against the black of his tuxedo. "You're safe now, Matteo. I won't ever leave you."
He awoke with a start, and the dream faded to a memory like an old black-and-white print.
Where could that dream have come from? Him in a tuxedo, her in an evening gown, like actors in an old movie. But the blood. Gray or red, he had been covered in blood. He had a feeling that part was real, even if the blonde siren wasn't.
But what was real?
From somewhere down by the foot of the bed, a loud,
rhythmic snoring emanated. He tried to reconcile the nasal onslaught with the dream of the tiny blonde siren, with no luck. That couldn't be her.
He struggled with this idea for a while until he realized that the heavy fur blanket on his leg was breathing.
"Get off me, Shadowfax!" He pushed at the pile of fur with his right leg, and it snorted, then rolled over onto his left leg.
The pain shot through him like a bullet. In an instant he was sitting up, pushing the dog out of bed with both arms, and at the same time instinctively stifling the moan that almost escaped his lips.
He had been shot. He had lain bleeding, on the rocks, and Lori had saved him. He was in the Pajaro Island lighthouse.
All these thoughts hit him at once, followed closely by the thought of little Lori, dead, because he'd led a gang of vicious smugglers to her doorstep.
He was a step towards the door before he realized his left leg was not going to support his weight.
He made it back to the bed, and lay there, panting, shivering, trying to think. If only it wasn't so cold.
He wrapped the bedspread around himself, and curled up next to the dog, clinging to its warmth. The dog rolled over and started snoring again.
Lori wasn't dead. If Moreno's man had followed him to the island, Matt would be dead. If he was alive, she must be too.
But what had he said to Lori? He racked his brain, trying to think. He was so cold. He couldn't remember. Certainly, no matter how out of it he felt, he couldn't have told her the truth: that he was working undercover for the Project. He would never have revealed that. The world must know him as the Shadow, nothing else. That identity was so well-ingrained in him he wouldn't break even under torture.
He was the Shadow. Sometimes he believed it himself. It was safer to believe himself a vicious killer than to remember the world he'd left, full of everyday people—like angelic little Lorelei York.
She was hardly the kind of person he met in his world of dark alleys and death threats. What had possessed him to tell her his name? She had acted like the name meant nothing to her, but it was an unnecessary risk just the same. He didn't really know this woman. She had seemed a fragile innocent, but things weren't always what they seemed. He had fallen hard for her, and it was making him foolish, and reckless. But he couldn't afford to frighten her with his murderous persona. He needed her help.
Relax. Get a hold of yourself, you idiot. You're the infamous Shadow, cold-blooded killer and bringer of doom. You've gotta be able to think yourself out of this little jam.
He had to pull himself together if he was going to protect Lori from what lurked out there on the open sea.
Well, the radio was D.O.A. She had held onto a tiny bit of hope, but looking down at it, in its final resting place on the lighthouse tower's stone floor, she knew without a doubt it was a goner. There weren't any parts big enough to even begin to put back together.
She left it there and went back down the hall.
So that was out. No communication. Now what about the murderous thug in her bed?
Lori crept down the hall in her stocking feet until she stood outside the bedroom door.
The brilliant plan she'd concocted was to quietly ease the
door open for a quick peek at her hopefully sleeping quarry, and then improvise from there.
But the dog was too quick for her. Before she could touch the doorknob she heard the scratch of toenails on the wood floor, and then a whine that could wake the dead.
"What's up, boy?" came the now-familiar voice from inside. The brass bed creaked.
The dog scratched against the door.
Lori took a deep breath, and opened the door.
"Hi," she said cheerfully. "Are you awake?"
He lay curled up sideways on the bed. He was wide awake, and staring at her.
"It's freezing in here," he said.
He was hunkered down under the chenille bedspread like he was cold. The room wasn't that cold.
"I'd better take your temperature," she said before realizing she didn't care if the Shadow caught pneumonia and died.
"Thank you," he said, and closed his eyes. Always polite. She supposed that was how he fooled people.
She fetched a thermometer from the first aid kit in the bathroom and came back.
He hadn't moved.
He could break a woman's heart, looking like that: drop-dead gorgeous and sweetly vulnerable at the same time.
She nudged him, and, when he opened his eyes, handed him the thermometer.
He thanked her again, and stuck the thermometer in his mouth.
He was good. She bet women fell for his nice-guy routine all the time. Well, not her. She knew the truth.
She had dragged him here, forgiven him for destroying her radio, and fed him chicken soup, and all the while he'd been
putting on that sweet little boy, lost-surfer-with-the-soul-of-a-poet act. And she'd fallen for it.
The blush rose on her cheeks when she thought about how she had fallen right into his trap. He had seemed so friendly and nice. He had acted concerned about her welfare, even when he was wounded and exhausted.
How could her instincts have been so wrong? 'Are you okay?' he'd asked at the cliff, and again when she dropped the bowl. He quoted Shakespeare, and he had that mane of long dark curls, and he named his dog after the horse in Lord of the Rings, which was a very un-dumb-jocklike thing to do, and he looked at her like he thought she was an angel...
...and she was a shallow, brain-dead bimbo who thought a man must be a good person just because the muscles on his chest rippled every time he moved.
He took the thermometer out of his mouth, but seemed to have trouble focusing to read it.
"Here," she said sharply, and held out her hand.
He gave her the thermometer.
95.1 degrees. He was cold. Probably hypothermia. Great.
She was not going to nursemaid a killer.
"I'll get you another blanket and some more hot soup," she said.
"Thank you," he said again, and it just made her more mad.
"Yeah, right," she said.
After fetching the blanket and soup for him she left him there. In her bed. The creep.
She spent an incredibly long time in the bathroom brushing her hair. Then her teeth needed flossing. After that the bathtub
ring simply cried out for some attention. While she crouched on her knees, sponging lemon verbena cleaner on the claw-foot bathtub, the futility of what she was doing finally struck her. She couldn't spend the next few days examining the contents of the medicine cabinet. Eventually she would have to open the door and face the Shadow.
When she emerged from her hour in the bathroom, she found him seated at the kitchen table, dressed in a skimpier version of the wetsuit he'd had on before.
"A dive skin," he said when he noticed her looking at him. "Keeps you warmer when you go out in cold weather." The dive skin looked like a slick black version of long underwear, with elbow-length sleeves and knee-length shorts. The outfit should have made him look ridiculous, but of course it didn't. He couldn't look unattractive if he tried.
The dog sprawled next to the stove in Ophelia's usual place. Lori finally spotted a fluffy gray dust bunny crouched under the settee in the adjoining sitting room. The dust bunny was growling. Apparently Ophie had decided to try the avoidance method with their house guests, too. Outside the windows, the fog drifted past, obscuring the trees at the cliff's edge.
"There's a small craft advisory up," the Shadow said, nodding toward the radio. His smile was wan. "I guess you're stuck with me another day."
Lori said nothing. There was nothing to say.
He had pulled his hair back into a ponytail. It made him appear more rakish than ever. She wished he wasn't so handsome. Was that why she had trusted him? Was she that shallow, to think a man was trustworthy because he looked like a gorgeous pirate?
The dog scratched at the kitchen door and whined. "I'd better let him out," he said. He leaned against the table edge
to raise himself out of the seat. The table tipped toward him. He let go, then put his hands on the chair arms and tried again to lift himself up out of the chair.
"I'll do it," she said. "We just got you warmed up." She took the dog out through the storm porch, opened the door and the dog bounded out into the fog. She followed him out to make sure he didn't get lost again.
She shivered as soon as the fog cut through her thin shirt, but she sure wasn't going back in there until she'd had a good long walk.
"Where'd you go, dog?" she whispered. A bank of fog in front of her blocked her way, daring her to plunge into it. She could hear Shadowfax's bark from somewhere that seemed far away, then nothing but the ocean's endless roar.
Great. That dog really had run off. She stepped off the porch steps and the fog followed her, swirling around her ankles in silent accompaniment.
"Come on, Shadowfax. Stop goofing around."
A black blur appeared suddenly out of the fog in front of her. He grinned a toothy smile at her and then put his muddy paws up on her, knocking her backwards.
She just managed to stay on her feet. "You crazy mutt!"
The dog sidled up against her, bumping her with his side and grinning. He was a powerful animal, and she almost lost her balance again. Why was he doing that? He didn't seem vicious, but he was so pushy.
She looked out at the fog. Nothing. She couldn't see the ocean, or any boats that might be out there. And she had no way to signal them even if they were there.
She looked up again toward the light tower. The beam was on again, triggered by some automatic circuit that measured the amount of ambient light. It didn't do much good in the fog,
though. The light just made the fog look glistening and shadowy as the beam reflected in the moist air. She watched the shimmering patterns for a bit.
She glanced down at Shadowfax, and noticed he was sitting right in front of her as if posing for a picture: flat on his haunches, sitting up straight and tall, with his front paws close in front of him, and his head cocked slightly to one side as he watched her eagerly, as if he were trying to say something to her.
"What?" she said.
The dog was still sitting there looking at her. Lori shook her head, and lost her balance, grabbing at the dog to keep from falling. The dog took it well, staying in the same position until she was able to straighten up and let go of him.
Seizure.
She must have been out for only a minute. She hadn't fallen this time. She raised her hand to rub her forehead, where the roar of a fresh headache had begun its familiar hammering. Her hands felt sore, and she saw she'd dug her fingernails into her palms, leaving half-moons pale in the flesh.
The dog's fur was wet from the fog, his dark coat glistening. She suddenly pictured Matt on the ground, her hands brushing through his damp black hair as she comforted the wounded lost sailor.
She turned around and went back inside to face him. The dog still sat there in the same position, as if waiting for something, so she finally made a motion toward herself, and the dog bounded up to follow her inside.
Once inside, she took off her sneakers, which had gotten all
muddy again. Then she took a hand towel and wiped most of the mud off the dog's paws before they both headed back to the kitchen.
"What's wrong?" he asked when he saw her.
"I have epilepsy," she told him flatly. "I had a seizure and I need to lie down. I'm taking the bed." She went down to the bedroom. He called after her, asking if there was anything he could do to help her, and she ignored it, slamming the door on him once she got inside.
The dog had come with her, scooting in the door behind her before she banged it shut.
She lay down on the bed. Shadowfax jumped up and curled up next to her. He rested his graying muzzle on her belly and settled in as if ready for a long nap. She was too wiped out to argue with him about it. She pulled the pillow over her head to dull the throbbing headache.
She woke to more rain. But the fog had been driven off by the wind, and she could see for a couple of miles across the gray, choppy sea. She stood at the bedroom window, which faced toward the shore. For the first time in days, could make out the colorful little fishermen's cottages that hugged the base of the sandstone cliff, and the beachfront amusement park that looked cold and shuttered on this winter day. The fishermen's wharf jutted out into the bay toward her, dark and quiet as it rested on its pilings. Far above, at the top of the cliffs, sat the houses Pajaro Bay was famous for, rows of hand-built cottages in the distinctive Pajaro Bay style, as well as some rebels: a glass-and-steel 1950s modern mansion, a couple of pseudo-California mission estates, and Aunt Zee's art deco
house.
It was impossible to pick out Aunt Zee's house from this distance. So close yet so far.
Shadowfax grunted as he stood up on the bed. "You really shouldn't be up there," she said to him. Of course he just grinned at her.
She rubbed her head. She needed her medication. "Well, come on, dog. Let's go see where your master is."
Shadowfax just looked at her. She put her hand in front of herself and brought it toward her, as Matt had done before. The dog immediately jumped off the bed and came to sit in front of her. She patted him on the head, then with a sigh, she went out to the kitchen.
Matt was sitting in the rocking chair, reading the True Tales
book.
"You did a good job on the bandage," he said, pointing to his leg. "You could have a career as a paramedic."
With apparent effort, he pulled himself to his feet. "I'll pay you back with a gourmet breakfast," he announced.
"It's too late for breakfast."
His eyebrows went up at her tone. "Okay, brunch. You got any eggs?"
"No."
"Are you okay? You seem a bit tense."
Uh oh. She'd better get a grip before he suspected something. "I'm fine. I usually have cereal for breakfast."
"Okay. Cereal sounds good for brunch." He picked up a mop handle he'd apparently found somewhere, and used it like a cane to maneuver himself away from the stove, toward the
sitting room. "And I'll get out of your way so you can fix it. Didn't mean to step on your turf."
She watched him from the kitchen as he slowly made his way to the bookshelves flanking the fireplace. He picked up one of her books. Those murderer's hands were pawing at her things.
"Is this a good book?" he asked. "I haven't been reading much recently."
Murder and mayhem must be keeping him too busy to peruse the bestseller lists. "I haven't read it yet," she said, trying to sound friendly. She wished she possessed Aunt Zee's acting ability. Her hands were shaking.
He limped over to the corner to pull another volume from the bookshelf. "Oh, good. You have a Shakespeare anthology. I wanted to re-read Ophelia's insanity scene from Hamlet
."
Hamlet
. Perfect. Just about everybody's been murdered by the end of that play. "I'll bet that one's your favorite," she said sarcastically.
"Nah. Just read it in school. So why did you name your cat Ophelia?"
"She's Aunt Zee's cat. Why did you name your dog Shadowfax?" Why would a murderer do that? She realized she'd made it sound like an accusation, and the confusion in his eyes made clear he'd heard the challenge.
"He needed a new name when I got him. It seemed right for him. It's from a book," he added, a smile touching the corners of his mouth. "My favorite book."
"The Lord of the Rings
. Yeah, I saw the movies." Elves and wizards didn't seem a likely choice for a man who got away with murder because the witnesses disappeared before his trial, but she didn't say that.
"I never got around to seeing the movies." Then he paused.
"You don't like it." It was a statement. If he preferred to think her annoyance was about some book, that was probably best. "It's a classic," he explained.
"I know. But...."
"But what?"
She didn't want to talk to him, but letting him see what she thought of him could be dangerous. She had to get control of her emotions. Play it cool.
He sat down on the antique settee with a sigh of relief, and propped the sore leg up on the table. He ran one hand across the spine of her Shakespeare anthology. Had he strangled anyone with those hands, or did he just order his henchmen to do it for him?
She turned away so he wouldn't see the hatred—the fear—in her eyes. She picked up the dishcloth to dry the one unbroken soup bowl. If her hands didn't stop shaking this one would end up in pieces on the floor, too, and they'd be eating cereal out of tea cups.
"Why don't you like it?" he asked. This guy was persistent. Why couldn't he just go back to sleep until the storm ended?
"I don't know," she said. Answer him. Say something. "I guess because it's so sad."
"Sad?"
"Because the hero went off on a quest to save the world...."
"And he succeeded. The world was safe—"
"—but he never got to enjoy it," she said. "Everybody else got to live happily ever after, but the hero was too wounded to go back to his life, and the people there never realized what he'd sacrificed for them...." Why was she talking about this with him? The Shadow was hardly the person to discuss heroism and self-sacrifice with. The dishcloth in her hand tore, and she quickly laid it on the counter so he wouldn't see.
He hadn't noticed the cloth. "You can't always have what you want. That's the way life is," he said quietly. "There aren't any happy endings." His voice grew even softer, almost a whisper. "For the hero, it was enough to know the rest of the world was safe, even if he could never go home again. He didn't do it for himself. He did it for the children who could live in peace after he was gone."
Something in his voice made her turn around and face him. He was staring at the spine of the book, but as if he was seeing something far away from this little room.
He leaned back against the ornate settee. He smiled, appearing to shake off his previous mood. "Man, this chair's rock hard. Apparently the Victorians didn't place much priority on comfort."
He looked around the sitting room. "Why on earth did they bring this fancy stuff way out here?"
He wasn't going to shut up, was he? They were stuck here, so she'd better talk to him, or he'd get suspicious. And the last thing she wanted was for him to stop trusting her.
"I've been reading up on the history of the lighthouse." She pointed to the parlor's ceiling, where a beam split the room in two. "See here? This section was part of the original lighthouse, built in 1880 or so. The second section, the part you're sitting in, was an addition Joseph and Charity Aiden made when he was lightkeeper in the 1920s to '30s."
She walked into the room, but made sure to keep a certain distance between them.
"They wanted a place for a piano in this corner, by the fireplace. The Aidens were newlyweds, you see. He wanted to give his wife all the comforts of home. Charity came from a wealthy family in Ireland, but when she fell in love with poor lighthouse keeper Joseph Aiden—"
"—Big mistake," he interrupted.
"What?"
"Classic story. She's from a wealthy family, and he's a poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks."
"So?"
"Sounds like the makings of a tragedy to me."
What an odd thing for him to say. "Haven't you ever heard that opposites attract?"
"Only in books, Lori." He was watching her intently. "In reality being attracted to someone out of your league just messes up your life."
"What a romantic thought." What an insufferable man. She started to turn away from him. "If you don't want to hear the story, fine."
"So what happened to the Aidens?"
Reluctantly, she turned back around to face him. He was smiling sweetly at her. "Did they live happily ever after?" he asked.
He really was insufferable. "You already know, don't you?" she snapped.
He laughed. "I know a woman was murdered out here a long time ago. And from the way I've annoyed you I'm guessing it's Mrs. Charity Aiden, the idealistic upper-class girl who loved a man far below her station. So, come on, tell me how it all turned out." He smiled that dazzling smile at her. "Come on, Lori. We're stuck out here with nothing to do. Tell me the rest of the story."
Wow, he was good. He could probably make women do anything by looking at them like that.
She smiled her own fake sweet smile back at him. "All right. I'll tell you if you stop interrupting me. When Charity was pregnant with their first child, Joseph became ill with
influenza."
Despite her unsavory audience, she found herself warming to her topic. She loved telling people about history. "Charity tried to care for her husband, but before help could get to the island, he died. So Charity became the lighthouse keeper in his place."
In her mind's eye she saw the lonely widow trapped out here, with the responsibility for her child, and for her husband's job, resting on her narrow shoulders. "It's said that she kept the place running all alone throughout her pregnancy," she continued quietly. "Through the storms that rocked the coast, she never once let the light or the foghorn fail. And after she gave birth to their daughter Rose, she walked the widow's walk every night, carrying the baby around the light tower while she kept her watch, with only her faithful collie for a companion." She stopped.
He was grinning at her.
"Now what's so funny?"
"Nothing. You tell the story well. You bring Charity Aiden right into this room."
"I just read it in a book."
"But you have a gift for telling the tale. You'd make a good teacher."
"No, I wouldn't," she said firmly.
"Why not?"
"I have epilepsy," she blurted out.
"Yeah. You said so. I guess I don't see the connection. Why couldn't you be a teacher?"
"I have seizures. I can lose consciousness without any warning, so I can't be responsible for a bunch of children." She sounded more bitter than she meant to. She had wanted to be a teacher. But of course helpless little Lori couldn't do that.
He really knew how to push all her buttons, didn't he?
"What causes it? I mean, if you don't mind talking about it."
"I've answered it so many times, I don't mind. Every once in a while, I have these extra electrical impulses in my brain, like a short circuit, sort of. It's just something I was born with. My mother has it, too. And my grandmother did before her."
"So it's a flaw in your wiring."
"Yeah, basically. And when the system overloads, I lose awareness for a second or a minute. It doesn't hurt or anything, but I have no control over when it happens." And that loss of control was the worst thing.
"Like a thunderstorm in your head."
"Yeah. That's one way to put it."
He looked genuinely concerned. "I'm sorry, Lori. I guess that must be rough. Isn't there anything doctors can do to help you?"
"I'm on medication that helps. But it doesn't completely control the seizures. I could have part of my brain cut out. That sounds pretty outrageous, but it's actually a good solution for a lot of people. But the location of the problem makes that too risky in my case."
"I can understand that. Your brain is—" he paused. "Extremely impressive."
That may have been one of the nicest compliments anyone ever paid her. It was unfortunate the compliment came from a murderer.
"But can't you just go lie down when you're going to have a seizure?" he asked.
"Gee, why didn't I think of that?"
He frowned. "Not a good idea, huh?"
"It's a great idea. But it only works if you have an aura—a signal that warns you you're about to have a seizure, like
getting a headache, or feeling an odd sensation. I don't have any aura, usually. I can avoid things I know trigger seizures. Like flashing lights," she added, thinking of the lighthouse ghost. "I'm convinced there's a spot in Hades reserved for the inventor of the rotating mirrored disco ball—"
Matt chuckled.
"—and don't get me started on those horrid frantically flashing video games. But most of the time I don't know I had a seizure until I wake up."
If she had a seizure. Everything in her life was restricted by that one phrase. She never knew when they were coming, and she never knew she'd had one until she woke up with a whopping bruise on her head or a crowd of curious spectators gathered round her like she was a sideshow attraction.
"Well, it doesn't seem to have affected your life much."
She touched the finger of her left hand, no longer weighed down by Richard's ring.
"No. It hasn't affected me at all."
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to pry."
Of course he wasn't sorry. He was nosy, and obnoxious. He looked sorry, though. He looked, as always, sympathetic and gentle, and understanding. Like someone she could bare her soul to. What a sham.
There was an awkward silence, broken only by the patter of rain against the windows, and the snoring of Shadowfax from his spot curled up on the kitchen floor.
She watched the man surreptitiously as he sat there. Though he appeared pale, and a bit worse for wear from his ordeal, he still managed to project, as ever, the rakish pirate quality that she'd noticed the first time she'd met him.
"So, um, what happened to Charity?" he finally asked. She supposed he thought he was steering their conversation
toward more neutral territory, but Charity's fate was inextricably bound up with all those dashing pirates who, in her imagination, looked exactly like the man seated in front of her.
"Charity Aiden was killed by rum smugglers two months before Prohibition was repealed."
"Ouch. How's that for ironic?"
"The baby was adopted by some family," she added, wanting to get past the part with the pirates—and the murder. "She later grew up to marry their son. The book calls the family the leaders of Pajaro Bay society. And that's the end of the story. Is that tragic enough for you?"
Matt laughed. "That would be the Madrigals."
"What would?"
"The leaders of Pajaro Bay society. I played football in high school with Kyle Madrigal. His family founded Pajaro Bay, so Rose Aiden Madrigal would probably be Kyle's grandmother, or great-grandmother, or something like that."
"Wow, you've rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous," she joked. After the words came out they hung there in the room. He was the famous one. Famous for murder and mayhem.
He didn't seem to notice her gaffe. "My family doesn't rub shoulders with Madrigals," he corrected. "When the Madrigals were busy running Pajaro Bay, my family was gutting fish in Wharf Flats." He frowned, then added, "And never the twain shall meet."
Oh, please. Was that his explanation for turning to crime? Pleading poverty? Aunt Zee had said something about the infamous Matt DiPietro playing into all of Pajaro Bay society's stereotypes about low-class 'wharf rats from Wharf Flats.' But that was hardly an excuse for his crimes.
She turned away, disgusted, both at him for drawing her into conversation and at herself for momentarily forgetting who he was.
She stomped off to the kitchen to make herself breakfast. He could starve for all she cared.
