Chapter Two
After five minutes of deliberating with himself, Sam decided against going back into the hospital and fighting the red tape to see Jules again. Instead he called Griff right back and asked for a lift to his truck. It took his friend about thirty minutes to pick Sam up outside Emergency, and then he shot Sam a concerned look as they climbed into his black Tahoe.
“Jesus, man,” Griff said, looking over Sam’s bedraggled state. “What the hell happened?”
Sam’s partner was about forty pounds overweight with a wide, approachable face and genial manner. He was a serial dater who really wanted to settle down with a wife and family, but the right woman hadn’t crossed his path yet.
Briefly Sam’s thoughts turned to his ex-wife, Martina Montgomery, and he grimaced. She hadn’t been the right woman, either, and Sam had made the colossal mistake of getting involved with her when things were going sideways with Jules. He’d been young and stupid and impressionable, and Tina had radiated sex and availability. Jules had been involved with family problems and she and Sam had been at odds. He’d let himself be lured into a few dates with Tina, who was rich and sexy and ready to party. When Jules found out, she and Sam were through. Stung, Sam told himself that he’d dodged a bullet. He even half believed it, for a while. They all knew each other, having gone to rival high schools, and Tina and Jules had been on the same cheerleading squad. Sam’s eye had initially landed on Jules, though Tina was flashier, but years later, one hot, summer night, he found himself sitting beside Tina in her BMW, the top down, coastal air making her red hair fly around her face as she drove him down the coastline. What started as trips in her car became makeout sessions behind Digby’s Donut Shoppe, and from there to full-on sex atop the gearshift knob after Jules broke it off with him after he’d confessed to kissing Martina.
He’d been deep down angry. Selfishly angry. Jules’s mother had some kind of early-onset mental disease that her father couldn’t cope with, and Jules was doing all the heavy lifting, so to speak. She’d lost her only sibling, her brother, when he was little more than a toddler, so she was alone. Sam had initially tried to tell her the thing with Tina was nothing, but she let him know it was over. He wasn’t there for her in her time of need, so she never wanted to see him again.
Her attitude had pissed him off and made him feel guilty. He kept seeking to salve his conscience and injured pride. Tina was somehow fascinated by his decision to go into law enforcement, something Jules never was. He told himself he was better off. He told himself that a romance that began in high school couldn’t pass the test of time, completely ignoring the fact that high school was how he knew Tina. He and Jules had outgrown each other, that was all. So, he’d pushed aside memories of laughing with Jules, making love with Jules, sharing tender moments with Jules, and stuck with Martina.
And then Jules moved to Portland, and Sam, fresh out of the academy, returned to the beach, landing a job with the Seaside Police Department. His mother had remarried and moved out of state long before, then kept her cancer a secret from both Sam and his brother until the very end of her life. Sam saw her once before she died, guilty as hell about not being there for her, though that’s the way she’d wanted it. He’d determined he would make up for it by taking care of his father, who’d recently left the financial world, leaving a job in Portland for semiretirement in Seaside. Sam moved in with him at the cabin in the woods and quickly learned his father’s mind was developing some strange quirks as well. Donald Ford became unreliable. One day completely in tune with the world and his place in it, another day lost in a wisping fog that he seemed to slide in and out of. Sam and Joe discussed the situation and Joe aided with Dad’s care as best he could, given that he lived in Portland, he was still married to Gwen at that time, and he was buried in his fledgling financial business. Whenever Joe came to visit their father he would talk with him about business and finance, which always perked Donald up, nearly seemed to bring him back, in fact. But when Joe would leave, the on-again, off-again nature of their father’s condition returned, and the job of caring for their father mostly fell on Sam’s shoulders. Ironically, he was in the same position Jules had been when they broke up because he was the one who stayed.
Stitch it on a sampler, write it as an epitaph: I was the one who stayed.
Now Donald Ford was in an assisted living facility and Joe was missing . . . maybe even dead.
“Got wrapped up in the rescue,” Sam said shortly, staring through the windshield. His clothes stuck to his skin and his shoes squelched when he walked, but he had other things to worry about than minor discomfort.
“The boat? Whose was it?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“But you got an idea.”
“Not anything I want to talk about.”
“Suit yourself.” Griff lapsed into injured silence.
They pulled up to the jetty twenty minutes later. Griff parked near Sam’s dusty pickup, then leaned an arm on the steering wheel and turned to stare hard at him. “Gimme something here, old friend.”
“I can’t yet, Griff. Sorry. It may be . . . my brother’s boat.”
He whistled. “Oh, shit, man.”
“I don’t know yet. I just want to figure things out.”
“You need any help from me, just ask.”
“Thanks.”
“Is your brother . . . okay?”
“Griff, I don’t know.” Sam reached for the passenger door handle.
He nodded, but his curiosity couldn’t be contained. “And the wife?”
Griff didn’t know all the ups and downs of Sam’s history with Jules St. James Ford, but he was aware that Jules and Sam had once dated. “I’ll let you know as soon as I have more confirmation.”
“Okay . . . You going back to the cabin?”
“After I hear about the boat.”
Sam thought about Jules, her white, frightened face. What had she seen? Why wouldn’t she tell him?
Why did you ever let her go?
With an effort he dragged his thoughts from Jules and immediately thought of his ex-wife. Martina Montgomery Ford, a beautiful, expensive mistake. She’d damn near sucked the life out of him during their short-lived marriage, and once it was over she quickly returned to the circle of her own wealthy kind, while Sam breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever he’d thought he’d seen in her, all the shallow pieces that had seemed so important in high school, popularity being top on the list—if all your friends want her, she must be worth having, right?—proved to be as insubstantial as dreams. Tina was beautiful, haughty, and mean spirited, and never had enough. Her parents had received Sam into the family with open arms, which had surprised him because his own family was several tiers down the financial ladder from their upper echelon social circle, but he’d learned soon enough that their happiness was because they were glad someone had taken her off their hands. When the marriage ended, they actually sheepishly apologized, in their way. They’d known what a workout their daughter was, hadn’t told him—not that it would have mattered, probably, because he’d made his choice and was damn well sticking to it, by God—and subsequently felt guilty about it.
He didn’t blame the Montgomerys. He actually liked Conrad and Cecile, even now. He might have stayed friends with them, but Tina had made them choose—her or Sam. They’d really had no option, and so that door had been closed to him. But by then he’d had his own issues to deal with anyway—his mother’s death and his father’s decline—and was too busy putting out fires to worry about it too much. He’d let the friendship lapse, and in a strange twist of fate, it was Joe who’d connected with the Montgomerys through his business, and they’d become his clients.
He got my girlfriend, and my ex-wife’s family.
But you were the one who let Jules go....
Sam reached for the passenger door handle as Griff asked, “Not planning any more swims in the ocean, are you?”
Sam shook his head. Griff was just one of those guys who loved to talk, and Sam wasn’t ready to tell him about Jules, or his fears over his brother, because he wouldn’t keep it to himself. The news would be out as soon as the media got hold of the story.
“It was a rescue, right? Not a recovery,” Griff tried again.
A recovery . . . The idea made Sam’s gut tighten. “A rescue, so far. I’ll tell you more as I learn it.”
“Okay, good. I’m going to be lifting a few at the Seagull, in case you decide to join me later. Get some dry clothes. You make me cold just looking at you.”
“I will. Thanks.”
“And don’t mess with a head injury, Sammy.” His gaze took in the side of Sam’s head. “You should have Sadie look at you. I could tell her to stop by the cabin later, if that’s where you’re headed.”
“Thanks, I saw a doc. I’m all right.”
Sadie McClesky was Griff’s older sister, who had a way of undressing Sam with her eyes, whenever he saw her. She was tall, blond, and severe, and Sam steered clear of her as a matter of course. He always fell for a certain type: slim, athletic, beautiful, smart, and sexy. But there was more that he wanted, too—a warm smile, a sense of humor, compassion. Tina had failed all of those last ones; Dannella, most of them. Like Griff’s sister, Sadie, both his ex-wife and his ex-girlfriend were determinedly and doggedly on their own paths to achieve whatever goals they felt were paramount. Tina wanted money, social standing, respect, and a husband to float on her arm, and Dannella wanted marriage, a family, and maybe also social standing and wealth. He figured they’d picked him because they liked the look of him, and only later decided he wasn’t really checking all the right boxes.
Griff finally gave up and turned out of the lot as Sam swung himself into his Chevy pickup and backed it away from the jetty. His headache was a dull pain that was manageable. Instead of taking Griff’s advice, he drove straight to his brother’s house again. He did not have a key, but on his first trip he had seen that there was a window partially open in the back. He didn’t much like the idea of crawling inside in view of all the neighbors who lived across the narrow inlet, but one of them had already thought he was Joe, so maybe he could get away with that, if anyone was looking.
He slid the window all the way back. It moved smoothly, and Sam wasn’t surprised. Joe was tidy and careful and kept things in good working order, whereas Sam had a tendency to go by the seat of his pants. He wasn’t as organized as his brother in any way. He operated on gut instinct and a kind of management by crisis, which worked for him, but had been another of Dannella’s many complaints.
He climbed through the kitchen window and had to lever himself onto the counter and then down to the tile floor. The kitchen was white and gray: white painted cabinets, white counter, stainless steel appliances, and gray slate on the floor. There was a vase of maize flowers on the peninsula that separated the kitchen from the dining nook. It looked like someone had moved the sunny flowers from the center of the white melamine table, as there were also several light gold votives shifted as well. A pen had dropped to the slate floor, along with a piece of scratch paper that Sam picked up. A sticky note, as it turned out, that simply read: “Cardaman file.”
The name was familiar. Ike Cardaman had been arrested for financial improprieties. He was in the same business as Joe, but unlike Sam’s brother, Cardaman had played fast and loose with the legalities and wound up in jail, and there were scads of people who’d lost their savings as a result.
Sam walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. His shirt had dried and his jeans were getting there. He slipped out of his shoes, then pulled out his phone, setting the timer for twenty minutes. He just needed to lie down for a while.
It felt like he’d just closed his eyes when his phone rang. Not the alarm, but the loud and jingly default ringtone. Sam had to lift his head to remember where he was. He threw a hand out for the trilling phone, snatching it up from where he’d left it on the coffee table. “Hello?”
“Mr. Ford? Langdon Stone from the Tillamook Sheriff’s Department. I understand you called for Detective Dunbar earlier. She’s not in today.”
The other detective from the TSD. Sam had met Stone a number of times before. The last time he’d seen him was when he’d interviewed at the Sheriff’s Department. Stone had been friendly enough. A compatriot, of sorts. So, his formal tone now made Sam’s heart clutch a bit. “I called about the boat that caught fire this afternoon . . . you know whose it was?”
“Haven’t had that confirmation yet.”
Stone’s careful tone told Sam he knew something, though, something he just wasn’t saying. Time to lay it out for the detective and get some answers. “I’m looking for my brother, Joseph Ford. His boat’s missing and his wife’s in the hospital. I found her on the beach. Joe’s boat is The Derring-Do.”
There was a hesitation. Sam counted his own heartbeats. This was not good.
Stone said soberly, “The coast guard picked up a male body in the bay.”
A body. Not a living person.
Recovery . . .
Sam closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He climbed to his feet and walked a bit unsteadily toward the white table, staring out across the inlet toward the other houses’ back decks, seeing nothing but his brother’s stern visage imprinted on his retina. “It’s Joe?”
“Not confirmed yet. The body wasn’t near the boat that caught fire. It was closer to shore.”
“Is that body at the county morgue?”
“Yes.” Another hesitation. “I may ask you to come in and identify it. I’ll call you back soon.”
“Okay,” Sam managed to get out, then pressed the off button. He didn’t need to wait to hear more about the body from Stone. The recovered body was Joe. He knew it. Had known it from the moment he’d first smelled the drifting smoke and seen the burning boat on the horizon. Had understood the danger in his brother’s careful text even before that.
Meet me at my dock at noon.
Not Joe’s regular way.
Sam put on his damp sneakers and drove back toward the hospital especially carefully, even though every nerve was screaming at him to hurry, hurry, hurry. But he ignored the signals. There was no hurry anymore. Joe was gone.
A man in blue scrubs was pushing a cart loaded with covered meal trays down the hall as Sam walked to the reception desk. It was dinnertime. Sam knew he, too, needed to eat, but he had no appetite.
“What room is Jules . . . er, Julia . . . Ford in?” he asked the woman at the desk.
She didn’t have to check her computer as she said, “Two-twenty-one. It’s down this hall and—” She cut herself off then, her eyes on the monitor. She’d been pointing to a hallway that veered toward the right, but abruptly dropped her arm. “I’m sorry. She has a limited visitor list,” she apologized. “I didn’t see that at first. What’s your name?”
His instinct was to lie, but he decided to play it straight. “Samuel Ford.”
Her brows knit together. “You’re a relative?”
“Her brother-in-law.”
“They’re only allowing family, but I don’t have your name on the list.”
“I was with her when she was brought in. Dr. Metcalf saw us both.”
“Let me call Roxanne. I think she’s still here.” She punched in a number and conferred with someone on the other end. Sam had the room number, but he waited while she ran through her protocol. Apparently Roxanne was unavailable, and the woman asked Sam if he would take a seat while she made further calls.
Sam agreed, but when someone else walked up to the desk and shielded him from her direct vision, he slid out of range and headed in the direction she’d pointed, looking for room two-twenty-one.
He found it easily enough. There was a security guard posted outside, currently in conference with a doctor. He walked past them down the hall, catching a bit of their conversation.
“. . . who put you in charge?” the young Asian doctor with the stern look was asking.
The guard was also young, Hispanic, and wore the same stern look. “Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department.”
“Specifically? Could you give me a name, please?”
“Will Detective Langdon Stone do it for you, Doc? You can call and talk to him if you want.”
The doctor bristled and Sam moved on, bypassing this little war of authority. The fact that Jules had a guard and was on a limited visitor list told him there were questions about the boating accident.
What the hell had happened out on the water? Why had Joe asked Sam to meet him?
With a heavy heart, Sam decided to take a pass on fighting it out with the guard just now. He chose a different corridor and turned back to the main reception room of the hospital, crossing in front of the desk and heading out through the sliding doors to a cloudy July evening, now heavy with the threat of rain. He climbed into his truck and sat behind the wheel, his mind full of questions, his thoughts ping-ponging all over the place. Leaning back on his spine, he let his chin drop to his chest. He was still tired. His whole body was shutting down. He suspected Joe was dead and he couldn’t grasp it. A lot of guilt mixed in with sadness and an overall feeling of low-grade dread. Something was very wrong. Something he should have prevented.
He pictured his brother: tall, tough, with a rare smile that occasionally broke through, shining like the sun after days of rain. But he couldn’t hold the thought, wouldn’t take the trip down memory lane. It was too raw.
Instead his mind shifted to Jules. Easier to focus on her. How he’d tried to forget her. How much he’d hated her for marrying Joe. How she’d never left his thoughts even when he’d tried desperately to forget about her for his own well-being.
No good thinking about Joe. Better to think about his first love. Easier. Julia . . . Jules . . .
He’d met her a million years ago at a high school football game. A rivalry between her school and his. He’d been standing on the sidelines, ostensibly watching the game but mostly looking at her . . . and yes, Martina, too. There were other Triton cheerleaders jumping around on the sidelines, but it was Jules Sam had been drawn to. He learned enough about her to know that her name was Julia and all the kids called her Jules, that her family was as wealthy as the Hapstells and Montgomerys, who owned most everything from Seaside to Tillamook and beyond, and that she looked damn good in a tight sweater.
He watched as she leapt into the air screaming for her team, wearing black and gold, her school colors, her dark hair pulled into a high ponytail and fastened by a shiny gold ribbon. Beneath her Triton sweater her breasts bobbed up and down. Nice breasts. He could imagine cupping his hand around one. He told himself to stop fantasizing, but he couldn’t pull his gaze away.
She and the other cheerleaders were a tight band of girls in sweaters and short, pleated, black skirts with gold insets, leggings, and sneakers. Football season. An orange October moon hung low over the blaringly bright stands. The crowd was roaring with glee because the Tritons had pulled ahead. Not for long, though. Their rivals, the Hawks, Sam’s team, hadn’t lost one game this season and everyone at his school constantly bragged about how they could easily play a division higher. That was a total no-go, he knew, but the Hawks were a whole helluva lot better than the Tritons. So far Jules’s team had just gotten lucky.
Sam was a football player himself and just the month before he’d been a running back. But then his own teammate, Brady Delacourt, had lumbered into him just as Sam was dodging a tackle. Brady’s two hundred and fifty plus pounds had collapsed onto Sam’s ankle, crumpling it, ripping tendons and cracking bone. Sam had been sidelined on crutches ever since and there was no hope that Jules St. James would notice him. There was no chance anyway. Everyone in both schools knew she was Walter Hapstell Junior’s girl. Hapstell was the Triton quarterback and though their team was just a shade or two above mediocre, “Hap” was the best player on it. Good enough to play college ball, maybe. He was also a wealthy son of a bitch, the Hapstells being in the same league as both Martina Montgomery’s family and Jules’s.
Not that Sam Ford gave a damn about any of that, but it was just a known thing. Something the guys talked about in passing. “Hap’s loaded,” was the general consensus. Sam knew who had money at his school as well. Brady’s family, the Delacourts, were right up there. There were no secrets along this section of the Oregon coastline. The fact that most of the wealthy families sent their children to the local high school rather than the nearest private school in Portland, a good two hours away, just proved good parenting, according to the locals.
Sam had learned all about the Hapstells and Montgomerys from his father. Donald Ford had been a one-time stockbroker and financial advisor who’d quit that slugfest, as he called it, for a simpler life away from Portland and the hubbub of investments and finance. He’d followed his dream to “retire” to the coast, keeping only a few clients whom he’d advised up until just a few years earlier. That was about the time Sam’s mother divorced him and moved away. Joe had already chosen the financial road their father had veered from, living in Portland and working on making his own fortune. He was eight years older than Sam and engaged to be married to Gwen, a woman with a toddler from a previous marriage.
Sam had been in his last year of high school and found it hard to imagine what it would be like to settle down with a woman and begin a life together. At the time all he could think about was sex . . . and Jules St. James . . . and maybe that haughty bitch, Martina Montgomery . . . and sex, and sex, and sex. Sam had wondered if Jules was doing it with Hap, and it made him feel slightly ill whenever he thought of them together.
As he watched from the sidelines that night, his eyes had strayed from the cheerleaders back to the game. Walter Hapstell Junior was running backward with the football held high aloft as he looked for a receiver to pass to. Sam was on Hap’s left side, and he saw the wide receiver, number eighty-eight, break right. At the same moment Hap threw a bullet to the receiver, who caught it in a wild reach toward the sky that sent the Triton fans stamping the bleachers and screaming with excitement as the receiver pulled it in and ran another twenty-five yards, making it to the ten-yard line before being brought down.
Great catch. Mostly because of a great throw.
“Damn,” he muttered to the fates, looking down at the cast around his right ankle.
But on the next play the Triton running back fumbled the ball and it was the Hawks’ ball. Hap looked ready to have an aneurysm as he strode stiffly off the field, hands clenched.
The Triton cheerleaders were huddled together, colluding with a couple of guys dressed in similar outfits. Honorary cheerleaders? They’d only just appeared and the game was well into the second half. The newcomers arranged themselves to hike the girls into the air, offering their threaded palms as a launch pad. Sam watched as Jules placed her hands on the two tallest guys’ shoulders and stepped into one of their woven fingers. The male cheerleaders hefted her up to their chests, their taut arms holding her in place, her fingers linked through theirs. Sam swallowed at the thought of what they might be able to see beneath that short skirt once they tossed her skyward, as they were preparing to do.
Then she was in the air, twirling twice, her arms hugging her torso, her body rising to the crest of the parabola before falling back, down, down, down, then caught neatly in one of the spotters’ arms, a tall boy with Michael Phelps arms. He swung her to her feet and she bounced onto her toes, raining a bright grin of thanks on him.
Sam dragged his eyes away from her with an effort, concentrating back on the game. The Hawks’ quarterback, Tim Stanton, threw a shovel pass to the running back who’d taken over for Sam. Sam gritted his teeth as the guy tucked the ball from Stanton and ran over ten yards for a first down. The two of them made two more first downs, and then they were at the fifty-yard line, marching down the field. It was hard for Sam to acknowledge that the team didn’t need him, that the sophomore who’d taken over for him was as good as he had ever been, but hey, that was the nature of the game. Didn’t mean he had to like it.
Sam could feel the momentum going the Hawks’ way, and he was just sorry he wasn’t a part of it. The Tritons were losing ground and desperately trying to halt the Hawks’ relentless attack, but it was no use.
Less than a minute later the Hawks scored a touchdown on a quarterback sneak and the score grew to 28–10.
Not enough time for the Tritons to recover. That, however, didn’t faze the Triton cheerleaders, who were shouting and furiously shaking their gold pom-poms.
What would it be like to kiss Jules St. James? he wondered.
“Sam.”
He looked around to see Zoey Rivera smiling at him. She was cute. One of the cutest girls at Oceanlake High, and she’d never shown him the slightest interest.
“Hi, Zoey.”
“You going to the party tonight?”
“What party?”
“Come on.” She slapped at him playfully. “At the Hapstells’.”
Sam gave her a long look. What was this? “Not on the invite list.”
“No one’s on the invite list. There is no invite list. All ya gotta do is bring something to drink, and I don’t mean Red Bull . . . unless it’s got a little extra kick to it.”
“Where are the parents?” he asked, figuring if there was a party, Mr. and Mrs. Hapstell were unlikely to be on the premises.
She shrugged. “Not home. Everybody’s going. You gotta come.”
He nodded toward the scoreboard. “You think Tritons are going to want some Hawks around after this?”
“Who cares? Just want to get drunk, you know? Come on, Sammy. Let’s go together.”
He hardly knew what to think. She’d never shown him the least little bit of interest. She was too pretty, too petite, too popular. And yes, he’d felt her gaze on him a time or two, but she had an on-again, off-again relationship with a college guy two years Sam’s senior, and he’d steered clear of her. Some girls were trouble. You just knew it, and the best thing to do was to avoid them. Zoey was one of those.
He held out his palms apologetically and looked down at the cast on his foot. “Sorry. I can’t drive. Getting picked up by my brother.”
“You have a brother?”
“A lot older than me.”
“Maybe he’d take us,” she suggested hopefully.
“A lot older,” he reiterated. “Almost like a parent older. He’s just here for the weekend.”
“No fun,” she murmured, but she didn’t go away. She watched the final few minutes of the game at his side, mostly looking at her cell phone, but when the Hawks’ cheers filled the stadium after their predicted win, she clicked off and turned to him again with a smile.
“So, I’m on the outs with Byron,” she said. “He thinks I was with Rafe Stevenson. You know him?”
Sam nodded. Rafe was a Hawks lineman. He glanced back toward the now empty field. Rafe was a big guy. One of the biggest on the team. Sam suspected that Byron wouldn’t mess with Rafe, even if he was supposedly seeing his girl.
“So, take me to the party. I don’t want to walk in alone. It would be nice to be with someone who . . .” Here, she stumbled, and Sam waited, pretty sure they were going to get to the crux of things. “Well, you’re hurt. And you’re not on the team anymore, so it would be okay.”
Ah . . . he wasn’t a threat. He was on crutches and he was no longer a Hawks football player. He’d been neutralized by Brady Delacourt’s crushing friendly fire, so now he was a safe guy to show up with. It should have pissed him off, but it mostly amused him.
“You’d have to drive,” he told her.
“No problem.” Zoey beamed at him. “And I’ve got a surprise for you. A fifth of Grey Goose under the seat. We can drink it together.”
“Grey Goose.”
“Yeah, the good stuff. Byron got it for me months ago and we were supposed to celebrate together tonight, but now that’s all shit.” She added a little too brightly, “It’s our six-month anniversary, but it looks like I’m going to be spending it alone.”
Sam pulled out his cell phone and phoned Joe to tell him he’d made other plans. His father had insisted he come home right after the game because they were leaving early the next morning to drive to Seattle to look at the University of Washington, but though Sam had reluctantly agreed to the stipulation, he had no interest in U-Dub or college or pretty much anything at the moment. So, he was going to call Joe off, who was staying at their dad’s place with Gwen for a couple of nights, an impromptu trip for a weekend at the beach, even though the Ford cabin was really nestled in the Coast Range foothills.
Joe answered on the second ring. “You ready?”
“Uh, no. I think I’m going to hang out with some friends.”
“Dad won’t like it,” he said, but there was a faint tone of amused conspiracy to his voice.
“I’m not going to U-Dub. I won’t get in, and I’m not going anyway.”
“You need to tell him that.”
“He knows it already,” Sam snapped. Zoey was right there, able to hear every word, so he said with more restraint, “I’ll get a ride home so you don’t have to pick me up.”
“Dad’ll be calling you,” he warned.
“Fob him off somehow, okay? Better yet, tell him the truth. If I go to college, it’ll be in state, not Washington or anywhere else.”
“If?”
“Yeah, if,” he declared, then hung up.
“I’m going to Oregon,” Zoey offered.
Sam nodded but didn’t respond. He was interested in law enforcement and was thinking of applying at an academy in Salem, about an hour’s drive from Portland. He wasn’t convinced campus life of the ilk available at the University of Oregon or Oregon State, or any number of large colleges, was really for him. As an alternate plan he was thinking of Portland State, a commuter school in the heart of Oregon’s largest city. He had a vague plan to see if he could live with his brother and his soon-to-be wife, but one way or another he was going to follow his own path.
He walked beside Zoey to the parking lot and her car amid a tide of happy Hawks and disappointed Tritons. Several guys called out to Zoey, asking about Byron, but she simply smiled and shrugged. Her ride was a Mercedes sedan. “My parents’,” she told him as Sam slid his crutches through the back door and across the seats. He then worked his way into the passenger seat as Zoey switched on the ignition.
“I still love Byron,” she said plaintively. “And don’t believe anything you’ve heard about me and Rafe. It’s a bunch of lies.” She drove onto Highway 101 and began heading north up the coast. “I didn’t have sex with him. I mean, not everything,” she amended, as if he’d asked for a complete confession.
“Not my business,” Sam said.
“Bullshit. Everything’s everybody’s business. You know how it goes at school. God, I can’t wait for college. So sick of it.”
He was mildly surprised. Zoey seemed to be the girl from his school who had it all.
The Hapstells, Montgomerys, and St. Jameses lived along a curving stretch of beach that had once been summer cabins but had slowly changed over to McMansions with yards that turned into sand and surf, those cabins having been bought up by Walter Hapstell Senior, who’d split the lots and filled them to capacity with monster homes, doubling the original capacity. Sam’s father had said Hapstell was doing the same thing in Portland, where large residential lots were being subdivided much to the fury and freak-out of old-time residents who were desperately trying to keep their neighborhoods from losing their character. Across the city there was much local teeth gnashing over the teardown of rambling ranch homes and daylight basements to make way for two multistory houses on each lot, homes that ate up most of the acreage, turning streets into lines of tall, expensive, look-alike boxes, making the area resemble a planned community. This did not go over with the city’s obsessive desire to be unique, but Walter Hapstell Senior didn’t give a shit about that and kept on bulldozing ahead, also according to Donald Ford, and would continue to do so until there was a law against what he was doing.
Zoey slowed and turned off the highway. The Hapstells’ home outside Seaside was down a private drive lined by sea grass and trees so tortured by stiff ocean winds they looked like gnarled old men bent at the waist, desperately stretching toward something just beyond reach. At the end of the drive lay a wide parking area currently choked with cars parked every which way.
“Hmmm,” Zoey said, trying to make another spot at the edge of a sandy ledge.
“If I were you I’d turn around, park somewhere else, and walk back,” Sam said. He was already rethinking his choice. What would happen if they were arrested for underage drinking? Maybe it wouldn’t be an end to his desire to join the force, but it sure wouldn’t look good. And what did he care about teen parties anyway? He just wanted to get laid.
At that moment Jules herself bounced into view, ponytail swinging as she whipped around the front of the house and down the side at a run. She was no longer in cheerleading gear. She wore tight blue jeans, sneakers without socks, and a gray sweater that came over her hips. At first he thought she was into some kind of high jinks, but the tension in her face said otherwise.
“Wait. Stop,” Sam ordered.
“What?” Zoey asked. “Thought you wanted me to park somewhere else.”
“Let me out first. I can’t walk.” He was already opening the door.
Zoey said, “Fuck,” in a fuming voice as Sam stepped out, barely snagging his crutches from the backseat and slamming the door before Zoey hit the gas. As he stumbled backward to avoid being hit, the Mercedes squealed around and she headed back out as another car eased its way toward the house. They nearly collided and Zoey shrieked and the other driver swore at her. She slammed her foot to the accelerator and wheeled around the approaching BMW.
The cops’ll be called, Sam thought, but he worked his way forward in the direction Jules had disappeared. Music was blasting from speakers on the second or third floor—it was hard to tell from his angle. Tom Petty’s “American Girl.”
He silently cursed his lumbering gait. And Brady Delacourt for causing it. And the whole set of circumstances that had brought him to the Hapstells’ beachside home. He managed his way down a set of stone steps that curved around the house, hanging on to the wrought-iron handrail like a scared little girl, he was so unsteady on his feet, which pissed him off even more.
At the bottom was a stone patio and beyond and down about five feet, the beach itself. Sand had blown onto the rough stone surface and no one had bothered to sweep it away as kids from both schools, and probably more as well, crammed onto the outdoor furniture, sand and all, covering every inch of the patio. Loud voices and loud music drowned out the roar of the ocean, but the waves, black and frosted like icing, raced up hard-packed sand to lap ever closer to the revelers dancing on the slate surface.
At that moment Walter Hapstell Junior shouldered his way through the crowd from inside the house, his face set in a glower. “Damn it!” he screamed, trying to be heard above the noise. He faced the back of the house and looked upward to the second story, waving his arms madly. “Turn it down! Turn it all down!”
Sam followed his gaze to where a window was wide open and most of the music was blasting. The dancers on the patio weren’t paying a lot of attention, but when the sound suddenly cut out, they protested loudly.
“Jesus, Hap,” a swaying, drunk guy grumbled.
“Put it back on!” a girl yelled, which earned her a hard stare from Hap. She mumbled, “Just not as loud,” then stumbled into a table and smacked her shin. “Shit!”
“Keep it off,” Hap hollered up at the window. “You guys want to get raided? C’mon. Take it inside.” He turned to a guy Sam recognized as one of the Triton running backs and said, “Get ’em outta here. And where the hell’s Jules?”
Sam had thought she’d joined in with the partiers, but when the running back swept his arm toward the ocean, Sam turned to scan the dark sand. His heart began beating hard. The tide was coming in and it was black as pitch outside the range of the Hapstells’ outdoor lighting. Where was she?
“Goddamn it,” Hap growled. Sam glanced back at him. “She’s pissed and probably doing something stupid,” he added, shouldering his way past the running back and pushing at the mass of bodies trying to squeeze as one through the French doors.
Martina Montgomery, leaning against the rail, waved a hand at the crowd. She was wearing a red bikini top and low-cut jeans. “Somebody bring me a jacket before I freeze my ass off,” she called.
A male voice answered suggestively, “Bring that ass over here. I’ll keep it warm.”
“Fuck you,” she said on a smile, shivering.
Sam thought about giving her his jacket, but before he could negotiate the steps back upward, another guy was eagerly hauling a blanket from inside the house. He helped her wrap it around her shoulders and then she looked at him and pleaded, “And now do you think you could find me a drink?”
The guy immediately turned back to the house.
Sam focused his attention to the beach once more, trudging and stumbling down the short dune to the packed sand in search of Jules. He was immediately chased by an incoming wave, and he tried to keep away from its swift, wet water but was too ungainly. He damn near fell over trying to avoid the eager wave that soaked his sneaker, the cloth boot on his injured ankle, and the hem of his jeans.
With a sigh, he looked down the edge of the surf and saw nothing but dark waves and dark sand. In the light of day he knew he would be able to see a long stretch of beach. Glancing to his right, he wondered if she’d headed north instead of south. He kept looking both ways, and was about to give up, when he saw something ahead, in the ocean. Was that a person standing in the receding water? As he peered through the gloom, another larger wave charged forward.
“Jules?” he called, yelling over the rush of the ocean.
Movement. She tried to dash through the water toward him, but it was halfway up her calves. He sloshed awkwardly toward her through the now receding wave, hoping a big one wasn’t on its heels. She let him come for about ten steps, then, when her bare feet were almost free of the water, she quickly pivoted away and began walking south.
“Wait! Jules!”
She was carrying her shoes and she stopped short for a moment, looking back. “Who are you?” she demanded, the words sounding sharp but faint, snatched by the wind.
Sam was having a helluva time navigating, especially with the fits of gales that came off the ocean and damn near toppled him. “Name’s Sam Ford,” he called.
She waited, but he sensed she was ready to leap away from him. “Hap sent you to find me?”
He wasn’t sure what answer she was looking for, so he settled on the truth. “No.”
“You’re not a Triton,” she observed as he drew nearer. She seemed to be debating whether to leave him to his crutches and race away, or stick around and find out what he was about.
“No.” He was close enough now to see the wariness in her eyes. “I’m a party crasher, I guess.”
“What happened to you?” she asked, looking at his injured foot.
“Football.”
“Really? Huh. What team are you on?”
“You played us tonight.”
“You’re a Hawk?” That seemed to take her aback. “How’d you get to the party so fast? You had to have gone to the hospital for that.” She motioned to the soaked, cloth-wrapped ankle.
“This happened in an earlier game.”
“Ahh. Well, your team still won.”
“Yeah. I’m not as irreplaceable as I’d like to believe.”
That netted him a fleeting smile. “So, how did you hear about this party?” she asked. “You and Hap friends?”
“I don’t even know him.”
“That makes two of us,” she said with a grim smile. She hitched her chin back in the direction they’d just come. “The cops are going to come and I don’t want to be anywhere near that party.”
“Then let’s leave.”
“That’s what I was about to do.”
“I’ll come with you,” he invited himself.
“You’d only slow me down—no offense. I’ve got a long way to go, and no cell phone. My father bought me one for Christmas and I dropped it in the toilet and so now I’m phoneless, and well . . . I gotta go.”
“You walking home?” He knew her house wasn’t that far from where they were standing.
“Nah . . . not yet. Too easy to find.”
“You hiding from Hap?”
“You ask a lot of questions, Sam Ford.”
He shrugged. Nothing much to say to that.
Jules looked past him to the north, toward Hap’s house and her parents’. Then she continued in the opposite direction and Sam struggled to keep up with her.
“I don’t want to go home yet,” she admitted after a while. “I’d rather go up to the highway and get something to eat.”
“Kind of a ways from any restaurant,” Sam observed.
“Yeah . . . eventually someone’ll come by that I know from the party and pick me up. Unless they’re all busted.”
“I’ll come with you,” Sam said. He had a phone and could make some calls, find someone to give them a ride somewhere, but he didn’t want to give that away for fear she would use it to leave him and meet up with friends.
“Suit yourself, but I’m not waiting around.” She picked up the pace and Sam gritted his teeth and kept up with her, though it was no mean trick. A frisky little wind was blowing off the ocean and whipping her ponytail to and fro, stinging Sam’s eyes. Luckily for him, the wind threw sand at her as well, so she had to keep turning around, her eyes squinched shut.
“Damn sand,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, but he really didn’t care. When a particularly hard lash of sand hit them both, he said, “C’mere,” and held his arms out, his crutches tucked beneath his armpits, offering her shelter.
She came without hesitation, which both surprised and delighted him. He could feel the warmth of her body as he wrapped his arms around her, balanced on one leg, the crutches teetering. They stayed that way for long minutes and in that time Sam decided in his teenaged heart that he was in love with Jules St. James.