Murder by the Seaside (2 page)

The town slogan was Relax, You’re on Island Time Now. Growing up we joked the island
was
its own time, stuck somewhere that other places never were. Kids dreamed of leaving home to see the big world. I made it as far as Norfolk. Frankly, Chincoteague was better.

“I can’t believe you kept this place from me until now. This island has everything. Hot guys. Good food. What’s not to like?” Claire slowed her pace. “Except your apartment. Did the ice cream lady say your apartment hasn’t been rented in decades? Ever ask yourself why that is?”

“Islanders think it’s haunted.” I shook my shake cup, shifting the ultra-thick ice cream inside.

“Haunted.” Claire stopped short, looking as if she might not accept any future invitations from me.

“Island stories.”

“I’d like to hear that one.”

“We have lots of stories here. Small town, long histories, creative minds.” I nudged her forward.

“Alright then, Miss Secret Pants. Tell me about how your mom’s a psychic.”

I stopped to wave my arms overhead. “Ta-da.” The silhouette of a hand-painted pony stared back from the plate-glass window before us. Wind whipped off the water, swinging the store sign on its hinges above me as I struck my best here-we-are pose.

“The Purple Pony.” She pulled her glasses to the tip of her nose, read the sign and looked me over. “What on earth is a purple pony?”

“My parents’ shop, of course.”

“It sounds a little like a strip club.”

“If only.” I wrenched the door open and waved Claire inside.

“Holy sh—”

“—ut up.” I bumped her with a hip and smiled. A million candles and patchouli scented the air. Flower garlands roped through the wooden rafters. Twinkle lights stretched down to greet us. The little bell over the door brought my mom floating to the counter.

“Patience Peace Price. I thought you’d never arrive.”

Claire coughed and choked. I made a point of never mentioning my middle name. This was why.

I gave my mom the stink eye and moved to the counter. “We got a late start. This is my friend Claire.” I pulled in a lungful of air. The counter smelled of herbs and incense. The calming twang of Indian sitar music drifted from hidden speakers. Home sweet home.

“Nice to meet you, Claire.” Mom bowed in Claire’s direction. “We’re so proud of our Patience. Embracing a new beginning. Forging her own path.” She folded her hands in prayer at her chest and closed her eyes. We looked alike. Sort of. I’d never stand in prayer for no reason, but we shared the same round face, sandy hair and giant brown eyes. The similarities ended there.

“Peepee!” Dad’s deep voice sounded nearby.

Claire jumped.

I cringed. As if a name like Patience Peace Price wasn’t enough to saddle a girl with. The nickname killed me. Why not Pat?

Dad sat up from a bench not six feet away.

“Daddy.” My heart leapt at the sight of him.

“Is that a candle in your ear?” Claire pointed her cup in his direction.

“I’m candling.” Dad popped the candle out and dug in his ear with a white cloth. “It removes toxins.”

“The Hopi Indians did it,” Mom offered.

“Uh-huh.” Claire looked at me for help.

I shook my head. They had their own drummer. I’d never heard the tune.

This was why I didn’t go into detail about my family. I might’ve been born with the only sane genes in the pool. My folks were sweet and harmless but a lot to take in all at once. Mom wore her sun-streaked hair in a long, loose braid. It reached past her waist. Sometimes she put flowers in it, sometimes a pencil. Her long, flowing skirts were handmade. By her. Her peasant tops were older than me.

“We missed you.” Mom ran a soft palm over my cheek.

“I missed you too.” I dug in my oversized hobo for the envelope I’d stashed there. Thanks to an efficient last day of work, I managed to print a couple dozen flyers for my new counseling business. “Care if I leave these here?” I stacked them on the counter next to Dad’s handmade soaps and a henna bracelet display.

“What’s this?” She examined the flyer. A small, sympathetic smile appeared on her lips. “Honey, you’re never going to get islanders to go to a counseling practice. Everyone would know, and no one wants to be known as the one who needs therapy. Maybe you could work here. You can read cards for us.”

“Tourists love that.” Dad looped an arm around my waist. “Did you lose weight?”

“No thank you. I have a master’s degree. In counseling. It’s my dream job. I refuse to believe no one will come. There aren’t any other counselors on the island.” I reached up to knock a bead of wax from my dad’s jawbone.

“Why do you think that is?” Mom tilted her head.

“I can’t read cards for a living. I’d have to sell my organs to pay off my student loans.” Images of me in Birkenstocks and handmade dresses flashed through my mind. A line of tourists waiting to know their futures as told by me, a self-proclaimed, type-A personality who didn’t believe in Tarot any more than she believed in Santa Claus.

“People do that,” Dad confirmed. “On eBay.”

“What? Sell their organs?” The possibility he could be right sent a shiver down my spine. “Ew.”

“You can leave anything you like on our counter,” he said. “Chase your dream, Peepee.”

“Thank you.” I turned.

Claire seemed to be enjoying the show. Like a spectator at a live performance of an insanity circus. She fingered through a display of Purple Pony T-shirts, but her eyes focused on us.

“Alright, guys, I’m going to finish moving in. Then I’ll take a walk and look for some office space after dinner.”

Claire turned in a slow circle. Crystals reflected rainbows over the shiny hardwood floors. A waterfall of beads separated the retail area of the store from the back room and more private reading rooms. The look on her face was priceless. Her lips parted. Her neatly arched brows pinched. Probably meeting my parents raised as many new questions about my personality as it provided answers.

“Be careful,” Dad warned.

Muffled sirens complained in the distance. “There’s something going on around here.” Mom moved her eyes around the store ceiling slowly.

“Like what?” I looked back and forth between my parents. The sheriff had been in quite a hurry to get somewhere.

“We’re not sure. The Pony’s been dead today.”

Sure enough, the store was empty for the first time that I could recall. People loved The Pony. My parents’ shop was a hot spot. Locals came for advice on chakras and star alignment, love and gambling. My desire to help people started at The Pony—I just hoped to help in a different way. No patchouli required.

The front door swung open. We all jumped.

“What are you all doing standing around in here?” Maple Shuster, the local scuttlebutt personified, blocked the doorway, holding the door wide with one hip. “Brady McGee is dead. Someone bashed him on the head and left him at the marina.”

“Oh dear. That’s awful.” My mother shuffled around the counter. She eased Maple onto a bench where people normally tried on moccasins or shoes made from cork and bamboo. “Can I get you something?”

My father appeared with a glass of water before Maple could answer.

She sipped and came around to a more coherent, less frenzied state. “That’s delicious. It’s helping already. Thank you.”

It was sugar in tap water. Something my dad passed off as mystical and medicinal. I couldn’t fault him. I’d seen sugar water cure everything from nerves to nightmares. People were strange.

“What else did you hear?” The words tumbled out of me. I couldn’t believe someone had been murdered. Jaywalking was the worst thing I’d ever heard of happening on the island. Once in a while a couple of tourists got into a fight, but nothing like murder. I knew Brady McGee—not well, but well enough. He had a reputation for being hard, sharp-tongued and crude. His family moved to the island my sophomore year of high school. He was a senior and usually in trouble for fighting. Adrian had warned me to steer clear of him, saying Brady wanted to make a place for himself in our little town by showing people he was tough. I’d felt sorry for him after that. Worst logic ever. People crossed the street to avoid him. If he hadn’t changed his attitude in the past ten years, the list of locals with an ax to grind was probably lengthy.

Maple’s eyes widened with dramatic flair. She leaned forward on the bench and lowered her voice, as if she was about to tell the best campfire story of her life.

I held my breath in anticipation.

“I heard Adrian Davis killed him. The sheriff questioned him this morning. When he went back to bring him in on charges, Adrian ran.”

“Ran?” My folks and I spoke in unison.

“Ran. Adrian is on the lam.”

The words twisted and whirled in my mind.

He hadn’t been out jogging. He was
on the lam
.

For murder.

Chapter Two

After another thirty trips up the stairs, my legs gave out and so did Claire. She promised to come back and see me on the weekend. We’d text all week as usual. That wouldn’t change, even if the rest of my life was in upheaval.

After she slid out of my new world in her shiny blue Volvo, I puttered around my new place, unable to decide what to do. The sun settled into the harbor beyond my windows, casting lavender and rose shadows over the world. A mountain of boxes rested beneath the window frame. I had no desire to open another box. My fingers were pruny and red from cleaning. I’d set up what mattered hours before. My laptop and printer stood on the kitchen counter, and the bed was made. Tomorrow I’d start again, but right now the rumble in my tummy said it was time to pay another visit to Mrs. Tucker or my parents. Funds were limited. As much as I didn’t want to hear about my promising future reading Tarot cards or tea leaves, I equally hated spending six of my fast fading dollars on a burger.

Decisions.

When I shut my eyes, Adrian’s face appeared for the ten millionth time. What did that strange look he gave me mean? I flopped into a folding chair at the kitchen counter and tried to label the expression. Not fear. He didn’t fear anything that I could recall. Adrian was brave. Overly confident. Obnoxious. And while I, on occasion, itched to shove anther ice cream up his nose, I also knew he wasn’t a killer.

I pulled a half-eaten bag of chips off the counter and into my lap. Thinking went easier with something to crunch. In high school, Adrian and I had pledged to see the world together. I’d opened a savings account on the mainland for my eighteenth birthday, into which he and I deposited money every payday senior year. I shoved a fistful of chips between my lips. After we graduated, he left me with no warning. To play football. I ground my teeth together and flung the bag onto the counter. Crumbs dusted out the open end.

My fingernails tapped an aimless rhythm on the Formica. Adrian had trapped spiders in the shower for me and deposited them outside. He carried me two miles on his back when I twisted my ankle on the steps at the lighthouse. He cried during the memorial service on 9/11. I saw him. Those soulful gray eyes melted my heart even in memory.

I grabbed my phone to check my voice mail. Three from work. Any chance they’d changed their minds and needed me back? No. All three were from my co-workers. No one knew where we kept anything in the office. What did they do while I was working? For that matter, if I was the only one working before, how had I ended up as the one downsized?

It was late. They’d clocked out and gone home by now. I tapped a quick set of texts onto the cell screen.

Mr.
Fergusen comes for lie detector tests on Thursdays.

Remind him on Wednesday how many to expect.

The coffee lady comes first thing Monday morning.
She’ll need a receipt for the delivery.

IT has a list of all my passwords.
You’ll need to change them.

I tossed my phone on the counter beside the chips. The apartment smelled dank and unlived in. I’d already pried open all the windows and emptied a bottle of Febreeze. Time was my only hope at remedying the stink. Until then, I’d suffer dirty air coated in a synthetic April Fresh cover up.

With Claire gone, my mind wandered to the one other person I’d miss on the mainland: Sebastian Clark. Sebastian was a special agent I’d had a crush on since the day he rolled into my office, but guys like him didn’t date. They were too busy saving the world, unlike my ex, who was on the lam for murder.

My mind kicked back to Adrian. Could he have gone away to play football and come home a killer? What all had I missed these last ten years? What was he doing back in Chincoteague? So much for seeing the world. Not that I could talk.

I pulled my laptop onto my legs and brought up my new flyers. I had a goal to achieve. Every town needed a counselor. Who better to fill that need in Chincoteague than me? The residents knew me. I understood the island. We were a perfect match.
Counseling with Patience
. Finally my crazy name came in handy for something. Now I needed a few patients. I smiled. Then I thumbed the Print button. My tummy rumbled in warning. The chips didn’t cut it. A burger sounded amazing. While I was at the Tasty Cream, I’d ask Mrs. Tucker if I could leave a few flyers on the counter.

Squawking seagulls and bleating tugboats faded into the background, swallowed whole by the enormous rattle and whoosh of my ancient printer. A moment later, instinct tickled my muscles. My ears perked to attention, straining to hear a sound I knew wasn’t coming from my printer. I tiptoed across the room and pressed my back to the wall. There was a murderer on the loose. I held my breath. The stairs outside my window creaked again. My purse sat on the coffee table, out of reach. Pepper spray couldn’t help me from way over there.

“Patience?” A voice from long ago croaked outside my door.

I righted myself. I needed to get a grip.

“Mrs. Davis?” I shoved the screen door open and motioned Adrian’s mother inside.

She made the sign of the cross on her chest and moved to the dusty tweed couch. “Thank God you’ve come home—and on the day my baby is charged with murder.” She whispered the final word and rolled her eyes to my ceiling. “I always knew you’d save him.”

Lies. She hated me. I knew it at eighteen as much as I knew it at twenty-nine. She thought my parents were fruit loops and I would lead her baby to a nudist commune out west if she didn’t intervene. She’d intervened to the tune of a 2001 Mustang convertible.

“There’s always a greater plan at work. You work for the FBI. You can clear his name. You still love him enough for that, don’t you?” Her expression challenged me to deny it.

“Hi, Mrs. Davis. It’s good to be home. Thank you for asking.” I swept my hair into a ponytail to waste time while I cooled my jets. I’d regret using the rubber band on my wrist as soon as I tried to remove it. Adrian was magic. He caused me to pull my hair out without ever speaking to me.

“I
worked
for the FBI,” I explained. “Past tense. I’m a counselor now. Maybe I could offer to talk with you later about how you’re handling all this?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me. I need you to clear his name. My son is innocent. He needs you, Patience. If you ever loved him at all, how could you let him go to jail for something he didn’t do? Adrian isn’t a criminal.” Tears coated her eyes and my blood pressure dropped a fraction.

“Look, Mrs. Davis. Even if I wanted to help, I can’t. I’m not in law enforcement. I worked in human resources. I interviewed new hires and arranged fundraisers. Sometimes they sent me to colleges to recruit people. I’m no investigator. I’m hardly the one you’d want responsible for Adrian’s well-being.”

Inch-long black roots sprouted into cherry-red tips on her head. Her hair never stayed the same long. She still stuffed a size fourteen body into size ten shorts though. Years of tanning showed in the wrinkles over her aging face. Owning a tanning salon on an island seemed like a bad idea to me, but Sunny Daze Salon was always busy.

She shifted under my gaze and cleared her throat. “You always did hold a grudge, Patience Price. I know you planned to run away together. You wanted to keep him from being all he could be. Selfish. You wanted a partner to run around with, ignoring civic responsibility, avoiding education, and destroying any hope of a decent future for the both of you. What if he had gone with you? Where would you be? Not working for the FBI. Not holding a master’s degree. He wouldn’t have played college ball for four years or graduated from a good school—with honors. You’d both be broke and probably divorced after a shotgun wedding somewhere. I’d be raising your kids and you’d be reading cards with your mom.”

Blood boiled under my cheeks. “Adrian never talked to me about college. I didn’t even know he applied.” I kicked myself every day for years over that. Thanks to my parents’ obsession with island life, the only thing I thought about back then was leaving town. College seemed like something I could do later when I settled on the West Coast or in Canada. How was I supposed to know Adrian went home at night to fill out applications so he could attend immediately? He deceived me, made me look stupid and feel worse. I should’ve been the one with college plans. I was the levelheaded one, darn it.

“I was never angry he went to college. I was mad he lied to me. One minute we had plans for a life together, the next minute he’s playing ball in Florida. I never saw it coming. He duped me. It won’t happen again.”

Mrs. Davis jolted upright and snatched up her purse before I could toss her down my steps.
Shotgun wedding
. Jeez. Who said that to someone?

She knocked the screen door open with a loud bang and yelled at me on her way to the sidewalk. “Help my boy. You owe him that!”

If there was anything in my reach, I would have lobbed it at her. I slammed my door shut and locked it. No wonder Adrian was a creep. His mother was the devil. I dragged the folding chair around and grabbed my laptop again.
Raising my kids?
I’d never let her touch my kids. They’d be better off being raised by wolves.

I closed my eyes and took deep, calming breaths. Counting backward from ten, I opened my eyes and resolved to be thankful she didn’t wind up as my mother-in-law. Eyes back on the search engine, I typed
Adrian Davis
. He appeared in old articles from his football days. Then in some technology magazine for building the winning fighter robot during grad school. I’d read all those years ago. I sorted the search results, starting with the most recent. His face appeared in various local papers, endorsing everything from the Humane Society to literacy. He donated to St. Jude and his alma mater. He even did a public speaking stint through state high schools about scholarships and dream chasing.

I knew there was a reason I had stopped checking up on him. Adrian Davis was a regular everyday hero.

Bleh.

His eyes pierced right through the screen to mine. Would I have ruined him? His easy smile still ended in one dimple. Heavy brows and lashes still made it seem as if he kept all his secrets in those gorgeous gray eyes. I’d definitely like to turn him in. He owed me an apology. Or at least an explanation. I went to the White Pages and jotted down his address. No harm in walking past his house. I wasn’t sure how it would help, but I was curious. How had he ended up an advocate and benefactor while I was broke and living in an apartment haunted by dust bunnies and local legend?

I tapped the address into my phone and threw my purse over one shoulder. I needed to eat something. Keys in one hand and flyers in the other, I headed to the Tasty Cream. The island wasn’t that big. If Adrian was here, I’d find him, and then I’d turn him over to Sheriff Murray. Any decent lawyer would get him off. He didn’t need me.

I frowned.

Crossing the street to the Tasty Cream, I looked both ways. Music played on outdoor speakers. This time people sat at the booths and tables eating instead of outside on their phones gossiping. I turned a head or two on my way in. Probably the whole town already knew I was home. I nodded and smiled on my way to the counter. The flyers fit nicely in the corner near the register. Mrs. Tucker winked.

“What can I get you?”

“More fries and a diet soda.” I needed to drop off the flyers but I couldn’t shell out six bucks for a burger.

“No shake? No burger? Are you sure?”

I hadn’t buttoned my jeans since I finished the last shake. “Yeah. Just soda. Did you hear any more about what the sheriff was up to this afternoon?”

She stopped and looked at me. The restaurant seemed quieter behind me. “Surely you know.” Mrs. Tucker rested her elbows on the counter between us and settled in for a story. I wished I’d ordered the shake.

“Adrian beat the snot out of Brady McGee in front of a hundred people last night. They had a huge fight over some gambling thing, and Adrian got him good. Then fishermen found Brady dead this morning as they came in from their shifts.”

“Where did Adrian and Brady fight?”

“At the football field. One minute they were watching practice, the next thing they were rolling around on the ground.”

“Why were so many people at the football field?”

“Scrimmaging. There were buses here from all over the state. Even a couple of vendors. He can’t deny what he did to Brady. Too many witnesses.” She shoved a fry basket across the space between us. A Styrofoam cup followed.

I pushed a fry into my mouth and mulled it over. “Does Adrian always watch football practice?”

“Yeah. Since he came home, he’s never missed a practice. Coach Peters thinks he might be after his job. Looks like he won’t have to worry about that anymore.”

I made a mental note to stop at the school and visit Coach Peters. He’d have details. His keen eye never missed a thing. In the four years I swam for our high school swim team, he never let me get away with giving less than 100 percent. He saw when I cheated, replacing the infinitely easier flutter kick for the dolphin kick or when I stayed underwater an extra second to get away with doing only half the bobs he ordered as a warm-up.

So, Adrian came home to coach high school football? I shook my head. No. Everything I’d read online suggested he’d done well for himself. He was an activist, not a middle-aged overweight man-child who’d been holding on to the good old days for way too long.

“I saw them rolling on the ground.” The mailman, Mr. Glazer, stood beside me with his bill in hand. Mrs. Tucker rang him up.

“Brady said Adrian cost him a thousand dollars when he missed a perfect pass his senior year at Miami,” Mr. Glazer said. “Adrian told Brady to stow it. Then Brady said he wanted his money back.”

This was getting good. “Brady wanted Adrian to give him a thousand dollars because he bet on a game Adrian played in and lost?” That sounded like the Brady I remembered—mean, irrational, ready to fight.

“Well, it wasn’t because he played in the game. He missed the pass.”