After a few seconds, Kimberly put her arms around her. They stood there hugging each other, Kimberly patting her sister’s back and murmuring to her. Kimberly was wet. She’d gone in the water for a little swim after our picnic lunch on the beach, and had just waded ashore a minute or two before the explosion. Her black hair was matted against her skull and hung in a sheath down the nape of her neck. Her back was golden and smooth and dripping. She wore a white bikini. The pants of her bikini hung a little crooked, lower on one hip than on the other, showing more of the top of her right buttock than her left. And the middle of the seat had a crease in it…

Enough of that.

She looked damn fine, that’s all. I couldn’t help staring. But I also spent my share of time looking out across the water. The cloud of smoke had moved on and thinned out. I could see a couple of islands, way off in the distance. But not much else except water and sky.

Kimberly led her sister away from the rest of us. They sat shoulder to shoulder on the blanket where we’d had our picnic.

“Poor thing,” Billie said, watching them.

“Splendid move on Wesley’s part, blowing up our boat.”

“Andrew!”

“Fumes in the engine compartment,” he went on. “The idiot knew they could blow us to hell and gone. My mistake. Shouldn’t have let him stay on board, nobody there to keep an eye on him. Should’ve known he’d fuck up the works. The bastard. He was too dumb to live.”

“Andrew!”

“At least he blew himself up with the boat. That’s the silver lining.”

“Don’t let your daughter hear you say such things. She loved him.”

“He sure as shit didn’t love her. Anyhow, good riddance. Rest in pieces, Wesley.” And he hocked a wad of spit onto the sand at his feet.

After that, Andrew and Keith went out on the dinghy to see what they could find at the scene of the explosion.