“This one came close,” he explained, his voice guarded.
I took my time with this new information.
“You mark the spots where you’ve been shot,” I quietly surmised and glanced up to read his face. “Why?”
His lips thinned. “Reminds me to be thankful that I’m alive.”
“You need to be reminded?”
“Some days are easier than others,” he said darkly.
“Does it happen a lot … you getting shot at?” I struggled. I was trying to collect rational thoughts and push out the horrifying images that were crowding my brain.
“On occasion,” he answered with caution. “But the bullets rarely reach their target.”
I kept his eyes. “By
target
you mean you?”
He forced a smile. “Do you want to know how many of these crosses I have?”
“There are more?” My voice was shaking.
“Three more.” He lifted up his shirt and showed me the cross tattooed on his stomach. “I have another one on my leg and on my back.”
The door to the pool house opened all of a sudden, and I jumped. Carly walked out, carrying a stack of papers. She was wearing a cute sundress, her silky black hair falling down her back. With her olive skin and her petite frame, she looked like a porcelain doll, almost breakable.
She threw a disapproving glance in our direction as she pursued her path on the other side of the pool and went into the house without a word, banging the door behind her.
I was suddenly conscious that I was leaning into Cameron and that Cameron’s girlfriend had caught me staring at her boyfriend’s stomach. My cheeks burned up.
“You’re blushing,” Cameron said, laughing.
“I don’t think your girlfriend likes me very much,” I said, trying to mentally tone down the color that was rising up my cheeks.
His eyes widened. “My what?”
“Your girlfriend, Carly,” I clarified.
“Oh! Right! Carly, my … girlfriend!”
He burst out laughing.
“I can’t wait to tell her that. It might actually make her feel better, or at least make her laugh a bit.”
He finally settled down and shook his head in amazement.
“Carly’s not my girlfriend,” he explained. “Actually, you should probably not tell anyone else about your theory, or I’ll need another cross to hide the new bullet wound.”
I tried to stay indifferent about this stirring news.
While I pulled myself together, Cameron told me that Carly lived in the pool house. As the only girl, he explained, she needed her privacy.
“Well, she used to be the only girl here,” he added with a wink.
“Does she work for you then?” I blurted.
“Where did you get that from?”
I recounted for him my first meeting with Carly and her argument with Rocco about working for Cameron, the boss.
He sighed, clearly displeased.
“Yes, Carly works for me,” he answered dejectedly.
“What does she do?”
“She’s a whiz with numbers. She keeps track of all the money, coming in and going out.”
“So … she’s your accountant?” I gathered.
He looked at me, smiling. “Yeah, I guess she’s my accountant.”
I could hear the pulsation of car stereo systems resonating in the distance. The sound was becoming louder and louder. I tried to ignore it.
“And Spider works for you too?” I continued.
He nodded his head in affirmation and, anticipating my next question, added, “Spider deals with all of the security issues.”
“And the … guards?”
“Yes, Emily, they all work for me,” he answered with slight impatience. “Everyone here works for me.”
“Rocco doesn’t work for you,” I noted.
“No, I guess you’re right. Rocco is the exception. He’s my brother. He can live here as long as he wants, but he doesn’t need to work for me.”
“But he wants to work for you.”
Cameron’s smile disappeared.
“Rocco is young and has the chance to do anything he wants. Anything,” he emphasized and looked me in the eyes. “I won’t let him make the same mistakes I made.”
The desperation on his face reminded me of that day, in the cemetery … when he had turned around to find me as his witness to his crime.
“Cameron,” I said and took a breath, “I don’t know what happened in the cemetery or why you killed that man … but I’m sure you had your reasons.” His brown eyes were still locked on mine. I was feeling my nerves fading. “You have to know that I would never tell anyone what I saw. You don’t need to keep me here to keep me quiet because I’m not going to talk.”
“Things are a lot more complicated than that. It’s not just up to me. There are other people who have an interest in this.”
“Spider?” I asked, remembering his furious glances at my expense.
He smiled. “No, it’s not Spider.”
I mustn’t have looked convinced because he added, “I know that Spider comes off a bit … intimidating, but he’s a good guy who’s just trying to do his job of keeping us safe. And believe me, sometimes I make his job very difficult.”
Like his ears were burning, Spider came through the doors of the main floor and walked to the edge of the balcony, peering down at us.
“We gotta go,” he directed Cameron, tossing a harsh glance in my direction.
“I’ll be right there,” Cameron replied, waving Spider away. Spider reluctantly turned around and went back into the house.
Cameron got up, rolled the legs of his jeans back down, stuck his feet back into his sandals and looked down at me. “I know that this is hard for you to understand, but I promise you that this house is the safest place for you to be right now.”
“I don’t know what that means Cameron.”
“I know,” he said, softly. “You’ll just have to trust me on that.”
“How long am I going to stay here for?” I had finally asked the question—one of the questions—that I really needed the answer to.
“A while,” he admitted and a sly smile crossed his lips. “At least you’ll finally have room to unpack your stuff and won’t have to live out of those rubber bins anymore.”
He took a few steps, before looking back. “I need to ask you a favor.”
I peered up.
“Don’t use my real name when there are other people around … I mean when there are people other than Rocco, Carly and Spider around.”
This then brought a smile to my lips. “What am I supposed to call you then?”
“Anything you want—just not the real thing.”
“Sure thing, boss,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “You can’t call me that either. It’s too freaky … We’ll have to think of something good later.”
The boss walked away and, with Meatball at his heels, followed the cobblestone pathway that led around the house. They both disappeared as they turned to make their way to the front of the house.
Chapter Seven:
Sand Castles
What I remembered was that Bill’s sand castles were always bigger and better than mine. I was six years old, and my brother and I were sitting on a beach in Martha’s Vineyard. Our nanny Maria was standing on her tiptoes, batting her eyelashes at the bronzed lifeguard who sat in his high chair, savoring the attention. Bill had already stacked three buckets of sand perfectly, one over the other, and stuck a leafed branch on top as a flagpole.
There was no competition: my first attempt had crumbled as soon as I had overturned the bucket; the second less-crumbled attempt was washed away by a pestering wave.
Bill had a knack for showing up just as I was ready to give up, or throw a tantrum. Leaving his castle unguarded, he rushed to my rescue and built a princess palace, according to his baby sister’s specs. In the end, my sand castle had roads, bridges over a circling sea-salt river and a princess made of candy wrappers waiting in the tower.
His castle had long disappeared, crushed by the waves.
A gray-haired couple strolling by had dared to compliment him on his flair for castle building. My brother’s eyes immediately darted to Maria. The last thing he needed was to get in trouble—again—for doing everything for me; he had already missed two consecutive nights of TV time because of that.
“It’s not mine, it’s my sister’s. She made it—all by herself,” he huffed at the couple.
Maria didn’t catch him … not that day.
When Bill died, my whole life fell apart in a flash. It was like my crutches had suddenly been ripped from me and I had to run a marathon, without first having even learned how to walk on my own. Thanks to my big brother, who I loved more than anyone, I had no idea how to do anything for myself. Nothing could fill the overwhelming space that my overbearing brother had left in my life, and just the thought of letting anyone else do anything for me was, to me, an out-and-out betrayal to Bill.
My crutch-less legs eventually grew muscle mass, and I figured out how to take care of myself. But I never did figure out how to build my own sand castle.
While my feet dangled in the crystal water of the pool, I wondered, as I often did, what my life would have been like if Bill hadn’t died. Would I have left my parents, their money, their big plans, and moved to Callister?
Would I have found myself in this armed-guard mansion that was owned by a tattooed, bullet-holed, twenty-something boy who made me feel … different?
Only over Bill’s dead body could this have happened. Of this, I was positive.
I did eventually get up and walk back into the house. Cameron had long since disappeared around the corner.
In the kitchen, Rocco was making himself some lunch: baloney and a puddle of mustard slapped between two pieces of white bread, ten times over, stacked on a plate. He was bantering with a guy who was sitting at the table.
I kept my head down and pulled a can of pop out of one of the fridges. The carbon bubbles exploding in my throat made my eyes water. When I looked up, I saw bright blue eyes—and a shot of carrot orange hair spiked into a short cropped Mohawk—eagerly waiting for me. He was built like a linebacker and had a sleeve of tattoos and a metal rod pierced through his lower lip.
He slid out the solid wood chair that was next to him. “Why don’t you come sit by me for a bit so that I can take a better look at you?” He was English; the thick accent gave him away. I glanced at Rocco, but he was too preoccupied with choking down bear-sized bites to be of any assistance.
I held my pop can in both hands, sat down, and leaned my elbows on the table. The guy’s tree-trunk arm was around my shoulder as soon as my bum hit the seat—I only flinched a little bit. For the most part, it was, oddly … nice—he was extremely warm, and I was always cold.
What I was uncomfortable with, however, was his eyeing me inches away from my face. Nobody should ever be scrutinized from such close proximity.
“Well!” he finally boomed with satisfaction, “You are a real ginger! Just like me.” He tapped his speared red hair and turned to Rocco. “This was meant to be. Letting this one in was the best mistake you ever made, Kid.”
Rocco had amazingly already hit the bottom of his sandwich stack.
“I didn’t make any mistakes,” he countered with a mouthful. “Emily’s just really sneaky.”
I was thinking of interjecting Rocco’s subjective account, but was beaten to the punch by my human blanket.
“Aye,” he agreed with Rocco and winked at me. “You definitely have to watch us gingers. We’ll get you every time.”
Rocco grumbled and strolled back to the kitchen.
“Emily,” the human blanket rolled off his tongue. “That’s your name?”
I smiled dimly.
He extended his free hand across and shook mine. “I’m Griff.”
After a good squeeze, he took his hand back and glimpsed at his watch. “Geez! I gotta get back to work.”
He pushed away from the table; everything on the main floor shook with him. He walked around me, placed his large hand on the back of my chair, and extended the other to me. “Come keep me company?”
Rocco had brought back a new loaf of bread, a butter knife, and an unopened jar of peanut butter … dessert. I took Griff’s hand while he pulled my chair out. He was beaming.
When we got to the front door, Griff shouldered the shotgun that was leaned against the wall waiting for him.
“Is it loaded?” I croaked.
He raised one eyebrow. “What do you think?”
We crossed the lawn and reached the tree line—Griff swaggering as we neared the armed guard who was standing next to a tree. I recognized this guard; he had been sitting, and then leaving en masse, with the rest of the cool crowd that morning. By the look of disdain on his face, he recognized me too.
Griff switched spots with the bothered guard and dragged a tree stump out of the woods for me to sit on. The other guard glanced at Griff and looked like he was about to say something; deciding against it, he shook his head and walked away.
Griff lit a cigarette and huffed a few puffs, still beaming. We were a foot inside the tree line, half-hidden by dense green stuff. Deeper in, the forest was quiet, dark, and I couldn’t see more than a few feet in before the brush blocked any further view. There were other guards lined in the trees; I saw heads popping through the brush every once in a while.