In the extra bay, a spick-and-span bass fishing boat sat on its trailer. Hunting and fishing gear was so nicely arranged it looked like a store display. Along the back of a work table, carefully labeled paint cans had been perfectly lined up. Hand tools were neatly arrayed on a pegboard wall. A power lawnmower and edger, along with a red gas can, were sitting on a pallet of bricks.
“Shit,” Coburn said under his breath.
“What?”
“It would take days to go through all this.” He nodded toward the small loft that was mounted just under the ceiling in one corner. “What’s up there?”
“Mostly Eddie’s sporting gear.”
A ladder constructed of two-by-fours had been built into the wall. Coburn climbed it and stepped onto the loft. “Hand me a knife.” Honor got one from the work table and passed it up to him. He used it to slice through the packing tape on a large box. Inside, he found an archery target, baseball, basketball, soccer ball, and football.
“Watch out.”
One by one, he tossed them down. A bowling ball was in the bottom of the box. The finger holes were empty. Coburn opened a second box to find uniforms for each of the sports, a baseball glove, a football helmet, shoulder pads. He searched them all. Found nothing.
When he came down, Honor was holding the football, turning it over in her hands. She ran her finger along the leather lacing. Smiling, she said, “Eddie was quarterback of the high school team. His senior year, they went to district. That’s when we started dating. That season. He was too small to play college ball, but he still loved the game and would go out and throw passes whenever he could get somebody to catch them.”
Coburn held out his hand. Honor gave him the football. He plunged the blade of the knife into it.
She cried out and reflexively reached out to take the football back, but he worked the knife to increase the size of the hole, then shook it so that anything inside it would fall out. Nothing did. He tossed the deflated ball onto the work table.
When he came back around, she slapped him. Hard.
“You’re a horrible person,” she said. “The coldest, most heartless, cruelest creature I can imagine.” She stopped on a sob. “I hate you. I really do.”
At that moment, he pretty much hated himself. He was angry and didn’t know why. He was acting like a complete jerk and didn’t know why. He didn’t understand his compulsion to want to hurt and rile her, but he seemed incapable of stopping himself.
He took a step toward her and made it intentionally intimidating. “You don’t like me?”
“I despise you.”
“You do?”
“Yes!”
“Is that why you sucked my tongue down your throat last night?”
She seethed for a count of five, then spun away from him, but before she’d taken a single step he reached out and brought her back around. “That’s what you’re really pissed about, isn’t it? Because we kissed.” Lowering his face closer to hers, he whispered, “And you liked it.”
“I hated it.”
He didn’t believe that. He didn’t want to believe it. But he forced himself to appear indifferent to whether she had liked it or not. He released her arm and stepped away from her. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. Humans are animals, and animals mate. They also sneeze and cough and fart. And that’s about as much as that kiss meant. So relax. You didn’t cheat on your dead husband.”
She hiccupped a sound of affront, but before she could articulate a response, he took out his cell phone and turned it on. By now Hamilton would know about this morning’s close call on the shrimp boat. Coburn wanted to know what the fallout of that had been.
He placed the call. Hamilton answered immediately. “Coburn?”
“Good guess.”
“You pulled a fast one this morning.”
“By the skin of my teeth.”
“Which was enough. Where are you?”
“Try again.”
“I’ve set it up with Tom VanAllen for you and Mrs. Gillette to come in. He’s as solid as Gibraltar. It’ll be safe. I give you my word.”