Kathleen turned to her, open-mouthed. “No.”
Molly grinned and got two plates down. “Yeah. I was about thirteen. It was hilarious. Of course, you have to realize, people here don’t look at nudity like mainlanders do. It’s not usually a big deal, but when you have to step into a schoolroom full of kids after they’ve all seen you naked under the moon… Well, I think Louisa realized that probably wasn’t the best image for us to have of our teacher.”
Kathleen was laughing so hard, she almost let the pancakes burn.
“I’ll lay a fire in the grate,” Molly said once they were seated. “We have to light the fire from the bonfire. That’s very important.”
Kathleen tilted her head. “I remember when you accompanied me back here to make sure I lit the Samhain fire. To protect the island.”
Molly blushed as she laughed. “Yeah. I guess that was pretty transparent.”
Kathleen stabbed at her pancakes. “Not as much as I guess it would normally have been. I was still so wrapped up in my own worries.”
Molly reached for her hand. “And I was still convinced you’d run at the first bit of trouble. I’m glad I was wrong.”
“You weren’t wrong then.” Kathleen raised Molly’s hand and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. “If Susannah or this stuff with my dad had happened back then, I might have left.”
Molly squeezed her hand. “But not now.”
Kathleen smiled. “Not now.”
THE SUNSET PROMISED TO be as beautiful as the dawn had been. Molly and Kathleen decided to walk to the beach. Molly carried a basket filled with food.
“Feasting is as important as anything else,” she’d insisted as she wheedled Kathleen into making her lasagna and Maisie’s oatmeal pecan cookies.
A number of others were already gathered on the beach when they arrived. Joey and Matty were stacking wood for the bonfire that had been prepared.
“Where’s Rebecca?” Molly asked her mom as Kathleen made room on the makeshift table for the lasagna.
Jenny looked around. “I’m not sure. We spoke earlier about what we were bringing. Thought she’d be here by now.”
Louisa sat in a beach chair, Olivia’s ashes on one side, her father’s on the other. Kathleen went over to sit with her while Molly went to find Joe.
She came back to Jenny a few minutes later. “Where’s Dad?”
Jenny straightened and put her fists on her hips. “He was just here a little while ago. We came together. Where did that man get to?”
“Something’s up,” Molly said.
Another car pulled up near the sea wall, and Wilma got out. She stood at the rocks and gestured to Molly, who clambered over the barrier.
“What’s wrong?”
“Joe says you’re to come,” said Wilma. “There’s a man. At the hotel.”
“What man?” Molly demanded. “Bobby and Aidan aren’t due until Tuesday. They didn’t come today, did they?”
“No, no.” Wilma wrung her hands. “He came by himself on his own boat. Asked for a room. Don’t like the look of him.”
Jenny climbed over the rocks and hurried over to them.
“Dad wants me to come. A stranger at the hotel. Stay here. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
She got into the car. As Wilma pulled away, she looked back to see her mom huddled with a knot of islanders.
She and Wilma found Joe and Nels in the hotel diner’s kitchen where they could watch the stranger sitting at the counter.
“Any idea who he is or why he’s here?” Molly asked.
“No.” Wilma put some fresh coffee on to brew.
Nels sloshed a little olive oil in an omelet pan and cracked three eggs into it. “Why are we so worried about this guy?”
Molly craned her neck to study him. He appeared to be fortyish, neatly trimmed salt and pepper hair, wire-rimmed glasses. He had the look of money about him. Freshly ironed button-down with a telltale logo on the chest. “Because we don’t get many people so eager to visit us that they come in their own boat, especially after all the fuel oil kerfuffle.”
She turned to Wilma. “Did you get a name?”
Wilma gave her a nervous giggle, her eyes wide with her own daring. “Did better than that. I copied his driver’s license.”
Molly grinned. “Good for you. Let me have it. I’ll see what I can find out. Meantime, you go ahead and serve him. Try to keep him busy here.”
“I’ll go back to the beach,” Joe said. “Make sure everyone’s on guard.”
Molly followed Wilma to the hotel office where Wilma handed her the copy of the stranger’s driver’s license.
“Be right back.”
Molly slipped out the back door and made her way to the island’s sheriff office, a tiny office space on the town’s main street. She didn’t spend much time here, but it was a place summer tourists could go if they had a problem, and she suspected the mere presence of a sheriff’s office on the main street was a deterrent for some people who might be tempted to do something stupid.
She picked up the phone and called a buddy of hers who was a police officer on the mainland. They’d gone to the academy together, and he’d tried hard to recruit her as he rose in the ranks of his department.
“Hey, Gary,” she said when he answered. “Molly Cooper over on Little Sister. Need a favor. See what you can find out about…” She squinted at the copied driver’s license. “Stanley Hirschman.” She read off his address in Philadelphia.
She listened to him clicking away on his computer and jotted down the information he found for her.
“This is helpful,” she said. “Keep checking. If you find anything else, give me a ring.”
Just as she hung up, Rebecca knocked and opened the door. “Figured you’d be here.” She pointed to the paper lying in front of Molly. “What did you find out?”
“He’s an attorney in Philadelphia.”
Rebecca nodded. “We can guess who sent him here.”
“What does Michael want now?”
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. “I think I know.”
THE ATMOSPHERE ON THE island was almost telepathic. Every islander knew this attorney was there, even if no one knew for certain why he had come.
Kathleen drove into town to do some marketing. The main street was nearly deserted. She peered through the diner window as she went by. It was empty. She and Blossom entered the market to see Miranda whispering with Louisa. They both jumped as the bell tinkled.
“Oh, it’s you,” Miranda said.
“Where is everyone?” Kathleen asked.
“They’re all laying low,” Louisa said. “Out on their boats early. Doing all their errands as soon as the sun’s up and then staying home.”
“So what’s up with Stanley?” Kathleen asked in a low voice.
“Wilma said he asked where the library is,” Louisa whispered, as if Stanley Hirschman might overhear her.
Kathleen perked up, thinking immediately of all the island’s genealogy books. “Did Rebecca know?”
“Yes,” Louisa said. She winked. “He can access half the library.”
“Good.” Kathleen leaned closer. “But what does he want?”
“No one knows,” Miranda said.
“But,” Louisa said, “Siobhan said he was in her shop asking about houses for sale. When she told him there weren’t any, he didn’t believe her. Word is he was asking others the same thing.”
“What’s he want a house here for?” Kathleen asked.
Miranda shrugged, but Louisa said, “I don’t think he wants a house. He’s digging.”
“For what, though,” Kathleen wondered.
“SHERIFF.”
Molly froze. Damn. She’d been keeping herself busy all over the island, staying out of sight, but she’d come to check the answering machine in her office and see if Gary had any more information for her. She turned.
“Mr. Hirschman.”
A flicker of surprise shone in his eyes.
She smiled. �
�Small island.”
He smiled, too, but it wasn’t a pleasant expression on him, revealing long, yellowed teeth.
She decided to press her advantage and dispense with the niceties. “What can I do for you?”
He pointed toward the office. “Can we talk?”
“Sorry. I’ve got a few more calls to make. I’ve only got a minute.”
His smile faded as he reappraised her. “Okay. I’ll get to it. There are no houses for sale on this island. I’ve been looking for real estate records and can’t find any. That’s highly unusual.”
She crossed her arms. “That would be because there are no houses for sale on Little Sister. People who grew up here tend to want to stay.”
“And the real estate records?” His voice was nasal and irritating. “Even if we have to go back several years, there must be some records. I couldn’t find any listings at the library, and there doesn’t seem to be any kind of town hall.”
He nodded toward her office. “I thought maybe you have the records.”
“And what is your interest in them?”
He smiled again. “Just doing a bit of research for a client.”
“Michael Halloran?”
The smile slid away immediately. “Sheriff Cooper, those records are public. You can’t keep them from me or Mr. Halloran.”
“Go home, Mr. Hirschman. Tell Michael if he has something to say to us, he can come and say it himself.”
She turned on her heel and walked to the Toyota, roaring the engine to life before pulling away. In the rear-view mirror, Stanley Hirschman watched her.
“We haven’t seen the last of you, have we?” she muttered.
Chapter 19
THE WEATHER WARMED AND gentled. Molly got back into a regular rhythm of rowing almost every morning. Kathleen joined her occasionally but knew she held Molly back, so most mornings, she and Blossom went for a walk that bumped into a jog every now and then.
To her delight, her editing and cover work had remained steady.
“Who knew all I needed was an Internet connection, and I could make a living?” she said to Rebecca one day when she arrived at the library. “I should have done this years ago.”
She knew she’d never get rich doing this, but living on the island had changed her perspective on money. “And everything else,” she could have said.
Growing up, her parents had been driven by social status and getting ahead. And making it as ostentatious as possible, she realized now. Even with Susannah, that carefully crafted façade of respectability, designed to shield her family from the taint of her father’s abusiveness, had dominated their lives together.
But here, no one was obsessed by the need to make as much money as possible. There was no social ladder to climb. Climbing up to the Head was the summit, literally, of life on Little Sister, and that would soon be occupied by four wind turbines. One of Kathleen’s grants had come through, enough to begin the wind portion of the island’s transition.
Molly and Joe and a handful of the others were working with the contractors to figure out how to connect the island’s small power grid to the turbines and a bank of batteries. Most of the islanders were already installing solar panels on their own roofs with battery backup to hold the energy.
“When is Molly going to get to your house?” Rebecca asked as they prepared to resume Kathleen’s training on the island families.
“Not sure. She’s so busy getting everyone else’s panels installed, we’ll probably still be waiting next winter. Like the mechanic who never gets his wife’s car fixed.”
Kathleen realized she had just basically called herself Molly’s wife. Rebecca seemed to have realized it, too. Kathleen glanced up to find Rebecca staring at her. Kathleen felt trapped, hypnotized by those blue-green eyes.
She cleared her throat. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
Rebecca waited.
Kathleen squirmed. This was harder than she’d expected. “Molly told me about the island’s bonding ceremony, and I was—”
“No.”
Kathleen was caught with her mouth open, ready to utter her next words. She closed it for a moment and then said, “Excuse me?”
“I can’t bond you.” Rebecca’s voice was firm, but her eyes were soft. “I’m sorry.”
“But… why?” Kathleen’s nostrils flared. “It’s because of my father, isn’t it? First the oil company and now this lawyer.”
“Yes… and no.”
Kathleen slumped back in her chair. “What does that mean?”
Rebecca kept her voice even as she said, “We don’t hold you responsible for what Michael does, but I can’t and won’t bond you with Molly while you’re still bound to him and your mother.”
Kathleen frowned. “What does that mean? I haven’t had anything to do with them for years.”
Rebecca reached across the table to squeeze her arm. “I’m sorry for you both.” She stood. “I really am.”
Kathleen was left sitting alone, staring at the door. “What the hell?”
THE FIRST TOURISTS BEGAN to arrive on the weekly ferry, and Molly was amused, listening to Kathleen complain about them.
“The ferry came in today,” she grumbled when she got home with groceries one afternoon. “I’ve got to remember to stay away from the market on ferry day. It was full of tourists. They’re really annoying.”
“They can be,” Molly acknowledged as she helped put the groceries away.
“Now I understand how everyone in the diner the night I arrived knew I didn’t belong here.”
Molly smiled. “It’s not that you didn’t belong, it’s just that we know the regulars, you might say.”
“Well, it feels strange after all these months to walk into the market or down the street and see faces I don’t know.”
“The big rush will start next week,” Molly said from the pantry. “After Memorial Day. The ferry will start to run daily until Labor Day. You won’t be able to get away from them, but some of us depend on them, so be nice. Wilma and Nels make enough during the tourist season to get by the rest of the year. And I don’t know if Miranda told you, but we get a discount.”
She emerged from the pantry to see Kathleen snatching the receipt from her bag.
“I just thought things were on sale.”
“No. They lower their prices during the winter, and bump them a little for the summer, but they don’t like to make us pay more.”
Kathleen shook her head.
“What?”
“It just still surprises me that people here are so kind to one another.”
For some reason, she sounded sad as she said it.
Molly wrapped her in a hug. “Kindness shouldn’t be a surprise.”
Kathleen held her tightly. “But it is. Sadly. There seems to be less and less of it out there.”
She pulled away. “What are you doing here, by the way? Don’t you have any jobs to do this afternoon?”
“Nope. All done.” Molly’s mouth tugged into a grin. “What did you have in mind?”
Kathleen blushed. “Well, that wasn’t what I was thinking, but I could be persuaded.”
“What were you thinking?”
Molly reached up to tuck Kathleen’s hair behind her ear, running her fingertip along the sensitive skin of her ear lobe. She got the reaction she was aiming for as Kathleen’s eyes slid out of focus and she seemed to forget what she was thinking.
“I think I could put you to sleep doing this.”
Kathleen shook her head. “Um, picnic. Maybe with Miss Louisa and your mom and dad if they can come? It’s a beautiful day.”
“Where?”
Kathleen thought. “Some place no tourists will interrupt us. The bluff?”
“Sure. It’s far enough away from town and tucked back in the woods. Should be quiet there. Want me to see if Rebecca can join us?”
An immediate shadow fell over Kathleen’s face, but she only said, “Let’s keep it small. Why don’t you give your mom a
call? I’ll start making some chicken salad.”
Blossom stood suddenly, his hackles up, a low growl rumbling from his chest as he stared toward the front of the cottage. Molly went to the door.
Kathleen hurried after her to see a sheriff’s car parked in the drive. A man in uniform got out from behind the wheel while Rebecca got out of the passenger side.
“I think the picnic is going to have to wait,” Molly said.
NIGHT HAD FALLEN BY the time the telephone jangled. Kathleen had been pacing anxiously since Molly had left almost three hours earlier with the sheriff’s deputy from the mainland and Rebecca. She ran to the kitchen to answer.
“Come to the library,” Molly said curtly.
“What is going on?”
“We’ll explain when you get here.”
Kathleen’s heart thudded with dread as she drove to the library where Joe’s truck and Louisa’s Ford were already parked.
Molly came out to greet her.
“Why is it dark if we’re all meeting here?” Kathleen asked.
“Shhh.” Molly gestured her inside.
Confused, Kathleen followed Molly’s lead, closing her door softly and stepping up onto the library’s porch. Blossom seemed to sense the need for secrecy and tiptoed across the wooden boards so his nails wouldn’t click.
Molly opened the door quietly, locking it behind them.
Rebecca peeked through the doorway from the genealogy room. “Come to the back.”
Kathleen and Molly entered the back room to find Jenny, Joe, and Louisa already seated around the table. An oil lamp burned with a low flame, and the curtains were drawn. Rebecca closed the door after them, locking it as well.
Wondering what in the world was going on, Kathleen sat and waited. Blossom lay down under the table where she could feel his chin resting on her foot.
Molly slid a thick envelope onto the table. “That deputy came to serve a summons. We’re being sued.”
“Sued?” Kathleen asked when she found her voice. “By whom? For what?”
Rebecca leaned forward from where she sat at the end of the table. “By Michael.”
“What?” Kathleen felt as if someone had punched her in the gut. She couldn’t meet Rebecca’s gaze.
When the Stars Sang Page 26
