Reunion at Red Paint Bay - By George Harrar Page 0,53

still think you know exactly what you did?”

“I know what I thought I was doing.”

“That’s not the same, is it?”

“You’re talking as if this happened last week. I don’t remember every little detail of what happened.”

“Jean did, the liquor on your tongue when you kissed her. The sweat on your face. She remembered how heavy you were on her, how she couldn’t open her mouth to take a breath. You smothered the words in her.”

Simon remembered the way she wriggled and bucked under him, and her nails clawing down his back. For days he twisted his head over his shoulder to look in the mirror, see the long red marks of her fingernails on his shoulders. It was obvious she wanted him. He even showed Brewer. It didn’t even feel like bragging then. “Look Paulie, Paul, whoever you are now, you better get yourself some serious help, because you’ve gone over the edge.”

“I am getting help,” Paul said quietly, “from a therapist right here in Red Paint. Therapists can be very understanding, especially the women. So perceptive, so hands on. I just came from seeing one, in fact. But we had a little falling out, you could say. She thinks she knows what rape is all about, but I didn’t think she really did.”

Simon grabbed Paul by the arms, held him there, inches from the water. “If you touched my wife I’ll kill you.”

Paul went limp in his grip, no tension at all, like a body without any life left in it. “I’ll kill you? That’s what any husband would say. You can do better than that.”

Simon let go with a little shove, and Paul laughed at him. The smirking face, the accusation, or maybe it was the silly mustache, but Simon jumped on him, rode him to the dock. Then what? What do you do to a person who doesn’t resist?

“This is how you like it,” Paul said, breathing up into Simon’s face, “being on top. You always have to be on top.”

Simon sat back, like a boy in a schoolyard fight, the victor who isn’t sure what he won. He got up carefully, wary of any sudden move to knock his legs out, spill him into the water. When he was clear he pulled out his cell phone and called Amy’s number, watching as Paul rose to his knees, then his feet. “She better answer.” The phone rang, and rang again. Then the recorded message. “Amy, where are you?” he said. “Call me if you’re there, call me right away!” He turned on Paul. “Where is she?”

Paul shrugged. “You’re lucky to have a beautiful wife like that.”

Simon’s memory triggered back to the Hall of Mirrors … You’re lucky to have a beautiful boy like that. This man, Paul Walker, had been stalking Amy and Davey. Simon felt his fingers gather into a fist. The fist rose up and swung. Paul had to see it coming, but he didn’t duck, even seemed to lean a little to catch the full weight of the punch to his face. The force of it sent him stumbling backward, over the edge. He hit the water, sending up a wave that drenched the dock, and went under. Simon watched the spot. A head started to break the water, then sank again. He began counting … one, two, three, and by ten it seemed like an eternity had gone by. Why wasn’t Paul surfacing? One punch couldn’t have knocked him out. Simon looked over the opposite side of the dock, and then the far end, checking if Paul was holding on there. Twenty, twenty-one—how long could a man hold his breath underwater? Maybe he hit his head on a rock below the surface. That would explain the blunt trauma to his face. No one would suspect a punch. Simon rubbed his right fist down his shirt—no mark there, no blood on his knuckles, nothing incriminating. What was he talking about, covering up a murder? Thirty, thirty-one …

The head bobbed up, the mouth spit water and gasped for air. Paul Walker was just a few yards from the dock, within reach of it almost, just a couple strokes away. His arms swatted at the water and then reached up toward Simon. He’s drowning. The thought of this was surprisingly reassuring—his accuser drowning, the man who was threatening his family drowning. Simon turned, looked toward the inn, the small parking lot, and around the bay, 360 degrees. Not a soul in sight. Paul’s hands were grabbing