had a head start. You’ve already been in my place, sniffing around. What did you learn?”
“Not much. I wasn’t there very long. I found the ships, the blueprints. Are you an architect?”
“Used to be.”
“So what are you now?”
“A carpenter.”
I frown. “That’s kind of a step down, isn’t it?”
“You could say that.”
“Did one of your buildings collapse or something?”
He smokes the last hit and tosses the roach overboard.
“No, actually I was a very good architect. Everything I designed is still standing, as far as I know.”
“Then what—”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” he says. “Something you might want to consider.”
“She had eight more lives if I remember right.”
I get up and move to the end of the rail, letting the buzz wash over me. The waves slosh languidly against the side of the boat.
“I looked you up,” he says. “Alice Croft, author of Zebra Crossing. ‘A beguiling, gripping read.’ ‘Dark and dazzling.’ Very impressive.”
I shrug. I hate talking about my work, and especially about reviews of my work. No one ever asks the right questions, and my answers always seem stilted and inadequate. As soon as the books come out, I stash my copies in the closet and try to forget about them.
The Zebra series was a fluke as far as I’m concerned. Something about the motley collection of boys—albino, meth addict, freerunner, clairvoyant, all trapped inside a Scottish neo-Gothic boarding school—captured the public’s attention. So much so that Gus Shiroff has signed not only the foreign rights but film and TV, as well. Nothing has been done with them so far, but there is talk of a cable series and wild speculation about who might be cast in the lead roles.
For me the whole thing is bewildering. Before the Zebra books I had never written for anyone but myself. I sent out my original queries on a whim, expecting a much longer apprenticeship before any of my writing became publishable. But Gus liked the first book right away, and suddenly I found myself with a career and what seems like a never-ending procession of deadlines—all good things, but for a loner with a serious lack of business sense, it’s a bit much. On Gus’s advice, I’ve tried to isolate myself as much as possible and concentrate on finishing the series.
“A lot of loneliness in those books,” Jack says.
I accept this in silence. It’s a common observation.
“What about your family?”
“Dead.” The word seems flat, so I keep talking to fill the silence. “My grandmother died when I was nine, and my mom a year and a half later.”
“And your dad?”
“Don’t know him.”
“So who do you hang out with, then? What do you do?”
“Write.”
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much. Very glamorous, this lifestyle.”
“No boyfriend?”
“Not at the moment.”
He is quiet, looking at me. When he speaks, his voice sounds different, lower in pitch.
“Not at the moment,” he repeats, as if to himself.
He gets to his feet and moves toward me, hands in his pockets, his face lost in shadow. For a second I forget what he looks like. His features won’t come together in my mind.
He stops, leaning against the rail.
“Last night you had a knife in your hand. Now look at you.”
I glance around at the deserted docks, where rows of boats bob silently in the inky water.
I don’t like this, I want to say. Take me home, I want to go home.
My empty fingers curl into a fist, pressed to my thigh.
“You wish you had one now,” he says softly. “Don’t you.”
He closes the distance between us, lifts his hand and traces the column of my neck, down the front of my T-shirt—the barest brush with the tip of his forefinger.
A bone-deep shiver breaks inside me, as though my gears have slipped and are juddering for purchase.
He turns away and disappears through the cabin door. I close my eyes, waiting. A minute later, a familiar song seeps into the cool night air, a haunting, languid groove, and he’s back, his hand outstretched toward me. He pulls me into his arms.
My home feels very far away now, across the water and another divide I have not yet measured. Jack’s heartbeat is more than idea or even a sound—it’s a vibration under my cheek, a relentless drumbeat driven by something I don’t understand. More than sex, darker than seduction. This is pure male impulse.
On the last thread of music, he begins to undress me, his fingers cool and rough as stone against my skin. He unbuttons my sweater, slips it over my shoulders and drops it to the deck. He pushes me before him, a step at a time, down the narrow staircase to the tiny bedroom. I feel the mattress behind my knees, and he puts a hand behind my head to keep me from bumping it as he lowers me to the bed. This small kindness blooms at the base of my throat and burns my eyelids and the bridge of my nose.
Silence closes around us, broken only by the hollow sound of the waves lapping against the side of the boat, and the eerie flow of the music around us.
He reaches under the hem of my skirt and runs his hand up my thigh until it comes to rest on my hip. With his other hand, he takes off his glasses and sets them on the bedside table.
You wish you had that knife now. Don’t you...
What would happen if I asked him to stop? Would he take me home? Apologize? Get angry and call me names? Would he stop at all? I’ve told no one about him, or where I would be tonight, and he knows it. He could hurt me, kill me, carry my body out to sea and no one would ever know what happened to me. I would be the face on the milk carton.
My train of thought stops there.
No. I could never be the face on the milk carton. Those missing people have families to search for them. No one would look for me.
I would be gone. Gone.
He strokes me, down my thigh and up, sliding his palm along my waist. He tugs at the strap of my underwear and winds it twice around his thumb, pulls it tight until the fabric nips and pinches between my legs.
I close my fist around the front of his sweater. He leans over this obstruction to kiss me again, one hand cupped
