The Great Escape: A Novel

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  “He took a job in Wisconsin after she’d begged him not to. She always hated it when he was gone, and she wanted to punish him. I doubt she planned on being gone for long. She sure didn’t count on sliding off the road and going through the ice in that drainage canal.”

  Bree wasn’t buying it. “They found a man in the car with her.”

  “A drifter. She was always picking people up. My guess is he was hitchhiking.”

  She didn’t want to believe his story. She wanted to believe what Myra had told her, that Star had gotten bored with David and left him for good. Shame curled in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t know why you keep bringing all this up. It happened years ago. It means nothing to me.”

  He knew that wasn’t true, but he didn’t argue. “I’m a religious man,” he said matter-of-factly. “I believe in sin, and I believe in repentance. I’ve made amends as best as I know how, but it hasn’t changed anything.”

  “And it won’t.”

  His gold bracelet caught a stray sunbeam, and he nodded, not so much at her, more to himself, as if he’d made a decision. “I’m going to leave you alone from now on.”

  “Right.” She didn’t believe it. Mike never left anyone alone.

  In the old days, he’d avoided meeting anyone’s eyes. Not now. And something in his steady gaze threw her off balance. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me stay in touch with Toby,” he said with an unsettling dignity. “I should have checked with you before I told him he could ride his bike in the parade. I have a bad habit of charging ahead without thinking things through.” A matter-of-fact statement, neither hiding his flaws nor beating himself up for them. “The parade steps off at ten. He needs to be in the school parking lot by nine. I’d come get him, but I’m head of the committee, and I have to be there early.”

  She studied a worn spot on her sandal. “I can handle it.”

  “All right.”

  That was it. No salesman’s pitch to win her over. No bribes of Lemonheads, Skittles, or Eskimo pies. He called out a brief good-bye to Toby and then he was gone, leaving her with the uneasy feeling that she was now truly on her own.

  Ridiculous. He’d be back. Mike Moody always came back, whether you wanted him to or not.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’M NOT GOING!” TEMPLE DECLARED from the gym floor where she was doing a mind-boggling set of one-handed push-ups at Lucy’s feet while hip-hop played in the background. Even Panda agreed that opera didn’t make the best workout music.

  “You need to get out.” Lucy dangled the short brown wig she’d swiped from the Evil Queen’s closet in front of the owner’s nose. “Shutting yourself up like this isn’t healthy. Witness your hissy fit yesterday just because I brought a couple of sprigs of honeysuckle into the house.”

  “They smelled like Jolly Ranchers.”

  “Save your breath.” Panda returned the monstrous weights he’d been lifting to the rack. “She prides herself on being insane.”

  Temple rose, switching from push-ups to jump squats. Strands of wet dark hair stuck to the back of her neck and her face glistened. “If you understood what I’m going through, you wouldn’t suggest this. You have no idea, Lucy, what it’s like to be so famous.”

  Lucy rolled her eyes just like Toby.

  Temple got the point and gave a dismissive wave. “You have secondhand fame. It’s different for me.”

  Panda snorted. His sweat-soaked T-shirt clung to his chest, and the hair on his legs lay damp against his skin. It had been only a week, but Lucy could swear his already buff body was starting to show those creepy overdeveloped muscles. When Lucy had inquired why he was torturing himself so much, he’d asked her what the hell else he was supposed to do with his time? The enforced isolation was wearing on him nearly as much as Temple, and as each day passed, both of their moods had grown darker.

  “I’ve been on the island for a month,” Lucy said patiently, “and I haven’t had a problem.”

  “It’s how you look. People are afraid of you.”

  Lucy loved the idea and paused a moment to admire the new thorn and blood-drop tattoo she’d applied yesterday to replace the one that had started to flake. In another couple of days, she’d have to fix her dragon. And maybe add a tattoo sleeve on her other arm … “Nobody expects to see either Lucy Jorik or Temple Renshaw at a Charity Island Fourth of July parade,” she said, “and if nobody expects to see you, they don’t see you.”

  When she’d stopped at the farm stand yesterday, Toby had been decorating his bike while Bree examined a bedraggled bee costume that Toby’s grandmother used to wear in parades. “The question is … ,” Bree had said to Lucy as she straightened an antenna, “how desperate am I to attract new customers?”

  Until last night, Lucy had intended to go to the parade alone, but after Temple had thrown the Scrabble board across the sunroom and Panda had threatened to dump Lucy in the lake if she didn’t stop making nooses for his French waiter pig, she’d modified her plan. “The brutal fact is, you’ve only been here a week, and you’ve both turned into bad-tempered, snarly bitches. Not that either of you had that far to go.”

  Panda’s towel snapped as he threw it across the gym. “I’m the easiest guy in the world to get along with. But Lucy’s right, Temple. If you don’t take a break soon, somebody is going to die. And it won’t be me.” He grabbed a water bottle and chugged.

  “Do you really expect me to stake my future on the dubious protection of a wig? I’m not doing it.” Her jump squats gave way to side planks.

  Lucy sighed. The Evil Queen was demanding, temperamental, and difficult, and Lucy should hate her guts, but the social worker inside her couldn’t. Beneath all that bluster was a lost soul trying to cope with a life that had gone out of control, a lost soul who understood exactly how crazy she was but couldn’t figure out what to do about it.

  Lucy and the Evil Queen had a lot in common, although the Evil Queen knew what she wanted to do with her life, and all Lucy knew was what she didn’t want to do—knock on more doors begging for more money and more legislation that would help children. Which made her the lowest of the low.

  Panda set the bottle aside and gazed at Lucy. “What if her disguise was more than a wig?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean …” Panda turned to Temple. “Your pal, the president’s daughter, has had lots of experience hiding her identity, and I don’t mean just her current stomach-churning disguise.” He took in Lucy’s now-neon-pink dreads. “If you persuade her, I’m sure she’ll share her secrets.”

  An hour later, the three of them were on their way into town. Temple slouched in the backseat, her long hair concealed under the short brown wig, her face shielded by sunglasses and an unremarkable straw sunhat. Lucy wore her black tank, the one embellished with a skull and roses; a pair of denim Daisy Dukes she’d frayed and spiced up with safety pins; her nose ring and two eyebrow rings. Panda wore his black Nike ball cap, his hair curling slightly from beneath the bottom edge. Lucy had asked him to ditch his aviators because they made him look too much like Secret Service.

  Temple’s gray yoga pants fit a bit more loosely than when she’d arrived, but not her purple knit top, which stretched tightly across her middle, thanks to the small pregnancy pillow Lucy had secured beneath it.

  Beachcomber Boulevard was closed to traffic for the parade, and Panda looked for a parking place on a side street. “Remember what I said, Temple. You don’t leave my sight, not even for a second. Lucy, you’re Temple’s cover, so you stick with her. Don’t talk to anybody, but if something happens, Temple’s your pregnant friend from back east.”

  “My story is better,” Lucy said. “She’s one more woman you knocked up and plan to abandon first chance you get.”

  Panda ignored that. “Don’t even think about trying to give me the slip, Temple. If you have to use the Porta Potti, we all go.”

  Temple pushed down her sunglasses and gazed at the back of his neck over the top rim. “I would di
e before I used a Porta Potti.”

  “I’m with you on that one,” Lucy said.

  Temple glanced nervously out the car windows at the people passing on the sidewalk, some of them carrying lawn chairs, others pushing strollers. “You’re too paranoid, Panda. I haven’t worked this hard to blow it on street food.”

  “Reassuring, but that doesn’t change the rules.”

  Lucy tugged on the waistband of her shorts. Despite living in a house with nothing but diet food, she’d managed to regain the weight she’d lost before her wedding. She turned to inspect Temple’s disguise again and saw her compressed lips. “Will you knock it off?”

  Temple frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “The exercise you’re doing right now. Squeezing your thighs or contracting your stomach or something like that.”

  “I’m doing my Kegels.” Temple gave a condescending smirk. “And if you cared about your pelvic floor, you’d be doing them, too.”

  “I swear to God,” Panda declared, “if my next job involves a woman—even a female gerbil—I’m not taking it!”

  Lucy smiled and propped her elbow on the seat back. “Here’s the good news, Temple. When Panda is around, no one looks at anybody else.”

  “Exactly why Lucy and I need to go off by ourselves,” Temple declared.

  “Oh, yeah, that’ll work,” Panda said dryly. “The second you two are out of my sight, you’d both be mainlining funnel cakes.”

  So true. Which explained Lucy’s weight gain. Being surrounded with nothing but diet food left her so unsatisfied that she gorged herself when she came to town. So far she’d avoided Panda’s threatened body searches by turning out her pockets and patting herself down in front of him. To her relief, he hadn’t pushed her.

  “Your paranoia is a sickness,” the Evil Queen declared as Panda eased into a tight parking space. “You should get therapy.”

  Lucy eyed Temple. “No offense, but you might want to go along with him.”

  Panda smiled, his first of the morning, then cut the ignition and returned to his lecture. “We watch the parade, take a walk around the harbor, get back in the car, and go home better people.”

  Now Lucy was the one who snorted.

  “It could happen,” he said with a lack of conviction.

  THEY FOUND A VIEWING SPOT near the end of Beachcomber Boulevard away from the smell of fried food and the worst of the tourist crowd. As Lucy had predicted, the people nearby were more interested in Panda than either of the women, although Lucy attracted more notice than Temple, something that irritated the Evil Queen. “I know it’s illogical,” she whispered, “but I’m used to being the center of attention.”

  Lucy laughed and whispered back, “Now’s as good a time as any to consider adding a mental health component to your workout.”

  “If I were sane,” Temple said on a sigh, “I wouldn’t know who I was.”

  And that was the thing about Temple Renshaw. Exactly when you wanted to write her off as an obnoxious diva, she’d say something that twisted your heart. The fact that she was both brutally insightful and totally clueless kept her from being insufferable.

  The day was windy for a parade. The pennants hanging from the lampposts snapped in the breeze, and the canopies over the food tents billowed like overstuffed stomachs. A local politician led off the parade as grand marshal, followed by a marching band and a group on horseback. The first of the floats came into sight, a Native American scene sponsored by Jerry’s Trading Post. The next float featured a forest of crepe paper palm trees listing wildly in the wind and a grass hut bearing the sign BIG MIKE’S ISLAND BROKERAGE: HOUSES AND BOATS. Big Mike Moody stood at the front having the time of his life waving to the crowd and throwing out candy bars.

  A dancing hot dog from Dogs ’N’ Malts strutted next to a pirate promoting Jake’s Dive Shop and a giant walleye representing the Island Inn. Lucy had forgotten about Bree until she saw a honeybee following the Girl Scouts. Antennae topped with bouncy black balls rose from her tight-fitting black hood. The wind tried to carry away her sign advertising Carousel Honey, but she hung on. She looked only a little embarrassed as Lucy waved at her.

  The bicycle brigade was up next, and Toby was so excited to see Lucy he nearly lost his balance. He’d been to the house twice since Temple had arrived, but both times Lucy had set off with him on her bike before he spotted Temple. Lucy blew him a couple of kisses for fun, and he grinned good-naturedly.

  Six elderly members of the American Legion passed. Seeing them, and being around so many American flags, made Lucy miss her mother. She cheered loudly.

  Panda leaned down and whispered, “Way to keep a low profile.”

  But she’d stopped worrying about being recognized, and even Temple no longer seemed so anxious. “There are some seriously overweight people here,” she said. “It’s like Fat Island brought to life.”

  “Close your eyes and do your Kegels,” Lucy advised before Temple decided to stage an intervention.

  When the parade ended, none of them was ready to go home, but the idea of mixing with the crowd made Temple nervous. Lucy suggested a trip to the lighthouse instead. Since Panda was even less anxious to get back to Goose Cove than Lucy, he readily agreed.

  The wind blew stronger at the lighthouse point than along the parade route, and ropes chimed against the flagpole. Although the building was open to visitors in honor of the holiday, most of the tourists were still in town, and the parking lot held only a few cars. The three of them climbed the winding metal staircase inside the tower to an open, fenced galley just beneath the black dome and giant lens. They’d left their hats in the car to keep them from blowing off, and Temple reached up to anchor her wig. “What a beautiful view.”

  Behind the flying clouds, the sky shone a brilliant blue. The metal railing was warm from the early afternoon sun, but the wind whipped angry waves across the jetty, and only the larger pleasure boats dotted the choppy water. Temple left them to circle the galley.

  “Makes you feel sorry for people who never get to see the Great Lakes,” Panda said as he slipped his aviators back on.

  Lucy felt exactly the same way, but she didn’t want to talk to him, so she merely nodded.

  A pair of terns beat their wings over the water, searching for a meal, while a gull circled stubbornly above them, ready to steal their catch. Panda propped his forearms on the rail. “I owe you an apology.”

  “So many to choose from.”

  He stared straight ahead, his eyes shadowed behind the dark lenses. “What I said to you three weeks ago … That night … I was pissed because you’d locked the door. I was pissed about a lot of things, none of them your problem.”

  She’d suspected his ugly words had more to do with him than her, but they’d still hurt. “Sorry. Don’t remember.”

  “That night at the motel … You were great that night. I was the one who—”

  “Really,” she said icily. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I’m sorry. Again, I’m sorry.”

  “Not necessary.” She refused to soften her expression even though she was glad he’d offered an apology.

  Temple passed behind them, her third trip around the galley. “I’m going down. If that’s all right with you, Warden.”

  Panda peered over the railing. “I don’t see a ready food supply, so go ahead.”

  Temple disappeared. Lucy wasn’t ready to leave, but she didn’t want to talk to him either, so she moved a few yards away. He refused to take the hint. “Lucy, I know—”

  “Temple needs to figure out how to police herself,” she said before he could go on. “Sooner or later, you have to ease up on the reins.”

  “I know. Maybe next week.”

  A gust of wind blew a crumpled newspaper across the parking lot, and her resolve not to engage in a conversation with him wavered. “You like her, don’t you?”

  He straightened, resting only the heels of his hands on the rail. “More like I owe her. She�
�s sent a lot of business my way.”

  “You like her, too.”

  “I guess. She’s crazy, but she’s gutsy, too. Sort of like you, although in your defense, your crazy is a little less in-your-face than hers.”

  “You being a model of sanity.”

  He leaned out, watching Temple as she emerged from the lighthouse. “At least I know what I want out of life, which is more than you seem to.”

  She abandoned her attempt to keep the conversation impersonal. “What is that? What do you want?”

  “To do my job well, pay my bills on time, and keep the bad guys from hurting the good guys.”

  “You were doing all that on the police force, so why give it up?”

  He hesitated a moment too long. “Lousy pay.”

  “I don’t believe you. Fighting the bad guys had to have been more interesting than guarding Temple from fat grams. What’s the real reason?”

  “I got burned out.” He pointed to the water’s edge. “Riprap. That’s what they call the rocks they use to hold back erosion.”

  In other words, he wanted her to stop asking questions. Which was fine. She’d had enough sharing for one day. “I’m going down.”

  He followed her to the bottom. As they stepped out into the sunlight, she saw Temple doing some deep walking lunges into the wind. Another set of visitors had arrived. A mother stood near the jetty arguing with her son while his younger sister chased a seagull.

  Lucy heard the frazzled young woman say to the boy, “I don’t have any more juice boxes, Cabot. You finished the last one in the car.”

  “Sophie finished it.” The kid stamped his foot. “And you gave her the grape! Grape’s my favorite!”

  As the boy demanded her attention, the little girl ran into the wind, arms outflung, curly hair skinned away from her face. She was around five, more interested in the joy of the day, the violent crash of waves over rock, than her brother’s tantrum.

  “That’s enough, Cabot,” the mother snapped. “You have to wait.”

  His sister threw up her arms, racing closer to the rocky shoreline as the wind plastered her pink T-shirt to her small chest.