Read Online The Shore by Robert Dunbar - Free Book Online Page A

down his glass.
    “Stacey, put the sound up.”
    “Yeah, turn it up.”
    On the picture tube, people crowded around a few tethered boats. With a start, he recognized Edgeharbor. “…has not yet been identified but police say…” His hand gripped the mug to keep from shaking, and he caught a glimpse of milling uniforms before the shot changed to a wet-suited diver. “…that of a woman, twenty-five to thirty years…” State troopers in heavy coats scooped the water with nets as coast guard cutters chugged past. “Local authorities are asking anyone with information…” He felt the glass crunch, stared at the blood in his palm.
    “Mob hit,” someone declared.
    “You think?”
    The barmaid hurried over with a rag. “You okay, hon?”
    “No. Yes.” He pressed a paper napkin into the cut. “I’m all right.”
    “Why the hell don’t they stay in Atlantic City?”
    As the newscast dissolved into the swirling colors of a commercial, people erupted with sudden animation all around the bar.
    “Oh my God.”
    “Would you believe that? Right here.”
    “Oh my God. On the news and everything.”
    “Thanks.” Nodding, he felt the food lump inertly in his gut. “Stacey.” He threw some money on the bar, then staggered across the room and out the door without even zipping his jacket.
    “Come again,” she called, watching the door swing shut on the night. As she glanced up at the television, a line creased her forehead, and after a moment, she clicked to the end of the bar and picked up the phone.

VI
    On the private beach, sand clung to the earth in frozen mounds and patches. Boulders, scaled with broken shells and furred green, angled steeply to moonlit surf.
    The old house appeared empty, and a ship on the weathervane slued inland as the current that carried it shrilled across the chimney. The house seemed to lean against the wind, and a shutter banged at a gabled dormer. Front windows boldly faced the sea, but thick draperies hung behind the shutters so that no lights showed at all.
    In the front parlor, a deeper shadow swayed. One shaking hand clutched at the curtain. “I have seen you,” the old woman whispered dryly. “And I know you wait there still.” She stared down the beach to where the black sea writhed. “By the rocks at night, I have seen you.”
    All her life, she’d hated the sea. Bit by bit, it had taken from her everything she had ever cared for. She lived by it now in a state of conscious challenge and had come to believe without hesitation that it was equally aware of her. Sometimes she felt their enmity was all that remained of her life, all that animated her.
    “And I know what you are.” An acute sense of absurdity floated through her dread. She envisioned herself with clarity, alone in an old dark house, whispering to the windowpane and watching for a dead thing to heave from the waves. “But not yet. You won’t rise yet.” She wished she could laugh at her own madness. “I’m not quite crazy. I have seen. And I know.”
    Sea winds surged against the walls, and the beams of the house creaked like the timbers of an ancient ship.
    … and I did nothing.
    His hands shook as he hurried from the bar. Young woman…ripped apart. The words snarled in his brain. Right here. In this town. While I…
    When his chest began to ache, he realized his jacket still hung open. Pneumonia won’t help. Fumbling with the zipper, he hurried down the street. He’d have to lay low—the police would be here in full force now. Nothing must interfere. He had to get to the boy before they did.
    Cold stabbed into his lungs, and an old knotted scar along his ribs throbbed, but he used the pain, forcing himself onward through the wind. The empty bungalows no longer looked sad to him. They looked ominous, corrupt. Can’t let the cops get onto me. The maze of streets untangled. The lights in the convenience store still blared, though a placard in the window now read CLOSED, and he fished out his keys and