Ash
It’s Sunday morning, and I’m in Francesca Giovanni’s kitchen making breakfast, wearing only my briefs and a red-checked apron
I found in the pantry that says Don’t Be Upsetti—Eat Spaghetti!
“How do you like your eggs?” I ask Frankie as I melt a mound of butter in the cast-iron skillet she handed me when I said
I’d make breakfast. “Cheesy, super cheesy, or ultra cheesy?”
“Uh . . .”
Frankie is racing around, getting things ready for her new feline family. She’s moved Daisy’s food bowls from the kitchen
to the bedroom so the cat won’t have to walk as far to get to them, and is currently “kitten-proofing” the house, even though
I told her I think it’s going to be a while before those kittens are able to walk around on their own. Their eyes aren’t even
open yet. There’s no way any of them are going to be able to climb out of that basket for at least another week or two.
But she’s shoving rolled-up towels against the bottom of the refrigerator, stove, and dishwasher anyway. Wherever there’s a tiny, kitten-sized gap one of them could slip into, Frankie is finding a way to plug it.
“Cheesy eggs are fine,” she says, sounding distracted.
And who wouldn’t be? It’s not every morning you wake up to find that your pet has given birth . . . or that a man as good-looking
as me has taken over the breakfast-making.
“Ultra cheesy it is, then,” I say, opening the block of cheddar I find in her refrigerator so I can grate it. “You know, you
have one of the best-stocked kitchens I’ve ever seen. I like a woman who has three—no, five—different kinds of olive oil.”
“You need different kinds of olive oil for different preparations.” Frankie stops in her tracks and stares at me. “Where did
you get that apron?”
“From the pantry. Why?” I do a little spin. “Are you jealous? Do you want to wear it?”
“No, I thought I’d donated it to Goodwill. Feel free to give it back to me so I can put it at the bottom of that laundry basket
for the cats to shit on.”
“And deprive you of such sartorial elegance? Never. Do you want your eggs now, or after you go for your swim?”
She dashes past me on the way to the linen closet. “I don’t work out on Sundays.”
“Oh, right. Too busy going to mass?”
“Very funny. Sunday is a day of rest.”
“Really?” Cheered by this piece of news since it means more time together—though disappointed that the red bathing suit isn’t
going to make an appearance—I grab eggs from the refrigerator. “I was going to go to the farmers market this afternoon—”
“Do you have a death wish?”
Startled, I say, “No. Why?”
“Have you ever been to a farmers market in a small New England town on a Sunday? Especially in the fall?”
“Yeah . . .”
“And you enjoyed the crowds, the lack of parking, the complete idiots standing around taking selfies with bottles of maple
syrup and handmade soap, but not buying anything?”
“Wow.” I raise my eyebrows. “You’re grumpy in the morning. Who knew?”
“I’m not grumpy,” Frankie protests. “I’m just stating facts. I’ve lived here my whole life and I want to assure you that the
West Harbor farmers market on a weekend is not where any sane person would want to be.”
“Who said I was sane?” I wiggle my eyebrows at her. “I’m looking for someone, remember? And everyone knows that the local
farmers market is a hotbed for gossip. I was going to ask around to see if anyone there has any news about Emma Bridle. Meg
reappearing like she did has sparked a lot of new interest in the case.”
Had it ever. FOUND! screamed the headline of the New York Post. AT LAST! shrieked the cover of PEOPLE magazine.
Fortunately none of the articles mention me or Frankie by name—only that a “concerned resident” of West Harbor found Meg near
the nature preserve and then contacted authorities. Not a single one of the stories contains any new information whatsoever
that might be of help tracing the whereabouts of the other missing girls.
“Unless you’ve talked to your friend Jackie again?” I ask hopefully. “Has she told you that Meg’s said anything useful? Does
she want to let me try talking to her? You may not believe this, but I’m pretty good with people. . . .”
“I’ve noticed.” Frankie attempts to dart past me on her way back to the bedroom, her arms filled with beach towels. “But I haven’t had a chance to speak to Jackie this morning. I’ve been a little busy.”
“You sure have been.” I catch her as she breezes past and lay a kiss on that busy little head. “Well, in that case, while
I’m at the market, I thought I might pick up some farm-raised rib eyes to throw on the grill later. Do you think you’d be
interested in joining me?”
“For what?” Frankie calls. She managed to wiggle away with the towels and is now in the bedroom.
I’m a patient man. With my family, I have to be. So I reply, with what I think is admirable calm, “Going to the farmers market
this afternoon, then making dinner at my place.”
“Oh, I can’t.”
But before I can ask the disembodied voice coming from the bedroom what she’s doing instead that’s so important—even though
I already know, I just want to see if she’s going to invite me along—there’s a knock on the door.
“Don’t answer that!” Frankie comes running back into the room, her eyes huge. “It’s probably my brother.”
“It isn’t.” I’m already striding to the front door. “It’s for me.”
“You?” Frankie hurries along behind me, wide-eyed. “Who—oh, God, you’re not going to answer it wearing that, are you?”
“Don’t get upsetti,” I advise her as I unlock the door. Eddie, Robby, and Sammy DeLong are standing on Frankie’s front porch,
looking anxious. “Greetings, young sirs. To what do I owe this social call so early on a Sunday morn?”
Eddie DeLong stares up at me curiously. “Wha-aat?”
“What are you doing here, kid?” I notice all three boys eyeing my apron. I think they’ve noticed what I’m wearing beneath
it, which, I’m belatedly realizing, is only underwear.
“Um.” Eddie drags his gaze from the apron to my face. “You told us to tell you if we saw the boat again.”
“Oh, right.” I step halfway outside to join them on the porch because Frankie is now rushing around, exclaiming about me holding
the door open because “the cat might get out.”
“That cat’s not interested in getting out,” I look over my shoulder to tell her. “She’d have to abandon her children, and
she doesn’t seem like a deadbeat mom to me.”
“Still.” Frankie joins me on the porch, closing the front door behind her. “What are you doing here, boys? Does your grandmother
know where you are?”
The boys exchange amused looks. I think the looks are more due to my outfit than Frankie’s question. The temperature has fallen
enough since yesterday that it’s gotten pretty cold outside—at least, cold to a guy wearing nothing but an apron over boxer
briefs.
“Yeah, Gran knows,” Sammy says. “Why are you dressed like that, Mr. Merit?”
“I told you to call me Ash.” I’m already beginning to freeze my ass off. “How did you know I was here?”
“Oh,” Eddie says. “We saw you go in last night.”
“And we never saw you come out,” adds Robby.
“Gran says she’s not surprised,” Sammy announces, and I have the pleasure of seeing Frankie blush to her hairline as he goes
on, “She says Dr. Giovanni deserves to have a little fun after everything she’s been through this year.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus.” Frankie has opened the front door to go back inside, but not before whispering to me, “Thanks. I have to
move now.”
Her embarrassment is so adorable that I want her to stick around so I can enjoy it some more. But I have work to do.
“I’ll take care of it,” I assure her. As soon as she closes the door behind her, leaving me alone on the porch with the boys, I say to them, “Okay, number one, you need to tell your grandma that you spoke to me, and I said I was only at Dr. Giovanni’s last night to fix her fuse box.
But then I went home. This morning—way before you guys woke up—I came back over because I forgot something. ”
“Your pants?” Eddie scoffs. No one is pulling the wool over this sophisticated ten-year-old’s eyes.
“I’m serious.” I give the boys my sternest look. “If you guys ever want to have a girlfriend, it’s important to learn that
you have to respect women. Treat them nicely, and they’ll treat you the same way.”
“Dr. Giovanni is your girlfriend?” Sammy’s eyes are huge.
“I want her to be,” I tell them. “So don’t screw it up for me. Tell your grandma what I said. Now . . . where’s the boat?”
They show me. I have to go inside and put on real clothes first, because the boat is down by their own dock, and I don’t want
to give Mrs. DeLong any more hot gossip—or embarrass Frankie further—by parading around her neighborhood in the spaghetti
apron.
“See this?” Eddie says, pointing with a stick at the name painted on the side of the boat—The Kraken. He and his brothers had found it, he’d explained, floating free while they were out fishing earlier that morning, then seized
it and tied it to their grandparents’ dock so they could show it to me.
“Yeah, I see it.”
The Kraken is a runabout, only ten feet long. Its small single engine is missing, either from being stolen—unlikely—or from having fallen off and sunk to the bottom of the lake—likely, given the age and dilapidated state of the rest of the boat. I check it thoroughly for clues but find nothing.
Which in itself is a clue. No one leaves nothing on their boat—unless they’ve got something to hide.
“You sure this is the boat you saw at my dock yesterday?” I ask the boys when I’m done with my inspection.
“Yeah.” Eddie pokes the boat some more with his stick. “This is the Blancos’ boat.”
“The Blancos?”
“Yeah. They used to live in your house before they moved. Somebody stole this boat from them.”
“Yeah.” Robby’s cheeks are very pink from the cold. “The Blancos didn’t report it to the police or anything because they said
it wasn’t worth it. Also, they were moving and didn’t want it anymore anyway. Gran thought maybe it just floated away.”
Sammy shakes his head firmly. “It was stolen! I heard it start up the night it disappeared—”