The Off Season (19 page)

A long, brownish head poked out from a gap in one such fence, prompting Harris to grin. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

At the same moment, the tan flash he’d seen on the dark road the night of the fire sprang back to mind again.

“The dog,” he muttered to himself. “It must’ve been the greyhound he saw.”

It made sense that Fiorelli might’ve spotted the loose dog after the arsonist let it outside. On a night as raw as that one, the cop, who was known to like canines better than he did most people, could’ve gotten out of his car and whistled for the animal, meaning to collect Max and then return him to Christina.

Except the arsonist had heard or seen him and recognized that he was a cop. Realizing his plan was in danger, he’d used the distraction to slip up behind Fiorelli while he wasn’t paying attention.

Harris knew that he could be way off, but the scenario explained a lot. Including why he might’ve been wrong in theorizing earlier that there had to have been more than one arsonist.

Not wanting to spook the dog, Harris put the SUV in park and walked down the alley, his unhurried pace belying his eagerness to return to Christina this living, breathing embodiment of good news, one he hoped like hell might prove the key to regaining her trust.

“C’mon, Max. Come here,” Harris called, thoughts of the kiss he’d shared with Christina filtering back into his mind. Thoughts of how damned good it had felt, holding her all these years later. Feeling the same attraction, wild as storm-driven surf.

Scowling at himself for letting his mind wander, he tried whistling, which prompted the shivering greyhound to appear, bonier than ever—and far more pitiful, with his thin, damp coat and his big, brown eyes looking so uncertain.

“How ’bout a truck ride, big boy?” Harris coaxed as he moved closer. “We’ll even stop for a hamburger. I promise,” he said, figuring the animal must be starving by now.

Clearly unnerved by his ordeal, Max slunk away at Harris’s approach.

“Come on, Max. Let’s go see Christina,” he urged, creeping up more slowly than before. Nodding toward the Tahoe, he said, “I’ve got blankets back there. Heat, too. Sort of.”

Gritting his teeth with frustration when the dog melted away from his outstretched hand, Harris wondered if the bastard who’d killed Fiorelli had hurt Max that night, too, or merely scared him so badly that he was unwilling to trust anyone other than his owner.

“Just a few more inches,” he said as he made another, even more careful approach. “That’s a good boy. Let’s
go
.”

At the last word, Harris lunged forward, grabbing for the collar around the dog’s thick, muscular neck.

Panicking, the greyhound somehow slipped free of the blue band, leaving it dangling empty in Harris’s outstretched hand.

“Shit! No!” he said as the greyhound wheeled around and sprinted down the alley, moving with a speed no other breed of dog could match . . .

And racing off in a direction that Harris knew would lead him straight out onto Seaside Creek’s most heavily trafficked street, where he prayed to God he wouldn’t find the animal Christina loved so dearly . . . flattened.

Annie hung a right to cut over onto Columbus Avenue, heading toward the two-story where she and Christina had been raised. Christina didn’t love the idea of her sister behind the wheel of the rental SUV before she had a chance to call and square things away with the dealership, but with her own left arm in a sling and her driver’s license missing in the burned Victorian, she was running low on options.

Five blocks from the pricey beachfront, the old, gray-shingled Cape Cod sat on the more modestly priced edge of the historic district, where it had been in their adoptive father’s family for generations. The moment the house, sheltered by the bare arms of a pair of maples, came into view, Lilly drummed her heels against the bottom of her car seat and squealed, “Gramma!”

“Not today,” Christina said, glancing back over her shoulder. “Grandma won’t be back for four more sleeps.” She held up the appropriate number of fingers to show her daughter.

“I take naps.
Then
Gramma!”

Christina laughed at the miracle of toddler logic. “Sorry, kiddo. Doesn’t work that way.”

“But I
want
her.”

“Me, too, “ Christina said, though she was supposed to be the grown-up in this outfit.

“And me three—especially if she was pulling a pan of that homemade mac and cheese of hers out of the oven,” Annie chimed in, her smile giving Christina hope that she would stick around long enough to say why she had lied about her whereabouts on the night of the fire, instead of skipping out on her promise to explain things.

“Mac ’n’ cheese!” Lilly echoed, taking up the call as they pulled into the driveway.

“No mac and cheese today,” Christina said firmly, knowing that if she didn’t lower expectations, she’d be hearing the refrain all afternoon. “Remember what I told you. We won’t be able to cook at all at Grandma’s.”

Her father had firmly resisted any changes to the house he’d grown up in, claiming that its dated quirkiness was what gave it character. But two years after his death, their mother had finally waded into the updates she’d been longing for, one project at a time.

As they climbed out of the car, Christina shivered in the freezing air, the used but clean ski jacket a coworker had given her draped over her shoulders. Though she was glad to see that someone, probably the neighbors who’d been collecting the mail, had shoveled the front walk and driveway to keep the place looking lived in, she frowned at the sight of several plastic-wrapped newspapers on the front porch.

“That’s odd,” she said. “Mom told me she was going to stop the paper.”

Annie picked them up. “Maybe it slipped her mind. Or the newspaper people are related to the kitchen contractors.”

Christina nodded, irritated on her mother’s behalf about the drama involving a botched cabinet order and countertops cut to the wrong size, which had resulted in the need to reorder and a frustrating delay.

“Guess that’s what I get for putting it ahead of getting that darned basement refinished first, like your father would’ve wanted,” her mother had grumbled while piling sweaters, slacks, and more shoes than she needed into the suitcase she was taking on her trip.

“Forget the basement,” Christina had advised her, wrinkling her nose at the thought of the glorified hole in the ground, with its dank chill and musty odors. “You shouldn’t be going down there, anyway, with those steep steps and your knees. You could fall—”

“And break my neck before I ever got to cook in my fabulous new kitchen!” Her mom had laughed when she’d said it, the sparkle in her eyes hinting that she was finally ready to put the past, along with her husband’s long decline, behind her and embrace this new phase of her life.

Christina wondered how long, if ever, it might take her to reach the same point. To put aside the grief that stole up on her at unexpected moments, the what-ifs that appeared out of nowhere, leaving her with so many regrets about things she had or hadn’t done.

Annie unlocked the door and let them in, and Christina was flooded with gratitude to be back in a place she’d always equated with love and warmth and safety. Lilly ran straight for the staircase, pausing to ask, “Go play now? Go up?” clearly remembering that her grandmother, worried about the construction mess, had moved the wooden box where she kept an assortment of Christina and Annie’s old toys to one of the two guest rooms.

“Sure, sweetie. No jumping on the bed, though. You hear me?”

But Lilly was already clomping up the stairs, happiness bubbling in her wake as she made for the treasure trove of dolls, stuffed toys, and stacking rings.

Considerably less enthused, Annie let out a sigh as she looked around the first floor. “What a mess.”

Christina conceded that the place looked a little sad—with thick plastic sheeting taped over various gouged-out sections of the demolished kitchen, and dust, probably still settling from the tear-out, covering the living room’s chairs, TV, and even the framed paintings of various lighthouses that her parents had collected. But at least it wasn’t freezing. Had her mom forgotten to turn down the thermostat? Or maybe she’d just left it on a timer.

“Smells a little funky in here, too,” Christina said, wrinkling her nose at an unpleasant odor. “You don’t think she left something in the freezer before they unplugged it?”

“Our mom? Are you kidding?” But Annie sniffed and made a face.

Christina checked the side-by-side fridge and found it empty and spotless, though the old appliances were due to be donated.

Annie crossed her arms. “Mom would be insulted that we doubted her housekeeping.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t. Maybe there’s a dead mouse somewhere?”

“Or maybe the place just needs a little airing out. But let’s worry about that later. First, we need to make a shopping list. What do you want me to pick up for dinner?”

As they headed for the family room, Christina said, “I don’t really care, as long as you grab some of those baby carrots Lilly likes, and maybe some fruit we can cut up for her. Milk and cereal for the morning. Mom still has that old fridge in the basement, right?”

“Yeah,” Annie said, tapping out the list on the smartphone. “Anything else?”

While Christina thought about it, she plucked off the sheets covering the sofa so they could use it, only to sneeze at the dust she’d sent whirling through the air.

“Bless you,” Annie said, sliding a finger along the thin layer coating the top of the old mahogany piano, a pensive look on her face, though she had never learned to play anything much beyond “Chopsticks.”

“We’ll clean up a little before Mom comes home,” said Christina, who had dutifully slogged through years of lessons yet hadn’t touched the instrument in years. “She’ll appreciate that.”

Annie slipped her phone into her small purse and then sighed. “She’ll appreciate it a lot more if I’m not in it when she gets back.”

“Seriously, Annie? I thought we’d established that this is an emergency, and I really need—”

“I want to be with Kym.”

Something hummed in the back of Christina’s brain, like one of those forks the piano tuner had struck on those rare occasions when he’d come to the house. But whatever the vibration meant, she couldn’t allow herself to grasp it, so instead she shook her head. “Back at the hospital, you promised you’d tell me where you were that night—that you’d tell me everything.”

“I—Christina, don’t you see?” Tears gleamed in Annie’s blue eyes. “I’m
trying
.”

“I have no idea what you’re saying,” Christina fired back, her fists clenching until pain shot up her injured arm. “All I know is you’re leaving me high and dry after I fired Renee. Is that what you want to prove to everyone? That you’re still the same old irresponsible Annie who can’t be expected to follow through on one damn thing?”

Annie stared at her, apparently too hurt to speak. And Christina felt a twinge of guilt. The same old guilt she’d always succumbed to whenever her sister was involved.

You take care of her and wait here just a minute,
the long-forgotten voice whispered through her memory.
Mama’ll be right back.

But Christina was no longer that three-year-old, nor her sister a helpless infant—no more than the woman who’d left them there had any right to call herself their mother . . .

Mother.
Christina’s skin prickled as she remembered Annie’s panicked call the morning Jacob had had his fall. Remembered her sister’s claims that a woman had called spouting some lunacy about not meaning to have left them, saying she’d been taken.

Understandably upset, Annie had disconnected, Christina recalled. But long before, there had been another Annie. An Annie who, after she’d learned the true story as a child, had fantasized, making up wild tales about how their
real
mother would someday come back to reclaim them.

“She’s called back again, hasn’t she?” Christina demanded. “That woman who says she’s our birth mother.”

“I—I’m not—” Annie’s face reddened as she shook her head, but she couldn’t even spit out a full denial.

“Tell me you didn’t buy into whatever bullshit she was selling. You didn’t go to meet this whack job that night, did you?”

Anne darted a desperate look toward the entryway, as if she might make a break for it.

Christina stepped in front of the opening. “Just tell me, and you can go. Tell me where you really were when Lilly and I were trapped in that burning house.”

“I don’t—I don’t want you to be mad.”

“You always say that,” Christina reminded her, “and yet you’re standing here royally pissing me off right now.”

A tear rolled down her sister’s beautiful face—a face so much prettier than her own that Christina had often suspected they’d had different fathers. But before she could answer, a light rap on the side door behind Christina made both women jump.

Sucking in a deep breath, Christina turned and stood on her toes to peer through the door’s small windows. “Harris.”

Annie was backing away, saying, “Damn it. I was going to call him.”