Whisper Death (24 page)

“Is that how it happened with you?”

She nodded. “A couple of times.”

“After some pain, right?”

She smiled and avoided his eyes.

“Experience is what you get,” McGuire said, “when you were expecting something else.”

“Yeah,” she mused. “Yeah!” she said again. She was feeling light-headed. “That's right.” She tried to remember something her father had told her, something he once tried to pass on to her as wisdom. “There's . . .” she began. She couldn't remember it now, so she said, “There's no substitute for experience, I guess.”

“Sure there is,” McGuire replied. He drained his glass.

“What? What's better than experience?”

McGuire smiled, a rare event for him, and she felt a chill sweep over her. “Being sixteen,” he said.

She laughed so loud she embarrassed herself, and looked around the room, covering her mouth with her hand. But the room was empty; only the manager stood behind the bar, polishing glasses and humming to herself. “That's
right
!” Koko said, reaching to touch his arm. “God, when I was sixteen . . . I mean, I knew it
all
. All of it. Sex and life and all the dumb things my parents didn't know about. I figured they would
never
know about it.”

“That wasn't so long ago,” McGuire said.

“What wasn't?” She left her hand on his arm.

“When you were sixteen.”

“Five years,” she said.

“Not long.”

“Maybe. But it seems long. Maybe because I've changed so much, going to college, working here.” She watched her fingers as she drummed them absently on his arm. “Talking to you. Where have you been?” she asked suddenly.

“Away.” His eyes grew wary.

“Up north?”

“Some. Spent some time in Mexico.”

“Really? Did you like it?”

“No.” He turned his empty glass around and around in his hands. “I despised it.”

“So that's why you came back here?”

He shifted his eyes at her, looking for something in her expression. Then he pulled his lips against his teeth and nodded. “Next best thing to home,” he said.

She watched him, sensing the change in mood, feeling the hurt that had risen briefly within him and flown away to hide somewhere again.

He looked at his watch and nodded toward the bar. “Martha's getting ready to close,” he said. “And the last ferry back to Abaco should be leaving any minute.”

“It left ten minutes ago,” Koko said.

“What the hell are you going to do now?” McGuire asked.

She curled her hair between her fingers. “I don't know. I could bunk here all night in one of the booths, I guess. Or maybe you could show me your cabin.”

“I love saxophones. What's the name of that song?” She was standing at the window of the cabin, a small tumbler of Scotch in her hand.

“‘Come Rain or Come Shine,'” McGuire said, walking back from the stereo to sit in the overstuffed armchair.

The cabin was sparsely furnished. A carved mahogany bed was pushed against the far wall. A sink, microwave oven and refrigerator were grouped near the door to the bathroom. Large bookshelves stocked with paperbacks flanked a new stereo system. A tiny writing desk, the overstuffed chair occupied by McGuire, and a scarred side table completed the interior setting.

“Who's playing?”

“Zoot Sims.”

“Is he good?”

“The best.” McGuire looked out through the window at the darkened harbour below, where white lights lay scattered along the shoreline. He told himself it had only been a warning. He told himself it had only been a signal he had been smart enough to heed. They knew that. They knew he had heeded it. Now they would leave him alone.

Koko sat on the arm of the upholstered chair, looking down at him. “Will you tell me how you got that scar?” she asked.

“No.”

She touched the top of his head lightly with her hand, feeling the curls beneath her open palm. “Are you afraid I'll tell people?” she teased.

“No.”

“Are you afraid I'll give you another one just like it? If I know how you got this one?”

He looked up at her and smiled, the expression crinkling the corners of his eyes. “You? Give me a scar like this?”

“You think that's funny?”

The smile broadened. “I think it's hilarious.”

“And I think I just made you smile. How about that?”

He leaned away from her and closed his eyes. “Koko,” he said, “you're sweet and smart and very pretty. But you're too young for me.”

“I know,” she replied, twisting to set her empty glass on the table beside the chair. She dropped her arm across his shoulder and slid her body closer to his. “You miss the point,” she said.

“What's that?”

“You're not too old for me.” And she laughed and bit her lip, and laughed again at his expression: surprised, amused and perhaps, just perhaps, almost happy.

John Lawrence Reynolds
 is the author of more than two dozen works of fiction and non-fiction. He has previously written six mystery novels—most recently, 
Beach Strip—
and is a two-time winner of the Arthur Ellis Award (for 
The Man Who Murdered God
 and 
Gypsy Sins
). His many non-fiction books include Leaving Home, 
Free Rider
 (winner of the National Business Book Award), 
The Naked Investor
 and 
Bubbles, Bankers & Bailouts
. 
Shadow People
, his bestselling book on secret societies, has been published in sixteen countries. A former president of the Crime Writers of Canada, he lives in Burlington, Ontario. Visit him online at 
johnlawrencereynolds.com
.

Whisper Death
© 1991 John Lawrence Reynolds

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EPub Edition May 2015 ISBN: 9781443443685

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Originally published by Penguin Books Ltd in 1991. First published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd in this ePub edition in 2015.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are use fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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