Part 9

That night, Luna dreamt she was taller than a city, walking beneath the full moon between snow-covered hills and holding their peaks. Red bows swung in her black hair. Biscuit flew through the stars, but in the dream his name was Felix. “That’s impossible,” she thought. “A Red Dragon can’t have a human name. Felix the Red Dragon. Red Dragon Felix. Fenix? Phoenix, Arizona?” Suddenly, the conical mountains vanished, and the dream left her standing on a mirror beneath the moon in the clear sky. She touched the cold glass beneath her. “Ice.” She stood in the middle of a frozen lake and realized it would melt before she reached the shore. Dread filled her, and she screamed.

***

“It’s okay, Luna. Gran’s here. It was just a bad dream. It’s gone, now. You are safe. I’m here,” whispered Gran.

“I drowned, Gran. I drowned in the lake. Dad was gone and he didn’t help me. I was left to drown,” cried Luna and tears rolled down her big cheeks.

“You didn’t. Gran’s here. You are here. Everything is okay.”

“Where is Granddad? It’s always him who comes at night.”

“Granddad went out. He’ll be back. He always does. Do you miss him?”

“I always do.”

“Me, too.”

Luna and Helen held each other and cried.

***

“I’ll have another,” Tom Stone pointed to his coffee cup. He folded the newspaper, dusted crumbs off the counter, and slapped the newspaper down. A man wearing a blue suit and a thin tie walked in carrying a briefcase.

“Mr. Stone?” asked the man too young to carry a briefcase.

“Yes.”

The man smiled. Tom measured him from the cute hair, blue suit, and down to the scuffed brown shoes.

“Edwin Mercer. Nice to meet you. It’s strange to meet in a diner about this sad business. Should we sit in a booth for some privacy?”

“Here will do,” said Tom, and his eyes pierced Mercer’s suit. Mercer shuffled nervously as he now carried the burden of finalizing an insurance claim for the death of one’s son at a diner counter.

“Okay!” Mercer climbed up a barstool. Tom stared ahead into the round porthole-like window that led to the diner office.

“So, I take it your son was a fisherman?”

“Somewhat.”

“How did he fish that day? I do see that you have a boat. So, boat fishing?”

“I have a boat, they found the boat, the police report mentions my boat, and I had to tow the boat, so yes, he fished and drowned off a boat. Stella Maris marina up the Holland River.”

“River? I see. So how did the boat get to the lake?”

“It’s the same body of water. He fished for crappie in the delta. Look at the map.” Tom Stone was growing impatient.

“I see. A real tragedy – a cup of coffee, please – your son, he suffered from some mental issues and substance abuse, but I take it he has been quite well for a few years. Correct?”

“Six years, abouts,” lied Tom.

“The postmortem drug tests also came back negative,” Mercer shuffled the papers.

Outside, the clouds blurred out the sunlight, and a quick rain swept over the street.

“That’s remarkable considering the ordeal he went through in childhood. Childhood-onset schizophrenia sounds terrifying. I can’t imagine it happening to my kid. It seems your son had a new lease on life, huh?”

Tom Stone turned his head, gave Mercer a long stare, exhaled, and turned back.

“Now, was he an avid fisherman?” asked Mercer.

“You’re a damned dunce, boy, aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but this is why we prefer to have these discussions in private.”

“Well, if we were having this discussion in private, I may have shot your dumb ass by now.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You came here to sign off some papers, not to ask dumbass questions. You are a paper jockey. It’s done. The man is dead, and if you ask another dumb question, you won’t see your mother’s breasts tonight.”

“Mr. Stone, sir, I apologize. Of course, the insurance covers your loss, but I’m just curious. With all due sensitivity…”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” said Tom. He lifted his jacket, and Mercer saw a flash of a black pistol. “You, your dumb tie, and your soccer-player haircut are too young to be sensitive. Not to mention my associate over there” – Tom pointed at Tree calmly sitting in a booth – “may take that haircut of yours as an insult to his people. So please, just get the hell on with it.” Tom smirked.

“Yes, sir.”

The waitress brought Mercer a glass of water.

“Don’t worry about it, Angie. Mr. Suit is done. The last thing he needs to do is to pull out some papers for me to sign. Luna Stone will be the sole beneficiary, and Tom Stone and Helen Stone her guardians.”

Tom Stone was as hard as winter.