In years past, her aunt would already have been up. Allie would have awakened to the fresh smell of Dial soap and toothpaste. Then, lovely kitchen odors—frying bacon, buttered toast, and coffee—would begin to waft down the hall. The aromas of a summer morning. Instead, she smelled dust—and dog.
She examined the sheets for fleas, but didn’t see any. Thank God. She still didn’t know what to do with the thing. She wasn’t at all sure she believed what the woman said about it being her aunt’s dog. Lou never had a dog at any time within Allie’s memory. On the tail of that thought came another, one that tasted acid in her mouth—how would she know if her aunt owned a dog? She hadn’t visited in two years, but wasn’t that something Lou would have mentioned in a letter? No, the woman probably made the story up, so she could get rid of the dog. There must be a shelter in town that took in stray animals.
Allie stopped halfway across the room and eyed the bundle of fur peeking around the corner—an odd-looking animal, longer than it was tall, with black and white hair sweeping the floor. Its corkscrew tail curled over its back, and she couldn’t see its eyes for the hair hanging in its face. When she took a step forward, the dog darted back behind the couch. What was it so afraid of?
“Nice doggie,” she muttered as she headed to the bathroom. A few minutes later, she slipped on jeans and a polo shirt, twisting her hair up in a barrette from her aunt’s dresser. She glanced in the mirror, then away. She looked too thin, her face pasty from too much time indoors. Maybe living at the beach would help the coloring, but after six years of virtually starving herself, it would take time to get flesh back on her bones.
Allie made her way into the kitchen. What she found there banished any lingering doubt about ownership of the dog. Dishes. A leash. On the refrigerator, she saw the pictures held in place with magnets—photos of the dog alone, with her aunt. In one, her aunt held the thing up next to her face. So, it belonged to her aunt—except it belonged to Allie now.
Allie heard a sound in the doorway. She turned around and sighed, spotting the hairy oval peeking around the corner. The bowls were blue with a white Casper the Ghost on each. Allie picked up a bowl. “Spook,” she read. The dog gave a little whimper. Its name must be Spook.
Fortunately, there were cans of dog food in the cabinet. Allie had no idea how much to feed it, but it didn’t look like it could eat much. She dumped half a can in the smaller bowl and put it on the floor. The dog’s eyes were riveted to the bowl, but it made no move to come closer. Allie nudged the dish away with her foot once, and then again. That distance must have been adequate because the dog ran to the bowl. Seconds later, the dish was empty, and the blur of hair streaked back behind the sofa.
Allie shook her head and picked up the bowl. The other she filled with water and put it around the corner in the dining room. Then, she fixed a pot of coffee. Lou’s pot was the ancient glass vacuum type you put on the stove with water in the bottom and coffee grounds in the top. Good in its day, but a nightmare of inefficiency by current standards. As she switched on the burner, she heard a lapping sound. OK, she thought. This wasn’t too hard. Give it food and water once a day. She could handle that until she figured out what to do with it.
In the living room, Allie fished around in her suitcase for her special coffee cup, one of those corny photo cups, a gift from her aunt. She remembered the day the picture was taken. She and Lou were in Merritt Island shopping when they spotted one of those tacky roadside carnivals that set up in shopping center parking lots for a few days before moving on. Allie balked at going, too sophisticated at the lofty age of sixteen to take part in such antics, but Lou parked the car and told Allie she could go or sit in the car alone and fry in the summer sun like a catfish.
They had a ball, riding all the rides—twice—including the merry-go-round. As they headed back to the car, Lou spotted one of those photo booths, the kind like a phone booth with a curtain for a door, and Allie let her aunt tease her into ducking inside. After the first flash of the camera, they’d started giggling so hard that the rest of the strip was useless, but they kept them anyway. Or Lou did, Allie surmised when she received the cup in the mail on her next birthday.
She pulled it out of the suitcase and headed back to the kitchen, where she stopped short. There was one more duty associated with the care of a dog. Spook sat at the back door, whining. The grocery shopping and all the other things she needed to do could wait, but she feared the dog could not. She fixed her coffee before picking up the leash and walking toward the dog. It must have needed to go badly, because it stood in place—albeit trembling—as Allie snapped on the leash. Grabbing her coffee, she headed out to the dunes composing her backyard.
The dog took care of business quickly, but Allie looped the leash over her wrist and made her way down the rickety wooden stairs leading to the beach. The morning was too lovely to spend inside, and the beach called to her. Out of long habit, she headed toward the Canaveral jetty. The sand felt cool under her bare feet, as she walked along at the water line, and the bottoms of her jeans were drenched within seconds. The dog padded along beside her, leaving dainty paw prints in their wake. The ocean rolled gently up onto the sand, turning it to liquid bronze, as the early morning sun reflected across the broad expanse. The tide was coming in, not with a vengeance as it sometimes did, but tentatively, as if testing the shore. In an hour, the beach would be half the size and no longer deserted, but for now, it seemed to stretch endlessly with undisturbed sand as far as she could see. Gulls swooped overhead, screeching for breakfast, and Allie found herself smiling at the sandpipers darting along in front of her, racing the waves onto the beach, and then following them back out again, as they pecked at the sand in their never-ending quest for food.
She and Lou had walked here often, content to be together. Now, Lou’s voice echoed in Allie’s head as if she were beside her still. “This is where you belong, Allie. Here. You were meant to live this life. Not that marrying Garrison was a mistake. Our paths aren’t usually straight, and it’s out of the scar tissue from the bumps along the way that our wisdom grows. He made you unhappy, but that unhappiness forced you to decide to leave him. Your decision was a good one, and I’m so proud of you.”
Allie blinked and glanced around, as a wave broke against her leg, soaking her jeans to the knee. No one was there, only the little dog at the end of its leash, staring up at her in confusion, as water dripped off its ears. Shaking herself, she headed back toward dry sand.
The dog ignored the birds and the fiddler crabs peeking out of burrows before slipping back out of sight as Allie and Spook approached. Allie breathed in the intoxicating smells of the Atlantic—salt, fish, and seaweed and smiled. Some people considered it a stench. To her, it rivaled the smell of newly mown grass, which was good, as very little grass grew in this area. The yards were mostly sand, driveways cracked concrete, and garages only a memory in the heads of a few diehard Northerners. Many streets were two-lane and rutted from past storms and age, but it was all Eden to her.
A few early risers appeared in the distance, stooping to pick up the few seashells washed ashore overnight. Summers with her aunt had taught Allie much about the beach. She knew the shells were future sand, and people should leave them to tumble into grit, but she didn’t begrudge the people their booty. She had a decent stash of seashells, which, like the accursed briefcase, she lugged with her from place to place and, like the briefcase, served as a reminder of what she’d left behind.
Allie wasn’t a native Floridian, but she felt like one. Her parents were natives, but they had relocated to Georgia before she was born, drawn by the lure of better jobs and a good housing market. Her aunt, her father’s younger sister, made no move to follow, one of Lou’s early sins in the eyes of Allie’s family.
Allie walked more slowly as she neared the jetty that she still loved, even though the state had re-created it in their bureaucratic image, making it safe and profitable, complete with enough power and sewage hook-ups to service th
e annual onslaught of diehard RVers. Someone dubbed it Jetty Park, not the most creative name to Allie’s thinking. The original jetty, a long arm of irregular stacked boulders marking the Port Canaveral channel, had evolved into a long fishing pier with side rails and caution signs every two feet. As a kid, she ran the rocks, surefooted as a mountain goat, never once so much as scraping a knee. Now, signs warned that you couldn’t climb or run or dive or almost anything else that might be fun, and they called that progress.
Allie started to turn back, but the dog let out a sharp yap and started at a run toward the water, yanking the leash out of her hand. Spook stopped at the edge of the water and barked frantically. Allie could see something floating up against the rocks. Trash? She felt indignation well up inside her. Typical. The tourists threw trash off the jetty or off their boats all the time, never giving a thought to what it would do to the environment.
The dog’s ear-splitting series of yips set Allie’s teeth on edge. She waded out a couple of feet. Maybe it wasn’t trash. Up closer, it looked like a fish, belly up. The sun caught on something metal. A hook? As she moved toward it, she could see bright colors floating under the water. Not a fish, then. She was almost on it now. A wave slapped against the thing, rolling it over in the water. Realization dawned slowly. Not a fish. An arm attached to a body, a female body with long blonde hair undulating beneath the surface. The hideous and distorted face stared straight up, sightless eyes directed at the sky. Allie registered another flash of light, as the sun reflected on an earring. She felt a scream well up in her throat, breaking free, as she turned and sloughed her way through the waist-deep water, splashing her way to shore.
Chapter 2
Allie doubled over when she reached the beach, retching on the sand. The dog was still barking, and she grabbed its leash and pulled it away from the edge of the water. Suddenly, civilization’s coming to Jetty Park seemed like a good idea. Civilization meant phones. She had nothing: no cell phone, no car, and no keys. She ran to the pavilion, where she remembered seeing pay phones in years past. They were still there, but then, it registered. Pay phones. She had no money, and no one was in sight.
Breathless, Allie snatched up the dog and ran the mile and a half back to the house. She almost collapsed, as she shoved her way in the back door. She tossed the dog on the couch and raced back to the kitchen, where she snatched up the phone to dial 9-1-1. No dial tone. She grabbed her handbag and pulled out her cell phone, switching it on. Nothing. The battery was dead. When did she last charge it? Not on the trip down. She remembered switching the phone off as soon as she left Atlanta, her little act of defiance, preventing her mother from calling her and haranguing her for eight hours about her selfishness. She took a deep breath and released it, as she headed out to the car. She’d left her charger in the Jeep. She almost broke her hand trying to wrench open the door. Locked. Cursing, she retraced her steps and retrieved her keys.
Allie didn’t start shaking again until the 9-1-1 dispatcher answered. She blurted out what had to sound like unintelligible babble, but which must have made some sense because the woman said a car was on the way.
After hanging up, Allie sat in the Jeep knowing she’d have to go back to the jetty, even though she emphatically did not want to. Finding the body made her some kind of witness. Her feet dragged all the way back. Sirens sounded in the distance, then closer, reminding her of the light plane that crashed on A1A during a storm eight years ago. Every emergency vehicle in the county showed up for that.
Police officers covered the beach when she arrived at the jetty, as did workers from the state park and a throng of tourists and locals. Uniformed officers waded in the water, climbing the jetty rocks. One officer sprawled on his stomach, peering into the water. Looking for more bodies? She shuddered. Three fire fighters in full regalia hovered near the water line. Allie hung at the fringes until she heard a voice. “Allie?”
She turned toward the officer who spoke. Did she give them her name? She couldn’t remember.
“Allison Grainger,” he said accusingly. “You don’t remember me.” He took off his hat and exposed a full head of red hair.
“Joey-O!” Allie blurted, as she was engulfed in a hug.
Joe Odum had been one of her running mates all through those summers of great content. They rode bikes together on the beach, went to movies, and generally hung together. His old house was a block down from Lou’s house, and his mother babysat for Allie when her aunt worked in those early days. Joe’s parents were renters. She remembered his father had been a security guard, and his mother worked part-time. Even in the ignorance and self-absorption of youth, Allie knew that they didn’t have much money. She remembered Lou mentioning a few years ago that Mrs. Odum lost her job, and not long after that, Mr. Odum’s company laid him off. She hadn’t seen Joe in years, and without the hair, she never would have recognized him. When she’d last seen him, he seemed all arms and legs—brash, raw, and skinny, with freckles from head to toe. No more. Now, he stood tall and solid, his freckles a faded memory.
Joe held Allie at arm’s length, a wide grin splitting his face. “What are you doing here?”
She motioned toward the water. “I’m the one who found it. Uh—her. Or my Aunt Lou’s dog did.”
He laughed. “Are you the frantic woman who phoned it in?”
“I was not frantic,” she said, standing straighter. “I was frantic when I almost touched her. I was only pretty upset when I called.”
Joe’s grin widened. “Whatever. Where the hell have you been, girl? How come you didn’t make the funeral? Sheryl and I looked for you.”
Sheryl. The third musketeer of their childhood clique. Allie hadn’t seen or heard from her in years. “I was stuck in Europe. I couldn’t get back,” she said, not meeting his eyes. She might tell Joe about her divorce someday, but not while standing on a beach with a body floating out in the water.
“Must have been rough,” he said.
Allie glanced up, but nothing in his face resembled accusation in his face, only sympathy. He gave her shoulder a brief hug. “She would have understood.”
Which made Allie feel worse because it was true, but she didn’t have time to reflect on it. Two men bore down on them, one tall and white-haired. He didn’t look familiar. He veered off to talk with a group of reporters carrying cameras. The other was the sheriff. Allie knew Cord Arbutten by sight, only because her aunt worked for him for as long as she could remember. Lou left the job when she became too ill to work, returning when she could. Hodgkin’s was like that. During periods of remission, you couldn’t tell anything was wrong with Lou. Then, it attacked again, and she ended up in the hospital before you knew it. The sheriff hadn’t changed. He still appeared intimidating.
“It’s Allie Grainger, isn’t it?” he asked, with a brief nod. His look held all the accusation she’d expected to see in Joe’s eyes.
“Sheriff,” she said, nodding back.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said gruffly, and that seemed to take care of the personal stuff. He motioned toward the shoreline. “You the one who found the victim?”
“Yes.” Allie had to stop herself from adding “sir.”
“We’ll want to ask you some questions.” He gave her another brief nod. With a meaningful look at Joe, he moved off toward the water.
Allie looked over at Joe. “Will he arrest me?”
Joe grinned. “Nah, he’s like that with everyone, but there will be some questions. Can you hang around for a while?”
Allie felt her skin stretching tight. Like Joe, she tended to freckles and sunburn instead of tan. “OK if I wait up under the pavilion? I think I’m getting burned already.”
“Go ahead,” he said, “but we gotta toughen you up some.” Whether he meant for the questions or the Florida sun, he was right.
Making her way to a table under the pavilion, Allie perched on its cool redwood surface and used the attached bench for her feet. She could see everything happening, whether she wa
nted to or not. The fire rescue squad joined the officers in the water and worked the body loose from the rocks. It looked as if they were getting ready to put it in a body bag. She couldn’t make out details, thank God, but she saw the woman’s long blonde hair swirling around her head like some kind of exotic jellyfish. Two officers snapped photographs, as a dozen others milled around not doing much of anything. Joe, the sheriff, and the white-haired man were in the thick of it. Allie knew she’d never seen Mr. White-Hair before. He stood with his hands on his hips looking down at the body, his expression hard to read at a distance. He and the sheriff talked, but Allie couldn’t hear their words.
A crowd had gathered from the houses nearby and the RV park in the hour or so since the first siren, but the sheriff’s deputies ignored them. Maybe they sympathized with how rare it was to see anything newsworthy happen south of the space center, or maybe they simply didn’t want to bother shooing them away. At least nobody was selling hot dogs or Tshirts yet.
Two official-looking men in white uniforms carrying a collapsed stretcher crossed the sand. Another man trailed behind them. For a minute, Allie thought she saw double. He looked like Mr. White-Hair. No, this one was younger, probably by a good twenty years, but the resemblance was striking—the height, the athletic body, the hair. His son?
The new arrival stopped a few feet from the crowd and stood off to one side. The sheriff and Mr. White-Hair glanced over at him without interest before turning away to continue their conversation. Not his son, then. Junior-White-Hair stared hard at the two older men. Then, his eyes swept the crowd. He appeared to take a step back when he saw Allie under the pavilion, but the way the crowd was milling, maybe he moved to avoid being trampled.
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