But settled?

That wasn’t the right word. Not with that little something that kept gnawing at him inside, that voice that kept telling him twenty-six-year-old men didn’t settle into sleepy little beach towns where the only things keeping a person connected to the real world were cable television and a causeway bridge.

Twenty-seven. Today was his birthday. He had almost forgotten.

Louis set the camera on the bar and went to the refrigerator to get a Dr Pepper. As he closed the door, his eye caught the card that hung there under the seashell magnet. It was a birthday card with a picture of a golden retriever wearing a big red bow. He took it down and opened it, reading the short note again from Frances and Phillip. They had never forgotten his birthday, not once since he had first come to live with them when he was eight. Every November, a week before his birthday on the eighteenth, no matter where he was, the card would find him-always with the twenty-dollar bill tucked inside.

He put the card back under the magnet. Leaning back against the counter, he took a drink of the Dr Pepper, watching the shadows growing in the corners of the kitchen.

Shit, his birthday. Maybe he would go over to the Dodies’. He had just been to see them over the weekend, but hadn’t thought to mention his birthday was coming up. He glanced at his watch. After six. They’d already have had supper, but Margaret would surely fix him a plate.

No, he had been sponging off Sam and Margaret too much lately. He couldn’t afford to wear out his welcome. Even on his birthday.

A cricket started to sing somewhere in the cottage. His stomach rumbled, and he knew without looking there was nothing but a couple cans of Beefaroni in the cupboard. He finished the Dr Pepper and tossed the can in the trash. He’d walk down to Timmy’s and grab an early dinner, maybe a few beers.

He threw on a clean T-shirt and left the cottage. Next door, at number four, a family was dragging their suitcases out of their car and stopped to look at him. Louis gave them a smile and mumbled a good evening. The two teenaged boys stared at him sullenly. Louis hoped they weren’t like the last ones who had rented number four. Those kids had blasted their boombox into the night and he finally had to go over and tell them to stop.

He hadn’t really cared about the loud music. But the other guests did and it was his job to do something about it.

Louis shook his head as he headed out to the road. Security for Bransons on the Beach cottages. An ex-cop couldn’t get much lower than that. Even if it did mean he paid next to nothing for a gulf view others paid three hundred a day for.

The lot of Timmy’s Nook was nearly empty. It was too early for the locals and Timmy’s was too rustic looking for most of the tourists.

Bev looked up from behind the bar and gave him a smile. “You’re early. You hungry or just bored?”

“Both,” he said, taking a seat at one of wood tables covered with red checkered vinyl.

Bev was up to her thin elbows in soapy water. “It’ll be a minute or two. Carlo’s just fired up the fryers.” She cocked a head toward the cooler. “You know where it is.”

Louis got up, went behind the bar and got a Heineken, taking it back to the table. He watched Bev as she finished washing the bar glasses. He came into Timmy’s a couple times a week and Bev was always there to serve him his fried grouper sandwich with fries and slaw, but they had never gotten beyond friendly banter. Outside of what he saw of her here, he didn’t know much about her, and she sure as hell knew nothing about him, other than his tastes in food and that he lived down the road. And what had been in the newspapers.

Bev dried her bony hands. She looked maybe sixty, a spindly Lucille Ball with her upswept dark-rooted blond hair, bright red dime-store lipstick, always dressed in the same black capri pants and black tops. He liked her. She was like his cottage. Old-fashioned, a little musty, but homey.

She came over to lean against the wall near his table and eyed his Miami Dolphins T-shirt.

“Nice shirt,” she said.

“What’s wrong with it?” Louis asked.

“The Bucs ain’t good enough for you?”

“The Bucs aren’t good enough for much of anything.”

“All we need is a couple of good draft picks.”

“Shit, Bev, even Bo wouldn’t come to Tampa for seven million. The Bucs stink. They will always stink.”

She started to sulk, but Louis knew it was fake. They had been having this same argument since the first day he walked in. She was a die-hard Bucs fan and hated the Dolphins just on general principle. It was what passed for personal talk between them.

“Fucking Fish,” she muttered. “What kind of colors is that for a football team? Pool colors. You don’t look good in aqua, you know. No man looks good in aqua.”

Louis smiled, shaking his head.

“You want your usual?”

“Yeah. Extra tartar.”

Bev went back to the kitchen. Louis took a swig of beer. She was right about the aqua T-shirt. Six months ago, he wouldn’t have been caught dead in one. Hell, he never used to wear T-shirts out in public. Same with the khaki shorts and the flip-flops he was now wearing. He took another drink of beer. Was it because of Florida, like Dodie switching from flannel to those guayabera shirts? Or was it because he wasn’t a cop anymore? Even when a cop was off-duty, he usually dressed like he wasn’t. The humidity had probably just melted the starch out of him.

Bev wandered back, bringing silverware wrapped in a paper napkin. “Haven’t seen you in two days,” she said. “Where you been?”

“I had a job down in Bonita Springs,” Louis said.

“Another cheating, dirt-bag husband?”

“Cheating, dirt-bag wife this time.”

“How’d you nail her?”

“Photos. Coming out of the Days Inn.”

“Cheap bastard. He couldn’t spring for the Marriott?”

Louis knew Bev liked hearing the details whenever he had a surveillance case. But he didn’t really want to give them.

“Boring case, Bev,” he said. “Nothing juicy this time.”

“Damn.” She retreated to the kitchen. Louis took another drink of beer, his eyes wandering out the window. It was too dark now to see much further than the dock, but out in the black channel he could make out the red and green running lights of a boat making its way south.

His thoughts drifted to the husband of the woman he had busted in Bonita Springs. The poor guy had looked at the photographs, taken out his checkbook, slid the check across the table to Louis and left. All without saying a word.

Louis stared out at the black water. God, he hated it. He hated that woman, he hated that man, he hated sitting in a hot car waiting for people to prove they were human. He hated being a PI. He hated not being a cop.

“Excuse me.”

Louis looked up. A man was standing at his table. Tall, thin, wearing jeans and a faded green T-shirt.

“Are you Louis Kincaid?” he asked.

Louis nodded warily. It had been months since anyone had recognized him and he had begun to hope the notoriety was finally wearing off. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life answering questions from strangers who got off hearing about serial killers. The press had dubbed it the “Paint It Black” killings, after the Rolling Stones song. Once, when he was sitting at a bar, a drunk came up and even started singing it. Louis had almost punched the guy out. He just wanted to forget it, wanted his fifteen minutes to be up.

He looked up now into this man’s eyes. What was the question going to be this time?

“I’m Ronnie Cade. I heard about you.”

Louis saw Bev looking at them. She had come to be a little protective of him.

“I went to your house,” the man said. “Some weird French guy said you were probably here.”

Great. Leave it to Pierre. .

“Can I sit down?” the man asked.