Chapter 13. Holly
Holly
The cop at Holly’s door looked familiar.
He had a weather-beaten face and tired eyes, like a man who’d endured long hours on the job for far too many years.
Holly had expected a rookie to be stuck with the graveyard shift, but this officer was north of sixty.
He filled out his uniform in a way that suggested a fondness for beer, desserts, and a comfy couch.
His chin sagged under gravity, and shags of silver hair spilled beneath his blue cap.
He wasn’t a picture of health but had a strong build and broad shoulders.
His thick legs gave him the swagger of a former Marine.
But Holly knew better, because she recognized him at last. This was no military man.
It was Officer Tom Walker—or Tommy Boy, as the locals called him back in the day, a nod to Chris Farley’s movie character from the nineties.
Beauport’s version of Tommy Boy patrolled the beach, busting underage drinkers and stomping out illegal bonfires.
Holly wasn’t surprised he was still on the force—he’d always presented himself as a lifer—but it didn’t look like his career had gone far.
Then again, neither had hers.
“Good evening, Holly. I heard you were back in town,” said Tom Walker. He spoke in the low, authoritative voice of someone issuing a speeding ticket.
How had he known? A name popped into Holly’s mind—Gail Provost, from Gail Provost Realty.
Ah, the trusty Beauport gossip mill working overtime.
It was a good reminder that if Holly wanted to keep a secret in this town, she’d have to hide it from herself.
But a fugitive minor wasn’t something to keep under wraps.
Holly invited Walker inside. Chester approached with caution, little tufts of fur sticking up on his back.
If Holly wrote this scene in a book, she was sure she’d receive a few scathing comments for using her cat to foreshadow Walker’s questionable character.
But she wasn’t fabricating Chester’s raised fur, and she trusted her cat’s instincts.
He, too, must have noticed Tommy’s cold, flinty eyes.
“I’m not surprised that someone broke in. This place has been empty for a long time,” said Walker, his tone scolding.
“It’s not like I hung a vacancy sign on the front door, Officer,” Holly countered.
“The boards and graffiti advertise well enough.”
The smug look on Officer Know-It-All’s face sparked her temper. She folded her arms across her chest. Now she understood Jade’s reluctance to involve the authorities.
“What brought you back to Beauport after all these years?” Walker asked. “We figured that the house would be swept out to sea before a Sinclair returned to town.”
Holly struggled to maintain a measured tone. “This town holds bad memories for us. My sister was murdered here and your police department botched the investigation.”
Walker’s eyebrows shot up, his whole face coming alive. “Murder? Is that what we’re calling accidents these days?”
A bitter taste filled Holly’s throat. “My sister went to break up with the guy she was seeing and the guesthouse on his property just happened to explode?”
Holly surprised herself. When she left town, asking questions of the police felt like picking a scab over an infected wound.
She had been too traumatized to speak her mind.
Maybe that’s why she had left out one important detail: She was supposed to have been with Anna the night she died.
Were it not for her infatuation with Max and his poorly timed phone call, she would have been.
“Accidents happen all the time, Holly. And if you have the answer to the age-old question of ‘Why me?’ I’d be eager to hear it.”
“Sure they happen,” said Holly. “But not usually at the house of the richest, most powerful family in town on the night my sister went there to break off a secret love affair.”
Walker didn’t have a quick comeback to that one.
As a writer, Holly could imagine the worst—what flames that hot might do to a body—and those images haunted her.
They haunted her mother as well, who had gone to the morgue to identify her daughter and came home looking like a shell-shocked soldier returning from the battlefield.
The police kept some items as evidence, with Carol’s permission, including Anna’s claddagh ring, which matched the one Holly still wore.
Walker sniffed the air. “Late-night meal? Once you feed a stray cat, Holly—”
Holly’s pulse spiked. “Jade is not a cat,” she said, scooping Chester into her arms. His fur remained on guard.
“She’s a runaway and an orphan. Her parents died in a car accident, and she’s been living with an abusive aunt.
She’s desperate and frightened, and I hope you’ll treat her with kindness.
She’s been through a lot and doesn’t trust the police. ”
“Most criminals don’t.” If that was Walker’s attempt at levity, his joke came without a trace of a smile.
Holly felt tempted to send him on his way. She didn’t believe she was breaking the law by allowing Jade to stay with her. But there was this thing called better judgment.
“I’ll go get her. You wait here.” Holly’s tone was firmer than she had intended. She turned her back, making her way to the stairs.
Walker called after her with the sensitivity of a bullfighter. “I’m sorry about your mom, Holly. Nice lady. She’d been through a lot. Take some friendly advice, will you? Sell the place. You can make a lot of money, go somewhere new—get a fresh start.”
Holly paused halfway up the stairs, gripping the railing. She thought about telling Tommy Boy the same story she had told Gail: The house was still in her mother’s name, so it wasn’t hers to sell. But the words she spoke surprised her.
“A fresh start is a state of mind. You can do that anywhere. This is my home now, like it or not.”
Holly called Jade’s name. All was silent. Odd. She noticed the bedroom door was slightly ajar. She knocked as she called for Jade a second time, pushing the door open when nobody answered.
The room was empty, but there was an unexpected breeze.
Holly discovered the source—a partially open window.
She didn’t think anything of it until she went to close it and saw the trellis.
She poked her head outside. Flashes of strobe lights from the police car parked out front lit up the back lawn.
Oh shit. Jade must have known the police were here, and her instincts took over.
The air felt heavy and damp. Rain was in the forecast, most likely on the way. Guilt squeezed Holly. Had she made a promise? Not in those exact words, but the meal, the shower, and a bedroom suggested a safe haven.
Downstairs, Holly found Walker nosing about, keeping himself occupied. He cased her living room like he was assessing a crime scene.
“The place could use a little updating,” he said, hovering near her grandfather’s old pipe. “I don’t think anything has changed since the last time I was here.”
“Including an unsolved murder.”
“It’s still an active case, but again, it’s not a homicide,” said Walker, running a hand along the fireplace mantel, checking his fingers for dust. “We need to follow the evidence to make an arrest. Justice doesn’t take shortcuts.”
“It shouldn’t take forever, either,” said Holly. She moved to the front door, holding it open for him, all but ordering Walker to leave. Jade would never come out of hiding if she saw her with a cop.
A light rain began to fall. Steady winds whipped up the sea like a cauldron starting to boil.
“The girl is gone,” Holly said. “I’m going to go look for her.”
“I’ll help,” offered Walker, pulling up his sagging pants.
“No thanks, I’ll go on my own,” said Holly, resisting the urge to call him Tommy Boy to his face. “You can look for her if you want, but something tells me this girl knows how to hide from the police.”
Holly kept watch for Jade as she drove toward the boardwalk. A gentle rain continued to fall, leaving streaky marks on her front windshield. Streetlights left many dark spots where Jade could hide, making her search nearly impossible, but Holly remained undeterred.
She tried to imagine where Jade would dart off to, but she was having difficulty thinking at all.
The last two days had been a whirlwind—returning to the cottage, dealing with the pushy Realtor, the psychic reading, and then finding a squatter in her attic.
A ghost would have been easier to handle.
What Holly wanted was a cup of tea, a good idea for a book, for her mother to be alive, for the house not to be a shit mess, and for Jade to have picked another landing spot for her antics.
You get what you get …
Holly tuned out her internal whining. She had a roof over her head and food in the pantry. Jade had nothing but the clothes on her back, which would soon be drenched by the rain.
To catch a teenager, you have to think like one. Holly imagined a character in a book inspired by Jade—someone tough and resourceful who would rather be cold and hungry than turned over to the authorities.
Where would I go? Holly asked herself. A fast-food place seemed like a logical choice.
But the nearest one was miles away and closed at this hour.
If nothing changed, the poor girl might end up sleeping outside, even on a night like this—maybe on the beach, with no protection from the rain, which was falling harder now.
Where could she find shelter outdoors? The answer came to her almost immediately: on the beach, under the pier.
Most likely, no one would notice a curled-up bundle on the sand, wood planks high above acting as a roof, offering some protection from the elements.
Holly had no trouble finding parking. Beauport was a sleepy town at night.
She half expected to see Officer Tom Walker on patrol, but more likely, he had gone home or returned to the police station.
He hadn’t shown much interest in Jade. In fact, Holly had the distinct impression that Walker had used the call as a pretext to check on her.
But why? He had made it clear he’d love nothing more than for Holly to leave town.
Was Walker worried she’d cause him trouble—ask questions about Anna’s death that he preferred not to answer?
Holly walked carefully across the wet planks of the boardwalk toward the wooden staircase by the pier.
She descended the stairs to the beach, calling out to Jade.
Rain had turned the soft sand unyielding, while clouds obscured the moon.
The ocean stretched out before her like an endless black carpet.
The rumble of stones tumbling under the churning water reminded her she was alone in a gathering storm, exposed and vulnerable.
Sips of light from the streetlamps on the boardwalk allowed Holly to see the outline of the sturdy pilings that held up the pier, casting deep shadows beneath.
She stepped under the towering structure, the tangy smell of the sea growing stronger, brine mixed with some kind of decay, life and death sharing space. She took out her phone; her flashlight’s faint illumination told her the bulky shapes in the sand were nothing but clumps of seaweed.
Discouraged, she readied herself to leave, rethink her plan.
She shut off her phone light, and that’s when she saw it: a tall, narrow shadow in the sand looming behind her.
The shadow moved, coming closer. She spun around, almost losing her balance as her feet sank into the sand.
For the second time that day, Holly felt the urge to scream, but her voice abandoned her.
A lanky silhouette, decidedly male, inched toward Holly like a cat stalking its prey. Holly stood rooted to the spot. Fear filled her lungs.
He was right there, a few feet in front of her—no longer a shadow, but a man with a recognizable face. Her eyes opened in alarm. It was the busker. His thin frame and pinched features were as unmistakable as the scally cap he wore. He even had his guitar case slung over his shoulder.
“Didn’t think I’d see anyone else on the beach in this weather,” he said in a nasal voice.
A wave crashed hard, like a thunderclap.
“I know who you are,” he continued. Even in the half-light, Holly could see his eyes narrow. “You shouldn’t have come back.”
Holly retreated a step. “I’m looking for someone, a girl,” she said, her voice faltering. “She’s about seventeen. Have you seen her?”
The busker closed in. “All I see is you—and I’m telling you, you’re not welcome here.”
Holly bristled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’ll call the police if you come any closer.” Her high-pitched voice betrayed her panic. She had good reason to be afraid. She was under the pier, out of sight, and far from everyone.
The busker’s eyes darted to the cell phone in Holly’s hand. “You can call the police if you want, but you can’t trust them. You can’t trust anyone in this town—including me.”
Holly tried to unlock her phone, but the rain rendered her screen unusable. She wiped the screen against her jeans in a frantic effort to dry it off.
The busker continued his approach.
Holly turned to run, but her feet lost traction on the slippery sand—and down she went. She threw out her hands to catch herself, only to land hard on a rock. Pain shot up her wrists. Her phone skittered away. She scrambled after it, gritty sand filling her mouth.
Behind her, the busker laughed contemptuously, sounding like he was right in her ear. She braced for something terrible, then felt hands on her shoulders, gripping her hard and pulling her to her feet.
“Back off, motherfucker. That’s my friend you’re messing with.”
The voice was as familiar as it was shocking.
The last thing Holly expected to see was a soaking-wet girl, weighing about a hundred pounds, holding a glinting knife.
But there was Jade, who had lifted Holly up and now stood beside her, confronting the busker.
The crazed look in her eyes said it all: She was a small dog with a big bite.
The busker threw up his hands in surrender, backing away. “Hey, hey, I didn’t do anything wrong,” he squeaked before scurrying off into the dark.
Holly turned and wrapped Jade in an embrace, not caring that she was coating her in wet sand.
“Thank you, thank you,” she said, breathing hard. “Come back to the house. Your mac and cheese is getting cold.”