Now she was proud of the person she’d become, and she believed Cousin Kellen would be, too. She had a daughter and a husband, and the bullet was gone from her brain. Except for the pesky matters of Mara Philippi, vicious murderer, and a fight to save her hand from atrophy, how much better could life be?
Max engulfed Kellen and Rae in his arms. The three of them stood together, warmed and united, and Kellen thought she could stand like this forever.
But after half a minute, Rae wiggled free. “Daddy, we found Ruby Morgade’s diary!”
“Did you? In the attic? I didn’t think you’d find anything but cobwebs.”
“It’s actually clean up there,” Kellen said.
“Did you know Mrs. Morgade was Japanese?” Rae showed Max the photo.
Max took the framed portrait. “That must have been a scandal in its time.”
Kellen eased the photo out of the frame, turned it over and found their names carefully written in faded ink. “She is Reika. I wonder what happened to her and the kids during the war.”
“Why?” Rae had seen a few of Max’s old war movies, but other than that, she hadn’t a clue.
“The Japanese were the enemy, so the government moved all Japanese Americans off the coast and into the interior.” And into internment camps. But Kellen wasn’t going to try to explain that.
“Why?” Rae said again.
“The government was afraid the Japanese-Americans would try to help Japan invade the US.” Max didn’t bring up the internment camps, either.
Rae persisted, “I thought Germany was the enemy.”
“Germany was the enemy, too.” Kellen could see where this was going.
Max met Kellen’s eyes. “And Italy.”
Rae’s eyes narrowed. “Did our family have to move off the coast?”
“No,” Max said.
“Did the German-Americans have to move off the coast?”
“No,” Kellen said. “Not the people from Europe. Only the people from Japan.”
“That’s not fair!” Rae’s indignation blazed hot. She turned. “I want to go read Ruby’s diary and find out what happened.”
“We can do that.” Kellen put her hand on Rae’s shoulder. “But not now. The sun’s shining. Let’s go to the beach!”
Rae wavered.
“Ruby’s diary will be there tomorrow. Olympia’s making another picnic basket. I’ve got on my swim trunks and my flip-flops.” Max showed his feet. “Come on, kid. Time’s a-wastin’!”
Luna barked in agreement.
“All right, Luna. Anyway, I’m starving!”
“Still?” Kellen questioned. “We just ate a picnic upstairs.”
“Just a little one!” Rae tore out of the room and headed upstairs to change.
Luna bounded after her.
“I swear that dog speaks English.” Kellen started toward the stairway, too.
Max followed. “I can’t believe Gerard Morgade would have allowed the government to take his wife and child.”
“How could he stop them?”
“Money. Influence.”
“Yes. Of course. Money and influence.” She glanced back at him. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”
“I’m coming with you.”
She paused, her foot on the first step, her fingers wrapped around the banister. “Why?”
“With the hand and everything, I thought you might need help pulling on your bathing suit.”
A bubble of amusement rose in her throat. “You’re going to help me…get dressed?”
He wore his smile cocked sideways. “Whatever help you need.”
“What makes you think the pleasure of your touch won’t blow up my brain?” She mocked him and his previous restraint.
He was completely serious. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about you making me happy. Maybe I could make you happy, too, sort of gently, building up to the big event, and if there’s any doubt about your health, I could back away and—”
Kellen stood on the first step, faced Max straight on, put her arms around his shoulders (he was still taller), and said, “You want to control my orgasm? Really, darling, there’s no need. I’ve already tested it. Please remember, I don’t need you to have an orgasm.”
His mouth dropped open. He flushed from T-shirt to hairline. His eyes turned a brilliant brownish-gold. He took a long, hard breath, leaned down, put his shoulder to her belly, picked her up and ran up the stairs.
His shoulder slammed into her midriff.
She moaned and laughed at his eagerness.
At the top of the stairs, he skidded to a halt.
Kellen craned her neck, trying to see around him.
Rae’s forceful, scornful voice said, “Daddy, put her down. We’re going to the beach!”
Max slid Kellen off his shoulder, stood her on her feet, and balanced her with a hand on her arm. “Of course, I’m just helping Mommy up the stairs.”
Holding a plastic bucket and wearing a pink-and-blue bathing suit, Rae swept them the kind of knowing glance Professor McGonagall would give a Hogwarts student. She stomped down the stairs.
Kellen cupped Max’s jaw in her hand. “We’ll take up this matter tonight. In the meantime… I’d better put on my own bathing suit.” She sauntered toward their bedroom, and before she entered, she turned back toward Max.
He stood, rooted to the spot.
It was gratifying to wonder which of them was the hungriest.
She whispered, “Tonight.”
10
Kellen wore her modest one-piece bathing suit and an ankle-length, long-sleeved dress as a cover-up, and as they walked across the green lawn toward the cliffs, she could feel Max scrutinizing her. “Stop it,” she said out of the corner of her mouth.
“I can’t help it. That bathing suit fits you like—”
“You can’t see my bathing suit.”
“I know what it looks like.”
“It’s new. You’ve never seen this bathing suit.”
“Describe it to me.”
Kellen glanced at Rae and Luna, running ahead and shrieking. “Imagine I’m wearing a suit from 1900, with a black knee-length skirt, a black ruffly shirt and long white underwear down to my ankles.”
“Sexy.” His voice contained a low, prowling growl.
“How could that be sexy?”
“Because you’re naked underneath.”
He was incorrigible. “I’ll tell you a secret. I’m always naked beneath my clothes.” She guessed he wasn’t the only one who was incorrigible.
“I know.” He sighed loudly. “I never forget it.”
If not for Mara, Kellen would be thoroughly enjoying this retreat.
I’ll take everything from her, the way she took everything from me. I’ll make her sorry she betrayed me.
Max put his arm around Kellen and stopped. “What’s wrong?”
“Just thinking.”
“If it’s going to put that look on your face—stop.” He leaned closer and said softly, “You know what Diana said. She’s closing in on Mara, and when she does, she’ll call in Interpol and that will be the end of our wicked villain.”
“We’ll be free to go home.”
“Or stay, if we want.” Max hadn’t changed the way he stood, yet Kellen felt that sweet, enveloping heat of sexual desire.
“We need to dunk you into the icy waters of the Pacific Ocean,” she told him.
“What?” He pretended innocence.
“Come on!” Rae ran back toward them. “Hurry up! We’ve got to go to the beach.”
“It’s been there for a billion years. It won’t go away,” he assured her.
“Number one hundred and three on the endless list of things parents say to annoy their children,” Kellen said.
�
��No kidding!” In one of those lightning switches, Rae suddenly sounded mature and exasperated.
“Since I’ve already annoyed you anyway, Rae, let’s check out the old garage.” He didn’t wait for an answer, but headed for the dilapidated structure set in the grass beyond the end of the lawn. This was the building with the solar panels.
“Why? Because we haven’t seen rodent droppings lately?” Kellen grinned at his back.
Rae ran after him. “Daddy! We’re going to the beach!”
“This won’t take a minute.” Max flipped back the bar on one of the old-fashioned carriage house–style doors. It creaked and sagged as he opened it and walked in.
Kellen showed Rae her wide-spread hands.
Rae looked up at the sky as if seeking guidance.
They followed Max into the shadowy interior.
The smells of a garage hit Kellen first: oil, paint, tires, gasoline. And dust. So much dust Luna sneezed twice.
At first she could see nothing but the two grimy double-hung windows set into the back wall, and two more in each of the side walls. Then her eyes began to adjust to the dim light, and she saw a cluttered wooden workbench that stopped short of the back door. Motor oil spotted the cracked concrete floor. Gray vintage gas cans lined one side wall and a blue plastic kerosene can sat between them. At the end of the line, an Incredible Hulk of a battery charger kept the cans in line.
On the other wall, a slope-shouldered 1930s refrigerator, no longer working, sat surrounded by stacked red-and-yellow wooden boxes marked Coca-Cola, and filled with six-ounce bottles. A wooden ladder leaned against the wall. Brooms, rakes and shovels hung on nails along with…a horse collar?
Ah. At some point in the far distant past, this must have been the stable. That would account for the more-than-double garage size.
In the middle of the wide concrete floor, a large tarp covered a roughly pickup-sized shape. A mattress, a single with all the markings and colors of the sixties, leaned against the bulbous front of the tarp. Max pulled the mattress away, dragged it over to the wall and leaned it between the studs. He returned, reached up and pulled the chain to turn on the single light bulb that hung from the ceiling. Lovingly he rolled back the tarp to reveal…
PICKUP:
FORD F-100, 1955, INLINE 6 AS INDICATED BY THE GRILLE, ORIGINAL PAINT: GOLDENROD YELLOW. DUSTY, WELL-CARED-FOR. ONE LOW TIRE.
“My God. The rumors are true,” he said in awe.
Rae wailed, “Daddy, I don’t want to look at a crummy old pickup. We’re going to the beach.”
“It’s not a crummy old pickup.” He sounded shocked.
“It’s the holy grail of vehicle fixer-uppers,” Kellen told Rae.
“I don’t care. I don’t want to fix it up.” Rae hesitated, because she loved robotics and anything mechanical. So she added, “Not now. Let’s go to the beach.”
Kellen held up one finger, asking Rae to be patient. “Max, you knew this was here?”
Rae sighed loudly.
Luna sat and thumped the floor with her tail.
“I had heard rumors.” He walked over and ran his palm over the bumper as lovingly as he had run his hand over Kellen’s bottom. “It’s in pretty good shape.”
“For a truck that’s been in a marine environment for…its whole life?” Kellen guessed. “Yes, it is.”
“The Di Lucas bought it new and used it for island transportation until a few years ago. Then we replaced it with the electric golf cart. Our first caretaker was reputedly dedicated to the truck and kept it waxed and running.” As he spoke, Max opened doors, rolled down windows, rolled up windows, kicked the tires, and generally acted like a man in the act of buying a car.
“How many caretakers have there been?” Kellen glanced out the back window and saw the waving grasses trampled by the remnants of a path. To the house, she guessed.
“Olof Humphreys was the first one. He came here as a young man and remained for umpteen years until he had a stroke and had to be transported to the mainland. He lingered for too long, poor guy, hating every minute of being there. Then we hired the Conkles. I wonder if the key’s in the ignition.” He leaned in the driver’s side, and sagged in disappointment. “Nope.” He looked around. “I wonder where the key is.”
Rae sighed in drama and despair.
“Probably somewhere in here.” Kellen skirted the truck, the workbench, and ran into a spiderweb. Automatically, she ducked, brushed frantically at her face and hair, and glared when Rae said, “Mommy just did the spider dance.” And laughed.
“Smart kid.” Kellen spotted the keys on the workbench, made her decision, and took his arm. “But the battery has to be dead and once we get the battery charged, before we can try to start it, we’ll have to prime the carburetor.”
“Right. Because there’s no fuel in the line.” Max’s eyes shone with excitement.
Kellen guided him toward the open door. “So I’ll help you look for the keys later. Right now, we really do need to go to the beach.”
He made a whimpering sound much like Rae’s.
Kellen waved Rae ahead and said to Max, “You know, I’m quite a good mechanic. I could help you get that truck running.”
He flinched away from her. “No!”
She covered her grin with her palm, and when she thought she had control, she asked, “Did I threaten your manhood?”
She must not have completely hid her amusement, because he said, “You dented it.”
“You want to repair the truck yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, but you have to include Rae.”
“Of course!”
He had always intended to include his little girl in his project. That was only one of the reasons she loved him.
“Daddy! Mommy! C’mon. Let’s go to the beach!” Rae dragged out the last word as if that would bring them along.
“Okay! We’ll go to the beach!” Max imitated Rae’s tone and volume. In a softer tone, he said to Kellen, “Dibs on putting sunscreen on your…shoulders.”
Kellen got goose bumps that lasted until she got into bed that night…and beyond.
11
“Mommy.”
The whisper at midnight, right above Kellen’s face, brought her out of a dead sleep and into wide-eyed terror. She jumped so hard she snapped her mouth closed and made her teeth ring. When she processed the voice and her role, she calmed herself and whispered, “Rae, what’s wrong?”
“Mommy, I had a nightmare.”
Kellen had been afraid of this; too much change and excitement, and a sudden separation from her beloved grandmother, and Rae’s subconscious was rolling out the nightmares. “I know, sweetheart. Hang on.” She rolled over and pushed gently at the inert form beside her. “Max, move over.”
Some deep-voiced mumbling occurred while Max crawled to his edge of the mattress.
Kellen had worn him out. Poor guy. Thank God she’d managed to put on a nightgown, bully him into some night shorts, and unlock the door before she fell into a beach-exhausted, sex-saturated sleep.
Kellen lifted the covers.
Rae scooted in. The child was shivering, clutching her tattered blankie and stuffed llama, in the grips of some shadowy dread.
Kellen pulled her close, trying to warm her.
Rae whispered, “Can Luna come up, too?” Which the dog wasn’t supposed to do, not on the family bed. Max didn’t approve.
But… “Sure.” Why not? What was a queen-size bed for, but to accommodate parents, child and animals, stuffed and real? Kellen patted the bottom of the bed.
Luna leaped up and stretched out on their feet.
Not exactly what Kellen had planned, but bonus points to the dog for bringing Rae through the shadowy corridor and into their bedroom. “Did the nightlight in your room help?”
“No. That’s why I sa
w the lady!”
“What lady?”
“An old lady with silver hair. I dreamed someone was standing over me—”
“I know that feeling.”
“—and I was scared. But I remembered what you said about facing my nightmares and I opened my eyes to look at her. She was supposed to disappear, and she was still there! She put her finger to her lips for me to be quiet, then she touched my forehead, then she went into the wall and vanished!”
“She touched your forehead? Like how?”
“Like you do when you kiss me goodnight.”
“So it was a nice touch.”
“Yes. But she was real.” Rae curled into a tighter ball, still shivering.
“That sounds like a pretty good dream to me.”
“She disappeared into the wall.”
“That’s kind of spooky,” Kellen acknowledged. “What did Luna do?”
“Nothing.”
“She didn’t bark? She didn’t growl?”
“No, she lifted her head and stared at the lady.”
“You know if Luna thought you were threatened, she would protect you. That’s her job, and she takes it seriously.”
“I know,” Rae said in a small voice.
“You’ve had a lot of nightmares since we left Yearning Sands.”
“Because of the dead man with no hands.”
Kellen went on alert. “How did you hear about that?”
“From Chloe, and Maverick and Rayleigh.” In a return to her snotty tone, Rae said, “Before you took my phone away.”
Kellen chose to ignore the snottiness. “Pretty awful story, isn’t it?”
Rae whispered, “Yes.”
“Scary.”
“Yes.”
“But that’s in Cape Charade, and we’re safe on Isla Paraíso, so right now, let’s say your lady was a dream, too.”
“She wasn’t!” Rae was all rigid indignation.
“Shh. You’ll wake your daddy.”
Rae subsided.
“Tomorrow we’ll look around your room and see if we can figure out where the lady came from.”
“Ruby said there were secret passages, and we found one!”
Strangers She Knows Page 7