Ghost Key (2 page)

A chill washed through her.

He gave her a hateful look that shocked her more than his drinking did.

He snorted. “You’re such a prude. I don’t know how Rich stands it.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“Our
drinks,
Kate?” he reminded her, with a mean sarcasm that made the librarian laugh again.

She turned her back on him, on them, hurt and angry, and a little scared, and glanced at the wall clock. Just past eleven.

She tried to convince herself that she hadn’t seen what she’d thought she’d seen.

That was the answer: it hadn’t happened.

Eyes couldn’t do that. Bean
wouldn’t
do that.

Could she make it for another two hours? If she left now, Bean might fire her, given the strange and awful mood he was in, and in spite of their long family history. She couldn’t afford to lose this job. Even though she worked at Annie’s Café three days a week, she doubted she would get more hours there. Business was too slow. The terrible truth was that she needed both jobs to support herself and Rocky. Without this job, there’d be no gas for her own car, much less wheels for him.

She’d been born and raised on Cedar Key. The island was in her blood, just as it had been for both of her parents. She’d left here once before, to attend Florida State in Tallahassee, but returned two years ago when her relationship with her son’s father fell apart. She was qualified to teach high school English, had applied for teaching jobs on the island and in Gainesville, but neither school system was hiring. She would make some calls tomorrow, she decided, get her name on the substitute list. She needed a backup plan. The fact that it made her heart hurt to think of leaving the island was going to have to be irrelevant.

Suddenly, Bean stood beside her, shoulders twitching as though his pullover sweater were too small for him. She nearly said, “What’s
wrong
with you?” But before she could, he set a bottle of tequila down hard on the counter. “I delivered the meal, now you make Marion and me another round of drinks.” He leaned toward her, his gaunt face so close to hers that she smelled his reeking breath. Air hissed out through his clenched teeth. “We clear, hon?”

WTF? Hon?
What was
that
about? Before she could think of a snappy reply, he winked at her, patted her cheek as though she were a young child, and swung around the corner of the bar. He settled again on his stool, head tilted toward Marion, who giggled like an infatuated teen.

The jukebox came on again, and someone shouted, “Hey, Kate, where’re our drinks?”

The temptation to water down Bean’s order quickly gave way to making a pitcher of Skip and Go Naked. Kate set it and the bottle of tequila in front of them, without a word, and hoped they wouldn’t notice her hands trembling.
It’s just the booze,
she told herself. Bean wasn’t used to it; as for the librarian, Kate didn’t know what her excuse was for acting like a bitch.

Still feeling stung, she turned back to the blender to add more ice. It churned constantly for the next half hour. The music and noise got louder, the room grew warmer, her feet ached from standing so long.

Her cell vibrated and beeped, and she slipped it out of the back pocket of her jeans. A text message from Rocky read:
Mom, you getting off at 1?

That’s the plan.

You need a ride home? I’m over at Jeff’s, got the cart. I can pick u up if u need a ride.

Kate had forgotten he was spending the night out. His friend lived on the other side of the island. Even though Cedar Key had practically no crime to speak of, she felt uneasy about Rocky being out and about by himself at one in the morning, driving the electric golf cart.
It’s a short walk 2 the houseboat, I’ll be fine. Luv u

Text if u change yr mind. We’ll be up late
☺
. Luv u 2!

Her heart swelled at the affection in his text. “Love u 2!” That was pretty good for a fifteen-year-old boy, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t be caught dead saying it to her face or in public, but he could safely say it in a text.

Kate smiled down at her cell phone.

She wondered if his girlfriend, Amy, was part of the staying-up-late equation. Kate liked Amy, but worried about her and Rocky’s raging hormones. From the time her son was old enough to understand what sex was, Kate had been utterly frank about safe sex. He knew enough to use condoms.
But. What if. Maybe.

As Kate slipped the cell back into her pocket, she caught sight of herself in the window, the pallor of her skin, the circles under her eyes. Strands of her blond hair had worked loose from the large clip that held it off her neck and clung to her damp cheeks. This job, she thought, was aging her quickly. She cracked open the window for some fresh air. Ribbons of fog slipped through the screen and curled quickly around her wrist and forearm like a snake seeking warmth. It felt damp, slimy, cold, deeply unpleasant. She shuddered at its touch and then frantically slapped at it. She was startled to see the ribbons break apart, like the mercury in a thermometer had done one time when she accidentally dropped it.

“That’s weird!”

She knew it was an understatement even as she said it.

It wasn’t just weird. It was impossible.

Kate looked up, afraid of what she might see the fog do next.

Bits of the fog hung in the air the way smoke does on a windless night, and finally dissipated. Kate slammed the window down, disturbed that she could still feel the slimy cold on her skin. But when she looked out again, she saw the fog was back, pressing against the glass, looking as if it were trying to get in, to get at her.

Bean’s nuts, and now you’re losing it, too,
she thought. She loaded a tray with drinks and sandwiches and carried it into the back room, to a table of four boisterous tourists, and looked at the clock again. Just an hour and fifteen minutes before she could close up.
And go out in that horrible fog,
her spooked mind said to her.
Oh, shut up,
she snapped back at it. Fog was fog. She was just nervous about losing her job and it was making her jumpy.

As she headed back into the main room, she had an unobstructed view of Bean and Marion. He was cupping her face in his hands, kissing her passionately, then his fingers roamed across her throat and breasts and slid through her hair. Marion responded like a young woman of twenty, head thrown back, exposing her throat, where Bean planted his mouth and sucked at her skin like a mosquito.

As Bean succumbed to whatever urge this was, his stool tipped back and he crashed to the floor and lay there, laughing. Marion got down on her hands and knees and leaned over him, kissing his cheeks, eyelids, nose, his mouth. His arms wrapped around her, their bodies pressed so closely together that his arms looked as if they were growing out of her back. Customers kept glancing at them; some laughed nervously, one of the locals called, “Hey, get a room, dude.”

“Bean,” Kate said, feeling deeply disturbed.

Her boss—her “older brother”—was making a fool of himself. She hurried over to see if she could distract him enough to get him outside and then get him home. He’d feel mortified in the morning, on top of being hungover.

But before she reached them, Bean ripped open Marion’s blouse. The buttons popped off one after another, his hands slipped over her breasts as she reared back, her face seized with ecstasy, her eyes rolling back in their sockets. She unzipped his jeans and fell on him again, both of them now grunting, groping, moaning, rolling. Most of their clothes vanished with their decorum, his butt the color of a full moon, her pendulous breasts bouncing, dancing.

It happened so fast that for an instant, Kate just stood there, gaping along with nearly everybody else in the bar.

It was like watching a porn movie come to life.

Bean thrust himself into Marion and they rolled across the sagging floor, faster and faster, crashing into tables and chairs. People shouted, scrambled out of their way, tried to get past them to the door. They were oblivious. Kate ran toward them, shouting at Bean to knock it off, and someone else hollered to call the cops. Bottles and glasses tumbled off the tables, shattered against the floor. Kate grabbed Bean’s shoulder, he shoved her away, and she stumbled back into the jukebox. The needle tore across the record, the old Wurlitzer went silent.

In desperation, Kate picked up the pitcher of Skip and Go Naked and hurled what remained of it over Bean and Marion. She squealed, he yelped, they fell away from each other. Kate snatched her bag off the counter, ushered the last two customers, inebriated locals, out of the bar. She killed the lights and slammed the door. Let Bean clean up the place. Let him sweep up the glass, clean the grill, restock the shelves, load and run the dishwasher. Let him explain to the cops what the hell happened and what had come over him.

All she wanted to be was out of there.

No one was at the front desk, but some of the customers milled around the small lobby. As soon as they saw her, they crowded around her, demanding refunds for the drinks they hadn’t finished. Some of them twitched and jerked, just as Bean had, and had eyes like Bean’s, dark and shiny. She fled from them.

“Talk to the management!” she yelled.

If you can get him off the customers …

As she burst from the hotel into the open air, she felt tears on her cheeks, tears of anger, confusion, and shock.

What a nightmare …

The chilly night air bit at her. She’d left her jacket in the bar, but wasn’t about to go back inside to get it. She wished she had ridden her bike or driven to work. It was a mile to the houseboat and the prospect of walking through the fog didn’t appeal to her in the least. But she heard the cop siren now and didn’t want to be here when the chief or one of his lackeys arrived. She loved Bean, and was sorry he’d fallen off the wagon, but she refused to run interference for him on this one.

A tendril of fog slipped around her shoulders.

“Leave me alone!” she shouted at it, and then stood in the street, feeling absurd. Yelling at fog? Throwing drinks on her boss? What would she do next, scream at the rain? Kick her lover out of her life?

Maybe she was the crazy one.

The fog seemed to back off from her, like something almost human.

Kate walked briskly, shoulders hunched, past gift shops, a restaurant, the town’s only bookstore, a consignment shop, all closed down for the night. Even on Friday nights, the town turned in early, except at the hotel and over on Dock Street where most of the restaurants and bars were. But tonight the emptiness was eerie, the silence pervasive, the fog snaking across the ground, creeping in between houses and trees, rolling steadily inland from the gulf. She felt as if she moved through a black-and-white photograph, everything frozen in time, even the echo of the siren.

At the intersection, the fog caught the glow of the blinking caution light and turned it a sickly yellow. She headed right onto the shoulder of State Road 24, the only route on and off the island, in the hopes that she would see cars, people. But it was devoid of humanity. Even Island Market was locked up for the night. She felt a sudden, ridiculous urge to just keep walking, to cross the four bridges that connected Cedar Key to the mainland, and to keep right on going all the way to Gainesville.

Is that idea really so ridiculous…?

Sure. Like she would do that and leave Rocky behind. Like she would walk fifty miles through a dense pine forest by herself at night.

Take him with you, go get Rocky, and run …

She texted him that she had closed up early and was on her way home. It was one of their oldest traditions, texting each other when they were en route to and from anywhere. She had bought him his first cell phone six years ago, when he was just nine, so they could always be in touch. For a single mother who worked erratic hours, the arrangement worked well.

Kate felt anxious until he texted a reply moments later:
You ok? I heard something went down at the bar.

News on the island grapevine traveled at the speed of light.
I’m fine. Ignore whatever u hear.

You sure? Jeff and I can hop in the cart and pick u up. We were listening to the police radio, mom.

Thanks, but stay put. Nearly home. Call me in the morning. Luv u

Ditto
☺

You sweetie,
Kate thought.
You’re a good son.

No need to worry him. But was it a mistake not to take him up on his offer to come get her, so she wouldn’t have to walk this isolated route by herself? No, she decided, if there was risk, she certainly wasn’t involving Rocky or his friends in it.

Almost there. Almost home.

Kate picked up her pace, anxious to get inside her houseboat, turn on the lights, and lock the doors.

*   *   *

Just
before the first bridge, she turned right off SR 24, the road that shot straight toward Gainesville. Richard’s place stood at the end of the street, with the back bayou stretching out behind it, nearly invisible in the fog. The stuff was thicker and higher here, but thanks to the starlight, she could see the corner of the house. One bedroom, one bath, tiny kitchen. She and Rocky had lived there with Richard for a while, until the cramped quarters had gotten on everyone’s nerves. Their present arrangement worked better, the houseboat tied up at the dock behind Rich’s house. The three of them often had dinner together, but they had their respective privacy; she didn’t have to pay tie-up fees, and she and Richard split utilities.

Kate knew Rich wasn’t the love of her life—or vice versa—but she liked him. Appreciated him. And he got along well with Rocky. Buddies, not father-son.

Her cell vibrated and buzzed. She slipped it from her jacket pocket, glanced at the ID window. Bean. Was he calling to fire her? If she didn’t answer, he couldn’t fire her. She was grateful that Rocky wasn’t home, that she could just crawl into bed and listen to the soft caress of the water against the houseboat.