Chapter 12 #2
She elbowed his arm. “The earrings were my mother’s. The bracelet was a Christmas gift. Before you ask, yes. Rex gave it to me.” She felt her cheeks flush.
“He’s a good guy,” Rafe said, then ordered another beer.
Then her phone pinged in her purse. She pulled it out and glanced at the message.
ARRIVED AT LAX. GOOD FLIGHT. MY NAMESAKE SAT ON MY LAP MOST OF THE TIME. She knew he was referring to Francie’s little boy called Reggie, whose formal name was “Reginald”—Rex’s legal name—because Rex had delivered the baby during an emergency.
Maddie sighed. Rex really was gone. She checked her pocket; the note was there.
She couldn’t ask him what to do … he was in California to have fun, not to be interrupted by a drama queen.
As soon as she got back to the cottage, she would put the note in the nightstand beside her bed, along with the first one she’d already stashed there.
With that decision, she turned back to Rafe and asked if he was looking forward to his last semester at Amherst College.
The next morning, Maddie drove Rafe to the boat, and Grandma went along for the ride. Rafe had wanted to go in Orson, but Maddie didn’t do well driving a stick shift, so she couldn’t guarantee that she and Grandma would get back to Menemsha with the ancient pickup in one piece.
“Joe will keep Orson in his garage until you come back,” Grandma told him. “He’ll take good care of the old boy.”
Maddie was relieved that the truck wouldn’t have to go back to the storage unit at the airport.
Now that they were living in the cottage, she and Grandma would have the space to go through the items that were still there, bring them home, keep what was wanted and donate or recycle the rest. One thing Maddie knew was that she was going to hang some of her mother’s canvases in the bookshop. They would not be for sale.
“Let’s stop at the Black Dog Café for lunch,” Grandma said after they bid Rafe good-bye. He’d begged them not to wait until the boat pulled out of its berth; he said it made him feel like he was a kindergarten kid.
“The café it is,” Maddie said, and guided her car from the parking area.
She was not, however, hungry. With her father, Rex, and now Rafe off-island, her stomach was queasy.
Probably because she felt alone. And extremely vulnerable, because whoever had left the notes knew where she lived, and might also know that the men she trusted most had left the island.
She wished she was more at ease with being independent; maybe, as Rafe had said about her father, she needed time.
A few miles up the road from the center of town, the Black Dog’s lot was crowded. Maddie squeezed the Volvo half into a space, half onto the grass, a maneuver she’d picked up from watching summer drivers.
With the holiday crunch now over, the restaurant was filled with islanders in off-season flannels and jeans.
Luckily, two people were about to leave their table, so Maddie quickly claimed it.
Grandma said the place had had a makeover, and that she liked the old way better, when the tables were often lopsided and the chairs uncomfortable, but you could order just a coffee and sit for hours reading a newspaper that someone before you left.
She ended by grumbling, “It’s too nice in here now.”
As they waited for their food (Grandma asked for a grilled cheese sandwich off the kids’ menu, and Maddie ordered a bowl of chowder), Grandma scanned the place.
“Dottie Granger’s over by the window,” she said too loudly. “I was in school with her mother, who the world hasn’t missed since she dropped dead feeding her chickens.”
“Grandma,” Maddie shushed her, “people will hear you.”
Grandma shrugged. “Nobody listens to an old lady.” She scanned again. “Over there? The last seat at the bar? That’s Gil Martin’s son, Henry. Gets his personality from his mother.”
Maddie had no idea who Gil Martin or his son, Henry, were, or if the mention of his mother’s personality was a compliment, though knowing Grandma, that was doubtful.
Then a white-haired man dressed in tan canvas pants and a yellow slicker began to pass their table, then he stopped. “Nancy?”
Grandma blinked.
“It’s me. George Landers.”
Glancing at Maddie, Grandma said, “George Landers is the medical examiner who lives on the Cape in Sandwich now. We almost needed him last summer, didn’t we?” She turned to George and laughed. “This is my daughter, Maddie.”
Maddie wasn’t sure if she should correct Grandma about their family tree, but opted to simply smile at George, who grinned as if he understood the error.
“Nice to meet you,” he said.
“You, too,” Maddie said. “And I’m glad we haven’t needed you so far.”
“Somebody must have,” Grandma interrupted. “Otherwise, why are you on the island?”
“Happily, it’s not for business. Stripers are still biting. Caught a couple yesterday at Dogfish. Off Ken’s boat.”
Nancy raised one eyebrow and looked back to Maddie. “Dogfish Bar is on the other side of our harbor, past Lobsterville Beach,” she said, as if Maddie needed a lesson. “Ken Lawrence is our up-island constable.”
Maddie felt a small tug in her stomach. She remembered Grandma had considered calling Ken last October when she thought Maddie had vanished, but was canoodling with Rex.
She almost laughed that she thought of that word: canoodling.
It must be as old as Grandma, which didn’t seem much older than George-the-medical-examiner.
Tuning out Grandma’s chatter, Maddie wondered if she should follow George to the table where Police Chief Ken, aka the constable, might be sitting.
Maybe he wouldn’t mind if she pulled up a chair and told him about the potentially threatening notes that she’d received.
But Maddie could not be that forward, especially since the man was there for lunch with a friend.
Still, she’d fuse the name Ken Lawrence to her brain, in case another note was waiting on the front steps at the cottage.
By the time their food arrived, she was tired of thinking.