Fathom, Page 3

  She tripped with the effort of escaping but recovered at the last second, just in time to skip lightly down the stairs and out into the yard, as if she’d meant to do it that way all along.

  “You’re an idiot for wearing it out here, then,” Nia told her. “But I bet you didn’t bring anything better.”

  “Better? I’ve got more expensive stuff than this by a mile.”

  “No, not more expensive. Better. Clothes you can wear outside without worrying you’ll mess them up. Look around, would you? You’re in a forest, practically a jungle. Hardly anybody lives here, so who are you trying to impress?”

  She glared, then changed her mind and flashed a gorgeous grin. “You’re right. And you’d know better than I would, wouldn’t you? Maybe you can loan me something. I bet you’ve got stacks of clothes for wearing outside.”

  “I don’t think we’re the same size,” Nia said. She didn’t think Bernice would be caught dead in cotton, anyway. “You’re a lot skinnier than me,” she added.

  It wasn’t very true, but it had the right effect. Nia meant it as a little bit of an insult, and Bernice took it as a compliment.

  “Aw, aren’t you a sweetie! Look,” she said, pulling out the cigarette case again. “Let’s just have a smoke, huh? Let’s be friends again; I like it better when we’re friends. I’m sorry for being such a pain.”

  “I believe you. Really. And I don’t want to smoke again, right now. I’m too hot. Let’s just walk, okay? Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  Bernice shrugged. “Sure, we can walk. There’s nowhere to go, but I couldn’t stay in there. I can only put up with those guys for about an hour a day. I guess we could visit the new house again. The beach out at the edge of the lot is quiet—there aren’t any weirdos fishing or swimming . . . or anything else. And I think it’s low tide now, so we can look for sand dollars.”

  “We should definitely get a lamp.”

  “I told you, we don’t need one.”

  Nia scrutinized Bernice’s sharp, hollow face.

  Her cousin was right. The moon was high and full, and she could easily make out the trail to the house. It was a straight shot across the narrow part of the island, and she could find her way back by herself if she had to . . . in case Bernice pulled something funny, which looked like a distinct possibility to Nia. No one goes beachcombing in high heels.

  She relented. “Just for a little bit. I’ve had a long couple of days, with all that traveling, and I want to get some rest.”

  “Don’t worry.” Bernice pushed a long lock of moss out of her path. “This won’t take long.”

  “What won’t take long?”

  “You know. Our walk. I want some fresh air, or the closest thing to it. This whole island feels stuffy, like it’s some kind of place where they keep plants. Like one of those big glass buildings that smells wet inside.”

  “A greenhouse?”

  “Yes. It’s horrible.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  Bernice kicked at something in the dirt and stomped sourly forward. “You only think so because you’re from around here. You’re used to it. To everyone else, this place is hell on earth.”

  Nia kept her gaze locked on the back of Bernice’s head as it bounced in front of her. It was awkward to talk when they were walking single file, so they didn’t speak again until they passed beneath the thick, heavy willow that marked the entrance to her aunt and uncle’s new property.

  “We’re back,” Bernice declared with a dramatic, silly stretch of the vowels that proved their grandmother right. The girl had gone native up there in the big city. “It’s just a few more yards to the beach, right over there. You can hear it, right? Go on over the dune, down to the water if you want. I’ll be there in a second. I think I left something in the courtyard. If I don’t see it right away, I’ll worry about it later. Go on. I’ll catch up in a minute.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What are you, a scaredy cat? Afraid of the dark?”

  “No,” Nia said. But she didn’t want Bernice out of her sight, because she didn’t trust her—even the slightest bit. She looked out at the dune and over at the dark house with its prettily laid-out courtyard behind it. “Don’t be like that. I’ll go. You promise you’ll catch up in a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  She could feel Bernice watching her as she walked toward the dune. She took a few steps into the coarse strands of sea oats and let herself disappear over the sandy hump, then peered back over the barrier that separated the front yard from the beach.

  And she slipped back into the yard.

  Why They Call It That

  The rush of the waves sliding onto shore masked the swishing of Nia’s feet through the grass, but she could still hear the quiet shatter of something wrapped in cloth muffling the sound of breaking glass. Already the shards of newly busted ceramic plates sparkled on the ground.

  Arms folded, Nia leaned against the nearest wall and marveled at Bernice’s demented efficiency. “Exactly how stupid do you think I am?” she asked. “Jesus. I may be poor, but I’m not dumb.”

  Bernice didn’t pause. She picked up another glass and wrapped it in the corner of the tablecloth, and with a satisfied swing, she slammed it against the wall. She reached for another one.

  “Stop it!” Nia ordered. She wanted to physically accost Bernice, but something about the girl’s determined, mechanical motion made her hesitate. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Smash.

  “Why? Why are you doing this?”

  The vandal stopped, and faced her cousin. “Now that is a better question.”

  “What?”

  Bernice wrapped another plate in the cloth and wound the fabric around it. “You asked me a couple of really dumb questions; then you asked a good one.”

  She paused, reflecting before giving her response. And then, in a sudden and weird shriek she shouted, “It’s because I hate them! And I hate this place, and I hate this house, and I hate this stupid party, and—” The plate fell loose from the tablecloth and Bernice’s twisting hands, and it dropped to the grass. Her words came in a fierce panting that made her sound like a wild animal. “I hate him, because, because . . .”

  And then a light went on behind her eyes. She calmed down to an angry grumble. “I hate him for coming into my room after Mother’s asleep.”

  Bernice stalked slowly toward Nia. She clung to her story and the corner of the tablecloth. Everything came sliding away behind her. The remaining glasses and plates, the silver candlesticks and flatware, the large glass punch bowl and the crystal cake pedestal all went clattering to the ground.

  Nia slinked away from her, reaching her hands behind her back and feeling along the courtyard wall. “You’re lying,” she prayed.

  “Lying? Why would you accuse me of lying? No one ever believes me.” Bernice’s eyes were huge and wet, and she pouted her pixie lips. She hadn’t released the tablecloth. It dragged along the sand like a tremendous red train on a crimson wedding gown.

  “I wonder why. You . . . Don’t. Stay away from me.”

  “That’s what I used to tell him. I’d say, ‘Antonio, get away from me or I’ll yell for my mom!’ But he never listened. He’d tell me to hush up, and he’d unbutton his shirt, and he’d take it off and leave it hanging on the bedpost. Then he’d slip off his shoes and undo his pants, and lift up the corners of the bedspread so he could crawl into bed beside me.”

  “You’re lying,” Nia insisted. She tripped over a patio stone and almost fell into an alcove in the wall.

  Bernice’s tablecloth snagged on the circular fountain and she tugged it loose. She guided her free hand down the front of her shirt, letting her white, manicured fingers hang for a moment where her breasts were pressed forward under the fabric.

  One by one, she folded the round glass buttons through the slotted holes until Nia could see the top of her lean, pale stomach beneath the cotton and lace of her brassiere. Small beads of sweat gleamed
on her skin and dripped down into her cleavage. Without glancing down, Bernice swept the moisture away and wiped it on her skirt.

  “What are you doing half-naked out here?”

  Bernice whirled around to face Antonio, who stood in the archway entrance to the yard. His brown linen suit looked black in the shadows of the banyan tree, and he wasn’t wearing his hat. The ocean wind kicked up, and his hair rippled wildly.

  He paced across the sand and grass and tried to grab her arm, but she turned too fast and he caught her hair instead. Accepting whatever handhold he could seize, Antonio wrenched her around so hard that she toppled over herself and sat tangled in the tablecloth.

  “Your mother wanted me to come and check on you, because she’s worried about you. I’ll never understand why she gives a damn. Close your shirt, you stupid little slut.”

  He turned his back to her.

  “What was she talking about?” he demanded, and even in the mostly dark, Nia could see how red his face was. “Was she making up stories about me again? I know she does that; I know what she likes to tell people. But you can see through her, can’t you? You’re not a dumb kid. You’re a nice kid, I think. You can tell she’s a liar, I know you can.”

  Nia thought he was going to add something else, but then Bernice reared up behind him.

  There wasn’t even time to call his name before Nia heard a wet blow.

  He stumbled forward, slinging his arm back to push her away. A long silver knife rose out of his back, just beyond the reach of his searching fingers. He doubled his elbows up, trying to get a hold on it. He fell.

  Nia wasn’t sure whom to shout at, so she didn’t shout at all.

  She ran to Antonio and knelt beside him.

  Bernice didn’t try to stop her. She simply backed away from them both, unspooling herself from the cloth.

  Antonio was lying on his side, trying to rub the knife on the ground to snag and remove it. Nia pulled the knife as quickly but gently as she could, and threw it away with a horrified grunt.

  His blood looked black and slick as it gushed heartily over her hands, as it bubbled out of the wound with every breath he struggled to take. Bernice had stabbed him hard. By luck or design, she’d hit something important. Nia took a corner of her dress and pushed it against the gushing hole.

  “Where is she?” Antonio wheezed.

  Bernice darted in close to swipe the knife, then ducked away again—out of Nia’s reach. She stood a few feet away and fondled the weapon, running her fingers along the wet edge.

  Nia pressed her makeshift bandage against Antonio’s back. She leaned on it as hard as she dared, and kept her eyes on her cousin.

  The silver cake knife made Bernice confident.

  Overconfident, Nia thought, or at least she hoped.

  Bernice shifted her grip on the blade and pointed it down, prepared to attack again. “I like you, Nia,” she said, and her words were so cold, they left frost in the air. “So I’m going to give you one good chance to get out of the way.”

  Antonio had slipped from Nia’s hold. He was flat on the ground and dangling near unconsciousness. He gurgled and twisted himself over with a surprising burst of effort that sent him halfway onto Nia’s lap. “Get Marjorie,” he said.

  “I will,” she promised, but his eyes were already glazed, and his chest was not inflating the right way. He was certainly dying. Nia was still pondering the costs of protecting an almost-corpse from an armed madwoman when the armed madwoman pounced.

  Nia wasn’t so off guard as Bernice had thought, and the ensuing attack was less than professional-grade. Bernice staggered wildly across Antonio’s limp form, stabbing from above in a way that let Nia catch her forearm.

  But she couldn’t keep it. She fell to the side, and there was a brief moment where Bernice could have run her through without resistance . . . but she wanted Antonio more. She used Nia’s weakness to finish him, burying the blade through his chest and between two ribs—using all her weight to jam it down, up to the gilded handle.

  He did not gasp or groan, or even quiver. She may as well have jabbed a rotting apple for all the response she got, nothing more than a small drool of warm, sticky blood seeping an anticlimax through his shirt.

  Nia rose carefully to her feet.

  Though Bernice must have noticed, she didn’t look. She stared down at her handiwork, absorbing every sloppy detail. Nia couldn’t read her expression. Bernice might have been pleased to see him dead, or she might have been disappointed by how easy it was. It was too dark to tell.

  But Nia did not believe for an instant that Bernice would let her go. In that fragile moment of silence over Antonio’s body, she scrutinized her cousin and tried to think.

  Bernice was taller by an inch or two and solid enough, but Nia was lean from living in the sun and working in the orchard. She was no muscle-bound farmhand, but she wasn’t a pampered city girl either. She was heavier than Bernice, sure; but she didn’t have an ounce of fat on her—even where she would’ve liked some.

  It would take Bernice no more than a second to retrieve the knife from Antonio’s body.

  Nia was smaller than her soon-to-be opponent, and she was wearing a longer dress. This was not Nia’s home territory. She didn’t know her way around the island, but chances were good that Bernice didn’t either, whether she claimed she did or not.

  Nia glanced over her shoulder, checking to make sure all the broken glass was behind her. Then, as inconspicuously as she could, she pried off her shoes.

  The careful shuffling broke Bernice’s spell. She peered down at her cousin through tightly slitted eyes. “Nia.” She said it calmly, like a passing introduction. “Mother will never believe you.”

  “Yes, she will, Bernice.” She tried to give her cousin’s name the same cool treatment. “But she’ll spend the rest of her life denying it.”

  “She doesn’t have to. Nia, think how easy this would be.” Her tone abruptly changed, sliding from an earnest plea to something more casual and chatty. “Hey, do you know why we had to move here?” she asked with earnestness, as if she actually wanted to share the answer. She walked over to the fountain and sat on its edge. The cake knife in her hand clinked against the tile and stonework.

  “No. Why?” Nia wondered how much space there was between herself and the archway exit.

  “That dirty wop.” She gestured down at Antonio. “He and his business partners had a falling out. He was a bookkeeper for a hooch parlor, and in that sort of business, you don’t get fired for skimming—you get dead. So when word got out, he took the money and took off running.”

  “You’re lying again.”

  Again, she was almost comically serious. “No, not this time. You can ask Mother. She knew about it; he had to let her in on it; otherwise, she wouldn’t have believed he was in enough trouble to make a run for it. Mother’s the one who suggested the island. She had some friends down here, the ones who let us stay in their cottage while this place was being built. I swear to you, Nia. This would be so easy.”

  “So he really was a crook? Grandmother said she thought he was.”

  “She did? That’s funny. Yeah, she was right.”

  Nia made a small shrug with her eyebrows and added, “Grandmother thinks everyone from farther up north than Tennessee is a crook. This time, she was just a lucky guesser.”

  Bernice smiled, wide and friendly. She started to stand, and Nia twitched, prepared to run. She couldn’t do it—she couldn’t hold the cool, easy stance that her cousin adopted so easily.

  Bernice sat back down.

  “This is what we’ll do,” she said. “We’ll say we found him this way, and we saw two men leaving through the woods. Everyone’ll think his old partners caught up with him, and no one will be able to prove a thing.”

  “Those kinds of businessmen don’t kill people with cake knives.” Nia’s grandmother had told her about them; they were the men who ran the racetracks where the family sometimes sold produce to vendors.


  “Oh, what do you know, anyway? They . . . they’d probably want to keep it quiet, right?”

  “Then they could just make him disappear or something. That’s how they work, isn’t it? I’ve read stories about people like that.”

  “Shut up, would you?” Bernice stood up, despite Nia’s cringe. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you or anything. You’re family. Besides, we’d make great friends and we’ll have a wonderful time this summer with him out of the way.”

  “And besides,” Nia added, catching Bernice’s momentum and riding it, out of fear more than conversational flow. “You want someone to help your story. Your mother might swallow it, but the police never will.”

  Bernice approached Nia, tiptoeing over Antonio and coming to stand in front of her.

  Nia hated to allow her so close, but she knew that if she wanted to make it out of the courtyard, she had to draw Bernice farther away from its exit archway, or she’d never beat her out of it. There in the courtyard, the ground was crisscrossed with paving stones and the grass was clipped close; it would be a fair race between them. And out in the open, it was only a short dash to the beach.

  “Nia?” She stopped a few feet away. “Nia, you’ve got to help me out. Nia, what do you say?”

  Nia took a deep breath and used her toe to nudge her shoes farther away from her feet. “Let me think about it.”

  Then, with as much commotion as she could manage, Nia dived to her left and dodged the flicking knife—which caught on and ripped her dress, cutting out the hem her mother had only recently fixed.

  Bernice jumped after her, snaring her nails in Nia’s hair, trying to twist her fingers into the braid there, but Nia grabbed the wall and used it to launch herself free and through the arch.

  The grass was soft beneath her naked feet, and she prayed to God that there weren’t any sandspurs. Down at the dune, she took a flying leap and landed on top of the small ridge, then hopped down the other side into the thick, powdery sand. It trapped her briefly, but she dug in with her toes and hurled herself forward onto the beach.