Siren (6 page)

50

"You won't be disappointed." She stopped at a door at the end of the hallway and carefully shifted the plate, juice glass, and silverware she held.

I lunged forward and grabbed the plate as it started to slip from her grip.

"Thanks," she said. "I've been here two hours, and I've already broken three coffee cups and a water pitcher. Not exactly the way to graduate from bus girl to waitress."

"Probably not."

She opened the door with her free hand and headed up a steep staircase. "But who knew waiting tables was so complicated? I mean, you carry plates of food and glasses of water every day at home, right? No big deal."

"Right."

"Wrong." She stepped to the side when she reached the landing. "It's
hard
. Especially when you're supposed to carry five plates at a time, all weighed down by Betty's famous mammoth portions, and your arms are as skinny as shoelaces."

I smiled when she raised the empty juice glass and flexed.

"Seriously. That's as big as it gets." She looked wistfully at her flat biceps.

"Maybe you can do push-ups when it's not so busy," I offered. "Build up your strength."

"I wish. Betty's is never not busy."

I looked around when I joined her on the landing. The break room was a screened-in balcony that jutted out over the pier and offered unobstructed views of the harbor and mountains.

51

"Best seat in the house," she said, leading me to a plastic table in the middle of the room. "The staff inherited it because it's right above the bar and not as romantic when the tourists get rowdy." She smiled. "Speaking of, where are you from?"

I started to respond just as a door slammed somewhere below.

"The dirty dishes don't clear themselves!" An annoyed voice carried up the stairwell.

"That's for me." Paige hurried across the balcony. "Z says my inability to stop talking is even worse than my inability to carry three dishes at once without breaking two of them."

"Z?"

"Zara," Paige shot over her shoulder. "God's gift to hungry diners everywhere. And my older sister."

As Zara lectured her from the bottom of the stairs and Paige nodded, I thought again about how nice she seemed. Genuine. In fact, I hadn't noticed it happen while we were talking, but my head felt clearer now, my hunger less painful.

"I'm so sorry, Vanessa," she called from the landing. "I'm about a dish away from peeling oranges at Squeezed, so I need to get down there. But enjoy your first Betty's breakfast! I'll try to get back up before you go."

She flashed me a smile, and I noticed that her eyes were the most interesting shade of light blue; as she talked, they glinted like polished silver.

After she flew down the stairs, I watched the activity in the harbor. Commercial fishermen cast lines from the backs of

52

small motorboats, and a half-dozen yachts bobbed in the water at the far end of the harbor. The yachts were so big, whoever owned them could probably sail from port to port, harbor to harbor, forever, stepping on land only when they needed to stretch or load up on paper towels and toilet paper.

The thought made me think of Caleb. Where was he calling home now? Why was he hiding--or running? How did no one know where he was? How long could he keep it up without anyone's help?

I wasn't sure why his parents weren't searching the state for him, but since they weren't, then I would. I had to. Not only because he was the only person who had the answers I needed, but also because Justine wouldn't have wanted him wandering around, miserable and alone.

But first ... breakfast.

"Here you are, my dear," Louis said, coming onto the balcony with a round tray piled with plates and bowls. "French toast with triple-berry compote, oatmeal with honey, eggs Florentine, maple bacon, and fresh watermelon cubes."

I followed his finger as he pointed out each dish. "I don't know what to say."

"Just enjoy." He pulled a bud vase with a single daisy from his jacket pocket, placed it on the tray, and headed toward the stairs. "And try not to have quite as much fun tonight."

Despite wanting to eat slowly so that I could savor every bite while delaying my departure, the food was gone before I was even aware that my hunger pains had started to subside. It

53

wasn't until I was using my finger to wipe up the extra maple syrup pooled in the middle of the bacon plate that I realized I was no longer alone on the balcony. Three guys in black pants and white T-shirts sat in chairs facing the north side of the harbor, drinking coffee and talking.

"I'm telling you," said the blond on the end. "It's just like that girl."

That girl
. They could've been talking about anyone, but I knew immediately who he meant. Just by his tone, and the way he said "that girl," like she wasn't a real person but some nameless, faceless character regurgitated in evening news clips.

Justine.

"No way," said the guy in the middle. "Totally different situation."

"How?" demanded the third guy. "How is it different?"

"For starters, he was an old rich guy, and she was a young, gorgeous model type."

I stared at the pool of maple syrup, my face growing warm. He
was
. She
was
.

"For another, he suffocated, and she suffered a blunt trauma to the head."

I swallowed. Blunt trauma to the head was the medical examiner's official cause of Justine's death.

"But most obviously, he washed ashore after his boat capsized, and she jumped off a cliff."

I held my breath and waited for one of the other two guys to disagree.
She didn't jump
, I silently begged them to argue.

54

She fell, or she was pushed. Girls like that don't just jump for no reason
.

"And?" prompted the third guy.

"And, dude, you clearly need more coffee. He was an accident. She was a suicide."

I dropped the fork I didn't realize I was still holding. It clattered against the porcelain. "Sorry," I said, when they all looked at me curiously.

"Anyway," continued the guy in the middle as they turned back toward the water, "like I said--totally different."

"I don't buy it," said the blond. "They both die in the water, wash up within half a mile of each other, and are found only eight days apart? It's too coincidental."

"So what? Some psycho fisherman is using people for bait? Trying something new in preparation for the annual Winter Harbor Shark Tournament?"

The blond shook his head and looked out at the harbor. "I don't know. But it's messed up--and getting in the way of my surfing, which is really unfortunate."

"Kind of hard to stand up when you're as stiff as the board you're riding," agreed the guy in the middle.

It was good that they ended their break then and headed back down the stairs. I didn't know what would've come flying out of my mouth if they hadn't, but I could tell from the burning in the bottom of my stomach that it wouldn't have been pleasant.

55

After their voices faded completely, I got up and crossed the balcony. I picked up the
Winter Harbor Herald
they'd left on the floor and sank into one of the chairs.

Paul Carsons, 45, Found Dead on Mercury Isle: #23 on Forbes 500 Leaves Behind Wife, Three Daughters
.

I scanned the article. Thanks to his invention of an all-natural caffeine alternative popular in energy drinks, Paul Carsons was very rich. His boat,
Perseverance
--which, judging by the photo of the wreckage, once looked a lot like the yachts at the far end of the harbor--had capsized. Most interesting, at least to me, was that his body had been found very close to where Justine's had been. And in the article Chief Green called the weather and water conditions so extreme, "even Triton himself couldn't have held his own."

I turned the page, and my eyes fell on a picture of Paul Carsons, his wife, and their three daughters sitting on a blanket at the beach, and then to the caption underneath: "Carsons and his family bought a vacation home in Winter Harbor last year. This was to have been their first full summer in town."

My eyes lingered on "was to have been" until a drop of water landed on the words, causing the black print to blur. I thought I might actually be crying--finally pushed over the edge by this new tragedy and physically grieving the way I should have started to days ago--but then the wind shifted. A soft spray blew through the window screens, sending more droplets onto the paper and across my bare arms and legs.

56

Outside, the sky had grown darker. The harbor, which had been as smooth and still as ice, was choppy. Sails were already being lowered and fishing boats brought in.

"Vanessa!"

"Hi," I said, folding the paper just as Paige reached the landing. "How'd it go?"

"You don't want to know," she said, rolling her silver-blue eyes. "Like it's
my
fault Charlie plowed into me like a bulldozer and made me drop the entire bin of plates?"

"No?" I guessed.

"He might've been there first. But, whatever--I'm half his size!" She grinned and plopped into the chair next to mine. "So how was your first Betty's breakfast?"

"Amazing," I said. "Kudos to the chef and his supportive staff."

"Glad to hear it. Anyway, I can't really chat--I think Z wiretapped me--but I just wanted to say hi and bye."

"Thanks. It was nice to meet you."

"You, too." She hopped back up.

We both jumped as a clap of thunder sounded, making the floor vibrate underneath our feet.

"This weather is
so
not good," she groaned, looking toward the harbor. "Everyone's coming off the water now and will be lining up outside, begging to wait it out inside. Countdown to crazy: T minus three minutes."

"Do you need any help?" I asked, standing quickly.

She looked at me, her eyes flashing against the darkening

57

sky. "Like, keeping the masses from breaking windows and looting?"

I smiled, hoping she couldn't tell how silly I felt asking what was probably a very ridiculous question. "Like busing tables. Or washing dishes. Or whatever you need."

She seemed to consider the proposition. "Have you ever bused before?"

"No ... but I did make it through my first Betty's meal without breaking a single plate."

She beamed. "At least one of us is qualified."

Later, when the storm had passed and the sun had set, when I was by myself and too scared to close my eyes, there would be plenty of time--there would be nothing
but
time--to think about Justine and Paul Carsons, and whether one had anything to do with the other. And since a few hours of calming distraction were probably about the closest I was going to get to sleep, I would take them when they came.

58

CHAPTER 5

VANESSA
... my Nessa ... come out, come out, wherever you are...
.

I shot up on the couch. My heart beat so fast and so loud, it took a second to hear the cartoons on TV and the DJ chatting in the kitchen. My eyes darted around the room, taking in the thin line of light shining between the drawn shades and the window ledges, the plastic container of wilted salad on the coffee table, and the duck-shaped clock on the shelf above the fireplace: 7:20.

Big Poppa had been right. After receiving the green light from Louis and hauling bins of dishes for ten hours, I'd been so exhausted by the time I got home, my body had finally relented.

I grabbed the remote from the floor, turned off the cartoon, and flopped back down. I now saw Justine every time I closed my eyes. And unlike when I was awake, when her smile and blue eyes flashed before me every time I blinked, in the dream

59

she didn't look like the Justine I wanted to remember. She was too thin, too frail. Her skin was gray, not ivory, and mottled with yellow and purple patches. Her dark hair hung in thick tangled ropes down her back, and her blue eyes glowed white. And when she called out for me, a searing pain sliced through my skull.

I reached for the cordless phone on the coffee table, eager to replace Justine's voice with someone else's. I'd just pressed the Boston area code when a loud tapping sounded in the kitchen.

It's just a bad muffler on a passing car ... or a boat with motor trouble on the lake ... or Mr. Carmichael, back from Vermont and doing yard work ...

"No more sleep for you," I said when the tapping sounded again and I realized someone was knocking on the kitchen door. Not sure who'd be visiting so early in the morning, I finished dialing home before answering. "Hi, Dad," I said loudly when he picked up.

"Vanessa?"

"Yup, it's me." I walked through the kitchen, noting the scissors in the ceramic jug by the refrigerator, the fire extinguisher by the stove, the wooden block of knives on the counter. "Having a great morning. I'm using your extra-sharp Ginsu knives to slice cheese for the omelet I'm making."

"What Ginsu knives? And why are you yelling? Is everything okay?"

"You're almost here? Turning onto Burton Drive now?"