Ms. Petroff readjusted her ideas. “I’ll see to it, sir.”

He smiled at her. “I know you will.” She was unaffected by either the smile or the approval. It wasn’t the reaction he was accustomed to receiving from the fairer sex, and he might have pouted if he’d been that guy. He sternly repressed a grin. He looked at the clock on the wall and fortuitously, it was five minutes to three. “I’ll go home after my audience with Her Honor.”

“Yes, sir.”

Eight

Tuesday, September 3

“DO YOU SEE HIM ANYWHERE?”

“Nah. Told you. The movie star had that big party last night and they all went.”

“Erik, too?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m still pissed they didn’t let us go.”

“R-rated.”

“Like we couldn’t dial up anything we wanted to online anyway.” High-pitched middle school giggles. “Kinda cool, though.”

“What?”

“Gabe inviting all the neighbors.”

“Gabe?”

“He said to call him by his first name. That’s kinda cool, too, right?”

“Eh. He just wants them all to help him get that ornament thing passed.”

“Ornament? You mean like you put on the Christmas tree?”

Impatient with pedantry. “It’s a word that sounds like that, I can’t remember. He doesn’t want the tourists knocking on his door.”

“Who does?”

“At least they don’t come down here. Mostly.” A scrape of sneaker heel loosening a cascade of pebbles. “Watch out!”

“Here, grab on! Kyle, grab my hand!”

A yelp, a smack of butt, a crunch of grass, a tear of fabric, and a cross between a scream of panic and a whoop of delight, all ending in a soft thud.

“Kyle! Dude, are you okay? Kyle?” A clumsy, hurried scramble slightly more controlled than the first. Two feet solidly hit beach rock. “Kyle?”

“Get off! I’m fine. Except I think I got sand down my pants.”

Another high-pitched giggle, this one tinged with relief. “Man, you should have seen yourself. You looked like you were coming down Mount Marathon on the Fourth of July.” A pause. “You kinda look like you did, too. You’re elbow’s a mess.”

“Shut up.”

“Dude, what are you doing? Ew!”

“Shut up! I’m just trying to shake the sand out of my underwear.”

“I sure hope none of those people out on boats have their binocs on you. Wow, that’s like a sand wedgie in there.”

“Shut up. Is anybody around?”

“I think we’d know by now.”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up. Want to look in the tent?”

“I didn’t slide down that mountain just to poke around in the tide pools.”

“It’s not a mountain. Okay, then, come on.”

Not-so-stealthy footsteps, a rasp of canvas.

“It’s just a bunch of junk.”

“I don’t know. The arrowheads are kind of cool. We could make a bow and—”

“Come on, Kyle. Erik would kill us dead if he knew we’d been messing with his stuff.”

“He should lock it up when he goes home, then.”

“Come on, Kyle. Erik’s a good guy.”

“You just want him to teach you how to be a—a anusologist.”