82 Desire

them had.
    And whoever it had been was probably going to kill the other soon. He’d killed Beau because Beau wanted to come clean. Now he’d have to kill his other buddy because he was the only one who knew he was a murderer.
    Not my problem , Russell thought. Those two can duke it out any way they want.
    Still, surely he owed Douglas something. He had some feeling for Douglas—less as the years went by, but something. They’d done a lot together.
    So had he and Edward, but the trouble with Edward was he was a pompous ass.
    Fuck it, he thought. Just fuck it. I wouldn’t cross the road to save either one of them. What goes around comes around.
    Of course, if that were the case, Russell Fortier, aka Dean Woolverton, wasn’t exactly safe either. But then again, he was. No one had the slightest idea how to find him.
    He went to make himself some more coffee and found himself staring out the windows of the galley—just staring, trying to put this thing out of his mind.
    Poor Beau—so unremarkable in life, finally getting his fifteen minutes of fame. As a murder victim.
    What was he thinking of? His best friend had just been killed by his other best friend (or friends). Surely he had to go talk to the police.
    And yet, what for? The Skinners were parasites. If they wiped themselves out, so what?
    There was definitely room for argument. Unless they killed each other in a duel, there was going to be only one left standing—and that one was going to be not only a parasite but an assassin.
    Russell was struck with a choice of matching clichés, as Ms. Smart Dart Dina would probably say: To go back and face the music, or to get the hell out of Dodge. This , he thought, must be what’s meant by the fight-or-flight instinct.
    He had an almost uncontrollable urge to talk to Dina.
    He got up and paced the deck, looking out at the horizon, staring at water and sky, at the things that always calmed him, and failing to be calmed. Today, they only made him feel small and alone. He felt the muscles of his throat constrict as he took in his situation, looked for the first time at what he’d really done to himself.
    I’m alone in the world , he thought. By dumping everyone I ever knew or who ever cared about me, I’ve cut myself off completely.
    He realized with shame that he had been so stunned by the revelation of Allred’s murder that he hadn’t remembered to ask Beau to get a message to Eugenie. He didn’t even deserve to have a daughter, and he couldn’t call her, anyway—his current situation was nothing a child could deal with. Bebe was out of the question, and his parents were dead. He’d always regretted having no siblings, and never did he regret it more.
    It would be comforting , he thought, if someone cared whether I lived or died.
    And he found he absolutely could not resist the urge to make someone care, to grab the only line he saw and see if it would hold. Against every ounce of judgment he had, he called Dina, thinking that if she hated him, at least they could get that squared away and he could start thinking about suicide.
    “Dina? Don’t hang up … I’m really sorry about last night.”
    “Dean. I was about to call you. Listen, I acted like a jackass. I’m the one who should apologize.”
    He felt his throat constrict again. “I need to see you.”
    “Uh … okay. I’ll cook dinner.”
    “No, I mean now.”
    “Now?” He could see her in his mind’s eye, looking at her watch, calculating. “It’s almost noon. I’d cancel my lunch date, but…”
    He didn’t let her finish, simply pretended he’d heard something different. “Great. I’ll pick you up in ten.”
    Then he waited for her to call back and set him straight, and when the phone didn’t ring, found himself grinning. He got in the car, thinking, What in hell am I going to tell her?
    He took her to Indigo, where they could sit outside and not be overheard. And when he had talked her into having a glass of wine and while they were waiting for it to come, she said, “You look like shit.”
    “I didn’t sleep. I felt really bad about the way I’ve treated you…”
    “Oh, come on, it’s not like you hit me or lied to me or something.”
    “Uh… you’re making it worse.”
    “It is like one of those things? I think I know which one. My name isn’t really Dean Woolverton. I’m not even a lawyer.”
    The waiter set down two glasses of wine and almost before his hand was out of the way, she picked hers up. “Oh,