In a Hail of Bullets ends, somewhat spectacularly, with a climactic duel between the primary antagonist and protagonist upon the open ocean. It begins with a harrowing speedboat chase along the piers of Coney Island, continues with a physical altercation aboard one of the unpiloted vessels as it charges out to sea, and concludes with the protagonist's bittersweet victory. He defeats his foe, but is left on a structurally compromised vessel slowly sinking into the sea. The man is floating alone miles from shore, suffering from multiple wounds and the initial onset of hypothermia. Castle describes the night, the stars, and the moonlight in such an evocative manner. Juxtaposed to the musings of a character slowly slipping into the arms of death, it is a downright staggering scene.
But then something odd occurs.
A great wave from the open sea eases the character back towards the shore, soon followed by a second. It had seemed a strange choice at the time. As a reader, it hadn't made the most sense to Beckett. But the waves don't save the character per se, merely propel him gradually out of the current carrying him farther out to sea and into the arms of a different one that's path wound back towards land. Galvanized by the unexpected aid, the man begins laboriously swimming for shore. That's where the story ends. It falls to the reader to conclude whether the protagonist makes it home. At the time she had found it strangely satisfying.
It was a good ending. But it was never entirely fiction.
Warmth and wetness are threatening in her eyes, and the detective can't understand for certain why; not for a lack of possible causes, but for too many to provide a single answer. "Jesus fucking Christ," she issues, her voice cracking.
None of the others say a single word. Their little group is weighted by silence. It's heavy in the room, overbearing. It's pressing her deeper into the cushions of her seat and constricting her chest as she tries to breathe. Beckett doesn't merely stand, but vacates her chair as though it were aflame. Agitation becomes a deep compulsion and pulls her into the hallway and down it. She hears Martha call after her, but no—no! The idea of being still is as abhorrent as it would be to any fish in the nearby sea. Stillness is death. Winter's jaws snap onto her as she exits the front door in only her Julie v-neck sweater. That is a mere side-note.
But then she does stop. Not wanting to, but dragged to a halt by the need to focus. Don't think about it.
She cannot help to do so.
In a Hail of Bullets is broken down into two books within the novel itself. At the very beginning, Book One is preceded by a designating page along with a rather chilling quote from Samuel Johnson: Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged. Crimes are avenged. Kate succeeds in forcing herself to not linger on that. That is for another day. Book Two's beginning is what's sent her into the maw of a frigid evening. It has a similar designating page, but no quote. It bears instead an original poem.
God. Don't, Katie.
She recalls it now, word-for-word, as though temporarily gifted with eidetic memory:
Now earth is far beyond, below, and from its trappings I must go,
Upon this yielding, jagged path carved by Diana's knife
And bench and note, chord and key, they all are strangers to the sea
I must have known them somewhere else, in a different life.
Now blurred are nocturnes of the past, from last to first, from first to last,
Like music in the room next door, half heard, half understood
Already I forget that sound, the one our hands together found
It fades like sea foam on the shore, and I can't help but think—that's good.
Keep your circ'ling light in the sky, its questions and its reasons why
And keep away that aching, awful, blissful, lovely din
I'm bound upon chaotic waves for some new place with fewer graves
Where music is but memory, and memory gives in.
Eyes closed, her lips form the words as they spill through her mind—so easily, like melting snow gliding down the slope of a roof warmed by the Spring sun. They pile within her, upon her. Her chin is bent towards her chest as if she were yoked and burdened.
The door closes to announce the departure of another guest. Beckett detects the other woman's perfume upon the air well before she actually speaks.
"I don't think he realized what he'd done at first." Martha's voice is such a tender thing, so different from how the detective is accustomed to hearing it. "His first book was a whirlwind success—written, published, and celebrated so quickly. He was so," she pauses, swallowing thickly, "so young, Katherine. He didn't know to be wary of the pieces of himself that slipped through the cracks and onto the page." The woman moved to Kate's right side, facing down the driveway. "But I have no doubt now that it's because of how much of himself was in the story that the literary world embraced him so readily. It's like they knew instantly that he was going to become a writer who would endure to do great things."
"He did," Kate replies woodenly. "You can see the makings of Derrick Storm in there too—the idea of the character that was waiting to become." She hisses softly and buries her face in her hands, pulling them down her features and fisting them beneath her chin. "Christ, Martha. Th-that poem—
"I know," the other interrupts. It is a grunt of sound dredged up from somewhere deeper than her vocal chords. "He got it excluded from the second printing. Did you know? That was one shared piece too many."
"He—" she stops, the sheer weight of the words too much for a moment. "He really, truly gave up out there." Her dark eyes blur. "He wanted to…go. He didn't want to come back. His character swims for shore. But I...I don't think Castle did." Her voice shakes upon the words. "I think he fought hard the other way."
Martha's eyes well to overflowing. Her lips part around a stuttering inhalation. "He cried so hard on the beach where they found him. He kept calling for Laura." The actress trembles where she stands, and Kate's heart plummets. "At first I thought he needed her more than he did me. I was right there, but he kept calling for her. I hugged him so hard. He was so angry. Just as enraged as sad. I was so scared. Terrified. Like he'd vanish forever if I let go. I was crying. He was. Everyone on the beach was—grown men." She stalled and her shoulders rock with mute sobs. The detective has no words, feels the torrent of a matching grief upon her cheeks. "He cried s-s-so hard, beat his little fists into the sand. We knew. We couldn't not know. If you'd heard him, Katherine, oh god," she heaves, and her legs shake with the threat of a fall.
"Shh," Kate stutters softly, hugging the woman hard. "Shh. Martha, shh."
"You'd have known too," the mother sobs. "He wasn't crying because she wasn't there. H-he was crying because...he was."
Fuck. Hearing the words aloud is like a dam breaking in both of them.
And for a long series of moments there are simply no more intelligible ones to offer. There's nothing at all to say.