The She (28 page)

"I thought we were doing pretty good out in the canyon, trying to figure out what that noise was—before you lost your nerve." She pinched me in the side. "At any rate, my dad hasn't taken his boat out of the water yet. He's been too busy visiting me and playing superdad. I'm going back—"

"Oh, no, you're not."

"Oh, yes, I am. I want to hear it again. I've got to face my demons. I want to see them, if I have to. If that noise is nothing but an air pocket and the girl died in a riptide, then I'll have to deal with it. If it's something worse ... something I could never have conceived of before recently, well, then, I just want to know it. I have a right to."

"Grey..." I knew car keys were gripped in her right hand, because it just had been in my face. I looked somewhere else, thinking I could grab them if I didn't attract her attention to the fact that I was aware of them.

"At any rate, if there is a She who kills me, I'm dead. If she doesn't, I'm still leaving, Evan. I've got to head out of here. I came to say good-bye."

I gripped her by the shoulders, though she tried to pull away. "Where in hell are you going?"

"I can't tell you. But you have to believe me. I'll be fine. Very safe."

I didn't believe her for a second. I would have shaken her if I thought I could shake the information out of her without giving her a hemorrhage. But she was so stubborn.

She was stubborn, but she wasn't so fast. I grabbed her right hand and snatched the car keys. I almost took her finger off and had to listen to her curse.

"Just stop at my house. I need clothes."

"You can't go where I'm going, Evan."

Watch me.
"I can go as far as West Hook, can't I? Since when did this become just your problem?" I would take care of what followed West Hook after West Hook.

"You've got a brother to think of! Do you know how lucky you are? Don't do anything stupid, Barrett."

"I've got demons, too. If Bloody Mary is really hearing something, then it's as much my problem as yours. If that something kills you, then I don't get any answers. Unless I want to go see Bloody Mary and call you back from the dead. Is that what you want?"

It was like something she would say. I think she was a little stumped to have met her own face in the mirror, "No ... Okay, just bring your damn Dramamine. You puke really loud and it's gross."

That was a total lie. "Bargain."

We got into her car.

Our problems started before we'd even crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge into Jersey. Emmett's number showed up on my cell phone and I took the call, figuring if he heard I'd left school and didn't know where I was, he would drop his whole day to hunt for me. I could think of a way to soothe him over maybe.

"Evan, Mrs. Ashaad called. She said you disappeared from school, that you were very upset this morning, and that she'd set up a nine o'clock meeting tomorrow with you and some important people. She wouldn't tell me with whom."

I glanced sideways at Grey, as innocently as I could. "Oh, I'll be there. Tell her not to worry."

"Where are you now? Why did you leave school?"

If Emmett ever acted like a father figure, it was always in a very diplomatic way, and I didn't have the type of relationship with him where I lied about too many things. I settled on, "Emmett, I can't tell you right now. I'll be home late tonight. We'll talk then."

"
Late
tonight."

"Yeah." I had to be careful, or he would figure the whole thing out. I remembered how easily he'd found me on the islands when I came cruising home on Mr. Church's boat. He was in his car I could tell by the hum, on the way to school. "Look, go teach your classes, go to your meetings, and whatever else you have today. I'll be fine, I promise, bro."

"Evan, I don't like the sound of this. If you're not up to something that's either dangerous or involves poor judgment, why can't you tell me?"

It might be both. I had no answer so I just hit
END,
clicked the power off, and handed it to Grey.

"He's very smart. We'll have to steer clear of Opa's, Mr. Church, the diner The Docks, anywhere he would think to call. He'll figure this out. Where does your dad park his boat?"

"At the Basin, which would not be hard to figure out either; My dad's name is as well known there as the president's is in Washington."

My head bobbed around to stare. "The Basin? What the hell does he have? Something the size of the
Goliath?
"

"It's a thirty-eight footer:" She whipped out her wallet, laughing in a way that sounded half victorious, half evil. She flashed a photo ID of herself in my face. Seaman's license.

"You can drive that monster?"

"As long as I'm not in a typhoon."

"Listen." I thumped my fist on her knee, spouting some of the worries that had been running through my head. "We're going to get a Basin weather fax first thing when we pull in. If there's any sign of weather east of Kansas, we're staying on land, okay? God knows you can hear what you want to hear from land, too. And let's go pay a visit to Little Miss Mary first. I'm a pretty good judge of people, and if Bloody Mary is lying, I'll be able to tell."

Grey pulled off her coat, stuck it in my lap, and fell asleep on it. I thought it was a very strange time to be falling asleep, but for some reason, she looked more peaceful than I'd ever seen her.

I went to the Basin weather station first and figured I had some good luck. A weather fax showed a new warm-water eddy starting over the canyon, with clear skies all the way to Oregon. The air was forty-five degrees. I waved it victoriously under Grey's face as she was passing off what looked like a good load of cash to a very young dock-worken He was giving her a list of things he would check besides the fuel, including fuses and oil. She laid another twenty on top, and said something to the guy about her father going into West Hook to get his favorite bait. I guessed she wanted this prep guy to think we weren't alone.

She grinned, looking over the fax, and I watched the guy walk off counting this wad. "What'd you do, stop home this morning? Raid some money-laundering nook?"

"I took just as much as I need and no more," she said. "Dad took his little button skiing in Denver: I think she feels neglected from all the time he's spent trying to nuzzle up to me. Mom was making a good appearance at one of her few remaining charities."

Her dad being in Denver gave me an even better feeling, like I wouldn't have to worry about him showing up here for some stray reason. It would take at least an hour for the boat to be gassed and prepped, so we went over into West Hook and pulled up in front of Bloody Mary's tattoo parlor: This time of year there were lots of vacant parking spaces.

"What are you going to say to her?" Grey asked, and I sighed.

"Why beat around the bush?"

Bloody Mary was in there, filing her nails. She had on this green, blanketlike cape that matched her pale green eyes. She had long, ropy blond hair and, this time of year pale Nordic skin, so she looked like she could pass for a corpse if she wanted to. She was probably only around thirty, but her eyes and way of talking made her seem weirdly ageless. And it didn't help at all when she said, "You don't want a tattoo. You want ... something else."

I tried to ignore how creeped out I felt. I didn't look like the tattoo type, so it was a logical guess.

"Right, no tattoos." I cleared my throat.

Grey was standing behind me, like maybe she didn't want to deal with this part. But she laid an arm on my shoulder and a twenty-dollar bill dangled in my face. I swiped it, handed it off to Bloody Mary.

"You were down in the diner this morning, talking about something you'd just heard."

"I hear zee She!" She nodded heartily. I looked from one of her eyes to the other and back again. I couldn't see anything in them except enthusiasm. If this was a hoax, I couldn't tell. "She comes again. Last August, I hear her. First time in two years. This time, she gives warnings. Short shriek ... Friday night after dark. Again this morning.
She comes. Tonight
."

I turned my back on her and looked at Grey as a sickening feeling rolled through me. I could have done without the accuracy about Friday night. But Grey gazed stubbornly around my shoulder and I turned again, this time ready to face something I might have to believe. I held up the Basin weather fax to her.

"How can you say she's coming tonight? Look at this."

She waved a hand, dismissing it, and pointed one of her long, filed fingernails up in the ain "That means nothing! You are confused. You confuse zee She with zee weather. She is
alive.
A
being.
She does not need zee weathen She needs no reason. Except that she is hungry."

I put my fist in front of my mouth, thinking I was going to burp if I didn't actually heave again. I wondered if I'd lost ten pounds over the weekend, just from people inspiring me to lose my lunch. Grey stepped in front of me, passing another twenty to her.

"We're driving out to the canyon. Tell us when you think she'll come."

"Oh, no! You mustn't! You will not return! Not zee two of you! You are
in lovel
You will arouse her jealous wrath, bring a bad thing down on many."

Grey backed into me, laughing in her face in a way only Grey could do tp people. And I put an arm across the front of her wanting to ward off this lady or something.

"She comes at the fall of night." Bloody Mary leaned up to us, drumming ten fingers on the counter: "You will need protection. I can offer it to you." She disappeared behind a curtain where she tattooed people, and Grey turned to look at me. I really hated the look on her face. I didn't see anything romantic there. It was laughing—reckless, daring, stubborn, and, somehow, still skeptical.

Bloody Mary returned with a couple of necklaces full of broken shell pieces all strung together on a leather chain. "I have holy water comes all the way from Haiti. I will bless these. You wear them. Maybe she will not eat you."

Grey started stepping backward away from her forcing me backward, too. Bloody Mary looked at both of us like we were a mystery to her.

"What? Zee protection of your very lives is not worth fifty dollars?"

Grey kept backing us up, and she was good enough not to laugh again, though I could feel it bouncing around her insides. Bloody Mary's eyes went to me.

"And you! You have lost to her before, your own flesh and blood!"

I froze. Her pale green eyes bored holes through me, and I tried telling myself she remembered me from childhood, that was all. I turned and walked out as calmly as I could, but Grey took the car keys from me.

"Let me drive," she said. "That was horrible. Are you all right?"

I got in the passenger side, trying to figure out what I actually felt. It had been sickening in there, though I couldn't quite decide why. I couldn't say Bloody Mary was absolutely a liar. She'd been pretty accurate about having heard The She the same time we'd heard it. There just would have been something even more sickening about thinking you could be protected by broken shells. I couldn't say why. I guess maybe I sensed they would be blessed with tap water.

"Evan, you don't have to go if you don't want to," Grey said. "In fact, I wish you wouldn't. You've got everything to live for no reason to take risks."

I snatched her hand up in mine absently and laced my fingers through hers tightly, like I didn't want her going anywhere without me. Certainly not out there.

"If there's something out there, something that could eat my folks right off their boat, I don't want to live in this world." I bumped my head on the headrest a couple of times with my eyes shut. "And if there's nothing more than a scandal, I don't think my gut will ever let me believe it until I've found out more. This is not the time to just drop everything and try to live a normal life. How in hell could I do that?"

I think any other girl might have tried to encourage me, anyway. Grey seemed to understand the value of a supreme risk. She said nothing but squeezed my fingers, letting me know she was watching me. I kept letting scenes from my last trip out there roll through my head—my face in the water spitting over the stern.

"That water is my friend," I said. Whatever that meant.

"Your friend has killed a lot of people," Grey pointed out, but it was more like she was feeding me thoughts to conquer rather than arguing.

I had to nod, though. "It's killed a lot of
good
people. But everybody has a time. God takes everybody, and sometimes he doesn't leave a very reassuring explanation. And yet, somehow, we end up coming back to the thought that he's a good guy."

"Unless we're Emmett."

"Yeah." And yet Emmett is such a good guy. "Maybe Emmett's just ... good enough within himself. Me? I'm not so good." I sat there for a while trying to figure this out. I decided I couldn't.

"Let's go," I whispered, realizing I was releasing her hand to make the sign of the cross on myself.

She didn't do likewise, but she kind of laughed, closed her eyes, and shocked the hell out of me by saying what was a very common captain's prayer or my mother wouldn't have had it on the
Goliath
when it had been hers.

"Lord, give me a stiff upper lip."

"
The only real valuable thing is intuition.
"
—A
LBERT
E
INSTEIN

I thought we would have a smooth ride, at least out to the canyon, but when we got back to the Basin, my Sherlock Holmes brother was standing on the dock, to my amazement. He did not look thrilled. His cell phone was in his hand again, and he left the dockworker standing beside the Shailey boat and marched toward the car.

"Shit—Shit," we echoed.

"I'll handle him," I said to her though I had no clue how.

He got within six feet of me, stopped, and shook his cell phone at me. "If you set one foot on that boat, I'm calling the Coast Guard. You are not leaving port, Evan. You ought to be using better judgment. And you,
you
ought to be taking better care of yourself."