Chapter 5: The Dock

On Saturday morning I decided to find out what Byron wanted.

The others had gone out in Tucker's boat before nine.

Denton was supposed to come up that evening, and Abel was still asleep in the guest room with the shades down.

That left the dock, and Byron, and a box of new cedar planks.

He was replacing the boards at the far end, where the old ones had rotted.

He was barefoot, in work shorts and a grey t-shirt that had gone dark across the back, and he did not look up when I came down the lawn.

"Coffee," I said, and held out a mug.

"Thanks, Rox."

I sat on the edge of the dock with my feet over the water, in cut-offs and a bikini top and nothing on my feet.

I had put the top on for this, and I did not pretend to myself otherwise.

He took the coffee, and his eyes dropped to my shoulders and came back up fast.

He turned to the planks again.

I marked it in my head.

"Last night was quiet," I said. "I slept all the way through."

"Good."

"Denton's dose must be strong."

"Denton knows what he's doing."

He knelt, set a plank on the joists, and drove a nail with three blows.

I watched the muscle shift along his forearm.

"Tucker was in my room," I said, and let it hang there.

The hammer stopped.

It stayed in the air for a long moment, and then it came down on the nail with a hard crack, and the nail went flat into the wood.

"Tucker was where?" he said, very evenly.

"In the hall. I heard him in the night. I thought I was dreaming."

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