The Wishing Tide (17 page)

T
he Hot Spot was surprisingly busy for a Wednesday afternoon, humming with patrons sipping lattes and munching salads. The owner, Erin Kelley, a pretty blonde in her early thirties, waved to Lane from behind the coffee counter.

“Let me a get a table cleared,” she called over the din. “It’s been crazy all day.”

Lane nodded, giving Erin a
no hurry
wave.

Erin was a transplant from New York. Burned out on city life and disillusioned with corporate America, she’d moved to Starry Point with a savings account and a dream. The locals thought she was crazy to consider opening an Internet café in a sleepy little beach town, but she’d soon proven her detractors wrong. The Hot Spot, with its light lunch fare and decadent coffee concoctions, had become an overnight success.

“Ah,” boomed an oily voice from across the crowded café. “Lane Kramer, so good to see you on this fine afternoon.”

Lane schooled her face into something like a smile as Harold Landon, Starry Point’s three-term mayor, approached. “Hello, Mayor Landon.”

“Now, now, I’ve told you, it’s Harold.” His car salesman smile was
firmly in place, his too-dark hair slicked down to cover an expanding bald spot. “No need for formalities in our little town.” He turned to Cynthia. The smile notched up a bit. “And who have we here? A sister visiting?”

Lane fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Actually, this is my mother . . . Cynthia Campbell White.” She fumbled a bit over the last names, never sure which to include and which to leave out. “She’s visiting from Chicago.”

“Chicago,” he repeated, pumping her hand. “Well, now, that’s a long way off. Tell me, Cynthia, what do you think of our little seaside village?”

Cynthia looked slightly overwhelmed as she withdrew her hand. “I hardly know. I’ve only just arrived.”

“Oh. Well, then. Make sure your daughter gives you the full tour. Starry Point may be small, but we’ve certainly got our share of local interests. Isn’t that right, Chief?”

Lane’s careful smile faltered when she saw Donny Breester, Starry Point’s chief of police, on his way over. He arrived with his usual cloud of aftershave, tipping back his hat and letting his eyes run the length of her, slow and thorough. When his gaze finally returned to her face, it held the same unspoken question it always did. Lane’s unspoken answer was the same, too—not today, not ever.

“Lane,” he said coolly.

“Donny.”

Landon seemed impervious to the sudden tension in the air. “Say, that reminds me. Donny tells me you called the police a few weeks back, something about a light you thought you saw in the old Rourke House.”

Cynthia’s head jerked in her daughter’s direction. “
The
Rourke House?”

“Yes,
the
Rourke House. And I didn’t just
think
I saw a light. I
saw
a light.”

Breester was wiping his sunglasses with the tail of his jacket. “We checked the place out good and thorough,” he assured the mayor. “No sign of anything.”

Lane shot him a look of disbelief. “Good and thorough? Can they
be
good and thorough in five minutes?”

Scowling, Breester shifted his attention back to Landon. “We checked the door and all the lower windows. The top floor was still boarded up in back. No way anyone got inside.”

The mayor turned a benign smile on Lane. “Don’t feel bad. It’s understandable. Everyone’s on edge these days with all these break-ins. There was another one just last night, over at the Mott place—a bicycle, a computer, and a coffee can full of quarters.”

“Break-ins?” Cynthia echoed, looking alarmed. “Laney, you never said a word about any break-ins.”

Landon patted Cynthia’s shoulder solicitously. “Your daughter probably didn’t want to alarm you. But don’t you worry. I feel fairly certain we’ve pinpointed the source of the problem. With any luck we’ll have the entire matter cleaned up in a few weeks. Maybe sooner.”

Cleaned up?
Lane found the word choice rather odd. “Just what is it you propose to have cleaned up, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“There’s a halfway house over on the south end of the island, called Hope House. We’re pretty sure that’s where we’ll find our culprit. We don’t think it’s a coincidence that the incidents have all occurred on the south side of the island.”

“You’ve got witnesses?”

“No witnesses, but—”

“Fingerprints?”

“No, but—”

Lane fought to keep her voice even. “So you’re just making assumptions?”

“We’ve been investigating,” Breester put in. “Following up on several leads.”

“What kind of leads?” Lane’s voice was getting louder now, and she could feel her mother’s eyes, bouncing from face to face in confusion.

“This is police business, Lane,” Breester answered in his best
CSI
voice. “And at this time we’re not prepared to make any statement that might jeopardize our investigation.”

Lane pressed her lips together and counted to ten. If the conversation wasn’t so disturbing, she’d have laughed in his face. As it was, all she could think about were the mayor’s words.

Cleaned up.
She was starting to get a very bad feeling.

Offering her back to Breester, she turned to the mayor, doing her best to appear nonconfrontational. “Mayor Landon, when you say you should have the matter
cleaned up
in a few weeks, what exactly are we talking about?”

“Well, it’s not official, of course, but with any luck we hope to shut the place down.”

Lane was momentarily stunned. “Shut down Hope House? When you just admitted you have no witnesses, no fingerprints, nothing to connect anyone to anything? Have you given any thought to the residents? What they’ll do? Where they’ll go?”

Breester snorted. “Why do you give a rat’s ass about a bunch of schizos and needle freaks, people like that crazy old bag lady with the bike and the pink flag—Dirty Mary?”

“She is—” Lane broke off, aware of several heads turning in her direction. “She is
not
a bag lady.” Once again, she felt her mother’s eyes, intensely quizzical. She was going to have to explain about Mary. But not until she finished with the mayor. She turned to Cynthia with a tight smile. “Mother, why don’t you grab that table by the window and look over the menu? I’ll be there in a minute.”

Cynthia’s gaze slid assessingly from face to face, lingering on Breester. “Maybe I should stay.”

Lane shook her head, then nodded toward the empty table,
where Erin stood motioning them over. “Go on. I’m almost finished here.”

When Cynthia was out of earshot Lane narrowed in on Breester. “Don’t you ever mention that despicable name in my presence again. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t mention her at all. But if you must—perhaps in some form of apology—her name is Mary.”

Breester opened his mouth to reply, but Landon gave him a subtle nudge before turning his attention to Lane. His smile was gone now, replaced with a distinctly unfriendly resolve. “Ms. Kramer, call the woman whatever you like. I really don’t care. My job—my duty—is to keep the taxpayers of Starry Point safe, and I intend to see that duty through.”

“Except you haven’t got any kind of case against Hope House, or anyone living there.”

“Be that as it may, I think we can all agree that a halfway house filled with those sorts of people has no business in this community. God knows where they come from, or what kinds of things they’ve done in their lives. For all we know some of them may be dangerous.”

“I killed a boy once.”

Did Landon know? Did Breester? Was that why they were so sure they could do what they wanted? And what about Mary and the other residents? Did they have any idea what Landon was up to? Or were they all about to get blindsided?

“This isn’t fair,” Lane said, so quietly that for a moment she wasn’t certain she’d actually said it aloud. “You can’t just shut a place down because you don’t like the people who live there. You have to have evidence.”

Breester gave her a hard stare. “Don’t you worry about the evidence. We’re on it.”

Another quelling nudge from Landon.

Lane fixed Landon with an accusing stare. “What does that mean?”

All at once the oily smile was back in place, bland and infuriating.
“It means you should stop worrying about things that don’t concern you, and leave them to those who are sworn to look out for Starry Point. Now, why don’t you go enjoy your lunch? And be sure to tell your mother it was a pleasure meeting her.”

Lane was still fuming as she slid into the seat across from her mother. She gulped down half of her ice water, then set the glass down hard.

Cynthia peered at her over the laminated menu. “So, are you ready to tell me what all that was about?”

“Not really, no.”

Erin appeared with her order pad and a tentative smile. “Everything okay? You looked like you were ready to slit the mayor’s throat with a butter knife.”

Lane glanced at the coffee counter, where he and Breester stood waiting for their order, heads bents close. “I wish I’d thought of it,” she said darkly. “But yes, everything’s fine. Mother, do you know what you want?”

Erin disappeared with their orders, then returned momentarily with a lemonade and a Diet Coke. Cynthia stripped her straw from its wrapper and poked it into her glass. “All right, let’s have it. What is Hope House, and who in God’s name is . . . Dirty Mary?”

“It’s just Mary, Mother. And she’s a friend of mine, an old woman I met on the dunes one day. She’s . . . eccentric, but harmless.”

At least I hope she is. Please, please, let her be.

A pair of lines appeared between Cynthia’s perfectly penciled brows. “How eccentric?”

“She’s colorful. She rides around town on a rusty old bike and carries an old Crown Royal bag everywhere she goes.”

Except now. Because I have it. Along with all her meds.

“And Hope House?”

Lane sighed. It was time to lay it all on the table. “It’s the halfway house where she lives. It’s for people with mental disorders.”

Cynthia paused to sip her Diet Coke. “I see.”

“Mother, please. I already know what you’re going to say, and I’ve heard it all from Michael. But she’s my friend. She’s kind and sweet, and wise in a peculiar sort of way. And I’m afraid she’s in trouble.”

“Because the mayor wants to close down this halfway house?”

Lane waited for Erin to drop off their salads and retreat before going on. “It’s not just that. She’s kind of disappeared. We had a bit of a spat the other day—it was my fault—and I haven’t seen her since. She’s usually on the dunes behind the inn every morning, but it’s been three days since I’ve seen her. And the worst part is I have all her pills.”

Cynthia looked up, halted in the act of spearing a cherry tomato. “Pills?”

“She takes a lot of pills, yes. And I have them.”

“Are you sure she’s harmless?”

Lane toyed with her straw, not sure she should tell the rest of Mary’s story. Hard to, really, when she didn’t even know all of it. In the end she decided to leave well enough alone. “Yes, Mother. I’m sure.”

“But Michael doesn’t like Mary?”

“No. Well, actually, he’s never even met her. But he’s got a problem with people like her, something he won’t talk about. He thinks I’m letting myself in for trouble by getting involved with her.”

“And are you?”

Lane stared at her lemonade glass, tracing a finger around its rim. “Of course not.”

They ate in silence for a while, Lane mostly pushing her food around her plate. The run-in with Landon still had her on edge. Finally, she glanced up, meeting her mother’s eyes.

“Thanks for not giving me a hard time about Mary. I expected you to, but you didn’t.”

Cynthia sighed and pushed back her plate. “You were always your father’s daughter, Laney, always softhearted like he was. When you
were little you were always collecting strays. Apparently you still are. So I’ll tell you the same thing I did when you were little, and trust you to know best—just be careful you don’t get scratched.”

“Because wild things can hurt you when they’re scared,” Lane finished for her. “Yes, I know.” It was pretty much what Michael had been telling her, but somehow she’d expected worse from her mother, a lecture, even a tirade—certainly not this gentle parental warning. “As I recall, you were never very fond of strays.”

Cynthia winced as if she’d suddenly suffered a pain of some sort. “That isn’t true, Laney. I just know it can get messy if you let yourself get too close. I saw it happen to your father—all because he got involved with a woman.”

Woman?

Her mother must have seen the look on her face. She put down her fork, shaking her head emphatically. “No, no, not like that. She was like your Mary. She just showed up one day, pushing a shopping cart full of junk and talking to herself. She made me uncomfortable, made everyone uncomfortable—but not your father. He’d give her money, buy her food. Once he bought her a coat.”

She paused, eyes fluttering closed, as if the pain had suddenly returned. “It was such a cold winter that year. One day your father decided he was going to find her a place to stay. I dug my heels in. I told him he’d done enough, that he wasn’t responsible for her. It turned into an argument, an ugly one, but I eventually got him to give up the idea. A few days later he came home from work looking awful and told me she had died. Exposure, the police said. He was devastated. So was I. I talked him into ignoring his conscience, and because of it a woman was dead. How on earth could I lecture you for doing what I failed to?”

Lane stole a hand to her mother’s, squeezing gently. For a woman who prided herself on hiding her emotions, it couldn’t have been an easy thing to tell. Nor was it an easy thing to respond to.

“I’ve never heard that story,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, it’s not exactly something I’m proud of. Maybe that’s why I like the idea of you befriending this poor woman. Because I didn’t and I wish I had. And because it reminds me of your father. Just be careful. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I’ll be careful, Mother.” Lane pushed away her barely eaten lunch and forced a smile, eager to change the subject. “If you’re through, I thought we could hit some of Starry Point’s finer shops and boutiques.”