Precarious Summer

by Lyn Cote

  Chad lunged for Brent.

  Audra leaned over the counter and with the long-handled metal spoon she used to stir some of the taller frothy drinks tapped both of them sharply on the head. “This is a place of business,” she growled. “Chad, are you here for something besides trouble?” She tossed the spoon onto the tray of mugs waiting to be washed.

  Chad rubbed the top of his head. “Tom wants two mocha lattes to go.” He dragged out a bill and put it on the counter. “Don’t do that to me again.”

  “Don’t start fights at my café and you’ll be safe from me,” Audra said, a little surprised at herself for her actions. But they were acting like children, so she’d treated them that way. She didn’t say that, however; it would amount to pouring gasoline on a fire.

  “Brent,” she demanded as she started the mocha lattes, “do you want something besides irritating me?”

  Snubbing her and Chad, Brent wandered over to Evie and began talking to her.

  Audra leaned over and murmured to Chad, “I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t—”

  “Cool it,” Chad cut her off. “I’m cool. You’re cool. The sheriff made it right.”

  Puzzled, Audra finished Tom’s order in record time and sent Chad on his way. What had the sheriff made right?

  She glanced up and froze in place when she saw Gordon Hamilton and a pretty blonde strolling in through her gate. They were heading straight for her. For a nanosecond, Audra considered running away and hiding. Why did Gordon have to come here today?

  “We’ll have two coffees and two croissants,” he said in a cool impersonal voice, already reaching for his wallet.

  She hadn’t seen Gordon this close up...for years. Audra’s hand trembled as she reached for two mugs. Still as dark-haired and devastatingly handsome as she remembered, he hardly acted as if she qualified as human. She might as well be part of the coffeemaker. She shouldn’t haven’t expected more from him. She lowered her eyes. If he could ignore her, she could ignore him.

  “Hey, Gordon,” Brent called, walking up the porch steps.

  Audra’s hands turned clammy. Did Brent know who Gordon was, had been to her? Would he say something and cause a scene?

  Gordon turned. “Hey, Brent. Come over and say hello to the new Mrs. Gordon Hamilton.”

  Keeping her head down, Audra finished pouring the coffees. Now she knew how the phrase “being steamed” came about. She was steamed right now. So Gordon hadn’t come here just to buy breakfast. He’d come to flaunt his new bride. Or was she just being self-absorbed? Maybe he didn’t think of her anymore at all.

  Out in the yard, Evie and Megan were clearing a table together. Did Megan recognize Gordon? Audra’s skittish heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t stop her face from blazing. She preferred being ignored. But she knew she was lying to herself. She deserved his respect and at the very least common courtesy. But obviously she was expecting too much.

  Brent shook hands with Gordon’s coolly stylish bride while Gordon introduced him to her.

  “Darling, this is Brent Ramsdel. He grew up almost next door to us in Kenilworth. He and his dad just moved up here last fall full-time. Right, Brent?”

  Audra didn’t hear Brent’s reply, because of the buzzing in her ears. Gordon handed Audra a ten-dollar bill to pay. Careful not to touch his fingers, she completed the transaction. He turned away without once making eye contact with her. She tried to slow her nervous heart.

  Fortunately, a line of customers appeared then, all clamoring for her attention. How much nerve did it take for Gordon to act as if he and Audra had never met?

  Gordon and his bride sat down. Evie walked past him and the situation twisted and cut and entangled Audra like brand-new barbed wire. Did Gordon even have a clue? How could a man have a heart clamped so tight?

  LATER THAT MORNING, Carter pulled up in the alley behind Shirley’s house and got out. Lord, help me find some clues. Please. He’d just finished assuring Ollie that he’d asked for help from the state in investigating both the fire at his place and now here. Ollie had taken the fire in stride and was just glad that all that had to be replaced was the dumpster. Primarily he’d been grateful that the sheriff had been there to help his grandson. Carter had felt better after talking to Ollie. But here he was now at the scene of a second fire. The back of the three-story white frame house was scorched, and only a pile of soggy blackened wood was left of the back steps and porch. He wrinkled his nose against the same acrid stench he’d encountered at Ollie’s the morning before.

  Deputy Trish Franklin, wearing latex gloves and a flimsy white overall over her clothes, was there painstakingly working through the taped-off blackened crime scene. She straightened and turned toward him. “Sheriff, come here. I want you to see this.” She motioned him over to the place where she’d been probing the detritus with a stick, nudging apart ash and debris. “See?” After he reached her side, she pointed down to a handful of coins, which looked like blackened pennies.

  He squatted down to give them a closer look, then glanced up questioningly.

  “If you go back over my report from the first crime scene, you’ll note that I found a handful of pennies at the first fire. I mean, I didn’t think anything of them, either, just marked them down. I thought someone just lost them behind the convenience store. But twice?”

  He stared down at the pennies. He remembered seeing the pennies yesterday. Pennies? Pennies? A coincidence? Or a clue?

  Chapter Four

  Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, the third great tourist morning in a row. It was too bad that Carter’s grim mood didn’t match the good weather. He paused to take off his sheriff’s hat on the top step of the Winfield Community Church. Two days into this year’s tourist season and he already had two suspicious fires. Would he be lucky, he thought sarcastically, and get a third today?

  Pressure tightened his jaw. Through the open church doors, the old organ played a welcoming prelude, beckoning him. He needed some of God’s peace this morning.

  Behind him came the sound of rapid footsteps and breathless voices. Audra Blair and Evie, hand in hand, were running around the corner and up the steps to the white clapboard church. From above, the church bell pealed the call for the early seven o’clock summer service. The pair of latecomers reached the top step and came even with him. He knew he should proceed inside and slip into his usual back pew, but the sight of them held him in place.

  Evie wore a white summer dress. Audra had elegantly clipped her own long blond hair up and wore khaki slacks and a blue T-shirt with lace at the neck. She looked good.

  Evie squealed, “Hi, Sheriff!”

  Caught red-handed gawking, he nodded his head politely and moved away. “Good morning, Evie.”

  Evie grabbed his hand and tugged it. “Sit with us.”

  Carter’s eyes swung to Audra’s. There he saw the same reluctance he knew must show in his. “I’ll see you afterward, Evie.” He tried to gently slide his hand from her grip.

  The little girl clung tighter. “Please,” she begged. “Please. I’ll be good.”

  The pastor’s welcoming words floated out to Carter in the clear air. Evie was making him feel like a monster. But surely her mother didn’t want them to sit as a threesome. What should he do?

  Audra touched her daughter’s arm. “Come on, honey. We have to get inside.”

  “Please, Mama. Please, Sheriff,” Evie begged, still clinging to him. He sent a silent plea to Audra for what to do. She looked past Evie into the church and his gaze trailed hers. He saw what she evidently did. A few people were looking back at them with obvious curiosity on their faces. The organist began playing the opening hymn.

  “Please,” Evie wheedled, her heart in her voice.

  Carter watched Audra’s resistance dissolve as her face relaxed and then she nodded. Evie beamed and held up both her arms. Carter reached down, swung the little girl in the white summer dress into his arms.

  Audra leaned close and whispered, “I need to t
alk to you. Afterward.”

  Frowning over what this could mean, he followed Audra to the first empty pew.

  Carter put Evie down and lifted a red cloth-bound hymnal from the holder. Standing on top of the worn maple pew, Evie claimed the heavy red hymnbook from his hand and held it unsteadily between the sheriff and her mom. Carter glanced at Audra in commiseration. Their sitting together would not be overlooked or taken lightly. How could they avoid people getting the wrong idea?

  Then, glancing at the stained glass window depicting Jesus blessing the children, Carter turned it around. Wasn’t Evie more important than what people said? Maybe it had been wrong of him to show this little girl attention whenever he stopped in at Shirley’s and allow her attachment to him to grow. But he hadn’t had the heart to deny her. She was a sweet little kid and craved his and Tom’s attention so much.

  Audra moved closer to Evie and to him. She glanced up at him and shrugged. Was she saying what he was thinking—that they would just ignore what other people thought? Brave woman. Gossip was Winfield’s most popular hobby. The heavy hymnbook wobbled in Evie’s hands so Carter claimed his half of the book. Audra gripped the other. Evie glowed and sang loudly and a bit off-key, “Holy, holy, holy...” He glanced at Audra.

  The hymn ended. Carter returned the hymnbook to its place in the holder and Evie sat down between them. A glance at Audra made him wonder if she had something she wanted to tell him.

  Throughout the service, Carter fought two very different distractions. First was the dread that another fire would take place today. As yet, despite Deputy Franklin’s discovery of the pennies, he didn’t know conclusively whether the two fires were related. What possible connection could there be between the two victims, Ollie and Shirley? And to make things more difficult, each fire had been set up and ignited in a different way.

  From outside the open window, the loud voices of a family of tourists discussing breakfast intruded. Carter picked up the church bulletin from the pew. He tried to listen to the scripture reading, but his thoughts wouldn’t let go. There was nothing to connect the two fires except for the fact that they took place in or near Winfield and some pennies were left behind. The pennies might be a clue or they might not be. He couldn’t take a stack of pennies as evidence, could he? He had nothing to investigate, nothing to follow up on. No way to prevent a third fire. He crumpled the church bulletin before he realized what he was doing.

  Evie tugged the bulletin out of his grasp and flattened it on the hymnal, drawing his attention back to distraction number two, which was the pretty woman sitting just on the other side of Evie. Did Audra want to speak to him because she had more information about Chad or the fire at Shirley’s? He sneaked another sideways glance at her. She was sitting with her hands folded on her lap. For a moment, his gaze lingered on the delicate curve of her dainty wrists and her long slender fingers. He liked that she didn’t wear nail polish. He ran his gaze up her elegant neck to her determined chin.

  Beside him, Evie scribbled on the church bulletin, completely innocent of the significance others might put to the three of them sitting together. She silently showed him her drawings. Smiling, he reached over to point with approval to one of her more interesting scribbles. At the same moment, Audra reached over to smooth back her daughter’s long dark hair. Their fingers brushed. As if touching a hot stove, both jerked their hands back.

  Heat suffused Carter’s neck. He forced his eyes forward though the temptation to glance at her pestered him. The pastor at last ended the sermon with a final prayer. The organ pounded the opening chords of the postlude. Everyone stood and headed toward the door.

  Other people of the small congregation greeted them as usual but with assessing looks; however, no one could afford to linger. The early service accommodated those who worked on Sunday mornings in the summer. Florence LeVesque, Shirley’s neighbor, was the most obvious about assessing their threesome. On her way down the church steps, the older woman with her bronzed, lined face kept glancing back at them so intently that Carter hoped she wouldn’t miss one of the steps.

  Hoping he projected complete indifference, Carter escorted Evie down the steps. “I have to get to work,” he told her at the bottom.

  “You could come to my mama’s café and drink coffee,” Evie invited, swaying back and forth, making her cotton skirt flare.

  Audra replied with an undercurrent in her voice, “Yes, come with us and I’ll give you a cup of coffee.” He sized up her words against her expression. She did want to talk to him, but she looked troubled. Guilt over involving her with Chad rose into his throat. But this might be about something else. He walked along beside Audra while Evie skipped ahead of them, reciting a children’s rhyme and avoiding cracks in the sidewalk.

  In an undertone, Audra explained, “I feel so guilty about Chad. Did Tom tell you he ran away because Friday night he overheard me asking them about his whereabouts that morning? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have meddled.”

  Ah, so she did want to discuss Chad. This did not make him feel any better. He made a vow right then. Never again would he involve a civilian in a case in any way. “Yes, Tom called and told me after I interviewed Chad at my office.”

  She glanced up at him, dismay darkening her blue eyes. “I feel awful. Like I caused—”

  “Don’t.” He cut her off. “Chad’s running away”—and he added silently, maybe his setting a fire—“wasn’t your fault. I should never have spoken to you. It wasn’t fair.” His conscience prickled. It was hard to admit that he’d gone to Audra only partly to shield Chad from unwarranted gossip.

  Because something about her drew him. Made him entertain thoughts about her he shouldn’t even consider. In the past decade, he’d avoided women, putting all his efforts into his career and into burying his wild youth. But lately he’d grown to hate going home to an empty house every night. And certainly Audra was a woman any man would love to find waiting for him.

  Not just any man, his conscience mocked him. You.

  “When I tried to apologize to Chad, he said that you’d made it right,” Audra said. “What does that mean?”

  He forced himself back to reality. The recent scene with her uncle flashed in his mind. Audra looked—what? Unconvinced? Vulnerable? She looked as though she might be holding something back. Did she suspect someone else or was all this just his mind working overtime? Or was she recalling Ramsdel’s calling him names? Did she believe any of the poison her uncle spewed around about him? She cast him one more uneasy glance. “Sheriff?” she prompted. “What did you say to Chad?”

  He stuffed his hands into his pockets to keep from touching her arm to reassure her. “I told him that I talked to you to try to keep people from suspecting him. And again, I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  She sighed. “I only wish I could have actually helped.” A gull swooped overhead, shrieking to its comrades. Carter, Audra, and Evie reached her café. People were already milling around the locked gate. Audra pulled the key out of her pocket. The hungry-looking customers parted to make way for them as she led him forward.

  Audra unlocked the gate and Carter followed her in. He had to get his coffee, his alibi for following her to work. Audra must have come to church from here earlier because he could smell the already-brewed coffee. Behind the counter, she pulled on her apron and poured him a to-go cup of coffee. Leaving dollars on the counter, he nodded his thanks and headed away to his job.

  “Bye, Sheriff!” Evie waved to him.

  Waving in return, he left them, putting aside the memory of brushing Audra’s fingers. He could not let himself become infatuated with Evie’s pretty mother. Audra and little Evie deserved someone without a past, someone her family could accept. Someone better with more to offer her.

  Feeling several layers of gloom settle over him, he trudged back to his Jeep. Another day to protect and defend. The only question was—how could he prevent another fire? Was that possible? Would there be another fire?

  HE LAY ON HIS BED,
enjoying the feeling of being fully rested, fully satisfied. He hadn’t felt this good for a long time. The first two fires had come off just the way he’d planned. And that felt great. Now he just had to figure out who should be the target of fire number three. Easy choice. He grinned and felt even better. What type of trigger should he use this time?

  NEARLY A WEEK HAD PASSED without a third fire. Carter hovered in the dark alley near Audra’s café’s backyard where she was about done selling pizzas for the evening. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this trouble had only begun. But this evening his overall anxiety for Winfield was superseded by a more immediate concern.

  You shouldn’t be here. But when he’d visited Tom at Shirley’s this evening, he hadn’t been able to refuse a request to deliver two messages—one from Evie and the other from Shirley. He hadn’t missed the gleam in Shirley’s eye. It was a matchmaking gleam. At thirty-six, he was well able to recognize it. But that didn’t stop you from coming here. He’d wanted to come, hadn’t been able to stay away any longer. He could at least be honest with himself.

  Over the week, each morning, he’d given in to temptation and stopped to buy coffee from her. Each time something troubling had lurked in the depths of Audra’s royal-blue eyes. So far he’d waited for her to broach whatever was bothering her. But he couldn’t wait any longer. It might have to do with the fires. He had to find out what was troubling her.

  Brent, Ramsdel’s son, strolled out Audra’s back door. He called over his shoulder, “See you tomorrow, Audra! Tell Evie I’m going to take her to the beach tomorrow.”

  Feeling something like a dieter caught with unwrapped chocolate in hand, Carter hung back in the shadows. If you don’t want to get her into trouble with her family, you shouldn’t be here. This is the last time you give in to temptation. The last time. Get her to open up, tell the truth and then leave.