The Sweetest Summer: A Bayberry Island Novel

  In an attempt to lift Clancy’s spirits and help put the whole disaster behind him, his dad had taken him to the Rusty Scupper Tavern for a pint. Frasier had raised a glass in his honor.

  “She wasn’t good enough for ya, son. Besides, you’ve dodged the menopause bullet, and that makes you a lucky, lucky man.”

  Right on cue, Cosmo smirked. “Let me guess, Chief Flynn. You need me to open up another door for you? I didn’t know you had remarried.”

  Clancy glared at Cosmo, making sure he saw his complete lack of amusement. “I need to ask a few questions about Cricket Dickinson, one of your guests.”

  “Dickinson?” Cosmo let his eyeglasses fall down the bridge of his nose so he could see the computer screen. “Yeah. Adjoining rooms. Fourteen and sixteen.”

  “Two rooms? For an adult and young child?”

  “A . . . who? Now, hold on.” He clicked a few keys on the computer. “They checked in yesterday . . . paid cash for the whole week in advance . . . This don’t make no sense.” He looked up over the rim of his eyeglasses at Clancy. “I don’t know what’s going on with this reservation, but I swear that’s not who I rented these rooms to last fall. I always require a credit card on file but there’s nothing here, just a copy of her license. Something’s not right.”

  “I’d have to agree with that,” Clancy said. “I’d like a printout of that license if you don’t mind.”

  Cosmo clicked a key and the printer whirred to life. He resumed his perusal of the computer screen. “This had to be a reservation for a party of four originally, because I have a rule—a minimum of two people per room rule during festival week. No exceptions.”

  “So what happened?”

  Cosmo suddenly lost enthusiasm for the issue, and shrugged. “What do I know?” He retrieved the black-and-white page from the printer and handed it to Clancy. “I’m an old man and half the time I can’t even find my own wallet. Computers don’t make mistakes, right? So I guess I don’t remember so good. As long as the bill is paid, I got no problems.”

  Clancy decided he’d be coming back for a chat with his new Albanian friend when Cosmo was otherwise occupied.

  “Well, thanks for your help, Mr. Katsakis.”

  “I don’t want no trouble here, Chief. I run a nice family operation, no funny business—well, most of the time, that is. But I don’t need to tell you that.”

  Clancy tipped his cap and walked out of the lobby, feeling Cosmo’s smirk burning through the back of his uniform shirt.

  * * *

  There was a knock at the door. Evelyn jumped off the bed and ran to press her eye to the peephole. Though it was difficult to get a clear look in the glare of the security light, it was obviously a young woman. Maybe one of the motel maids.

  She unlatched the chain lock and cracked the door open, putting a finger up to her lips. “Shhhh. My nephew is asleep.”

  “Oh.” The girl tried to peek inside.

  Evelyn blocked her view, suddenly uncomfortable. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  The girl smiled. “Did I wake you, too?”

  Evelyn glanced down to see she was wearing nothing but a stretchy camisole and pajama shorts. Okay. Now she was irritated. “It is almost ten p.m., and families with children are asleep by now. What did you say you wanted?”

  She reached in the pocket of her khakis and handed Evelyn a business card. “I’m Hillary Hewes, editor of the Bayberry Island Bulletin, and I’m here to interview you and your boy about the near-drowning at the dock today.”

  Evelyn felt her jaw fall open. She pushed the card back into Hillary’s palm. “Sorry. Not interested.”

  “I already have the police report.” She produced a smug little wobble of her head. “Don’t you want to add your side of the story? Maybe get your photo in Friday’s festival week wrap-up edition?”

  “My side of the story?” Evelyn laughed sarcastically. Shit. They should have left on the last evening ferry as she’d planned, but Jellybean had been so worn out and grumpy that Evelyn decided they’d leave first thing in the morning instead. Huge mistake.

  “If you’d prefer, I can interview you on camera. I’m a freelance broadcast journalist, too, trying to break into the big leagues, you know?”

  Evelyn blinked. “Uh, no. Good-bye.”

  “Wait!” Hillary put her gym shoe in the crack of the door. “Is the boy all right?”

  That was it. Evelyn stomped on the reporter’s shoe with her own bare foot, pressing down hard until the girl retreated from the threshold. “Good night.” She shut, chained, and dead-bolted the door.

  Even after all that, a small, white business card got shoved under the door. People!

  Evelyn twisted around to check on Christina, relieved to see she was still asleep and breathing peacefully. She decided that while she was up she might as well call Hal, so she grabbed her cell phone and headed toward the bathroom.

  There was another knock at the door, this time much softer. Evelyn was completely pissed off at that point and her mind was spinning . . . Sure! Come on in! I’m a wanted kidnapper! Since the news coverage hasn’t gotten me arrested yet, let’s put my frickin’ picture on the front page of your newspaper and see what happens!

  Evelyn opened the door while keeping the chain in place. She stuck only her lips through the crack. “If you do not stop harassing me, I will call the police.”

  Someone with a deep voice cleared his throat. “It’s always nice to be needed.”

  Evelyn’s spine stiffened. Her heart began to slam behind her ribs. It was him. Un-bee-leeve-able! Now what was she going to do?

  “I . . . I’m sorry, Chief Flynn. Chris is asleep and I’m not dressed.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “For you to come out here and sit on the bench with me. We need to talk.”

  Evelyn let her forehead drop to the motel wall. So what now? This could be a trap. In the hours since the parade, Clancy could have figured out who she was, contacted the FBI, and flown in a SWAT team. There might be a dozen specially trained officers with automatic weapons just outside the door. Christina could be whisked away to Richard Wahlman while Evelyn was being thrown to the ground and handcuffed. And she wouldn’t be able to stop any of it. She wouldn’t even get a chance to say good-bye.

  Evelyn raised her head from the wall. On the other hand, maybe Clancy Flynn simply wanted to talk to her.

  “It’s pretty late. I really shouldn’t. Chris will be—”

  “He’ll be fine. We’ll be right outside.”

  She slowly moved her eyes so she could see out the crack in the door. Clancy had his head tipped to the side, his hands in his pockets. He seemed pretty mellow for someone coordinating a SWAT raid. Suddenly, he raised his eyes and locked his gaze with hers.

  “Come on out. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

  * * *

  Richard was one of the anointed few, and if he ever needed to be reminded of that, all he had to do was look out his office window. For the last two terms, he’d been situated on the second floor of the Rayburn Building, where the view, especially on a night like this one, was nothing short of intoxicating.

  He could see the Capitol dome, the thirty-six windows of the rotunda shedding golden light into the darkness. He enjoyed the vast geometric display of the District of Columbia spread out at his feet, as if it had been designed for his pleasure alone. Sometimes, just the view from up here could give him a hard-on.

  Not tonight.

  He reached for the cut glass decanter and poured two fingers of cognac. In the darkness, he sipped slowly, appreciating the rich combination of flavors—caramel, grape, and ancient oak. His cardiologist would bitch-slap him if he knew he was drinking, but then again, tonight wasn’t about his cardiologist. Or his furious wife, or his terrible mistakes, or his position
as one of the anointed. Tonight, he was just a man alone, having a heart-to-bypassed-heart with himself.

  Though Congress would be back in session in just two weeks, no one was working late that night, not even his most overachieving legislative assistants. Members of his staff were at home with their families or significant others, sweating and worrying. The faint odor of scandal had already begun to cling to the draperies around here. Richard’s media relations guy said rumors were all over town that Tamara was leaving him. His constituent services director asked if it was true that he missed two meetings because of health complications. Richard knew how it worked—as the congressman goes, so goes the staff. On the Hill, the concept of “job security” was an oxymoron.

  He took another delicious sip, savoring the pleasure to be had in his only noncompliant behavior since surgery. The wood-paneled walls and thick carpet absorbed the heavy silence. Darkness hid him. The room felt lifeless, the perfect setting for a man on the edge. This was it. It was time to make a decision.

  When he said his daughter was more important than his career or marriage, was that the truth? Was he really willing to pay the price for such a choice? He couldn’t afford to stew about it any longer—yet another day of bulletins, evidence review, and interviews of potential eyewitnesses had gone by and the FBI still had jack. The girl had been missing for more than two days now, and the special agent in charge informed him that they were now fifty percent less likely to ever find Christina.

  Richard jolted at the sound of a single rap on his door. “Who the hell is it?”

  “It’s me.”

  Of course it was M.J. The woman didn’t even have a cat to feed. Or a plant to water.

  “Come on in.” The door cracked, spilling hallway light across the royal blue plush carpet.

  “Drinking in the dark, Congressman?”

  “Yeah. Care to join me?”

  She shrugged. “Why not?”

  As was customary, M.J. took a seat in one of the overstuffed armchairs cozied up to his eighteenth-century cherry desk, turning on his desk lamp. She accepted the drink and raised her glass. “To eighteen great years.”

  Richard swallowed another mouthful and smiled at her, puzzled. “You have something to say, I take it.”

  “Not at the moment, but I’m trying to plan for my future. I thought I’d better get a bead on what was going on in your head.”

  “Ahh.”

  “Tamara’s leaving you, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  M.J. swished the cognac around in her mouth, pondering the information. “Do you have a strategy in mind?”

  Richard’s laughter continued for several seconds before it faded into a drawn-out sigh. “Sure. My strategy is to sign and date whatever the fuck her lawyers put in front of me.”

  That managed to get a chuckle out of M.J. “Will she wait until after the reelection to file?”

  Richard set the glass on his desk. He looked in her eyes, knowing he had to be straight with her about this. “Tamara will wait until after the reelection. But there’s another matter that I’m afraid may not be able to wait.”

  M.J.’s entire demeanor changed in an instant. One moment she was plotting political strategy and the next she sat, her face blank and frozen. But her empty stare soon turned to an expression of horror. As usual, M.J. had already made the cognitive leap. She’d been working for Richard so long that she knew how his brain worked. And in this particular situation, he could see that she was already grasping for how to convince him to change his mind.

  “She’s been gone more than forty-eight hours now, M.J.”

  “No, Richard. You can’t. Absolutely not. Not before the reelection.”

  “That’s well over two months away. They’ll be living in Bora Bora by then.”

  M.J.’s ears turned red. She was more pissed than Richard had ever seen her.

  “Please try to understand. Right now, Christina’s case is simply a custody-related abduction out of a tiny town in Maine. It is not particularly news. But the minute I go public and reveal she’s my child, the precious four-year-old daughter I never knew I had—”

  “Your career is over?”

  He ignored her snarky interruption. “When I go public, the faces of Evelyn and Christina McGuinness get plastered all over the Web and featured on every damn TV news channel in the nation. And, bam, we find her.”

  “This is pure insanity.”

  “Be realistic.” Richard rose from his leather chair and made his way to the tall windows. He rattled a bit of loose change in his trouser pockets, watching his partial reflection in the glass. He looked a bit like a ghost. How perfect. “We both know the truth will ooze out before the election, one way or another. Charlie McGuinness is angry enough to serve up my head on a platter.”

  “I can handle Charlie McGuinness.”

  “And if it’s not him, it could be any number of people who have knowledge about my paternity. Perhaps a court employee or even an agent assigned to the case who happens to loathe my politics. You know how nasty this life is. One anonymous tip is all it would take to cause a crap avalanche.”

  “You simply can’t do it.”

  “If it’s all going to fall apart anyway, I should go public sooner rather than later, proactively cut through the scandal and take responsibility. At least that way my confession might help find Christina. Some good might come out of this whole mess.”

  “This is political suicide.”

  He turned from the windows in time to see M.J. stand. The woman was irate.

  “It’s within reach, Richard. We can almost touch it.” M.J. was trying so hard to keep it together that her voice cracked. “You said if I came to Washington with you I would have a desk in the West Wing one day. And now we’re closer than we’ve ever been. You’re on the short list for VP in two years. This is the promise you gave me. Why would you blow it all to hell and back now?”

  “I know the timing isn’t good.”

  M.J. produced a foul-tempered cackle. For the first time in their partnership, she reminded him of Tamara. He shuddered.

  “I’ve sacrificed my life for you. Every day and week and month of the last eighteen years I gave to you. Why? Because you made me a promise. How stupid I was! I actually believed you!”

  “I never intended for this to happen.”

  “You are making a huge mistake. You will regret it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as you will be, and very soon.”

  “M.J., please.”

  “You’ll have my resignation by the end of the week.”

  Eighteen years ago . . .

  “So, do you believe in the mermaid?”

  Evie asked that as she brushed a wind chime with her long fingers, smiling when it released a random series of dings, tinkles, and hollow notes. Clancy knew it was one of a million like it hanging from display racks in Island Day vendor tents up and down Main Street, but to Evie it was exotic.

  They’d spent the day together and he’d actually had fun, even though he’d been through fourteen of these events in his life. And that was one of the reasons—everything was an adventure for Evie. She asked questions. She oohed and awed over stuff that surprised her. Since Evie was seeing everything for the first time, it made everything a lot less boring than usual for Clancy.

  “Ooh! I think this one is really pretty, do you?”

  Clancy checked it out. The chime was made of blown glass shaped like mermaids and dolphins and decorated with shiny abalone beads, pieces of sea glass, and tiny shells. “Sure. It’s nice. But I was busy staring at something much prettier.”

  Evelyn smiled shyly, but didn’t make eye contact with him. In the two days he’d been hanging out with her, he decided she wasn’t like most of the tourist girls he’d met. She didn’t talk about Madonna or her tan lines or that she
cried when New Kids on the Block broke up. Evie was a Red Sox fan. She played soccer, ran track, and rode horses. She wanted to be a doctor when she grew up and was a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But while all this awesome stuff was going on with her, she was still one hundred percent girl. She smelled like sea air and wildflowers after it rained. Her skin was soft. She was curvy where curves were nice and flat where flat was fine. And she was nice to people. When Clancy bought her a funnel cake a while ago, Evie thanked him and then thanked the food truck dude who handed it to her.

  But the best thing about Evie had to be that she had no idea how beautiful and great she really was. She wasn’t stuck on herself. He wasn’t sure how she’d managed to live so long without her head swelling up. He wondered if maybe all the guys in Maine were blind dweebs. But Clancy was happy Evie was so . . . cool.

  “I bet you see a thousand wind chimes like this one every summer, don’t you?”

  “Nah.”

  “No?”

  Clancy shook his head. “More like a million.”

  Each time Evie laughed the way she just did, some kind of electrical storm went off inside him. His blood was filled with hot sparks that went zooming around all over his body, and he got light-headed. Yeah, he’d asked the mermaid for his first piece of ass, but as stupid as he sounded to himself inside his head right at that moment, he had to admit that this was even better—Evie was so much more than that.

  She slipped her hand inside his and they continued their slow, romantic tour of Island Day. He felt kind of guilty about it, but all he could think about was kissing her. She had such pretty and soft lips. They looked like they’d be real delicate to the touch, like a ripe nectarine or something. He wondered what she tasted like, or how it would feel to hold all of her against him, standing up or sitting down or, God, what would it feel like to lie down with her? He thought he might pass out.

  “Yo.”

  Great. It was Mickey Flaherty and Chip was with him. Why Chip hung out with a dude who called him names and made fun of him he would never understand. But then again, Clancy had ditched his best friend for the last couple days to be with Evie, so what else was he supposed to do?