this place.” Then he turned to me. “Are you going?”
“No,” I said, as if it had been my own decision. I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t know anything about any Plus-One party this year, whether it was happening again or where it would be. There were a handful of weeks left in the season, and I hadn’t heard a word about it. But he’d been here a matter of hours and already knew.
He nodded once. In the Loman family, there was always a right answer. I had learned quickly that they were not asking questions in order to gather your thoughts but to assess you.
I rinsed out my mug, keeping my distance. “I’ll call the cleaners if you’re going to be staying.”
“Avery, hold up,” he said, but I didn’t wait to hear what he was going to say.
“Sleep it off, Parker.”
He sighed. “Come with me tomorrow.”
I froze, my hand on the granite counter. “Come with you where?”
“This meeting with the dedication committee,” he said, frowning. “For Sadie. Lunch at Bay Street. I could use a friend there.”
A friend. As if that’s what we were.
Still. “All right,” I said, feeling, for the first time in almost a year, the familiar stirrings of summer. Bay Street sounded like a location selected by Parker, not by the committee. The Lomans had a table there, though technically, Bay Street did not have a reservation system. It sounded like something he would do to make them remember his place, and theirs.
I thought there was a fifty-fifty shot he wouldn’t remember this conversation in the morning. Or would regret the invitation, pretend it didn’t exist.
But if I’d learned nothing else from the Lomans, I’d at least learned this: Promises made without clarity of thought still counted. A careless yes and you were bound.
* * *
OUTSIDE, IN THE DARK, I could hear the steady patter of rain picking up on the gutters. I ducked my head, ready to make a run for it. But in the beam of the flashlight, I saw what had drawn me here in the first place. The garbage can tucked into the alcove outside the mudroom entrance, tipped over, contents exposed. The gate of the tall white lattice fencing that kept it enclosed now swinging ajar.
I froze, flashlight scanning the trees, the edge of the garage. Another gust blew in with the rain, and the gate creaked once more, knocking against the side of the house.
The wind, then.
I’d fix it in the morning. The sky opened up. The storm was here.
CHAPTER 3
I was surfacing from a dream when the phone rang the next morning. It was an old dream: the feel of the rocking of the sea, everything unsteady, like I was inside one of my mother’s paintings—stranded in the chaos of the waves outside the harbor, looking in.
The room was spinning when I opened my eyes, my stomach plummeting. It was the liquor in the middle of the night, the lack of sleep. I fumbled for my phone as I glanced at the clock—eight a.m. on the nose. I didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?” I tried to sound like I hadn’t been sleeping, but I was still staring up at the ceiling, trying to recover my bearings.
“Ms. Greer?”
I sat upright before responding. Ms. Greer meant business, meant the Lomans, meant the type of people who would expect me to be sitting at a desk by this hour instead of cross-legged in bed, tasting stale whiskey. “Yes. Who’s speaking?” I replied.
“Kevin Donaldson,” he answered, “staying at the Blue Robin. Something happened. Someone’s been in here.”
“Pardon? Who was there?” I said. I tried to think when I had scheduled the cleaners, whether I’d screwed up the Donaldsons’ checkout date. People like this didn’t like someone coming and going unannounced when they were away, even me. It was why they stayed in one of our properties instead of a bed-and-breakfast or a hotel suite. I was already heading for my desk tucked away in the living room, opening the folders in a stack beside my laptop until I found the right house.
I had his rental agreement in my hand even as he responded: “We got home late, around midnight. Someone had obviously gone through our things. Nothing was taken, though.”
I was running through a list of who had a key. Whether there were any new hires at any of the vendors we used. Whom to call next, which one I’d bet my money on. “I’m so sorry to hear this,” I said.