A Charmed Place (2 page)

Joan rose up on tiptoe, trying for the same vantage over the caf
é
curtains that Norah had. In heels, Joan was able to manage an inch or two over five feet, but today she was wearing sandals. She was short. Her two best friends were tall. It made her peppery sometimes.

"Norah, would you mind?" Joan asked in a dangerously mild voice. "They're my binoculars, after all."

She reached for them but Norah shooed her away with her elbow, the way she might a pesky terrier. Maddie stepped in, as she always did, to keep the peace. She took the binoculars.

"All right, you two clowns. Have a little dignity."

With Norah, dignity was always in short supply. She proved it now by nodding slyly toward the lighthouse. "Check it out—if you're not too prim."

Probably she'd used the exact same line on half the men she'd dated; Norah had no reason to be shy. With her knockout figure, creamy skin, red, red hair and full red lips, she was the kind of woman who made men take off their wedding rings and hide them in their hip pockets.

But Maddie was not, and never would be, Norah.

"Why are you being such a pain, Nor?"

"You're abnormal, you know that? Anyone else would look. Prim, prim, prim."

With an angry, heavy sigh, Maddie accepted the binoculars and aimed them in the general direction of the lighthouse. Her sense of dread ran deep. She did not want to gape at the man and did not want, most of all, to gape at the woman. What was the point? It would be like staring into her own grave.

"Yes. I see him. Yes. He looks like on TV." She held the binoculars out to Norah. "Happy now?"

"What about the woman? What do you think?"

"I didn't see any woman," said Maddie, grateful that a billowing bed sheet hid all but a pair of slender ankles from view.

"No, she's there, Maddie. I can see her now, even without the binoculars. Look again," Joan urged.

It was going to be so much worse than Maddie thought. She sighed and tried to seem bored, then took the glasses back for another look. This time she was spared nothing. A slender woman of medium height was facing squarely in their direction, laughing. The wind was lifting her blunt-cut hair away from her face and plastering her pale blue sundress against her lithe body. She was the picture of vitality and high spirits. And the sight of her filled Maddie with relief.

"It's obviously his sister," she said.

"Ah, his sister. Wait—how would you know?" Norah demanded.

She walks the way he does... throws her head back when she laughs the way he does... does that jingle-change thing in her pocket the way he does. Who else could she be?

Maddie spun a plausible lie. "I overheard it in the post office yesterday. I remember now."

"I don't believe it. She's half his age."

"I doubt it."

The two were five years apart. But the sister looked young for her years, and the brother carried thoughts of war and savagery with him everywhere he went. Joan was right: he looked burned out. Maddie could see i
t in the apathetic lift of his
shoulders after the woman said something. It was such a tired-looking shrug.

Norah was watching Maddie more carefully now. She folded her forearms across her implanted breasts and splayed her red-tipped fingers on her upper arms. "What else did you manage to
... overhear, in the post office?" The question dripped with skepticism.

Maddie met her friend's steady g
aze with one almost as good. "
That was pretty much it. It was crowded. You know how little the lobby is. They took the conversation outside."

"Who were they? Man? Woman? Did you recognize them from town?"

"Two women, as I recall. I didn't bother turning around to see who. As I've said, I'm not really interested."

Norah cocked her head. Her lined lips curled into a faint smile. Her eyes, the color of water found nowhere in
New England
, narrowed. "Really."

"Okay, they're getting into the Jeep!" Joan cried. "Now what?"

"We follow 'em. Let's go!"

Maddie stared agape as th
e two made a dash for the half-
open Dutch door that led to the seashelled drive of the Cape Cod cottage. "Are you out of your minds? What do you hope to accomplish?"

Norah slapped the enormous glove-soft carryall she'd slung over her shoulder. "I have a camera," she said on her way out.

"You're going to photograph them?"

"If we don't, the paparazzi will!"

She had her Mercedes in gear before Joan was able to snap her seat belt shut. The top of the convertible was down, of course, the better for Norah to be seen. Maddie watched, boggled, as the two took off in a cloud of dust, Norah pumping her fist in a war whoop the whole time.

The episode bordered on the surreal: an educated, beautiful forty-year-old woman and an even more educated thirty- eight-year-old one, tracking down a media celebrity like two hound dogs after some felon in the bayou. All they needed was Maddie in the rumble seat and there they'd be: Three perfect Stooges.

She closed the lower half of the Dutch door, and then, because she felt a sudden and entirely irrational chill, closed the upper half. June meant nothing on the
Cape
. June could go from warm and wonderful to bone-chilling cold in the blink of an eye.

June had done just that.

Maddie Regan woke to the sound of rain drumming on the roof of her gabled bedroom. She had told herself many times during the long, snowy winter that it wouldn't matter whether her first morning in
Rosedale
was bright or dreary, warm or wet; she would love it just the same.

But she was wrong. It might as well have been raining volcanic ash. Her mouth felt dry, her brain, incapable of reason. Like some villager caught in the shadow of a violent eruption, she had become paralyzed by events.

She simply could not make herself move. The usually jolting aroma of Starbucks coffee drifting up from the kitchen did nothing to pry her from her bed, nor did the awareness that the new lace curtains on the windows were getting soaked by the rain.

Why him? Why here? Why now?
The questions rolled with numbing repetition through the haze of her thoughts.

Aiming those binoculars at the lighthouse yesterday had been one of the most painful things that Maddie had ever done—nearly as painful as identifying her father. She had no idea, even now, why she'd let Norah goad her into it. Until then, Maddie's plan for dealing with Dan Hawke had been simple: ignore him. Smile, if pressed, and say good morning, evening, whatever. Be civil. No more, no less.

She could do that. She had convinced herself that it was entirely doable.

But then she had focused the binoculars and was nearly knocked down by the wave of resentment that roared over her. Twenty years of insulating herself—where had they gone? Twenty years of burying the memory of him under layers of birthdays and marriage and teaching and babies and summers and colds and tuition and car pools and death and divorce. Twenty years. A lifetime of layers, stripped away by the simple sight of him standing in front of the lighthouse.

Yesterday the depth of her resentment, the sheer rawness of her emotions, had amazed her.

And today she couldn't move.

I'm like some trauma victim. I'm lying here waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

But ambulances did not come running for flashback victims. That's what psychologists were for. Maddie could mull over her feelings with a professional for
hundreds of dollars
an hour—or she could save herself some cash with a little common sense.

Get your butt out of bed and get on with your life. What're you waiting for? A special invitation?

But still she lay, listening to the rain, trying to focus on the twenty years rather than those twenty weeks.

Eventually Maddie was forced out of bed by the deep chime of the doorbell. She glanced at the clock: nine-thirty. Norah and Joan weren't due until lunchtime. Probably a couple of college kids, offering to clean house for the summer.

She waited. The chimes sounded again. Would Tracey possibly rouse herself from sleep to get the door? Would any teenager, on a rainy Saturday morning?

Grabbing a robe of daffodil yellow, Maddie made her way down the painted white stairs. She opened the door to see Trixie Roiters standing under a huge black umbrella and holding a Cruller's bakery box tied with a narrow red ribbon.

The rain bounced on the umbrella and rolled off in a dozen different streams, but the sixty-five-year-old woman standing underneath was both cheerful and dry. A warm smile pushed plump cheeks nearer to her startlingly blue eyes as she said, "Oh, dear, still in bed? I wanted to catch you before you went out on errands, but
... should I come back another time?"

"Hello, Mrs. Roiters. No, no, I should be up and about, anyway. I
... I thought I might be coming down with something, that's all. But I'm sure I'm fine. Come in."

She accepted the bakery box with thanks as the older woman collapsed her umbrella, shook it free of rain, and dumped it in the Chinese porcelain stand near the paneled front door.

"When does your mother arrive?" Mrs. Roiters asked as she followed Maddie into the kitchen. "I hope she's doing well," she added in a kindly voice.

"She's coming along," said Maddie. "I plan to drive up to
Sudbury
next weekend for her. I need to drop by the university in any case, so it'll work out well. Coffee?"

"
Only if you have time, dear. Will your brother be coming to
Sandy
Point
anytime soon? Or is Claire too far along?''

"The baby's not due until September. I'm expecting George and Claire to arrive in time for the fireworks, the same as usual."

"Good. Last year we hardly saw any of you."

"Yes
... last year. But we're all hoping that this summer will be more normal."

"It's bound to be," said Mrs. Roiters in her reassuring way. "And Tracey? How is she? I thought of her last September—starting prep school, meeting a whole new crowd, and having to deal with your awful tragedy all at the same time. Is
she
all right?"

From anyone else, the endless questions might seem prying. But Trixie Roiters really did care. Underneath her curiosity was old-fashioned, neighborly concern. The woman was a fourth-generation Sandy Pointer, the official welcoming committee to every new year-round and summer resident alike. You simply couldn't not answer Trixie Roiters.

Maddie sighed and filled
a stoneware cup with coffee. "
It was rough," she admitted. "You know how girls are at that age. They cringe if they're the center of any kind of negative attention, and it doesn't get much more negative than murder." She had to steel herself to say the word.

Mrs. Roiters pressed
three
fingers into her cheek and shook her head. "Dreadful... dreadful. Well, it's behind you now."

The cup was too full; coffee slopped over as Maddie set it before her guest. "But it's not behind us, really, is it?" she said softly. "It never can be."

"Well, I know
... in the sense that they haven't found out who murdered your father, but
... I mean, time
is
passing. And time heals all wounds, so they say."

"So they say." And damn them—they lied.

Mrs. Roiters dipped her paper napkin in the saucer to siphon off the coffee puddle lolling there. "I don't suppose the investigation has turned up anything lately?"

Maddie shook her head. In a flat voice, as though she were reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, she said, "But the case is still open. Sometimes these things go on for years before the police catch a break. It hasn't been that long, really. Fourteen months. The investigating officer is very dedicated. He hasn't given up by any means."

"Carjackings! I'm sorry I've lived long enough to see them. We may as well be living in the Old West. To tell the truth, I'd feel safer in a stagecoach than I do in my Buick."

Maddie had to smile at the thought of Mrs. Roiters cowering in her Buick as s
he drove around the village. "
But you live in
Sandy
Point
, Mrs. Roiters. Most of us don't even lock our doors. I've summered here all my life, and I can't remember a single serious crime being committed."

"I suppose you're right. After all, your father was nowhere near here when he—"

"Yes," said Maddie quickly. The veil came down again. "Nowhere near."

Maddie refused to go into all that again. The details of the murder had unfolded in agonizing bits and pieces, and it seemed to her that for the last year and two months, she'd had to talk about it—at times like these—in similar bits and pieces: her dad's brand new Accord, discovered in the Norfolk parking lot of the Boston T; the continuing nightmare of his disappearance; the eventual discovery of his body in the ditch off a winding country road nearby; the relentless lack of clues. The discovery of the crime had dragged on, and the mystery of it was dragging on still.