I let the door shut behind me when I walk back into the house. The living room is dark now. Shay and Diego are in the kitchen. I smell something funny, something I’ve never smelled in Shay’s house. It’s unpleasant. I wrinkle my nose.
Underneath my feet the hardwood floor feels spongy. I smell mildew and stale air and I want to cough, but I can’t seem to catch a breath of pure air…
And suddenly, I realize I’m having a vision, and I’m trapped in the vision, and I can’t get out, and I can’t breathe, and there’s a roaring in my ears…
Shay turns on the light, and the living room springs forward, all comfortable and warm. I feel my hammering heart.
“I thought I’d light a fire,” she says.
“That would be good,” I say. I tell my heart to slow down.
What had I seen? Was it Shay’s house or another house?
Did it have to do with the drowned man? Or my father?
By the time Shay has placed the kindling and wadded up newspapers and built her foolproof-fire system, my heart rate has returned to the normal range. I curl up on the couch and reach for the wool throw that’s folded on the back. I pull it over my legs and sit back against the sofa arm so I can look at the flames.
Shay sits down opposite me. Her dark, curly hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she’s in her floppy fleece pants, so I guess she’s not seeing Joe tonight. Since she’s been dating Joe, Shay’s wardrobe has improved to an amazing degree. She’s a little overweight, round and pretty, and she’s started wearing filmy blouses and velvet pants instead of her denim shirts and jeans. She’s even exchanged Chap Stick for lip gloss.
“You look pretty shaken,” she says. “I know I was.”
“I just don’t get what he wants.”
“He wants to know you, sweetie.” Shay pats my leg. “Diego told me about Dylan Brewer. You poor baby, what a day. How do you feel?”
Here is the part where I’m supposed to share my feelings. Sometimes having a family is hard. What I want to do is look at the fire and zone out. I don’t want to talk about my feelings. I just want to ignore them until they go away.
After my mother was killed in the car crash, I had to go to something called “grief counseling.” I hated it at the time, but I came to have a great deal of respect for Dr. Julie Politsky. I learned that telling someone how you feel doesn’t mean you’ll fall apart and won’t be able to put yourself back together again. I learned that it’s possible to put yourself back together again, one piece at a time.
Dr. Politsky showed me the road map. Shay put me on the road.
So even though at this particular moment I don’t want to talk about my father, I do.
“I feel angry and sad and confused and sick to my stomach,” I say. “I feel like telling him to go away forever. But I know I should at least hear him out.”
Shay squeezes my knee. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I have his address. You can always contact him when you’re ready. You don’t have to be on his timetable.”
That was true. I hadn’t thought about it that way. “He wants to have lunch tomorrow.”
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t know.”
“So sleep on it. I have an idea. Joe had to cancel, so it’s just us for dinner tonight. I’m making black bean chili and cornbread for dinner. Then let’s watch some really goofy DVD. Diego has a date with Marigold.”
I groan, and Shay smacks me on the knee playfully. “Shhh,” she warns.
“I just can’t get used to her,” I whisper.
“I just don’t understand him.”
Shay shrugs. “What you need to know, honey, is that sometimes you can fall for someone you don’t even like very much. I think that might have happened to Diego.”
“But he defends her all the time.”
“A little too much, I think. I think he’s trying to convince himself, too.”
There’s a knock at the door. Shay and I both look at the door as if there’s a werewolf behind it. We’re both afraid that Nate has come back.
“Don’t let him in,” I say.
“We don’t know it’s him,” she murmurs. She gets up and answers the door.
I hear Joe’s voice saying hello.
“I thought you canceled,” Shay says. “Because if you didn’t, I’m busted. I’m wearing my very oldest sweatpants. Don’t look.”
“Gross,” Joe says. “But I’m afraid I’m here in an official capacity. Is Diego around?”
“Is it about that poor drowned guy?”
“Shay,” Joe says, “did you hear me say official?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Then can you not kiss me when you say that?”
I smile, and a moment later Joe walks in. Shay hollers for Diego, and I say hello.
“How are you doing?” Joe comes closer to give me the once-over.
“I’m okay. It’s not like I saw anything.”
Diego walks in the room. “Hi, Joe.”
“It’s official business,” Shay says.
“Hi, Detective Pasta,” Diego says.
Before we knew Joe Fusilli, before he practically became a member of the family, we used to call him Detective Pasta. It must be hard to be named after a curly noodle, even though Joe claims an ancestor of his invented it.
“There was a break-in and some malicious mischief on a house down in the new development,” Joe says.
Frowning, Shay moves a little closer to Diego.
“I don’t think you did it, Diego,” Joe says. “But did you hear any kids boasting about it? It seems like some kind of prank, and I know that crowd you hang with now doesn’t like the weekend people.”
“Look, Mason is a bit of a jerk, but he wouldn’t do something like that,” Diego says.
“Tempers are running high because of Hassam’s Farm,” Joe says.
Diego nods. “I know.”
“Mason’s best friend is Andy Hassam. Mason has worked at the farm stand.”
“I’ve worked there, too,” Diego says. “Practically every kid in this area has had a summer job there.”
“Did anyone steal anything in the break-in?” Shay asks. I can tell she’s trying to turn the conversation, because Diego is starting to look angry.
“No. The house is empty. It was just sold—or, at least, someone put a bid on it. A Seattle businessman,” Joe says. “I’m just looking at the resentment factor. His name is Hank Hobbs.”
I see Shay start at the name. Joe, who never misses anything, sees it, too.
“You know him?”
“Sure,” Shay says. “He’s a major contributor to the wetlands reclamation project. We almost had to shut it down last month until he pledged a million dollars.”
Shay is a scientist with a special interest in wetlands. She works for an environmental company here on Beewick. Their major project for the past four years has been the restoration of this wetland area on Beewick, down near the ferry on the southern part of the island. Twenty years ago, a corporation, Monvor Industries, polluted and flooded the land. The final part of the restoration is scheduled for next week, when the last of the land will be drained.
“Maybe Hobbs was targeted,” Shay says. “He was once vice president of Monvor. He’s contributed to the reclamation project out of guilt, I imagine. But maybe somebody found out about his connection to the original pollution. It hasn’t been publicized; he wanted to keep things quiet. Have you talked to him?”
“I’ve got a call in to him,” Joe says.
The timer goes off in the kitchen. “That’s my cornbread,” Shay says. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”
Joe shakes his head wearily. “I’m still waiting for lab results. We still haven’t IDed the body.”
“I’ll take out the cornbread,” Diego says, and heads for the kitchen.
“I’ll help,” I say. I trail after Diego while Shay walks Joe to the door.
Diego puts on oven mittens and still manages to look fairly manly. He wrestles the cast-iron pan full of cornbread out of the oven and kicks the door shut with his foot. I start taking down plates to set the table.
“So?” I say.
“So, what?”
“So, did you tell Joe the truth, or do you know who vandalized the house?”
Diego is busy sliding the hot pan onto a trivet. He throws the oven mitts down.
“Of course I don’t know,” he says.
“Are you sure it wasn’t Mason and his dinosaur pals? They definitely have it in for the weekenders.”
“They’re not idiots,” Diego says. “They wouldn’t do that.”
Wouldn’t they? Diego is so deluded that he thinks Marigold has an interesting mind. He’s completely head over heels.
How far would he go to protect her brother?