The Sweetest Summer: A Bayberry Island Novel

  The old guy’s face flushed with anger. “You’re some kind of hotshot federal investigator, aren’t ya? Since I already pay your salary with my tax dollars, I’m sure as hell not going to do your job for ya, too.”

  Richard smiled at the old Mainer’s approach to being interrogated. He liked him, mostly because he was an anomaly. Richard didn’t spend much time with the likes of Charlie McGuinness, a guy who had no taste for bullshit. In fact, the opposite was true. Every waking second of Richard’s life was spent in the company of men and women who swam in an ocean of bullshit and sunned themselves on bullshit beach, all while ordering fruity bullshit cocktails from a waitstaff composed of the general public.

  No wonder he’d had a fucking heart attack at the age of fifty-four! He was utterly sick of it. All of it.

  He just wanted his kid.

  Richard took several slow and deep breaths in an attempt to keep his pulse steady and his blood pressure down. He needed to think of something else. Relax. Since this was the first time he’d been allowed inside the McGuinness place, he decided to take advantage of the opportunity, and look around a bit. It certainly wasn’t chic, but the only home his daughter had ever known was sturdy and comfortable. The floors were worn wide-plank pine. Its thick plaster walls were covered with faded wallpaper and its kitchen was right out of Leave It to Beaver.

  As Richard had recently learned, the farm had been passed down the generations to Charlie, and both McGuinness girls had been raised here. When Amanda left DC, she came back to her childhood home. And when Evelyn discovered her sister was pregnant, she sold her Augusta condo and moved in again, too. So that’s how the place became the headquarters of the multigenerational McGuinness family.

  Richard remembered when his driver had brought him here for the first time a month earlier. It had been a gloomy summer day, the sky heavy with impending rain, but the two-hundred-year-old farmhouse and its surroundings were picture-postcard perfection. The farm lane cut through rolling acres of fields and was framed in a low stone wall. Far off to the right, Richard had been able to see where the land curled up against a large mirror-calm lake.

  His driver had parked directly in front of the house. Richard had stepped out of the backseat and evaluated the sprawling yellow clapboard saltbox with dormer windows and white trim. A cedar shake barn was attached directly to the side of the house for easy access during what he knew could be brutal winters here.

  He’d decided that if Christina had received half as much attention as this old farm had, then his daughter had been lovingly cared for.

  But on that first visit and every visit since, the McGuinnesses refused to open the front door to him. Any contact he’d had with Christina had taken place in a sterile playroom within the offices of the county’s Child Protective Services. The only reason Richard stood inside today was because the FBI had granted him access.

  “Excuse me.” He pushed aside the cluster of agents in the farmhouse kitchen, and moved into the light. He pulled out a chair and took a seat across the table from Charlie McGuinness, studying the man in the diffuse glow of the old ceiling light fixture. After a moment of quiet thought, Richard said, “Well, this is a helluvah situation, isn’t it, Charlie?”

  The man said nothing.

  “You know I have the child’s interests at heart, correct? I only want what’s best for her.”

  The old farmer lowered his chin and glared at Richard, his upper lip twitching just a bit. “Funny thing is, Mr. Wahlberg—”

  “It’s Wahlman. Richard Wahlman.”

  He ignored the correction. “You see, we don’t refer to Christina as ‘the child’ in this house. We call her Chris or Chrissy and sometimes we call her Jellybean. But nobody calls her ‘the child.’ Do ya know why that is, Mr. Wahlberg?”

  Richard felt himself smile. This guy didn’t give a damn who was seated across the kitchen table from him, which was admirable. Irritating, but admirable. He decided to humor him.

  “I had no idea Christina existed until one of my aides showed me Amanda’s obituary. You are well aware of that. It breaks my heart that my daughter is nearly four years old and I’m just now getting to know her.”

  Charlie tipped his head to the side. “She’s not your anything. Neither was her mother.”

  Richard blinked reflexively, but he let the jab go. He had no idea how much Amanda had shared with her family about her years on the Hill, though it was now obvious to everyone that her contributions had gone far beyond scheduling.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. McGuinness.” Richard leveled his gaze at Amanda’s father but kept his voice kind. “Christina is my flesh and blood. She’s my daughter. The DNA evidence is irrefutable. That doesn’t make her any less your grandchild, certainly, and I am amenable to you having visitation privileges, but the court has already decided this matter. I am her biological father. I have sole custody. Your eldest daughter may have stolen her from me, but rest assured I will stop at nothing to find her.”

  The old farmer tapped his fingertips on the scrubbed oak tabletop and shook his head. “See, nobody knows how ya did it, but ya cheated us in that court, pure and simple. I don’t know how you can live with yourself.”

  Richard felt his pulse race, which did worry him, but he could handle Charlie. “You missed the custody hearing, Mr. McGuinness. Court records show you received notice of the date and time, yet you and Evelyn didn’t bother to show up. Of course, the judge saw that as an indication that the girl wasn’t particularly important to you, and granted me custody by default. Only you know the reasons why you failed to—”

  “You and ya people can go to hell.” Charlie shot an angry glare toward Richard’s chief of staff and attorney, who stood off in the dining room. “Ayuh, you’re nothing but a bunch of liars and thieves perfectly happy to stomp all over a little girl’s heart. Ya people have no shame.”

  “Where are Evelyn and Christina?” That came from Apodaca. “This is your last opportunity. If you don’t answer, you could face obstruction charges.”

  Charlie shook his head at her. “I don’t know where the hell they are. But if I did”—he glanced up into the light, blinking back tears—“I wouldn’t tell ya. Sorry, now, but that’s the God’s truth. Go ahead and arrest me.”

  Richard was weighing his response when everyone’s attention turned to the front staircase. Half a dozen FBI evidence techs tromped down the stairs with their search warrant bounty—several boxes of books and documents and what was obviously Evelyn’s laptop and printer.

  Charlie tilted up his chin defiantly. “Won’t find much in that thing but her sports therapy appointments up in Augusta and the recipes and running diary and whatever she calls those stories she writes on the computer.”

  “Blogs,” Apodaca snapped.

  “Ayuh, that’s right. Blogs. Cricket gets on her high horse sometimes about healthy eating and training for marathons. ‘Feed the speed,’ she likes to say. Even though some of it is strange stuff, she has lots of followers, apparently. I remember this one time, she made a dish for Jellybean that—” Charlie stopped himself. His chin trembled. He was clearly on the verge of tears. When he’d regained his composure, Charlie slapped his palms on the table and pushed himself to a stand, hiking up his worn blue jeans.

  He spoke evenly. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need a hot shower and a hot meal and unless you ladies and gentlemen would like to join me for both those things, I need to ask you to kindly leave.”

  The Special Agent in Charge placed her card on the worn wood table. “We expect that you’ll remain in town.”

  Charlie McGuinness let go with a belly laugh. “I expect I will, too, miss. I was born in this town sixty-nine years ago, and they’ll bury me next to the beautiful Ginny Dickinson McGuinness one day, not a mile down the road.”

  “You know what I mean,” the agent said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Ri
chard remained seated as the federal agents filed through the hall and out the front door. Once the crowd dispersed, he could see that his attorney and chief of staff remained in the dining room. Richard motioned for them to leave as well. “I’ll catch up with you,” he said, producing a reassuring nod.

  M.J. Krawecki and Walt Henson produced twin scowls. Richard knew they were being extra cautious about the physical demands of his schedule these days. It had been only ten weeks since his bypass surgery, and news of Amanda’s death—and that she left behind a four-year-old child—had been a shock. The existence of one tiny little dark-eyed girl had been like a bomb going off in the middle of his recovery, his marriage, and his reelection campaign.

  Walt did as Richard asked and reluctantly headed for the door, but M.J. stood in place, propping a fist on her hip and widening her stance like a gunslinger in a spaghetti Western. It almost made Richard laugh.

  M.J. possessed a set of balls ten times bigger than his own. That’s why he hired her when he was minority leader in the Massachusetts Senate and brought her along when elected to the U.S. House. But recently, there had been an unpleasant rift in their partnership. She wanted to make this paternity mess disappear—she’d do anything to avoid a scandal that would jeopardize his political future. Richard wanted only his daughter, and he was willing to risk everything to get her.

  M.J. didn’t understand, of course. How could she? She was in her late thirties. Married to her job. Ambitious. No kids. And in perfect health. Someone like that couldn’t grasp how precarious life really was, or how a child could change a mortal man’s priorities.

  “Go on ahead, M.J. I’ll be there shortly.”

  She wasn’t happy about it, but she stepped outside, closing the heavy wooden door behind her. Richard knew he’d have to give the M.J. situation some thought once he and Christina were settled into their new routine as a family. The truth was that his chief of staff had defied him. He asked her to rig the custody ruling and she refused. He hadn’t dared involve the squeaky-clean Walt in this sort of thing; the man would never condone it. This meant Richard had to take care of the matter himself.

  M.J.’s snub put Richard in an uncomfortable position. Plausible deniability was always trickier when there was no middleman to take the fall, so there he was, his ass swinging in the breeze.

  Richard had offered the local clerk a higher-paying post at the federal court of appeals down the road in Portland. In exchange, the clerk had changed the custody hearing date and didn’t notify the McGuinnesses, though computer records showed she had. It had worked. All the judge had seen was that the grandfather and aunt never showed up to challenge Richard’s petition for custody. He had won by default.

  Richard now looked down at his hands folded on the McGuinnesses’ kitchen table. Those hands had been dirty a long while now. A man couldn’t hold elected office for more than twenty-five years without finessing the rules now and again. But that didn’t prevent him from feeling a sickened twinge in his gut every time he thought about what he’d done up here in Maine. He’d won his daughter under false pretense. What did that say about the kind of man he was, the kind of father he would be?

  The house had gone quiet. Charlie hadn’t moved, but Richard could tell he was itching to speak. He turned his attention to the old farmer.

  “Leave.”

  Richard smiled kindly. “I was hoping I might take you up on that offer of a hot meal. It would give us a chance to talk in private.”

  Charlie laughed again, and though the laugh was laced with bitterness, something about the sound reminded Richard of Amanda. There was once a time when he’d felt a sense of accomplishment every time he made the pretty, smart, and dangerously young Amanda McGuinness laugh.

  “You know, Charlie, this heart attack and surgery thing has really made me take a hard look at my life, and I’ve got to say, I wish things had been different with Amanda. I wish she’d told me she was pregnant.”

  The old guy got up, the kitchen chair scraping across the wood floor. He began tidying up at the sink, his back to Richard.

  “You see, I now understand that I’ve wanted a child all my adult life. I want to leave a flesh-and-blood legacy on this earth. But I willingly gave up the dream for public service.”

  Well, okay—that was stretching it. Richard had knowingly traded the idea of fatherhood for money. It wasn’t his wife’s fault. Tamara had made it clear from the beginning that she was unable to have children and had no interest in them. So when he married her, he released the idea of children and embraced the wealth and influence of his wife’s family.

  Richard cleared his throat. “I do think that perhaps everything would be different today if I had known about Christina from the start. Maybe I would have been with my daughter every day. Maybe Amanda and I would be in a relationship. Maybe she wouldn’t have been in the path of that drunk driver.”

  Charlie spun around. He spoke slowly and distinctly. “You are a lying, crooked, heartless bastard. You threatened my precious Amanda, and for that I will never forgive you. I don’t care who you are—you will never be welcome here.”

  “Mr. McGuinness—”

  “My idealistic daughter was in love with you, and you threw her away like a piece of garbage. You didn’t want Christina back then, but now that you’ve had health problems you suddenly decide to come steal her from us?” Charlie raised his right arm and pointed to the door, his hand shaking. “Let yourself out, Congressman.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Charlie. Why can’t we—?”

  “Don’t make me get my Winchester.”

  * * *

  “Have we met before?”

  Evelyn swallowed hard at Clancy Flynn’s question, but managed to answer. “I don’t think so.” She forced herself to sound as cheerful as possible, all the while thinking don’t figure it out, please don’t figure it out. . . . “I’m Cricket Dickinson, and this very tired little man needs a nap. This is our first festival.”

  He nodded calmly, but didn’t look particularly convinced.

  “I want ice cream!” Christina began to struggle in Evelyn’s grasp.

  “You know, we should probably get going. Someone is a little cranky after our trip. We’ve come a long way. We live in Indiana.”

  “Sure. Of course. Enjoy your stay.”

  That’s when Christina suddenly decided her curiosity about the police officer outweighed her meltdown plans. She swung her head around, frowned at him, and pointed. “Who you?”

  Clancy laughed, and the warm sound sent Evelyn back in time. She was hit with the remembered smell of salt water and sunscreen, the hot sun on her skin, and the taste of Clancy’s lips on hers. She remembered that astonishing rush of her first love, how being with him had made her feel fully alive, tethered tight to life while soaring above it.

  Of course she’d known Clancy Flynn was an island boy. But in her rush to get Christina to safety, it had never even occurred to her that he might still live here or that he would even remember her, let alone be chief of police! After all, it had been eighteen years. He’d never even written her back, so she couldn’t have meant anything special to him.

  He smiled at Christina. “I am Police Chief Clancy Flynn, at your service. And who are you?”

  Evelyn stiffened, afraid that Christina would answer that question truthfully. How stupid of her to stand there in a fog like that, preoccupied with memories! She couldn’t afford to lose her focus. “This is—”

  “I’m a pirate boy!” Christina called out, wiggling to be let down. She stood on the boardwalk and looked up at him with big eyes. “I am Pirate Jellybean! Are you a policemans?”

  Clancy leaned toward Christina, grinning. “I am.” Kindness softened his dark blue gaze, and gentleness warmed his voice.

  “Good, ’cause at school they say if I need help I can go see a policemans and he would help me. I w
ant to be one of the policemans when I grow up.”

  Clancy glanced briefly at Evelyn, his expression bright with amusement. “You know, that sounds like an excellent plan. Maybe you could come visit the police station while you’re on Bayberry Island.”

  Evelyn couldn’t help but think that invitation was as much for her as it was Christina. “Thanks!” She hated how nervous she sounded, but she had to get out of there. “We should probably let you get back to work. Thank you very much, Officer.”

  She propped Christina on her hip once more, adjusted the bag’s shoulder strap, and walked away. One foot in front of the other. Four blocks to go. Evelyn kept moving, not looking back, not glancing around, not giving Clancy Flynn another second to try to put the puzzle together.

  Thank God she was wearing the sunglasses and hat.

  Evelyn told herself she could do this. Everything would be all right. She would find a way.

  Eighteen years ago . . .

  “Would you hurry up? Everybody’s waiting!”

  Evie resisted, digging heels into the sand and trying to yank her arm free from her sister’s grip. Amanda might have been two years younger and four inches shorter, but she was strong. And stubborn. “I still don’t think we should go. Mom said—”

  “Mom said that Evelyn McGuinness needs to loosen up and not be such a pansy-ass. Mom said you only live once so you’d better have all the fun you possibly can while you’re on vacation because you may never get back here again!”

  Evie was shocked. “She didn’t say that, did she?”

  “Oh, my God. You’re completely clueless.” Amanda grabbed her by the crook of the elbow and started running. Evie jogged along, still not convinced.

  “You know that ‘no swimming’ areas exist for a reason, right? Sometimes there’s a strong undertow or a rip current, and other times there are rocks you can’t see and if the waves throw you against them—”