Chapter Eight
Trey
When Callie had told him about Tricia’s plans to have an impromptu crawfish boil to welcome her that night, Trey had been resigned.
Though he was by no means conceding defeat when it came to giving up the library to Callie, after talking to Julie that morning, he was at least ready to admit that Khaki must have felt genuine affection for the librarian.
And from her easy interactions with the business owners along the boardwalk downtown, he wasn’t quite as pessimistic about her chances of making a home for herself here.
Still, chatting with retailers who were looking to make a sale wasn’t the same thing as breaking bread—or crawfish shells—with them.
And he had a feeling that the librarian might not be quite so comfortable when Tricia’s guests started interrogating her about her friendship with Khaki and her motives for coming to the island.
And watching her talk to some of Tricia’s guests would give him a chance to see if anyone else sensed something hinky about her.
Miss Genevieve—who’d been best friends with Khaki since they were little girls—would have no qualms about demanding more information than Callie had revealed so far.
He felt a little bad for not warning Callie about the third degree she was in for.
But she was the one who’d decided to move to the Deep South.
Having everybody up in your business came with the territory.
After they got back from town, he’d spent the rest of the afternoon working on the refinishing project in the basement, then headed upstairs to shower and dress for the party.
Of course, since it was a crawfish boil, dressing just meant changing into a pair of clean shorts and a polo.
And though he didn’t think too hard about why, he shaved for the first time in days and splashed on some aftershave.
Nothing wrong with smelling nice, was there?
He was scrolling through the news feed on his phone when he heard a footfall behind him.
He and Callie had agreed to leave around five, and he was about to tease her because she’d—as he’d predicted—taken longer than he had to get ready, but when he saw the strappy little sundress she’d changed into, he had a hard time finding his voice.
“Is this OK?” Callie asked, gesturing down to her calf-skimming skirt and the pretty sandals that revealed her candy apple red toenails. “I have no idea what’s appropriate attire for a crawfish boil.”
Trey swallowed, afraid words would desert him if he tried to speak before he got himself under control. First the tiny pajama shorts last night and now this. He needed to stop reacting to her like he was fourteen and she was the new girl who’d just moved in next door.
“Yeah,” he said, reaching for his keys. “Pretty much anything goes around here.”
Then he remembered the cat. “Where’s Stella?”
Callie grinned at the question. “Aw, you’re already worried about her. That’s cute!”
“Like I worry about a toothache,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
“Admit it,” she said, poking him in the arm. “She’s growing on you.”
He opened the door to the garage and gestured for her to precede him.
“She’s a cute cat. But seriously, where’s she going to be while we’re gone?
I don’t want her getting into my stuff.” He might not want the cat’s owner to stick around, but he didn’t want the kitty to get hurt wandering around this place while they were out.
The library encompassed something like 17,000 square feet and it certainly wasn’t cat-proofed.
“I shut her in my suite,” Callie said with a slight roll of her eyes. “She’ll probably just sleep. Cats sleep most of the time, really.”
“I guess they need to save their strength for all that mischief they get up to the rest of the time,” he said, not forgetting the way Stella had bitten him last night.
“Now you’re catching on,” Callie said with a laugh.
They’d just stepped out into the open garage area beneath the building, where both their vehicles were parked. “I presume we’re taking your Jeep?” she asked.
“Nah, they only live a little ways down the beach,” Trey said. “And your shoes should be okay because there’s a boardwalk.”
He almost wished the city council hadn’t been so eager to make the shoreline walkable—little inconveniences like ruined shoes could really add up when it came to convincing a newcomer to pack their bags and go home.
But that would mean making the island less accessible for the elderly and the disabled, and while Trey might wish Callie would leave, he wasn’t a monster who would begrudge his neighbors their mobility.
Leading her down to where the wooden boardwalk ran along the small beach area sloping down to the bay, he noticed that the fairy lights, strung from post to post along the walkway, were already lit, despite the fact that the sun hadn’t quite set yet.
As they walked, they chatted about the café and the various other business owners besides Tricia she’d met while he took her around town.
He answered some of her questions about how the island had changed over the years, and how gentrification had affected those people who’d lived here all their lives, and how the increased value of all waterfront property was making it harder for the old-timers to keep up with their rising property taxes.
“That’s definitely something I’ll need to think about when my year here is up,” Callie said thoughtfully. “Khaki made sure that this year’s taxes are taken care of, but I might have to find some way of offsetting that if I decide to stay.”
He’d wondered what she was planning to do about that. But he was more interested in what she could be thinking of to take care of the cost. “Offset how?” he asked, trying not to sound as suspicious as he felt.
“Oh, I have a few options in mind,” she said in a noncommittal tone. “But we won’t need to really think about that for a while yet.”
As luck would have it, they’d just reached the dock of Bobby and Tricia’s waterfront house, and before he could press Callie for more information, Tricia called out to them from their deck, where Trey could see at least a dozen familiar faces standing around in small clusters, chatting.
“There you two are!” Tricia called as she took the stairs from the brightly lit outdoor area that led out from the multiwindowed home. “I was getting ready to send out a search party.”
Callie frowned. “I don’t understand. You said six or six thirty.”
“One thing you need to know about my wife,” said Bobby, who had come stepping down the stairs behind Tricia, “is that if she gives you an option, she always expects you to choose the earlier one.”
Trey felt the pointed look Callie sent his way. “Mea culpa,” he said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I guess since I’m the one who already knew about Tricia’s weird relationship with time, then I should have told you. But honestly, I thought you weren’t doing that anymore, Trish.”
“Men. If we left it up to them, they’ll come rolling up at the last second every time,” Tricia said with a shake of her head.
Then, linking Callie’s arm through hers, she led her up the stairs and toward the far side of the deck where a small crowd had gathered.
“Now, come with me because everyone is dying to meet you. I don’t suppose you’ve brought Stella, have you?
Because believe it or not, some folks want to meet her too. ”
Trey watched as the two women walked ahead of them, and Bobby led him over to where several galvanized buckets held ice and bottles of beer, water, and soda. His friend opened a couple of bottles of Abita Amber, then handed him one. Trey took it with a nod of thanks.
“How’s that going?” Bobby asked with a nod in Callie’s direction.
Thinking back to how the sight of his new roommate in that sundress had about knocked him on his butt, Trey chose not to mention that inconvenient detail. Bobby already had far too much blackmail material against him. He wasn’t about to offer the man any more without a fight.
“It’s OK. She’s barely been here for twenty-four hours. But I have hopes she’ll decide that island life isn’t for her.”
“That was all it took for your ghost to start back up again,” Bobby said, gesturing to Trey with his own beer bottle. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Dang it,” Trey griped. “I told Charlie not to tell you.”
Earlier that afternoon, while he’d been waiting for the varnish to dry on the cabinet he was rehabbing, he’d texted his godson, Charlie—Bobby and Tricia’s oldest—to ask him to see if he could figure out what device had been controlling the speaker in the stacks.
Since the kid ate, drank, and slept technology and could probably hack his way into the Pentagon if he wanted to (and Trey most vehemently hoped he did not want to), he’d been the first person Trey thought to ask.
But he’d been clear with the kid that he should not tell his parents about it.
Obviously, that had gone out the window when Charlie had been given the third degree by his nosy parents.
“As for why I didn’t tell you, it wasn’t a big deal.” Trey shrugged.
“Delinquents blasting Halloween sounds in the middle of the night is definitely something to worry about,” Bobby said with a frown. “Especially when it’s been going on for a while.”
“It’s not like I was scared,” Trey said with a roll of his eyes. “And the more I think about it, the more I realize it might do far better than I to convince Callie that staying on the island might not be what she wants.”
“Wow,” Bobby said, his eyes wide. “You really are determined to keep her from sticking around, aren’t you?”
“Well, hell, Bob,” Trey said with a scowl.
“I don’t know how she did it but somehow this woman convinced Khaki, who’d known her for about five minutes, basically, to bequeath the library—where I spent every summer as a kid—to her.
Not to Khaki’s own daughter, not to me, and not to any other family member.
It’s weird. And Callie might be pretty and Midwestern nice, but I don’t owe her a thing.
If this mischief-maker can convince her to go, then that’s less work for me. ”
“If that’s the case, then why did you ask Charlie for help?” Bobby asked with a raised brow. “Because my kid is going to find out. He knows more about computers than I’ve ever forgotten.”
Trey took a long sip of his beer, trying to figure out how to explain what he didn’t even understand himself. Finally, he sighed. “She was really afraid for that damn cat last night,” he admitted, running a hand over the back of his neck. “And I guess I didn’t like seeing her scared, all right?”
“So, you’re hoping the ghost”—Bobby made exaggerated air quotes around the word ghost—“simultaneously frightens her back to Cincinnati, and also gets unmasked by Charlie, which will keep her from going back to Cincinnati?”
At Trey’s nod, Bobby laughed. Hard. “Man, you are really wrapped around the axle about this, aren’t you?”
“It’s complicated,” Trey said, resentful that his friend knew him so well. And he didn’t add that what he’d learned from Julie about Callie’s relationship with Khaki had only made him feel more conflicted.
“Apparently.”
Deciding to change the subject, Trey asked, “Where is Charlie anyway? I thought he might be here tonight. Figured I might as well introduce him to Callie.”
“Nah, he had a big date.”
At that Trey gaped. “A date? He’s not old enough to date.”
“Man, tell me about it.” Bobby shook his head mournfully. “He’s barely out of training pants.”
Trey felt a pang of envy at his friend’s happy family.
If he and Monica hadn’t gone belly-up, maybe they’d have a kid by now.
Correction: if Monica hadn’t betrayed him with his business partner.
No, it was definitely for the best that they’d split up before having a child.
Still, he wasn’t getting any younger. And he’d like to be able to throw a ball around with his kid without breaking a hip.
“That’s a grim expression,” Bobby said with a raised brow. “What brought that on?”
But Trey wasn’t about to complain about his failed marriage again. Bobby had been a good friend to him over the years but he had to be sick to death of talking about it. “Nothing,” he said with a shake of his head. “Just didn’t get much sleep last night thanks to the prankster.”
He glanced over to where Callie was standing on the other side of the deck, deep in conversation with Tricia and a woman with her back turned to him.
But he’d recognize that white Afro anywhere.
“We’d better get over there,” he said to Bobby.
“Looks like Tricia has introduced Callie to her grandmother.”
Who just so happened to be Khaki’s oldest and dearest friend. He might want Callie to pack her bags and go home, but he wouldn’t let his worst enemy get eviscerated by Miss Genevieve if he could help it.
“Oh shit,” Bobby said, his voice ringing with real alarm. “Come on. When Genevieve likes you, you’re golden. But she might think like you do that Callie somehow tricked Khaki into changing her will. And if that’s the case …”
“Callie might be in real trouble,” Trey finished as the two men hurried toward the women.