Paul and Lana were looking north, hunting for supplies in the decrepit boatyard on the far side of the yacht club.
Paul peeled a canvas cover off an upside-down rowboat and pulled out a cardboard box. He dumped it on the gravel beside Lana and began digging through it, tossing aside a sleeping bag and an armful of clothes before wading back in.
“Have you been . . . living under this boat?” Lana stepped between the islands of seagull poop.
“Just the last couple nights.” Paul’s voice was muffled, his head deep in the box.
“How long did you imagine you could evade the sheriffs here?”
He shrugged. “It’s worked so far.”
It was disgusting, but also brilliant. With the sheriffs watching everyone coming in and out of the marina, Paul had found the one place he wouldn’t be spotted. Even if it did come with the stench of eviscerated fish.
Lana watched with clinical detachment as Paul pulled off his sweat-stained T-shirt, revealing a shark tooth necklace and a blond, furry trail from his navel down to the top of his khaki pants. He put on a black sweatshirt, a leather vest, and a moth-bitten beanie.
“Do I look tough?” he asked.
Lana gave him a curt nod. She felt the slightest twinge of guilt for roping him into this.
“Do you have anything you could use as a weapon?”
He tunneled back into the box and emerged waving an American-flag-coated Maglite.
She stared at it. “The sheriffs are looking for that, you know. They think you used it to kill Ricardo. It could have helped you out a lot if you’d given it to them to test.”
“They took all my others,” he said. “I needed this one to get my plants.”
There was no time to critique Paul’s shortsightedness. It might even help her. Lana gave him brief bullet points on his role, telling him where he’d wait and how she’d signal when she needed him. By the time she handed him her backup key fob, it was 6:05.
“We have to go,” she said.
“How are we going to get past the cop at the gate?”
“I’ve got a plan for that.”
It took only a little cajoling to get Paul to agree to it.
*
Diana stayed out front to wait for Lana while Beth, Jack, and Martin carried the food inside. The ranch house was cavernous and dark, cluttered with farm implements from the ranch’s past. They passed a set of massive elk horns in the foyer, a line of spurs mounted above the coat rack, and over every doorway, cattle brands, upside-down Rs wrought in heavy iron. On the way to the kitchen, Beth peeked left, into a sunken den that was dominated by a leather couch and a fireplace lined with wide, heavy river stones.
After Jack set the pie on the counter, she wandered into the den. Beth and Martin stayed in the kitchen. It was brighter than the rest of the house, all pale wood and windows with frilly curtains. The decor was avian, with wood-framed watercolors and sketches of pheasants, hawks, even a bald eagle.
“It’s lovely in here,” Beth said.
“This was my mom’s domain.” Martin poured wine into two glasses, handing one to Beth. “She had a light touch.”
Beth leaned in to take a closer look at a framed photograph hanging by the kitchen sink. It was a large group of people, thirty or so, standing in front of the barn. Most of them were holding hand tools, smiling. But not the Rhoadses. Younger versions of Martin and Diana stood on one edge of the doorway, faces solemn, clutching flowers. Hal stood between the open doors, beside a Mexican woman with a toddler. Beth had the feeling she’d seen them before.
“When was this?” she asked.
“Twenty-five years ago, give or take. When the new barn was raised.”
Beth looked again. She squinted into the dark mouth of the barn, letting the rest of the crowd go blurry. Then she remembered. Hal, the tired woman, and the baby boy, clipped out and hidden in the back of the picture frame in his room at Bayshore Oaks.
“Who’s that?” Beth asked, pointing at the Mexican woman.
Martin leaned closer. “Sofia.” His voice was stilted. “She worked here. Her husband, he died in the fire with my mother, in the barn that was here before.”
“How awful.” Beth looked at the woman with the little boy, imagining how devastated she must have been, knowing the hard path that lay ahead of her.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the low purr of a car approaching outside. A set of headlights swung across the kitchen windows, and Lana’s Lexus rolled into view.
Through the kitchen window, Beth watched as Lady Di and her mother greeted each other. Lana was decked out in a sharp black suit and heels. It even looked like she’d had her wig styled. Lady Di was more subdued in her long, camel peacoat, clutching a large folio of papers.