She lets go of a breath, kisses Jasmine’s head, and says, “Sure.”
“Can I play on my iPad?”
“Yes, just for an hour.” Phoebe slides into the vacated chair. I click the button on the kettle and it’s nearly hot already so I prepare a cup for her, a hearty English breakfast single source I discovered in London. As I settle the cup in front of her, along with milk and sugar and a small spoon, I say, “So . . . how was your night?”
Everything about her softens, all the angles of elbow and neck and jaw, and she looks out toward the sea. “Really good.”
I wait, but she gazes toward the waves with a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary look. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?” I lean in, whisper, “Did you sleep with him?”
She blushes, neck to hairline, and says, “I don’t kiss and tell.”
I laugh. “You don’t have to.”
In a gesture I remember from our youth, she covers her cheeks with her hands, presses her lips together. Her eyes shine over the top of her fingers. She nods, slowly.
I reach over and squeeze her forearm. “Good.”
A knock sounds at the door, and Jasmine dashes into the foyer. “Wait, baby,” I cry. I leap up. “I’ve got it!”
I run to the door and haul it open, but it’s not the police. It’s Joel, and I feel myself getting shaky again. I forgot he was coming to bring a new part for the breaker box.
He scowls as he points to the scrawled word on my house. “What the hell?”
“We called the police.” I shake my head, but the trembling starts again in my body, and this time I get flutters of the baseball bat against my head—flash—a razor buzzing away my hair—flash—
I squeeze my eyes tight, shake my head, trying to fling the memories away. Joel takes my arm. Maui noses my leg.
Jasmine. She’s inside.
I suck in a breath, center myself in my gut, blow out the breath, open my eyes. Joel is close, and I see a circular scar beside his mouth that I remember. Focus. Breathe in. His lips are thinner than they once were—he had such full lips for a boy—but still beautiful, his mouth wide and, just now, stern.
“Okay?” he asks.
I look up, meet his velvet, dark gaze, nod. “I’m good. Thanks.” It feels weird to speak in such ordinary ways, and I feel our old selves, hungry and lost, behind all the polite moves of our reacquainted selves.
It happens, I tell myself. People meet again. What was is just what was.
A car pulls up outside, and it’s the sheriff. A middle-aged man, tanned and ropy like a runner, steps out. “Hey, Bryce,” Joel says.
He comes up the walk. “How you doing, Joel,” he says and shakes his hand, like he’s the one who made the phone call.
“I’m fine,” he says. “She’s the one who has a problem.”
Bryce nods. He has close-cut blond hair and a face carved of sharp angles. His last name will be Larsen or something spelled with an e instead of o to designate his Norwegian roots. A village of former Norwegians settled here long ago, and their roots go deep.
Until he looks up, he doesn’t register who I am, and then he does. “Ms. Ogden. Pleasure.”
I reach out a hand to greet him, and give him my solid shake. He returns it respectfully.
“This is the issue?” he says, pointing.
“Yes. Someone left it overnight at some point.”
Phoebe comes out on the porch, closing the door behind her. “It was here when I came to pick up my granddaughter.”
“Have you had any trouble? Any threats?”
I give him the rundown. The dead squirrel, the guy at the Pig ’N Pancake, now this. “I’m on the target list for the LNB. They put me in the hospital six months ago.”
“I heard about that. I’m sorry.” He purses his lips. “I wouldn’t be surprised to hear there was a chapter in the mountains around here. Lotta crazies up there in their compounds. I’ll dig around.”
“The guy who verbally attacked her at the Pig ’N Pancake earlier this week seemed like a regular,” Phoebe says. “It seemed like the waitress knew him.”
He writes something on the pad in his hand, then lifts his sunglasses to see the paint more clearly.
Jasmine pokes her head out. “Hey, what—”
I block her view with my body and hustle her back inside. “None of your business, kiddo,” I say, closing the door with my back. “Go wait in the living room, please.”
She cocks her head. Considers. “Okay.”