Fire Works in the Hamptons : A Willow Tate Novel (9781101547649)

by Jerome, Celia

  “She is a cutie.”

  We both watched her bumbling chase of the bubbles across the yard. Edie didn’t fall once this time, and I did feel like a proud mother. Susan noticed. “That’s how you ended up with Little Red, you know.”

  I did know. Care for him for a week or two, my mother’d said. That’s all. But the little terror sank his teeth into my heart as well as my ankles. He loved me in his own way. He needed me. Now I wouldn’t part with him for a New York Times bestseller. Well, maybe I would if my mother got back to take over his care.

  “That’s how she gets all those dogs adopted,” Susan reminded me. “By asking people to foster them for a couple of days so the poor abandoned animals are not locked in a pen, frightened and lonely. They look up at you with those big blue eyes—”

  “The dogs have brown eyes. It’s Elladaire who has blue eyes.”

  “Whatever. And you’re sunk.”

  “Would you want to keep her if—No, Mary is going to be fine, Janie said. Would you want one of your own?”

  “Now, when I’m making my way up the restaurant ladder? When I’m not sure if I’m cured or in remission? When I’m having a good time coming and going when I choose? Hell, no. Someday? Yes. Two or three. If I can’t have my own, then I’ll adopt. Sometimes I think of adopting three different nationalities, start my own UN peacekeeping force. Show the world we’re all the same under our skin.”

  My crazy cousin had her head on straight. Even if it had eyebrow hoops and three colors of hair. Sometimes I admired her.

  Sometimes I hated her. She looked straight at me for the first time and shook her head. “You did something bad again, didn’t you?”

  That depends on how you define bad. What crime did she read in my face this afternoon? Showing jealousy over the veterinarian, lusting after a fireman and then rejecting him, leaving Piet with the baby, or inviting the bugs to town?

  “I swear I didn’t—How is Edie anyway? She was a little peaky when I left for the vet.” Okay, she was pukey. “Little Red was sick. I had to go.”

  He was sleeping on my foot now, wiped out from the trip and the shot, I guessed. Otherwise he’d be fighting Elladaire for the soap bubbles.

  “Piet said her stomach was bothering her, so I took her over to Grandma’s. Gran gave her some special concoction mixed in honey. She’s fine now.”

  I checked Edie for a tail or rabbit’s ears or crossed eyes. You never knew with Eve Garland’s potions. Sure, she’d never changed anyone into a toad that I heard of, but I swear she could if she wanted to.

  Elladaire was fine, and cute as a kitten—not cute as a bug, not these days—chasing the pretty bubbles. Instead of scooping her up and twirling her around just to hear her baby laughter, I decided Susan was right: I had to get her back to Janie’s.

  Jane could send her to day care while she worked, where Edie’d have other kids to play with and professional attention. The other children would be safe, I was sure. Safer than she’d be here or handed off to the nearest person when I had to go back to the marshes.

  “Are you working this afternoon? Tonight?”

  “Yes, I have to leave soon. My mother said she’d take Elladaire when she gets home from school. Everyone wants you to concentrate on the fireflies.”

  If everyone did, why wasn’t Piet here? Whatever horror was in the drainage ditches had to be the key to getting the lanterns home. Searching during the day was bound to be hot, smelly, sticky, and scary. Going again at night was unthinkable.

  Susan left. Of course Edie was tired of the bubbles by now—it had been all of twenty minutes, some kind of record for her pea-sized attention span except for the TV.

  I put it on for her. I’m sure day care sang and danced and read books and played games. I started Edie’s favorite video.

  My own work hadn’t been touched in days, it seemed. I needed to get back to it before I lost too much time, continuity, and confidence. I dropped the creature-in-the-dark-lagoon idea. Hell, that was too close to reality for me. I wanted to draw something clean, graceful, and strong, not frightful and ugly. The story line could come later.

  My sketch pad quickly filled with fish—no, intelligent, mammalian dolphins, leaping out of clear waters, playing in the sun.

  Except some of them had six flippers.

  I turned the page. This time I drew a large dolphin, the king of the dolphins, who could transform himself into a sea god, fighting to clean up the oceans so his people were not threatened. I liked it. I liked him. He was noble and caring and dedicated, like Piet. Like Matt Spenser, too, it occurred to me. I gave him Matt’s clean-shaven look, but Piet’s short hair. I could almost feel the water dripping off him as he rose as a man in muscular glory from the surf—No, that was Elladaire spilling my iced tea on my notes and drawings.

  I really had to get her back to her aunt.

  I left a message there, then thought about calling Piet to ask if he’d be home for dinner, or did he want us to meet him in town and get pizza. Blech. That was too damned domestic. Let him worry about his own dinner. Let him come and go when he wanted. So would I. Except pizza sounded good.

  Meantime, I called my mother. She was in the middle of a meeting. “I am busy. What do you want?”

  “I want you to come home and help with this baby. You’re always saying you want grandchildren. Here’s your chance.”

  “I want grandchildren with my DNA. Ones I can love, not babysit every day. I did that for you. It was enough.”

  “You left me with Grandma Eve every summer.”

  “So?”

  “I am babysitting your dogs.”

  “So?”

  “So I need help here.”

  “So do the poor dogs at the puppy mills. You can take care of yourself. They can’t. You’re a big girl, Willow. Figure it out.”

  I figured I’d get at least a smidgeon of sympathy from my father. Not that I expected him to fly north to care for a baby. I didn’t remember if he was any good at it when I was young. He worked a lot. He worried a lot, too.

  He still worried. “You’ve got to be careful, baby girl,” he told me. “There’s something rotten in that ridiculous town.”

  That would be Mama, judging from the smell.

  “Or maybe in the family.”

  Definitely Mama. “Everyone’s okay here, Dad.”

  “No, sweetheart, there’s danger. I feel it. It’s been keeping me awake nights. Well, last night Karin and I went out dancing, so that doesn’t count, but I felt it. Rot.”

  Rats. I wasn’t surprised. I knew the salt marsh was dangerous; maybe Mama was, too. I didn’t want to frighten both of us any more than we already were, though, so I said I’d stay away from Grandma Eve’s extensive compost piles in case something poisonous or rabid lived there. “I’ll warn Uncle Roger and his workers at the farm, too. Okay?”

  “Good, but you be careful, hear? Remember to wear sunscreen, even though the sun isn’t as strong up there now.”

  “I always do, Dad. So who is Karin?”

  “Got to go, Willy. It’s half-price day for the early show at the movie theater.”

  Just when I started to get annoyed that Piet didn’t call—damned if I’d call him—I heard a squawk from the scanner box the fire department lent him. I didn’t know what the number codes meant. It could have been a traffic accident, a fire, an ambulance call, or a school of bluefish off the shore. Either way, it gave a location: Rick Stamfield’s marina.

  Rick is one of my favorite Paumanok Harbor residents, and he’d had enough bad luck in the past, with a fancy yacht sinking suspiciously right at the dock. He was one of the few people in the village who didn’t blame me for that.

  Now he was in trouble, and I couldn’t go. Not that I’d be much help, but that’s what friends did. They showed support by getting in the way. Elladaire couldn’t see me stick my tongue out at her.

  Then came the sirens and the volunteer alert klaxon. Damn. I called Uncle Roger on his cell. He managed the family far
m, but he’d be going to whatever emergency called for every member of the force to respond. “Fire at Rick’s,” he shouted over the siren on his car. “Bad.”

  Piet had his camper, so he had his protective gear with him. I believed in his magic, I truly did, but a fireproof jacket couldn’t hurt. If he remembered to put it on.

  And I couldn’t go. I had a baby. I didn’t want a baby. Didn’t need a baby. Damn, damn, damn.

  She looked up from the TV with those baby-blue eyes and four-tooth grin. “Go bye-bye car?”

  Shit. I loved a baby. Maybe I loved a dedicated fireman used to flying solo. It was a good thing I’d sworn off men, or I’d be dragging him to my bed to make a baby in the age-old method for keeping a man. Not keeping him happy, mind, but keeping him from leaving.

  Wrong. Everything I was thinking was wrong, mean, and immoral, and I’d regret it tomorrow. I sat down to do some serious thinking about my priorities and my intentions. What I came up with was something rotten in the family.

  I called Piet’s cell and prayed he’d answer.

  “It’s Roy Ruskin,” I shouted when he picked up. “It’s Roy, not Rot, and kin, not family. Rick fired him when he got arrested for wife-beating. And the Danverses let him go before that for drinking at the bowling alley. He’s the one setting the fires!”

  “The chief made that deduction, too. He’s got everyone he can spare out looking for the bastard, along with the East Hampton town police and the county sheriff’s office. They’re setting up roadblocks, but there are a million places he could hide. I’m on my way back to your house now.”

  “Great.” That meant the fire was out. “How are things at the boatyard? Is Rick okay?”

  “Rick’s fine. His own boat and a couple of others aren’t. We got the fires out before they could spread to the whole marina, and only one fuel tank exploded. Part of a dock is gone. One guy got cut by flying glass, but everyone else is all right.”

  “Thank goodness for that. Did you find any . . . ?”

  “Dead bugs? No, but Rick’s boat got towed out of the harbor before I could look, to keep sparks away from the dock. It sank before they could get the arson squad aboard. Big Eddie smelled kerosene, though, so maybe Ruskin couldn’t capture any more of your friends.”

  I’d tried to tell them to stay away from bad guys with evil intentions. Maybe they understood me after all. “So no one suspects them?”

  “They’re positive it was Ruskin. He’d been spotted earlier. They’ll get him sooner or later. The other problem is that Jensen, or whatever he’s calling himself these days, was at the fire. Taking pictures and watching me. I had to step back so the fires did more damage than needed. Then he wanted to know what new experimental chemicals I was testing, that worked so well, for a book he’s going to write. I heard him tell one of the firemen. He’s going to call it Hell Harbor in the Hamptons, about all the weird disasters here.”

  “I don’t suppose the mayor can—”

  “They’re on public record.”

  In a way, Barry was more dangerous than Roy. And more unstoppable. “What do you think we should do?”

  “First we get rid of Ruskin, then the fireflies, then worry about the reporter. Meantime, I’m going through town. Do you want me to pick up a pizza?”

  That would be the next best thing to getting rid of all the plagues. “Great, then I can leave Elladaire with my aunt Jas, and we can track down Mama in the ditches.”

  He was so quiet I thought we’d lost the connection. “Piet?”

  “I thought you understood.”

  “I do. We need to get the bugs gone.”

  “We need to keep the people safe from a vicious arsonist. The chief sent messages to the Coast Guard, because one of the commercial fishing boats in Montauk fired Ruskin, too. And Joe the plumber went to bring Jane to his house, in case Ruskin goes after her.”

  “They’ve been seeing each other recently, ever since she helped him after the accident.”

  “The chief told me she’s the one who called the police on Ruskin the first time, and who paid for Mary’s divorce lawyer.”

  I thought about it a minute. “Which leaves me in danger?”

  “We think so.”

  “He’d never hurt the baby. Would he?”

  “Who knows what’s in the mind of a sociopath? He blames the whole town for his troubles. I told the chief I’d stay close, in case they need me in the village, but I think he’ll come after you for keeping the baby from him. God only knows what he’ll do if he finds you gone.”

  He could torch my mother’s house. Or my grandmother’s. I sank to the floor and held Little Red with one hand and Elladaire with the other, the phone tucked against my shoulder. “How soon before you get here?”

  CHAPTER 24

  WHILE I WAITED FOR PIET and the pizza, I thought about all the places Roy could hole up. Squatters—homeless, adventurous or cheap—were always building illegal tent sites in the woods, but we also had a lot of vacant houses and beach cottages now that the summer rentals were over. Neighbors were fewer, farther apart. A lot of boats sat empty and unattended at docks from here to Montauk, easy pickings for thieves and fugitives. The water was Roy’s best bet for avoiding the roadblocks on the few roads leading out of the Harbor. Who knew what he was thinking, though? Trying to figure out the thought processes of a bitter, hate-filled, and vengeful man was a waste of time.

  Time that the fireflies did not have. Could they survive the cooler nights? Were they finding food? How long before people realized they were out of this world, literally? No one else was going to help them. I understood that well enough. But how was I supposed to do it? I couldn’t leave the house or Elladaire or my grandmother unprotected, but how could I let the Lucifers down? Maybe if they came to my backyard tonight, they’d give me better directions to whatever was stuck in a ditch. Maybe they could tell me why it—she—was so important. So far our communication had been in pictures and feelings and one word. I had to hope for more.

  The more I thought about it, though, the less sense my staying here made. It was Piet who could protect my family’s houses and the baby. On my own, I couldn’t do anything but wait for a Molotov cocktail to come flying through a window or a murdered firefly to land on my wooden porch.

  So once Piet came back here I could go to the salt marsh. By myself. At night. To look for a dangerous creature.

  And pigs would fly.

  I flew into Piet’s arms when he drove up, almost squashing the pizza between us and imperiling the six-pack he had in his other hand.

  “Now that’s what I call a welcome. And here I thought I’d have to spend at least a couple of hours trying to change your mind.”

  “I can’t do it, not without you.”

  “I sure hope not.”

  I took the pizza from him. “I thought you were going to try to convince me to go alone.”

  “Now where’s the fun in that?” He set down the Sam Adams and opened a bottle. I disliked the smell of beer, and the grin on his face.

  “Fun? Going into the marsh and the mud?”

  The smile faded. “Is that what we’re talking about? Hell, woman, do you think I’d let you go off by yourself into that no-man’s land? What kind of guy have you been seeing? It’s no wonder you’re so skittish if that’s how your boyfriends treat you.”

  “Then what were you thinking—Oh. That.”

  “I s’pose we could try it in the mud.”

  “That’s disgusting. Here you are, back from firefighting, facing a night of uncertainty, and you’re thinking about dirty sex?”

  He held up his bottle in a mock toast. “The finest kind. Maybe the only kind.” Then he took another swallow of beer. “Hey, I’m a guy. What else am I supposed to think about, especially after fighting a fire? Adrenaline is an aphrodisiac, you know.”

  No, I didn’t. Danger had me quaking and limp afterward. I was exhausted merely from worrying about him at the boat fire.

  He wasn’t finished. “
And if the future is so uncertain, why not enjoy it while we can?”

  He had a point and, for heaven’s sake, a bulge in his jeans. “Not in front of the baby,” I whispered, as if Elladaire could understand sexual tension. She barely understood the danger of pulling a dog’s tail.

  “So far I’d guess her only view of an adult relationship was full of violence and cruelty. We better give her a better memory, before she gets ruined for life.”

  Then he kissed me. He tasted of beer, which I did not like. He smelled of smoke and soap. He must have showered and changed his clothes at the firehouse, but the smoke stayed with him. I pulled back, very aware of the baby.

  Both of us noticed she was playing with the spoons I’d given her, not watching.

  “We better do it again.”

  This time he pulled me closer so I could feel his hardness, feel his heat. His kiss was deep and long and suddenly it was like a conversation with the mayor. You forgot where you were and why you’d come there. I was here, in Piet’s arms, and that’s where I belonged, for now. What beer? What baby?

  “Okay, she’s seen enough,” he said. “The pizza’s getting cold.”

  Man, he really knew how to put out a fire.

  “But we’ll continue this after Edie goes to sleep.”

  I was afraid we would. And afraid we wouldn’t.

  I slid pieces of pizza onto paper plates. It tasted better that way. “I thought we’d put her in the backpack carrier and kind of patrol the block together, in case Roy decides to take his revenge on the whole family, not just me.”

  He chewed on a slice of pizza while I debated giving some to Elladaire. The sausage and peppers looked deadly, but the crust couldn’t hurt her, could it?

  “Not a bad idea, except you need to have a talk with the flying matchsticks. I’ll make the circuits of the houses. You set up your teleconferencing in the backyard.”

  “What about the baby? If Roy gets her . . .” That was too terrible to contemplate.

  “He won’t. Everyone knows what he looks like, so the cops should have him in custody soon. Unless Rick gets hold of him, or Danvers from the bowling alley. His chances of seeing a jail cell sounded pretty slim to me from what I heard. Meantime, Edie goes with me.”