Part 8 (1/2)

”Not all the time, buster,” Janice said, mocking tone. ”You're grounded from comic books for the next two weeks, remember?”

The idea of previous sentencing for whatever childhood crime had been wreaked in the kid's name seemed to go unheeded. He nodded nonchalantly, as if he knew the appeals would come within the next few days. ”I know,” he said. ”Do you like the X-Men?” His attention was riveted back to Rick.

”A little,” Rick said, grinning. Ad-libbing. He hated the X-Men.

Bobby began spilling inane comic book questions at Rick, totally oblivious to his mother. ”I've got number fifty-four, the one that's worth, like, fifty bucks now. I've also got the new Mutant comic and-”

”Tell you what,” Janice interrupted, patting her son's wind-blown brown hair. ”Why don't we go get some cotton candy and get to know each other a little better.” She traded a sidelong glance with Rick, her hazel eyes holding greater promises in store.

Bobby saw right through the charade. ”Aw, Mom, can't I go play on the beach some more? I don't want to be around you guys if you're gonna be making sucky faces at each other.”

Rick sputtered laughter, Janice joining him. Bobby looked at them with bored disinterest, waiting for a chance for his reprieve. Rick didn't feel embarra.s.sed at all by Bobby's sudden burst of honesty; it was pretty G.o.d-d.a.m.ned funny. Janice ruffled Bobby's mop of hair. ”Go on, but be careful.”

Bobby's face erupted into smiles and he set off to run. Rick looked over at Janice and smiled. Bobby started off, but then doubled back and leaned toward Rick. ”Hey Rick, if you're gonna be my Mom's new boyfriend, ya gotta know something.”

”Robert Alton Harrelson!” Janice's tone changed to authoritative steel. Rick read the glimmer in her features; she knew Bobby was joking and he sensed that they teased each other often.

”What?” Bobby looked at his mother with irritation.

”What does he need to know?” Janice put her hands on her hips. Waiting.

Bobby leaned in close to Rick. ”She can't cook!”

Janice leaped toward Bobby, arms out to grab him. He gave out a maniacal cackle and slithered like an eel out of her grasp and ran down the pier. Janice stepped after him and stopped, watching as the little urchin hit the sand and head for the water, laughing all the way. ”You wait, Bobby! When you least expect it!”

Janice turned back to Rick, chuckling to herself. ”Can you believe that little s.h.i.+t?”

Rick shrugged. ”It looks like you two have a pretty good relations.h.i.+p.”

Janice nodded. ”We do. Sometimes too good. I know where he gets that wicked sense of humor from, too. He's definitely my kid.” Rick nodded. Intuition told him that Bobby's father probably skipped out of the picture a long time ago.

”Well, Rick, how about that cotton candy?” That flirtatious tone crept back into her voice.

”You got it.”

They set off walking down the pier toward Rox's hamburgers, a greasepit burger stand that served everything that was bad for you. Janice got a pink swirl of cotton candy. Rick settled for a c.o.ke. They found a deserted table, wiped the settled rain off with some napkins and sat down. Small talk commenced shortly after their behinds met plastic.

Rick answered not-too-personal questions about himself. He told her everything that had happened to him up till now; his brief past in Philly, his decision to move to a new location, the drive to Phillipsport, his accident, his encounter with Rusty and the Sheriff, the exploration of his house. At the mention of Melissa, Janice nodded, no hint of jealousy in her face. ”Melissa's a sweetie. Believe it or not, I used to babysit her.”

Gee, she sure doesn't look that old. Rick originally pegged her to be around twenty-five, give or take a few years. Missy couldn't be more than twenty-one and if you count Bobby in as being around seven, Rick could definitely see that Janice was most likely around his own age. ”When she dropped me off yesterday, Melissa mentioned that you and Jack Ripley are kindred spirits.”

”She's a sweet girl,” Janice said. ”I don't see her that much now. Sometimes I'll stop by Shelby's for a bite and we chat, but it's been awhile.”

”She drove me home from Shelby's the other night,” Rick mentioned. He cut Melissa out of the loop from that point on. He liked Melissa, but it wouldn't be right to talk about another woman with Janice, even if that other woman was merely regarded as a friend.

He filled the rest of the anecdote with what had happened till he ran into her at the pier. He was surprised that Ripper, one of the most seminal influences on his writing, lived in Phillipsport. Janice nodded, smiling at him. ”Jack Ripley plays a good babysitter, too. If you know what I mean.”

Rick nodded, catching the glimmer in her eye. What better way to keep Bobby occupied some evening than leaving him with Ripper to peruse comic books while he and Janice got to know each other better?

The one minute Janice had imposed on Bobby quickly stretched to thirty. After a while she rose and walked over to the edge of the pier to check on him. Rick heard her call down to him faintly for a moment. When she came back she looked more at ease. ”I told him we'd come get him in a few minutes. He won't scamper off if he knows I'm up here.”

Great. That meant they could relax in the pleasure of each other's company. Rick sipped at his c.o.ke and listened as Janice related bits and pieces of her life. She was a secretary for the town's only lawyer who was currently out on a Black-lung case in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The job itself gave her ample free time when it came to raising a seven-year-old. She somehow found the time for little league baseball games, after school activities, and volunteering for PTA duties. She gave Bobby what he really needed; her undivided attention in her love.

Beyond that she had time for a few hobbies. She liked to read and watch movies-she was a big fan of Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k films and anything by Stephen King. ”It makes sense, I guess,” she said. ”Being from Maine and all, he really captures the region quite beautifully.”

Rick nodded and grinned. Bright woman. He liked her already.

They talked about their interests for a while; Janice liked to take Bobby to New York and Boston to peruse the museums. Bobby was interested in dinosaurs. Rick drew his leather jacket tighter around his body. The wind had picked up considerably, blowing his long hair over his face. Janice noticed the wind and looked out over the horizon. Rick followed her gaze. ”Looks like we're gonna be getting a bigger storm.”

Janice nodded. The sky from the north was as black as India ink. Forks of lightning flashed through it, creating a rippling effect of electricity. Rick could practically feel the tension in the air. The cloud ma.s.s looked like it was still a good twenty miles north. With the way the wind was blowing this new storm would hit them by nightfall.

”Is the weather like this all the time?” Rick asked, his eyes glued to the electrical show unfolding to the north.

”No. It gets pretty stormy in the winter, but I've never seen it like this before. It's really getting black and dreary, isn't it?”

Rick smirked. ”I like it black and dreary.”

Janice laughed and they slipped back into conversation. Rick was so absorbed in the conversation, in her awesome beauty, that he didn't even notice the storm clouds building in higher ma.s.ses and moving quickly toward them.

Chapter Ten.

Bobby Harrelson looked back toward the pier where his Mom and Rick were. He couldn't see them from this vantage point, but he knew they were there, talking grown-up stuff. He knew Mom wanted to be alone with Rick the minute he saw her making goo-goo eyes at him. He had been around Mom enough times to know that she wanted to be left alone whenever she got that way. His buddy Richard told Bobby that his mom did that to his dad all the time. Whenever Moms did that it meant they wanted to get laid. Bobby had a vague definition of what that meant, but it was still confusing; did it mean they laid down together? How boring.

Bobby turned and scaled the rocks of the beach carefully to avoid the cold, splas.h.i.+ng waves. He'd been picking his way casually among the rocks for the past fifteen minutes now and hadn't come across anything. The rocky area held all the tide pools, which was where you found all the cool stuff; sand dollars, tiny fish, skeeters, wriggly things that were unidentifiable to him.

He had scoured all of them, but there was nothing. The waves had probably splashed them all out to sea. Too bad.

Bobby climbed on a large rock and sighed. He looked out at the ocean. The tide had receded for the moment, but it would come in at high tide tonight. Mom said there was going to be a full moon tonight and he knew well enough that the tide rose whenever the moon was full. Hopefully that would bring something up from the ocean. Something cool that he'd never seen before.

One time he'd found a tiny octopus in a tide pool and took it home in a jar. Mom had put her foot down on that. He'd wanted to keep it till at least Monday when he could take it to school for show-and-tell. Mom wouldn't have it though, and he had to dump the critter back into the ocean. What a b.u.mmer that had been. He would have had the greatest show-and-tell exhibit of all time. Instead he had to settle for a crummy piece of driftwood that sort of looked like Ross Perot when you held it up at the right angle.

Bobby jumped off the rock and landed in the cold sand. A huge wave was coming in and he scooted back to avoid getting wet. G.o.d forbid he get his new Air-Jordans soaked with sandy sea water. Mom would kill him.

He stepped back as the wave crashed on the beach and rolled up the sand. He watched the tide retreat, exposing sh.e.l.ls and sand crabs. He looked up at the gray sky and the vast expanse of ocean and sighed. Nothing much else out here to play with. Might as well go back.

He was just about to turn and trudge back up the beach to the pier when a flash of brown caught his eye. He turned toward his left and squinted down the beach. A brown ma.s.s was lying in the sand, tangled in seaweed. Bobby stepped toward it curiously. He trotted over the sand to the object until it was more identifiable, then he started running. A moment later he pulled up to a stop just a few feet from it.

It was a boat. A small one. The tail of the craft was in the water and the gentle lapping waves pushed it farther up the beach. There was a small outboard motor on the tail and a broken oar leaning against the railing. It looked like it had just been cast up from the ocean. In short, it looked like whoever was piloting it had abandoned s.h.i.+p.

Bobby turned around, checking to see if anybody was watching him. The beach was deserted. He looked out toward the pier and could now see Mom and Rick. They were still there, still talking and making goo-goo eyes at each other. Good.

He stepped closer toward the boat, pretending he was a special investigator who had just discovered an abandoned s.h.i.+p. He would have to tread carefully to avoid being spotted by any enemy agents whose only motive would be to discredit his find. Not to mention he had to be extra careful for any enemy spies that might be lurking in the s.h.i.+p. He would just peer inside quickly, a.s.sess the situation, then dash off and let his commander know what he had discovered. Headquarters would send reinforcements to aid him right away.

Something about the boat looked familiar the moment he saw it and now it dawned on him. It was Old Man Stebble's boat. But where was Old Man Stebble?