Nighttime Guardian

“His wife said he liked to go night-diving.”

“Night-diving? In that river?” Nathan’s tone was clearly incredulous.

Dewayne shrugged. “He got too close to the surface and a boat ran him over. Probably thought they hit a log or something.”

“So that’s going to be the party line, is it?” Contempt crept into Nathan’s voice. “Are you even going to question Takamura?”

“That’s none of your damn business,” Dewayne countered. “You let the police handle the investigation.”

“Which means you’re not.” Nathan shook his head in disgust. “Takamura’s got an iron clamp on this town’s throat, that’s for damn sure.”

The deputy’s voice hardened with anger. “I don’t think I like what you’re implying, Nathan.”

“No,” Nathan said quietly. “I don’t imagine you do.”

Shelby had stood silently during this exchange, but Dewayne glanced at her now. “Look, I don’t have time for this. I have to get back down there. It was nice seeing you again, Shelby.”

“You, too, Dewayne.”

Nathan spun, peering at her in the moonlight. As Dewayne walked away, Nathan took a few steps toward her. “Did I hear him right? Shelby? Shelby Westmoreland?”

“It’s August now. It’s been a long time, Nathan.”

“At least you remember me,” he said.

“Oh, I remember you all right.” She wasn’t likely to forget the kid who had dared her to meet him down by the river at midnight so they could watch for the Pearl River Monster together. Nor would she forget that he’d stood her up that night. If he’d been there to corroborate her story, Shelby never would have become such an object of ridicule.

At least that was the way she’d felt back then. But time had put that night in perspective. It hadn’t been Nathan’s fault that her imagination had conjured up a monster, or that, after the initial terror, she’d enjoyed the rush of attention. It hadn’t been his fault that maybe, just maybe, she’d embellished her memory of that night because the spotlight had somehow made her abandonment more bearable. She’d been dropped on her grandmother’s doorstep that summer by parents who didn’t want her. Didn’t love her. But for a while, everyone in Arcadia had adored her.

Then, of course, they’d turned on her.

But Nathan hadn’t. He’d broken his word to her that night, but he’d stood by her in the humiliating days afterward.

Hey, Shelby, seen any monsters lately?

Where’s your monster, Shelby?

You shut your face, Nathan would tell the smirking crowd of kids who gathered around Shelby. Before I shut it for you.

And then, inevitably, a fight would ensue. Nathan had been so scrawny, he’d almost always gotten his butt kicked, but he’d never once backed down.

Judging by his conversation with Dewayne Mill-sap, Nathan was still just as stubborn. But Shelby doubted he’d be the underdog in a skirmish nowadays. He looked strong, capable, almost formidable in the darkness as he stared down at her.

He’d turned out to be an attractive man, from what she could see. She wondered what he thought of her.

He grinned suddenly, as if reading her mind. “Look at you, all grown up.”

“I should hope so,” she said dryly. “I’m thirty years old.”

“Where did the time go?” he said softly.

“It…vanished.” Just like my monster.

He tipped his head slightly, gazing down at her. “I heard you were living out on the west coast. What brings you back here?”

“I came to help my grandmother,” Shelby said. “She broke her hip.”

“Yeah, I heard about that, too. Is she going to be okay?”

“The doctors think she’ll make a full recovery, but she’ll be out of commission for quite some time. She asked me to come back and run the shop for her.”

“Why not your uncle James?”

“He’s a busy man,” Shelby said. There was no need for further elaboration, because Nathan knew as well as she that James Westmoreland was not a man who could be trusted, not even by his own mother. That was why Annabel had been compelled to call Shelby for help.

James was so much younger than Shelby’s father that he was more like a cousin or an older brother in age, but he and Shelby had never been close. When Shelby had first come to live with her grandmother, her uncle’s coldness had hurt her feelings, but she’d learned to stay out of his way. Everything had been okay for a while, but then James had gone and told that awful lie, claimed the monster sighting had been his idea so the family business could profit from the influx of tourists. He’d been willing to tarnish his own reputation in order to defame a nine-year-old girl, and to this day, Shelby didn’t understand why.

Nathan had fallen silent, and she followed his gaze across the yard. They were bringing the body up the bank. The stretcher was covered, but Shelby couldn’t bear to look. She turned her gaze instead to the river. The water looked iridescent, shimmering like an opal in the moonlight. On the far side, trees crowded the bank, and the fronds of a weeping willow trailed like fingers across the glassy surface.

She wrapped her arms around her middle, shivering in the warm June night. “Why don’t you believe it was an accident?” she asked softly.

Nathan glanced at her in surprise, as if he’d forgotten her presence. “What?” Then, shrugging, he said, “It doesn’t add up. A lot of things don’t add up around here.”

“Such as?”

He hesitated. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”

He didn’t strike her as the paranoid type, but then, she hadn’t known him since they were kids. “You mentioned Takamura earlier.”

“Yeah. Do you remember him?”

“Vaguely.” Shelby remembered one afternoon coming back home after a day on the river with Nathan. Her grandmother was sitting on the front porch, clearly upset, as a long, black car pulled away from the house.

“What’s the matter, Grandmother?” Shelby asked worriedly.

“That man!” Her grandmother’s tone was scathing. “He thinks he can barter for anything he pleases, but I’ve got news for him. Some things around here just aren’t for sale!”

Only recently, Shelby’s grandmother had mentioned Takamura again. She’d said he was still trying to buy the supply of freshwater pearls she’d acquired from a man named Wilson Tubb years ago. Most of the jewelry she sold in her shop now was made from pearls that came from the original collection, although she still bought from a few local divers. But the river pearls were almost gone now because the mussel beds had been so badly depleted by pollution and by dredging by people like Takamura.

“He takes and takes and takes,” Annabel had said with scorn. “But one of these days, the river is going to claim a price.”

Maybe it already had, Shelby thought, glancing at the shrouded stretcher being loaded into the hearse.

She could feel Nathan’s gaze on her and she glanced up at him. “You’re still a reporter, I take it.”

He shrugged. “Some might say that’s debatable. I work at the Argus now.”

“Your uncle’s paper?” Memories of past headlines flashed through Shelby’s mind. Virgil Dallas had pursed her relentlessly after her monster sighting that night. His stories had drawn reporters from all over the country, had made her a celebrity, but like everyone else in town, he’d turned on her after James had told his lies. “Why did you come back to Arcadia?” she asked Nathan. “As I recall, you couldn’t wait to get away from this place.”