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“People get older and they’re, like, fuck, this isit? So they talk about appreciating every moment and living in the present and how today is all you have because what else are they gonna say?”
“I think I read that once in a greeting card.”
“I’m just saying. There’s no big secret to life. It’s just what we decide it is. We can get pissed off about it and make everything suck ’cuz we think we deserve it, or we can …” The words came a bit harder now. “Learn how to be with it. And—if we’re lucky—even, dunno, try ‘n’ celebrate it sometimes. People we care about.” Her voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Ourselves, maybe.”
Evan thought about what Deborah had said about never shaming someone for finding joy. Johnny Seabrook had been that kind of kid, openhearted, generous of spirit. The loss of him was more than just the absence of a person; it was an affront to hard-won goodness in the universe.
He listened to Joey breathe some more.
Her tone was softer now. “Did Ruby and her folks get to the safe house okay?”
“Yes. And Candy’s in Boston now if they need anything.”
Her voice shot up an octave. “What? Really?!Ruby Seabrookgets Orphan V? I had to wait, like,foreverbefore—”
“Good-bye, Joey.”
“X! You’retha worst.”
“You’re the worst, too.”
Hanging up, he tossed the phone beside him.
Twilight dampened the sky, shifting the shadows of the house, pulling them long across the wide-plank flooring. With an exhale, he sought a moment of relaxation, but instead a flood of anger caught him off guard. Joey’s outrage had loosed his own.
Since the moment he’d listened to the voice mail intended to terrorize Ruby, he hadn’t registered just how furious he was. That Johnny Seabrook’s throat had been slit deep enough to expose vertebrae. That Angela Buford’s head had been twisted 180 degrees. That a pack of men were at work doing Devine’s bidding. That the Seabrooks had been shattered into pieces because of it. That oneof Devine’s men had come into the home of those good people to kill them.
Evan had tucked it all neatly away.
Until now.
Degree by degree, night blackened the windows.
It was time to visit Tartarus.
40
Torches and Pitchforks
Billionaire’s Row on Meadow Lane was a parade of mansions built right up out of the sand atop aprons of hardscaping. No doubt to the consternation of the landowners, the beach itself remained public, stragglers making their way up from the bonfires farther west in rusty pickups to fish or get it on atop silky dunes within breathing distance of the shimmer of affluence. In fact, your average riffraffer could walk undisturbed along the shore all the way to Montauk’s lighthouse.
Perhaps notentirelyundisturbed.
Private security patrols rotated like electrons around the dunes of each estate, delineating bailiwicks. A guard station in every driveway and dark SUVs in every yard. The other houses Evan had passed had private-security types with not-so-concealed weapons hanging in their guard stations. Each tycoon seemed to have his own war force.
Except Luke Devine.
Tartarus kept its muscle tucked in, seeming to prefer electronicsurveillance. Myriad-headed black cameras rose in stacks aiming every which way like cartoon trail signs.
Just out of peeping range of Devine’s surveillance, Evan idled in the unthreatening minivan, drinking in ocean air through the rolled-down window. On the way over, he’d replaced the license plates with those from a similar-looking minivan he’d spotted parked behind an antiques shop in Art Village.
It took less than a minute for a 4x4 to buzz up to him.
Evan made a show of fumbling with an old-fashioned road map.
A security man wearing tan cargo pants and a decaled jacket hopped off. “Heya pal, help you with something?”
Comfortable demeanor, ample belly, local accent. Forgotten Oakley Blades dangled around his throat on a neoprene switchback retainer. Evan pegged him for a retired cop.
