“You want to tone down the aggression, or am I hanging up?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m under a lot of pressure here.”
“I think I do know him a bit, yes. He’s a very dignified person. Kind of formal, even. He has rules about things, you can tell.”
“Current evidence would suggest those rules were flexible.”
“I offered him the money. Twice. And he refused it. I told him he could have it; he could have just picked it up and walked away with it, no strings attached, and you never would have known. But he refused. He kept saying he was being well paid for this, and that his mother would know, and—”
“You offered him my money?” Thom asked.
“It was about to be mine, wasn’t it?”
“You never learned how to accept help. That’s your problem.”
“Is that what it is? Thank you.”
“Yes. It’s pride. It’s a sin, it’s as bad as never giving help. You’ve got no humility, none, zero.”
“I think this phone call is over.”
“This guy that you liked so much, with the moral code? He just stole a quarter of a million dollars from me, Aubrey.”
She paused. “Why in God’s name did you send a quarter of a million dollars?”
“I demand that you come here,” Thom tried, his tone firm.
She laughed. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not safe! And I need to look out for you.”
“Since when?”
“Oh, fuck you!” he said, but then caught himself. “Wait. I’m sorry.” He sounded desperate. “I’m under a lot of stress. We had some trouble here last night.”
“You always manage to land on your feet. Good luck, Thom.”
She hung up, tossed the phone on the couch, and looked around. She was mildly surprised to see Scott, whom she’d forgotten was still sitting on the other side of the room.
“Wow.”
“Give me a minute, OK?” she asked, putting a hand over her eyes.
“Seriously,” Scott said. “What the fuck happened to you two?”
He was staring at her openly. Scott had a tendency not to look away from emotion or discomfort; it was one of the things she’d always liked best about him. For a flicker of a moment, Aubrey thought about actually answering his question.
Instead, she covered her eyes again and said nothing.
After a moment, Scott gave up and went back upstairs. She didn’t notice when he paused at the couch, taking something from beneath a pillow and concealing it behind him.
When Celeste woke an hour later, Scott was sitting on the far side of the room. He told her what had happened and showed her the gun.
“Are you going to tell Aubrey?” she asked.
“No. She wouldn’t want it in the house.”
“Is she right about that?”
Scott looked at her, then back down at the gun. “Shit’s gonna get worse before it gets better. I’d rather know we have this.”
“Have you ever fired one?”
“Plenty of times.”
“That specific kind of gun?”
“Mostly shotguns. My dad used to make me go hunting with him, ’til I was about twelve, when I shot this duck and I thought it was dead, but then I heard it flopping around in the skiff and—”
“Scott, that gun you’re holding in your hand. Do you know how to fire it?”
“No.”
“OK.” Celeste thought. “How many shots does it hold?”
“There’s a clip.”
“Yes, they have clips. How many shots are in the clip?” Scott was shaken, she could see, and she tried not to let irritation show as she walked him through the conversation.
He pressed a button on the side of the gun and the clip popped out. He counted the exposed gold nubs of the bullets.
“Sixteen.”
She thought for a moment. “OK. Here’s what we’ll do. Get Aubrey to let us borrow the car, and we’ll drive out to the old dump site. We’ll each fire off two rounds, so we know what we’re doing, and still have a dozen rounds left. Then we’ll agree on a place to hide it, and we’ll never bring it up again, unless we need it, which I hope we won’t.”
Scott looked at her. He knew two things for sure—he was going to marry her one day, and they would definitely need that gun.
In his apartment over the hardware store on Stolp Island, Rusty slept late. He’d been so juiced with success when he’d come home at five-thirty in the morning that it had taken an entire six pack to calm him down. Finally, boozy, bloated, and unbelievably fucking rich—the contents of the duffel bag had exceeded his wildest expectations—he’d gone to sleep, making plans for the next day.