God, those were the days.

I turned out to be an excellent sailor. I dealt with any of the abuse that the recruit division commanders threw my way. By the end of boot camp, I’d graduated with a promotion and they recommended me to one of the best aircraft carriers traveling the sea, the USS Constellation. Sea duty lasted for three to six months. We sailed off to the Gulf Coast, under the dark blue sky that glittered with so many stars. I spent hours upon hours lying on the deck and staring at them with a huge smile on my face. The sea air tickled my nose. The waves rocked me to sleep at night and during the day they kept a steady rhythm of movement to push me along my way. The surrounding waters soothed me. It went on and on, never ending or breaking apart until land approached, and even then the presence of the sea remained.

And the women at port.

I met hundreds of them—exotic ones with bronze silky flesh and thick hair that kept me busy thinking about them as I worked on the ships, daydreaming about when I would see those beautiful faces again. I’d made love to so many pretty ladies that my brothers at sea nicknamed me lover boy.

And then the letter came. My chief petty officer called me into his office to read it to me. After he finished, he gave me the option to separate from service due to family emergency, with the possibility of returning later if I could still pass the necessary standards.

What else could I do but say yes? For god’s sake, the cops had pulled Hex out of bodies upon bodies of dead women.

A knock came from the door and pulled me from my memories.

“Yes?”

“It’s me, sir. Can I come in?” Reece asked.

I grabbed my robe from the edge of the bed and put it on. “Go ahead.”

She entered with a big box in her hands. “I’m sorry about what happened. I’ll have a new nurse and security in place upon the hour.”

“Thank you. What’s that?” I pointed to the box she set on my mahogany nightstand.

“Those orange blossom candles you asked for yesterday. Do you want me to light them?”

“By all means, yes.”

“How many?”

I glanced at the candles in the box and thought about all of the insane things that had happened in the past few days. “All of them.”

“Okay,” she called back as I went into my bathroom and closed the door. “How is Dayanara doing?”

“As fine as can be expected.”

“Did she say anything?”

“No. Well . . . nothing that made any sense.”

“What did she say?” Reece asked.

“Nothing. Go ahead and take off for the night. If anything else crazy happens, I’ll contact you.”

There was no way I would repeat Dayanara’s words.

“Snyder is coming,” Dayanara had said as blood leaked all over her. “Snyder found a way to come back from the dead.”

Well good for Snyder and me. Maybe this time I’ll get a chance to kill him like I’ve done in my dreams.

In the bathroom, I rubbed my eyes and laughed out loud at the absurdity of Snyder’s return.

He’s just a bag of bones rotting in the ground while I walk the earth cleaning up his messes.

The image of a bloodied, fifteen year old Hex flashed in my head. I’d picked him up from the hospital three days after the navy honorably discharged me. Shadows had soaked the cold room. Hex was nothing more than bones in loose hanging skin. His eyes had lost the joy that had swum in them when I’d given him a hug and left for the navy. His fingers trembled any time he moved. He didn’t talk for a month, just sucked his thumb and cried. Grandma took a flight from Cuba and moved in with me to help Hex come back to himself.

Then one day at the breakfast table, Hex turned to me, took his thumb out of his mouth, and cried, “I didn’t save them like I promised.”

His psychiatrist was the one who’d encouraged Hex to paint, to put all of his pain and grief into his art. Two years later an old rich woman spotted his work at a local festival near our house in Key West. She spent the rest of her weeks searching for the artist. When she discovered it was Hex and arrived at our house, all of our lives changed.

That sweet fragrance of orange blossoms infused every air molecule in the bathroom.

How long have I been standing here?

Still dirty and in my robe, I opened the bathroom door to see if Reece was still in there. She’d left so long ago the dozens of candles had melted down an inch or two. I must’ve been standing there for a huge amount of time, thinking about those dreary days.

Tags: Kenya Wright Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net