Kingdom by the Sea (Romantic Suspense)

by Jill Winters

  “I need to move this thing,” she explained, pointing to the hutch that stood against the red brick wall.

  “Okay. Where?”

  “Just away from the wall, so I can reach behind it. Some papers fell out of the back.”

  With what appeared to be no effort, he pulled the tall bulky cabinet forward several inches. “How’s that?”

  “Wow,” she blurted. “I'm impressed.”

  Michael looked bemused. “Over that?”

  “Well, I just thought there would be lots of groaning and sweating,” she explained. “You know, like when I tried it.”

  He laughed. “Nicole, it wasn't that heavy.”

  “I guess I'm weak—no, what I mean is: I have strong character, and that's where it ends. By the way, have you eaten?” she said suddenly.

  “No. But I wouldn't be opposed to it.”

  “Good, the pizza will be ready soon.” Meanwhile, she reached down for the papers behind the hutch. When she smoothed them out she saw that they were handwritten, but it was not her aunt's penmanship. I’m sorry for what’s happened. It can be fixed, if you trust me—

  Abruptly she halted her reading and coasted her eyes to the bottom of the page. It was a letter to Nina from Abel Kelling. It was private, she reasoned and folded up the paper. Once she slid it into a drawer of the hutch, she went to join Michael in the kitchen.

  Soon they were both seated before a so-called veggie lovers’ pizza.

  “I feel bad taking your dinner like this,” Michael said offhandedly, then took a huge bite of the slice in his hand.

  “I can see it's a moral dilemma. It's destroying you from the inside out.” He eyed her with mischief and kept on eating. “I'm glad you came by,” she added, “it's so quiet here at night. I have DVDs and music, but there's no real 'people noise.'”

  “Would you want it? I like the deadly silence out on the boat.”

  “Speaking of your boat...at the police station the other night you mentioned that you worked in a garage? That's how you know about engines?”

  “Yeah, back when I was in high school. That's how I got my first car actually. I fixed up an old Chevy Nova that was there, paid a couple hundred for it.”

  “But you don't still have it,” she guessed.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Really?”

  “Are you kidding? I'd never part with that car.”

  “How did you get interested in cars anyway?” she asked.

  “To be honest, I'm not that interested in cars,” he said. Which confused her.

  “But you were a mechanic...” she began.

  “Because I was good at it. But how I came to realize I was good at it? It's been so long, I’m not sure. I guess I've always been more hands-on, plus my dad was a carpenter, so maybe that's where it came from.”

  Nicole jumped on this track. A person's history made him more real—and she realized that she was eager to get to know the real Michael King. “Your parents are from New York, right?” When he responded by squinting at her, she explained, “You mentioned being from New York the other night.” God, she hoped Michael wasn't starting to think that she had memorized every word he'd said at the police station.

  “Oh. Right,” he replied with a nod. “Yeah, my parents both grew up in New York. This pizza is good, by the way. I would ask if you're into cooking, but the frozen pizza box in the recycle can probably answers my question.”

  “Please, I'm a terrific cook. For your information, I can also make frozen lasagna and frozen chicken wings.”

  He grinned at her. “I'm just teasing you.”

  “I know.”

  Michael added, “Actually the only thing I can make is chili, and I only know one way to make it.”

  “Old family recipe?” she probed.

  “Are we back on my family?”

  Suddenly self-conscious, Nicole tried to soften her prying with an almost flirtatious smile. She might be coming on too strong—but hopefully had not reached Vickie Finn levels yet.

  “All right, what do you want to know?” he said.

  “Um...is your family still in New York?”

  “My parents are dead.”

  The words fell like a rock to the floor.

  “Oh...” Nicole began. “I'm so sorry...I...”

  “It's okay,” Michael assured her, “please don't feel bad. My dad died when I was a kid. My mom died about six years ago—but she had lung problems her whole life.” Since he didn't mention how his dad had died, Nicole didn't dare ask. No wonder Michael was not tripping over himself to talk about his family.

  She spoke gently. “Is it just you and your brother then?”

  Carefully, Michael paused.

  Forgetting for just a moment the lie he had told her the night they met—the one about having a brother in law school. When he had discovered that Nicole Sheffield had a sister in Law School, he'd contrived that detail to give them something immediately in common. One thing Michael knew was that when people thought there was an overlap in the personal details, they immediately felt closer to you.

  And just now, for a second, he had forgotten his own lie. Holy shit, was he slipping?

  “King,” Nicole said, as if testing the word. “What kind of name is that anyway?”

  “A four letter one. Boy, you're full of questions tonight. Are you writing an article?”

  With a laugh, she shook her head and said, “I'm sorry! I'm grilling you.” She had this girlish kind of giggle. And the truth was, he found her genuinely likable. Of course that didn’t change anything. Now, twisting the stem of her wine glass, she appeared reluctant. “I'm sorry,” she said again. “You're my guest and you're entitled to your privacy—shrouded in secrecy and obscured by opacity.”

  “Huh? Damn...you try to have dinner with an English major but what's the point?” Now she was giggling and her green eyes were sparkling again; this was good. “It's just hard for me to talk about my family, that's all,” he added. Though it served as a stall tactic, it wasn't untrue.

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Good—so I can eat my pizza now?“

  “You have been,” she pointed out with a smile.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Michael got back inside his boat, he found only blackness. He tossed his keys onto the bench seat by the window. Pulled off his sweater and T-shirt, and tossed them in a ball on top of the keys. Walked toward the narrow cot that was unfolded from the wall. Pushed off his shoes, stripped down to his boxer briefs, and unceremoniously flopped down on his bed—which was a lot more comfortable than it looked.

  Lying on his back, he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. The roughness of his skin wasn't exactly soothing.

  Strange effing night. He had almost been put in the talking position rather than the listening—the giver rather than the getter. He could tell that Nicole trusted him way too much already. That was good, but still—he'd need to be more on his guard with her.

  Besides that, her questions about his parents made his mind swirl now with thoughts he had not indulged for a long time. He hadn't even spoken of his mother's death in years, if at all. He really had had no occasion to, but saying it out loud tonight...it had opened up a storage of random memories. Memories of his mom, Eliana.

  As he lay in the blackness chasing sleep, he recalled a night years earlier. He was seventeen and had gone to pick his mother up at the restaurant where she worked. As Michael pulled into the parking lot, he saw two men hassling her. The shit-head restaurant manager had decided to lock up early and take off, leaving Eliana alone to wait for her ride.

  Her car had died two weeks earlier. Michael had been trying to restore a junk car from the garage for her, but in the meantime, was taking her to and from work. He had lied and told her that her shift overlapped with his free period at school, but the truth was, he would simply cut the class or be very late.

  After Michael's dad died, Eliana and Michael had been all alone. It didn't matter that Elia
na's parents were still alive and well. Except for each other, Michael and Eliana were truly alone. The bus stop was at least a mile walk from the restaurant, it was cold, and Eliana, who had been born with an impaired lung, had always been slight. Besides, it was just Spanish class he was missing. So he wouldn't speak Spanish; he'd live.

  Now the memory filled his mind, like a cloud of smoke that had been trapped behind a closed door. The door opened and it poured through, billowing out and obscuring everything else.

  He remembered the sound of his tires crunching on the gravel as his car rolled into the unpaved parking lot. The place was diagonally across the street from one of those highway-side rest stops, one that looked more like an elongated barn, with only filthy, rundown bathrooms and soda machines. That must have been where the men had come from.

  Michael's car had just pulled in; the two men were towering over his mom. Eliana was so small, like a wisping blade of grass. One of the men had swung his arm around her shoulders and was leaning into her. The other was looking on, his stance slanted. Blind with fury, Michael barely skidded to a stop, jammed the gear in Park and burst out of the car.

  “Get the hell away from her!” he yelled. “Now.” He may have been only seventeen, but his voice was thick, his anger was virulent, and to protect Eliana, apparently his fear factor was zero.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the leaning one slurred.

  “Get lost,” the other one barked, and then pulled Eliana closer. Both of them appeared sloppy drunk.

  “Get. The Hell. Away from her,” he repeated. In that moment, Michael remembered, his voice had sounded more deadly and threatening than he himself had ever known it could be. Without hesitating, he reached his mother's hand and tugged her toward him. The bigger of the two men tried to tighten his grip on her shoulder and Michael kicked him in the kneecap. He let out a sharp scream as his leg buckled, and the other one started cursing and blustered forward.

  “Go to the car,” Michael told Eliana.

  “Please, Michael, let's just go...” she pleaded grabbing onto his coat sleeve after he had released her.

  “You're not leaving,” the other man sneered and lunged back toward Eliana. But the second he took his eyes off Michael, Michael wailed him with his fist right in the side of his face. That was just where the blow hit. The man fell to the ground and Eliana was crying then, and pulling on Michael's arm. Let's go, she was saying, but Michael didn't budge. Instead he kicked the man on the ground hard in the chest. The guy howled in pain, coiled up his drunken body, as Eliana pleaded, Michael, please—let's go.

  Now, even as Michael fell into a heavy sleep, his mind churned. That night had changed his life, changed the way he viewed himself, even though at the time he wasn't fully aware of it. He wasn't particularly violent or prone to fighting, yet in that moment, he had seen that he could get what he wanted—that he was powerful when he was fearless. It was the beginning.

  ***

  On the other side of town, in a four-story home overlooking the rocky southern coast of Chatham, in a house with a grandeur that nearly eclipsed the moonlight, a man barely recognized himself in the mirror. At seventy-two, Chester Northgate had the face of a golden raisin. His hair was a dull white, his teeth were false, his hearing was faint—but none of that was what troubled him at the moment. It was his eyes. It was the fear he saw looking back at him.

  Several minutes earlier, he had returned from his short nightly walk around his estate. It was an uninspired little something to keep his bones moving and his withering muscles still of some use. Now he stood in his front hall, which was dark and moody and like the rest of the house, a deliberate homage to Gothic elegance.

  Although Chester Northgate spent only six months a year in Chatham—and the rest of the time in London, or traveling—this home was his favorite.

  Events of the last couple months had changed the nature of things here. Brought to the surface things better left buried. Had it even been months? Or was it less than that? Sighing now, Chester worried himself—it was this persistent uneasiness. This ominous sense of some unknowable horror— a nefarious doom he couldn't see, but that he was convinced was there, hovering.

  Looking in the mirror that hung beside the hundred-year-old grandfather clock, Chester stood, transfixed, staring into the once round eyes that had wilted to half-moons. Finally his housekeeper, Edith Winchell, came up behind him.

  Standing at about five feet eleven, Miss Winchell's reflection towered over his. She had a unique look, an exotic quality that made it hard to pin down her exact origins—or her age. Only Chester knew that she was nearly sixty. She had been his housekeeper for twenty-six years, his estate manager, and had become his closest confidant. She had also become his partner in something... unspeakable.

  Now she stared at Chester through the mirror. That distinctive shock of white hair on the top of her head was always like a beacon in darkness. “I'm not the same man I used to be.” Wordlessly, she removed his coat from his slumped shoulders. She took her usual care with the shearling suede as she folded it over her arm.

  “What have you lost?” Miss Winchell asked him.

  Chester exhaled a withered breath. “My strength?”

  With a cross look, Edith Winchell shook her head no, then loosened his cashmere scarf and slid it off his neck. Once the scarf was folded over the coat, she reached for his marble-handled cane. Like many of Chester's possessions, he had acquired this one at an auction in London. Miss Winchell would put everything away in their proper place, just like she always did.

  “My will?” he speculated now.

  At that, she nodded. She was infallibly wise. Appreciatively, Chester turned to face her. Because of their height difference, his eyes came only to the hollow of her throat. As usual, he fixed his gaze on the gleaming emerald that she wore around her neck.

  Edith pulled one Burberry calf's leather glove off his hand, and then the other. Once they were tucked in the crook of her arm, she added, “And your sense, Chester. I saw her in town the other day. At the Main Street coffee shop.”

  Suddenly Edith's gaze became scrutinizing. Under the force of it, Chester broke their eye contact, dropped his chin to his chest.

  “You’re afraid of her?” Her tone had become sharper—he knew that tone. “She’s practically a kid!”

  Chester didn't reply.

  “You're pathetic,” Edith Winchell told him.

  “I'm sorry,” he murmured weakly. And truly he was. Sorry for things that had happened, sorry for how exhausting it was to try to contain the past. Sorry for himself. “If only she would go away,” he begged. “She's a constant reminder...” His voice broke off and he shut his eyes for a moment. “If only Nina Corday had—”

  “Stop it,” Miss Winchell snapped. Her voice had become louder, too—striking like a bell in the Gothic walls of the foyer. “It’s a dim-remembered story. A discordant melody, best left unsung. All you do now is: keep quiet.”

  “But—”

  “Just don’t say anything,” Edith Winchell reiterated, her voice carving the words like a steel blade. “And the girl will never know.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next day Michael reached inside his fridge for a can of Coke only to realize that the can was warm. Confused, he touched the rest of the six-pack, and then the bread—

  Damn it. Everything was warm. He bent down to look at the base of the refrigerator. The fridge itself was only about three feet tall, and was resting on top of a short wooden table.

  As he ran a hand around the back of it, feeling the sticky smudges of gear and vent grease, he had the sinking feeling that...yup. The rear coil was cold, the circuit was busted. What timing, with him stuck out here. He would have to take care of it soon; a refrigerator full of food was not the kind of thing you could ignore and fix later—wait a second...

  Now he had an idea.

  ***

  At Tinsdale that afternoon, sun spilled through the window in a bath of gold. Papers and books
were spread across Nicole's table, but she was enmeshed in only one item at the moment: the diary of Josiah Hardy II. It was still astonishing to her that Hardy had kept such a regular log of his days as light keeper for almost thirty years. He had obviously been a methodical man—a trait that gave the records he left behind an inherent credibility. There was nothing sensational about the contents of Hardy's diary; the entries were matter-of-fact, bare-boned in some cases. Of course to an archivist even mundane things were fascinating if they were old enough.

  Now, as Nicole turned the page, she noticed the letter 'W' written in the left margin. It was a loopy, sloppy 'W' in purple pencil. She recognized the handwriting and the pencil color; they matched the various notes Aunt Nina had written in the previous folder.

  Dismissing it, she continued reading until a few pages later. There was another purple letter written in the margin. The letter 'O'. Briefly, Nicole wondered about the markings. They must have corresponded to something, but she had no idea what. Since this was a photocopy of Hardy's diary, not the original, there was no harm in writing on it—and that raised another question. Where was the original? Who possessed his diary now? Did Josiah Hardy II have any descendants in the area?

  She spotted Ginger shelving books on the opposite side of the floor and motioned her over.

  “How is the project going?” Ginger asked softly as she approached the table. “It's not too much for you, I hope.”

  “Oh, no, I like this stuff,” Nicole assured her.

  “Hazel and I are just grateful that you were eager to finish Nina's portion. I know how busy you must be.”

  Funny, Hazel hadn't indicated in any way that she was “grateful.” If anything, she'd been aloof ever since Nicole met her. Including not waving this morning when they had both clearly seen each other on Main Street. But that was neither here nor there at the moment. “Ginger, this light keeper, Josiah Hardy II—does he have any descendants still in the area?”

  “Hmm...I'm not sure. Why, is it important?”