“I’ll take you up on that. See you, Chrissie. Owen. Beck.” Sophie headed for the door.
“I’ll walk you out,” Beck told her. He turned to Chrissie. “You get me the information, I’ll take it from there. And don’t forget the photo.”
“I think they all were lost when I ditched the phone I took them on, but I’ll see if I can find something,” Chrissie told him. “And thanks.”
“Of course.” Beck looked at Ruby. “You really should have your own police force on the island, Miz Carter.”
Ruby smiled. “Now, why would we be needing our own when we have you, Gabriel Beck?”
He laughed, and caught up with Sophie, who was waiting for him at the door.
“Maybe we should have our own police,” Owen said after Beck and Sophie left.
“Never did before, son. Don’t see no reason to change things.”
“Gigi, we don’t even have a town government,” he reminded her.
“Don’t have a town, neither, boy. It’s just the island, same as it’s always been.” She hoisted herself from her seat. “See you take a few of those muffins home to Cass. I know she favors them.”
“Why were any left over from this morning?” Chrissie asked.
“Figured we’d be having company, by and by. Always hospitable to have something to offer.” She walked toward her apartment. “Night, Owen. Thanks for stopping by.”
“Thanks for calling me, Gigi.” He kissed her on the cheek as she passed by.
“Wait, she called you . . .” Chrissie frowned and turned to Ruby, who hadn’t missed a step. “How did you know to call him?” she asked.
“I told you she’d be coming ’round, didn’t I?” Ruby kept walking. “I told you not to fret. Should be payin’ better attention when I be talking to you . . .”
Chrissie rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m never going to get used to her. Honestly, Owen, I’ve been here for months and she still surprises me. What does she know and when does she know it?” She shrugged.
“No rhyme or reason that I can tell.” He stood in the doorway. “And this from someone who sometimes knows things himself.”
“I hope you’re kidding. The last thing I want to be thinking about is whether or not that eye is in our DNA.”
“Not kidding. I do try to ignore it, though. I don’t want to know things. I just want to live my life and love my family.” He gave Chrissie one last quick hug. “That includes you, kiddo. You know I’d do whatever I had to do if this guy shows up.”
“I know. Thanks.”
Owen stepped outside, then, before she closed the door, said, “Don’t forget to give Beck the info he asked for.”
“Got it. Thanks again.” She watched him walk to his car, then shut the door and locked it.
Chrissie heard another door open, then close. She went through Ruby’s apartment and to the screen door that led to the back porch.
“I thought you were going to read for a while.” Chrissie went out and sat in the rocking chair next to the one Ruby occupied.
“Why you be thinking that?”
“Well, you have that new thriller to read.”
“It’s a good one, yes.” Ruby’s chair began to rock slowly. “I be going back to it soon enough.”
Chrissie rocked along at the same pace as Ruby.
“It’s a really pretty night,” she said. “Lots of stars, and it’s quiet enough to hear the waves hitting the shore.”
Ruby merely nodded and continued to rock.
“I guess it’s going to be time to plant up that garden of yours soon,” Chrissie said. “I guess you’re thinking about what you want to plant this year.”
“No, I be thinking about those perennial flowers that already be pushed out of the ground. I’m pleased to see my old friends come back around again this year.”
“Where are your flowers?”
“The Shasta daisies be here.” Ruby pointed to a bed that ran along the fence. “Pinks be there, too, and peonies. They be in bud already. Hollyhocks over there close to the house. Roses along the fence. Be real pretty here come summer.”
“When do we plant new stuff? And what do you want to plant, Gigi?”
“I be about to ask you the same thing.” Ruby rested her head, her eyes fixed on the stars. “What do you want to grow?”
“Whatever you like. It’s your garden.”
“That garden be ours, not mine. I just asked you what you wanted. What do you like to cook? What do you like to eat?”
Chrissie took a few minutes to think it over. “I like to cook with herbs. Thyme, tarragon, chives, sage, rosemary. Oh, and curry, and parsley, and I love different kinds of mint. And tomatoes—I love the varieties. So versatile. Lettuces. Eggplant. Summer squash. Melons. Cucumbers. Green beans, definitely. Golden and white beets, maybe. Carrots for sure.”
“Might have to make the garden bigger, but that be fine. You want to plant all that, best get busy. Seeds on sale at the hardware store in town right about now. Heard Clay Montgomery has seedlings left over, might be he’ll sell you a few. Hoes and rakes and trowels in the shed out back. Best get busy.”
Ruby stood suddenly. “Lettuces be cool crops. You want them in now. Plan for the weekend. Monday be the day to plant. The weather be just right, spring being late this year, even if it be May already.”
She went inside, leaving Chrissie alone on the porch to contemplate her garden. Tomorrow after work she’d stop at the Montgomery farm and see if Clay had any plants to sell, then see what she’d need to pick up at the hardware store. She’d had a garden when she was young, and she’d loved it, so she welcomed the chance to grow some of her favorites.
Tomorrow she’d begin by choosing her plants, and then she’d figure out how much bigger the garden would have to be to hold it all. It made her happy to know she’d have this bit of ground to work on her own. Growing things had always seemed both empowering and soothing to her. Empowering because you were tapping into what she thought of as the life force, watching seeds become plants that would eventually bear fruit or flowers, and soothing because the time you spent in the garden was quiet time to enjoy nature.
The very thought of it energized her. She went inside, singing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” and after saying good night to Ruby, went upstairs to make her list of herbs and vegetables to buy and to sketch out where in the garden she’d plant them.
Chapter Five
Chrissie fit so comfortably into the routine at Blossoms it almost frightened her. Sophie ran a tight ship, but she was a pleasure to work with, and Chrissie could not have been happier. She easily made it through the first week of her trial period, and after they’d closed up on Wednesday, on her way home she’d detoured at Kelly’s Point Road and parked behind Scoop.
Grace’s daughter, Lucy, who was married to Clay Montgomery, had set aside some vegetable seedlings for her, and by the time Chrissie had picked them up and chatted for a while with Clay, she was later than usual, so much so that the schools had already been let out and the small shop was crowded with kids who all appeared to be in their early teens. There was so much chatter and laughter it reminded her of a diner she’d once worked in that had been a block away from a high school. The students would descend in droves, and for an hour every day, she and the others would run themselves ragged because the owner refused to bring in the late shift an hour early to help deal with the barrage of kids. Chrissie had hated the job, the tips were terrible, the owner not only an insufferable bore but a grouchy one at that, and she’d quit after six months.
She got in line behind a pair of giggling girls and tried hard not to listen to their whispered conversation, but it was hard not to overhear. Chrissie remembered a time when she’d been the object of such groundless gossip and how it had hurt when untrue stories made their way back to her and there’d been no way to defend herself. In high school, it had sometimes seemed that backstabbing was an intramural sport, and no one had been immune for the entire four years.
“Yeah, and she wore black jeans. Who wears black jeans? So uncool.”
“Connor said when she and James got out of the car, her clothes were all jumbled.”
“Figures. Slut.”
When she couldn’t listen to another snarky word, Chrissie cleared her throat. Loudly, making eye contact with the girl who was facing her.
“You know, girls, you’re in a public place,” Chrissie said, her voice barely above a whisper. “You never know who might overhear what you’re saying.”
The girl who’d been doing most of the talking turned away, her face red. The one whose back was to Chrissie muttered, “Mind your own business.”
“I’m trying to,” Chrissie whispered.
The line moved slowly and the girls fell silent until it was their turn to place their orders. They got their ice cream and eyed Chrissie suspiciously as they passed on their way to the door.
She turned her attention to the chalkboard listing that day’s specials. The chocolate raspberry that Jared had tried was on the board again but with a twist: marshmallows. Chrissie was a sucker for marshmallows. She’d even learned to make her own, which tasted nothing like the commercial ones. She was pretty sure Steffie used the packaged kind, but she was intrigued, and when she got to the counter to give her order, a frazzled Steffie grinned and said, “An adult! My kingdom for an adult.”
Chrissie laughed.
“They’re all good kids for the most part, but today it seems like there’s an unending line of them. And the girl who works for me in the afternoons had to stay late at school for a makeup test.”
“Want me to pinch hit? I can scoop—ha-ha-ha, see how I slipped that in there?—with the best of them.”
“Ha-ha. Yes. I caught it.” Steffie rolled her eyes but laughed all the same. “The worst is over, but thanks. Besides, I heard you have a new gig. Working with Sophie at Blossoms.”
“Still on my trial period but I’m crossing my fingers. Of course, it means I have to wait till later in the day for my Wednesday fix at Scoop, but it’s worth it.”
“Oh, that reminds me. Your friend was in around noon.”
“What friend?”
“The diver. The guy who owns the boat out in the bay over near the island? I can’t think of his name.”
“You mean Jared Chandler?”
“If he’s the guy you were here with last week, yeah.” Steffie looked behind Chrissie and noticed the line was starting to grow again. “What can I get for you?”
“I’ll have a cone with the chocolate raspberry marshmallow. One scoop in a sugar cone, please.”
“You got it. Anyway, he came in around noon and sat at the table near the door. Finally, I told him we were counter service only, because I didn’t know if he was waiting for someone to take his order. So he looked at his watch—it was around twelve thirty or so by then—and came up to the counter. Funny, but he ordered the same thing you just ordered. Only three scoops, like last week. Guess he was feeling brave, ’cause he ordered a cone, had to be close to a foot high. Sat back down near the door while he ate the top scoop, then grabbed a bunch of napkins and walked out.”
Steffie handed the cone to Chrissie and moved to the cash register, continuing to chatter as she rang up the sale.
“Yeah, he’s a cutie. Were you supposed to meet him here?” Steffie asked.
“I don’t think so. Why?” Chrissie handed over several bills.
“He looked like he was waiting for someone. I just thought—” She shrugged. “Maybe he was simply passing time.”
“Probably.” Chrissie dropped her change into her bag and grabbed a few napkins out of the container on the counter. She said good-bye to Steffie and walked out onto the boardwalk, trying not to think about the possibility that Jared had been waiting for her.
It was Wednesday, and Steffie had commented on the fact that Chrissie stopped in every Wednesday right before noon. What were the chances he’d have remembered such an offhand remark? And even more unlikely, that he’d be there today, on Wednesday, around noon?
It sure sounded as if that’s what had happened.
She’d been trying not to think about Jared at all. Working from early morning to late in the afternoon was exhausting and gave her little time for idle thoughts about great-looking guys with smiling eyes. The truth was she really wasn’t ready to think about any guy. The last one had damn near killed her, and she wasn’t about to go down that road again. Besides, it felt good to be just Chrissie for a while. She needed to get reacquainted with all those parts of herself she’d lost, those parts Doug had forced out of her with his bullying and his fists.
That was never going to happen again. New Chrissie knew there were pieces of the old Chrissie she’d liked, and she was going to find every one of them and put herself back together. She’d made inroads to that end since she came to the island, reading all those books she’d passed on because Doug liked her attention at night. She hadn’t baked for pleasure in forever, since Doug had told her she was getting fat. To a girl who’d grown up overweight, with image issues that had followed her into adulthood even though she’d lost the weight years ago, his words had made her go cold inside.
She’d stopped running in the mornings because he didn’t want other men watching her. She’d given up her long walks because he didn’t like to go, and if she went alone, he’d interrogate her for an hour when she got home. Where had she been? Whom did she talk to? Did she meet up with another guy? Who was he? And depending on his mood, she was likely to get smacked around a little before he was finished.
She sang in the shower whenever she pleased now without fear of giving anyone a headache, since Ruby was the only other person in there, and she was downstairs on the other side of the building. This morning, Chrissie’d belted out an entire Bangles medley: “Manic Monday,” “Eternal Flame,” and “Walk Like an Egyptian.” It had felt great.
New Chrissie would never allow anyone to smack her around again. That knowledge was empowering. It made her stand a little straighter and walk with a greater sense of confidence.
Still, the thought that Jared Chandler might have been looking for her was intriguing.
A woman with a baby in a stroller sat on the first bench drinking coffee from a paper cup, and an older couple sat talking quietly on the second one, so Chrissie strolled toward the pier. Many of the boat slips were empty, though from the end of the pier she could see a bow rider heading toward the dock. The engine had been cut and the driver was backing the boat into the slip on the rise and fall of the wake he’d churned up. A cruiser moored at the dock swayed with the tide. A catamaran sailed by and a kayaker with uneven strokes kept close to the shore, paddling around the pier and the outcrop of land where Captain Walt’s restaurant sat overlooking the bay. On the boardwalk two gulls fought over a piece of a discarded bagel.
The fishing day had ended and most of the watermen in town tied up their boats overnight at the marina past Alec’s boat shop, where the water was deeper. She walked in that direction, thinking she’d poke into his shop and say hello. When she reached the long, low, and wide building that housed the business Alec had taken over from his uncle, she saw that, although he’d been running the shop for several years, the original sign—ELLISON’S: BOATS FOR THE BAY SINCE 1896—still hung over the door. Right now, the sign Chrissie was most interested in was the one in the window: CLOSED.
She’d finished her cone, and after dabbing the napkin at the sides of her mouth, she balled up the paper and dropped it into the trash can that stood next to the walk that led down to the marina. From there she could see the point where the New River entered the bay. At a higher elevation, she could probably have seen the warehouses Dallas had turned into a film production studio, and farther up River Road, Blossoms.
She’d promised herself that with the warm weather, she’d spend more time exploring St. Dennis. She knew the area was rich in history, and while she’d read about how the town was founded and how they’d duped the British duri
ng the War of 1812, she wanted to find the one house in town that had taken a cannonball, and the tiny church that the earliest settlers had built. She knew, too, there were stories she’d yet to hear about the island as well as the town, and Ruby knew them all. She intended to hear every one. Whenever she’d asked her mother what she knew about their family, Dorothy would brush her off, saying, “Old news. Who cares?” Well, Chrissie cared, and she wanted to learn. Ruby knew all of Cannonball Island’s secrets, and before long, Chrissie would, too.
From now on, she promised herself as she walked back to her car, she’d take two hours every Sunday and walk around St. Dennis. That would be her primer, and after her walk, she’d tell Ruby what she’d seen and ask her what she knew.
• • •
TRUE TO HER promise, on Sunday morning, Chrissie dressed in shorts and a cotton tee and tied on her walking shoes. She grabbed her sunglasses from her bag, then went into the sitting room to let Ruby know she’d be gone for a few hours. To her surprise, Ruby stood in the doorway wearing a blue skirt and a white blouse topped with a red sweater, her feet in her favorite white sneakers, her handbag over her arm.
“Gigi, you look so patriotic.”
“And I guess you be going on a picnic.”
“Just going on a walk. I thought I’d walk around St. Dennis a bit, do a little sightseeing. Maybe learn more about the town.”
“You want to be knowing St. Dennis, you be asking Grace. Her family ran the only paper in town for over one hundred years.”
“I saw some of the clippings on the wall at Blossoms. Weddings, funerals, births.”
Ruby nodded. “If it happened in St. Dennis, the Ellisons wrote about it.”
“Ellison.” Chrissie’s brows knit together, trying to remember where she’d just seen that name.
“That be Grace’s maiden name.”
“I saw the name on the sign by Alec’s boat shop,” Chrissie said. “I walked down there the other day after work.”
“That be Grace’s brother, Clifford. He took in Alec and raised the boy after Carole—his mother—died. Carole be Grace and Clifford’s sister.”
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