Long Live the King

Seventeen

The woman stood out on the dock again, the sea breeze whipping her hair around her face again as it always did in the evening. This time she was waiting for no one. Her daughter came out of the house, joining her in the evening air. She grabbed the edge of her mother's sleeve with one hand and tugged gently. That was all it took to gain her attention. Her mother looked down.

"Mom?" she said. "What are you doing out here? Is Raymond coming back?"

"No sweetie," her mother said. "Mommy just wanted some air. He's not coming back."

Saying it aloud had been more a challenge than she had ever anticipated, but it was time to face that truth. Raymond was not coming back. They'd always known that if anything happened to him it would be challenging to circulate the news back to the island. He had told her--half joking--that if she didn't see or hear from him for a whole month that there was no chance her was alive. Since she had last seen him, two months had gone by.

"Where did he go?" Emerald asked. At her young age she had never faced this before. For a young girl, death was not a real thing yet and her mother did not know where to begin. She looked down into her daughter's imploring eyes but no words jumped to mind. Inside the house the phone rang. The mother ushered her daughter back inside and told her to go upstairs while she nervously picked up the phone.

"Is this Alyssa Rayburn?" a clipped voice asked from the other end.

"Yes," the woman lied, recognizing the pseudonym.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news."

"It's Raymond, isn't it? What happened?"

"He was..." The woman on the end seemed to be choosing her words carefully. She spoke slow, a massive change from her earlier tone. "...involved in a violent altercation and succumbed to the injuries from that altercation."

"Thank you."

It was all she could do to hold down her emotions, but as soon as the other end went dead the woman clapped a hand to her mouth and choked out a dry sob. She inhaled, pulling herself together. Raymond had gone from the world too soon, but she wasn't about to let all of the effort he put into saving her life, her daughter's life, be for nothing. She had to keep living, even if the world seemed paler without him in it.

#

"I guess you want to know the truth," Adrienne said out of nowhere while she and Marshall walked back along the beach after a swim. Bending at the waist, she flipped her salty, ocean soaked hair forward and wrapped it in a loose tie.

"The truth about what?" he asked, immediately intrigued but not altogether surprised.

"I've been hiding something."

"Of course you have." He sighed. "Don't you get tired of hiding things?"

"It's not anything big," she told him. "Just a little thing that I wanted to keep to myself. I haven't know for that long either. I didn't feel like I should tell people right away--people aren't trustworthy."

"But you're going to tell me..." he pointed out.

"Because I can trust you." She hit his arm with the back of her hand. "Or at least I feel like I can."

"So tell me. Quit beating around the bush."

She started scratching her arm again, the way she always did when she was stalling. He watched her hand but didn't say anything.

"Okay," she said, "when we we were in Bretterville and I realized the necklace was mine I still thought that it was a clue. Raymond knew that you gave it to me and he knew where." She paused, waiting to see if maybe her would catch up with her but it was clear from his expression that he wasn't following her logic so she continued. "You probably remember the booth in the back of the diner with the faulty light where no wants to sit? Except Raymond liked it back there because he knew people would be further away from him. There was this place in the wall... it was perfect for hiding something small."