Killer Summer

by Lynda Curnyn

  I felt suddenly shy. “I think I would kiss him.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You think or you would?”

  I met his gaze. “I would.”

  ‘ ’What if he kisses you first?“ he said, touching his mouth to mine.

  His lips were salty, but soft, familiar. Not so familiar, I realized when he took my lip between his teeth, biting gently, his hands moving restlessly down my back as he pulled me hard against him. No, it felt different this time. Hungrier, more alive than it ever had been between us. Myles must have sensed it, too, because he broke off the kiss, his eyes searching mine. For what?

  I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything, I thought, looking into that golden brown gaze and seeing both the man I loved and someone else. Someone ravaged by past loss, uncertain what the future held.

  Some of that uncertainty began to fill me. Because really, what did I know about him anymore? This man who I once knew better than myself. So much had changed between us. So much had been left unsaid.

  I tightened my arms around him, suddenly afraid he might let me go, kissing his face, the hard planes of his cheekbones. His mouth.

  God, I loved him. Probably too much for my own good, I thought, burying my face in his neck and curling deeper into his arms, relishing the feel of his heartbeat against my chest.

  I wasn’t sure how long we stayed that way, linked in the ocean, rising and falling with the waves. Long enough for our heartbeats to slow.

  Well, my heartbeat slowed. The sound emanating from Myles’s chest was getting louder, if anything.

  Until 1 realized that whap, whap, whap I was hearing wasn’t coming from Myles.

  “What the hell is going on?” Myles asked, looking up at the sky.

  I followed his startled gaze to the helicopter hovering over the bay side of the island. I could just make out the lettering on the fuselage: S.C.P.D. As in, Suffolk County Police Department.

  * * *

  Chapter Forty-one

  Sage

  A friend in deed.

  “Sage, you sure you don’t want to try just one?”

  “No thanks, Jenny. I’m fine with my tequila,” I said, watching as my former housemate started pumping the handle on the keg of beer with everything she had. I was starting to wonder why I had stopped by the house I’d stayed in last summer. I guess I had been hoping to find some friends to hang out with, especially after realizing Zoe •wasn’t as much of a friend as I thought she was.

  These friends weren’t any better, I thought, looking around at the small crowd on the deck, who surrounded Jenny as she held a funnel of beer over her next victim.

  I mean, funnels? Come on. What, are we in college still?

  Downing the rest of my drink, I was just about to make my way out of there when I was practically mowed over by a three-hundred pound beast of a guy wearing a Bud Lite T-shirt.

  “Hey,” he said, loud enough to rouse the crowd from their drinking game. “The cops are crawling all over the dock. Some dude took a header off one of the boats. I think he’s fucking dead, man.”

  Within moments, I found myself swept along by the crowd, which stampeded toward the walkway to the street. Not exactly swept. I was running right along with them, with something close to fear nipping at my heels.

  By the time 1 got to the dock, saw the crowds swarming in front of The Inn and The Out and littering the bay front, my fear had turned into all-out panic.

  I pushed into the crowd, fighting my way through as far as 1 could, until I came to a dead stop behind a huge hulk of a guy who blocked me from going any farther.

  Turning to the woman standing next to me, I asked, “What happened?”

  Her eyes were wide behind her rimless glasses. “They found a body floating in the water.”

  “Do they know who it was?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think it was the guy who works the docks? Thad?”

  Oh, dear God. Not Chad.

  Not… dead.

  I was sitting alone in the darkness of the living room, having my fourth tequila drink of the night, when Zoe practically barreled through the sliding glass door.

  “Sage?” she yelled breathlessly, heading for the bedroom.

  “I’m in here,” I answered quietly.

  “What are you doing sitting in the dark?” she asked, stepping back toward the living room and flicking on the light.

  “Oh, God, Zoe, shut that off,” I said, shielding my eyes against the sudden brightness.

  Ignoring me, she moved in closer, stopping just before the couch where I sat, and looked at me.“I guess you heard what happened.”

  “What do you think?” I said, looking up at her. “Why are you wet?”

  “I, uh, I went for a swim. How are you doing?”

  Raising the glass to my lips, I said, “How do you think?”

  She frowned. “Why are you here all alone? You shouldn’t be alone. Where is everyone?”

  I shrugged.“God knows where Nick is. Probably down at the dock with the rest of the gawkers. Tom’s sleeping.”

  “He doesn’t know?”

  I looked at her. “What, I was supposed to wake him up to tell him somebody else fucking died?” Emotion clogged my throat, nearly overwhelming me, but I held fast.

  Not that fast. “Oh, Sage, you must feel awful—”

  “Like you care how I feel.”

  Anger flashed in Zoe’s eyes. “Of course I care about you. I’m sorry about what happened tonight. I mean earlier. I made a mistake.”

  “We all do, I suppose,” I said, turning to look out the sliding glass door.

  “A big mistake, apparently,” she said.

  Hearing the pain in her voice, I looked up at her again.

  “I can’t help but think I’m somehow responsible. I mean, I spoke to Chad tonight. If somebody tried to kill him, it was because they thought he knew something. Something the killer thought he might tell me. Or the police.”

  “Look, Zoe, I know you have murder on the brain, but Chad wasn’t murdered. I heard he hit his head on one of the masts on a boat he was working on and fell in.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not what happened, Sage.”

  I sighed. “Zoe, I’m in no mood for your theories tonight.”

  “It’s not my theory. The police came up with this one all on their own.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She blew out a breath. “I saw Jeff down at the dock. You know, that cop I went out with? Of course, he wouldn’t tell me anything. Especially not with Myles standing there.”

  “Myles?”

  She blushed. “That’s who I was, um, swimming with.”

  I picked up my glass again, took a healthy slug.“I’m glad someone had a nice time tonight.”

  “Sage, listen to me for a minute, would you? Jeff didn’t say much, but he did say it was no accident.”

  I looked at her. “How does he know that?”

  Zoe plopped down on the love seat across from me.“I have no idea. Maybe he has some evidence, but he certainly wasn’t sharing it with me.”

  I studied her face, saw the mix of sorrow and confusion in her features. “Look, Zoe, this has nothing to do with you. You’re not responsible.”

  “I feel responsible, that’s for sure. I just can’t figure it out though. Who would kill that poor innocent kid?”

  A lump thickened in my throat, but I swallowed it down, along with the rest of my drink. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “I want to pin it on Donnie—he might have seen me talking to Chad, but what does Donnie have to hide if Donnie wasn’t even here the night Maggie died?”

  “Why not pin it on Vince?” I said, feeling fresh anger flare through me.

  She lowered her gaze. “I…I already checked on Vince. He wasn’t on Fire Island that night, either.”

  “Well, la-di-da.”

  “Sage, this is serious.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” I replied, folding my arms beneath
my chest to keep me from striking out. Not at Zoe. But at the world. It was too fucked up to even contemplate.

  But contemplate it, Zoe did. “I just can’t see who else would have a motive. Unless Chad was a witness to what happened that night on the beach. But Chad was with you the night Maggie was murdered.”

  I looked up at her, saw something move through her eyes. And though it was only a brief flash, I knew exactly what it was. Blame. I stiffened. “You don’t think that I—”

  “No, Sage, no,” she protested, her eyes going wide. “I would never think that.”

  But I knew she was lying. I had practically seen the thought cross her mind.

  And that was enough for me.

  I did the only thing I could do. I ran. Out the door, then over the cracked concrete and sandy paths of Kismet. The strange thing was, it wasn’t the thought of Chad that haunted me, but the memory of Hope.

  I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t…_

  The words rang through me, over and over, like the mantra they had been to me these past fifteen years. But they didn’t soothe me.

  They never really did. Never really erased the accusation I saw in the eyes of everyone the day they pulled Hope from the river.

  Now that day came back to me with full force. My mother pleading with me that morning to pick up Hope after school, though baby-sitting my sister was the last thing I wanted to do. Walking in the rain to get her, because I did give in to my mother—I always gave in. Splashing through the stream with Hope on the way back. Once the rain let up, we had turned the fact that we were both soaked to the skin into a game, stepping into the swollen stream and leaping from rock to rock as we made our way home.

  I remembered Hope’s scream as she slipped from the rock, her body sliding effortlessly into the water, which was rushing more than usual due to the heavy rainfall. Remembered diving in after her, frantically following her listless body until she disappeared completely under water.

  When I got to the end of the stream, some fifty feet down, and saw the way the sewer pipe sucked the water through, it was all I could do to stop myself from being pulled from that dark place I was certain had taken my sister.

  They said I never shed a tear, but I cried long and hard into my pillow many nights when I was sure no one could hear.

  Almost as hard as I was crying now.

  Swiping at my tears, I came to a stop in front of Vince’s house. And as I caught my breath, I realized that Zoe was right about one thing at least. I shouldn’t be alone right now.

  But when I looked up and saw the quiet darkness of the house, the front door shut against the night, I came to my senses.

  I couldn’t possibly barge in there like this, an emotional wreck. I didn’t know Vince well enough for that. I certainly couldn’t call him a boyfriend yet. I wasn’t even sure if I could call him a friend.

  That thought made me feel lonely.

  Lonelier than I’ve ever been.

  * * *

  Chapter Forty-two

  Zoe

  Dog Day Afternoon

  “Zoe, it’s Adelaide. Adelaide Gibson?“

  The minute I heard Adelaide’s raspy chirp, I was sorry I had picked up the phone. 1 had been hoping for Sage, who I had called so many times this week, at home, at the office, I was really starting to feel like a stalker again. But what else could I do? She never picked up. And she never called back, no matter what kind of message I left—and I left plenty.

  “Hi, Adelaide,” I said, bracing myself to hear about the latest changes she wanted on the film.

  “You’re never going to believe what’s happened, Zoe.”

  You’d be surprised, Adelaide. “What’s up?”

  “Fifi is home. My Fifi—she’s come back to me.”

  I sat up on the sofa, where I’d been slouching. “How?”

  “Well, I’ve been showing our little film all over town. At my garden club. My book club. I even had a viewing at the Jefferson Market Library.”

  Huh. Invisible People, notwithstanding, this might be one of my biggest distributions yet. “And somebody found Fifi?”

  “You guessed it! Two days ago I received a phone call from Beatrice Simpson—she’s in my book club. I think you met her in the park that day.“

  I was thinking Beatrice was part of the dog club, but whatever. “Go on.”

  “As it turns out, Beatrice had gotten a call from another friend of hers, who had a woman in her building with a King Charles spaniel that looked just like my Fifi!”

  I frowned. “How could she tell? Don’t they all look alike?”

  Adelaide sucked in a breath, clearly offended. “Of course not. My Fifi had an unusual brown marking on her left ear. And a pink freckle on her nose.”

  I was going to have to take her word on that.

  “Oh, Zoe, it’s a good thing we kept that extra home footage of Fifi in, otherwise, how would this woman have spotted her?”

  I decided to let that comment slide. “So what happened?”

  Then she explained how the woman had received the dog as a gift from her fifteen-year-old grandson, who thought his granny was lonely and decided to pick her up a cute little pet.

  “You’re going to press charges, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know, Zoe. I feel kind of sorry for the woman. Not only was she clearly lonely, but she has a thief for a grandson! I’m going to have one of my friends at the Police Benevolence Society give that young man a talking to. But I just had to tell you the good news. And thank you for helping me bring home my Fifi!”

  When I hung up the phone a few minutes later, I wasn’t feeling any better, despite Adelaide’s happy reunion with Fifi. Though I did have the thought that maybe I should get a dog. I certainly didn’t have many friends left. I just wished I could talk to Sage. See how she was doing. But I had one recourse left: the beach. And though Kismet was the last place I wanted to be this fine Friday, I was going, if only to see Sage.

  With that thought in mind, I looked up, saw that it was nearly four and began halfheartedly packing a bag. While I was hemming and hawing over whether to pack an extra pair of shorts to go with the six T-shirts and seven pairs of underwear I’d already stuffed into my knapsack, the phone rang.

  I leaped for the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Zoe, it’s Sage.”

  “Sage, I’ve been trying to reach you all week.”

  “I know you have. I didn’t want to talk to you.”

  I heard a rushing sound in the background. “Where are you?”

  “On the ferry. Listen, I have something to tell you about Maggie.”

  My ears perked up. “What about Maggie?”

  “Well, I was at work today, and I came across a folder that was crammed in the back of the drawer. Like it was hidden. In fact, I probably wouldn’t even have found it if I hadn’t decided to move my furniture around this afternoon.”

  “What kind of folder?”

  “A folder filled with all these invoices for some high-end jackets we had made for the fall collection.”

  “Is that unusual? I mean, don’t you keep all that info at the N.Y. office?”

  “Well, no, which was why I was curious, especially since the invoices seemed to be hidden. So I start looking through them, and I noticed that some of the numbers looked kind of high. I might not have noticed that, except that we just got an early shipment in for some styles we did in lamb and goat. I know because I get a copy of the shipping invoice sent to me as the orders come in to the warehouse, and I remembered we didn’t have as many pieces as the numbers on the payment order seemed to indicate. So I pulled out the shipping invoice and I realized I was right—the number on the payment order was higher than the number of actual goods received.”

  “Speak English, Sage.”

  “Meaning that payment was made for double the amount of skin needed for the number of jackets recorded as being received by the warehouse.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “It means t
hat somebody was making off with all those extra jackets, and if my guess is correct, making a shitload of money with them on the black market.”

  My scalp prickled. “Well, who do you think it was?”

  “Who else? Donnie Havens, the fucking slimeball. His signature is all over the shipping invoice.”

  I sucked in a breath. “So do you think Maggie found out and Donnie killed her?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  Something didn’t feel right. “Do you think they were lovers?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past either one of them. Maybe she was in cahoots with him. Why else would she be hiding all these payment orders in her office? Maybe Donnie wanted to break it off and Maggie threatened to go to Tom.”

  “But Donnie wasn’t on the beach that night. At least not according to the dock records.”

  “Maybe Donnie paid off Chad to change the records. Then, when you started asking questions, Donnie got scared his little bribe wouldn’t keep Chad’s mouth shut.”

  I suddenly felt ill. “Oh, God, Sage, then that means I was responsible for Chad’s death.”

  “Zoe, look, you didn’t know what you were dealing with. You thought it was a simple little affair. This is the big time—grand larceny. We’re talking a lot of money here. I started looking through the rest of the payment invoices and realized some of the orders there looked a bit high, too. In some cases, as many as two hundred extra pieces, which could earn as much as sixty thousand dollars on the black market. And that’s not counting the shipments that haven’t come in yet. Who knows how long Donnie was planning on carrying on this scheme of his? I mean, he recently bought himself a new boat, and I know he and Amanda are up to their eyeballs in debt—they just bought a new house near the water in Bayshore.”

  I swallowed hard, remembering the opulence of the Havens’ beach house. Tacky, yes, but opulent nonetheless.

  “I’m getting on the next train out, Sage. I’ll meet you at the house.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  I sighed. “No, I mean it. I’m packing my bag right now.”