The Great Escape (17 page)

P
ANDA WANTED TO PUNCH SOMETHING
. Himself. How many times was he going to blow it with her? But she got him so pissed off.

Bitch deserved it. If she hadn’t made me so mad, I wouldn’t have hit her
.

He’d heard exactly those words during hundreds of domestic violence calls where some asshole tried to justify beating the shit out of a woman with the same excuse. The fact that he’d used words instead of his fists didn’t make him any better than they were.

He shoved his fingers into his hair.
Be the best at what you’re good at.
But everything connected with Lucy Jorik had been one big screwup after another, right from the beginning. As soon as he picked her up in that alley, he should have taken her back to her family. All those games he’d played trying to scare her off had done nothing more than make him feel like a colossal jerk. One mistake after another, each leading to the biggest mistake of all. That last night.

It had been hard enough keeping his hands off her when they were at Caddo, but that last night in the motel had snapped his self-control. He’d spent too many hours with her pressed against his back, too many days watching those green-flecked brown eyes flash tornado signals at him whenever she felt vulnerable.

He raised his fist to knock on the door again, then let his arm fall. What was the point of apologizing? The last thing she wanted right now was to see any more of him.

He headed down the musty old hallway and up the stairs of this haunted house he hadn’t been able to stop himself from buying. The life he’d lived had given him more than enough emotional shit to deal with. He didn’t need more, especially not with the daughter of the fucking president of the United States.

He couldn’t get off this island fast enough.

L
UCY AVOIDED
P
ANDA THE NEXT
morning by slipping out through the sliding doors in her bedroom onto the deck that led to the backyard. She rode her bike into town and had coffee and a muffin at one of the Painted Frog’s outside café tables. Other than some assessing glances at her hair and tattoo from a couple of teenage girls, no one paid any attention to her. The feeling of leaving Lucy Jorik behind was heady.

After she finished, she rode toward the north tip of the island. She loved the island’s shabby edges. This was no playground for the rich and famous. Plumbers and shoe salesmen came here. Kids who attended state colleges and families pushing babies in Walmart strollers. If Mat and Nealy hadn’t come into her life, a place like this would have been her fantasy vacation spot.

The Fourth of July was almost two weeks away, but boaters were already out on the water. She passed a farm, then a wooden shack with a hand-lettered sign advertising the
BEST SMOKED WHITEFISH ON THE ISLAND
. A small inland lake spiked with cattails lay on her left, a marsh spread to her right, with the bigger body of Lake Michigan beyond that. Gradually the hardwoods shading the road gave way to pine, and then the trees disappeared altogether as the road narrowed into the exposed point of the island.

A lighthouse rose from a bedrock landscape that had long ago been swept clean by glaciers. She abandoned her bike and picked her way along a path. She nodded at the lighthouse keeper tending some orange impatiens in wooden planters near the door. Beyond the building, a jetty jutted into the water. The lake was calm today, but she imagined this place during a storm, with waves crashing over the rocks.

She found a spot to sit among boulders already warming from the morning sun. The ferry was a moving speck on the water as it coasted toward the mainland. She fervently hoped Panda was on that boat because if he was still at the house, she’d have to move out, and more than ever, she didn’t want to leave. The ugly words he’d flung at her last night still burned. People were never cruel to her, but Panda had been deliberately vicious.

She didn’t care why he’d lashed out at her or even if he believed what he’d said. His words had destroyed any lingering nostalgia over their great adventure. And that, ultimately, was a good thing.

By the time she was back on her bike, she’d resolved to put herself on a regular schedule. She’d take advantage of the cooler mornings to go out on the lake or to explore the island. In the afternoons, she’d start writing the chapters she’d promised her father.

As she neared the turnoff to Goose Cove Lane, she glimpsed the same robin’s-egg blue house she’d spotted yesterday. The island’s undulating shoreline made distances deceptive, but this must be where Toby and his grandmother lived—not all that far from the Remington home as the crow flew.

A mailbox leaned at a precarious angle on one side of the driveway with an abandoned farm stand on the other. Although the house was several miles from town, it had a decent location for selling summer produce, since the highway led to the south beach, the largest on the island and the place where she’d gone last night near sunset. A faded sign dangling crookedly from a broken chain read
CAROUSEL HONEY FOR SALE
.

Impulsively, she turned into the driveway.

Chapter Ten

B
REE SCREAMED AND SPRANG AWAY
from the hive.

“Oh, god … Oh, god … oh, god …” She moaned, hunched her shoulders, shivered. The mass she’d seen in the bottom of the brood box wasn’t an arbitrary collection of debris. Oh, no. It was a mouse. A dead mouse, petrified inside the sticky mass of protective propolis the bees had deposited around it.

She shuddered, jerked off her stiff leather beekeeper’s gloves, and retreated across the yard. According to Toby, Mr. Wentzel had given the bees a strong sugar solution last month, but now the hives needed to get new brood boxes. This was only the third hive she’d opened. What was she going to find inside the rest?

Maybe Star had it right after all. She’d hated working with her mother’s bees. But Bree wasn’t Star, and right from the beginning, the bees had fascinated her. Each summer she’d helped Myra with the hives. She’d loved the vague air of danger, the superiority of having a skill none of her brothers possessed. She liked the order of the colony, the strict rules that governed their society, the idea of a queen. Mainly, though, she’d liked being with Myra, who was quiet and private, so different from Bree’s own frantic, self-absorbed mother.

Bree had been awake most of the night studying Myra’s small collection of beekeeping books, but neither the books nor all her summers helping Myra had prepared her for this much responsibility. She’d even taken a beekeeping class a few years ago, but Scott had refused to let her put a hive in the yard, so she’d never done anything with it. And now here she was, with not a single hive to guard against rodents, parasites, and overcrowding but with fifteen of them.

She scratched her ankle with the toe of her opposite sneaker. Although Myra’s jacket with its attached hat and veil fit, the matching overalls weren’t designed for someone as tall and thin as she was, so she’d pulled on her own khaki slacks. Light clothing kept the bees calmer, since dark colors reminded them of predator animals like raccoons and skunks. Unfortunately, she’d forgotten to tuck her slacks into her socks, which accounted for the sting throbbing near her ankle.

She considered the possibility of persuading Toby to dispose of the dead mouse, but he shared his mother’s dislike of bees, and it wasn’t likely. After yesterday’s spying incident, she’d intended to keep a better eye on him, but he was nowhere to be seen. What she did see was a teenage girl with dyed black hair and some messy dreadlocks coming around the side of the house. She wore a black tank top, shorts, and ugly boots. She was shorter than Bree, maybe five four, with small, even features and a generous mouth. If it weren’t for the awful hair and hard makeup, she might be pretty. She also looked vaguely familiar, although Bree was sure they’d never met.

She pushed her veil on top of her hat. The girl’s appearance made her uneasy, not just because of the tattoo and nose ring, but because nobody had bothered her until yesterday. She liked feeling invisible, and she wanted to keep it that way.

“I’m guessing you’re not Toby’s grandmother,” the girl said.

Despite her tough appearance, she didn’t seem threatening. Bree tossed her gloves down next to the smoker she’d been using to calm the bees. Myra used to work the hives with her bare hands, but Bree wasn’t even close to being ready for that. “Toby’s grandmother passed away at the beginning of May.”

“Really? That’s interesting.” She extended her hand, an odd thing for a young girl to do. “I’m Viper.”

Viper?
Bree returned the handshake, but it felt odd. In her old social circle, hugs were de rigueur, even with women she barely knew. “Bree West.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Bree. Does Toby happen to be around?”

How did this girl know Toby? Once again Bree felt the scope of her incompetence. She didn’t know where Toby was or what he did when he was out of her sight. “Toby!”

No answer.

“He’s probably in the woods,” the woman said with a kindness that made Bree realize she wasn’t a teenager after all. “Are you Toby’s mother?”

Bree’s pale redhead’s complexion had earned her the nickname Corpse from her brothers, and considering Toby’s racial heritage, she thought the woman was being ironic. But she seemed sincere. “No. I’m … his guardian.”

“I see.” Something about her steadfast gaze made Bree feel as if she really did see—maybe more than Bree wanted her to.

“Can I help you?” Bree knew she sounded brusque, but she wanted her to leave so she could get back to the bees. More urgently, she needed a cigarette.

“We’re neighbors,” the woman said. “I’m renting the Remington house.”

The Remington house?
Her
house. Could this be the woman Toby had been spying on? She pretended ignorance. “Remington house? I … only got here a couple of weeks ago.”

“It’s on the other side of the woods. There’s a path.”

The path she and Star had raced along a thousand times.

The woman glanced toward the hives. “You’re a beekeeper.”

“Toby’s grandmother was the beekeeper. I’m just trying to keep the hives alive.”

“Do you have a lot of experience?”

Bree laughed, a rusty sound that she barely recognized as her own. “Hardly. I worked with bees when I was growing up, but it’s been a long time. Fortunately, these are healthy, established colonies, and the cold spring seems to have kept them from swarming. If I don’t screw up, they should be okay.”

“That’s great.” She seemed honestly impressed. “Would you mind if I borrowed Toby for a while tomorrow? I need help moving furniture. He’s visited me a few times, and I thought he might like some work.”

He hadn’t been visiting. He’d been spying. “I … hope he didn’t cause any trouble.”

“An angel like Toby?”

Her ironically lifted eyebrow took Bree by surprise. Once again, she heard herself laugh. “He’s all yours.”

The woman who called herself Viper turned in the general direction of the woods and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Toby! I need help over at the house tomorrow afternoon. If you want to make some money, come see me.”

There was no answer, but that didn’t seem to bother her. She returned her attention to the hives. “I’ve always been interested in bees, but I don’t know anything about them. Would it be presumptuous to ask if you’d let me watch you work sometime?”

Her vocabulary and manner were so at odds with her appearance that Bree was taken aback. Maybe that was why she found herself giving a brusque nod. “If you’d like.”

“Great. I’ll see you soon.” With a smile, she headed back the way she’d come.

Bree turned toward the hives, then stopped as she was struck with a sudden thought. “How do you feel about mice?” she called out.

“Mice?” The woman stopped. “Not my favorites. Why?”

Bree hesitated, then gestured toward the last hive in the row. “If you’re interested in beekeeping, there’s something unusual you might be interested in seeing. Have you ever heard of propolis?”

“No. What is it?”

“This heavy, sticky substance bees collect to seal crevices in the hive. It has antibacterial qualities—some commercial beekeepers even harvest it.” She tried to sound professorial. “The bees also use it as a kind of hygienic seal around any hive invaders to protect the colony from infection. Go take a look.”

The woman walked toward the hive, a lamb to the mouse slaughter. She stopped in front of the noisome lump and gazed down at it. “Gross.”

But she didn’t move away. She kept staring. Bree snatched up the shovel she’d propped by the step. “If you want to pick it up and throw it into the gully …”

The woman glanced over her shoulder.

Bree did her best to continue her bright, informative chatter. “The propolis has actually mummified the mouse. Isn’t that fascinating?”

“You’re conning me.”

In the path of that steady gaze, Bree’s posturing collapsed. “I—can do it myself. I’ll have to. But … I hate mice, and you seem like the kind of person who’s up for anything.”