I throw up my hands. “They’re staying at the Oceanside Motel. It’s a small town, Eben Cape. Everyone knows what’s happening. A single cop car in the parking lot doesn’t hide it. Reggie’s Pizza delivers every night. Next Day Dry Cleaning drops off every morning. There are ways to reach them.”

He swears, long and creatively. “They wouldn’t even need to use the pizza place or the dry cleaning. The cops are Joe’s buddies. They probably handed out DVDs of the interview.”

“All the more reason I should testify.”

“You’re not testifying,” he says, finality ringing in his voice. “That’s final.” Rain plasters his hair to his forehead. He’s gotten drenched in the time that he’s been standing there. I want him to come inside, but in this moment he feels unapproachable. Alien.

He doesn’t seem like the man who held me so tenderly last night. As if he realizes this, he suddenly strides away from me. He rounds the house, and I’m left abruptly alone.

For a moment I listen to the rain pound on the rooftop.

It’s a metal roof, so it’s louder. More expensive, too. I thought metal roofs were for double-wide trailers. Apparently they’re also for ultra-luxury new houses, complete with solar paneling and water containment systems.

Those water containment systems will be filling up now, saving the water until it can sprinkle it back out over the lawn. There’s something beautiful about that, I think.

This dark, gloomy weather will make it beautiful. Someday.

*     *     *

Beau Rochester

Rage runs through my veins.

And underneath that, darker and more potent, is fear.

I don’t want Jane to be in the same room with Joe Causey, not ever again. I don’t want her to be under his scrutiny, to be forced to face him, to be the object of his animosity once again. It might seem like overkill, this protective instinct inside me, especially with advanced security systems and guards roaming around. But I understand what he’s capable of. He killed my brother. My brother was not a good man. He deserved what he got, but that doesn’t make Causey any less dangerous.

Water stretches out in front of me. It’s endless. I know this horizon as intimately as I know Jane’s face. I’ve looked at it during night and day. I’ve explored its terrain, but it still contains mysteries. The cool rain is a welcome relief from the heat earlier. I’m a northerner through and through. I prefer the cold.

Wind whips around me, howling in my ears—loud, but not so loud that I can’t hear Jane approach across the gravel.