weaving in front of the fire with her arms flying and her mouth open to the skies. Then he saw her whirl at the sound of her name and he saw her wave, laughing. Like a fool she trotted over to the Jeep, flattered and ignorant. He saw Kalen laughing and waving.
He shouted, but he was too far away. He ran, but it was too late.
Walker died. He saw the future, and it was vile. The night he pulled Kalen off Jessie Vukovich, Jessie sobbed all the way home. Dripping bloody snot, she explained, ‘You only get in because there are others in the car. You think you’re safe.’
Crafty in the way of stupid people who know how to get what they want, Brad Kalen used his buddies like inflatable state troopers when he went stalking, propping them in place before he made his move to signify that this would be a safe ride. Then – how many times has this happened? He knew how to lose his buddies along the way; either he was too selfish for a gang rape or they weren’t the type; Walker didn’t know, any more than he knows what binds them to him. He did know where the bastard would take her to do it because they had both been there before. Walker was pounding back over the dune, running for his truck before Kalen and his cohort left off grinning for Bethy Bellinger’s camera like rock stars and helped Lucy into the Jeep. Walker knew, if not to the minute, how long all this would take and he would damn well get to Land’s End before Kalen did.
This time, he wouldn’t fuck up. He would be there in time to stop it.
Which Walker did, springing on Kalen before he could get that flimsy shirt off Lucy although, God, he had already hauled off and split her lip with his fist. Even tonight, Walker doesn’t know why he didn’t shout or throw something or figure out how to warn the girl before it came down. He should have plowed into Kalen the minute he nosed that Jeep into Lands End Road and stopped. Maybe it was Pierce Point wariness – cops would assume he was the offender – or maybe he was waiting for the son of a bitch to convict himself. You fool. Either way he still grieves over the pain his waiting caused her. Whatever ate Walker up evaporated when Kalen pushed her down and started pounding; Walker was on top of him, snarling and dragging him off before Lucy understood what was happening to her.
‘What are you doing,’ she cried, and Walker didn’t know whether she was talking to him or her assailant. ‘What are you doing!’
He dragged Kalen’s bloody hand out of her tiny white bikini pants and beat the living shit out of him, noting with satisfaction that there was no way they could get false teeth into that blunt, brute face of his in time for him to make that big smile for the graduation-day group photograph. He kicked Kalen over onto his face and left him in the sand. Too rough, Walker, he realized when he saw how the girl looked at him, shrinking, terrified and sobbing.
‘Oh, please,’ he cried, holding his hands out to her like a plaster St Francis.
‘Oh,’ Lucy sobbed, covering her mouth.
‘I had to.’
She looked into her hands and saw blood. ‘Oh, oh!’
‘I had to stop him.’
Her wild face was just now coming back together and she did not back away. Lucy came back into herself in stages – aware and thinking. When she could speak she acknowledged this in a voice so low that he had to guess at the tone, ‘You had to stop him.’ Then everything lifted. ‘You did!’
Then, with Kalen laid out in the mangroves like an eviscerated shark, Walker hugged her close, crying, ‘I’m sorry, I am so goddamn sorry,’ because he was afraid that he had in fact fucked up, just not in the same way as with Jessie Vukovich. Then Lucy bowed her head and leaned into him, so he could feel her lips moving on his chest and he felt the warmth of her mingled blood and wet breath through his shirt as she said loud enough so that there would be no question, ‘I’m sorry too.’ He wouldn’t kiss her – that torn lip – but he wrapped her in his shirt and took her home, riding along with the extraordinary sense that his