DIDN’T I tell you she hated me?” Maggie slumped in the front seat of Hal’s car.
“Well, now, hate might be too strong a word.” Hal drove away from the curb, mindful of the group of teens who for unknown reasons did not seem capable of walking on a sidewalk in this town. “I think she’s got issues, Maggie, but I don’t know that she hates you.”
“She’d rather take her chances with some crazy guy in a ski mask than have me stay with her.”
“Let’s be fair, now.” He paused, trying to choose his words carefully. “I’d guess that she’s a little put out on Beck’s behalf. You know he wasn’t expecting to see you at the wedding, Maggie.”
“You think I was wrong to come.”
“I think if he-”
“You think if he’d wanted me at his wedding he’d have invited me.”
“That isn’t what I was going to say, but yes, I think that’s probably true.”
He rolled to a stop sign, looked both ways to see what was what on Rayburn Road before continuing on his way.
“So what were you going to say?”
“I was going to say, if he’d had some time to prepare himself, if he’d had some contact with you over the past few years, he’d have taken it a little better.”
Tears welled in Maggie’s eyes. “I’ve never done a damned thing right where that boy was concerned. I didn’t know how to handle him when he was a child, or when he was a teenager, or now that he’s an adult. I’ve never known how to talk to him, Hal. I think it would have been easier for all of us if you’d been there…” She swallowed hard. “That was not what I intended to say, so forget that part.”
“Maggie, once something’s been said, it’s said.” He drove around the block to Charles Street. “You can’t take words back and pretend they weren’t spoken.” His voice softened. “Just like you can’t take the last twenty years back, and expect your children to pretend those years never happened.”
Maggie stared out the window.
“What should I do, Hal?”
“You have a lot of explaining to do to both of them,” he told her. “If you want them to let you into their lives, you have to let them into yours. From what you’ve told me, you’ve made a lot of mistakes in your life.” He hastened to add, “We all have. But you have to own up to them if you’re going to move past them.”
“What if I tell them, and they still don’t like me?”
“Well, then, I suppose that’s a chance you have to take. The way it stands right now, they both have problems with you but they don’t understand why you acted the way you did. There is a chance that they could hear the truth and still have a problem with you. That’s the chance you take. But they’re your kids, and if you want them back in your life, you’re going to have to step up and talk to them, and tell them everything you’ve told me over the past twenty-four hours. Maybe they’ll understand and forgive, maybe they won’t. I’m seeing that as fifty-fifty. But if you don’t have those conversations with them, your chances of reconciling with your kids are zero.”
“What if they dislike me even more?”
“Like I said, that’s the chance you take.”
“Where should I start? What would you do, if you were me?” she asked.
“I guess I’d start by taking Ness out to dinner and just talking to her. Get to know her a little, find out what’s happened in her life since she’s come here.”
“Well, I know what’s happened in her life. I know that you took her under your wing and helped her to get her business started. I know that you financed that little house of hers. I know that she thinks of you as the father she didn’t have.”
Hal couldn’t tell if she sounded happy or annoyed.
“You know that much, seems to me that’s a starting point.”
He drove down Kelly’s Point and parked in the spot that was reserved for the chief of police. He never got tired of remembering that the chief was his son. He opened his car door and started to get out.
She reached for the door handle and asked, “Do you hate me, Hal?”
He shook his head. “No. I never hated you, Maggie.”
“Not even when you came back from Nam and found out I was married to someone else?”
“Maybe for a while, back then,” he admitted. “But I started thinking about how hard things must have been for you. Pregnant, not knowing if I’d come back alive, your parents pressuring you to marry this other man. After a time, I realized you did what you thought you had to do. I understood.”
He slammed his car door and walked around to the passenger side.
“The fact that I understood doesn’t mean that I liked it.” He fell in step with her and they walked down the road toward the Bay.
“I was scared.”
“Of course you were. Who wouldn’t have been?”
“My father kept telling me that the baby and I would end up like these homeless people we had in the town where we lived.” Her step slowed. “My parents owned a restaurant, and every night, there’d be people cleaning out the Dumpster out back. My parents would leave the leftovers in these Styrofoam containers and they’d leave plastic knives and forks out there so that people wouldn’t have to eat with their hands.” She shook her head. “It sounds so crazy now. But my father used to make me watch out the window when they came. ‘See that?’ He’d hold my face to the glass. ‘That’s going to be you if you don’t marry Vic.’”
She clasped her hands together in front of her as they walked, and Hal suspected that the hands were probably as shaky as the voice.
“I don’t blame you, Maggie. We already talked about this,” Hal reminded her.
He’d heard it the night before, and he didn’t want to hear it all again. He understood how one thing had led to another in the past, how everything had gone downhill and why she felt powerless to stop it. He just didn’t want to hear it again now. He wanted to put it all behind him. He wasn’t sure where that would take them, but one thing he knew for certain: looking back was no way to move forward.
Which was all well and good as far as he was concerned, he supposed, but apparently she hadn’t gotten it all out of her system yet, in which case he’d be hearing about it again and again. But if that was what Maggie needed to work it all out, that was the way it was going to have to be. The thing was, he wasn’t sure that even Maggie fully understood the choices she’d made over the years. Maybe she’d have to talk it through a little more before she did. And that was okay, because the longer she talked, the more time he’d have to look at her. It was a pleasure he thought he’d never experience again, and he wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity.
He took her by the arm and led her down the path to One Scoop or Two.
“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Are you taking me for ice cream?”
“Yes, I am,” he replied. “And while we’re here, I’m going to have a little talk with Steffie about this Candice person who was in Ness’s shop the other day. She may have noticed something that Vanessa might have missed.”
“And after that, are you going to take me back to the Inn?”
“Nope. After that, I’m going to take you for a cruise around the Bay on the Shady Lady.”
“The Shady Lady?”
“My boat.” He opened Steffie’s screen door and waited for Maggie to catch up.
“Did you name your boat after me?”
Hal smiled, and stepped back to allow her to pass.
“You won’t believe who that was on the phone.” Vanessa came into the spare bedroom, where Grady was hanging his tux in the closet. He’d meant to give it to Andy to return when he took his own back, but he hadn’t been able to locate his brother before he left the Inn.
“Let me guess. It was Candice, apologizing for having trashed your store and wondering if you could get her another one of those dresses.” He looked over at the doorway, where she stood leaning against the jamb. “Maybe one that’s in one piece.”
“I wish. Maybe her number would show up on my caller ID so that we could track her down and sit her phony little ass in one of my brother’s cells.” She plopped down on the chair in the corner. “Maggie was on the phone. She’s with Hal, and they wanted to know if I wanted to meet them for dinner.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them I had plans.” She crossed her legs.
“Do you?”
“I do now.” She grinned. “Unless of course, you have plans with your family…”
“I don’t. I did try to catch up with Andy and Connor at the Inn, but they’re either playing tennis or sightseeing, and they weren’t in their rooms.”
He tossed his suitcase on the bed and opened it.
“Mind if I use one of those drawers?” he asked.
“Help yourself. They’re all empty.”
He wondered if it felt as odd to her to see him put his clothes in her dresser as it felt for him to be doing it. He could have kept his room at the Inn, but that would have defeated the purpose of him staying in St. Dennis. He hadn’t planned on hanging around, but he could not in good conscience leave her while he still suspected that someone meant her harm. There had been one or two times in his life as an agent when he’d felt, in hindsight, that some action on his part might have prevented something from happening to someone who’d ended up a victim. For the past several years, he’d had to live with wondering if he could have saved Melissa. If he’d been able to see Brendan for what he really was, would she still be alive?
No way was he going to leave St. Dennis with similar regrets. Uh-uh. If something happened to Vanessa, too, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
He thought about the guided hike he had scheduled for the end of the coming week. Well, if other arrangements for her safety could not be made, he’d just have to take her with him back to Montana, maybe leave her at the lodge while he took out his tour. Right then, the only thing he knew for certain was that he wasn’t going to leave her alone and vulnerable in St. Dennis.
“Grady?” She was sitting in the chair, her knees primly together, her arms resting on her thighs. “I’m glad you came back.”
He put the last of his things in the drawer and closed it.
“Thank you,” she added.
He turned around and studied her face. “Why wouldn’t I have come back?”
She shrugged. “I guess I just thought that you weren’t going to.”
“Didn’t I tell you that I’d be stopping at the Inn?”
“Maybe you said something about the Inn…”
He went to the chair and leaned down to kiss her. “Do you really think I’d have done that? That I’d have waved good-bye and never come back?”
“I suppose I don’t have great expectations when it comes to men.”
“Then I guess we’re going to have to raise your expectations.” He kissed her again. “What do you want to do between now and dinner?”
She smiled and pulled him close. “Unfortunately, Sue is still here.”
“Well then, we’ll just have to find something else to do until Sue is finished.” He thought about it for a moment, then pulled her up. “Let’s walk down to Steffie’s for ice cream. You know you’re dying to talk to her about what happened last night at the shop.”
“Actually, yes, I admit I am. How did you know that?”
“I have a sister.”
They stopped in the kitchen to tell Sue they’d be gone for a while. The locksmith still hadn’t arrived, but she said he’d called and was on his way.
“I’ll still be working on this counter, so I can let him in,” Sue told them. “There are a lot of prints here.”
“Some are probably mine,” Grady said, recalling that he’d spent most of Thursday in Vanessa’s kitchen. “But I can get a copy of mine sent from the Bureau to your department so you can rule those out.”
“Thanks.” Sue never raised her eyes from her work. “That would be helpful.”
The air was cooler than it had been when they’d walked through town earlier in the day, but it was still pleasant. When they got to the corner at Charles Street, Vanessa raised her right hand to her face and said, “Let’s keep walking. I don’t want to see it. I’ll deal with the shop tomorrow.”
There was still a lot of foot traffic in town, and he could have told her that more than one pedestrian had stopped to look at her store, where the police tape still wrapped around the front. Grady took her hand as they crossed the street and headed down Kelly’s Point, and tried not to think about the fact that she’d believed he’d left her with nothing more than a beep and a wave. She wasn’t kidding when she said she had low expectations of men.
Well, the only thing he could do was try to raise them, and he was determined to do just that. If he could have gotten his hands around Gene Medford’s neck, he’d have choked him for what he’d done to this woman. Grady was almost sorry that one of Gene’s fellow inmates had gotten to him first.
“Grady?” Vanessa tugged on his hand.
“Oh, sorry. I guess I just wandered for a minute.”
“I said, it looks like half the town had the same idea we did.”
“It’s really crowded.” He could see through the side windows. “I think we’re going to have to wait until a few people come out before we can go in.”
“We could walk down to the dock, and… oh, there’s Miss Grace.” Vanessa smiled and waved.
“Oh, Vanessa, dear.” The older woman sat alone at one of the small outside tables. “I heard about your shop. I am so sorry. I can hardly believe it.”
“I can hardly believe it myself, Miss Grace.”
“Do the police have any suspects?”
“Not yet. I know they’re working on it, but so far…” Vanessa shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Was much stolen?”
“I won’t know until tomorrow. The police were still combing through the shop this morning, looking for evidence, so I didn’t go inside today.”
“Well, it must have been someone from out of town,” Grace pronounced. “I cannot imagine anyone from St. Dennis doing such a thing.”
“I feel the same way,” Vanessa said. “I don’t want to think that anyone I know would do this to me. But we do think it may have been someone who took advantage of the fact that everyone’s attention was on the Inn yesterday.”
“I wouldn’t think that anyone other than the locals would have known about the wedding.” Grace frowned. “Was there much damage to the shop?”
“One of the glass cases was broken, and one of the windows on the side was damaged. I think I probably lost some inventory, and I’m clearly going to need a new lock and a new alarm system, since both failed last night.”
“Terrible, dear. Just terrible.” Grace waved a thin hand as if to fan herself as she turned to Grady. “And what’s this I’m hearing about your car being smashed to smithereens?”
“Not quite smithereens,” he replied, “but yes, someone broke the windows out of my rental car while Vanessa and I were in Bling following the burglary.”
“Such crazy business. What next, do you suppose?” Grace patted him on the arm. “But it was certainly good of you to accompany Vanessa to the scene of the crime. I’m sure Beck will appreciate you giving her a hand last night.”
The corners of Vanessa’s mouth twitched.
Grady pretended not to notice. “Yes, ma’am. I was glad to do it.”
“Well, I hope they catch whoever was responsible.” Grace paused. “Do you think it was the same person? It seems awfully suspicious to me, one happening right after the other. Especially since we rarely have such goings-on in St. Dennis.”
“I think we all agree with you there.” Grady nodded.
“But let’s talk about that lovely wedding yesterday. Grady, your sister was a beautiful bride. I made sure we got several photos for this week’s paper. Along with a fascinating interview I had earlier today with Dr. McGowan.” Grace was almost beaming.
“Dr. McGowan?” Vanessa frowned. “You mean Daria? The woman who’s engaged to Connor? She’s a doctor?”
“Daria has a doctorate in archaeology,” Grady told her.
“She’s quite well known in the field,” Grace added. “One of the girls working at the Inn on weekends is a freshman in college, and she’s majoring in archaeology. Dr. McGowan offered to send her some photos she took at a dig in Turkey. The girl is simply over the moon.”
“That was very nice of her.” Vanessa’s attention turned as several patrons emerged with their ice cream. “Oh, Grady, look. People are leaving. Let’s dash in before anyone else does.”
“Well, you’d better hurry. There’s a small army coming up there on the left.” Grace pointed. “He who hesitates…”
“Has to wait in line.” Vanessa waved to Grace as she and Grady entered the shop.
The little bell over the door jingled but Steffie didn’t look up.
“Boy, she looks beat, doesn’t she?” Vanessa whispered from the corner of her mouth.
Grady nodded as they stepped in line. He looked around the shop, and met Hal’s questioning eyes from across the room.
I guess he’s wondering why I’m standing here holding Vanessa’s hand. Well, I suppose if I were him, I’d be curious, too. But curious is probably not the word I’d use to describe Vanessa’s reaction when she sees that Hal is sitting there with an arm over the back of Maggie’s chair.
He stood so that his body was between Maggie and Vanessa, then realized how silly it was for him to try to protect her from seeing her parents together. He understood why Vanessa would object, would want to protect Hal just as Grady wanted to protect Vanessa, but it was silly. Hal and Maggie were going to do whatever it was they were doing, regardless of what Vanessa or Beck or anyone else thought, and that was the way it should be. If Vanessa had a problem with it, she was just going to have to deal.
They were still three people back in the queue but the line was moving. Steffie had apparently called in recruits.
“You know, I get more steamed every time I think about that woman, Candice,” Vanessa told him, her hands in the pockets of her jeans, a deep frown on her pretty face. “I was going to give her a twenty percent discount on that dress. And then she destroyed it. Doesn’t that just stink?”
“It does.” He fought to control a smile. She was so seriously put out over that one factor. But the longer Grady thought about it, the more it began to bother him, too, albeit for totally different reasons.
“What can I get for…” Steffie raised her head, then smiled. “Oh, hey, guys. Ness, I was going to call you as soon as I had a break. I heard about what happened. Look, anything I can do… I mean anything, you got it.”
“Thanks, Stef. I appreciate that.”
“We need to talk about this. I need to hear everything.”
“You will. I’ll be at the shop tomorrow morning to start cleaning up.”
“I’ll be there to help if you need me. I’ll see if Tina can open for me. She was looking for extra hours.” Steffie’s eyes followed several new customers into the store. “Do you believe this? You’d think I invented ice cream, the way people are streaming into this store. Honestly, Ness, it’s been like this since I opened at noon.” She grinned and added, “And I should mention that Mocha Berry Vanessa has been a big seller.”
“We’ll have two of those,” Grady told her.
Steffie scooped the ice cream into bowls and stuck a plastic spoon in the top of each before handing them over.
“What time are you planning on going to Bling tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’d like to keep my regular hours, so I guess I’ll be in town for coffee by eight,” Vanessa told her.
“I’ll see you then.” She waved Grady away when he took his wallet from his back pocket. “I can help the next person in line…”
“Wow, she’s really doing quite the business,” Grady noted as they stepped out into the sunlight.
“It’s a nice warm day, and people like to get out and walk in the sunshine after a long cold winter. Besides, Steffie’s good at what she does, and she was at the right place at the right time. Unlike me, however, she always knew exactly what she wanted to do.”
“She always wanted an ice-cream shop?”
“She always wanted to make her own ice cream. Make up her own flavors, sell from her own little place. At one time, this little building was a crabber’s shack. She told me that her dad and her uncle and her grandfather were all watermen. This was where they picked the crabs, her grandmother and her mother and her aunt. Crabbing fell off a few years ago, the grandfather died, the uncle moved away, her dad retired from commercial crabbing, took out some loans, and went back to college.”
“What does he do now?”
“He’s an environmentalist. He’s working on writing the new conservation regulations for the Chesapeake Watershed.”
“There’s a switch of hats.”
“Not so much. Stef said he saw firsthand what pollution was doing to the Bay, and wanted to work to correct it.” Vanessa licked ice cream from the spoon. “Anyway, she wanted a place to do her thing, so her dad let her have their old shack. She worked on it for six months, fixing it up. She said it had leaks, it had bats, the windows needed to be replaced, and the floor needed repair.”
“She did all that work herself?”
Vanessa nodded. “Mostly by herself, though her brother did help her out when he could. He’s the vet here, owns a small animal and waterfowl clinic down on the river.”
“Small animal and waterfowl,” Grady mused. “Now there’s an interesting combination.”
“Stef said that when he went away to school, he wanted to come back to St. Dennis to practice someday, so I guess he knew what they needed most around here.”
They’d reached the wooden walkway, as far as one could go before stepping into the Bay. The water had rainbow swirls from fuel that leaked from the motor of one of the boats tied up just a stone’s throw farther down toward the pier. They stood and watched the boats ease in or out of their slips, the motors muffling as they maneuvered slowly around the pier. Once out in the channel they could open up their motors and the boats could soar and scream like wild things, but here, on their best behavior, they whispered.
“Well, now, I thought that was the two of you back there in Steffie’s place.”
Vanessa turned in time to see Hal take Maggie’s arm.
“Look here, Maggie. Vanessa and Grady are out enjoying the day, too.”
“I was,” Vanessa muttered.
“We’re just on our way to take the boat out for a spin. Maggie says she’s never been out on the water. Imagine that, Ness.” He looked her directly in the eye. “Imagine living your whole life, and never getting to feel the spray in your face, the wind in your hair…”
Vanessa’s smile was fixed and frozen.
“I was just telling Maggie about taking you out this week, Grady,” Hal went on as if everything was just peachy, as if Vanessa wasn’t staring daggers at Maggie, and Maggie wasn’t trying to ignore her daughter, choosing instead to focus on Grady.
“I enjoyed both trips,” Grady told them. Addressing Maggie, he said, “I’m sure you’ll have a great time. Hal really knows his way around the Bay.”
“After sixty-some years around here, I’d better know my way around. Say,” he said as if it just occurred to him. “I thought you were leaving this afternoon.”
“I had a change of plans,” Grady replied.
“I see. Well, then, why don’t you join us for a spin around the Bay? It’s been a while since you and I were out together, Ness.”
“Some other time, Hal, but thank you,” Vanessa replied.
“All right, then. See you later.” He took Maggie’s arm and started to turn toward the dock. “You know what would make me very happy? If you two would meet us for dinner later at Walt’s.”
Grady watched the conflict cross Vanessa’s face. She loved Hal and wouldn’t hurt him for the world, but she still clearly had issues with Maggie.
Finally, she said, “Grady, did your brother ever get back to you about having dinner tonight?”
“No,” he replied. “I haven’t heard from him.”
“Oh, Andy you’re talking about?” Hal adjusted the dark glasses on his face. “I ran into him earlier at the Inn. He said he’d be heading over to Cannonball Island. He and his wife and a couple of your cousins left around three. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were to have dinner while they’re there.”
“In that case, I guess I’m free.” Grady turned to Vanessa. “Are you free?”
Still watching Hal’s face, Vanessa nodded. “What time is good for you, Hal?”
“I suspect we won’t be out as long as an hour.” Hal looked across the Bay and seemed to study the sky. “No point in it, since the sun is going to be setting soon enough.”
“Let’s say an hour then.” Vanessa nodded.
“Good. I’ll be looking forward to it. Now, to get that boat out of her slip without nudging into that fool Carter Harwell. Will you look at the way he’s parking that Whaler of his?” Hal set off down the walk, his eyes on his precious boat, one hand on Maggie’s arm, the other raised to his face as he yelled across the pier, “Hey, Harwell! Watch where you’re going…”
Grady looked down at Vanessa, who was looking up at him.
“Way to stand firm,” he said.
“I can’t say no to him. If he wants me to do this, I’ll do it. If he wants me to make nice to my mother, I’ll make nice.”
“I think he’s hoping you’re doing this for the right reasons, not because you want to please him.”
“Pleasing Hal is the right reason.” She shook her head. “It’s the only reason why I’d sit down with her right now.”
“Well, then, I guess that’s going to have to do. For now.” He took her hand and walked to the end of the pier.
Even from a distance, they could hear Hal berating his old sailing buddy, who still hadn’t gotten his boat into the slip.
Listening to Hal, Vanessa started to laugh. “He’s such a paper tiger. He’ll rail away on Carter, and Carter will rail away on Hal, and in an hour, they’ll be buying each other a beer at Walt’s. Hal just loves to bluster sometimes.”
They stood and listened to the harangue-fest for a few more minutes before Hal leapt from the dock to the deck of the Whaler and helped navigate the craft into position. Within minutes, the boat was tied up and both men were stepping up onto the dock. They chatted a few minutes-Hal introducing Maggie to Carter-before apparently forgetting all about the Shady Lady as the three headed directly to Walt’s.
“She’s up to no good.” Vanessa’s eyes narrowed. “Her last husband died recently so she’s on the loose. She’s come to St. Dennis and she’s realized that Hal is pretty well off and she’s setting her sights on him again.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Oh, yes I do. I know that look.”
“Look, I’m sure after all these years, they have things to say to each other. They were in love once, they had a child together…”
“Which she never even bothered to tell him about until she couldn’t handle him. Let’s not forget about Beck and the way she told Hal that he had a son.”
When Grady didn’t comment, Vanessa stopped walking. “What?” she asked.
“I think you need to leave that part to them to work out.”
“How would you feel if Melissa-that was her name, right?” she asked, and when he nodded, she continued. He had a feeling he knew where this was going. “How would you feel if she disappeared from your life and came back years later with a child she said was yours?”
“She did disappear from my life,” he said softly, “and if she showed up today with a child of mine, I’d be very happy to have that child. I would have loved to have had a child. But since she’s dead, that’s not a possibility.”
“Oh, God, I am such an idiot. I am so sorry.” Vanessa’s face flushed as scarlet as the sun dropping into the Bay. “I can’t believe I said that.”
“It’s all right, Ness…”
“What a boneheaded thing to say.” She was wide-eyed. “Boneheaded and thoughtless and insensitive and-”
“Enough.” He put a hand over her mouth. “I understand the analogy you were trying to make. It’s all right. We can talk about Melissa, Ness. Just as we can talk about Gene.”
“That’s very different.” Her face grew very serious. “Gene and I got divorced because I knew that sooner or later, he was going to kill me. That’s why we’re not together. You and Melissa-you’d probably still be together if she hadn’t died, right?”
It was a question he hadn’t anticipated, and once asked, one he found himself hesitating a little too long to answer.
“I don’t know,” he said finally.
“You don’t have to say that just because you’re here with me. I can take honesty.”
“That’s an honest answer.” He sat on the edge of a stone bench that looked out over the water. “There were some things that… that didn’t set right with me.”
“Oh, hey, everyone has things about their significant other that drives them crazy.” She waved a hand as if to dismiss what she perceived must be inconsequential.
“This isn’t like, she always left her shoes in the middle of the floor, or that sort of thing. This was bigger. Much bigger.”
“You mean like maybe she was having an affair?”
“No, it was more like she lied to me about the half million dollars she’d hidden in the bookcase.”