The Guardian

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“Mostly junk,” said Corbett. “A notice from your vet. Maybelline’s due for some kind of shot and checkup.”

“Drat,” she said. “I forgot. She’s got a bad hip and a weird allergy. She has to have her shots or she gets all achy and itchy. I’ll have to find a vet here. If I can find one that doesn’t specialize in alligators.”

“Let me know if you need her records sent. I’ll get it done.”

“Thanks,” she said, her throat suddenly tight. “I appreciate it. I appreciate you.”

“Kate—I’m sorry it’s come to this. That you and Charlie have to suffer this dislocation. I wish it were different. This guy’s long overdue to make a slip. If he does, I’ll do everything in my power to get him.”

“I know you will.”

“Take care, Kate.”

“Corbett?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful yourself. He may get angry at you when he finds out I’m gone.”

“Hey, let me do the worrying for a while. You’ve held the monopoly on it too long.”

After Kate hung up, she missed the sound of Corbett’s familiar voice, felt a rush of loneliness for home. But, she told herself sternly, homesickness was futile. It was good for nothing.

“This guy’s long overdue to make a slip,” Corbett had said. “If he does, I’ll do everything in my power to get him.”

“If,” Kate murmured. That was the word that cast such a long, cold shadow over her life and Charlie’s, even in the bright sunshine of Florida.

HAWKSHAW LIKED THE KID. He had a quick, lively mind, although sometimes it was too lively for the boy’s own good; Hawkshaw had seen that immediately.

He decided the best strategy for the day would be to keep the kid too busy to notice how troubled his mother was. Kate Kanaday might toss her fiery hair and speak with a tart confidence, but she was worried, deeply so.

She’d sat on the deck much of the morning with a book she didn’t read, mostly looking off into the distance like a sad princess held prisoner in a tower.

Hawkshaw knew the dark mangrove islands and the twisting tidal streams could make some people feel closed in, even trapped. The backcountry seemed both marsh and jungle to them, its heart full of shadows.

When Kate came out of the kitchen after Corbett’s phone call, she went to the far corner of the deck. She stood, staring out longingly toward the one small, distant glimpse of open ocean.

Beside him, Charlie was solemnly reeling in his line to check his bait.

“Let’s go out for lunch today.” Hawkshaw told the boy gruffly. “To celebrate your first day here. And see a little more of the Keys. What say?”

“Will we see the ocean?” Charlie asked, looking up at him eagerly. The boy had his mother’s eyes, so deeply brown they seemed almost black. They gave Hawkshaw a strange twinge.

“We might see some of it,” Hawkshaw said, and gave the bill of the boy’s cap a teasing tug. “Go wash your hands.”

Hawkshaw decided to take them in his father’s disreputable convertible, an ancient Thunderbird that was partly robin’s-egg-blue, but mostly red with rust. The kid immediately fell in love and clambered into the back seat and buckled his seat belt. The woman eyed the car as if it were the wreck of a particularly sinister flying saucer, but she got in.

Hawkshaw gunned the big motor and took the winding road back to Highway 1. He headed for his favorite fish and chips shack, with outside tables overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.

They had conch fritters and French fries, and for dessert slices of tart Key lime pie topped with clouds of meringue. Charlie was enchanted by a brassy old seagull who would skydive for French fries tossed into the air. Kate smiled to see the kid laugh, but her smile was sad, and she said little.

After lunch, Hawkshaw drove farther north to the beach at Bahia Hondo. He disliked the beach because it always teemed with people, but it was a good beach for a kid to learn to play in the sea, to literally get his feet wet. The water was shallow for a long way out, and the bottom mostly sandy and smooth.

Charlie ran ahead of them, darting right and left, dashing into thigh-deep water, then wading, laughing back.

The tide was going out, the water was calm, and a soft breeze stirred the afternoon heat. Kate and Hawkshaw strolled barefoot at the edge of the surf, ankle deep in the cool, foaming water.

They walked against the breeze, and Hawkshaw tried not to notice the way the soft wind sculpted Kate’s pale-green shirt to her breasts. She’d plaited her hair into one gleaming braid, but strands had come loose and fluttered about her face like delicate streamers of fire.

Overhead the gulls shrieked and squabbled in flocks, but the more majestic birds wheeled alone, aloof from them and from each other.

“Hawkshaw! Hawkshaw! What’s that?” Charlie cried. He nearly danced in the surf as he pointed upward at an elegant black shape sailing high in the blue.

“A frigate bird,” Hawkshaw told him. “They call it the ‘magnificent’ frigate bird.”

Charlie stood, staring up for a moment, then ran on, playing tag with the waves.

Kate put her hands in the pockets of her shorts and cast him a sideways look. “How many times today have you heard that?”

“Heard what?” he said.

He’d put on a shirt for her benefit, but now he unbuttoned it and let it blow back in the wind. He liked the feel of the salt wind on his bare flesh.

She looked up at the sky, the hovering frigate bird. “That question: ‘Hawkshaw, what’s that?’”

“About four thousand,” he said.

“You don’t get tired of answering?”

He shrugged. “Not really.”

“It’s very good of you to be so patient with him”

He was not good at taking compliments or thank-yous. He shrugged again and looked out to sea. “It’s okay.”

“He gets very—hyper—about things sometimes,” she said. “When he’s interested in something, the questions never stop.”

“Kids are curious,” he said.

“If he gets too curious, if he becomes a pest, you have to be firm with him, that’s all. I don’t want him to be a bother to you.”

“He’s no bother,” Hawkshaw said. That was God’s truth. Hawkshaw had nothing else he needed to do, not one damn thing.

“His attention usually flits around a lot,” she said. “It’s been a problem. But when he’s really interested in something, he can become almost obsessive. So I’ll understand—” Her voice trailed off, pensive, resigned.

Hawkshaw leaned down, scooped up a fragment of broken conch shell from the surf and hurled it into the sea. “He’s a smart kid,” he said.

“He is smart,” she agreed. “And he’s very imaginative—the doctors say that’s really in his favor. That’s a plus.”

He stole a glance at her. Her face, framed by the rippling strands of loose hair, was sober. She kept her gaze on the boy running and wading ahead of them.

“He’s also an only child,” she said. “That’s actually a plus, too, in a case like this. He needs extra time. Extra attention. And all these things have been hard on him, his father’s death, and then—”

She went silent

“The stalker?” Hawkshaw added.

“Yes. Him. God, I don’t even have a name for him. He’s trying to destroy our lives, and I don’t even know his name. I hate it. I hate him.”

She shot him a look so volatile that it startled Hawkshaw. Beneath her sadness was passion, a firestorm of it. Then she looked down, as if ashamed of letting her emotions fly free for even an instant.

“It’s not about me so much,” she said, kicking at the surf. “It’s Charlie, what it’s done to him. That’s what I can’t forgive.”

Hawkshaw frowned. To him, it was the mother, not the boy, who seemed hurt and disturbed.

“Charlie seems fine,” he said. “Maybe you worry too much.”

She gave him another sharp look, just as turbulent as the first. “I can’t worry too much. Charlie’s got a special problem. It’s affected his learning. He—he can’t read. He has to repeat first grade.”

She acted as if her words were some sort of horrible confession. Hawkshaw said, “That’s no sin.”

Her chin jerked up, and her eyes went straight back to the boy. “It’s hardly a blessing. He hates school—with a passion. He misbehaves. He doesn’t make friends. He has problems with self-esteem.”

“Self-esteem,” Hawkshaw repeated, sarcasm in his voice. To him, it sounded as if she’d read too many psychology books.

She said, “Self-esteem is a big issue for children with attention deficiencies.”

“Issue,” he echoed in the same tone.

“Never mind,” she said curtly.

“He’s a good kid. What more do you want?”

“He’s good here,” she answered. “He’s good now. But you make it seem like a big vacation. I mean, it’s kind of you, and he loves it, but it’s not the real world.”

“It’s my real world,” said Hawkshaw. “And you didn’t answer. What more do you want from him?”

She shook her head. “I’m not asking that he turn into a genius. I just want him to be able to read, for God’s sake. That’s all.”

“I see,” said Hawkshaw.

She sighed and passed a hand over her hair to tame it, but it refused to be tamed. “I know,” she said. “I sound like a neurotic mother. Maybe I am. I don’t even know. Being stalked is hard work, you know? It wears you down. You lose perspective. Oh, hellfire.”

Against his will he gave her a one-cornered smile. “I hear the pay’s lousy, too.”

“It is lousy.” She didn’t smile in return, but a dimple appeared in her cheek. It played intriguingly and for all too short a time. He wanted it to come back.

“But,” she said, trying to smooth her hair again, “I’m not a freeloader. I pull my own weight I see a lot of things around your house that need to be done. I want you to let me do them.”