“What did you say?” I asked. “What about Sunday night?”
“Just that he didn’t have his prescription with him when we went to Orcas Island. By the time we got home the pain was so bad that it kept him awake until morning.” My mom has a dimple, and it showed now. “Not a very romantic way for us to spend the night after he proposed.”
“So you were awake with him all Sunday night?”
“Yes, I was.”
She looked puzzled, but I was too busy thinking out loud to really notice. “Then he couldn’t have killed Guy. If I’d known that—”
“Carrie!” Mom stood up, outraged. Oops. “Are you telling me that you thought Owen was a murderer?”
“Well, no, not really. It was just an idea—”
“A ridiculous and offensive idea. Honestly, Carrie, sometimes your imagination—”
“We’re all set” came a voice from inside.
The front door swung open to reveal India and Adrienne, with Aaron behind them toting an oversize wicker hamper. It was India who had spoken. She shied away from looking at me, and pest that she was, I wished I hadn’t yelled at her.
“Lou,” she said, which made me want to yell at her again, “are you sure you won’t come with us?”
“Thank you, but I think Owen needs me here.” Mom gave me a significant look. “I told them about Owen’s head cold, Carrie, and since he’s not feeling well enough to pilot the Dreamer, India very kindly offered to take you to the island on . . . what was the name, dear?”
“Sedna. She’s the Inuit goddess of the ocean.”
“So you keep telling us,” said Adrienne sourly.
“But shouldn’t we postpone until Owen feels better?” I stalled.
“He wants you to go on ahead, dear. We know how busy you’ll be this weekend, and the picnic was meant to be a treat for you.”
Some treat. “We’ll make it a short trip, then, and have dinner with you tonight.”
She shook her head. “I really don’t think Owen will be up to it. You have fun and take as long as you like. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
“Wait,” I said, giving it one last try. “Sedna won’t be big enough for all of us.”
“Oh, I’m flying to Seattle for a meeting,” said Adrienne. I realized that she was wearing a business suit and low heels, not exactly picnic apparel. She added, with a nasty little smirk, “And Kimmie decided to have a headache. So it’s just the three of you. Won’t that be charming?”
I glanced at Aaron, but he was still doing his we’re-nearly-strangers act. The prospect of a jolly outing with Ms. Multicultural and a guy who was mad at me was hardly appealing.
But the prospect of turning tail in front of Adrienne—and watching Aaron and India set off on a cruise together—was even worse.
“Anchors aweigh,” I said, getting up from the swing. “But first I want my bagel.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
I caught one break, anyway. I’d been dreading an attack of seasickness in front of the Winter clan, but as India’s little boat sped across the channel the water stayed flat as a mirror and my stomach stayed where it belonged.
We saw plenty of other small craft, motorboats buzzing and sailboats with their sails hanging slack, but they were far enough away that no maneuvering was necessary. The only time we even bobbed a bit was when Sedna intersected the subsiding wake of a distant ferry.
“We’re lucking out today,” India shouted over the engine noise. “Sometimes there’s a heavy rip out here.”
It was a faster crossing than I expected, almost too fast. I had hoped to start some kind of conversation with Aaron, no matter how awkward, but I didn’t succeed.
We sat on facing seats in the open bow with India behind us at the wheel, but when I tried to say something Aaron just cupped a hand to his ear, shrugged, and shook his head. His dark sunglasses gave nothing away.
The steep sandy shoreline of Speiden Island soon came into view ahead of us, with a smaller tree-covered island the shape of a gumdrop looming even closer.
“That’s Sentinel Island!” India called out, pointing, as she curved away from it. “It’s a nature preserve. See the seals?”
There on the sand a dozen or more lumpy, mottled shapes were lolling in the sun, oblivious to the two-legged creatures skimming the surface of their realm. I gazed around, charmed out of my own worries for a moment. High overhead an eagle soared, its head and tail snow-white in the sun. Nature was naturing quite gracefully today, while we humans bumbled along, entangled in mere human nature.
If Sentinel was a gumdrop, Eagle Island was more of a biscuit. Rough gray rocks formed its base, giving way to long yellowing grasses and then fir trees on top, as if the little island had been punched out of some larger one with a giant’s cookie cutter.
Sedna’s hull crunched gently on gravel, and we scrambled ashore. Mom had added a beverage cooler and a rolled picnic blanket to our cargo, so we each took one item and went ashore.
We picked our way around crystalline tide pools that cupped purple anemones and bright orange starfish. Out in the deeper water, long reddish fronds of seaweed swayed, buoyed up to the surface by bulbous growths.
“That’s bull kelp,” said India, ever informative. “It can grow two feet in just one day.”
I turned to look closer, but the cooler threw me off balance and I stepped ankle-deep into ice-cold water, nearly losing my footing on the slippery rocks. Aaron had the picnic hamper, but he managed to grab my elbow and steady me.
“Watch it, Stretch.”
For once I was pleased to hear that silly nickname, but he dropped my arm immediately and didn’t speak again as we followed India. She led us to a steep flight of wooden steps built against the rocky bank ahead.
“Lou said the best spot is right in the middle,” India told us, and scampered up with the blanket roll bobbing behind her.
My sneakers squelched as I climbed, and I heard Aaron breathing hard as he brought up the rear. Funny, I thought, he’s usually in such good shape. Then I remembered what he’d been through this summer and silently rebuked myself.
Mom was right. The center of the tiny island was a perfect picnic site, a flat grassy clearing ringed by trees. Oregon grape and other shrubs filled in beneath them, but there was a full-circle view of the sun-sparkled water between their narrow trunks.
Eagle Island felt like a clubhouse, a private little raft of land floating on the channel. No wonder Adrienne wanted to build a cottage here. Atop the tallest tree was the reason she couldn’t: a huge mass of sticks and leaves, the eagles’ nest.
As we craned our necks to look, Aaron’s breathing slowed to normal. He set down the hamper and draped his windbreaker on it, revealing a light blue short-sleeved shirt—and no wrist brace. Thank goodness I didn’t bring him down with me on the rocks.
“You girls hang out here, would you? I’m going to go water a tree.”
He crossed the clearing and dropped down the slope opposite from where we’d come, leaving India and me uncomfortably alone together. We both spoke at once.
“I shouldn’t have—”
“I didn’t mean—”
We smiled a little and tried again.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you, India. I’ve got a short fuse this week.”
“I’m sorry I butted in, really I am.”
She looked so repentant that I patted her shoulder and changed the subject.
“Tell me, have you found out anything more about Guy?”
“Nothing for sure. There is one name that keeps turning up—Brenda Bronson—but I’m not sure if she was doing business with Guy or was just a friend.”
“Why does it matter?” I asked—as she clearly wanted me to do.
“Well,” she said eagerly, “Brenda Bronson lives in Seattle now, but she was right in the middle of all the drug dealing on the island. And there’s a rumor that she was bribing a San Juan County police officer to look the other way! If it’s true, this could be a real
ly big story for me.”
“Which officer?” I only knew one, of course, and I couldn’t imagine Jeff as a bent cop. But then I hadn’t imagined him bugging our date either, had I?
“I’m trying to find out,” she said. “Someone should be calling me later today.”
“Who?”
India drew herself up with journalistic dignity. “I never reveal the names of my sources.”
“What are you, The New York Times? We’re supposed to be working together on this, remember?”
She sighed, the sympathetic but complacent sigh of someone who’s read too many self-help books. “You really do have a short fuse, Carnegie. It’s from being a redhead, you know. And I bet you’re a Sagittarius, aren’t you? Have you ever had your chart done? You could really learn a lot. I know this psychic who—”
“India,” I said, my stomach roiling after all, “let’s just eat lunch.”
“If you say so.”
Shaking her head at my willful ignorance, she unrolled the picnic blanket and I helped her anchor it on the grass. The blanket was a fancy one, bright red and big enough for a family, with a waterproof lining underneath and a fuzzy plaid fabric on top.
India set her ever-present woven satchel on the blanket and then reached for the hamper. But from inside the satchel came the soulful little tune I’d heard at American Camp.
This startled me. “You can get cell service out here?”
“Oh, sure.” She pulled out her phone and answered briskly. “India Doyle . . . You’re kidding. Where? . . . Uh-huh . . . Anyone hurt? . . . No, I’m out on Sedna, but I’ll pick up my camera and get there as soon as I can. This is great!”
She turned it off and looked at me, bright-eyed. “Plane crash! A small plane went down in Griffin Bay. I bet I’ll make The Seattle Times with this, and maybe even the wire services.”
That was ghoulish enough on her part, but I was even worse.
“It wasn’t Adrienne, was it?” I tried not to sound hopeful.
“No, a Canadian couple, and they both got ashore. But the plane’s in shallow water, so the visuals are super.” She knelt down to dig a piece of fruit out of the basket, fold a napkin around it, and drop it in her bag. “I should be back in a couple of hours.”
“You’re leaving us here?”
She looked up between curtains of hair. “Well, you can come with me if you’d rather, but don’t you want your picnic?”
I did want it, and I wanted some time alone with Aaron even more. Even if he didn’t.
“A couple of hours, you say?”
“Oh, sure. Three at the most. What time is it now, anyway? I stopped wearing a watch when I changed my name. It was symbolic of freeing myself from the—”
“It’s one o’clock,” I said sternly, “and we’ll expect you by four.”
Now, beat it before Aaron comes back, I wanted to add, but I didn’t need to. India was eager for her photos, and within minutes she had scampered back to Sedna. As I watched the little boat revving away from the island, Aaron emerged hastily from the trees.
“Hey, where’s she going?”
I explained about the plane crash, faltering a little at the unhappy look on his face.
“. . . so we can have our picnic anyway. It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?”
Not unhappy, exactly. Irate would be a better word. Or maybe incensed.
“She just took off and left us? Why didn’t you—” He looked at me sharply. “You told her to go without us.”
“She suggested it, Aaron. But I did think it would give us a chance to talk.”
“About what, your new boyfriend?”
“Don’t yell at me.”
“I’m not yelling! I’m just . . .” He peered out between the trees, to where India’s little boat was shrinking irrevocably into the distance, and threw up his hands. Aaron is nothing if not pragmatic. “I’m just hungry. What’s in the basket?”
I was ravenous, but the contents of the hamper would have been tempting anyway. The kitchen at the Hotel de Haro had gone all out: baguettes with goat cheese and basil, marinated olives and asparagus spears, and a watercress salad with candied walnuts. For dessert there were ripe pears and butterscotch brownies, and along with the iced tea and mineral water, the cooler yielded a bottle of red wine and a corkscrew. Only the best for Owen’s guests.
It’s hard to be angry, or even standoffish, when the sun is shining, the air smells of evergreens and the sea, and you’re stuffing your face. The wine didn’t hurt either. After half an hour of concentrated munching and sipping, Aaron drained his glass, tossed me a pear, and said, “So?”
“So what?” I asked warily, catching it. I was surprised that he’d open a discussion of our on-again, off-again romance; relationship conversations were not his favorite pursuit. For such an articulate guy, Aaron just didn’t have the vocabulary.
But I should have known better.
“So what’s the deal with the murder rap? Are the police leaving you alone now?”
“Not exactly.” I busied myself with putting our dishes back in the hamper. How to talk about the police without talking about Jeff? “The, um, person I had dinner with last night—”
“Jeff the Giraffe?” Aaron lay back on the blanket in feigned nonchalance, propping his head on his left arm. “A giraffe crossed with a rhino. Actually, he looks like a Russian shot-putter.”
“Actually, he’s a deputy sheriff.”
“What?” Aaron sat up. “You’re under suspicion of murder and you’re dating a cop?”
“I’m not dating him. I met him when Guy died, and then later he asked me to have dinner with him, just casually. But that was before the search warrant, and I forgot all about it. He’s not important to me.”
And you are, I thought. Trust me, you are.
“So,” said Aaron, as if he were forcing out the words, “so you weren’t expecting him yesterday?”
“Of course I wasn’t! Honestly, Aaron, I would never have embarrassed you that way. You know me better than that, don’t you? Don’t you?”
I tried to hold his gaze, but he pulled out a pear and bent his head over it. His black hair fell forward as he drew a little gold penknife from his pocket and sliced the fruit into precise wedges.
“I do know you better than that,” he said haltingly, watching the knife. “And you’ve got every right to be seeing other people.”
“But I’m not! That’s the first time I’ve even—”
“Let me finish, please. This is really hard to say.” There was a long pause, then he squared his shoulders and looked straight at me. “You’re right. I’ve been hiding out in Boston. Sulking.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s OK, my sister used the same word. She said that other people have worse problems, and that I’m never going to heal the rest of the way if I don’t get on with my life. Then she told me to get off my ass and fly out here.”
“I’ve always liked your sister.”
He grinned. “Me too. I’ve always been pretty fond of you, come to think of it.” The grin faded, and he went on, “But seriously, Stretch, if I’ve screwed it up for us and you don’t feel . . . If you want a different kind of . . . I mean, if things between us aren’t—”
“Aaron.”
“What?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Making love was different after all this time, and yet sweetly familiar. At first I tried not to touch Aaron’s scars, but then I forgot all about them in the giddy pleasure of the moment. I hadn’t fooled around in the great outdoors since my college days, and it was much more fun with a decent blanket and guaranteed privacy—not to mention how delightful it was to kiss Aaron without tasting tobacco.
When I awoke, Aaron’s injured arm lay warm and heavy across my chest. The afternoon air was cooler than it had been, but the sun was still shining and the generous blanket cocooned us both. I bent my head to kiss his shoulder and curled mys
elf snugly against him.
“Are you asleep?” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said groggily. “And so are you.”
“All right.” And within moments I really was, returning contentedly to a dream about fields of lavender.
Waking up the second time was less pleasant. A bank of sullen clouds to the west had swallowed the sun, and I’d developed Popsicle toes from my bare feet poking out of the blanket. I pried my watch from under Aaron’s shoulder blade and squinted at it.
“Yikes! Aaron, wake up. India’s overdue, she’s going to be here any minute!”
We got dressed like furtive teenagers, then rushed to erase all evidence of our illicit activity. Aaron’s pear slices had made a bit of mess, but we soon had the picnic site shipshape.
“Socks, check!” said Aaron, flinging mine over to me. He held up one of my sneakers, still damp and smeared with algae from the tide pool. “Your slipper, Cinderella.”
“Ugh. I’ll put them on later. Have you got a comb I could borrow?”
“Check. Any brownies left?”
I sat on the now-tidy blanket and rummaged in the hamper. “Hmm . . . check!”
We split the last one, sitting hip-to-hip for warmth. The breeze was picking up, and it looked like we might get a little rain on the return voyage. I peered through the trees, but there was no Sedna in sight yet. Might as well use the time to bring Aaron up to speed about Roche Harbor’s Most Wanted.
“I was about to say, before I was so rudely interrupted . . .”
I told him how I’d learned that Jeff Austin was recording me, and he crowed with laughter.
“I wish I’d been there!” Then his face changed. “Wait a minute. This son of a bitch asked you out just so he could get evidence against you?”
“Of course not! At least, I don’t think so. . . .”
I thought back to my conversation with Jeff in front of the courthouse. Was it only three days ago? Tuesday, the day after he interviewed me—and the day before 6C was searched.
“Oh, hell, I bet you’re right. It was some kind of good-cop, bad-cop thing between him and Orozco.” I sank my forehead on my knees. “What an idiot I am!”
You May Now Kill the Bride Page 14