she had all the funny details memorized from her friend's weekend trips to Nantucket, but she still wouldn't have known how to answer any of Callie's questions about her life at Sword & Cross. If she turned around and went inside to pick up the phone, she didn't know how she'd begin to catch Callie or her parents up on the strange, dark twist the past few days had taken. Easier not to tell them at all, or not until she'd wrapped things up one way or another.
She slid into the sedan's plush beige leather backseat and buckled up. The driver put the car in gear without a word.
"Where are we going?" she asked him.
"Little backwater place down the river. Mr. Briel likes the local color. Just sit back and relax, honey.
You'll see."
Mr. Brie!? Who was this guy? Luce never liked being told to relax, especially when it felt like a warning not to ask any more questions. Nonetheless, she crossed her arms over her chest, looked out the window, and tried to forget the driver's tone when he called her "honey."
Through the tinted windows, the trees outside and the gray paved road beneath them all looked brown. At the turning whose westward fork led to Thunderbolt, the black sedan turned east. They were following the river toward the shore. Every now and then, when their path and the river's converged, Luce could see the brackish brown water twisting beside them. Twenty minutes later, the car slowed to a stop in front of a beat-up riverside bar.
It was made of gray, rotting wood, and a swollen, water logged sign over the front door read STYX in jagged red hand-painted letters. A strand of plastic pennants advertising beer had been stapled to the wood beam underneath the tin roof, a mediocre attempt at festivity. Luce studied the images silk-screened onto the plastic triangles - palm trees and tanned, bikini-clad girls with beer bottles at their grinning lips - and wondered when the last time had been when a real live girl had actually set foot in this place.
Two older punk rock guys sat smoking on a bench facing the water. Tired Mohawks drooped over their middle-aged foreheads, and their leather jackets had the ugly, dirty look of something they'd been wearing since punk was new. The blank expressions on their tan, slack faces made the whole scene feel even more desolate.
The swamp edging the two-lane highway had begun to overwhelm the asphalt, and the road just sort of petered out into swamp grass and mud. Luce had never been out this far in the river marshes.
As she sat, unsure what she'd do once she left the car, or whether that was even a good idea, the front door of Styx banged open and Cam sauntered out. He leaned coolly against the screen door, one leg crossed over the other. She knew he couldn't see her through the tinted window of the car, but he raised his hand like he could and beckoned her toward him.
"Here goes nothing," Luce muttered before thanking the driver. She opened the door and was greeted by a blast of salty wind as she climbed the three steps to the bar's wooden porch.
Cam's shaggy hair was loose around his face and he had a calm look in his green eyes. One sleeve of his black T-shirt was pushed up over his shoulder, and Luce could see the smooth cut of his bicep. She fingered the gold chain in her pocket. Remember why you're here.
Cam's face showed no sign of the fight the night before, which made her wonder, immediately, whether Daniel's did.
Cam gave her an inquisitive look, running his tongue along his bottom lip. "I was just calculating how many consolation drinks I'd need if you stood me up today," he said, opening his arms for a hug. Luce stepped into them. Cam was a very hard person to say no to, even when she wasn't totally sure what he was asking.
"I wouldn't stand you up," she said, then immediately felt guilty, knowing that her words came from a sense of duty, not the romance Cam would have preferred. She was there only because she was going to tell him she didn't want to be involved with him. "So what is this place? And since when do you have a car service?"
"Stick with me, kid," he said, seeming to take her questions as compliments, as if she liked being whisked off to bars that smelled like the