Left in the Sand, Found by the Sea novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: What He Owes

Eli put me on the planks behind a stack of crates before the echo of the shot had died.

His whole body was over mine.

"Stay down."

"Rocco."

"He's on the bollard, he's down, the sheriff's got him."

I heard boots run along the pier, and the sheriff's voice shouting, and a door slam.

Then it was quiet.

Four fishermen walked out of the boat shed holding a young man by the arms.

He was one of the six, the youngest, with a bruise coming up under one eye and no gun.

"He was posted inside," the sheriff said, behind them, holding the gun by the barrel. "Told to grab the boy if the rest couldn't. He saw the crowd and fired into the roof. That's the whole story. Nobody's hurt."

"Is that all?" I said.

"It's attempted something. I'll find out what." He looked at Eli, then at me, then at the sky. "Go upstairs, the two of you. I'll hold the pier."

Eli did not take his hand off my back until we had climbed the whole outside staircase.

At the top he opened the door and let me go in first.

I stood in the middle of his room.

The frame was on the table, face up now, where he must have put it that afternoon.

Two boys in a blue boat in front of a lighthouse.

"Say it," I said. "The thing you've been carrying all day."

"I'm not good at this."

"Say it anyway."

He leaned against the door with his arms folded.

"You came here for his photograph," he said. "A creased picture of a lighthouse. It was a ghost you were following, and I was only the man who happened to be standing on the dock."

"That's what you think," I said.

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