Lake Charles (34 page)

“You’re nuts.”

“Oh, quit it. They’ll dry my tears and send me to grief counseling. Everybody will pity poor, little Ashleigh.”

I watched the fire engulf her arms, shoulders, and throat. Sweat pocked on my brow. I felt the fire’s gathering intensity and raised my forearms to use as a heat shield.

“So that’s why Ralph killed you. He did you before you did him. Either way, I was a pawn caught in the middle.”

Absorbed by her scheme, she ignored me. “Once he’s out of the picture, meet your new teenager millionaire. We can splurge, Brendan. Join me.”

“No. We’re pulling in opposite directions. I’m set to find my father, not to destroy him.”

“Really? After all this time, why bother?” she asked, my dreams’ stalker consumed by the column of smoke and fire.

I awoke and with a clear mind dismissed my dreams as a vile brew from the crucible of emotions roiling inside me, heated by Ashleigh’s murder and Lake Charles. I felt pity for her. Her overweening ambition to outshine her father had blinded her moral conscience. Or maybe she didn’t know any better. Maybe that facet of her maturity had never developed as she grew up in her rarified rich girl’s world, its axis greased by privilege, money, and greed. Whatever but she and I were finished.

Her salient question gave me pause. What did I expect to gain by taking off for Valdez? Did I feel too pumped over it? On one level, the father-son reunion struck me as naïve and melodramatic. Hell, I didn’t even drink beer anymore. One lousy missive sent in nineteen years didn’t exactly engender strong filial ties. In short, I reassessed and thought Angus was an asshole. If I erased Lake Charles from my brain, maybe Umpire wasn’t a bad place to live.

Oscar, purring, leaped up into my lap. Thinking, I stroked his soft fur. Then I reached over him and took Veera’s business card off the futon. My thumb pecked in her numbers, and she greeted me with surprise brightening her voice.

“Say Veera, are you into bass fishing?”

THE END