"Well, fuck you," Noah said.

"Back at 'cha," Harrison replied as they drove out of town. He had sized Noah Vernon up immediately and, almost without thinking, knew how he was going to treat the kid: like the loser dirtbag he'd shown himself to be.

"Where are you taking me?" Noah demanded as soon as they left Seaside's city limits and headed south down 101.

"Don't know yet. Where do you want to go?"

"This is kidnapping!"

Harrison actually laughed. "Really? That's all you've got? Lame, Noah. You know absolutely nothing about anything, yet you think you have all the answers."

"You can't say that to me!" he declared, shocked. "Wow. I thought you were cool. You're a reporter! You're supposed to take down what I say."

"I'm not cool with people who threaten someone close to me," Harrison said in a cold voice.

"What are you talking about?"

"Doesn't matter," Harrison said. He had no intention of telling him anything about how he knew the woman Noah had caught eavesdropping. "Just wanted to be clear on how I felt about you."

Noah blinked in disbelief. "How you feel about me? Seriously?"

Harrison told him, "I don't like you. But I'll write up your story, let others make a judgment on you. Is that what you want? To be heard, Envy?"

"I got a right to be heard." His blue eyes were searching out the window, half panicked, as if he truly believed Harrison was taking him somewhere against his will.

"I'm all ears," Harrison said. The little shit had everything going for him, and he was determined to be as ungrateful as he could possibly be. Pauline Kirby was right: he did think Noah should be given more than a slap on the wrist for his exploits.

"Okay," Noah said.

"Then we'll stop at Ecola Park and you can tell me all about it."

Kirsten dropped Laura off at the hospital, and Laura turned and waved her a good-bye, to which Chico wagged his tail wildly in response.

It was strange, but Laura felt like she'd really made a friend of Harrison's sister, who'd been fascinated that she was a member of the "cult." Laura had managed to convince her that they weren't as weird as the locals made them out to be, but equally, Kirsten pointed out that their behavior and chosen way of life set them up to be targets of gossip and innuendo.

But then the conversation had eventually turned from Laura and moved to Kirsten and Didi and the tragic situation that had brought them to the coast. "I miss him," she said, after telling Laura how she'd met Manny Rojas, how he'd made her laugh, how she'd fallen in love in one minute. "I've put the bad stuff behind me, pretty much," she said, her smile faint. "But I wish I had him back."

"I'm sorry," Laura said, meaning it.

Kirsten shrugged, as if shaking off the depression and gloom physically. "So, okay, we've covered your family and mine. Tell me more about you and Harrison. If you tell me there's nothing between you, I won't believe you."

"There's nothing between us."

"I don't believe you."

They both laughed and then Laura said, "I've just gotten a divorce. I'm very far away from a relationship with anyone else for a lot of reasons."

"Like what else?"

For one crazy moment, Laura had wanted to confide in her about the baby. But reason reasserted itself, and in lieu of answering, she said, "Justice is after me and my family. Harrison's helping me. We're going to the authorities later today, and I'm going to tell them that . . . Justice attacked me. That's why we showed up at your house."

"What? You didn't say that before!"

So, Laura explained about the events the prior evening that led Harrison to take her to Kirsten's cottage, and Kirsten, now aware completely, insisted they both stay with her again that night. Laura agreed, conditionally, needing Harrison's vote on the decision as well, though it was undoubtedly a slam dunk. She didn't want to go home. Ever. Well, at least until she fixed the door Justice had broken in, and even then she worried she might never feel safe there again.

Now, as she entered the hospital and headed for her locker, the first person she ran into was Byron. He was standing outside the staff room door, as if he was waiting for someone. Her? Or, just anyone to sweep into his trap?

He watched her as she approached, and she couldn't contain the groan that passed her lips. How, how, had she ever thought she was in love with him?

"You look even worse than the last time I saw you," he told her, his laserlike gaze raking over her with a surgeon's impassivity.

"Hi to you, too." She turned toward the room, but his hand caught the crook of her arm.

"You are pregnant," he stated flatly. Then, "See, you're not the only one who can diagnose around here. Is it mine?"

"No."

"No?"

"No, I'm not pregnant. I guess I am the only one who can diagnose around here," she challenged, hoping the lie didn't show on her face.

"If it isn't mine, whose is it?" He leaned closer to her.

"Is the issue that you're worried there might be a host of little Byrons incubating around the area? Maybe you ought to check with a current girlfriend or two and leave your ex-wife out of it."

His lips parted in true surprise. "When did you turn into such a witch?"

"I've always been a witch," Laura said with a trace of bitterness. "Ask anyone around town."

She left him with a lost look on his face that was priceless. It made her almost laugh. He didn't know her history, of course, and therefore didn't know she was associated with the "cult" at Siren Song.

But as soon as she'd taken ten steps away, she was seized by a wave of reality-based fear, and she leaned against her locker as she opened it. The truth was, she was pregnant. And it was his baby. And no amount of wishing and hoping was going to change that fact. Sooner or later, she was going to have to stop shoving the issue aside and face it head-on.

CHAPTER 31.

Ecola State Park was on the outskirts of the town of Cannon Beach, named for the cannon replicas from shipwrecks that were placed in vehicle turnouts located at either end of the entrances to the town. Cannon Beach was a more chichi place than Seaside, full of expensive candy stores and clothing shops and restaurants, in contrast to the Coney Island feel of its northern neighbor. It was the "it" place to go on Oregon's northern coastline, although the affluent were slowly moving to towns south of it as well.

Harrison pulled into the park and inwardly sighed as Noah jumped out of the car almost before it stopped moving, slamming the passenger door hard enough to give the Impala a case of the shakes.

The kid walked to an empty picnic table and threw himself onto the bench. Harrison had shed his jacket earlier, when the sun first threatened to come out from hiding behind the clouds, and now he watched as Noah yanked off the watch cap and ran a hand through his rumpled light brown hair. He next pulled off his black jacket, and without the armor he looked skinny and vulnerable and young.

Grabbing the bench opposite Noah, who was facing the ocean, Harrison made sure he wasn't in the way of the kid's view. Noah stared toward the sea for a few moments, then dragged a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, throwing Harrison a dark look in the process to see if he was going to stop him. When he got no reaction, he shook out a cigarette, jammed it to his lips, then pulled out a lighter and touched the flame to the end, sucking hard. He had to fight back a minor cough, which made Harrison inwardly sigh; then he blew out a stream of smoke and said, "They think they're so smart, you know. The ones we target. Got all the answers. Well, they don't know jack shit."

"Mind if I make notes?" Harrison asked, pulling out his notebook from his back pants pocket.

"Do what'cha gotta do."

"The ones you target . . . Do you mean your classmates or their parents, or both?"

"Their parents are fucked up, man. That's for sure. So are mine."

Harrison shrugged. "Kind of a common complaint from your age group, isn't it?"

"So what? We did something about it. That's what I'm saying." He turned a sharp blue gaze Harrison's way. "We hit their weak spot. Opened up their Pandora's box. Showed 'em they weren't gods."

"You broke into their houses and trespassed and pilfered."

Noah frowned. "Pilfered?"

"Stole," Harrison explained with a straight face.

"Yeah, well, we formed an alliance to fight back," he said with sudden passion. "They treat people like they're nothing! We made them realize that we could enter their world anytime we wanted. Anytime! And take things from them. We're deadly, man. The Seven Deadly Sinners."

Harrison wrote down a few notes and said, "But you're from their same world, economic-wise. How does that translate?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, but he knew.

Still, Harrison would play his game for a while. "Your father is Bryce Vernon. He's a successful land developer who's hung on to his wealth, even throughout this whole recession. Your family might be-and probably is-as well-to-do as the Bermans or any of the other families you hit."

"The Bermans suck!" he said through clenched teeth. He turned away, trying to hide from Harrison's gaze suddenly, but he couldn't quite manage it. Harrison noted how his face grew red with some kind of emotion: anger, frustration, maybe . . . even embarrassment?

Ping. Harrison felt the answer resound in his brain. For all Noah's posturing, for all his "leading" of his band of entitled misfits, for all his crowing that he needed to be heard-it wasn't about any of it. This was something to do with the Bermans themselves, and Harrison had a pretty good guess what it was.

"Britt," he said, and the stunned look that crossed Noah's face was all the answer Harrison needed.

"Britt?" Noah repeated carefully.

"That's what set this in motion. Britt Berman. Your imagination did the rest. Your initials . . . your need to make something big and important out of mere jealousy. You turned your rejection and angst into a whole thing."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you do. This Deadly Sinners alliance. It's all smoke and mirrors. A way to attack those who've wronged you. You. Noah Vernon. And you got your posse to go along with it because they bought into your whole alliance thing. What did she do? Berman. Set you up to watch you fall? Humiliate you? Crush you? Maybe just never even look at you?" He paused, then said, "She doesn't even know you exist."

"Oh, yes, she does."

"No, she doesn't."

"Yes, she does!"

Harrison shook his head.

"She knows me!" he insisted. "Especially now!"

"Now that you've broken into her house and got your Deadly Sinners in the news? And then tomorrow, when you're eighteen, you want me to blast your name across the paper and increase the Myth of Noah Vernon. How am I doing so far?"

"You'd better take me back now, or I'll scream that you kidnapped me. I really will."

"Go ahead. You called the paper and left your number."

"And you'd better not print any of that, either!"

"You don't want to be heard anymore?"

"Not the way you're doing it!"

"By pointing out the truth?"

"You say anything about Britt and I'll sue you for every cent you own!" He spat out his cigarette and stomped the smoldering butt with his heavy boot.

"You and dear old Dad?"

Noah looked trapped. He glanced around, as if searching for somewhere to run. Harrison waited a few moments and could almost see the air seep out of his balloon as his shoulders slumped and his body sank onto the bench.

"Don't worry, badass. Your secret's safe with me," Harrison said. "I don't have to tell the world you're just another lovesick loser. I'll say you're a Deadly Sinner and you're the brains of the group and should be tried as an adult. You want to go to jail for this fiction, be my guest. It's up to the judge, not me and not public opinion. I could put a different spin on it, if you want me to. Write that you were going to extreme lengths to be noticed by a girl and that-"

"No." He was firm. "That's not what it's about."

Noah got to his feet and started heading back to the car. Harrison fell in step beside him.

"If this is just about some cockeyed version of street cred," Harrison said, "it won't be worth the consequences you could face."

"I don't care."

"You sure?"

"Yes!"

Harrison climbed into the car, and Noah flopped into the passenger seat, his face turned away, his shoulders hunched. Harrison almost felt sorry for the kid. Almost. But he definitely felt both relief and frustration that this story was ending and he could jump fully onto the Justice Turnbull one; relief that he could move on without worrying he was leaving something big, and frustration because the damn thing had taken so much energy in the first place. He needed to be with Lorelei.

And then he should be writing her story. And the Colony's. And Turnbull's. They were all interwoven, and it was several serious levels more intense than the Deadly Sinners' teen drama.

Harrison dropped Noah off back at his house. Then he stopped at the Breeze and typed up a rather banal account of his meeting with Noah, explaining that Noah Vernon, a boy of privilege who was turning eighteen by the time this story would be published, had been bored and wanted to be something bigger, something important, and he coerced his friends into breaking and entering and robbery and trespassing as their golden ticket into another world, the world of crime.

When he turned in the story, Buddy remarked that he'd pretty much nailed Noah Vernon by naming him, but Harrison just ignored him, heading for the door. Noah's father and a sympathetic judge would foil Noah's plans to be infamous. Chances were the kid would be in college in a year, joining a fraternity, with a clean, or expunged, record.

That was just how it went a lot of times.

Harrison's head was full of thoughts of the Deadly Sinners until he passed by the drive to Ocean Park Hospital on his way into Deception Bay. He almost pulled in, just to see Lorelei, but forced himself to let her work at her job. He'd told her to keep her phone on her whether it was hospital rules or not, and figured she would call him if there was trouble.

Still, it was with great difficulty that he let the hospital grounds disappear in his rearview mirror. Justice had attacked her the night before. Harrison was going to make damn sure he was with her before nightfall this evening, but for now, he wanted to speak with Zellman, if he could talk the man into an interview.

He'd just passed the access road to Lorelei's house when something caught his attention, and he turned around at the first available empty drive and retraced his route back to her access road. As he drove up it, he saw a vehicle nearly obscured by the brush running riot on either side. A black Range Rover. The one he'd damn near sideswiped the night before.