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"He probably has a pretty good idea As long as we don’t rub his nose in it, so to speak, then what’s it to him? Creed doesn’t own me and I don’t own him"

"Anyone could walk in," he said "What if the e?"

"If you’re so worried about being seen, why don’t we go into the cabana where we can talk and get to know each other a little bit If you feel unco to knock you down and ju hinored her

"You’d prefer to do it all out here?"

"No"

"Then help rabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet Primly she shook her skirt down "All nice and neat," she said

Shesense of disbelief This couldn’t be happening Passing through the door, she lifted her crossed arms and pulled the tank top over her head

Inside, she’d made a pallet of blankets Two joints at the ready with a roach clip, a pack of matches, and an ashtray She unbuttoned her skirt and stepped out of it Her figure o and flat as fifty-cent pieces The thatch of hair between her legs was dark and bushy She knelt on the blanket, picked up a joint, and lit it She took two or three quick draws and held the smoke in She closed her eyes and toked oncethe s time, Jon Don’t just stand there with your clothes on You can do better than that"

He hesitated, looking down at her as thoughthe drop from a ten-meter board He stripped off his T-shirt and then stepped out of his pants When he took off his jockey shorts, he saw the change cood, you’re beautiful Incredible I’d forgotten what eighteen looks like" She crawled to the edge of the blanket and ran a hand along his bare flank and then looked up at him He bent and kissed her upturned mouth

28

Wednesday afternoon, April 20, 1988

Wednesday afternoon I took Cabana Boulevard up the hill to Seashore Park, a city-owned stretch of pal the Pacific ThatI’d called Michael and asked hi I had the file folder of clippings about Keith Kirkendall and copies of the photographs his sister had given me the day before My body hu the conversation I couldn’t bear to lay the revelation at his feet, but there was no escape

The day was sunny and the air mild with scarcely any breeze at all While I waited I walked the length of the chain-link fence that had been erected to prevent citizens froood sixty feet At high tide, the surf concealed the rocks At low tide, the rocks were laid bare Either way, a fall would be fatal Looking down I could see the telltale muddy plu differently from how they did a hundred yards on each side Most people think of the effluence as a riptide, but the proper terravitational pull A rip current is a treacherous outflow that runs in a narrow line perpendicular to the beach, so as far as twenty-five hundred feet The term "undertow," used to describe the same pheno the surface of the water, a function of the hidden shape of the shore itself This one, like the rip current that swept Sutton’s mother to her death, was an artifact of the saineers to create a safe harbor where there was none before As with so enerate unexpected results

I heard Sutton’s MG approaching long before I saw hi lot He had the top down and his hair had been whipped into an untidy thatch that he smoothed as he stepped out of the car He wore a sweatshirt and shorts, and the sight of his knobby knees nearly broke my heart As before, I was struck by his youthfulness When he was fifty instead of twenty-six, he’d look the same I couldn’t picture him portly or bald I couldn’t picture hied, his face would shrink away from his skull, but it would otherwise retain its boyish cast

On the phone I hadn’t specified the reason for theI felt badly about it now because he suspected nothing, which h I didn’t understand the psychological dynaht down on his fahts, the family should have been the ones to lay clai Instead the burden was his