Zachary had no idea what time it was. Of course, that was the casino’s intent. But he knew it was late, so he flipped the blackjack dealer from whom he’d won two hundred dollars and rose from the stool. “You ready?”
“So ready,” Ramona said.
She’d been standing behind him, a little too close for comfort. He’d let that go, since she’d given up the fight on him paying for his own room. “You could have done your own thing,” he said. “Didn’t mean to tie you up here for so long.”
“It’s fine, really. I like watching you play, even if I’m not much of a gambler myself. But after a while…” She shrugged.
“I get it.” He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling some stiffness. “But it felt good to focus on something other than a boat. Or my grandparents. Thanks for stealing me away.”
Her face flushed pink, and her voice went rough when she said, “It was my pleasure.” She looped her arm around his and led him away from the blackjack area. “Let’s find one of those rolling chairs and go for a ride on the Boardwalk?”
“Sure, why not?”
Once they were wandering outside, though, they discovered they only operated during the day.
“Tomorrow,” he promised when she looked so disappointed.
She pointed. “Look, there’s a fortune teller’s booth! Madame LaVelle,” she intoned with drama. “Know the future.” She turned to him. “How about getting our palms read?”
“Nah, but go ahead. I’m not into that stuff.” Only angels and time travel.
Angels. He felt ready to find Wendy again. His heart was healing, the spark of life finally flaring again. It had been about two years since her last visit. When he returned to Rye, he would go into Portsmouth and find her office. Wait for her outside as he’d planned. He didn’t want to wait until their birthdays, so he’d have to find some other way to open a conversation.
Ramona strolled over to the fortune teller’s booth, but despite the neon sign, a CLOSED sign hung across the doorway. She had a smile on her face as she traced her finger over the crystal ball on the sign. “Would you want to know your future?”
The question gave him a start. Because he had gotten glimpses, thanks to Wendy. “If I could change something important. Save someone’s life.” He’d gone by Betzi’s cottage a couple months ago when he’d just needed to drive. He hadn’t even realized that’s where he’d been heading until he pulled up in the driveway after a few wrong turns. When the man who answered the door said she didn’t live there anymore, Zachary had felt sad. Until he clarified that she’d married and moved into her new husband’s home in Portsmouth.
Wendy’s father. He’d died sometime in May. Zachary had been so lost in grief and comforting his grandmother that he had forgotten all about that. He started to pull out his wallet when Ramona grasped his arm. “Let’s go for a walk on the beach. It’s a beautiful night.”
He stilled his hand. He’d check as soon as they were in the light. “Sure, why not?” As soon as his feet hit the sand, an uncomfortable feeling surrounded him. The waves washed out the noises from above, making him feel far from the world. The ocean was a pit of blackness. Shadows lurked beneath the Boardwalk, as though all of humanities darkest secrets lurked there. Tiny red lights, no doubt the end of cigarettes, danced among the pilings. The smell of marijuana and music drifted through the air. His body reacted instinctually, shoulders widening, chest filling. Someone wolf whistled at Ramona, and she looped her arm with his. “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. I’m a little scared.”
He slowed and turned in the direction from which they’d come. “Let’s head back.”
She remained glued to his side as they tromped back through the sand. He couldn’t blame her really and, yet, it made him uncomfortable. Maybe it was her soft sigh, or the way she leaned against him, not so afraid after all.
“What would you do if some creep dragged me away?” she asked.
He looked at her to see if she were kidding but couldn’t see her expression clearly in the shadows. “I’d fight him off, of course.”
She pulled him to a stop, coming to face him. “Would you? Really?”
Wouldn’t anyone? But she seemed to need to hear that he’d defend her. “I would.”
“Oh, Zack.” She pulled him down and plastered her mouth over his. He was so shocked, at first he could only register the smell of rum on her breath. Then her tongue seeking entrance to his mouth.
He grabbed her arms and held her back. “Ramona, what the hell? Are you drunk?”
“Drunk?” She laughed humorlessly. “No, Zachary, I just had a few drinks. Maybe a bit tipsy. But that has nothing to do with wanting to kiss you. I’m…” She squeezed the back of her neck in frustration. “I’m tired of just wanting to kiss you. Wanting you. Can’t you see that we’re meant to be together? After all these years of waiting and waiting and toeing the line, can’t you finally just admit that you love me?”
“I care about you, Ramona. Love, maybe. But not romantically. I told you that a long time ago, and you said you accepted it. That you were okay with us being friends and business partners.”
“I lied,” she said, tears he’d heard many times thick in her voice. “I had to lie or you would have walked away from me. Pushed me away. But I can’t take it anymore.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “Oh, God, I’m blowing it. I’m blowing the whole thing.”
“What whole thing?” He realized she must mean their friendship. “You haven’t blown it.” But the uncomfortable feeling he’d had with her since his refusal to marry her intensified. She’d been holding all this in. Pretending. “Ramona, listen to me.” He held her arms. “I’m sorry, okay? Sorry that I don’t feel that way about you. Sorry that you’ve been harboring this…this hope that things will change. But they won’t.”
“Because you’re in love with that Angel woman!”
He flinched at the way she’d made it sound like an accusation. “Yes, I am.”
“You hardly ever even see her! How can you love someone you’re never around.”
“That’s going to change. Soon.”
She made a soft gasping sound. “How…how do you know?”
“I just do. And I realized that I have somewhere I have to be tomorrow. I need to head back early.”
She sniffled, wiping her hand across her eyes. “Her?”
“In a way. I can’t really explain.” He needed to check that date, needed to be there for Wendy. He brushed at the tears glittering on Ramona’s cheeks. “I’m sorry, hon, but you need to accept this. To find someone who loves you the way you deserve to be loved.”
She crossed her arms and stalked past him toward the lights in the distance. He should let her go, but this wasn’t exactly the safest place for her to be alone. He would escort her back to the hotel and give her some time to absorb.
Angry voices exploded from under the Boardwalk as he caught up to her. Several yards away, he could barely see the two men just beyond the glow of lights. The shorter man stumbled forward, pulling at the other man’s shirt. His words slurred. “You know I’m good for the money, man.”
“I know you’re not,” another voice, darker and louder, growled. “You keep coming ’round, beggin’ like some stray dog. You’re the big lawyer man, how come you don’t got any money? You don’t get nothin’ ’til you pay me what you owe me. Now get out of here.”
“No, I’m not leaving until I get something!”
The tall burly man took a fighting stance, hands akimbo. “I'll make you leave.”
Ramona ran—toward them.
“Ramona! What in the hell are you doing?” Zachary yelled.
She glanced back at him but kept going. “Stop,” she said to the men without conviction. “I can help.”
Then it hit him. He knew what she was doing. She’d asked if he would protect her. And now she was putting him to the test. Throwing herself into danger. And dammit, he couldn’t just let her throw herself into the fray. He ran after her.
“What you want, bitch?” the big guy asked. The flash of metal in his hand was unmistakable—a knife.
The drunken man lurched back into the patch of light. “Maybe she’s got something for me. Screw you, Jimbo.”
Jimbo shoved Ramona, sending her face down to the sand. The other guy threw himself at Jimbo, cussing about the way to treat a lady, and Jimbo slashed at him. He moved out of the knife’s arc, but the blade caught his arm. As Zachary reached them, Ramona rolled to a sitting position and screamed at the sight of the blood pouring down the man’s arm. Jimbo raised the knife for another assault.
Zachary heard himself scream, “No!” just as Jimbo plunged the knife into the other man’s chest. Jimbo pushed the guy right into Zachary’s arms, coming at him with the bloody knife now. Zachary pushed the body away and grabbed for the knife. They struggled, force against force, the ten-inch blade aimed at Zachary’s throat.
“Ramona, get the police,” he gritted out, though he hoped she’d already gone for help.
Zachary gained the upper hand and shoved the man backward until he rammed against one of the pilings, knocking the breath out of him. Jimbo’s fingers remained tightly clenched around the handle of the knife. He kicked, catching Zachary just below the ribs. Gut-wrenching pain tore at his side, but he couldn’t give in to it. His life depended on keeping his focus on the sharp blade and the man who held it.
Jimbo kicked again. Zachary shifted away, that save giving the man a momentary advantage in balance. The knife slashed toward Zachary’s shoulder, but he ducked just in time. With his vision hyper-focused, he was aware of only two things: the knife poised above him and the sweet smell of clove cigarettes. They almost tripped over the lifeless body of the other man. Zachary worked to position Jimbo for another visit to the piling. A harder trip this time. He glimpsed a figure standing just outside the circle of light. Ramona. Just standing there. Her terrified eyes watched, her hands covering her mouth.
No one was coming. No help was on the way. It was up to him. Fresh adrenaline pumped through his veins. Zachary slammed the man into the piling again. This time Jimbo’s hand loosened enough for Zachary to wrench the knife free. The man kicked Zachary in the stomach, sending him stumbling back onto the sand next to the dead man.
Pain rocketed through him like an electrical current. He struggled to get up, hand clutched over his stomach. He heard voices, one whispering, “There’s a fight.”
“Oh, my God,” a man said. “Let’s get out of here,”
“No,” Zachary managed to utter, his gaze finding two couples standing a few yards away with horrified expressions. He staggered to his feet, breath sawing in and out of his lungs. “You…can’t…leave.”
One of the women screamed, pointing at the man’s body lying nearby. “He just killed that man!”
“Shit!” the guy with her said. “Go, go, go!” They tore away into the night.
“Stop!” Zachary huffed but couldn’t push out another word. Sucking in deep breaths, he looked down at himself: staggering, a bloody and torn shirt, clutching a knife. Of course they thought he’d done it. He dropped the knife and spun around. Jimbo stood in the shadows, catching his breath.
Zachary jabbed his finger at him. “You!”
The man bolted. Zachary followed. Those people thought he’d murdered a man. He had to catch this guy. Zachary chased him up the stairs to the boardwalk and the city beyond. Jimbo knew these streets, purposefully turning corners and leading him deeper into the city. A dirty city. He sensed it, smelled it, but didn’t have time to look at anything but the shadow up ahead darting around yet another bend.
All Zachary could hear was his own breathing, coming hard and fast, and the sound of his shoes hitting the pavement. Occasionally the crash of a garbage can or the crunch of glass broke through, but he didn’t need any audible clues. He caught the scent of cloves over the garbage and knew he was on target.
They zigzagged for several blocks. Zachary had no idea where he was. It seemed as though he’d been running for hours. When he turned the next corner, he came to a halt. No figure darted through the shadows. No footsteps pounded away from him. Zachary tried to listen over his heaving breaths as he searched the alley.
The sound of a can dropping to the concrete made him whirl around. All he saw was something dark coming at him. All he felt was pain as he dropped to the ground. Then nothing.
Wendy stared into the stranger’s eyes as he looked as shocked as she probably did. The smell of sweet cloves surrounded him, but there was nothing sweet about the man who jerked out of her grip.
“What the hell you grabbing me for, bitch?” He surveyed her. “You ain’t no cop. But you is stupid.”
She stepped back. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
“You lucky I’m in a hurry.” The man looked beyond her, then ran.
Thank God, away from her. She stood in an alley, her trembling hands over her heart. Either something had gone terribly wrong with destiny’s travel plans, or Zachary was in trouble. Both options froze her in panic.
No time for that. She had to find him. Where was she? In a city, and not a nice one. “Zachary!” she called in a faint voice, trying to sound like a guy. Something scurried through what sounded like trash. She shivered, imagining a huge rat. She called his name again, and after no answer, stepped out onto the street.
Definitely not a nice area, though she saw lights in the near distance. She walked up and down the block, murmuring Zachary’s name as she passed people. Surely he’d never been a homeless person in a city.
After covering the block, she headed toward those lights. She kept her posture stiff, trying to attract as little attention to herself as possible while calling his name. She probably sounded like a mentally ill vagrant, which was fine by her. Zachary would answer if he heard, and no one else would approach.
Lights here were hit and miss. Not a bad thing necessarily since she didn’t stick out like an outsider when she stayed in the shadows. She passed another alley and stepped into the mouth of it.
“Hey, you,” a man shouted from the street. “What you want?”
“Nothing,” she murmured. “Looking for trash.”
“This is my territory. Get outta here.”
Gladly.
Music wafted from open windows, conversations from door stoops.
“Hey!” someone called out from one of those stoops.
Not Zachary. And not anyone she wanted to talk to. She lowered her head and kept walking, her heart in her throat.
“I'll take what you got, mama,” the guy taunted with several kiss sounds. “How much?”
She shook her head and kept going. God. She wasn’t even dressed like a hooker. Though she wanted to tell him she wasn’t for sale, that might interest him more. Didn’t matter. The guy pushed off the steps and strode her way.
“Rock!” she called, waving at no one up ahead. “There you are. Are the guys here yet…there you all are. Hey, Boris, Sam, Tony!” She pretended to be talking to people around a corner as she turned the bend. She ducked into a doorway of an open liquor store and peered out. The guy hadn’t followed.
The door opened and a man stopped. “Excuse me.”
“Sorry.”
She moved on in a near run toward the lights. It seemed as though she’d gone for hours, but finally the buildings became a little nicer. Up ahead, though, everything seemed to just stop. Lights, people passing left and right, and then utter darkness. Still, there were lights, so she kept going, up a ramp and ended at a large boardwalk with diagonal planks. She turned around and saw shops and casinos with all their lights and welcome noise. An ocean breeze lifted her hair and cleared her nostrils of all that stench. Restaurants and tourist shops with T-shirts that proclaimed Atlantic City.
She breathed a sigh of relief just knowing where she was. Okay, so Zachary was in Atlantic City. Why didn’t she pop in near him? She looked around, hoping to spot him. Down a few blocks, brilliant lights perched atop police cars cut through the night air, drawing a crowd. As Wendy approached, an ambulance quietly drove away. Her chest tightened. Was Zachary hurt? She knew he couldn’t be severely injured. Or dead. She hadn’t done anything to alter the past yet, so everything was progressing normally. So far.
She walked past one of the police cars where a woman hysterically told a cop what had happened. Wendy heard something about a bloody knife and continued walking past, not wanting to hear any gruesome details.
According to a man she’d asked, it was just after three o’clock in the morning. She didn’t dare ask what year it was. She had no idea if Zachary liked to gamble, but she had to assume that was the reason he was there. It was the only thing she had to go on. She walked into every casino, searched in every section of every kind of gambling. He was nowhere to be found. She even considered going back to where she’d popped in but, aside from the improbability of finding it, the thought terrified her.
The sun was just beginning to paint the skies pink when she walked out of the last casino. Her eyes burned from the smoke and her head ached from worry. She took a few minutes to walk to the Boardwalk and watch the sun rise out of the depths of the ocean. The beginning of a new day. Hope that she would find Zachary rose, too.
When she turned around, she spotted a man refilling one of the newspaper stands. She’d been so busy trying to find Zachary, she hadn’t given much thought to the date. It didn’t seem that important this time.
The newspaper truck pulled away just as she reached the row of stands. She dug in her pocket for change and, just as she pulled out a few coins, gasped. They all dropped to the boards.
It wasn’t the headlines that shocked her—LAWYER STABBED TO DEATH NEAR BOARDWALK—but the sketch of the murderer beneath it.
Zachary.
No, that couldn’t be right. But it looked so much like him that it had made her heart jump. Scooping up the scattered coins, she bought a newspaper and found a nearby bench. She didn’t think she could handle reading the story standing up.
Her gaze flew across the article at first, picking out key words: once-prominent lawyer…struggled with drugs…practice dwindled…knife…witnesses. When she saw the location, and the shops in the background, she couldn’t believe it.
I was there. The ambulance, the police cars, I was right there after it happened. Where was Zachary then? The crime scene was nowhere near that back alley.
She slowly read the article again. No one seemed to know why the local lawyer was down among the lowlife who lived beneath the Boardwalk. Speculation was, of course, that he was trying to buy drugs. Witnesses who walked onto the scene by accident clearly saw the man who had stabbed the lawyer. He’d been holding the bloody knife in his hand and when he’d seen them, told them that they couldn’t leave.
The police had the knife as evidence, and although most of the fingerprints were smudged, two clean ones were taken. Both were from the same person. The police were running the prints.
Zachary a murderer? No, it couldn’t be true. It was quite obvious, however, that he was in an ocean full of trouble. Now it was even more dire that she find him. Was this what she was supposed to fix? And how did Ramona fit into all this?
Zachary’s first moment of consciousness felt like a freight train zooming through his head. Or maybe sixteen hundred marathon runners pounding through his brain.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. Gray pavement stretched out before him. Hard, gritty pavement pressing into his cheek. He pushed himself up, grimacing at the pain movement caused. Placing his hand to the sorest spot on his head, he felt a sticky lump beneath his hair. When he pulled his hand away, traces of blood stuck to his fingers.
An eerie, pinkish glow covered the skies, only barely lighting the street. As he looked around, he realized it was more like an alley. The backdoors of businesses piled with trash and empty boxes were the only sign that he was in civilization at all.
He noticed the foul odor of something dead. He looked around him, ready to see a body. The source of the smell sat two feet away a green dumpster. Coming from inside, a shuffling noise and the clinking of bottles.
“Is someone there?” Zachary called, surprised by the weakness in his voice.
The shuffling stopped, as though a rodent was trying to conceal its presence with silence. After a few moments, a head appeared around the lid of the dumpster. Zachary was too tired and too sore to jump at the sight of the man who looked more like a rat than a human being.
His sparse gray hair was matted to his head. His mustache and beard were unkempt, and his face shined from a layer of oil. All Zachary could see of his clothes was the dog-eared collar of what was probably a shabby jacket. The man’s eyes watered as they suspiciously surveyed the intruder.
“You’re new ’round here, ain’t ya?” the old man asked in a voice hoarser than Zachary’s.
“New? Yeah, I guess you could say that
“Well, see here. This dumpster, and every dumpster in this area, is mine. Understand?” Fear shined in the man’s eyes.
Zachary stifled a laugh. “Got it. You don’t have to worry about me, sir. I’m just, er, visiting.”
The old man studied him for a moment, then went back to digging again.
Zachary wasn’t in the mood for polite, or otherwise, conversation. He had to figure out how he got from Rye to this place. Standing up cleared his head a bit, though the dull ache continued. Slowly, the pieces starting to fit together. Ramona had sprung this trip on him, they’d gambled in the casino, taken a walk on the beach. It was a bit sketchy after that, and thinking brought on the sixteen hundred marathon runners again.
He closed his eyes, trying to picture the scene. It was dark. Ramona had kissed him. Two men argued under the Boardwalk—now he remembered. He would never forget the look on those people’s faces when they’d come up on him with the knife. They thought he was a murderer.
He had no idea how long ago all that had occurred. A couple hours probably. He would go to the Boardwalk and see if anyone was still at the scene. He’d need to collaborate Ramona’s account of the incident…if she was able to talk about it. He could still see her standing there, just standing there, a look of horror on her face.
“Excuse me, sir,” Zachary called to the dumpster.
Again, the shuffling stopped, and the man’s head appeared around the lid.
“If you’ll tell me which way the Boardwalk is, I guarantee you’ll never see me in your area again.”
The man pondered this offer with the slightest smile. He pointed behind Zachary. “Go left, then go straight. Lots of good stuff down there.”
Just before he reached the Boardwalk, he glanced down at his attire. His shirt was ripped and bloody. He stripped it off and shoved it into a nearby trash can. Then he checked to make sure the blood hadn’t come from a wound on his body. Bruises and abrasions, but no cuts. He found a spigot and washed off the blood that must belong to the dead man. It would be bad enough walking through town shirtless, dirty, and disheveled, but this was a party place after all. Lots of people looked like the living dead the next morning.
The only sign of any disturbance on or below the Boardwalk was the police tape strung out in a large circle around the pilings. The place was deserted. Apparently, it had been more than a few hours since he’d chased the killer into the city.
His next stop was his hotel room. The thought of cleaning up and getting some breakfast renewed his energy. Then he and Ramona could head down to the police station and tell his account of what had happened. He wondered if they would call him back as a witness if and when they caught the guy. He’d do anything it took to put that scumbag behind bars.
Because he didn’t want to cause a disturbance in the lobby, he took the back way to his room. He was only surprised for a moment to find Ramona waiting in his room. Of course she would be worried about him. After all, he had chased a killer through a strange city and disappeared for a few hours.
Bugs Bunny’s laugh from the television greeted him before Ramona even could. She ran toward him. “Zachary, you’re all right! I thought you were dead, or worse.” She took him in with both her eyes and her hands. “I was worried out of my mind for you, sweetheart. I thought you were dead. I thought I’d be all alone in the world. I thought…” She looked at him in the oddest way, and her high-pitched voice went soft when she said, “I had all kinds of crazy thoughts, Zachary.”
He shook his head, not ready for Ramona’s theatrics. “I’m fine. He ambushed me and slugged me over the head, probably left me for dead. I don’t even know how long I’ve been out.”
“Bend over, let me see.” She gingerly moved his hair and hissed. “You have a cut and a goose egg. I'll get a washcloth and clean it.”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to take a shower. Then we’ll go to the police station.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. The cops will pounce all over you.”
“Why would they pounce on me? I’m going to give them a description of the killer.”
There was something coy in her expression, a deep confidence in her smile. He waited impatiently for her response. The Roadrunner beep-beeped. Wile E. Coyote fell from a cliff, becoming a flattened pancake with legs.
“Everyone thinks you are the killer.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “The people who came up—eyewitnesses. Of course, they told the cops I did it. But you told them I didn’t.” When she didn’t immediately nod, he said, “Right?”
“Maybe.”
The marathon runners returned, and this time they brought friends. “Ramona, I really don’t need your odd sense of humor right now.”
Her soft voice rankled his nerves even more. “It’s not my sense of humor you dislike, honey. It’s my sense of desperation. It’s my love for you. And, most of all, it’s my absolute cleverness.”
“What in the hell are you talking about? You saw the men arguing, and you must have seen the man get stabbed before I reached him. I know you saw me struggle to get the knife away from the murderer because you were just standing there watching. Why wouldn’t you tell the police what happened?”
Ramona laughed. “I don’t know, Zack. Why wouldn’t I tell them?”
Riddles. He really didn’t have the patience for this. “Why would you tell them anything else?”
“Now that’s the question of the hour: Why would I tell them anything else?”
Anger roared through his veins like fire. If she was playing some bizarre game, she had the worst timing. If she wasn’t—no, she had to be joking.
“I’m tired of this. Either come clean, or I’m kicking you out of here so I can take a shower.”
Ramona stretched out on the bed. “Oh, you won’t be kicking me out anymore. And as for showers, we’ll be taking those together from now on.”
“Oh, we will?”
“Well, as your wife, I am entitled to take showers with you, be with you every second of your life, along with other certain privileges. Doesn’t that sound great?”
“Wait a minute. I’m still stuck on the wife part. You’ve really lost it, haven’t you? This whole thing has pushed you off the tip of the iceberg.”
“Au contraire, my love, my wits are as sharp as ever. They’ve done their best thinking and planning as I waited here for you. Worried. Saw the murderer’s sketch on the morning news. At first I denigrated myself for being a coward and running from the scene. But that worked out very well actually. And now I'll be planning a wedding.”
“Wedding. Forgive me for being slow. It must be the knock on the head. Why would you think I’d marry you?”
She stretched out luxuriously, like a cat. “We’ll tell everyone you finally got it through your thick head that you realized we were always meant to be together. It hit you while we were in Atlantic City together. You asked me to marry you, and after some hesitation—after all, you’ve made me wait years—I said yes.”
She wasn’t kidding. Her sick sense of humor had transformed into insanity. He played along, trying to find out where she was headed with this insane dialogue.
“Okay, that’s what we tell everyone else. We, however, know that’s far from the truth. What is the truth, Ramona?”
She sat up, tucking her knees under her chin, and smiled at him. “The truth is, we made a deal.”