Chapter Sixteen
The neighbors. The Fishers . . .
“It’s all right,” Jules said, trying to still her heart, to calm down. It was nothing. She’d panicked for no reason. Sadie was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind, which wasn’t that far from the truth. Jules managed a smile. “It’s . . . fine.” Then she turned to the window and lifted her left arm to hail the group as they came en masse toward her sliding glass door. Joanie Bledsoe and her daughter Alexa were in the front, the rest packed behind them. “I remember them.”
“Want me to be your taster?” Sadie asked as she stepped forward to unlatch the door.
“Maybe,” Jules said, only half joking. Like high school, she’d never been all that close to the Fishers, but she’d always put on a good front.
“Should I call Sam?” A thread of eagerness had entered Sadie’s voice.
“Uh . . . yeah, maybe. Did you call a locksmith?” They’d discussed Sam’s directive to get the locks changed, and Sadie said she would make the call as she’d shooed Jules off to bed.
“Yup. Guy from Doorworks coming Monday. Earliest he could.” Sadie was walking away, putting her phone to her ear. Her interest in Sam was pretty clear. Maybe Sam felt the same about her, Jules thought, not liking the idea at all.
Joanie Bledsoe was the first Fisher through, Alexa right on her heels. Joanie carried a salad in a clear plastic bowl with a lid and Alexa held a square, glass pan with corn bread, the aroma filling the room, reminding Jules of Thanksgiving and the stuffing her mother had made with crumbled, day-old corn bread. The memory was oddly disquieting.
“I couldn’t leave Alexa home alone, so I brought her along,” Joanie said. “I hope you don’t mind.” She shifted her salad bowl to one side and gave Jules a half hug, mindful of her sling. “Julia, oh, my gosh, we’ve been so worried about you. Are you okay? It’s all so terrible. Joe . . . dear God, Joe . . .”
Joanie had always fashioned herself as Jules’s good friend, but there was an insincerity to her sweetness that had caused Zoey to dub her “Phony Joanie.”
Now, Joanie looked past Jules, searching the room. “Where are Xena and Georgie? Aren’t they here?”
“They’re in Georgie’s room. You can join them,” Jules added to Alexa. “It’s right down the hall.”
“I know where it is,” Alexa said. She hastily set the corn bread on the counter and hurried away, as if she couldn’t wait to beat feet away from them.
Zoey stepped around Joanie and said, “Girl, you look like hell,” to which Joanie gasped, “Don’t say that!”
Zoey Rivera was still as pert and sassy as she’d been when they were in high school. Jules hadn’t known her well. She’d been a Hawk, not a Triton, but all the guys had been acutely aware of her. Her dark hair was short now and clipped back. Real estate agent, Jules recalled. Her husband was in real estate development . . . not husband, boyfriend. Brian . . . nope, Byron. Byron Blanchette . . . and they’d moved to the canal around the same time she and Joe had, about a year earlier. Now Zoey, ignoring Joanie, held out an opaque cream casserole dish with a snug plastic lid toward Julia. The unmistakable scent of baked beans wafted into the room as Zoey asked, “Where can I put this?”
“On the counter, or the stove top if it’s too hot?” Jules responded.
“Not too hot anymore. Counter’s fine. You know what I meant about how you look, right? That you look just like you should, like you’ve been through hell, because you have.” Zoey set the beans beside the corn bread and gave Joanie a look, before adding, “We all decided on a Texas barbecue kind of thing, and Tutti said we should all descend on you at once.”
“I said no such thing! I said we should go together so Julia knows we’re all thinking of her!” an aggrieved voice behind Zoey declared.
Tutti Anderson. Real name, Kathy. She lived directly across the canal. Her two sons were just a little older than Georgie and obsessed with video games. Their father, Tutti’s ex, was in insurance . . . or something like that, and Tutti said she couldn’t stand him . . . the bastard . . . except she talked about him all the time.
“You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” Jules started to say.
“Of course we did,” Tutti responded. “I’ve got the skirt steak, and it’s done up right. I had to practically rap Sean and Devon’s hands with the back of my wooden spoon to keep them from eating it all before I got it over here. They’re monsters, that’s what they are, with monster stomachs,” she said affectionately as she set a large metal pan covered with foil across several stove top burners.
Jules was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed and it didn’t help that Sadie was laughing and joking on the phone to Sam.
“We were told you were having trouble remembering things,” Joanie said, drawing close to Jules.
“. . . don’t worry, she’s fine,” Sadie’s voice was saying warmly. “We’re good. The neighbors just brought enough food to feed an army. . . .”
“The accident’s still a blur, but it’s all coming back,” Jules told Joanie. That was a bit of a stretch, but it seemed important that she keep up the fiction of being back to herself as much as possible.
Bette Ezra was next, her closest neighbor to the south, owner of the dogs, she thought. Mutt and Jeff . . . no, More and Less. Yeah, that was right. She was the woman who’d been at the helm of the motorboat. But . . . there was something wrong there. The boat, Jules was certain, belonged to another couple. Bette was compact with smooth skin and a toned body. Yoga instructor, Jules remembered. Bette said, “You know me, if it isn’t store bought, it just isn’t. This is gluten free.” She was carrying a lemon meringue pie.
Jules thanked her and then looked past her to the redheaded woman who was diffidently entering the house, carrying a brown paper sack from which the necks of several bottles sprouted up. Martina Montgomery . . . Sam’s ex-wife. Jules’s heart sank. She remembered Tina all right . . . and she remembered Joe saying Hap’s girlfriend was moving in with him. She hadn’t known who that girlfriend was until Tina had walked onto Hap’s deck in the skimpiest of bikinis, her body still as taut and sculpted as when she’d been on the squad with Julia.
Some things in life were just not fair.
And what the hell was she doing here tonight? She and Jules weren’t friends. Hadn’t been since she’d moved in on Sam.
“Hey, Julia. Hope you’re feeling better,” Tina said a bit sheepishly, holding up the sack. “Tequila and triple sec and lime juice.”
“Patrón?” Zoey asked, interested.
“Yes, I was thinking of you, Zoey,” Tina said dryly, moving into the kitchen. She seemed as uncomfortable as Jules was.
“Only the best for our Zoey,” the last woman said with a tight smile. She wore a skintight black tank top with equally skintight workout pants, which she’d teamed with silver high heels. Jules struggled with her name for a second, but it all came back as she turned her head and Jules caught her in profile. Jackie Illingsworth. Unhappy . . . working on being a full-blown alcoholic . . . possible affair with . . . Stuart Ezra. Jackie and her husband—what was his name?—Rob. That was it. Jackie and Rob owned the boat that Bette had driven to Jules’s dock.
Jules suddenly had a knife-sharp memory. Jackie snuggled up to Stuart Ezra underneath the overhang of the Ezra eave, just beyond Jules’s deck. “Shhhh . . .” his voice had warned, and then the rustle of clothing and a soft mewl from Jackie’s lips....
Jules returned to the moment to find Jackie squeezing her hand, saying, “. . . terrible, just terrible. You need anything, anything at all, you hear? Rob and I are here for you.”
Rob Illingsworth, Jackie’s husband. In a quicksilver flash, Jules remembered Zoey telling her in an aside, “Byron’s got this development deal that Rob wants to go in on, but Jackie holds the purse strings. Rob tells everyone that he sold his family’s dairy farm, but Jackie’s the one with the family moola. If I was really catty I’d tell you that’s why he married her, but I’ll save that story for another day.”
Bette was saying to Martina, “. . . take them to Dina’s Doggy Day Care in Rockaway. They’ve got that red and white building with the paw prints painted all over the siding, just off the highway.”
“Sounds horrifying,” Tina drawled.
Bette shrugged. “Hey, I’m grateful because they take Less and More and I know they can be a handful sometimes.”
“Those German shepherds are rabid beasts,” Jackie said with a brittle smile. It was supposed to be a joke, but Bette’s return gaze was glacial.
“They’re just big pussycats. They’ve never hurt anybody, and they absolutely love Georgie,” Bette retorted, turning away and sharing a “Can you believe her?” look with both Tina and Tutti, who seemed kind of embarrassed to be caught in a quiet conversation betwen themselves as if they were gossiping.
And Jules had another spark of memory, Joe telling Georgie, “All I’m saying is be careful. The dogs respect you, but they’re huge, and strong, and Bette and Stuart make excuses for them.” Georgie had been incensed by Joe’s assessment, but Jules could see the dogs in her mind’s eye and Joe hadn’t been wrong.
Jackie was holding an appetizer tray with salsa, guacamole, and corn chips, and for the first time Jules noticed that Jackie seemed to be fighting tears as she crowded into the kitchen with the others. She met Jules’s eyes and then, as if embarassed, stiffened her spine and joined a conversation with Tutti.
Strange, Jules thought, just as Sadie came to Jules’s elbow and said, “Sam said he’s uncomfortable having them in the house. He wants me to stay. What do you think?”
A little shiver of fear slid through Jules’s blood and her mind tripped to the man who’d come for her in the hospital. Could he be one of these women’s husbands? Boyfriends? But why? And who? And . . . weren’t they all acquaintances, if not friends? Still, she didn’t feel a real connection to any of them and she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong.
An unfamiliar ringtone filled the air and Jules realized it was her new cell. Sam. Had to be.
“Uh, yes, please stick around,” she told Sadie, then she took the call and headed down the hall to her bedroom. She closed the door behind her and pressed the answer button. “Sam?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s me. I just got a call from Sadie. She says your neighbors are there.”
“With food. Yes.”
“I told Sadie I’m on my way, but I asked her to stay.”
“Good . . . um, Sam? One of them’s Martina.”
“Yeah, I learned that last night at Tutti’s barbecue. They said they were going to bring you food. I didn’t know they were going to come all together.”
“You knew Martina was on the canal?”
“Well, I learned it yesterday. And that she’s cohabitating with Hap.”
“Does that bother you?” she couldn’t help asking, and looked out the window to the canal, the water clear and rippling just beyond their dock. Calm. Peaceful. And seeming right now to be such a lie. Jules felt there was nothing calm and peaceful on this slow-moving waterway.
“Nope. She’s my ex for a reason. But, Jules . . . if you’re remembering that, it sounds like your memory has really returned.”
“It’s coming,” she admitted.
“Anything about the accident?”
She hated dashing his hopes. “Not yet. And I can’t talk long. They’re all in the kitchen, getting everything ready, some kind of Texas potluck, Zoey told me.” Still gazing out the window, her eye caught an osprey circling over the water, searching the depths, looking for prey. The bird suddenly folded its wings and dove. It surfaced in a spray of water, a wriggling fish caught in its talons. She shuddered as she watched it flap its great wings and fly away. “How soon will you be here? Should I tell them to wait? Martina brought tequila and I think they’ll be here awhile.”
“Whose idea was it to make it a party when you’re just getting out of the hospital?” he asked, sounding annoyed and not waiting for an answer. “I’ll be there soon.”
“Okay. Oh, and Sam, I found Joe’s laptop. Not sure if he had another computer, but this is one he slid between the mattress and box springs.”
“Good! Great. I was certain Mayfield took it, but maybe not. Funny he put it under the mattress.”
“I think he thought something bad was coming.”
Get to the boat!
“Hmm. Okay. See you soon. None of the husbands are there, right? Of the neighbor women?”
“No.” Maybe he was thinking the same way she was, that it was a man who’d sneaked into her room at the hospital.
“Keep it that way. If one of ’em shows up, call me immediately.”
“But you’re on your way, right?”
“Be there within minutes.”
* * *
Phoenix drove her Mini through Seaside, heading north toward Astoria. She’d just wrapped up her meeting with Mr. P. J. Simpson, an odd duck if there ever was one. Now she was on her way to try and meet with Walter Hapstell Senior at one of his properties. Outside the city limits, she wound down a back road and meandered east and into the Coast Range foothills, keeping one eye on her phone where Google Maps was displaying her route.
Simpson had asked her to meet him at an old chowder house in Seaside that had nothing much to recommend it, especially not the food. Located on a narrow dead end street at the edge of a residential district, the restaurant was an old coastal institution that had lost customers and appeal long before, but it was his choice, so she figured, what the hell. She’d agreed to meet him out of curiosity, and had walked in to find him seated in a booth at the back, a middle-aged man with a shock of gray hair and a dark, nearly black, Magnum P.I. mustache that Phoenix hadn’t been able to take her eyes off.
A waitress who looked as if she’d been with the place since its inception had taken their orders without much interest, and had actually frowned when neither of them had wanted more than coffee. “Coming right up,” she’d said in a voice raspy from cigarette smoke. She’d brought the coffee, then left them alone.
During the course of their short conversation Phoenix had then determined that the mustache was a fake. In fact, Simpson had all the earmarks of a fugitive: the way he kept watching the door, the nervous manner in which he clenched and unclenched his fists, his careful conversation, the way she could almost see him study each question she asked, turning it over in his mind for a full minute before responding. She’d almost called him out on the disguise and whatever else he might be hiding, but she’d decided instead to hear him out, listen to whatever story he’d spun, and take it all with a grain of salt.
What she’d learned, as she’d sipped her watery coffee and taken notes, was that he knew next to nothing about Joe Ford, Ike Cardaman, or anything to do with the widening financial scandal. He just wanted his money back. And he wanted it back yesterday.
“Joe Ford stole all my money,” he’d insisted in a whispery voice.
“But you invested with Ike Cardaman,” Phoenix had reminded him. “Your name’s in a file with other Cardaman investors. That’s how I found you.”
“What file?” he demanded, for once raising his voice above a whisper and reacting instantly, half rising out of his seat in alarm.
“The file I told you about. The reason I called you.” Phoenix had then reiterated how she’d come to have the file from an unknown source, and how she’d been going down the list and had just come to his name.
“That’s confidential information!”
“Yes, it is.”
“How do you have it?”
“Through research,” she said, trying to fob him off. She also didn’t tell him that he was the only investor she’d actually met in person. Most just wanted to complain about Cardaman and/or eagerly ask if she could help them recover their savings, either via e-mail, text, or phone calls. Nothing face to face. She’d asked Simpson, “So, were all your investments with Cardaman, or were some with Joseph Ford Investments?”
“I’d like to see this file.”
“Like you said, it’s confidential.”
That had put them at a stalemate. Simpson had blustered and said how heads would roll if that information got into the wrong hands, and Phoenix had tried to assure him she was just trying to find out if Joe Ford and Walter Hapstell were as guilty as Cardaman about misusing funds.
Finally, Simpson had stopped grousing and come to some kind of decision. He said, “The real crook is Walter Hapstell Senior. He got his young pup of a son to make some shaky deals and kept all the money. Joe Ford was in on it, too, but he’s gone. Died in that boat accident the other day.”
“There’s an ongoing investigation into that accident,” Phoenix had said.
“There should be,” he harrumphed. “Boat exploding. Something wrong there.”
“There are theories that it might not have been an accident. That Ford’s death could be related to the very investment tangle we’re discussing.”
“Poppycock.” He peered at her intently. “Who says that?”
“If it hasn’t been reported on the news yet, it will be. It’s a prevailing theory.”
She’d been kind of winging it by then, sensing Simpson had something to say but just couldn’t get it out. Several times he’d started to say something, then stopped, his eyes darting around the nearly empty restaurant where only a handful of patrons occupied tables and the waitstaff was practically nonexistent.
“Do they have this list? The one you have?”
“No one has the list but me, and of course, Joe Ford Investments.”
“Joe Ford’s the one who gave it to you. Lie all you want. The blame starts with him.”
She’d shaken her head and assured him, “No one’s going to give away confidential information, certainly not me.”
Simpson had thought that over for another long minute, then asked, “What about the wife? She survived the accident. What if she puts it out there?”
“There are laws made to protect investors. No sensitive information will be revealed.”
“So says the reporter.” He’d pulled out a piece of paper at that time and had slid it across the table to her. “That’s Walter Hapstell’s home address. Backwater kinda place he’s at now, hiding out with all of our money. You go talk to him,” he’d advised. “If you can help me get my money back, I’ll get you a finder’s fee.”
Phoenix had laughed. There was just something so old-time gangster about the man. “I appreciate it, but no. I’m just trying to get to the story.”
“He’s home now,” Simpson had insisted as if he hadn’t heard her. “You could go see him today and you might get some answers, more than you know.”
She’d regarded him with some amusement. “What do you want me to ask him?”
“What do you think? I want him to give me my money back!”
Phoenix had had no intention of calling on Walter Hapstell Senior. P. J. Simpson, like a number of the investors she’d spoken to, had made some risky investments and now wanted to point blame.
But . . . Walter Hapstell Senior was very difficult to get hold of and though she questioned whether odd and gruff Mr. Simpson really knew what he was talking about, she decided to give it a try. Then again, he hadn’t missed much. She’d left, wondering if he’d pick up the tab and noting he hadn’t so much as touched the now cold cup of coffee.
Now as she was driving, the town of Seaside far behind her, she stared through the windshield and turned everything he’d said over in her mind. The road wasn’t well traveled as it followed the meandering course of a stream. She met only an occasional car or truck as the evergreen forest thickened the hillside. After double-checking Google Maps to make certain she was on the right route, she put a call into Glencoe Electric, the company Denny Mulhaney had worked for before he’d disappeared. A few weeks earlier she’d talked to several people who worked there, but no one had been able to give her any definitive answers as to what had happened to him. It seemed, at the time, as if everyone had been scratching their heads about what had happened to their bookkeeper. Phoenix had made a mental note to herself to call back some of the employees she hadn’t been able to reach after they returned from vacation, which should be about now. She was worried about Mulhaney because he’d fallen off the grid. She’d even thought about filing a missing person’s report with the Laurelton Police Department, where Denny had lived after leaving Seaside, but it had seemed premature. The man could have just walked away from his job. It wasn’t that unusual and, from what she could tell, Denny wasn’t the most stable of characters.
Bluetooth kicked in and she heard the line ringing. A few seconds later an older, female voice said, “Glencoe Electric.”
“Hi, this is Phoenix Delacourt with the North Coast Spirit. I came by a few weeks ago and—”
“You wanted to know about Dennis Mulhaney,” she cut Phoenix off briskly. “Yes, I have a note to call you. Pearl Enos is back from vacation and wants to talk to you.”
“Okay . . . good.” This, at least, sounded promising. “Is Pearl there now?”
“I’ll connect you.”
The line buzzed a couple of times, and then another female voice answered, “Warehouse. This is Pearl.”
Phoenix was glancing down at her phone, seeing how far she was from the turnoff to Hapstell’s property. About a quarter mile. “Hi, this is Phoenix Delacourt from the North Coast Spirit. I was at Glencoe Electric a couple of weeks ago asking about Dennis Mulhaney.”
“Oh, Denny.” Her voice was suddenly fraught with worry. “He’s just disappeared. Hasn’t been to work. Hasn’t been home. Hasn’t been to Tiny Tim’s.”
“Tiny Tim’s?”
Google Maps let her know she was nearing a turn. Squinting, she spied a break in the tall fir trees and slowed, easing her Mini onto what had once been a gravel lane and now was little more than ruts cutting through wooded acres. Dry weeds scraped the undercarriage of her little car and her tires bounced over potholes and rocks even as she slowed. Little sunlight pierced through the canopy of boughs overhead and the area seemed as if no one had been there in months, maybe years. It sure didn’t look like a place for Walter Hapstell. She’d met the man once and had seen him a number of times, and this . . . backwater spot didn’t fit with his slick, reptilian appearance. But he was a developer. Maybe there was a decent house at the end of the drive.
“Me and Denny had a few drinks there a couple of times,” Pearl was saying longingly. “He was a friend. Sad, y’know? Things hadn’t worked out too good for him. There was like all this money stolen from him. Do you think they found him . . . those criminals who took his money? I’ve been so worried. Maybe they were more than swindlers and con artists? Oh, Lord. Maybe they were much worse!”
That was a bit of a leap, Phoenix thought. From thieves to, what? Kidnappers or worse? But she let the woman ramble on as she tried to keep her shimmying car on the ever-dimishing lane.
“. . . been so worried,” she was saying. “It was really hard to enjoy the annual camping trip with Sheryl and Ray, even though Ray brought the big tent this year and we stayed in a campground with toilets, which was really great. . . .”
Phoenix had eased up on the accelerator, slowing to a crawl to keep her little car from bouncing. Had she turned at the wrong place? No. Not according to Google Maps. Had P. J. Simpson sent her on a wild goose chase? Whatever the case, this didn’t bode well.
“. . . last year, when we were out in the boonies and there was nothing. No water, no toilets, just awful. That’s really too much nature for me. . . .”
“Pearl, when did you last see Denny?” Phoenix asked, trying to get the woman back on point. The Mini was coming to a clearing, where the old-growth timbers had parted, high on a hillside with an edge that she couldn’t see over. A dip down to a small valley? There was no house in sight. At least not here. Weird. This whole place was so remote . . . a little unsettling.
“Ummm . . . it was in June. Around Flag Day, I remember. Is that the fourteenth? I think it was around the fourteenth. We had these little flags to wave, and I was—”
A sudden roar echoed through the hills, reverberating through her Mini. A truck engine revved up high. She jerked in surprise and, pulse quickening, looked in her rearview. Her heart nearly stopped. A massive black monster vehicle with a huge silver grill, churning tires, was charging right at her!
“—thinking how great it was, y’know and then . . . What’s that noise?”
Phoenix hit the gas. The roar filled her ears, deafening her. No! Damn it! No!
Her little car leapt forward. She slewed to the left, running along the edge of the drop-off. Her phone flew across the seat and down the passenger side of the car, disappearing from view.
What the hell is going on!
She shot another glance in the mirror. The truck was right on her tail!
“Mrs. Phoenix?” Pearl asked in a tinny voice.
She was on the lip of what she now saw was a ravine. The silvery waters of a creek bed flashed by, snaking through the canyon a long way down. He set me up, she thought, in disbelief. That prick Simpson, in the weirdo disguise, set me up! God, Phoenix, why didn’t you listen to your instincts?
But there was no time for second-guessing. At that moment the black truck caught her left back fender, spinning her around. Frantic, Phoenix fought for control, her hands tight on the steering wheel, but the Mini’s right rear tire slipped over the edge. She was losing traction, the Mini straining on three wheels. The truck roared past her and turned a tight circle. Aimed for a head-on shot.
“Call the Seaside Police!” Phoenix screamed, hoping Pearl would hear. “Pearl! Call the damned police! Ask for Sam Ford! SAM FORD!” Phoenix shrieked. She yanked the wheel, desperately hit the gas, trying to get out of the truck’s path. But it charged like an angry beast, smashing into her right headlight, sending her little car shimmying backward, tumbling into the narrow valley and creek far below.
“Sam Ford?” she heard dimly. “Mrs. Phoenix . . . ? You there . . . ?”
And that’s all she knew.
* * *
Sam parked and raced toward his brother’s house to pound on the door. He had no key as he’d given the one he’d received from Tutti to Jules, the key that Tutti had given him. He thunked his fist against the panels until Sadie let him into the house. “They’re on the back deck,” she said, eyeing him in a way that made him realize his own fears must be etched on his face. He tried to relax. Couldn’t. “Julia’s about wiped out, but she’s trying to be nice.”
“It’s just the women?” Sam asked again.
“Yes. Joanie’s getting ready to leave because her younger daughter, Alexa, got thrown out of Georgie’s bedroom by the older girls, Georgie and Xena. Lots of crying and yelling.” Sadie rolled her eyes. “Joanie doesn’t want to go, but she’s going to have to, and since she lives across the canal, the whole group thinks they might have to take the boat, although someone suggested Jules lend Joanie her canoe to just get rid of her. Nice, huh?” She took a breath and went on, “Bette and Zoey can just walk home, as they live on this side. Some alcohol’s been consumed, but not as much as you’d think, though Jackie seems to be consuming her fair share. Tutti just keeps looking over at her own property, as if she’d rather be there. Her boys are home and playing video games, apparently at an ear-bleeding level, because we can hear the music from here.”
“How’s Jules?”
Sadie inclined her head toward the deck. “Okay, I guess. She’s pretending to drink a margarita, and doing a piss poor job of it, I might add. Think she just wants them all to evaporate. Mostly, the neighbor women are hugging and sorrowful one minute, mean and spiteful to each other the next. It’s kinda weird they’re all together. Maybe it’s just because they live so close, but I don’t think these people like each other much.”
Sam was at the back slider before Sadie finished her report and, from his vantage point, could see through the glass to all the women standing on the deck or sitting on folding chairs. Jackie Illingsworth was swaying on her heels again. Bette Ezra was looking at her house and holding up a finger to her dogs, who were sitting on the edge of their deck, staring at her, awaiting a command. Zoey had a margarita in one hand and was doing some kind of dance to the video game music. Tutti was yelling that it was one of those kill everybody games her boys loved to play, and Martina stood aloofly from the group. Her gaze was zeroed in on Jules, who was sitting in a chair, holding a drink in her left hand, facing the canal.
Sam slid open the door and Martina shifted her gaze to him. Immediately she put on a smile and came his way. “You got here just as we have to leave. Some teen, or preteen, girl thing.” She inclined her head to Alexa, presumably, from Sadie’s report, who was standing by her mother, her face red from crying. Joanie was trying to get her to buck up, but the girl wasn’t having it. The older two girls, Georgie and Xena, apparently, were at the far end of the dock, being exclusive.
Jules glanced around to see Sam, and the look of relief and joy that came over her face melted his heart. He hadn’t realized how scared he was for her until he could see for himself that she was alive and well. Sadie stepped through the door to stand beside him, and he said with meaning, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. And you owe me.”
“Yeah?” He hadn’t taken his eyes off Jules, who had stood up and was walking their way.
“I was going to ask for a date, but I can see that ain’t gonna work,” Sadie said on an exaggerated sigh. “Goddamn you good-looking single men who are in love with someone else.”
“I’m not . . .” He trailed off because, well, Sadie might be right, and she wasn’t listening anymore anyway.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Jules greeted him, and he noticed how the sunlight played in her hair. Though he hadn’t asked, she said, “It’s been fine, really. The party. Nice. And everyone’s been great. . . .” She smiled. “I’m really glad you’re back.”
He wanted to pull her to him and kiss her. There was something about her that just reached inside him and made him want to hug her, hold her, protect her. He fought the urge to place his palm on the side of her face and trace the curve of her scraped jaw and noticed the other women were approaching.
“Ahem,” Zoey said, dancing her way over to them. “You guys should get a room. Wait. There’s one just down the hall.”
“Zoey.” Tutti rolled her eyes.
Joanie said, “Okay, we’re going. I guess we can’t have any more fun, because the girls can’t get along.”
“Oh, Mom,” Xena groaned, glancing at Georgie for support.
“Can I go with them?” Georgie asked.
“No,” Jules and Sam said at the same time. Then they looked at each other.
“Sorry,” Sam said, lifting his hands. “Not my place.”
“You sounded just like Dad,” Georgie grumbled, but suddenly seemed as if she was about to cry again.
The party broke up after that, with everyone leaving. Sam, Jules, and Georgie watched the women and two girls get into the boat, which Bette drove expertly down the canal and back, dropping everyone at their respective homes, leaving the motorboat at Jackie’s dock. Jackie was already stumbling toward the house as Bette slipped into a kayak and paddled back across to her house. Sam, Jules, and Georgie went back inside the house where Sadie had started to help clean up.
Jules shooed her away. “We’ve got this. Thanks for everything.”
“Will I be back tomorrow?” Sadie asked, looking at Sam. “You’re spending the night, right?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. He wasn’t going to leave Jules and Georgie alone.
“Where’re you going to sleep?” Georgie asked. Then, before Sam could struggle for an answer, she said, “You can have my room. I’ll sleep with Julia, if that’s okay . . . ?” She looked at Jules.
“Fine,” Jules said automatically, then added, “Sure. Good.”
Jules seemed distracted and Sam worried that maybe she didn’t want him, but he wasn’t going to be talked out of it. She’d been pretty scared the night before at the hospital, so maybe she wasn’t unhappy that he was planning to stay, but rather was caught up in some inner thoughts, perhaps memories slowly surfacing.
Sadie left a few moments later, and Georgie said to Jules, “Can we all watch one of those old movies you like? The rom-coms?”
Jules’s gaze flicked toward Sam. He recalled nights on his father’s couch, the only light in the room from the television screen as he and Jules made love. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” Jules said. “Let’s finish cleaning up the kitchen and we’ll think about it.” Georgie groaned, and Sam was surprised when Jules added, “You don’t have to help this time, Georgie.” Her gaze touched his for the briefest of seconds. “I think Sam and I can handle it. This time.”
Georgie looked suspiciously at Jules, then at Sam. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
Appearing about to argue, Georgie seemed to think better of it, and before Jules could change her mind, she shrugged and headed back to her room. When they heard the door close, Jules said, “I put the laptop back beneath the mattress, but I don’t want it there if Georgie sleeps with me tonight.”
“Ahh, yes . . .”
“I wish I could remember the password.”
“Maybe it’s written down somewhere.”
“Unlikely. Joe was too careful. He memorized everything and I . . .” She stopped herself and finished in a surprised voice, “I’m terrible at remembering.”
“You remembered that about Joe,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, I did.” She gazed up at him, smiling just a bit.
God, she was beautiful. And your brother’s widow, remember that. Even though you dated her first, a lifetime ago, Jules was still married to Joe.
Sam’s cell phone rang, pulling him out of his reverie. He dragged his gaze from her and looked down at the screen. “It’s Griff. I gotta take this.”
“I’ll get the laptop.”
Jules, breaking the spell that seemed to come over her, a problem where Sam was concerned, hurried to the bedroom and reached under the mattress for the laptop. She’d just closed her hand around the sleek computer and was pulling it out when she heard Sam’s voice shot with tension.
“What hospital?” he demanded. “Shit. I’m on my way. I don’t give a damn, Griff! When she wakes up, I need to talk to her.”
Jules ran back down the hall, cradling the laptop in her left arm. “Where are you going?” she asked fearfully.
“Seaside Hospital. Phoenix Delacourt was in an accident. A bad one. Someone ran her off a cliff into a creek. You’re coming with me. Call Joanie—do you know her number? We’ll leave Georgie with her. . . .”