Kiss the Moon

by Carla Neggers

  Afterward, in the stillness of body and spirit, Wyatt tried to listen to the wind and the rhythmic breathing of the woman beside him, but his thoughts kept drifting to the bodyless crash site in the woods, the missing hermit, the senseless loss of a brother, the senseless death of a friend. Nothing in life was certain, he reminded himself. And where a Sinclair was concerned, love was never enough.

  Seventeen

  I n the morning, there was still no sign of Bubba Johns. Penelope got word from her mother, who’d had a mother-to-cop talk with Andy McNally, when she dropped Wyatt at the inn and tried to pretend they hadn’t spent the night together. Her mother, of course, asked no questions. But she knew. Penelope grabbed a couple of warm wild blueberry muffins and scooted to her truck.

  Word of yesterday’s events was leaking out, but she sensed that this time everyone was exercising more caution. Not that she had any illusions. Once they learned the local hermit had gone missing and Brandon Sinclair was en route, the media would be back.

  Wyatt had already left to pick up his father at the Manchester airport, an hour to the south.

  Penelope drove to her own little airport. It was another gorgeous, sugaring-season kind of day, the potholes and streams filling with runoff from the melting snow. She found her father alone in a hangar, going over her favorite Beechcraft.

  She stood behind him at the nose of the plane. “Tell me about Bubba Johns, Pop.”

  “There’s not much to tell.” He rubbed his palm along the nose, as if he could feel any flaws. “You know more about him than I do.”

  Penelope shoved her hands into the pockets of her fleece pullover. She didn’t know how else to say it, except straight out. “Do you think he could be Colt Sinclair?”

  Her father wasn’t as surprised by her question as she’d expected. He shrugged. “You said it didn’t look as if anyone could have survived that crash.”

  “I know, but there aren’t any bodies. What if he and Frannie had parachutes? They could have bailed before the plane went down. Frannie could have died, Colt lived. He’s guilt-ridden and decides to become a hermit.” She made herself stop for air. Everything was just tumbling out, all the scenarios and suspicions. “The whole thing could have been a setup. Maybe Frannie and Colt planned and executed it all to a T.”

  “Anything’s possible. Every theory you can imagine was floated in the first weeks after they disappeared. I look at the practicalities. They had no money, except through Colt’s trust fund. How’d they plan to live?”

  Probably on ten million in stolen diamonds, Penelope thought. But that wasn’t her information to divulge.

  “Look,” her father went on, “I don’t know what the hell happened to that plane. As for Bubba—he didn’t show up around here until twenty years later. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just some recluse from up north.”

  “But it’s possible—”

  “I just said anything’s possible. He’s probably afraid, Penelope. He saw something, maybe he did something—he sees his life coming apart and takes off.”

  She found that her father’s inherent reasonableness helped to calm her. “I used to think he was an escaped convict.”

  “On Andy McNally’s turf?” Her father gave a short, incredulous laugh. “That’d be the day. Whatever else he might be, Bubba Johns isn’t a violent man. That much I know.”

  “So do I. I guess. I don’t know sometimes—I’ve been wrong about so much. I never should have made up the story about the dump.”

  “Did you do it for Bubba,” her father asked, adding pointedly, “or for Harriet?”

  “Both. And now I think I’ve only made things worse for them.” She smiled at her father. “I’ll bet when you grounded me you never thought I’d get mixed up in something like this.”

  “Damned straight I didn’t. You holding up?”

  She nodded. “Yesterday was pretty awful, but today should be better. I need to see this through. You know Brandon Sinclair’s on his way to town?”

  “I heard.”

  “Do you remember much about him?”

  “Yeah. He was just a little kid when Colt disappeared. Their father tried to protect him from the scandal, even the mourning, I expect. Willard was a good man, but he was rigid. He thought if emotions weren’t displayed, they weren’t felt.” His eyes met hers. “I have that tendency myself.”

  “But you’re not rigid,” Penelope said, struck by his almost apologetic tone. “It’s not as if you don’t expect other people to express their emotions.”

  “Fat lot of good it’d do me if I did.” But his strange mood hadn’t lifted, and he added, “I blow my top from time to time.”

  She smiled. “Daily, if necessary.”

  “Penelope—” He paused, seeming to war with himself over what to say, how much. “I was fifteen when Frannie and Colt disappeared—I didn’t understand much of what was going on myself. I might have run away from home, too, if I had Willard for a father. Like I’ve said, he and your grandfather got along. I guess Willard was a different man when he was in the country, but I can remember him—” Another pause, his discomfort almost palpable. “Willard would push Colt into doing things when the poor kid would rather sit on the beach and read a book.”

  “Colt? I thought he was a big adventurer.”

  “That’s mostly myth, from what I saw—not that we were friends. In my opinion, Frannie was more the natural adventurer. She was a born daredevil. She was innocent and in over her head with the Sinclairs in a lot of ways, but not in sheer recklessness.”

  “I never knew that’s what you thought. Why haven’t you said anything before now?”

  He gave her a small smile. “Didn’t want to end up on some damned tape recording in the town library. Penelope, this was none of my business forty-five years ago. Maybe it’s none of yours now.”

  “What about Harriet?”

  “Harriet’s Harriet.” He moved out of the hangar, whatever he’d been doing with the Beechcraft finished or gone out of his mind. “She doesn’t want to know the truth, and you won’t be doing her any favors by digging it up for her.”

  Penelope gaped at him, stunned. “Pop—Jesus, Pop, do you know something?”

  He spun around. “Of course not. Where’d you get that idea?”

  “All of a sudden you’re like a worm in hot ashes—”

  “That’s because I’ve got work to do. Unlike some people, I don’t come and go around here as I please. Now, here’s one thing I know—if Harriet was a Sinclair, she wouldn’t have been left on a church doorstep.”

  Penelope narrowed her eyes on him, still suspicious. “You were fifteen. Your uncle found her. Teenagers often know and sense stuff that the adults miss—”

  “Not in the 1950s they didn’t. Are you going to get some work done today or stand here jabbering?”

  She started for a huge push broom, but turned abruptly to her father. He was staring at the sky as if it were about to rain or he had a plane coming in, which he didn’t. He was simply pulling himself together in the best way he knew how. Penelope hesitated, doubting she was making any sense. But she couldn’t stop herself. “Pop—the fax I received. Was it you?”

  He pivoted toward her, his expression grim but in control. “You think I’d send an anonymous message to my own daughter?”

  “To deter me. To keep me from doing something stupid.”

  “If I thought it’d work, I might have done it. I haven’t liked the way you’ve dived headfirst into this mess. But I know you, Penelope. I know damned well a halfhearted warning like that would just stiffen your neck. If I wanted to discourage you from something, I’d find a better way.”

  “Like grounding me.”

  “A lot of good it did.”

  “Are you mad at me for asking?”

  He shook his head. “In fact, it’s reassuring. If you can suspect your own father, maybe you can suspect everyone else. Keep your eyes open, kid.”

  “I will.”

  He headed to the o
ffice in the next building. Penelope tried sweeping, but couldn’t concentrate and finally got into her truck and drove to town. No one—not even Harriet—was at the inn. Several reporters had gathered in front of Jeannie’s Diner, and Penelope passed a television truck on her way to her cabin. Two cars had it staked out.

  So, the sentries had arrived, and the swarm would soon follow. A wounded, missing hermit, Sinclairs and a famous plane crash with no bodies were just too much to resist—and, she had to acknowledge, they were news. Provided they didn’t trespass and harass her, Penelope didn’t object to the media doing their job.

  But she had no intention of embracing them. She slipped into the woods and checked her taps. The milk bottles were almost overflowing, and the buckets needed emptying. She closed her eyes, envisioning the late winter and early spring ritual of maple sugaring. She could smell the bubbling syrup, feel the heat and steam on her face. She needed closure on the plane, the threats, Bubba. She wanted to get back to her life.

  When she opened her eyes, she thought of Wyatt, and she knew her life would never be the same.

  Pushing that thought aside, she found herself on the path to Bubba’s shack. Huge amounts of snow had melted, the small patches of ground visible just two days ago spreading rapidly in the warm, springlike air. She didn’t want to lose the cold nights until she had enough sap, but she loved the sense that spring was upon her little corner of northern New England.

  Amazingly, no one was at Bubba’s place. No police, no reporters, no Sinclairs. Penelope wandered around, stood on the hillside listening to the brook and the birds, imagining the life Bubba had lived for more than two decades. What if he had cleared out altogether? What if he’d decided to start over somewhere else, the way he had here?

  She heard a noise near his little garden shed and went to investigate. It couldn’t be Bubba’s dogs. They were still at her place. She called his name, then noticed the shed’s rickety wooden door was ajar. There were no knobs or handles, just a crude wooden latch that was down. She started to push it up. It wouldn’t take much more than a good, strong wind to rip the door off its hinges.

  A shuffling sound came from inside the shed, and before she could react, the door opened hard. She jumped back, slipping in the mud, the door hitting her in the face and shoulder. She went sprawling, smacking her back hard against the garden fence. Her feet went out from under her. She screamed and swore as she crashed to the ground on her rear end, her momentum carrying her until she was face first on the hard ground, mud and snow going up her nose and into her mouth.

  She got to her knees, coughing, the wind knocked out of her, but by the time she was upright, whoever had knocked her silly had vanished. She listened for sounds of thrashing in the woods, but heard nothing except for the rushing of the brook at the bottom of the hill.

  Which could mean whoever it was could be lurking nearby.

  “Bubba—it’s me, Penelope.”

  Her heart was pounding, the fence had scratched and bruised her back, and she had a bloody scrape on her face. Little sticks clung to her hair. Adrenaline surged painfully through her, and she had to fight for air. Trembling, she checked in the garden shed. Old tools, clay pots, organic gardening supplies—no bag of diamonds tucked in with the bonemeal.

  She touched a finger to her cheek, and it came away bloody.

  That was enough investigating for now. Wobbly and unnerved, she headed through the woods. She grabbed two sap buckets and crossed the dirt road with them. Let the media sentries report her as a disheveled, eccentric New Hampshire sap collector.

  Once inside her house, she dialed the inn. Bubba’s dogs paced between the couch and the kitchen table, restless and agitated. She knew how they felt. They needed a good run, and they needed Bubba.

  Harriet answered, and without preamble, Penelope said, “Who’s there? At the inn, right now. Jack, Wyatt, anyone?”

  “No one at the moment. Brandon Sinclair is taking a room here, though. He and Wyatt stopped in for a few minutes earlier.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t remember the exact time. An hour ago? Ninety minutes? Penelope—”

  “And Jack Dunning? Have you seen him?”

  “He left early this morning. He didn’t tell me where he was going.”

  There was something in her cousin’s voice. Penelope could hear it despite her absorption in her own trauma. Her cheek stung, her body ached. “Harriet?”

  “It’s nothing,” she said briskly. “Penelope, I don’t know—I just don’t know what’s going on. More reporters are arriving in town every minute.”

  Harriet seemed on the verge of falling apart. Penelope flipped on the cold water in her kitchen sink. She had to pull herself together—she couldn’t indulge her fears. “Don’t worry about a thing, Harriet. I’m on my way. What kind of scones are you whipping up today?”

  “Peach, but they’re not ready—”

  “I like to think ahead.”

  She could hear her cousin’s feeble attempt at a laugh. “Since when?”

  Penelope hung up. She didn’t have time to wipe the blood off her face, much less walk the dogs, before the Sinclairs were at her door. Wyatt and his father, a tall, gray-haired, gray-eyed, handsome man in a dark sweater and trousers. Not that Wyatt introduced him. He took one look at Penelope and said, “What happened to you?”

  “I had a run-in with someone at Bubba’s.”

  The dogs had erupted, and she yelled at them to be still. Wyatt studied her, not a muscle moving. “Who?”

  “I didn’t see who. Whoever it was pushed the garden shed door in my face and ran off. Unless it was the wind, I expect someone was snooping around and didn’t want to be seen.”

  “Perhaps it was a reporter,” Brandon Sinclair said, concerned.

  “Or Bubba,” Wyatt added.

  Penelope went to her kitchen sink. “Or whoever left Bubba for dead.”

  “Assuming that wasn’t a ruse.”

  She ran the water, wetting a facecloth, which she applied to her cheek. It was just a superficial scratch, but she could see Wyatt going all black-eyed and suspicious on her. “Where’s Jack Dunning?” she asked.

  “He’s gone out to the crash site,” Wyatt said. “He’s making sure the investigators haven’t missed anything.”

  Penelope turned to Brandon Sinclair, remembered his brother had lost his life in that plane crash and tried to control some of her manic, wild energy. She had the urge to grab Bubba’s dogs and run into the woods, let them pick up his trail. But she reined all that in. “Are you going out to see the plane?”

  “Eventually. I haven’t been to New Hampshire in a long time.” His tone was polite and well-bred, as if they were discussing the stock market. Her earlier speculation that Bubba could be Colt Sinclair now seemed crazy. “I don’t think there’s any rush at this point.”

  With one finger, Wyatt turned Penelope’s cheek and examined it. “You should see a doctor.”

  “For what?”

  “You might have a concussion.”

  “I don’t have a concussion. My shoulder took the brunt of the hit, and I cut my cheek. It’ll be fine.”

  But Wyatt wasn’t finished. “You need to get Andy McNally up here.”

  As if two Sinclairs weren’t enough, she needed the chief of police, too. Andy had thought she was reckless and out of control since she was twelve. She waved a hand at Wyatt and his father. “Don’t let me keep you two from doing whatever you planned to do.”

  “We planned to see you,” Brandon said simply.

  Despite their very different mannerisms, father and son seemed to be more alike than either would want to admit. They were both used to getting their own way. Penelope’s head was throbbing, the scrapes on her cheek and back stung, and she needed food. She tore open the fridge, grabbed a piece of cheese and tried to ignore the two sets of Sinclair eyes on her.

  “The phone,” Wyatt said.

  “Okay, okay.”

  She dialed McNally’s privat
e number. His assistant told her he was out. “I can radio him. Do you need an ambulance?”

  “No, just a couple of aspirin. Be sure to tell him that, okay? I don’t need the cavalry swooping up my road.”

  Just in case the Cold Spring police department couldn’t resist flashing lights and sirens racing in her direction, she called the inn to have Harriet warn her mother. But Harriet wasn’t around. Apparently she’d left not long after their conversation, without saying where she was going or when she’d be back. It wasn’t like her, and Penelope immediately blamed herself for tossing her cousin’s life into a boiling cauldron.

  She called Aunt Mary at the airport and gave her the rundown of her morning activities. Her aunt was uncharacteristically calm. “Your father’s not here. He left a little while after you did—I think he knew you were up to no good.”

  “Gee, maybe he’s the one who knocked me on my behind.”

  “No one would blame him if he was. You okay?”

  “Fine. Just a few scratches and bruises.”

  She grunted. “I hope the bastard at least knocked some sense into you. You’ve got those two Sinclairs there?”

  “At my kitchen table. You’ll call Mother?”

  “I always get the dirty work, but I suppose it’s better she should hear this from me than in the streets.”

  Duty done, Penelope staggered to the couch with her second piece of cheese. The Sinclairs were watching her as if she were an exotic specimen in the collection they’d donated to the Museum of Natural History. She leaned against the musty, lumpy couch and glanced at Willard. A moose shot by their two grandfathers was about all she and Wyatt had in common. It was an unsettling thought, but true. She’d always prided herself on looking reality square in the eye.