Killer Summer

“Who’s up for striper tonight?” Tom said, startling me from where I lay on the blanket, eyes closed. Not that I had been sleeping. More like closing my eyes against the brightness of the day. Or reality.

I sat up, blinking at the sight of Tom heading down the beach toward us, outfitted in long khaki shorts, a T-shirt and baseball cap and sporting two long fishing poles. Janis Joplin loped beside him, tongue lolling.

Ah, a man and his dog and his fishing rod. With that grin on his face, Tom looked like he was posing for an ad in American Fisherman magazine.

I hate sports. Especially sports that involve killing.

“Hey, Tom,” Sage said, smiling up at him from where she sat in her beach chair, a copy of Vogue spread across her legs. “Finally decided to get out of the house, huh?”

“Yeah,” he replied, stopping next to us, his gaze going pensive. “Too nice a day to stay inside.”

Too nice a day to feel depressed about the fact that your wife died two weeks ago, I thought, watching as he tied up Janis a short distance away from us, underneath the umbrella Sage had set up earlier. Then he waved and grinned as he headed down to the shore to set up his fishing pole.

“Don’t tell me you don’t think that was weird,” I said to Sage once I was sure he was out of earshot.

She looked up from her magazine, regarded me for a moment behind brown-tinted sunglasses. “What was weird?”

“Tom. Smiling. Soaking up the sun. Fishing!”

She turned back to her magazine. “We gotta eat, don’t we?”

I stared at her until she finally looked at me again. “Okay, Zoe, tell me what’s weird,” she said, giving in.

“The fact that Tom hasn’t so much as wrung out a tear since Maggie’s death,” I began. “The fact that he barely even reacted the night her body was found—”

“You don’t know what was going on in his head.”

“I saw him, Sage. I mean, I was the one who told him about…about Maggie. If you could have just seen how he acted. He was a little too cool about the whole thing. As if he somehow expected it. I felt like I was watching one of those videos they show you during safety week in high school, demonstrating how you should act in an emergency.”

I saw her look up, running a hand through her sun-streaked waves while she watched Tom dig out a hole in the sand to stand his rod. “Tom was always good in an emergency. Very organized. You should have seen him during the blackout last summer. He had both floors of the office evacuated within fifteen minutes.”

“But this wasn’t a blackout, Sage. His wife had just drowned!”

She turned to me again, lifting up her glasses to look at me. “You better put some sunscreen on those shoulders, Zoe. You’re starting to burn.”

“Oh, never mind,” I said, flipping onto my stomach and closing my eyes. I was able to ignore Sage for a full five minutes—until I felt the sun beginning to burn at the edges of the navy blue tankini I wore. I rolled over onto my back, feeling a sudden urge for fresh company, seeing as present company didn’t seem to want to acknowledge my worries, much less my existence at this point, judging by the way Sage immediately focused on her magazine again. I guess I couldn’t blame her. I had been harping on the subject from the minute we arrived at the house last night and I was faced with the lonely look of Maggie’s Dream sans Maggie. Okay, maybe I was feeling guilty for being here. I had just turned in my final edits on the documentary to Adelaide, and I was, well, curious enough about Maggie’s death to return to the scene of the crime. Now I was glad I had come. I don’t think I would have believed it if I hadn’t been here to see Tom arrive this morning, cheerful as can be, pulling a wagon loaded up with food for the big Fourth of July bash he was still planning, because, as he said, Maggie would have wanted it that way.

I had to wonder about that as I watched him tossing out the meal she’d worked so hard on the night she died, in order to make room for all the beer he’d bought. I went out for a run to cool my head, only to come back to find him bagging up Maggie’s clothes in big black trash bags. “No point keeping this stuff around,” he said, when he caught me gawking at him. I recovered enough to suggest that he might at least consider giving her clothes to charity. I guess it was a point in his favor that he seemed to be mulling over my suggestion. Except for the fact that he actually had the gall to ask me if I wanted to have a look through, to see if I wanted anything.

What I wanted was his head. I mean, could you blame me for wondering about the guy? Though, the strange thing was, I seemed to be the only one wondering. “When’s Nick coming?” I asked.

“He said he’d be here before two,” Sage replied, looking up at the sun as if she could tell the hour by its position. “Looks like he’s already about a half hour late,” she finished, proving that she could. I wasn’t surprised. Sage was in touch with those sorts of things. Natural stuff, like figuring out north and south without a compass and what herbs you could eat without being poisoned. I used to think she was the kind of person you would want on your Survivor team, but now, as I watched her lift the magazine to smell a Calvin Klein fragrance ad, I wasn’t so sure.

“What’s he doing, anyway?” I asked. “He’s missing half the weekend.”

She shrugged, then looked at me as if I should talk, considering I had missed more than my share of beach time so far. What she said was, “Your thighs are getting red, too.”

I looked down at my thighs, which looked fine to me. Still, I flipped over again, just to be safe. I wasn’t so adept at sunscreen. I’d put some on earlier, but only succeeded in increasing the amount of sand sticking to my body.

Slipping my sunglasses on, I gazed up at the house, which stood high on the dune in front of me, trying to remember that this was the beach and I was supposed to be having fun, though fun seemed out of my grasp. I had a lot on my mind. I guess I always had a lot on my mind. Oh, to be young and carefree, I thought dryly, watching as a young and carefree-looking girl made her way down the wooden steps to the beach.

She was dressed in a soft cotton sundress that I might have called innocent if not for the fact that it was cut a bit shorter than most. I studied her face as she approached, a soft, confident smile freshly painted in pink, eyes shaded by black sunglasses, her shoulder-length dark brown hair smooth, as if she’d just had a professional blow-dry, her bangs perfectly trimmed. She looked familiar.

“Isn’t that Tom’s daughter?” I asked, finally recognizing her from the wake and funeral.

“Daddy!” she shouted, answering my question.

Sage looked up as the girl skipped gaily by—or she seemed to skip anyway—stopping once she reached Tom at the shore.

I watched as they embraced, then spoke animatedly for a few minutes.

“I wonder what she’s doing here,” Sage said.

At least she wondered about something, I thought irritably, studying father and daughter on the beach. I watched as Tom gestured to the house, as if he were giving instructions.

“Didn’t you tell me she lived down in Florida with her mother?”

She nodded, her eyes on Tom and his daughter as they made their way back up the beach, toward us. “She goes to school down there, I think.” I saw her gaze narrow behind her brown-tinted frames. “I guess school is out. Or maybe she even graduated. I think Tom may have mentioned she was graduating this year.”

“Have you girls met my daughter?” Tom said, approaching us. “Francesca, meet Sage and Zoe. Your new housemates for the summer,” he continued, his smile broadening. “Francesca has decided to spend the summer up here with us.” He shrugged. “It’s not like we don’t have room.”

I tried to contain my surprise at that little remark. Mostly for Sage’s sake. Because I was starting not to care what our happy host thought. What the hell was wrong with this guy, anyway?

“I’m going to go get settled in, Daddy,” Francesca said, beaming up at her father.

But Tom’s gaze had already returned to his fishing rod. “Hey, looks like I got something! Must be my lucky day!” he announced, before jogging back toward the shore.

I watched as annoyance flashed across Francesca’s face, before her creamy features moved back to her formerly cool expression. “Nice meeting you both,” she said. Then, turning on her high-heeled flip-flops, she headed back toward the house.

I saw Sage frown. Finally, a reaction out of her.

“Good thing we came last night,” she said. “Now we have a claim to the green room. I mean, I know she’s his daughter, but I don’t want to lose one of the best rooms in the house.”

Fortunately, I had my sunglasses on, so she couldn’t see me roll my eyes. God forbid anyone should encroach on our beloved room, which just so happened to be the second biggest after the master bedroom, complete with its own private bath and a lovely view of the lighthouse in the distance.

“I’m going for a walk,” I said, jumping up and dusting the sand off me as I did.

“You better put sunscreen on those legs.”

“I’ll be fine,” I muttered, sliding my shorts on, more for modesty than anything else.

With one last glance at Tom, who had just let out a whoop as he began to reel in his first catch of the day, I headed up the beach.

I had only gone about fifty yards when I realized where I was headed. And remembered…

Maggie’s sightless eyes staring up at me with a look of surprise…or was it resignation?

It was neither of those things, I thought, chastising myself. The woman was dead. A dead woman couldn’t feel anything.