Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
As the rugged Maine coastline came into view, Kara tried to focus on the things she loved about her home state as she breathed through a new wave of nausea from the plane rocking and rolling its way toward a landing.
“Almost there, sweetheart.” Dan leaned forward to look out the window. “The coast reminds me a bit of Gansett.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Doing okay?”
“I think so.” She was desperately trying not to vomit. “I ate too much cake at the wedding.” Shannon and Victoria’s celebration already seemed like days ago rather than hours.
“There’s the airport now.”
Kara was at once relieved and anxious to see the familiar Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport come into view.
“Final approach,” Slim said from the cockpit. “Prepare for landing.”
Their friend brought the plane in for a smooth landing five minutes later.
“Welcome to Trenton, Maine,” Erin said, “where the local time is five twenty-seven, and the temperature is a seasonable sixty-eight degrees.”
“Trenton?” Dan asked.
“It’s a bit north of Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island.”
“Ah, another island. I forget that Bar Harbor is on an island, too. And you pronounce it as dessert rather than desert ?”
“Yep, that’s the French pronunciation, and unlike Gansett, this island has a road to the mainland.”
Slim brought the plane to a stop outside the terminal and cut the engine. “Sorry for the rough ride, guys.”
“We blame Hurricane Ethel for that, not you,” Dan said. “Thanks again for bringing us.”
“No problem. We’re going to spend the night up here and check it out. Neither of us has ever been. Where should we stay?”
Kara suggested a few of the local hotels. “They should have vacancies since the high season is over and leaf peeping hasn’t started yet.”
“Sounds good,” Erin said. “I can’t wait to see Bar Harbor.”
“It’s pretty,” Kara said with a decided lack of enthusiasm for a place that’d brought her far more pain than pleasure in the last few years she’d lived there. As Slim helped them out of the plane, Kara said, “Text me if you have any questions about anything.”
“We’ll be fine,” Slim said. “Take care of your family, and don’t worry about us. And when you’re ready to come home, give me a ring. I’ll pick you up.”
Dan shook his hand. “Thanks again.”
“Any time.”
They both hugged Erin and then walked together into the terminal to meet Kara’s grandmother, Bertha Lively. Her face lit up with delight when she saw them coming with their friends.
Kara hugged her very best friend in the world. Her grandmother had a weather-worn, perpetually tanned face from a lifetime on the water, blue eyes and short, curly white hair.
“I’d say I’m glad to see you, but not under these circumstances,” Bertha said.
“Likewise.” She pulled back from Bertha to let Dan hug her. They’d met once before in Boston. “These are our friends from Gansett, Slim and Erin Jackson. This is my grandmother, Bertha Lively.”
Bertha shook hands with them. “Such a pleasure to meet my Kara’s friends.”
“For us, too,” Erin said. “We’ve heard so much about you and your lobster boat.”
“Oh shoot, it’s nothing special.”
“Yes, it is,” Kara said. “It’s very special, and so are you.”
“You’re already my favorite grandchild. No need to suck up.”
While Dan, Slim and Erin laughed, Kara wanted to cry with relief from seeing her beloved grandmother. The scent of Jean Naté brought back a million of the best memories from her childhood.
“Slim and Erin are spending the night.”
“I’d offer to drive you, but I’ve got the pickup,” Bertha said.
“No worries,” Slim said. “We’re renting a car.”
As they hugged their friends and said goodbye, Kara wondered when she’d see them again. This day hadn’t turned out like she’d thought it would when she woke up snuggled up to Dan in bed on Gansett Island. When she’d gotten dressed for the wedding, she certainly hadn’t expected to be sleeping at Bertha’s house in Maine that night.
Dan put their suitcases in the back of Bertha’s beat-up old Ford pickup that’d once been white but was now more rust than anything. “This truck is sick ,” Dan said. “What year is it?”
“Seventy-two and still purring like a kitten.”
“Amazing.”
Kara sat in the middle between them and dug around for a seat belt that probably hadn’t been used in years. As she fastened it under her baby belly, she hoped there wouldn’t be any sudden stops.
When Bertha fired up the truck, Kara laughed for the first time in hours. “It’s purring like a kitten with bronchitis.”
Bertha barked out a laugh that was among Kara’s favorite things. “She’s got a few rough spots here and there.”
“Renata said we can stay with her,” Kara said in case it might be too much for Bertha to have guests.
“No way. I want you with me.”
Kara withdrew her phone to let her cousin know she’d been claimed by Bertha.
Not surprised, Renata replied with laughing emojis. Even though she and Renata were paternal cousins, Renata loved Kara’s maternal grandmother as much as Kara did. I’ll check in tomorrow.
Can’t wait to see you.
Same, girl—and to finally meet your MAN in the flesh!
Thank goodness for Bertha and Renata, who were among the people Kara had surrounded herself with when she’d lived in Maine. Her “found family,” as she referred to them along with her friends, Jessie and Ellery, and her uncle Buster, who had autism and still lived with Bertha. As he was nearly fifteen years younger than Kara’s mother, Buster had been more like a cousin than an uncle to her growing up, and she loved him dearly.
Kara received another text, this one from her mother. Are you coming? When will you arrive?
“Ugh.”
“What?” Dan asked.
She showed him the text. “My mother is losing it asking when we’re getting here.”
“I’ve got this.” He handed her phone back to her, took out his and started typing. A minute later, he said, “All set.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I told her we’ve just arrived in Maine, that I’ll check in tomorrow morning and that no one from the family is to contact you about your brothers’ case. They’re to come right to me with any questions or concerns.”
“My hero,” Kara said softly.
“Mine, too,” Bertha said.
“Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of it.”
“Have I mentioned that I really, really love your husband?” Bertha asked Kara.
“I do, too.”
“Aw, you ladies flatter me.”
“It’ll go straight to his fat head,” Kara said with a smile for him.
“It’s already there.”
Bertha laughed as she took the last turn toward the true home of Kara’s heart. The large, chaotic house where she’d been raised had nothing on Bertha’s tiny shack by the sea, as she called her simple six-room ranch house with one bathroom and a million-dollar view of the water.
“Here it is, home sweet home,” Bertha announced as they pulled into a driveway behind a pile of lobster traps so high they nearly blocked the view of the house.
“Did you get more traps, B?” Kara asked.
“Johnny Wistcoff retired and gave me his.”
“I can’t believe he actually retired.”
“Well, he turned ninety, and his arthritis has gotten bad.”
“Ninety and still lobster fishing,” Dan said. “You Mainers are studs.”
“We’re a hardy sort.” Bertha led the way inside. “Buster! Come say hi to Kara and Dan!”
When Buster appeared out of one of the back bedrooms, holding a bowl of soup, Kara resisted the usual urge to hug him. He didn’t like to be touched, so she only smiled at the familiar surge of love for her precious uncle.
“Hey,” he said with warmth in his blue eyes.
His dark blond hair had gotten long, and he’d begun to grow in the winter beard that kept his face warm in the cold.
“Hey back at you. This is my husband, Dan.”
Buster nodded.
“Nice to meet you, Buster.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Come in, make yourself at home, Dan.” Bertha led the way into the tiny house that was Kara’s favorite place in the world. She didn’t have to be told to make herself at home in the family room that consisted of worn furniture covered with throw blankets, wood-paneled walls, framed paintings of the coast, as well as Bertha’s boat, the Big B , the lighthouse and Acadia. Everything was exactly as it had been the last time Kara was there, which was hugely comforting. As much as everything else changed, Bertha and her home remained constant.
She sat on a love seat and patted the spot next to her, inviting Dan to join her. The gold fabric, which had once had a nubby texture, had worn smooth over decades of providing comfort to Bertha’s many visitors. Kara had slept there most weekends until she was too tall to fit and then had moved to the sofa.
As he took a seat next to her, Dan looked out of place in all his refined handsomeness, but he’d proven to her many times before that he was more than capable of fitting into her life. And he was wild about Bertha.
“How about some dinner?” Bertha asked. “I made a seafood casserole earlier, and I’ve got salad and bread.”
Dan’s stomach groaned loudly, making them laugh. “You’d never know that I feasted at a wedding just a few short hours ago.”
“That’s a yes for Dan,” Bertha said. “Kara?”
“I’m not sure I can eat yet. That flight was rough.”
“You need a little something. I can make you a grilled cheese or cinnamon toast.”
“With a little bit of sugar?” Kara asked with a hopeful smile.
“Of course. What do you take me for?”
Kara laughed at Bertha’s sassy reply. “That’d be great. Thanks, B.”
“Anything for you, love.”
Just that simply, Kara felt better. Bertha’s cinnamon-sugar toast had always hit the spot when she wasn’t feeling well. “I had a lot of stomach issues when I was a kid,” she told Dan, “and had to miss school. My mom would drop me off with Bertha so she could go to her exercise class and get her nails done. Bertha’s cinnamon-sugar toast cured everything.”
“She left you when you were sick to get her nails done?”
Kara shrugged. “I’d rather have been here. It was fine.”
Bertha set up TV trays that’d been a wedding gift more than fifty years earlier and positioned them in front of Dan and Kara.
“Those remind me of my grandmother’s house,” Dan said of the tables.
“Grandmothers are required to have TV trays,” Bertha said. “It’s in the manual.”
Dan smiled at her witty reply. “Can I help with anything?”
“Not at all. You’re my guest. You have to let me take care of you.”
“If you insist,” he said, still grinning the way people often did in Bertha’s presence.
“I insist,” she said over her shoulder as she returned to the kitchen.
“Have I mentioned that I adore her?”
“And vice versa. She doesn’t wait on just anyone.”
Dan’s phone lit up with a text.
Kara glanced at the screen and saw her mother’s name.
He turned the phone so she couldn’t see the message. “I got this, sweetheart. Don’t give it a thought.”
“It’s kind of hard to think about anything else when two of my brothers are in jail facing murder charges.”
“There’s no way Kirby had anything to do with it.” Bertha returned, carrying two plates that she put on the trays. She pulled silverware from her back pocket. “Whatever happened, Keith must’ve dragged him into it.”
“That’s what I think, too. Kirby must be freaking out.”
“Put it out of your mind for now, sweetheart,” Bertha said. “There’s nothing you can do tonight. We’ll know more in the morning when Dan gets to talk to them.”
“Should I try to see them tonight?” he asked.
“It’s best to wait until the morning when the police chief is there. Rushton White is a good man. I don’t know any of the other current officers, but he’s been with the department for decades and can be trusted.”
“That’s good to know.”
“I wouldn’t go anywhere near that place unless he’s there.”
“I won’t. I may be running some other names past you for background as this goes forward. Is that okay?”
“Whatever you need. Many of my grandsons have a wild streak that’s gotten them in trouble over the years, but I can’t see any of them going so far as to murder a young woman.”
“Definitely not Kirby, but who knows with Keith,” Kara said.
Bertha’s deep sigh said it all.