The phone rings thirty seconds after I hit send.
“Charlie,” Julian says. In the background, a dog barks and a baby screams. “Nice setting in that photo. Where the hell are you?”
“On our dock,” I say.
“On our dock.What I’d give to say that one of these days. What happened to you, dude? You look wrecked.”
I hit the highlights of the day.
“Andrea Haviland, your mother, Paul Burke, the cop,” Julian says. “The same players as the first case.”
“Except for the dead ones,” I say.
Julian whispers something. “Sorry,” he says. “Dinner at the Allende household is chaos. And this arson case, this whole mess, could be the hottest story around.”
“Or it could be a whole lot of nothing,” I say.
“But you never know until you dig in and get dirty. That’s what journalists do. Here you have the past folding in on the present. It would make for a good narrative, especially if the fire’s connected to what your father did.”
Julian’s grasping for a story, but I need to focus on the truth, not constructing something sensational, especially not at the expense of my family and friends. I settle into the chair. “I’m not sure what I’m doing. I’m flailing around without knowing where to start.”
“It’s how you do the job. You flail—and fail—until you finally realize you’ve asked the right question.”
“Well, right now, I could use some time away from the family.”
The baby in the background screams again. “I could use some time away from the family, too,” Julian whispers. “But don’t tell anyone I said that.” Glass breaks. “Oops. Yuck. Listen to me, I have to get off the phone, but letting this story go would be a huge mistake. Grab on to it and don’t let go. Or someone else will tell the story for you.”
He clicks off the call. The light rain has transformed to a cold drizzle, and the wind has increased. Up at the cottage, Reid stands at the stove in the kitchen. I don’t want to face him right now.
I step onto the boat, unsnap the cover, and start the blower. A few moments later, I ease into the marina in downtown Hero, where I cut the engine to headway speed. The lights in the Landing blaze, andvoices from the crowded pub reverberate across the water. I take the last spot at the town pier and cover the boat before hurrying through the rain, along a gangway to the street above, where a few smokers puff away while water pours off the eaves. I sidle in beside a woman huddled under an umbrella with a cigarette tucked into the side of her mouth and a German shepherd sitting at her feet. I’ve never smoked tobacco before, but tonight—with Reid and Seton and everyone else pissed off at me—seems like the night to start. “Could I bum one?” I ask.
The woman taps a cigarette from a pack, lights it between her own lips, and hands it to me. She seems familiar, though Hero is tiny, and I’ve seen most of the people who live here at one time or another. As I crouch to pet the German shepherd, a growl begins at the back of its throat.
“Ginger needs permission to be kind,” the woman says, her voice low and throaty. “Should I give her permission?”
“I’m pretty harmless.”
“Release,” the woman says, and the dog transforms, melting against me. She wags her tail as I bury my face in her fur, letting all the stress of the day flow into her. I inhale on the cigarette. My body convulses with coughs, like the doctor said it would.
“First time?” the woman asks. “You must have had a worse day than I had.”
“We’ll have to compare notes.”
I grind the cigarette out with the heel of my shoe.
“Hey,” the woman says. “Those things cost about a buck apiece these days.”
“I’ll make it up to you. Let me buy you a drink.”
She steps out of the shadows and eyes me up and down. She has the healthy, outdoorsy appearance of most of the people around here, and looks like she might be in her early forties—though, as I realize where I remember her from, I know for a fact she’s older. She’s changed since the last time I saw her on TV, playing Gina Shock onScene of the Crime. Freya Faith, Paul Burke’s TV star client, has swapped the brash red hairfrom the series for a more natural auburn, and replaced the tailored suit with a sparkly black blouse, capri pants, and stacked heels.
“What happened to your head?” she asks.
“I ran into a tree.”
“Must have hurt.”
“Still does.”
