Free A Charmed Place by Antoinette Stockenberg Page A

The fact was, he hadn't done shit since he'd arrived. Trixie Roiters had blithely announced in her little chat-rag that he was there to write his memoirs. What a laugh. If he'd had any thought at all of writing, it was to try to pen a novel.
    But he hadn't done that either. All he'd done was obsess over Maddie. He hadn't had the guts so far to confront her, because if she spurned him a second time he'd probably exile himself to Antarctica .
    Amazingly, he hadn't known her father was murdered. Now, after spending a few mornings in the library, he did. The knowledge made everything ten times harder. So, yeah, sure they'd be disrupting him: disrupting his hard-earned paralysis. He couldn't have that, could he?
    "That's quite a sneer on your face, fella," Norah said, giving him a sideways look. "If your writing is that important—"
    "Forget it. All right: two fundraising events. But that's it. Pick a day in July and one in August. Give me plenty of warning."
    She beamed him another dazzling grin and said, "Two events, then. It's a start." She added, "Those don't include the fireworks, naturally."
    "What fireworks?"
    "Come on. You didn't know? Every Fourth of July, the town sets off fireworks by the lighthouse. You're on a peninsula, which makes it a safe spot for launching them. But first we gather on the beach there, and we have an evening cookout for everyone. It's in your lease. You really didn't know?"
    "Who the hell reads leases?" he growled.
    The whole damn town in his front yard! Whose bathroom did they plan to use?
    " Traditionally, the tenants in the lighthouse throw open the downstairs to their neighbors," Norah said, reading his mind. "The fireworks committee pays for a cleaning service to come in afterward, of course."
    "Of course." Damn. Where had he got the notion that lighthouses were isolate, private places? He may as well have taken up residence in a ferris wheel!
    Cursing himself for having let the naked creature beside him con him into opening his door, twice, minimum, to the world, he eased the flat-bottomed skiff into the shallow water of the beach from which Norah had launched her sailboard.
    By the time he hauled her gear out of the boat and onto the beach, she'd disappeared and reappeared again, this time wearing a yellow dress over the yellow bikini. The wet bathing suit left three telltale outlines in the dress. He tried not to see them.
    "Thanks again," she said, extending her hand once more, this time not letting go of it. "Now, come have a drink with my friends and me. Trixie Roiters has just dropped by with one of the town selectmen. The house is right across the street," she said, eyeing him all too speculatively. "And don't worry about not having a shirt on. Dress is casual. Will you come?"
    "I'd like that," he said with a bland smile.
    Abou t as much as boiling in oil. " The thing is, I ... ah ... had something in the oven, which is probably catching on fire right about now."
    It was the best he could do. He backpedaled into the water, yanked up the grapnel, and tossed it into the bow of the boat. Then he mounted the skiff like a cowboy his pony, and he didn't look back until he was out of bullet range.
    Not now. Not with half the town looking on.
    The question was, when?

Chapter 7
     
    "We checked with both of the H & R Blocks in Cambridge , Mrs. Regan. They have no record of your father showing up on April 6, either by appointment or as a walk-in."
    Maddie couldn't hide the disappointment in her voice. She wanted the note from the desk blotter to have an innocent explanation. "I was hoping..."
    "I know," said the sympathetic detective at the other end of the line. "I know."
    She slapped at a mosquito parked on the wall above the phone. Blood. Damn.
    "Since my father didn't go to H & R Block, and he wasn't meeting any of his friends that day, as far as we've been able to tell, what should we make of the note I found? Should we take it seriously? Or do you think it could be from some other year