Embers (28 page)

"
Oh, that,
"
she
'
d said.
"
You were right. It turns out that long ago, my father knew a little French; so who knows what bits and pieces I may have picked up?
"

She
'
d been cool to him on the phone, and he
'
d chalked it up to embarrassment over that emotional outburst in the shed. This evening, however, cool had turned to cold. Meg looked away from him and said to the others,
"
The game
'
s just about played out, anyway. It
'
s obvious that Allie
'
s going to win. Why don
'
t we just call it a night?
"

"
Not so fast,
"
said Allie.
"
I want
all
of the Boardwalk. Sit back down, Meg. Comfort, you
'
re excused. Right here, Wyler,
"
she added with a sly smile, patting the seat of Comfort
'
s chair.

Lloyd rolled up his sleeves and said,
"
Leona
Helmsley
, here, is right. It
'
s not over till it
'
s over.
"

Wyler, who
'
d played Monopoly maybe three times in his life, focused on bringing himself up to speed in the game while Allie babbled like a sweet-running brook, and Lloyd rolled the dice as if the fate of the Inn Between depended on it.

Meg, who was on his right, hardly said a word. She seemed completely preoccupied with the mole on her brother
'
s forehead. Wyler made one or two conversational overtures; she ignored them. Annoyed by her indifference, he said,
"
By the way, I saw Joyce Fells today at the Shop
'
n Save.
"

That
got a reaction. Meg
'
s brows twitched sharply and her lips shaped themselves into one of her extra-polite, pissed-off smiles.
"
Oh, really?
"
she said, plopping her little metal car six spaces forward.

"
Are you
sure
?
"
asked Allie. She leaned forward over the board, her eyes wide, her voice eager.

"
Lotsa pink. Lotsa blue. Yeah, I
'
m sure,
" Wyler answered.

"
Oh, Meggie, you know what this means,
"
fretted Comfort, her knitting needles clicking a mile a minute.
"
It means she wants the dollhouse. It means she
'
s going to fight for it.
"

"
We
assumed
that,
"
Meg said, frowning over the exorbitant rent she was having to pay her sister.
"
So what?
"

Lloyd grunted and said,
"
So you know what a lawyer is gonna cost you per quarter hour?
"

Meg glanced at their father, dozing peacefully in his rocker over a fishing magazine.
"
Nothing
'
s happened yet,
"
she said in a hiss to the rest of them.
"
It
'
s not today
'
s problem.
End
of discussion.
"

She saved her most infuriated look for Wyler, who decided that he didn
'
t deserve it
—
or the cold shoulder she
'
d been giving him all night. He could understand her feeling a little uncomfortable after her so-called trance in the shed. He himself was feeling anything but comfortable with it, despite the rational explanations he
'
d offered her.

But this was really about their parting afterward at the screen door. She
'
d wriggled out of his kiss not because she wasn
'
t interested, but because
—
well, he didn
'
t know why. Because of Allie, presumably.

But it wasn
'
t because she hadn
't wanted to kiss him.

Damn it; she
'
d been sending him signals right up until that moment. The roses that she
'
d made him smell
—
what was
that
about, if not about a kiss to come?

The game went on. To an outsider peeking through the bay window, the scene looked as idyllic as could be: an elderly man snoozing in his rocker, a middle-aged woman knitting a sweater contentedly, her husband battling his lively sister for control of the Monopoly board. From the click-click of the knitting nee
dles to the tick-tick of the hal
l clock, it was just as Wyler had pictured it.

He
'
d pictured everything except the grim, determined look on the face of the
other
sister, the one drumming her fingers impatiently on the table next to him. It was obvious that Meg Hazard couldn
'
t wait for the game to be done.

And it ruined all the rest of it for him.

Lloyd tipped his chair back and tugged at his wife
's house
dress.
"
Comfort, honey, you got any more of that chocolate cheesecake around?
"
His spirits were
high
; he
'
d just snapped up another prime piece of
Park Avenue
, and the rents were flowing in. He was giving little Leona a run for her money.

Comfort took orders all around; Tom shook his head.

"
You look as low as a
Maine
tide,
"
said Allie, puzzled.
"
Are you all right?
"

He glanced at Meg and took a certain satisfaction from the march of color across her cheeks.
"
Maybe not,
"
he said.
"
I think I
'
ll call it a day.
"

"
Me, too,
"
said Meg, instantly standing up. She shoved her money toward her brother.
"
You can have mine; Tom can go to Allie. Good-night, everyone.
"

Lloyd looked at her, disappointed.
"
Two
'
s no fun, for cryin
'
out loud.
"

"
I
'
m sorry,
"
Meg said coldly, and headed for the door.

Before she got out of the room, a loud bang from outside sent them all jumping.
Everett
, starting from his doze, said,
"
Holy bejeezuz, what was
that?
"

"
Backfire, probably,
"
said Lloyd, peering through the lace curtain into the darkness outside.
"
I see a truck at the corner.
"

Everett
settled back in his rocking chair and Meg continued on her way. Allie said to Wyler in a hurt, subdued voice,
"
Is tomorrow still moving day? Do you still want my help?
"

Distracted, Wyler said,
"
What? Sure. Of course.
"

He made a hasty exit and took off in the direction of the bang. The sound was too loud for a backfire, but not too loud for a gunshot. Wyler
'
s urban hairs were still standing on his urban skin. If he were on the south side of
Chicago
right now, he
'
d have his gun out. But he was in sleepy
Bar Harbor
, so he was giving the explosion the benefit of the doubt.

He walked soundlessly through the fog, all his senses alert, listening for humans up to no good. He heard quiet voices in the parlors of one or two inns on the street, but all outdoor activity had been suppressed by the thick blanket of Down East fog. At the corner, a couple of darkened houses made him pause and circle; what better place for wreaking havoc?

His hunch panned out. In back of one of the houses he heard two voices that cracked when they giggled. Kids. Only then, when he heard the scratch of a match, did he remember that the Fourth of July was coming up: kids with cherry bombs.

The second explosion rocked his eardrums. Furious, he crept up in the darkness to the bush they were crouched behind, stepped around it, and grabbed two of them by their collars, doing his best to scare the daylights out of them.

One wriggled free and took off; the other gave Wyler a sharp kick in the shins and tried to tough it out.

"
Let go of me!
"
he cried, swinging in the darkness.
"
Pick on someone your own size!
"

"
You moron! You could
'
ve lost a hand!
"
Wyler shouted, his bad leg smarting from this latest insult. He sounded more like a parent than a cop, and he knew it.

So did the kid, who didn
'
t show any fear of him at all.

"
Wait
'
ll my father gets you! Just wait!
"
he kept crying in a high, shrill voice as Wyler dragged him out to the street for a better look.

Terry.
Oh, perfect. The last sour note to the evening
'
s sour symphony.
"
Was that Timmy who ran off?
"
Wyler said, automatically yanking the twin in the direction of his house.

Terry, having recognized Wyler under the fog-bleared streetlight, turned surly and indifferent.
"Him
?
Gimme a break.
Ti
mmy
'
s in his room, readin
'
a book.
"

"
And is there some reason you
'
re not?
"
Wyler asked, with another yank on the boy
'
s collar.

Terry twisted his head up at Wyler.
"
Yeah, duh, I can
'
t read,
"
he said in a Beavis-and-Butt-Head voice.
"
Ain
'
t you heard?
"

"
Keep this up and you
'
ll have plenty of time to learn
—
in jail,
"
Wyler answered through gritted teeth.

All the pat phrases came tumbling out as they made their way in lockstep down the street.
"
What
'
s the matter with you?
...
don
'
t you have any brains?
...
why can
'
t you be more like your brother?
...
do you know what road you
'
re headed down?
...
you
'
ll end up with no money, no future
...
what
'
s the matter with you?
...
don
'
t you have any brains? What would your mother say?
"

Terry muttered,
"
Everything you just said.
"

Wyler stopped dead in his tracks. It was true. He was basically just foaming at the mouth,
in the way of frustrated, well-
meaning adult
s since the beginning of time.

"
C
'
mon,
"
he said abruptly.
"
We
'
re going for a walk.
"
He about-faced and began heading for town.

"
You
'
re not gonna take me to the station, are you?
"
asked Terry, horrified.