Kitabı oku: «Killer Summer»

Killer Summer
Lynda Curnyn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my brother, Brian

About the Author

Lynda Curnyn is a native New Yorker who hasn’t migrated very far from her Brooklyn birthplace. She spent her adolescence on Long Island but escaped to downtown Manhattan just as soon as she could.

After getting a liberal arts degree from New College at Hofstra University, she went on to New York University for her master’s in English literature, even contemplated a Ph.D. before she realized she didn’t want to spend her 20s in the library. So she did what all good English majors do—she went into publishing, and was hooked. As an editor of women’s fiction for Silhouette Books, Lynda works with some of the industry’s top authors.

When a senior editor suggested to her that she might try her hand at writing a novel for the Red Dress Ink program, she laughed. Then she wrote. And wrote and wrote. And soon enough she had finished her first novel! Now she is a self-professed writing addict and happily writing a book a year for Red Dress Ink.

Acknowledgments

This book was born during one hot summer on Fire Island, and so I must thank my wonderful housemates, for barely batting an eye while I plotted in their midst.

First and foremost, my dear friend Linda Guidi, who convinced me that life is just better at the beach. Thank you for your inspiration, for sharing your knowledge of the leather industry and for the killer title!

My lovable hosts, Jane and Gregg Weisser, who opened their beautiful beach house to me, fed me gourmet meals and even let me walk their dog, Sophie. And outside of the house, the dog and the good eats, all resemblances to real life, purely coincidental.

For helping me keep my facts straight, I’m indebted to Bryan Mechutan, for giving me the scoop on the music business (and for the TLC). Andrew Rauchberg, whose considerable brain I picked regarding the life and times of a law student. Detective Lieutenant Jack Fitzpatrick, Commanding Officer of the Suffolk County Homicide Squad, for patiently answering my questions. Joe Scotto di Carlo, aka Uncle Joe, my favorite garmento, for brainstorming plot ideas about the garment industry. (Any mistakes are mine, of course.)

Many thanks to Sarah Mlynowski, who suggested I put a dead body in this story and who lugged my drafts on airplanes to read. Lisa Sklar, for listening to my ever-changing plot ideas and for lots of emotional support. Robert Clegg, for helping me hash out plot details. Anne Canadeo, for all sorts of writerly advice, but especially the use of earplugs.

My fabulous agent, Laura Dail, whose publishing savvy and outlook eased my transition to the full-time writer’s life. A huge thank-you (and a big hug) to my wonderful editor, Joan Marlow Golan, who went the extra mile to guide me on my first mystery. Thanks to Anna Cory-Watson, superb editorial assistant. Margaret O’Neill Marbury and everyone at Red Dress Ink for letting me push the boundaries of the genre with this book. And a special thanks to Pam Lawson, for her kind patience and for keeping the production gods at bay. And as always, lots of love and thanks to my family, especially my mother, for endless support.

Contents

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Epilogue

Prologue

Maggie

What a way to spend a Saturday night.

Kismet, Fire Island, 10:00 p.m.

I’d always heard that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes.

In my case, it was a song. Janis Joplin. Good ol’ Janis. She was always there when I needed her. Of course, “Freedom’s Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose” has a whole new meaning once you’re floating facedown in the tide.

The water was so cold. Even colder now that I had been left alone. But as I learned, just moments before I took my last breath, I’ve always been alone.

Who knew death would make an existentialist out of me?

Kind of ironic that my husband was once a lifeguard. That was when Tom was a teenager spending summers on the shores of North Carolina. He used to brag to everyone in earshot that he had saved seven lives over the course of two summers. Oh, Tom was everybody’s hero. At one time, he was even mine.

But not now. Definitely not now.

Of course, I probably deserved to drown. I wasn’t, after all, the best wife.

God, what a waste. My life. My marriage…

Even my death was a disappointment. Tom once told me that something like three thousand people a year die in drowning incidents. Well, la-di-da. Now I’m a fucking statistic.

I just wished I had some clothes on. I knew there was a reason I never skinny-dipped before. Too many opportunities for humiliation. This was worse than humiliating. It was downright pathetic.

I can just see the headlines now: LONELY MILLIONAIRE’S WIFE

DROWNS DURING DRUNKEN FIFTY-YARD DASH. I wasn’t even that drunk. Or swimming. But after ten years of marriage and more than my share of disappointment, I have discovered that nothing is ever what it seems.

1

Zoe

How I would have spent my summer vacation

There’s nothing worse than being alone on the ferry to Fire Island on a Saturday night. Okay, there is something worse. Being on the ferry to Fire Island with two bags too many when you’re really only going to get one day of beach time. If I even got that, I thought, looking out the window at the dark, overcast sky.

I wasn’t even sure why I had bothered, though I did have some niggling thought that it had a lot to do with the three voice-mail messages I had received from my best friend, Sage.

“At least come out on Saturday morning,” was the first. This in response to my message, declaring that I wouldn’t be done with work until late Friday night. A rather pathetic declaration on my part, considering the financial compensation I was receiving for this particular job. I’m a documentary filmmaker—an award-winning documentary filmmaker, I might add. But before you get too impressed with me, note that the award was received four years ago for a piece on the homeless and that my current film was a digital short for dogsnatchers.com, paid for by a sixty-four-year-old widow who’d had her King Charles spaniel snatched in Washington Square Park. Not the kind of thing PBS will be airing any time soon. Still, it was a job, and since I hadn’t had a job in about three months, I wasn’t about to argue for beach time with the one person I had come across of late who was willing to bankroll me.

“You’re not done yet?” was the second message from Sage. Sage is a sales rep for Edge Leather, which means she has the good fortune of being able to do a job she loves between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. In fact, when I missed our last two beach weekends, she acted like I had committed a federal offense. I suppose she had every right to be offended, seeing as she did put up half the money for my share when I couldn’t come up with the cash.

Okay, so maybe that was the real reason I was on this ferry. It was hard to say no to Sage, which was probably why I’d let her slap down the remaining deposit in the first place. At this point, I wasn’t even sure I needed a day of beach time, much less a summer. After a Saturday spent explaining to Adelaide Gibson why I thought we should edit down the six hours of home footage she had given me featuring Fifi running in the park, Fifi lying on Adelaide’s French provincial sofa, Fifi nipping playfully at Adelaide’s designer pumps, I just wanted to go home and sleep through next Wednesday.

“You better be coming out tonight.” That was the last message I’d received, about four this afternoon. I could only assume the reason I hadn’t heard from Sage since was because she was either mad at me for blowing off two of the sixteen beach weekends she begged me to take on, or because she’d given up on me.

Or because she knew I wouldn’t say no to Maggie, who had also left me a message this afternoon. “I’ve decided to make grilled spicy lamb with coriander sauce,” she’d announced merrily to my voice-mail box, “and we have no coriander in the house!” Maggie Landon is probably the only person I’ve ever known who might find a lack of coriander in her beach house peculiar. I might not even have known her either, if it hadn’t been for Sage, who managed to wangle us shares in her boss’s beach house. No easy task, mind you, since Maggie and her husband, Tom, hadn’t even opened up their house to shareholders until this summer. But for Sage, who had a way of seducing everyone over to her point of view, it was a no-brainer for her to land sixteen weekends in an oceanfront house for her, me and Nick, Nick being Sage’s other best friend and beneficiary of her endless—and somewhat strenuous—generosity.

Truth be told, until I’d gotten that message from Maggie, asking me to pick up not only coriander, but a Vidalia onion and “a crisp, citrusy white” because she had also discovered, much to her horror, that she only had a chardonnay at the house, I was thinking about staying home. I had missed two of the three weekends of our share so far—what was one more? But apparently the market at Kismet, the hamlet on Fire Island where our house was located, didn’t carry most of these items, and since, as Maggie went on to say, I was the only shareholder still on the mainland, she “surely hoped” it wouldn’t be a problem for me to pick up a few things. So of course I went to the market for her, even though, as a vegetarian, I wouldn’t even be able to partake in the main course. I had been forbidden by Sage to deny our happy hosts anything. Sage had only two conditions when we took these shares: that we have a good time, and that we not offend Tom and Maggie. As for offending her boss—well, I think I might have already done that tonight. As for having fun…

I wasn’t even sure I knew how to do that anymore.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the beach. Sage, Nick and I had practically grown up on it, the beach being one of the perks of our long-suffering Long Island youth. I’d left lazy summer days on the beach behind when I moved to Manhattan during college, but three summers ago Sage had joined the ranks of those urbanites who flee to the shore and had been badgering me to get on the bandwagon ever since. I hadn’t been able to allow myself such an indulgence—not with my income. But I had come out as Sage’s guest last summer, and during one brief shining moment, I had even bought into the dream while sitting on what was likely the very same ferry.

Except last time I wasn’t alone. Wasn’t sitting in the damp, half-empty bowels of the boat, breathing in a nauseating mix of sea and fuel. That evening I was with my then-boyfriend, Myles, on the top of the ferry with the wind in my hair, the sun setting and splitting the sky open into a spectrum of color that always induced a kind of silent wonder in me. Myles had felt it, too. I could tell by the way his fingers paused in the midst of the gentle circle he was making on my shoulder. Once the sun had dipped beneath the horizon, we both looked at one another and vowed to come back next summer. “Maybe we can even get our own house,” he had said, a bit of a heady claim, since, at the time, our combined income didn’t even come near the median household income required to support a Manhattan existence, much less a Manhattan-plus-beach-rental existence. But we had just turned the bend on our second year together and were still in that blissful state where everything seemed possible.

By February, when it came time to put down the first deposit, even a shared oceanfront room seemed too much for Myles. “I don’t know, Zoe. Sixteen weekends is a big commitment,” he’d said.

By April, the relationship I had once imagined would see me through the rest of my life was over.

Of course, backing out of the beach house was not an option for me at that point. “What are you gonna do in the city all summer by yourself?” Sage demanded. When I pointed out that I wouldn’t exactly be alone, that surely some of the eight million people who lived on the island of Manhattan wouldn’t be fleeing to the shore, she simply rolled her eyes at me. She knew as well as I did that out of those eight million people, there were only a handful I could truly claim as company. Actually, less than a handful. When Myles had dumped me, he’d taken with him the smattering of friends I had adopted as my own. Now I was left with Sage and Nick, Nick being more Sage’s friend than mine, but who was counting?

“When was the last time we did anything together?” Sage said, and it was this last comment that had me slapping down the first five hundred bucks for a deposit, whether out of guilt at being one of those women who had ditched her friends in favor of her boyfriend, or because I believed what I needed most in the post-Myles phase was the solid bolstering of a summer spent with friends.

“Is this yours?”

I looked up to see an overly freckled, lanky teenager holding a somewhat bruised Vidalia onion. “Uh, yeah,” I said, my gaze dropping to the shopping bag I’d placed on the floor beside my seat. It now gaped open, making me wonder what other vital ingredients I had lost. Not that it mattered. Because the other bit of ridiculousness was that I had missed the earlier ferry because I couldn’t locate a jar of coriander in a timely manner. The first two stores I’d tried had sold out of the stuff. Who knew coriander was in such high demand? Though I did finally find a bottle at Gourmet Garage, I had missed my train and was out of the running for anything but the late ferry. Which meant that, despite all my efforts to please Maggie, I had failed miserably. I had left her a message, but whether she’d had to postpone her gourmet meal until ten when my ferry arrived, or whether she’d been forced to bag the whole thing and was sitting fuming at me over a badly cooked burger at one of the two restaurants in Kismet, was anyone’s guess.

“Um, thanks,” I said, taking the onion from the kid with a grateful smile, though what I had to be grateful for at the moment was beyond me.

“Where’re you going?” he said, making me realize that this kid was not some eager do-gooder but none other than an employee of the Fire Island Ferry Company. At least that’s what his T-shirt said.

“Kismet. Roundtrip.” I hadn’t even arrived yet and I couldn’t wait to get home. He handed me a ticket and I forked over the $12.50 fare. That was another thing I hadn’t remembered when I’d signed on for this share. Between the train, the ferry and the taxi between the two, the commute alone cost nearly thirty bucks. After I handed over my cash and watched the boy amble over to the few remaining passengers, I knew why I didn’t remember how much this trip cost. Myles had paid that first time we’d come out.

I would despise Myles for walking away from me after I had suffered through law school with him if I didn’t understand why he felt it necessary to walk away. He had recently turned thirty. His father had just died. I knew these were the kind of mind-altering events that might make a person do irrational things. I should know. My father hadn’t died, but he’d left when I was ten and was as good as dead to me, because I hadn’t seen him since. And I had rounded the corner on thirty a full two months before Myles did. Yes, I’d felt the chill of age coming on, the clutch of anxiety that comes from not having lived up to my own expectations. Not that I felt a need to dump him.

Okay, so now I was angry. And even more nauseous as the ferry jumped over a wave that would have surely sent a spray on my face if I had been sitting on the top of the ferry in the setting sun like I had that time with Myles. But there was no sun—not even a star—and there was, of course, no Myles. I wasn’t even sure there would be Sage, since my cell phone battery died on the train and I couldn’t let her know I was on my way. Sage, who acted as if her whole happiness this weekend was dependent on my arrival, if those messages she’d left were any indication. Sage, who had likely hooked up with the bartender, or the guy she’d been flirting with who worked the docks, or any one of the other myriad men she had at her fingertips, and forgotten all about me. Sage, whose biggest worry in life was whether or not there was fresh lime for her tequila.

“Kismet,” the scrawny fare collector bellowed, practically in my ear, now that he was done collecting fares from the few other idiots braving this late night ferry ride. “The first stop on this ferry will be Kismet!” I looked out the window, trying to figure out just how far from the dock we were, but all I could see was the darkness and what seemed liked endless water.

Yeah, Kismet.

Everyone gets what they deserve, I guess.

Including me.

2

Sage

Beach Blanket Boomerang

“It’s not that I don’t want to…”

I paused as I pulled on my jeans, giving Chad’s hard-on a meaningful look. “Well, that’s clear at least.”

“C’mon, Sage, you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do,” I replied, bending to search the floor for the tank I had tossed off in a frenzy of passion. Passion? That was a laugh. This kid wouldn’t know real passion if it bit him in the ass. Maybe that was the problem, I thought, locating my tank top and yanking it over my head. He was a kid. Twenty-two, I think he said. I turned to the bed again, my eye roaming over his sulking yet adorable face, his well-muscled chest and perfect abs.

Had twenty-two looked that good when I was twenty-two? Clearly, I hadn’t appreciated it enough back then.

It was a damn shame. I wasn’t sure what was more of a shame—that he was so hot or that I had spent the past two weekends at the beach trying to seduce him only to get nowhere. At least I hadn’t had to spring for dinner tonight—which was usually what happened when you went out with these young guys. Chad had gotten off work at seven, but the minute I saw him waiting for me at the dock, I was hungry for something else. So we had a couple of drinks at The Inn, a local bar, then headed back to the beach house he shared with his friends. His friends had conveniently not been around when we came through the door, practically tumbling over one another to get to the bedroom. And I was just three minutes away from getting that gorgeous piece of equipment of his inside me when suddenly he brings up the girlfriend. The girlfriend. He might have mentioned the girlfriend before he had me naked and panting on his bed.

“At least you had an orgasm,” he offered.

I stared at him. This was obviously some strange side effect of living your formative years during the Clinton presidency. Apparently his little girlfriend wasn’t an issue when he had his head between my legs. But the minute I maneuvered for more than oral sex, suddenly it’s, “I can’t. I have a girlfriend.”

Blah, blah, blah.

Sliding my feet into my flip-flops, I said, “Sorry, Chad, but I’m more of a penetration kind of girl.”

And because I didn’t want to hear another word about it, or because the sight of that beautiful body was starting to make me feel wistful, I left.

Once I was outside, blanketed by the heat, I felt better, though I couldn’t remember a hotter June night in my short history of Fire Island summers. Not that I was complaining. At least we were getting the most out of this summer share. Or I was anyway. I was betting that Zoe hadn’t made the last ferry out tonight and was forfeiting yet another weekend at the beach in the name of work. I wondered why I had even bothered browbeating her into a share. Or Nick, for that matter. I guess I had some stupid idea that a summer out at the beach with my two best friends would be fun, though I was starting to think Zoe and Nick were like my little friend Chad. They didn’t know a good thing when they had it. Zoe was probably still filming poodles, and Nick…if I knew Nick, he was probably down at The Inn or The Out, the only two bars in town, chatting up anyone who would listen about his latest get-rich-and-maintain-his-integrity scheme, a record label he was developing. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he found investors here. Nick could be pretty charming. In high school he had convinced the football coach he could create software that might predict the most successful plays based on the stats of the players. Of course, he got caught smoking pot in the woods behind the school a week later, losing any support he had gained for the project. But that was classic Nick. He was brilliant enough to be the next Bill Gates, except he tended to use that B.S. in Business Administration of his for b.s. more than anything else.

It was starting to get on my nerves.

But then, I was on my last nerve tonight, even more so when I saw the lights of our beach house twinkling in the distance. God, it was a beautiful house. An oceanfront, sprawling three-bedroom ranch hovering high above the beach.

“Maggie’s Dream.” My boss, Tom, had named it for his wife. Though now that I thought about it, Maggie’s Dream would have been a lot better sans Maggie.

There was a price to pay for an ocean view. And my price, I had discovered, was Maggie.

I had met them both at the beginning of last summer, at the beach, of course. Maggie seemed fine then—from a distance anyway. She was simply the smiling, semi-Stepford wife of Tom Landon. I adored Tom immediately. Maybe because we had so much in common—we both worked in the garment industry, though I was in retail at the time. Our acquaintance turned quickly into a business relationship when I bought some products from Tom’s ladies’ wear line, Luxe, to put in the store I managed. But The Bomb Boutique was a bit too downtown hip for me to carry more than a few well-styled pieces from Tom’s line, and then it was mostly accessories—handbags and the odd belt. We became friends, though, so much so that I used to tease him about how he needed to add a little hipness to his line if he hoped to win over customers like The Bomb. As it turned out, I won Tom over. By the end of the summer, he approached me about a new venture he was working on, an urban leather outerwear line. And with the promise of a fat salary as the head sales rep for Edge, he lured me on board. It was the best decision I’d ever made. I loved my job. In fact, I lived for my job. Even had dreams of managing Edge myself some day.

Those dreams ended when Maggie came to work for Edge. Suddenly Ms. Stay-At-Home Wife wanted a career, and Tom—sweet, generous Tom—handed her mine on a silver platter.

Now I had to share a beach house with her. For sixteen weekends. Actually, counting this weekend it was only twelve now, since I’d already managed to survive four. Barely.

I started to walk again, feeling my irritation with Maggie rear its head once more, remembering the row she’d started with me tonight for blowing off the big dinner she was planning. As if, just because I was sharing a house with her this summer, I had to be her fucking buddy. Like I really felt like sitting around the table praising her lamb chops when I had a piece of prime booty waiting for me at the dock. She even went as far as saying that I wasn’t a team player, implying that I was somehow threatening my job by ditching out on her dinner party.

Fucking prima donna.

If I’d only known she would be like this when I took this share, I might not have taken it. But I had put the money down back in February—a full month before Maggie had taken over the management of Edge and made my life a misery.

I shuddered as I reached the wooden walkway to the house, wondering if Maggie was still reigning like a queen over her stupid dinner party. The house did seem kind of quiet.

Fuck it. I wasn’t going in there. Wasn’t going to tolerate the satisfied smile on her face when I walked in after the all-too-brief date I had shrugged off her little party for. After all, it couldn’t be any later than nine-thirty.

I headed for the beach, figuring a moonlit walk might do me good.

It was the weekend after all.

And I didn’t have to answer to anyone.

Not tonight.

And if I had things my way…

Never again.

3

Nick

Women. You can’t live with them and you can’t…

“I’m having a few beers, for chrissakes, Bern. What’s the big deal?” I said into my cell phone, wishing my reception, which was usually nonexistent at The Inn, would give out at this point. This conversation had already gone on way too long. As in six months too long. But this was what Bernadine and I had come to.

“So you’re trying to tell me you’re just sitting in a bar on a Saturday night all by yourself,” she said, for the fifth time in as many minutes.

“It’s Kismet, Bern. There’s nothing else to do.” I almost pointed out that she might have been here with me, if she hadn’t up and moved to San Francisco six months earlier. But I really didn’t want to start that argument again. This long-distance relationship stuff sucked big-time, especially when the woman in question got jealous if I so much as sneezed in the vicinity of another woman.

“And there’s no one there with you?” she asked now.

I looked around at the crowd lining the bar and surrounding the pool table. “Well, there are lots of people here, Bern. But even if I was with someone, don’t you think I might have blown my chances with her, considering that I’ve been on this phone arguing with you for the past fifteen minutes?”

“Fuck you, Nick.”

Click.

Shit. That sure wasn’t my reception going out.

“Another beer, dude?” asked the bartender as I put my cell phone down on the bar once more.

I picked up my beer bottle, which was down to the last quarter. The last quarter of my fourth beer and she still wasn’t here. Okay, so I hadn’t been completely honest with Bern. I was waiting for someone, and, yes, someone female, but it wasn’t like that. At least, not on my end anyway. This was strictly business, but from the way things were going so far, it looked like I might have to fuck Maggie, if only to get the upper hand in this deal we were working on. Though at the moment, I had no hand to play. It was almost nine-thirty already. I’d been waiting for her nearly two hours. Actually, I’d moved on from waiting to just simply drinking. Maybe Maggie had gotten that spice or whatever she was missing for her meal and decided to stay home and cook after all. Which didn’t make sense, seeing as Sage had already taken off and Tom had given up and gone over to a friend’s house. He was pissed and I couldn’t blame him. Surely she could have figured out something else to do with all those lamp chops besides whatever the hell was called for in that recipe she was making. But I could see Maggie was like a dog with a bone when it came to her dinner parties. She was pretty upset when she realized her dinner plan was not happening tonight. I thought I had managed to talk her out of cooking, even offered to buy her a burger at The Inn. She told me she just needed to clean up the aborted dinner she’d started. “I’ll meet you at The Inn in half an hour,” she’d said. Yeah, right. Time is money, babe. And since it was her money we were talking about, you’d think she’d be a little more punctual.

“Another beer, dude?”

“I’m thinking, man,” I replied.

“Don’t think too hard,” the bartender said with a chuckle before he ambled away.

Yeah, yeah, buddy. Why don’t you go blow a few more brain cells at the other end of the bar?

I looked at my near-empty beer. I shouldn’t have another. And not just because I was outta cash. It was the principle of the thing, really. I’m not sure what principle exactly—but all I know is that I shouldn’t be paying five bucks a pop for beer when I got a six-pack I paid nine bucks for at the house. Not that I felt like going back there. It was the kind of thing four beers on an empty stomach could do to a guy. I suddenly had the urge to party all night. Come to think of it, there were some pretty hot chicks over there by the pool table.

See what you’ve done now, Bern? You’re driving me to other women.

Yeah, as if one woman wasn’t enough trouble. I had the feeling that getting involved with Maggie—even on a business level—was going to be trouble, too, which was why I was hoping to talk to her tonight. But since she was the first person to show a real interest in my company—even suggested she was going to put her money where her mouth was—I had to treat the matter…delicately.

Still, I was grateful for Maggie’s interest in my latest venture. In fact, when she first said she wanted to invest in the music label I’m starting up, I was pretty fucking pumped. Capital was the only thing I was lacking. I had a business plan, even had a band lined up for the launch, which was going to be huge with all the PR I was planning. Even Sage was excited about my ideas, and Sage didn’t get excited about anything I did ever since I lost all that money in that pyramid scheme. The only thing she seemed to get excited about lately was this damn beach house. Had some grand idea that getting me and Zoe out here for the summer would be like high school all over again. Sage loved high school. Why wouldn’t she? She was like the fucking mayor of Babylon High. She knew everyone. And since me and Zoe were her best friends, everyone knew us, too.

Fire Island was more like high school than I even imagined it would be. Sage also knew everyone on Fire Island, but then she had been coming out here three summers already. Tonight I’d had another little taste of high school when Sage ditched me to hang out with that dock boy. No one could get between Sage and her booty.

I didn’t mind. What Sage didn’t know was that my little investment in this share was paying off big, in ways I hadn’t expected.

Yeah, I had hoped to find investors when I came out here. I’m not stupid. I knew there were not a few people out here that might have money to sink into a solid business investment such as Revelation Records. I just hadn’t expected one of those people to be Maggie Landon. I didn’t even know her, which is probably why our first weekend out here I started telling her about the label I was planning. Just making conversation, you know? Tom was out fishing, Zoe was taking a jog, Sage was down by the beach, working on that dock boy she was probably sleeping with right about now, and I was stuck in the house with Maggie, mostly because the sun was making me nauseous and I was hungry. I also knew that if Maggie wasn’t on the beach, she was in the house cooking. She was like some kind of Martha Stewart on speed, the way she was always whipping something together. When Maggie cooked, she was usually looking for someone to sample the goods. And since it was lunchtime, and since I thought a nice beer in the cool house might be a good idea, I went inside.

Two beers later, I was chowing down on leftover filet mignon that Maggie had made sandwiches with on some crusty bread. I was feeling pretty good—so good in fact, I started telling her about my label, in case she had the idea that I was just some sandwich-mooching shareholder. I guess I didn’t expect her to get so excited about it. At first, I thought she just wanted to fuck me. She had that greedy look women get sometimes when they’ve had too much wine, and she’d had three glasses of white to my two beers and it was only 3:00 p.m. Then she said she had a little money set aside she’d wanted to do something with, which wasn’t hard to believe, considering she and Tom not only own the oceanfront spread we’re staying in this summer, but a triplex on the Upper East Side. She started asking details, like what my promotional plans were and whatnot. So I told her, and she was getting more and more excited. Could have been that she’d cracked a second bottle of wine, but the next thing you know, she’s talking dollars. As in the dollars she thought I might need to get started. Her dollars. It was almost too much to believe, but as it turned out, Maggie Landon had been a bona fide rock-and-roller at one time in her life. Over glass of wine number four, she told me that she’d followed the Dead around as a teenager. Not that I’m a Dead fan, but I wasn’t about to argue her taste in music at that point. I guess I should have figured she had some interest in good old-fashioned rock and roll, considering she named her dog Janis Joplin. Not that I’m a fan of Janis either, but I’m capable of showing a little respect for talent—especially when Maggie seemed ready to open her prissy little pocketbook.

I hadn’t told Sage about Maggie yet, mostly because I don’t like to talk about things that I think are gonna happen until they happen. Now I was glad I hadn’t, because something about the Maggie situation was funky. For one thing, she begged me not to tell Tom about our discussion. Which kinda weirded me out a little, ’cause I know she’s attracted to me by the way she’s always touching me. You should have seen the way she looked at me when she asked me to keep our plans a secret from Tom. Made me feel like she was asking for something else, you know what I’m saying? Of course, she said it was because it was her money and Tom didn’t have a say over what she did with her money, which was weird, too, ’cause they’re married and shit.

Now there’s a good reason not to get married: women are fucking sneaky. Just like Bern. Who knew she had even applied for a job in San Francisco until suddenly she was moving out of our apartment. Of course, she wanted me to come. Like I got nothing better to do than follow her around. She knew I was trying to get Revelation off the ground.

At least Maggie understands my dreams a little bit. Maybe a little too much. That’s why I need to talk to her before things get outta hand. She keeps referring to the business plan for Revelation in the plural. As in, “our” business plan.

Which kinda pisses me off, you know? Her money notwithstanding, this is my business plan. That’s the thing about people with money. As soon as they offer to put a little down, they think they own you. And Maggie—well, let’s just say she’s more territorial than most. I started to explain my position after Tom left tonight, but she seemed a tad wound up. Actually, she looked a little pissed herself, even muttered something that suggested she might not be so willing to put up money for a venture she didn’t have a voice in. Which was why I suggested perhaps we should discuss it further over drinks. I wasn’t worried. I figured I could get her to see things from my point of view over a couple of cocktails. If there was one thing I could handle, it was chicks. All this required was a little Maggie-management. As soon as she got here, I would explain that I was going to be handling the business plan and that she would be more like a silent partner. As soon as she got here, I would set her straight.

If she ever got here.

“Dude, what’s it gonna be? Another beer or what?”

I glared at him. This guy was a pest. Even if I had any money left, I wouldn’t buy another beer here.

Maybe it was the reminder I was broke that had me standing up. “Nah, I’m outta here, man.”

There was no use waiting any longer. Besides, I’m not really the type to wait around for anyone. Now that I had a few beers in me, it was time to talk business. And the first order of business was finding Maggie.

And letting her know just who was boss.

4

Zoe

No rest for the weary. Or the wicked, for that matter.

No one was waiting for me at the ferry. And why should anybody be waiting for me? I was technically supposed to be here ten ferries ago.

Not that that stopped me from having a pity party for myself as I lugged a wheelie suitcase, a shopping bag and a knapsack down the long dark roads to the house. I had definitely brought too much stuff, but somehow the thought of leaving Manhattan without at least two pairs of shoes, four pairs of shorts, two bathing suits, six books and my camera (I never left home without my camera) had been even more anxiety-producing than lugging it all here.

So with my wheelie firmly in one hand, the shopping bag in the other and my knapsack clamped to my back, I made my way slowly down the long path that would lead me to the beach and Maggie’s Dream, though I was sure that by now I was Maggie’s nightmare. I had discovered on opening weekend that Maggie didn’t tolerate tardiness in her dinner guests. Even more so, I imagined, from the houseguest bringing the key ingredients.

Good thing I had been to the house once before, because the streets—or I should say trails?—through the tall grasses and brush that covered most of Fire Island were pretty dark. I could barely even see some of the houses, which were set back a distance from the road. And there wasn’t a soul around. But that was Kismet for you. Since the nightlife wasn’t exactly on a par with your usual Manhattan scene, most people stayed home after dark, getting soused behind closed doors, judging by the lights I saw coming from the windows of houses set deep in tall grasses that rustled ominously in the soft breeze.

Creepy. Maybe it was the thought of what might be lurking in the underbrush that sent me hurrying along, despite the fact that my shoulders had begun to ache from my pack and that my wheelie was bumping none too easily across the cracked pavement.

The only disadvantage to an oceanfront share was that it was generally the farthest walk from the ferry. But since Fire Island was only about a quarter mile wide, it wasn’t usually an issue, unless, like me, you couldn’t leave Manhattan at home when you came to Fire Island. But I got to Maggie’s Dream eventually, though my right hand was raw from the handle of my heavy shopping bag, my wheelie was practically on its last wheel and I was on the verge of a permanent back disorder from my pack. Now I understood why Sage never brought more than a tote bag. But then, I guess if your clothes were as tiny as Sage’s and all your other entertainment needs would likely be met by most of the male population, you really didn’t need much.

I felt a shot of relief at the sight of the lights burning as I made my way up the walkway to the deck. But it was only momentary. I wasn’t sure what state everyone would be in at this point. Hungry and dissatisfied? Hopefully Maggie had been able to whip something together to soothe the hungry crowd. She was supposed to be some kind of culinary whiz anyway. Yeah, they were probably all drunk by now and yucking it up, I thought, remembering the well-stocked bar that Tom had opened up to us on Memorial Day weekend and we partook in until we were all practically prone on the carpet in the living room. At least Nick and Maggie were likely yucking it up, I thought, remembering how they had sat out on the deck last time I was here while the rest of us played Scrabble inside. I remembered glancing out at them, wondering at the way they leaned in close to talk to one another. Nick knew Maggie about as well as I did, which made me curious how they could possibly have so much to say to one another. Not that Tom seemed to mind, which was even weirder. He just sat there laying down letter tiles, teasing Sage mercilessly every time he racked up a triple word score.

When I finally made it to the screen door with all my baggage, I was surprised to discover that Tom was alone, except for Janis Joplin—the dog, that is—who let out the kind of howl that explained how she had gotten that name, and practically mowed me over in an attempt to get past me and out into greener—or in this case, sandier—pastures.

“Don’t let the dog out!” Tom yelled by way of greeting.

“Sorry,” I said, shutting the screen firmly behind me, which only caused Janis to start to whimper and paw at me, nearly unbalancing me. “Nice doggie,” I said, dropping my shopping bag and wheelie, and sliding my pack off my back. I assumed if I wasn’t supposed to offend the master of the house, I should be careful not to offend the master’s dog.

Not that Tom noticed. “So you finally made it,” he said. Since I wasn’t sure from his bland tone whether he was being sarcastic or not, I glanced up at him once I had successfully brushed off Janis’s advances. My eyes widened. Not only was Tom dressed in nothing more than a towel around his waist, his hair damp as if he had just come from the shower, but he was chopping garlic with what looked like a barely contained fury. I wasn’t sure if it was the way he was wielding that knife that weirded me out, or the strangeness of seeing Tom in nothing more than a towel, which looked in danger of slipping every time he brought the knife down on another clove of garlic. Somehow the sight of his damp chest, covered in gray hair and a bit saggy with age—he was, after all, nearing fifty—made me uneasy. Kinda the way you feel uneasy the first time you catch your father running from the bedroom to the bathroom in nothing more than his skivvies, which was one of the few memories I actually had of my father. But that was the other thing about Fire Island. Living in close quarters with strangers often brought you an up close and personal view of them, whether you wanted one or not.

I would have slid away to the bedroom, except it looked like Tom was in the midst of making that dinner I had heard so much about. And was none too happy about it. “Well, you didn’t miss much,” he said, peeling the skin away from a fresh garlic clove. “Maggie disappeared. Last I saw her, she said she was going to Fair Harbor Market to look for coriander. But that was almost three hours ago.” He brought the knife down on the clove with a solid whack.

Oops.

“I come home a little while ago and find dinner half-made,” he continued, shaking his head. “I don’t know what gets into her.”

“So, uh, dinner is still on?” I said hopefully, wondering how I could surreptitiously put the coriander on the counter without him realizing I was the cause of this culinary disaster.

He finally looked up at me, eyes roaming over me as if I had two heads. “It’s ten o’clock. We can’t eat now. I’m just trying to finish the sauce she started before she took off to God knows where.” He sighed, as if the thought of the wasted meal deeply disturbed him. “I guess we’ll eat this tomorrow. If Maggie ever gets back with the coriander,” he continued. Whack. Whack. Whack.

Seeing my opening, I said, “Actually, I think I might have some coriander in one of these bags.”

He looked up, knife paused in midair as he regarded me anew. I guess he didn’t figure me for the type to be packing a jar of coriander. And with good reason. I didn’t even know what coriander was until the grocer at Gourmet Garage kindly explained it to me. Locating the jar in the shopping bag, I placed it on the counter before him, transforming myself from the neglectful tardy dinner guest to the heroine of the piece.

For all of thirty seconds. “Oh, so you got Maggie’s message? She wasn’t sure you did.”

“Uh, yeah. I, uh, got a later ferry than I expected.” And since I figured I had already effectively destroyed my momentary heroic status, I decided to come completely clean, pulling out the wine and the Vidalia onion, which was looking a bit bruised. “I got these, too.”

“Ah, well,” he said, eyeing the onion. “I already used the Spanish onions we had in the fridge. I can’t tell the difference anyway, but that’s Maggie for you,” he said with a roll of the eyes. “An onion’s an onion, if you ask me.”

“Yep, it’s all the same to me,” I said, in an attempt to bond with dear old Tom over our mutual ignorance of the varieties of onions.

Janis Joplin, who had been humming a low whine as I emptied the contents of my shopping bag, was now clawing at the screen door.

“Dammit, Janis!” Tom roared, returning to his former austere—and somehow more intimidating in that towel—stance.

Even Janis backed down, lowering to her stomach and whimpering, her eyes on me, pleading.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into that mutt,” Tom muttered. “Must be a full moon tonight.” Whack. Whack. Whack.

I didn’t think there was any moon tonight, judging by all the darkness I had just ploughed through. But I wasn’t about to argue.

Whack. Whack. Whack.

“So, um, where is everyone…else, that is?” I asked, not wanting to invoke the name of Maggie again, seeing as Tom was none too pleased with her at the moment.

He lined up another garlic clove. “Sage had a date or something. And I’m not sure where Nick is.” He frowned, and I wondered if he was remembering how cozy Nick and Maggie had gotten on Memorial Day weekend. God, maybe Nick and Maggie were…Oh, yuck. I wouldn’t put it past Nick, though. He didn’t seem to have many scruples when it came to his love life. And ever since Bernadine had moved to San Francisco, he seemed to have even less.

Whack. Whack. Whack.

Janis let out a low moan.

“Shut up, you damn mutt!”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Um, maybe I should take her for a walk or something?” I said, realizing I had found my escape.

“Yeah, why don’t you do that?” Tom replied, in a tone that implied that perhaps I should make myself useful for a change.

Whack. Whack. Whack.

Grabbing my wheelie and my knapsack, I quickly shuffled my load down the long hall that led to the back bedroom, which Tom and Maggie had designated as my and Sage’s sleeping quarters.

I unloaded my stuff in the middle of the room, then flicked on the lamp on the nightstand between the two twin beds, shedding a dim light over the small room. The green room, as it was aptly referred to with its mint-green walls and matching mint-green curtains, looked like a little girl’s bedroom with white furniture and ruffled bedspreads. But at the moment, it looked more like the inside of the dressing room at Victoria’s Secret. Must have been some date, I thought, figuring the assortment of bikini tops, bras, postage-stamp-size skirts and slinky tops that littered both Sage’s bed and mine was Sage’s date-preparation debris. I briefly wondered who she might be out with—Sage had no small amount of admirers on Kismet—then figured it was likely the dock boy she’d been chatting up on the beach the last time I was here. I couldn’t remember his name, but I wasn’t sure it would matter in the long run. He was the kind of young, buff little boy that Sage usually aspired to. But who was I to judge? I hadn’t had sex in two months. Almost three, I thought, remembering that July Fourth was coming up. Maybe it was the reminder that I had spent last July Fourth weekend with Myles that had me shoving my wheelie and knapsack off to one corner and quickly leaving the room.

I spotted Janis Joplin’s leash hanging from the coatrack by the screen door the moment I returned to the kitchen. Thankfully, Tom had finished his merciless chopping and was now stirring a pot on the stove, sipping a glass of wine freshly poured from the bottle I’d brought. I beelined for the leash, not wanting to banter over the merits—or lack thereof—of the wine. (Tom was, I had already learned, a bit of connoisseur. I wasn’t.) The moment I pulled the leash from the coatrack, Janis’s whimpering turned into an all-out howl of impatience.

Tom turned from his stirring briefly. “There’re some Baggies in the top drawer right there,” he said, gesturing to a small pantry cabinet.

“Baggies?”

He raised an eyebrow. “For the poop?”

“Oh, right,” I replied, suddenly remembering that my mission was not simply to escape Tom-in-a-Towel but to possibly provide a little relief for Janis, who was now tugging full throttle at the leash I’d snapped on her.

I opened the drawer, pulled at least three bags from the box I found (I wasn’t taking any chances with a dog this size) and headed out the door.

Once I got to the top of the wooden walkway that led to the beach and saw the ocean rolling toward me in crashing white waves, I remembered the other reason Sage had managed to prod me into taking this share. I loved the beach. Had spent half my childhood on it, mostly with Sage and sometimes Nick, when Nick realized being the only guy among girls might be an asset. And later, with Myles, who grew up two towns away from me on Long Island, though we hadn’t ever met until we both lived in New York City. That was another thing that had drawn me to Myles: He understood the angst of growing up in the shadow of Manhattan. The hollowness of claiming native New Yorker status when you knew no two islands could be more different than Long Island and the island of Manhattan. Myles had strolled along this very beach with me once.…

Now, as I stepped on the sand, felt the breeze in my face, all I could remember was that walk along the beach with Myles. I even started to relish the memory a bit, and I might have enjoyed it even more if Janis didn’t seem hell-bent on taking us straight into the tide.

“Whoa!” I yelled, tugging back on the leash. Whoa? That was a horse command. Despite all my recent experience with the dogs of the Washington Square Park dog run, I couldn’t think of the command for stop. So I went for the obvious. “Stop!”

Surprisingly, Janis did stop. Though I wasn’t sure it was my plea that did it as I watched her raise her face into the wind, then drop her nose to the sand, sniffing furiously for a moment. And just when I thought she was going to give me a reason to whip out those bags I’d stuffed in the pocket of my jeans, she took off at a dead run.

“Janis!” I yelled, pulling hard against the leash. Then I remembered the appropriate command. “Heel! Heel, Janis, heel!”

Not that it did me any good. Janis would not be heeled. So I started to run right along with her. I really didn’t have a choice. Besides, the last thing I needed right now was to lose Maggie’s beloved dog. Especially after the coriander fiasco.

Just as I was starting to get comfortable with the idea of a late-night jog—I did, after all, like to run, though usually in sweats and not jeans—I realized we were almost to Saltaire, the next town over. I didn’t know how much stamina this dog had, but I wasn’t going any farther than Kismet, I thought, as I eyed the lonely tuffs of dune grass we passed.

Spooky.

I kept my gaze on the beach in front of me and then was sorry for it when I caught sight of pale white skin in the tide. I quickly looked away, embarrassed. Oh, God, some happy couple was doing a little romantic From Here to Eternity roll in the tide. And if I didn’t get Janis to heel, I was soon going to be right on top of them.

“Janis, heel!” I said. But Janis only ran faster, and just when I feared I was about to become an unwanted third to the twosome in the tide, I realized it wasn’t a twosome. Just one person. A woman. And judging by the way her skin glowed pale against the darkness, she was naked.

What the hell…?

Suddenly the leash flew out of my grip, and I watched in horror as Janis became smaller and smaller, practically disappearing against the darkness. Shit! I started to run faster, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was happening in the tide.

I finally caught up, but only because Janis had come to a dead stop, letting out a howl that sent a shiver through me as I looked down on those sightless eyes, wide and blue, staring up at me.

Maggie.

Naked. Her hair matted with seaweed.

And, from the look of things…

Dead.