Chapter 16
The frigid death-like numbness hit him before he got himself and his mother’s body up onto the main deck of the boat. There was no longer a fear of moving her, hurting her. She felt nothing now.
He felt nothing. This must be what it was like to be a robot, mechanically intact, able to perform functions, able to calculate logically, able to see, hear and think. But unable to feel a goddamn miserable thing.
He knew the misery, but he didn’t feel it.
He saw the misery. On Shana’s face.
She sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her hands over her face. Dane sat like a wooden sculpture of himself next to her.
She forced herself to speak because she couldn’t stand the strained silence for another second.
“Can I help you with the arrangements?”
“I’ll do it. I’m having her cremated. It’s what she wanted. I’ll bury her ashes in the sandy ground behind the shack on the edge of the harbor.”
His voice was as wooden as the rest of him. Not even hard or cold or edgy.
Empty.
“When?”
“I’m having it done tomorrow.”
“So soon.”
“What’s the point in waiting.” It wasn’t a question. There was no inflection. No emotion. Not sadness or pain or even annoyance. Nothing.
“Dane…” She reached out and held his arm. He made no move. He didn’t shake her off. He didn’t tense up or soften. He didn’t react at all.
“I’ll bury her ashes in the sandy ground behind the shack, he repeated. “Mark it with a cross.”
“Is that what she wanted?”
He shrugged. Then he rose and left the bedroom, closing the door behind him with a dull thud. She had no idea where he would go. Probably out back to stare at the harbor. With that empty look in his eyes.
Shana felt the hot tears on her cheek before she realized she was crying. She swiped a hand violently across her face to get them off her. Jumping up from the bed, she stormed out of the room into the kitchen.
Staring at the freezer door she prevaricated.
Her mother would be coming back from church soon.
She shouldn’t drink, but she didn’t stop herself from ripping the door open and grabbing the bottle of tequila from its icy cave.
This was an emergency. She felt like she’d fall apart if she didn’t do something.
She poured herself a tumbler full and hoped to hell Cap got there soon.
She was worried. She felt all the pain that Dane had numbed himself to, and felt like she would split in two.
After taking a swallow of tequila, she fumbled the phone from her pocket and called Cap.
“I’ll come over as soon as I can. I’ve been dealing with the damn bastards at the ATF. They have the nerve to be pissed at Dane because he killed Hunt. Said they wanted a live body.”
She pressed the phone painfully close to her ear to prevent her hand from shaking. Anger vibrated in her and she couldn’t stop it. Better she give it free reign because anger was better than the pain and sadness. Better than the guilt. Squash that thought.
“F--- the ATF.”
Cap grunted his agreement.
“They insist on getting a statement from Dane. I can’t stop them from knocking down his door. I’ve been stalling but—”
“Let them try.” She growled the words and her heart raced with pleasure at the thought of taking her anger out on someone who deserved it.
Even if they technically were only doing their job.
“Don’t get yourself into trouble, Shana.”
“I already have one mother in residence, so don’t—”
“Whoa. It’s okay. You have a right to be angry or upset or whatever you want to be. Shit.” She heard him shuffling some papers.
“I’m there in five. Let the damn ATF wait.” He hung up.
*****
Cap strode in the back door without knocking and Shana walked straight into his arms. Then she cried on his shoulder. Literally.
No, make that sobbed. Shana sobbed for what seemed like forever in the still, silent kitchen of Dane’s beach shack.
Until she felt Cap’s comforting hug and the wall of his welcoming chest tighten. She turned.
Dane stood a few feet from her inside the small kitchen, a ghost of himself.
She would have said something, or gone into his arms, but they were all startled by a bang on the back door.
Cap moved to the door, but not before she saw the two ATF men, Wilton and Simpson, darkening the window.
After a long pause, Cap opened the door and let the men inside. She expelled a breath and stood closer to Dane. He hadn’t moved, seemed to not even breathe. She took a breath deep enough for both of them as the two men came forward.
She didn’t move from in front of Dane and Dane didn’t move around her. She intended to send the men away.
Simpson cleared his throat. Both of them looked serious. Even more so than usual.
“We need to speak with Blaise,” Wilton said.
“Get the hell out of here, you insensitive prick.” Shana’s voice rumbled like distant thunder. Her arms were at her side, slightly bent at the elbow Every muscle vibrated, ready to strike.
The two men stood in place, but looked taken aback.
Then Wilton recovered with a snarl. She smiled on the inside.
“If he hadn’t gone off half-cocked without our backup his mother would still be alive.”
Shana snapped her fist up, but Cap leapt forward, shoving Wilton aside, and caught her arm and held onto her.
Dane stepped around them then. Shana sobbed, “Dane,” and reached out to touch his bare, scarred shoulder.
He was shirtless and his jeans were zipped but unsnapped. The room went quiet and still. It was like someone had turned off the volume and turned on a slow-mo switch. His face was implacable as he spoke.
“I can fight my own fight, girlie.” His voice was flat and not loud.
She stared at him. She said nothing because what could she say to that?
Her heart broke for him. Tears streamed again and she prayed she wouldn’t sob, struggled to maintain some control.
She wanted to go to him, to throw herself against the hard solidness of his body and feel him close his arms around her and tell her he would be okay.
But she knew it would be more than heart breaking if he didn’t respond.
It would break all of her, her soul, if he felt like an empty shell, like a mannequin, when she hugged him, so she didn’t.
Dane looked at the two ATF men who stared back at him. They didn’t speak. Maybe the meanness of their callous disregard had grown to shame.
“What do you want?” Dane said. There was none of his previous animosity in his voice. Not even a hint of rancor. Maybe that was what had undone the two men because when they spoke, they sounded respectful, with their voices lowered and a previously unseen humanity emerging.
“I’m sorry we have to bother you at this time. But we need to take your statement. About what happened. About the shooting of Dagmar Hunt.”
The ATF man looked at his partner.
His partner said, “We can come back.”
“No. I’ll give you a statement.” Dane turned, went in the dining room and sat at the table. The two men followed.
Cap looked at her. Even he looked sad enough to cry. She shook her head and whispered.
“I can’t. Can’t listen to it.”
“Don’t. Pick up your mother and go back to Mrs. Jones’s. Don’t come home until tomorrow. I’ll be here. Jake and Sam will be back soon. They’re at the station giving statements to the ATF. Sam is talking to the governor.”
“Is Jake okay?”
“He’s fine. He’s heading home to his family and his station first thing in the morning.”
“We’ll stay with him tonight.” Cap pulled her in for a hug.
As soon as she heard Dane’s voice, clear and precise, begin the story, she pulled back from Cap. She went to the wall where the keys hung, reached for the keys to the Jeep, and went out the door.
When she got to the car, she got in, sat behind the steering wheel, pitched forward, and sobbed.
She sat there for a while, maybe ten minutes, until her mother called to pick her up at church.
She could use her mother about now. She would give anything for Dane to still have his. She wished to hell she could share her mother with him and that he’d adopt Tilly the way she’d adopted his Jeep as her own.
She must be delirious with misery, thinking such nonsense. She swiped her hands across her wet cheeks.
Mothers weren’t like that. You only got one and if you were lucky, she was a good one and she’d see you through adulthood and guide and protect and nurture and comfort you for a long while, even when you had your own family.
And then when you lost her, it would be the worst thing in the world.
And when you thought you were responsible for her death, the world was over.
This was where Dane’s head was at right now. In the abyss of Hades, burning with no end. She feared his soul was so lost now that there would be no coming back. She sobbed again.
She allowed herself that one last sob. Now she needed to stop. And more importantly, she needed to drag Dane from his pit, unbury his soul from the ashes of his guilt. That would be no small feat.
She shivered. She could do it.
Could she do it? Only one way to find out. Give it her best shot like there was nothing else left in the world for her to spend her energy on. Ever.
The only reason Dane knew it was the next morning was the sunlight streaming inside.
He kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want to wake.
But consciousness reasserted itself and with it came the cave-like emptiness in his chest, the bladelike sting between his shoulder blades, and the dull throb of his head from the strain of trying to keep from thinking about anything. Everything.
Sitting up in bed, he called on his father’s ghost to help him shut down the killing emotions. To do it, to numb himself, meant he’d become a lifeless zombie, like he’d been killed along with his mother by Dagmar Hunt.
The wild tumble in his gut made him want to puke at the thought. He was damned to hell either way. He had no idea what to do next except to bury his mother’s ashes. Picking up the cell phone off his night stand he tapped in a number.
“Father Donahue. I need your help.”