The Cypress House(59)

“Wondering about my decision,” he said. “That it?”

“Yes.”

“Here’s a start on it,” he said. “There are two pistols on the chair beside your bed. I’d like one of them.”

“What?”

“Seems like a fair gesture of trust to me,” he said.

Paul’s footsteps slapped off the floor, and then the door to the kitchen banged open and he was back with them, in midsentence and midstride, discussing his theories on the clock’s malfunction before he’d even gotten the case off. When he’d knelt on the floor above it and ducked his head, Arlen stared back at Rebecca Cady, a look in his eyes that said, The rest is up to you.

She turned away.


All day long they worked, speaking to each other as if nothing lay between them. All day long Arlen watched the road for Wade and McGrath, and all day long he considered the countless reasons for gathering his bags and walking away from this place.

When darkness fell, his bags were where they’d been for days.


She came for him in the night.

He was in the chair at the window, had dozed off, and the sound of the door opening woke him. He could see her reflection in the glass as she entered. The pistol was in her left hand, looking big and ugly.

“Do you ever sleep?” she said, apparently thinking that because he was in the chair he’d been awake.

“I used to.”

He still hadn’t turned, and after a short hesitation she crossed the room to him. When she reached the chair, she didn’t say anything at first, just joined him in staring out at the sea. Then, still silent, she switched the gun from her left hand to her right and extended it to him.

He didn’t move to take it.

“There are bullets inside, if they make you feel better. I can give you more if you want them.”

He stared at the horizon line. Even in the dark of full night, you could make out the distinction once your eyes had adjusted. Shades of gray.

“Well?” she said, and gave the gun a little shake.

“You intend to leave,” Arlen said, not moving his hands from his lap, letting the big Smith & Wesson float in the air in front of his chest.

“What?”

“When your brother is released, you intend to leave.”

“That’s right.”

“He’ll look for you,” Arlen said. “And you want to know something else? He’ll look for me and Paul.”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

“It didn’t.”

“It doesn’t now.”

“Like hell. It does now, and it will then.”

She moved the gun away, dropped it back to her side.

“So when he’s released, you’ll leave,” Arlen repeated. “And then I’ll have to deal with Wade, whether here or far away. You told me that yourself.”

She still didn’t say a word. He looked up at her for a time, and then he reached over and took the gun. He had to lean across her body to get it. When he touched the stock, his hand pressed against hers. Her skin was very cool.

He pulled the gun from her fingers and flicked open the cylinder and saw the cartridges, snapped it shut and set the weapon down on his lap.

“All right,” he said.

She didn’t move. He looked up at her and then got to his feet.

“That’s my answer,” he said. “I’ll be here in the morning again. Be damned if I know why, but I’ll be here in the morning.”

He crossed to the bed and leaned down and placed the gun on the floor beside it. She was still standing at the window, staring out at the ocean.

“When you kissed me,” she said, “I thought that’s what you wanted. That you’d make me… earn your silence.”

“I understand. You weren’t right, but I understand, and I shouldn’t have done it. It was a mistake.”

“I shouldn’t have hit you.”

“I think you probably should have,” he said.

She turned and took a few steps toward him.

“Why did you do that, though? It didn’t seem like something you would do. That’s why I reacted that way. It didn’t seem to fit you.”

“Why did I kiss you? I think you had it right. I wanted to control you. I’m a brute, same as McGrath or Tolliver or Wade.”

“That’s not the truth. Why did you do it?”

He studied her for a moment and then said, “You don’t need to ask a man why he’d be moved to do a thing like that. You don’t need to ask that at all. You damn well know why.”

She’d stepped even closer, was an arm’s length away now.

Tell her to get out, he thought. Tell her thanks for the gun, honey, but go on your way now.

She took one more step forward and he reached up with his right hand and placed it on the back of her head and pulled her face to his and kissed her, just as he had the last time. She didn’t slap him tonight. She returned the kiss but kept her body distant for a moment. Just a moment. Then she leaned in and he felt the press of her chest against his, the graze of her thigh.