They packed up without another word. I watched them walk to a sedan parked on the street and drive away.
My hands were shaking. I stood there for a moment, letting the adrenaline drain. Tyler may be an old soul, but he was also a kid. One who should be off-limits to these scums.
When I got back to the chairs, Seraphina was on her feet.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“They’re gone. I made them delete everything with Tyler.”
“How?”
“Asked nicely.” I tried to smile. “With some legal threats mixed in.”
“Well done,” Vance said, clapping my shoulder. “Those guys are like fleas, though. You kill two and ten more appear.”
“You would know,” Delphine said.
“Thankfully, we haven’t had any trouble lately,” Lila said. “I’m old news now.”
We all sat back down. Seraphina’s hand found mine. Her fingers were trembling.
“Do you think Tyler noticed Hunter talking to them?” Seraphina asked the group.
“He didn’t see anything,” Esme said. “Tyler was in the dugout the whole time.”
I looked toward the field. Tyler was putting on his batting helmet, getting ready for his next at-bat, seemingly unaware of the drama playing outside of the game.
Good.
We watched the rest of the game like nothing had happened. Tyler got another hit in the seventh. Peter pitched a completegame. They won by three. Alex gathered the team for a post-game huddle while we packed up the chairs and coolers.
Afterward, Tyler jogged over, sweaty and grinning. “Thanks for coming,” he said to me.
“Wouldn’t have missed it. You did well today.”
“No huge mistakes, so that’s good,” Tyler said. “But I could have played better.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Madison said solemnly. “Even grown-ups.”
Laugher rippled through our little group.
“Why is everyone laughing at me?” Madison asked Grady, then looked at her mom.
“We’re not laughing at you,” Esme said quickly. “You just tickle us.”
Madison shook her head, like we were all slightly unhinged.
Which maybe we were. But we were unhinged penguins. All of us in it together.
16
SERAPHINA
The journalist Brooke chose for my interview was named Meredith Bartlett. I did a little research on her and was surprised to see how accomplished she was. She’d profiled politicians, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, as well as numerous actors and musicians. She was known for thoughtful, in-depth articles.
She’d agreed to come to Willet Cove for the interview. For privacy reasons, I’d asked to meet with her somewhere other than my house. We’d settled on The Salty Scone, a coffee shop in town.
Thankfully, the place was quiet. A mid-morning on a week day before tourist season usually brought in a few retirees who lingered, but mostly people got their coffee and their scone and headed out the door. I ordered a cappuccino, and claimed a table in the far corner, out of earshot of the staff. Meredith arrived a few minutes later. I recognized her from her photo on her bio. She was tall, with silver-streaked hair cut bluntly at the jaw.
