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“You’re already thinking about it,” he said. “That’s what last night was all about, the questions about Azaki.”
She shrugged. Not disagreeing. “I got very good at thinking about the long game when I was in the past,” Cassie said. “I got good at planning things out.”
“I’m good at surviving. And I know the woman better than any of you. And Lund and Izzy know things also.”
“Yeah.”
“If you’re going to make a plan, we do it together, over breakfast.”
She smiled, and it seemed to Drummond that she was relieved somehow. “Okay,” she said. “I’d like that.”
They sat together in silence, enjoying the warmth of the morning. It was going to be a beautiful spring day, a day that would make you believe nothing was wrong in the world. It was a perfect day to chase away doubts and fears and to plan for the impossible.
When Izzy and Lund emerged from their own room a short while later, they spotted Drummond and Cassie sitting on the ground.
“They have chairs, you know,” Izzy joked.
Cassie jumped up first. “Where’s good to get breakfast around here?” she asked, as Drummond clambered to his feet. “We’re going to have breakfast together and plan our next moves.”
Izzy glanced at Lund, who nodded once.
“Pancakes,” he said.
“Brilliant,” Drummond said.
Izzy led them to a pancake place a short walk away, a big barn of a room with large windows looking out over the beach and the Pacific, and long wooden tables with cutlery in mugs and a few other tourists dotted around. They ordered pancakes and bacon and coffee, and Drummond interrupted Izzy to ensure he got tea instead, and then they drank and ate and listened to Cassie and Izzy reminiscing about a road trip they had once taken to Florida to visit Izzy’s cousin.
“Two days on Greyhounds. Worst experience of my life!” Izzy laughed.
“Even after everything I’ve been through over these last ten years,” Cassie said, smiling. “That trip is still the worst thing that happened to me.”
It was good, easy conversation, and Drummond felt at home. But there were decisions that had to be made, and when he suggested to them that they had to get down to business, he felt like the adult telling them to do their homework.
Their plates were taken away and their drinks refilled, and then they got to working out a plan. Cassie had a few ideas, thoughts she had been nurturing since the previous evening. She laid them out and Drummond added to them, identifying problems and risks. Izzy asked questions and Lund listened. And then Lund asked a question, and they realized the plan wouldn’t work and they started again.
They discussed for over an hour, as tourists came and went, as Drummond’s tea grew cold, and then they talked for another hour as they walked along the beach, refining and revising the plan. It was difficult and complex, a plan in five parts, involving the Bookseller and Azaki (who was perhaps dead) and a risky trip for Drummond to follow the woman. And all of it, if it worked, would culminate in them having to face the woman.
“No matter if it all works, she’s still going to be dangerous,” Drummond cautioned, as the four of them stood on the beach, squintingin the sunlight. The waves were roaring in front of them, birds calling high above. “We might be planning our own demise.”
Izzy didn’t look happy at that. Lund was inscrutable as always. But Cassie shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I think we can beat her.”
“What are you going to do?” Izzy asked. “Are you going to kill her?”
Cassie hesitated. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” she admitted. “I’m not a killer.”
“No, you’re not,” Izzy said sternly. “So what do we do with her if we get her? We can’t take her to the police.”
Drummond was gazing out to sea. He knew the answer to the question. He had decided what they had to do that morning, before speaking to any of them.
“We kill her,” he said, and all three of them looked at him. “She’s evil. You can’t just deal with her. She won’t stop.” He looked at Cassie, knowing he had to get her to agree. “You saw what she did to my friends,” he said, and to his surprise he heard his own voice tremble with emotion. A distant part of his brain said:Wow, you’re really on edge.“You saw in my memories.”
Cassie nodded.
“You saw what she did in the ballroom. She wasn’t killing because she had to. She could have taken the books, and nobody could have stopped her. She killed because she wanted to. And she did it in the most horrible ways because she gets off on it. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Cassie looked away to the distant horizon. A little way down the beach a couple of kids yelped and screamed as they chased each other around the beginnings of a sandcastle. It was all so normal, so happy.
