Thirteen Days By Sunset Beach by Ramsey Campbell Read Free Book Online

on her. Now, what kind of a day would you like?"
    "Stay at the hotel. There's a lady who'll play with me."
    "It isn't really a hotel, is it?" Julian said, glancing not quite at Pris and Doug. "I wonder what there would be for the rest of us."
    "I don't mind a day by the pool," Jonquil said.
    "You've already been given a day, Jonquil."
    "While Will has his, she means," Tim said. "By the pool's okay with me."
    When his parents and grandparents agreed William risked a cheer. "And look," Sandra said, "the shadow's gone."
    "Well see you very soon," Ray told her and followed Julian over to Sam. Places were available on all the tours, and tomorrow's was the cruise around the island. Sam took payments from the credit cards so speedily that she almost tore the vouchers in the machine. She handed back the cards and gave Julian the tickets, which appeared to placate him in some way. "I'll keep these in the safe," he said, "so we'll know where they are."
    Ray might have objected to the assumption of authority if he hadn't remembered the passport episode. "If it keeps you happy, Jules," Doug said.
    "I think your driver wants to be off," Sam said.
    "He's not alone," Julian said. "I don't think any of us will be coming back here."
    "It isn't to your taste, then."
    Could Sam be hoping so? She'd glanced towards the street, where more than one pair of eyes gleamed red with neon, but Ray took her to be concerned with the driver. Ray made for the minibus to encourage everyone to do so, and the driver climbed out at once to slide the door back. "Sorry for the wait," Ray said when everyone was seated.
    The driver sent the minibus forward. "Doesn't matter now," he said and returned his gaze to the crowded road so immediately that Ray couldn't tell who he'd been watching in the mirror.

The Third Day: 22 August
    Ray could only think he had been dreaming. He wasn't even certain whether a knock had wakened him. Perhaps a guest at the Sunny View had come back late or was looking for a friend's room, since the next noise was even more distant and so discreet it sounded close to insubstantial, if he was hearing it at all. While he didn't think anyone opened a door, he heard no other sound, not even footsteps, though he didn't recall hearing any of those in the first place. What suggested that some if not all of this had been a dream was that as he reached across the conjoined beds to reassure himself about Sandra, he had an impression of somebody stealing out of the room.
    Since it wasn't Sandra, it couldn't have been real. Just the same, as Ray clasped her waist he tried to focus the dim room. It resembled a charcoal sketch of itself, and it was as still as the hour—nearly three in the morning—ought to be. Sandra stirred beneath the quilt and murmured a few indistinct words about feeling, unless he'd misheard her. "Are you feeling all right?" he whispered despite hoping not to interrupt her sleep. He was happy to take her silence for assent, even for a kind of contentment, which he did his best to reinforce with not too fierce an embrace.
    He thought she'd enjoyed last night's family dinner, even if at times it had felt carefully polite rather than entirely convivial. He'd caught Julian and Doug avoiding areas of disagreement for her sake rather than risk another argument such as they'd had at Christmas. They'd seemed close to quarrelling when Julian had started to dissect the bill with the precision he boasted of applying to insurance claims, but then Doug had made a joke of it—almost too much of one for Julian's taste. "Always look after your money and anyone else's you're responsible for," he'd counselled William, and Ray had seen Doug resist taking this as a gibe about how he tried never to deny payments to clients at the unemployment centre, just like Pris. At least the muted confrontation came too late to interfere with Sandra's appetite. She might almost have been eating for two people, and Ray only wished her waist weren't still so