On Fire

He whipped around. Every muscle in his body seemed tense, rigid, as if he was ready to burst out of his skin. “Back.”

“Back where?”

“The island.”

“I’ve got your shirt. It’s in my car.” She eyed him, becoming aware of a strange sense of uneasiness. His mother was right—he wasn’t the same kid she’d bloodied all those years ago. But she wasn’t intimidated. “You look as if you want to lock me in an outhouse.”

His eyes sparked, and his mouth drew into a sardonic smile. “That’s not it.”

Riley nearly choked. Bullet wounds, a six-month self-imposed exile. Women probably hadn’t been on his short list of things to do. Well, she’d walked into that one. “Are the police finished?”

“No.”

“Did you offer to help?”

“No.”

“You know, Straker, if I had a rock…” Riley didn’t go on. She’d pushed her luck enough with him. “What else are you doing in town, besides reassuring your mother?”

His eyes turned to slits. “Are you being sarcastic?”

“I’m not afraid of you, Straker.”

“That always was your problem.”

He turned and started down the narrow street. Riley sighed. “What about your shirt?” she called after him.

“Keep it.”

“Do you need a ride?”

“No.”

“How did you get here?”

He glanced back at her. “I live on an island. I took a boat.”

“I hate you, Straker,” she called. “I’ve always hated you.”

“Good.”

She got in her car and drove in the opposite direction. She was agitated and restless and faintly sick to her stomach, and she didn’t trust herself not to run Straker over. She headed out to the nature preserve, but Emile wasn’t around. Neither was his car or his boat. She stopped back at his cottage. Same thing.

She gripped the wheel. “Well. Push has come to shove.”

It was time to head to Camden and face her mother and sister. The first time she’d spent any time with her grandfather since the Encounter, and she’d found a dead body. No way would this go over well.

Two hours later, Riley rang the doorbell to her mother’s little, mid-nineteenth-century gray clapboard on a pretty street above Camden Harbor. When the black-painted front door opened, she surprised herself by bursting into tears.

“Emile,” Mara St. Joe said, tight-lipped. “Damn him.”

“It’s not him—he didn’t do anything.” Riley gulped in air, feeling like a ten-year-old. She brushed her cheeks with her fingertips. Thank God she hadn’t fallen apart in front of Straker. “I found a dead body.”

“I know. I heard on the radio. It’s Emile’s fault. He never should have let you kayak alone.”

She whisked Riley into the front parlor. This was her parents’ first house—her mother’s first house. Two years ago, Mara St. Joe had declared she’d had her fill of living aboard research vessels and in whatever rented apartment was nearest their work. She’d grown up like that, she’d raised two children like that and she’d had enough. She chucked her puffin and guillemot research and set off to picturesque, upscale Camden, with its windjammers and yachts and grand old houses built by legendary sea captains and shipbuilders. She became a successful freelance nature writer and bought a house. For a while, Riley wondered if her parents would call it quits, but if they’d ever considered it, they hadn’t told her. Her father was free to come and go as he pleased, which seemed to suit them both. Her parents had, and had always had, an unconventional marriage.

“Sit,” she said. “Catch your breath.”

“Mom, I’m fine. It was just pent-up tension.”

“It was just your grandfather.”

She half shoved Riley onto a wing chair. The parlor was decorated in antiques and antique reproductions in rich woods and soothing colors. Her mother, Riley thought, was not a patient woman. She was taller than Riley—taller even than Emile—with dark hair streaked white and eyes that could flare with sudden bursts of anger. People said her mother, Emile’s one and only wife, who’d died when Mara was two, had possessed a similar temper. At fifty-five, Mara knew all too well the particular kind of pain her father could inflict. It wasn’t his work that drove her crazy, she’d said—it was his single-mindedness. She didn’t care if it was in a good cause, it was workaholism by any other name, and it left her out. It left everyone out.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked, obviously restraining herself.

Riley shook her head. “I’m okay now. I should have called and told you. I didn’t mean for you to hear the news on the radio.”

“I had it on while I was working. Oh, Riley.” She brushed back her hair with one hand and paced; she had on jeans and a plaid flannel tunic, her writing clothes. “Emile should have known better. And John Straker of all people…” She groaned in disbelief. “My God!”

“He let me throw up in his toilet.”

Her mother spun around at her. “He’s a lunatic! Living out on that island alone the past six months. What could Emile have been thinking when he let you go out there?”

“He didn’t let me. I just went. Mom, for heaven’s sake, I’m not twelve.”

“I still blame Emile.”

Riley sank into the chair, spent. She smiled wanly at her mother. Her reaction was exactly what she’d expected, perhaps even needed. “I’m so glad to see you, Mom. Is Sig home?”

“She’s out walking. She’ll be back any minute. Come, I’ll make tea. You’ll feel better in no time.” Mara exhaled. “Damn Emile.”

She was having twins.

Sig St. Joe slipped into the enclosed back porch of her mother’s house, which she’d fashioned into her first real studio in years. She had a worktable, 140-pound cold-pressed paper, tubes of watercolors, a dozen brushes, water jars, boards—everything she needed except inspiration.

She flopped onto a studio bed she’d covered in old quilts and pillows, just like her girlhood bed in the loft at Emile’s cottage. She’d spotted Riley’s car. She couldn’t face either her sister or her mother right now.

Twins.

She was just over four months pregnant and had told no one, including her goddamned, miserable, self-absorbed husband.

Sig sighed. That was another quarter for her mason jar. She was on a campaign to stop swearing. At the rate she was going, she’d be broke by the end of the week, or she’d have to dip into her Granger money. God forbid. She’d rather wash her mouth out with soap.

She could feel the babies move. Just a flutter. Probably they were already jockeying for position. She wasn’t prepared to have one baby, never mind two. But maybe in the long run it would be easier, because she had no intention of getting pregnant again. After Matthew Granger, she was through with men.

One day she’d have to explain to her babies what a flaming asshole their father was.