Suddenly One Summer

by Barbara Freethy

  “I know you’re a good doctor, and a very caring, involved one. I’m sure your mother must be proud.”

  “You’d think, but we have a complicated relationship.” Charlotte paused for a moment. “My family always had high expectations. My father was the spiritual guide for many people. My mother was his more-than-able partner, who supported him and the congregation in every possible way. I was the preacher’s kid, and I was supposed to follow along, be above reproach, but I did some things I shouldn’t have when I was a teenager. I let my mother down. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me.”

  “Isn’t forgiveness what your father preached?”

  “My father, yes. My mother, not so much.” Charlotte picked at a piece of lint on her skirt. “I wasn’t close to my father. My mother always stood between us. She wasn’t the kind of parent who said, ‘Wait until your father gets home.’ She was his protector. She kept all the problems away from him. She wanted him to be focused on her and the church—in that order, I think, although she pretended otherwise. She loved him fiercely, but that fierceness made her do some things that were…”

  “Unforgivable?” Joe queried.

  She gave him a quick look. “What have you heard?”

  “What do you mean?” he returned.

  She stared at him for a long moment. “Nothing. Anyway, it’s all in the past. I’m here now, although I’m not sure how long I’ll stay. Some days, I think my mother would be happier to see me go. Then I talk to my sister, who convinces me that my mother needs someone here, that she’s not as strong as she pretends to be, because she not only lost my dad, but her beloved son is in a war zone. I guess that someone has to be me.”

  It bothered Joe to think that Charlotte might move. He liked seeing her about town, eating waffles at the counter of Dina’s Café, picking up a newspaper at the newsstand, running along the waterfront in the early evening just before sunset. He suddenly realized just how often he looked for her when he was out. That had to stop.

  “So you’re not thinking of staying here forever,” he said briskly. “That’s too bad. The town needs good doctors like you.”

  “Well, we’ll see. Right now I’m just dealing with what is, not what might be down the road. And speaking of roads…” She grabbed on to the armrest as the car hit a big bump. “Are we still on one?”

  “You wouldn’t know it, but yes.” He slowed the car down as they hit another pothole. They’d left the paved county road a mile back. He suspected they were getting close to the Dupont property because of the number of warning signs posted along the way that included No Trespassing, Pass at Your Own Risk, and Dog on Property. His instincts told him that Carl Dupont would not greet them with open arms and a pitcher of lemonade. “I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he muttered.

  “I’m sure it will be fine. You’re the chief. What’s he going to do?”

  He could have told her numerous stories about people who were too strung out, too crazy, or too angry to give a damn that he had on a uniform.

  “We just want to talk to him,” Charlotte added.

  “Shit!” Joe hit the brakes as a man suddenly appeared out of the trees, wearing army fatigues and a helmet. He had a rifle in his hands, the barrel of the gun pointed directly at their car. “I don’t think he wants to talk to us.” Joe threw the car into park and punched the radio button to call his dispatcher for backup. Unfortunately, there was no signal. They were out of range. “Stay in the car, Charlotte.”

  He opened the door slowly and stepped out, keeping his body behind the door. “Mr. Dupont, I’m Chief Silveira. You need to put down the gun. I’ve just come to talk to you about your daughter, Annie.”

  “Got no daughter,” the man yelled back, but he lowered his weapon. “And you’re on private property.”

  “Annie is in the hospital,” Joe said, relieved that the man had put down the gun. “She tried to kill herself last night. She jumped into the bay. A good Samaritan went in after her. She’s lucky to be alive.”

  “I told you. I don’t have a daughter anymore.”

  Before Joe could say anything, he heard Charlotte’s door open. As she stepped out the man raised his gun again, this time pointing it at Charlotte. Joe’s heart skipped a beat. He never should have brought her with him.

  “Mr. Dupont? I’m Annie’s doctor,” Charlotte said. “I’m sure you must be worried about your daughter.”

  “My daughter is a whore. She deserves whatever she gets. She shamed me. She shamed the Lord. Now get off my property and don’t come back.”

  “Get in the car, Charlotte,” Joe ordered. “And Mr. Dupont, put down that gun before I arrest you.”

  The other man lowered his gun, obviously not crazy enough to completely test authority.

  Charlotte slipped back into her seat and shut the door. Joe followed suit. He started the car and backed it down the narrow road until he could find a place to turn around. When he was heading down the mountain, he looked in his rearview mirror. Carl Dupont was watching them leave. He probably wouldn’t move until he was sure they were gone.

  “You shouldn’t have gotten out of the car,” he said sharply. He’d put Charlotte in danger; that was inexcusable.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He could have shot you!” Joe said. “Are you always so impulsive? Do you think before you act?”

  “I said I was sorry,” Charlotte returned.

  “Right, forget it. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have brought you.” He ran a hand through his hair as he headed toward the main road.

  “I was trying to help,” Charlotte said, “but I was wrong. And to answer your question, my impulsiveness does sometimes get me into trouble. I’m working on it.”

  He cast a quick look in her direction, seeing an apologetic smile on her pretty mouth. She was certainly different from any doctor he’d ever worked with before. She cared way too much about her patients. She was so determined to help a teenage girl, she barely knew that she’d put herself in front of a gun. He was both pissed off and deeply admiring, but he didn’t intend to let her see that.

  “You need to work harder,” he told her.

  “Got it. So, what are we going to do now? Annie can’t go home. Even if her father did take her back, who knows what kind of hell he’d put her through?”

  “She’s an adult, Charlotte.”

  “Which means…”

  “That there’s nothing I can do. She needs to talk to a social worker, find out what programs are available to her. Her father has no legal obligation to support her after the age of eighteen.”

  “That man is crazy. And he has a gun. He’s dangerous. Can’t you do something about him?”

  “I’ll look into the situation, see if he has permits, but arresting Mr. Dupont won’t help Annie.”

  “That’s true,” she said with a sigh. “I feel so sorry for her. I wonder if she has any other relatives who can help her.”

  “You’ll have to talk to her again and find out.”

  “I will,” Charlotte agreed. “Can you imagine what it must have been like, living with that man for her father? I just don’t understand how people can turn their backs on their children when they’re in trouble. It’s wrong. Inexcusable.”

  Joe gave her a thoughtful look. “We’re not talking about Annie anymore, are we?”

  “Of course we are,” she said quickly.

  He didn’t believe her for a second.

  “I’ll find a way to help Annie,” Charlotte vowed.

  “Because no one helped you?” he guessed.

  She shot him a look that told him to mind his own business.

  He smiled back at her. “I don’t scare off that easily.”

  “And I don’t share my life history with people I barely know.”

  “So we’ll get to be friends.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Chief.”

  “Probably not,” he muttered.

  “Definitely not,” she agreed, crossing her arms in fr
ont of her chest as she stared out the window. “So tell me more about your wife.”

  SIX

  Jenna hurried Lexie home from the quilt shop, eager to explore the ideas running through her head. She’d been so busy establishing a life where Lexie could thrive that she hadn’t really examined the reasons why they’d been sent to this town. She’d always thought it was random—a community that wasn’t easy to get to, and was located on the other side of the country. But maybe there was more to it than that.

  After sending Lexie down the hall to change her clothes and wash up, Jenna went into her small bedroom and shut the door. The envelope was on the top shelf of her closet, hidden under a stack of sweaters. She pulled it out and took it over to the bed. Though she’d looked through the enclosed materials several times, she now wondered if there was something she’d missed: some reason that she’d been sent to the place where, more than a century ago, a small child with the same birthmark as Lexie had been saved by the town. It seemed far too big a coincidence.

  Inside the envelope were copies of birth certificates, identification cards, and Social Security numbers under their new names. Also enclosed were the directions to Angel’s Bay, the telephone number of the real estate firm where Kara Lynch worked, a bank card, and an account at the local bank. She had been given a prepaid cell phone for emergencies. All the things she had needed to disappear from her life had been provided for her. But what was she missing? Why had she been sent here?

  There was nothing in the envelope that could answer that question.

  Were there clues in the house?

  The furniture had come with the rental, along with the pictures on the walls and the curtains at the windows. They had simply walked in the door and started their new life.

  Jenna walked over to the window and looked out. Her street was on one of Angel’s Bay’s many hills, providing ocean and town views from different parts of the house. From her bedroom, she could see the pier from which she’d jumped the night before. It was strange to think that even here in this room, she might have seen that poor girl leap into the bay. It was as if she’d been meant to save her, meant to see her, meant to be in this place.

  A shiver ran down her spine. Was she imagining the connection? Maybe she was just getting caught up in the angel folklore, the idea that there was something at work that no one could see or understand. Or maybe she should listen to her instincts that were telling her to pay attention, to look deeper.

  Turning away from the window, she picked up the phone on the nightstand. Digging into the drawer, she pulled out Kara Lynch’s business card, which listed both her home and business numbers. When Jenna had left the quilt shop, Kara had been headed home as well. She hoped she was already there.

  The phone rang twice, then Kara answered with a cheerful, “Hello.”

  “Hi, Kara, this is Jenna Davies.”

  “Hey, Jenna. Twice in one day, what a treat.”

  “I forgot to ask you earlier, but I’ve been wondering—who owns this house that I’m renting? Is it someone local? I had a question about the furniture.”

  “I hope it’s all satisfactory.”

  “Oh, it is. I was just wondering whether one of the pieces was an antique,” she said.

  “I’m sure they’re all antiques, but you could check with Janice Pelovsky. She runs Aunt Mary’s Antiques on Grove Street.”

  “Is Janice the owner of this house?”

  “Oh, no. The house is actually owned by my real estate company. My boss’s aunt lived there, Rose Littleton. She died two years ago. My boss has been renting out the place ever since. Is there anything else I can help you with?” Kara asked.

  “No, that’s all, thanks.”

  “Great, I’ll see you at the festival.”

  “Yes, see you there.” Jenna hung up the phone. Rose Littleton. She was sure she’d never heard that name. She reached for her purse, took out her cell phone, and hit redial. Paula didn’t answer, and she chose not to leave a message.

  She had just returned the manila envelope to the closet when Lexie came skipping into the room in a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt covered by a pink sweatshirt, pink being her favorite color.

  “I’m ready,” Lexie proclaimed, an eager smile on her face.

  Lexie had two new front teeth, but one of her baby teeth on the side was dangling by a thread. Every time Jenna saw it she felt a wave of guilt. “Maybe we should pull that tooth out,” Jenna said halfheartedly. She didn’t really want to do it. She hated the thought of causing Lexie any more pain, but it seemed like a motherly responsibility, and one she needed to address.

  Lexie snapped her mouth shut, a defiant look coming into her eyes. “No,” she said through tight lips.

  “Doesn’t it bother you, hanging like that?”

  Lexie gave a vigorous shake of her head.

  “Okay then, it stays in until it comes out on its own.” Jenna wished all of her problems would resolve that easily.

  “It can’t come out now, because the tooth fairy won’t be able to find me,” Lexie said.

  Jenna’s heart turned over and unexpected moisture blurred her eyes. That Lexie could even believe in the tooth fairy and angels seemed like a miracle.

  “It can’t come out until we go home,” Lexie added, breaking Jenna’s heart a little more. “It has to go under the special pillow.”

  Jenna blinked back the tears. Lexie had had to deal with so much in her seven years. It wasn’t fair to ask so much of her. She was missing her childhood. But at least she was alive. That was all that was important.

  Jenna grabbed her sweater out of the closet, then smiled and said, “We better go to the festival before Kimmy eats all the pizza.”

  “Can we see the angels tonight?” Lexie asked as they left the room. “They’re supposed to come out, because it’s the town’s birthday.”

  “Let’s see how the carnival goes.”

  “You never want to take me to see the angels,” Lexie complained. “It’s not fair.”

  “Honey, no one has seen the angels, and it gets cold out there on the cliffs.” There were also too many strangers around. “What kind of pizza do you want tonight?”

  Lexie’s face brightened as she contemplated the question. “Pepperoni,” she said, as she skipped onto the porch. “I’m starving.”

  At least that was one thing she could fix, Jenna thought as they headed down the street.

  Reid stared at his computer screen as the video played again. He’d watched the angel video a dozen times already, but he wanted to look at it again now that he’d actually been to the cliffs. The airy white shapes, with what appeared to be wings, flew around the rocks, sometimes at a blurring speed. They couldn’t possibly be angels, so what were they? Or were they anything?

  A few special effects could easily create angel shapes. But while hundreds of skeptics had posted online that the video was a hoax, thousands more claimed that it was proof that angels did exist.

  After turning off the video, Reid uploaded the digital images he’d taken from Henry’s boat. He zoomed in on the cliff, and as he stared at the lines, the picture in front of him seemed to change. He didn’t see Allison’s face. He saw someone else’s: a child’s face, big brown eyes, pug nose, curly hair…A wave of nausea swept through him.

  Reid closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see Cameron’s face. Why would he see that image now? Maybe Henry was right—the angels showed you what you needed to see. But he didn’t need to see Cameron or Allison’s face on some rock wall; they were branded in his brain forever.

  Opening his eyes, he shut down the picture gallery and clicked on his word processing program. He’d written two paragraphs for his article, and they were total crap. He had no factual information, no photos of angels, just scratches on a bunch of rocks that could be anything. He had nothing but anecdotal stories from people who probably hoped to increase tourism to the town with their tales of angels, shipwrecks, and missing treasure. Nothing news-worthy to report.


  But this wasn’t about the news. And though he’d been telling himself that he could handle writing fluff pieces for cash, he couldn’t stomach putting his name on a piece of garbage. It felt—wrong.

  He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms overhead, wondering why he gave a damn. It didn’t matter what he wrote now. His real career had ended eleven months ago. He should give the readers what they wanted to read: fantastical tales about angels, miracles, hope, love, and all that other shit.

  But as he set his hands on the keyboard, the words wouldn’t come. Somewhere deep inside, some part of his soul was still alive and kicking back, reminding him that he’d once loved the news, lived for it, in fact. He should be working toward getting back what he’d lost. What he was doing now was the biggest sellout of his life.

  It had all started with the damn paper route. He’d lost his parents young. He’d gone into foster care and as he grew up, he’d always been looking for a way to make a buck, so when the older brother of a friend asked him to pitch newspapers out the side of his van every day, he’d jumped in.

  Those newspapers had changed his life. He could still smell the paper, see the ink smeared on his fingers, feel the weight of the paper as he tossed it onto the porch of an expensive house in a suburban neighborhood. His friends hadn’t taken the job seriously at all. They’d laughed when the papers landed in the sprinklers or in someone’s bushes, but he’d always tried to put them on the porch—because somehow even then he’d known that what was in those papers mattered, that people needed a voice, someone to shed light on what was being hidden, on who was being hurt. And he’d wanted to be that person.

  He’d had to clear a lot of hurdles to get to the top. It hadn’t been easy getting through college. He’d had to work two, sometimes three side jobs to cover his tuition and rent. And he’d spent most of his twenties paying back his student loans. But eventually, everything had come together. All his dreams lined up exactly the way he’d planned. Breaking the big story had been the most important thing to him, nothing else had mattered—including how he got the story. The means always justified the end…until he realized that it didn’t.