Exposure (23 page)

"Yes, sure."

"Okay then. I'd better go talk to Ruby about the both of us vacating at the same time this way."

"Oh, Lord, Elvis. I didn't even think about that." A frown of concern pulled Emma's delicate eyebrows together, "We're kind of leaving her in the lurch, aren't we?"

"You and Gracie have become important to Ruby," he replied with a shrug. "She'll understand." Or so he hoped.

Ruby did. She dragged him over to table seven the moment he walked through the doorway connecting the cafe to the boarding house. "I heard about last night," she said in a low voice. "Is Gracie really all right?"

"Yeah. She's got three stitches in her head—"

Ruby moaned.

"—but she's fine. She's bouncing all over the place this morning. Last night's incident is what I need to talk to you about, though." He waited until he had her undivided attention. "I've gotta give up my room, Ruby, and so does Emma. I'm moving the three of us into the Rutherford place out on Higgins Road."

He fixed her with a stern expression. "That information goes no further than you, though," he warned. "You, the Mackeys, Sandy, and my deputies are the only ones who are going to know Emma's new location. Now, I apologize for the short notice—"

It was a measure of her friendship with Emma, he thought, that she barely even winced at losing two rents at once. "Don't worry about that, Elvis. I'm glad you're getting them out of here. It's obviously no longer a safe spot for them."

"I'm going to find whoever was responsible for hurting Gracie," he told her. "You can take that to the bank. And when I do," he vowed in a hard voice, "I'm going to make 'em pay."

Realizing it wasn't the most professional comment to be making in public, he gathered his cop persona more firmly around him. "In any case," he said firmly, "my rent's paid up until the end of the month.

I'd like to give that to you in lieu of a formal notice and ask that you don't spread it around that I'm no longer living up there. The fewer people who realize we've moved out, the better it will be for Emma and Gracie."

"I'll do whatever you think is best, Elvis. Only, the thing is ... can I come visit them sometime?"

"You bet, whenever you want." She appeared so upset at the thought of being cut off from Emma that he reached over and patted her hand. "That's why I told you where they'll be, Ruby. Just take every precaution to see that you're not followed, hey?" Then his eyes lit up and he gave her a crooked little smile. "Not that I foresee any particular problem in that arena. Hell, the logistics of the night out you and Emma had at the Anchor showed you have a skill a lot of cops I've worked with would have envied."

Shortly thereafter, he was climbing the stairs back to his room trying to ignore the warm glow in his solar plexus that was a result of the way Ruby had turned her hand over beneath his and said, "You know something, Elvis Donnelly? You really are a very nice man," before giving his fingers a squeeze and then turning them loose. Hell, big deal. Ruby had never been one of the islanders to ostracize him, anyway. She'd always treated him with perfect civility. He'd learned young how to read the nuances, however, and he knew that neither had she particularly liked him before.

So, okay, he'd admit it. It felt. . . good ... to know that now she apparently did.

He figured out immediately, upon entering his room, that he wasn't going to get a damn thing accomplished in any sort of a timely manner with Gracie underfoot. At the first opportunity, he pulled Clare aside.

"Can you take her down to the store for a while?" he requested. "Please, I'll try not to be too long."

"Don't worry about it," she said and gave his arm a reassuring pat. "Take your time. If it runs into the lunch hour I'll feed her some nice high-fat, low-nutritional fountain fare. You going to tell me what's going on, though, Elvis?"

"Yeah, I will, Clare, I promise. Just as soon as I have a minute to spare." For the first time all morning he looked at her closely. There was a sort of a glow about her that he hadn't seen in a long time. "You look different," he said, and tilted his head first to one side and then the other as he tried to figure out why. "You get a new haircut or something? No, wait, I know. You've lost weight, right?"

Clare just laughed and went to pry Gracie away from the rock and shell collection she was artistically arranging among the piles of books, coloring books, chalk, and crayons on the wide window sill overlooking the harbor.

Elvis was still staring down at Gracie's piles of odds and end after Clare had let the two of them out of the room. Emma must have brought an armload of Gracie's possessions over this morning so her daughter would be surrounded by familiar things. He reached out a fingertip to reposition a sand dollar. Little nester that she was, Gracie had wasted no time commandeering his window sill to set up her effects in the manner to which she was accustomed. The only problem with it, he thought with a small grin as he fetched a cardboard box and began to fill it with her stuff, was that his room faced west on the opposite side of the building and therefore got more sun. Crayons left all day on his sill at this time of year were bound to end up as one great big multicolored lump of wax.

Elvis set to work on his room. Since his desire was to keep his and the Sandses' relocation from becoming common knowledge, he didn't think it would be a stellar idea to carry everything he and Emma owned down to their respective cars in broad daylight. He packed up all of his belongings in preparation for the move, but only transported the bare essentials down to the Suburban, where he stashed them under a tarp in the back. Loping back up the stairs to Emma's room he cautioned her to do the same when he saw that she was nearly ready. Informed as to where her daughter was, he promised to return for Emma shortly, so they could pick her up. Showing himself publicly in the cafe, he bought a cup of coffee, left through the cafe's front door, and crossed the square, where he checked into work for a while to discuss strategy with his two deputies.

It was shortly after one when he and Emma walked into Mackey's General Store. They found Gracie back at the fountain, seated upon a stack of telephone books on one of the stools. Someone had tied a dishtowel around her neck to keep her outfit clean, and it was liberally spread with mustard and relish from the hot dog she was polishing off. Swallowing the last bite, she reached with both hands for her glass of milk.

Emma slid onto the stool next to her. "Hi, angel pie. Miss me?"

"Maman!" Gracie lowered her glass and, milky mustache and all, smiled dazzlingly at her mother.

"Mistoo Mackey gibbed me a hot dawg for lunch!"

"I can see that, bebe. Thank you, Sam," she said softly to the man crouched nearby stocking a lower shelf. Her hand reached out to gently fingercomb her daughter's hair, disengaging soft strands that stuck to the three wiry stitches in her forehead.

Sam finished his chore and surged to his feet. Fingers pressed into his lower back, he stretched out his spine. "We were glad to help, Emma. I'm sorry Gracie was hurt last night. Fred," he said to the boy behind the counter. "Lunch rush seems to be over. Why don't you go ahead and take your own meal break now."

"Yes, I'll take over," Clare offered, coming up. She paused at Emma's side to slide an arm around her shoulders and give her a brief hug. "How you holding up?"

"I'm fine. Elvis is—" She broke off to grimace significantly in Gracie's direction. "Are you all done, angel?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, let's get you cleaned up and then maybe you can go check out the toy section for a few minutes." Emma pulled several napkins out of the dispenser and dipped them in her daughter's water glass. Efficiently, she erased all signs of lunch from Gracie s face and hands.

Gracie bobbed in place, impatient to get down. "Can I get sumpin to take home, Mommy?"

"We'll see. You have to be a good girl and stay out of the customers' way."

"I will!"

Elvis lifted her off the stack of books and blew a raspberry against her neck before setting her down. Giggling, she trotted off. He turned back to the Mackeys and told them about the new living arrangements.

"Excellent," Clare said crisply when he had finished explaining. "That's exactly what's needed—to place the target out of this idiot's range. And it definitely calls for a house-warming. Just me, Sam, and Ruby," she added hastily at the horrified expression on Elvis' face. "For pity's sake, E, what did you think I meant, an island-wide invitation? Give me a little credit. I'm talking about tossing a few steaks on the grill and throwing together a salad and some baked potatoes. We've even got an old barbecue grill you can have." She grinned. "Think of it as a cheapskate's housewarming present. We'll throw in a bag of charcoal, won't we, Sam?" And somehow, without Elvis having much opportunity to say anything about it one way or another, it was arranged. He shrugged, accepting that he'd been outgunned, and pulled Sam aside.

"Where we goin', Maman?" Gracie strained against the shoulder strap in her car seat. She stared at the back of the department Suburban they were following along the country highway. "Where's Shewiff Elbis goin'? How come we don't wide with him? We's goin' the same way."

"You'll see when we get there, chere."

"But, Mommy—"

"I can't tell you more than that, Grace Melina. It's a surprise."

Luckily, it wasn't too much longer before the Suburban's blinker went on and they turned off the highway onto a secondary road and then a short distance later turned into a private driveway. Gravel crunched beneath their tires as they passed beneath the towering evergreens that screened the property from the road. Emma pulled the Chevy in next to Elvis' vehicle on an apron of concrete in front of a detached two-car garage.

"What is this place, Maman?" Gracie demanded. She looked at her mother hopefully. "Is there a little girl for me to play with?"

Emma's heart clenched. "No, angel, I'm sorry. This is our new house. You, me, and Elvis are goin' to be livin' here."

Gracie's already large eyes grew enormous. "Weally?" She drummed her heels restively when her mother got out of the car, impatient with the rules that decreed she had to wait to be let out of her seat. But she didn't have long to wait; Elvis got there before her maman could round the car. He opened the door and unhooked her safety harness. His proffered hook was ignored as she scrambled down unassisted.

"We gonna lib here, Elbis!" she screeched and ran into the yard. "We gonna . . . Oh, lookit! Lookit! Issa swing!" She made a beeline for a homemade rope and plank contraption that hung from a sturdy branch of a gnarled old apple tree. Flinging herself stomach first onto the seat, she set the swing in motion. It wobbled gently back and forth.

"Well, she's a hard sell," Emma commented dryly as she stood at Elvis' side and watched her daughter.

He put an arm around her and hugged her to his side. "I just love a low-maintenance woman," he said. Then he called to Gracie to come see the house.

"It's small," he apologized as he walked them through the living room, dining room, kitchen, and bath. "And I know the furnishings aren't anything to write home about—"

"It's fine." Emma assured him. It was true the furniture owed more to durability than it did to fashion. The most it had going for it was that it could be described as inoffensively nondescript. Still . . . "With some pretty curtains on that window and the one in the kitchen, and maybe some slipcovers for the couch and chair—why, I think it could be real attractive, cher. And as for its size, there's certainly more space here than either of us had at the boardin' house."

"Yeah." Relieved by her upbeat attitude, he gave her a crooked smile. "That's true enough." When he'd walked through the kitchen door and seen the kind of shabbiness he'd grown up with—

He gave himself a mental shake. Well. Never mind that. It didn't matter now, because Emma saw the possibilities. And none of them, thank God, seemed to include a single painted black velvet portrait of the King.

"I like these built-in bookcases," Emma said, and smiled at Elvis over her shoulder. "How did you ever find a place that was furnished?"

"George and Brandy Sperano originally bought this place to rent to their youngest daughter. She wanted her independence, and they wanted her near by. That sort of started a tradition. This has been the first home away from home for a lot of kids on the island. You and I are probably the oldest renters the Speranos have ever had." He laughed. "Gracie girl," he said and threw open a door off the little hallway, "this is your new bedroom, sweetheart."

Gracie raced in. She dashed enthusiastically from one feature to the next. Coming back to her mother, she grabbed Emma's hand and danced in place. "Look, Mommy! Is our new bedwoom!" Transferring her big, brown-eyed gaze to Elvis, she asked innocently, "Where you gonna sleep, Elbis?"

Elvis was there to greet Sam and Clare when the car drove into the yard. He was leaning through the driver's window practically before the car stopped rolling. "I'm glad you're here," he said to Sam. "Did you bring what I asked for?"

"And hello to you, too, Clare," Clare murmured to herself. "Nice to see you. You're lookin' good."

Elvis gave her a pained smile. "Sorry. Hi. Nice to see you. And you are lookin' good." Immediately he turned back to Sam. "Well?"

"Yeah, it's in the trunk." Sam gave Elvis a perplexed look. "What the hell's going on?"

"Nothin'. Pop the trunk. This baby's gonna save my bacon." He rolled his shoulders. "I hope."

"How the hell is a trike going to save your bacon," Sam wanted to know as he popped the trunk and climbed out of the car. He exchanged a look with Clare across the roof of the vehicle and then shrugged.

"Well, maybe save my bacon is the wrong term. I'm hoping it's gonna buy me some affection," Elvis amended. "The kid hates my guts."

"Gracie?" Sam said incredulously. "Get outta here. Kid's crazy about you."

"That was before. She hates my guts now that she's discovered Emma's going to be sleeping in my room instead of hers."