Chapter 7
SABLE
"If you don't shut the fuck up, I'm going to turn this car around and go back to the city," Woody barked.
Leif and I stopped mid-chorus, looked at each other, and burst out laughing.
"Sorry, Mom," Leif said from where he sat beside me. "We like this song."
"Yeah, but you don't have to sing so loud," Woody checked over his shoulder before changing lanes.
By some miracle, his car wasn't towed away after they left it in a loading zone before coming to find me when the senator and his thugs kidnapped me. It wasn't even vandalized. Woody had gone to get it, driving up in it before we all piled into it with our luggage.
Forrest suggested calling for a car to drive us down, but Woody insisted, saying if it was us and not a driver, there'd be fewer witnesses to see where we were going. It was a tight squeeze, but we managed it. Leif and I sitting in the back, Forrest and Woody in the front.
"You could turn the radio off," Forrest suggested, looking indifferent either way.
"No," Leif and I said in unison.
"We'll sing more softly." For a song or two, before we started up again.
That said, if they played another Billy Joel song, all bets were off.
Besides, I'd heard Woody singing along a little more quietly than the rest of us, and I didn't believe he was going to turn around and take us back to the city if he tried.
Forrest would shove him out of the car and drive us the rest of the way himself.
Or maybe something less dramatic like insisting.
Before we could resume singing, the song ended and was replaced by a news report. I half listened while Leif offered a bag of M&Ms.
I reached in and scooped out a handful. "I can't believe you thought to bring snacks."
He grinned and popped a handful into his mouth. "Someone has to be organized around here."
Forrest both twisted around to look at him.
"Someone has to organize the snacks," he amended.
"Did you think to bring food?" I asked. He and Woody could raise their eyebrows all they wanted, but neither of them had.
"I know this is a strange concept," Woody said slowly, "but did you know you can buy food outside New York City?"
Leif pretended to look shocked. "For real? Is that how people live in other areas of the country?"
"Not just the country," Woody said. "The entire world. This might come as a shock to you, but some people actually…" he paused for dramatic effect "…grow food."
Leif leaned to the side, his fingertips pressed to his forehead as though trying to contain his own surprise. "They do?"
With a laugh, I said, "Next thing you'll say they farm animals for meat."
"Let's not go crazy here." Leif grinned and dropped his hand to his lap. "We all know chicken and lamb grow on trees," he said.
"You're out of your mind," Woody said.
"We're having fun," Leif told him. "Chicken doesn't really grow on trees."
I arched an eyebrow at him, waiting for the punchline.
"It doesn't grow on bushes either," Woody said, trying to get ahead of whatever Leif might be about to claim.
"Of course not, that would be ridiculous," Leif scoffed. "It comes from actual chickens, silly."
Woody took his hand off the steering wheel long enough to flip Leif off before quickly putting it back and correcting the vehicle.
"Sometimes they're sane," I said to no one in particular.
"Did you just call me sane?" Leif leaned forward as far as his seatbelt would let him and looked at me as though he was offended.
"Not you, them," I said, flapping a hand, mostly in the direction of Forrest.
"Someone has to be sane around here," Woody said.
"Yeah, that's why Forrest is sane," Leif agreed.
"I'm sitting right here," Forrest said. "Why am I getting attacked?" Again, he didn't seem too concerned.
"It's about time someone other than me was," Woody said.
He turned to regard Woody for a moment before nodding. "That's fair."
"I thought so too," Woody agreed.
"Don't make a habit of it." Forrest turned his attention to his phone in his hand, scrolling over something I couldn't see.
"We won't," Leif said. He looked from one side of Forrest's seat to the other, trying to see what he was looking at. "I have that feeling again, the one where something bad is about to happen."
"Of course something bad is about to happen. We haven't been stuck in a traffic jam for at least five minutes," Woody said. "Give it a minute or two."
"It's not that," Leif said. "It might be your driving."
"You could have called a car," Woody said. "You didn't. You got into mine, eyes wide open."
"I know when to argue with you, and when not to bother," Leif said.
"This was one of those not-to-bother times.
You would have driven off and left me alone and vulnerable.
" He might have been alone, but he was far from vulnerable.
He pouted playfully before dumping a handful of candy into his mouth.
"I wouldn't want to leave you back in the city," I said.
"You think he would have given you a choice?" Leif pointed a finger gun at the back of Woody's head, then Forrest's. "He would have tied you down if he had to. Both of them. I wasn't going to let that happen, so here I am."
"I'm glad you're here." I put my hand on his thigh and squeezed.
"I'm glad I am too," Leif said. "I like this song."
I hadn't realized until he mentioned it, but the news had finished, replaced by a song from Teddy Swims. We caught up with it at the chorus, singing along softer than before.
Mostly.
While I sang, I kept an eye on Forrest. Whatever he saw on the screen, he seemed troubled by it. It could have been work-related, but I suspected it wasn't. Whatever it was, it had him on edge. Even as composed as he was, I could feel it coming from him, waves of something: irritation, frustration.
I licked my lips, about to say something, when Forrest spoke first.
"The turn is up ahead." He gestured to signs on the side of the road.
"Got it." Woody slowed the car, changed lanes again, and took the off ramp.
I watched the countryside go past. Skyscrapers gave way to smaller buildings, houses and trees. Every so often, I'd catch a glimpse of water. The sky seemed clearer already. If I wound my window down, would I smell salt and sand, instead of exhaust fumes and dense humanity?
"Turn right up here," Forrest said.
Woody turned and drove us past a sign saying, 'Welcome to Saltgrave Cove.'
"That's not ominous name at all," Leif said. "You haven't brought us here to kill us, have you?"
Forrest shot him a look over his shoulder, but turned away without responding.
"Of course he hasn't," I said. "If he wanted to kill us, he could have done it back in the city."
"No, I'm with Leif," Woody said. "If I was going to take you anywhere to kill you, it would definitely be to a place called Saltgrave."
"Keep following the road," Forrest said.
After a few more minutes of driving, we reached the town itself.
The town was a little bigger than I remembered, but still cute.
Right on the coast, it looked like the kind of place where at least a dozen of the houses were haunted. The rest looked like they came straight out of the Beach Cottage handbook, with colorful siding and porches facing east.
"Hey Woody, watch out for headless horseman riding past," Leif called out.
"If I see a headless fucking horseman, I really will turn this car around and go home," Woody said. "The rest of you can stay if you want to."
"If I see a headless horseman, I'm coming with you," I said.
"This isn't Sleepy Hollow," Forrest said, tapping on his phone screen and gesturing at a house at the end of the road. It sat on a corner block, opposite the beach, all white timber siding and blue trim.
Vague memories suggested my parents’ property was several miles south of here. Out of sight, but not out of mind.
"Keep an eye out for headless chickens, then," Leif said.
"You'll be headless if you don't stop," Forrest growled. There wasn't much heat in it though, his mind still seemed to be elsewhere.
Leif didn't look intimidated. Why would he be? Forrest wasn't going to cut off either of his heads.
Woody stopped the car and killed the engine. "Okay, are you going to explain what the hell we're doing here?"
Forrest rubbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. "My house in the Hamptons was burned to the ground this morning. I just got the news." He was quietly pissed off.
"Let me guess, it wasn't an electrical fire," Leif asked.
"I had the whole place rewired a few weeks ago," Forrest said. "My son did it."
"Any chance Jules set in on fire?" That was Leif again.
"No," Forrest said firmly. "We've had our share of bad blood between us, but we've put it behind us. This isn't his style anyway."
"It wasn't an act of Woody either," Woody said, before anyone else could. "You're all alibis to that." He almost seemed regretful. If Forrest's house was going to burn down anyway, he might as well have been the one to do it.
"No, but it wasn't an accident," Forrest said. "No one else knows about this place. It'll give us a chance to regroup."
"If no one knows about it, they won't come after us here," I said.
"No, we might go after them." Forrest got out of the car, leaving us no choice but to do the same.
The moment I stepped out, the smell of sea air hit me, clean and fresh. The sound of the waves pounding against the nearby sand was consistent, soothing.
"I do," Forrest replied. He headed to the back of the car and started to pull out bags and suitcases. "I don't come here very often, but it's a good place to escape to. Before anyone asks, yes, there's Wi-Fi."
Leif fist bumped the air. "Hell yeah, Wi-Fi!"
"You'd think he'd never accessed Wi-Fi before," Woody said dryly, pulling out the last of the suitcases and closing the back of the car.
"Not in a quaint cottage by the ocean," Leif said. "Look at this place, it's practically a mansion. I bet every room has a view of the water." He trotted up the front steps to the expansive porch, a bag over his shoulder. "I've always dreamed about decorating a place like this."
"You might get that chance," Forrest said. There was more he wasn't telling us, but he wasn't going to be forthcoming either.
I had a sneaking suspicion we might be here for a while.