Клэр Донелли - Hiss And Tell

His quick action—not to mention his lashing tail—stirred up a cloud of dust under there that made him sneeze. But he hunkered down on all four paws, staying put and warily keeping a lookout for any more possible attacks.

I don’t know why she overreacted like that, he thought. Maybe she’s embarrassed about having so little fur.

*

Sunny Coolidge stoodon the deck of the cabin cruiser, enjoying the sailing. Although she hadn’t set off feeling very laid-back, after dashing out of the shower to find her cat Shadow playing with her underwear. He hadn’t appreciated getting attacked with a damp towel and had taken cover under the bed, leaving her with a heck of a job coaxing him out.

Sunny had felt rushed and frazzled by the time Will had picked her up, and he’d just laughed when she told him what had made her late. “I always had him pegged. You’re sheltering a peeping tomcat.” She’d finally relaxed now, though, and they’d ventured far enough from land to feel a rhythmic swell in the ocean, the remains of a storm considerably farther out to sea. It was enough to impart a rocking feeling to the vessel and made Sunny glad that she was a good sailor.

If only I could be sure that Ben Semple is as good a skipper, she thought as she watched the man at the wheel. Dressed in a pair of Bermuda shorts and a long-sleeved shirt to avoid sunburn, he looked about as non-nautical as a person could get. A long-billed Kittery Harbor Police baseball cap completed his ensemble, and he wore it down low over his eyes as he scanned the waters around them.

Will Price must have been reading Sunny’s mind, since he came over and draped an arm around her shoulders, grinning. “Don’t worry. We’ve got at least three GPS gizmos on board to get us back safely.”

Sunny had less faith than Will in navigational systems. She couldn’t help thinking of a cartoon her dad had shown her of a car going off a cliff while the GPS voice droned, “Recalculating . . . recalculating.”

“I’m just wondering if heading for the Isles of Shoals might not be a little too ambitious for Ben,” she whispered. “You said that on your other trips, you always stayed in or near the river.”

The river was the Piscataqua, which divided Maine and New Hampshire. On one side was Kittery Harbor, Maine, Sunny’s hometown. On the other was the city of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, where Will had previously been posted. Nowadays, both he and Ben were constables in the Kittery Harbor police, but Will was aiming for a promotion—he was running for county sheriff. Last night he’d been speech-making at a homeowners’ association meeting in one of the new developments at the edge of town, and Sunny had sat there trying to look loyal and gracious, while Tammy Wynette sang “Stand by Your Man” nonstop in an irreverent corner of her brain.

Today represented a rare break in routine or campaigning, a chance to kick back and enjoy themselves before Labor Day arrived to put an end to summer. “I remember when my dad first took me out to the Isles of Shoals. We went with one of his fishing buddies. I thought it sounded like a fairy-tale place, someplace where we might see mermaids sunning themselves on the shore,” Sunny said.

“Huh,” Will said. “As a kid, I always thought that was the place where all the foot-care stuff came from.”

“Different spelling.” Sunny glanced at Will, not sure whether he was kidding. He had an oddball sense of humor.

“We might see some seals over on Appledore Island.”

“Which was not named after the guy who taught Harry Potter,” Sunny said, trying to get ahead of Will. “I guess I should be glad you didn’t bring up Smuttynose Island.”

Will shrugged. “I was just thinking of things that would be nice to see, like the lighthouse on White Island.”

Sunny sighed. Maybe she was just making things harder than she had to. For a small town like Kittery Harbor where the pickings were slim, Will was prime boyfriend material—tall, dark (especially with his summer tan), and yes, handsome, with regular features and a pair of gray eyes with odd-colored flecks. He’d rate as decent male companionship even in New York City, where Sunny had gone in search of a journalism career before returning home to help her dad when he got really sick. His health had recovered, but alas, her New York City newspaper career hadn’t, so Sunny had stayed put.

“I haven’t seen any of this,” the fourth passenger on the boat joined the conversation. “So you guys will have to point everything out to me.”

Sunny wasn’t sure which pride and joy this little voyage was supposed to show off—the boat Ben had devoted a big chunk of his salary to getting, or the girlfriend he’d also acquired this summer. Robin Lory was a nice, uncomplicated girl from a little town up in the woods who’d been excited to get a job running a cash register in one of the stores lining the interstate north of Kittery Harbor—outlet-land, as the locals called it. The store was local, however, a bakery with a wonderful line of pastries and, yes, donuts. Sunny had to hide a smile at the spectacle of a cop falling for a baker’s assistant. Still, Robin was cheerful, bubbly, and she’d certainly pepped up the usually stolid Ben. Though Robin had been a little quiet today, first because the flip-flops she’d worn hadn’t protected her toes from the deck hardware, so she’d taken one of the padded seats and stayed there. Then the swells had turned her a little green. But now it seemed she’d recovered. “What I’m really interested in,” she said, “is catching some rays out here.”

With that, she stood up and peeled off the long T-shirt she’d been wearing, to reveal a tiny bikini and a lot of Robin.

Will took one brief, appreciative look, but shot a glance at Ben when Robin began fiddling with her top.

“Hey, Robin,” Ben said, glancing back at her, “I think we’d better cool it. Will’s running for office, and a lot of voters are on the conservative side.”

“Who’s gonna see?” Robin squinted around at the waters surrounding them.

“All it takes is one boat—and somebody on board with a telescopic lens.” Will spoke with the authority of someone who’d spent time on stakeouts. “And the next thing you know, a blurry photo is showing up on someplace online.” He looked over at Sunny. “And they’re claiming it’s you.”

Sunny glanced down at what she called her seagoing Daisy Duke outfit—cutoffs and a shirt tied above her waist, with deck-shoe-soled tennies and no socks. “Hey, I don’t think an A-line dress and a pillbox hat are going to work out here.”

“Besides,” Robin scoffed, “I’d be surprised if that Nesbit guy even heard of the Internet.”

Will frowned. “Frank Nesbit got to be sheriff by being a damned good politician—and a bare-knuckles one at that.”

Will ought to know, Sunny thought. Nesbit once bounced his father out of the job. Not even Will could tell whether the car crash that killed his dad shortly after losing the election had been an accident or something else. Either way, Frank Nesbit had remained sheriff ever since, and whenever the election cycle came up, billboards sporting portraits of an ever-graying Frank Nesbit appeared beside main roads, touting his record of keeping Elmet County safe.

But not everyone bought that line, arguing that Nesbit massaged crime statistics, artificially downgrading more dangerous offenses in order to make his numbers look good. Sunny’s dad was one of those dissenting voices, and he and several other Kittery Harbor politicos had helped install Will as a town constable, grooming him for a race against Nesbit.

As Sunny had seen in recent weeks, though, this insurgent campaign wasn’t easy. Like a lot of places, Elmet County politics wasn’t exactly a two-party system—more like one-and-a-half parties. Folks had to get pretty fed up with the people in office before they’d vote for the opposition. That meant the party primaries were the only voting that really counted. And for Will, it meant a lot of speeches to homeowners’ associations—and no topless boat rides to the Isles of Shoals.