The Best of Me

Dawson hadn't become angry; instead, he held her against him, his fingers moving through her hair. He kissed her cheek and whispered assurances; that this wasn't important, that nothing would ever change the way he felt about her.

They stayed that way until the sky began to lighten and exhaustion settled in; in the early predawn hours, she finally fell asleep, cradled in his arms. When she woke the following morning, her first thought was to reach for Dawson. But by then, Dawson was already gone.

At the bar in the country club, long after they'd finished their round of golf, Frank signaled to the bartender for another beer, unaware of the inquiring glance the bartender shot at Roger. Roger just shrugged, having switched to Diet Coke himself. The bartender reluctantly put another bottle in front of Frank as Roger leaned closer, trying to make himself heard above the noise in the crowded bar. Over the past hour, it had become packed. The game was tied at the top of the ninth inning.

"You do remember that I'm meeting Susan for dinner, so I'm not going to be able to drive you home. And you can't drive, either."

"Yeah, I know."

"Do you want me to call you a cab?"

"Let's just enjoy the game. We'll figure it out later, okay?" Frank raised the bottle and took another drink, his glassy eyes never leaving the screen.

Abee sat in the chair beside his brother's bed, wondering again why Ted lived in a crap hole like this. The place reeked, some disgusting combination of soiled diapers and mold and God knows what else had died around here. Combined with the baby that never stopped crying and Ella skittering around the house like a frightened ghost, it was a wonder that Ted wasn't even crazier than he already was.

He wasn't even sure why he was still here. Ted had been unconscious for most of the afternoon, ever since he'd collapsed on the way to his truck. Ella was already screaming about taking him back to the hospital by the time Abee scooped him up and brought him inside.

If Ted took a turn for the worse, he might just do that, but there wasn't much the doctors could do. Ted just needed his rest, same as he could get in the hospital. He had a concussion and should have taken it easy last night, but he hadn't and now he was paying the price.

Thing was, Abee didn't want to spend another night sitting with his brother in the hospital, not when he was feeling better himself. Hell, he didn't even want to be here with Ted, but he had a business to run, a business that depended on the threat of violence, and Ted was a big part of that. It was lucky that the rest of the family hadn't seen what happened, and that he'd been able to get him back inside before anyone noticed.

Christ, it stank in here--like a damn sewer--and the late afternoon heat only intensified the smell. Pulling out his cell phone, he cycled through his contacts, finding Candy, and hit send. He'd called her earlier but she hadn't answered, nor had she returned his call. He wasn't happy about being ignored like that. Not happy at all.

But for the second time that day, Candy's phone just rang and rang.

"What the hell's going on?" Ted suddenly croaked out. His voice was gravelly and his head felt like it had been subjected to a jackhammer.

"You're in bed," Abee said.

"What the hell happened?"

"You didn't make it to the truck and ended up eating a pile of dirt. I dragged you in here."

Ted slowly raised himself into a sitting position. He waited for the spinning and it came, but not as violently as it had that morning. He wiped his nose. "You find Dawson?"

"I didn't go huntin' for him. I've been watching over your sorry ass all afternoon."

Ted spat onto the floor, near a pile of dirty clothes. "He might still be around."

"He might. But I doubt it. He probably knows you're after him. If he's smart, he's long gone by now."

"Yeah, well, maybe he ain't so smart." Leaning heavily on the bedpost, Ted finally stood, tucking the Glock into his waistband. "You're driving."

Abee had known Ted wouldn't let things drop. But maybe it would be good for his kin to know that Ted was up and around and ready to take care of business. "And if he ain't there?"

"Then he ain't there. But I gotta know."

Abee stared at him, preoccupied with the unanswered phone calls and Candy's whereabouts. Thinking about the guy he'd seen flirting with her at the Tidewater. "All right," he said. "But after that, I might just need you to do something for me, too."

Candy held the phone as she sat in the parking lot of the Tidewater. Two calls from Abee. Two unanswered and so far unreturned calls. The sight of them made her nervous, and she knew she should call him back. Just do a little purring and say all the right things, but then he might get it into his head to come and visit her while she was at work, and that was the last thing she wanted. He'd probably notice her packed car in the parking lot, figure out that she was planning on clearing out, and who knew what that psycho would do.

She should have packed up later, after work, and left from home. But she hadn't been thinking, and her shift was about to start. And while she could cover maybe a week in a motel and the food, she really needed tonight's tips for gas.

There was no way she could park out front--not where Abee could see the car. Slipping into reverse, she pulled out of the lot and rounded the highway curve, back toward downtown Oriental. Behind one of the antiques stores at the edge of town was a small lot, and there she turned in and parked out of sight. Better. Even if that did mean she had to walk a bit.

But what if Abee showed up and didn't see her car? That might be a problem, too. She didn't want him asking too many questions. She thought about it, deciding that if he called again she'd answer and maybe mention in an offhand way that she'd had car trouble and had been dealing with that all day. It was troublesome, but she tried to console herself with the fact that she had only five hours to go. By tonight, she'd be able to put this whole thing behind her.

Jared was still sleeping at quarter past five, when his cell phone began to ring. Rolling over, he reached for it, wondering why his dad was calling.

Except it wasn't his dad. It was his dad's golf buddy, Roger, asking him to come and pick up his dad at the country club. Because his dad had been drinking and shouldn't be driving.

Gee, really? he thought. My dad? Drinking?

Jared didn't say that, even if he'd wanted to. Instead, he promised to be there in about twenty minutes. Getting out of bed, he threw on the shorts and T-shirt he'd been wearing earlier, then slid into his flip-flops. He collected his keys and wallet from the bureau. Yawning, he descended the steps, already thinking about calling Melody.

Abee didn't bother to hide the truck on the road outside Tuck's and hike through the woods like he'd done the night before. Instead, he sped up the uneven drive and came to a gravel-spraying halt directly in front of the house, driving like a SWAT team leader on a mission. He was out of the truck with his gun drawn before Ted, but his brother clambered out of the truck with surprising agility, especially considering the way he looked. The bruises beneath his eyes had already turned blackish purple. The guy was a human raccoon.

No one was around, just like Abee had expected. The house was deserted, and there was no sign of Dawson in the garage, either. His cousin certainly was a slippery bastard. It was a shame he hadn't stuck around all these years. Abee could have found good use for him, even if Ted would have had a fit.

Ted wasn't all that surprised that Dawson was gone, either, but that didn't mean he was any less angry about it. Abee could see Ted's jaw muscles clenching in sporadic rhythm, his finger stroking the Glock trigger. After a minute of seething in the driveway, he marched toward Tuck's house and kicked in the door.

Abee leaned against the truck, deciding to let him be. He could hear Ted cursing and shouting and tossing crap around inside the house. While Ted was throwing his tantrum, an old chair came crashing through the window, the glass exploding into a thousand shards. Ted finally appeared in the doorway but barely broke stride, walking furiously toward the old garage.

A cl

assic Stingray was housed inside. It hadn't been there last night, another indication that Dawson had come and gone. Abee wasn't sure whether Ted had figured that out yet, but he supposed it didn't matter. Let Ted get this fit out of his system. The sooner it passed, the sooner things would return to normal around here. He needed Ted to start focusing less on what he wanted and more on what Abee told him to do.

He watched as Ted grabbed a tire iron from the workbench. Heaving it high above his head, he brought the tire iron down on the front windshield of the car with a scream. Then he began hammering the hood, denting it immediately. He smashed the tire iron into the headlights and knocked off the mirrors, but he was just getting started.

For the next fifteen minutes, Ted tore the car apart, using every tool at his disposal. The engine, the tires, the upholstery, and the dashboard were crushed and slashed to pieces, Ted venting his fury at Dawson with manic intensity.

A shame, Abee reflected. The car was a beauty, a serious classic. But the car wasn't his, and it made Ted feel better, so Abee supposed it was for the best.

When Ted was finally finished, he started back toward Abee. He was less wobbly on his feet than Abee expected and was breathing hard, his eyes still a little wild. It occurred to him that Ted might just point the gun and shoot him out of sheer rage.

But Abee hadn't become head of the family by backing down, even when his brother was at his worst. He continued to lean against the truck with studied nonchalance as Ted approached. Abee picked at his teeth. He examined his finger when he was done, knowing Ted was right there.

"You done?"

Dawson was on the dock behind the hotel in New Bern, boats in the slips on either side of him. He'd driven here straight from the cemetery, sitting at the water's edge as the sun began its descent.

It was the fourth place he'd stayed in the last four days and the weekend had left him both physically exhausted and emotionally spent. Try as he might, he couldn't envision his future. Tomorrow, and the day after that, and the endless stretch of weeks and years seemed to hold no purpose at all. He'd lived a specific life for specific reasons, and now those reasons were gone. Amanda, and now Marilyn Bonner, had released him forever; Tuck was dead. What should he do next? Move? Stay where he was? Keep his job? Try something new? What was his purpose now that the compass points of his life were gone?

He knew he wouldn't find the answers here. Rising from his spot, he trudged back to the lobby. He had an early flight on Monday and knew he'd be up long before the sun so he could drop off the rental car and check in. According to his itinerary, he'd be back in New Orleans before noon, and home not long after that.

When he reached his room, he lay down on his bed fully clothed, as adrift as he'd ever been in his life and reliving the feel of Amanda's lips against his. She might need time, Tuck had written, and before slipping into a fitful sleep he clung to the hope that Tuck was somehow right.

Stopped at a red light, Jared regarded his dad in the rearview mirror. He must have been trying to pickle himself, Jared decided. When he'd pulled up to the country club a few minutes earlier, his dad had been leaning against one of the columns, his eyes bleary and unfocused, and his breath alone could have fueled the gas grill in the backyard. Which was probably the reason he wasn't talking. No doubt he wanted to hide how drunk he actually was.

Jared had gotten used to these kinds of situations. He wasn't as angry about his dad's problem as he was sad. His mom would end up in one of her moods, though--trying to act completely normal while her husband lurched around the house dead drunk. It wasn't worth the energy to get angry, but he knew that beneath the surface, she'd be boiling. She'd do her best to keep her tone civil, but no matter where his dad ended up sitting, she'd settle herself in a different room, like that was a perfectly ordinary thing for couples to do.

Things weren't going to be pretty tonight, but he'd let Lynn deal with that, assuming she got home before his dad passed out. As for him, he'd already called Melody and they were going over to a friend's to go swimming.

The stoplight finally turned green, and Jared, preoccupied by the image of Melody in a bikini, pressed down on the accelerator, unaware that another car was still speeding through the intersection.

The car slammed into his with an ear-shattering crash, spraying glass and metal shards everywhere. Part of the door frame, mangled and bent, exploded inward toward his chest in the same instant that the air bag inflated. Jared jerked against the restraints of the seat belt, his head whipping around as the car began to spin through the intersection. I'm going to die, he thought, but he couldn't draw enough breath to make a sound.

When the car finally stopped moving, it took a moment for Jared to understand he was still breathing. His chest hurt, he could barely move his neck, and he thought he was going to choke on the overwhelming odor of gunpowder from the air bag's deployment.

He tried to move but was hit with searing pain in his chest. The door frame and steering wheel were wedged against him and he struggled to free himself. Squirming to the right, he was suddenly released from the weight pressing down on him.

Outside, he caught sight of other cars that had stopped in the intersection. People were getting out, some of them already calling 911 on their cell phones. Through the jagged web of glass, he noticed that the hood of his car was pitched like a small tent.

As if from a great distance, he heard people shouting at him not to move. He turned his head anyway, thinking suddenly of his dad, and saw the mask of blood covering his father's face. Only then did he begin to scream.

Amanda was an hour from home when her cell phone rang. Reaching over to the passenger seat, she had to dig through her purse to find it, finally answering on the third ring.

As she listened to Jared's shaky account, an icy paralysis gripped her. In a disjointed fashion, he told her about the ambulance at the scene, about all the blood on Frank. He himself was fine, he reassured her, but they were making him get into the ambulance along with Frank. He told her that both of them were being taken to Duke University Hospital.

Amanda clenched the phone. For the first time since Bea's illness, she felt a gut-wrenching fear take root. Real fear, the kind that left no room to think or feel anything else.

"I'm coming," she said. "I'll be there as quick as I can--"

But then, for some reason, the call was cut off. She redialed immediately, but there was no answer.

Veering into the opposite lane, she floored the gas pedal and passed the car in front of her, flashing her lights. She had to get to the hospital right away. But the beach traffic had yet to thin.

After their little excursion to Tuck's, Abee realized he was starving. Since the infection, he hadn't had much of an appetite, but now it was back with a vengeance, another sign of how well the antibiotics were working. At Irvin's he ended up ordering a cheeseburger, along with a side of onion rings and chili-cheese fries. Though he wasn't finished yet, he knew he'd end up cleaning every plate. He figured he'd even have room for a piece of pie and a scoop of ice cream later.

Ted, on the other hand, wasn't doing so well. He, too, had ordered the cheeseburger, but he was taking small bites and chewing slowly. Smashing up the car had apparently used up the last bit of strength he had.

While they'd been waiting for their food, Abee had called Candy. This time, she'd answered on the first ring and they'd talked for a little while. She told him she was already at work and apologized for not returning his calls, mentioning that she'd had car trouble. On the phone, she sounded like she was glad to hear from him, flirting just the way she always had. When he hung up, he felt a lot better about the situation and even wondered if he'd been reading too much into what he'd seen the other night.

Maybe it was the food or his general recovery, but as he continued to work through his burger, he found himself thinking back on the conversation again, trying to figure out what was bothering him about it. Because something was bothering him about the call. Part of it was that Candy had sai

d she was having car trouble, not phone trouble, and busy or not, she probably could have called him back if she'd wanted to. But he wasn't sure that was it.

Ted got up halfway through the meal and spent some time in the bathroom before coming back. As Ted walked toward the table, Abee thought his brother could have been in the cast of some cheap horror flick, but others in the restaurant were doing their best not to notice, staring at their plates instead. He smiled. It was good to be a Cole.

Still, he couldn't stop thinking about his conversation with Candy, and he sucked on his fingers between bites, pondering it.

Frank and Jared had been in an accident.

The words scrolled through her mind like some terrible ticker tape, making Amanda more frantic with every passing minute. Her grip on the wheel was white-knuckled as she flashed her lights again, then again, willing the car in front of her to allow her to pass.

They'd been taken away in an ambulance. Jared and Frank were being rushed to the hospital. Her husband and her son...

Finally, the car ahead of her changed lanes and Amanda roared past it, quickly closing the gap to the cars that were farther ahead.

She reminded herself that Jared had sounded shaken, nothing more.

But the blood...

Jared had mentioned in a panicky voice that Frank was covered in blood. Clutching the phone, she tried to call her son again. He hadn't answered a few minutes ago, and she told herself that it was because he was in the ambulance or in the emergency room, where phones were forbidden. She reminded herself that paramedics or doctors or nurses were caring for Frank and Jared now, and that when Jared finally answered, she'd no doubt regret her needless panic. In the future, it would be a story to be told around the dinner table, about how Mom drove like a bat out of hell, for no reason at all.