Клэр Донелли - Hiss And Tell

“There are certain considerations when a family has more than two nickels to rub together.” Cale’s hands grew white on the ship’s wheel. “Have you ever heard the saying, ‘shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations’?”

“Ancient WASP wisdom,” Sunny replied.

“I’ve collected proverbs like that from all over the world,” Cale told her. “The Japanese say rice paddy to rice paddy. In Italian, it’s ‘Dalle stalle alle stelle alle stalle’—from the stable to the stars to the stable. The Scots put it another way: ‘The father buys, the son builds, the grandchild sells, and his son begs.’”

It’s the nagging worry of all the haves, Sunny thought. That somehow they or their descendants will end up as have-nots . She said nothing, but she suspected that her disapproval leaked out somehow.

Cale’s face looked grim as his eyes scanned the horizon. “My grandfather was the first Kingsbury to make any money, by getting involved with the Neals. Before then, we were mainly country preachers. Sometimes I think the family only went into politics for a bigger congregation. The thing is, my grandfather didn’t make all that much, and my father has spent a lot of it. I’m not going to be the one who blows what little family fortune we’ve got left.”

Says the man with the fifty-foot yacht and a private peninsula, Sunny thought. She sighed, and decided she’d better change the subject. “So tell me more about the work your foundation does?” she asked, and predictably he puffed with pride, launching into a long spiel of success stories.

Sunny nodded and smiled at the right places, massaging Cale’s ego. Just getting onto Neal’s Neck had left her dangling in a strange position. She couldn’t afford to lose a potential ally before she even began investigating.

9

As soon asthe Old One returned home and opened the door after Sunny left, Shadow had darted between his legs to run outside. He’d crisscrossed the lawn and the driveway, frantically casting about for a scent and fighting back the mournful howl that threatened to erupt and tear out his insides.

Sunny was gone, gone, gone. She’d thrown him away and left, maybe forever. Shadow’s nose couldn’t even find a trace of her. This was very bad indeed. He wanted to cut loose with his loudest battle-yowl and claw everything to ribbons–houses, grass, people, he didn’t care. At the same time, he wanted to lay down and be sick. He didn’t seem to have any strength at all.

Shadow leaned against a tire, panting after his race around the front of the house. At least here he was in the shade, out of the sunshine. The heat would have been stifling–

Wait a minute, Shadow thought.

He took a couple of steps along the big pile of metal that blocked out the sun. Then he reared up, stretching his forepaws against the door, bringing his nose to the seam in the metal, breathing in deeply. Yes, that was a trace of Sunny’s scent. This was her go-fast thing.

Shadow felt a little quiver of hope. The two-legs loved their go-fast things. At least, all the humans he’d seen seemed to. When they went away, they usually hollered, climbed into these big, wheeled things, and roared off. Shadow had never seen a human just leave a go-fast thing behind.

He dropped back onto four feet, thinking hard. Maybe Sunny wasn’t gone forever—at least, not yet, he thought. What should I do?

It was difficult to decide, because he was being distracted. The Old One had appeared in the doorway of the house, clunking a spoon against a can of food. Shadow sniffed the air. The good kind of fish.

He abandoned the go-fast thing, heading quickly across the grass and up the steps. He had a plan now.

First, he would eat the good fish.

Then he would keep an eye out for Sunny. She wasn’t going to leave him behind that easily.

*

Sunny finished herfirst day on Neal’s Neck with mixed feelings. She felt that at least she was fitting in, or at least moving to the background where she could observe people without having them stare at her. On the other hand, doing that meant keeping quiet, so she hadn’t really gotten her investigation off the ground.

She sent Ken her first blog post (she’d written about the sunset boat ride, which made for some good copy . . . better than how charitable foundations could be used for tax avoidance, the subject she’d initially been tempted to write about), and she figured that should help nail down her cover as a frothy celebrity reporter. She worried about the image she’d used—leaving the land and all its troubles behind—might seem a little callous, considering that one of those troubles was a dead girl. But the feeling of freedom, having the wind at your back, that was pretty good. So were the details about the amount of effort a sailboat required. Tommy Neal’s work and sweat was properly recorded.

The folks in the guesthouses kept pretty early hours. Maybe that was because the only TV was an ancient portable—no flat screen taking up half a wall. The couples started disappearing first, and no one stayed up to watch the news, either by habit or because they were sick of the media by now. Sunny was alone by the weather report and turned off the tube. She went up to her room to call her dad and wish him good night. She’d just hung up with him when her cell phone rang again.

“Just thought you should know the website has lit up like a Christmas tree in the hours since you posted,” Ken Howell reported happily. “People from everywhere are reading and leaving comments. Boston, New York, even some guy in Hawaii. Hawaii . I’m happy if we get someone from Portsmouth or Augusta!”

“Well, it should certainly get the Courier ’s name around,” Sunny said.

“Yup,” Ken hesitated. “I guess I should thank you and the interns again for setting up the online site.”

“Nancy suggested it after working on the MAX site for a while,” Sunny told him. “You should thank her. I just gave advice.” She hoped Nancy wouldn’t regret her bright idea. Ollie had insisted on them putting a link from the Courier site to MAX. Nancy might now find herself dealing with a deluge of accommodation requests from would-be celebrity gawkers.

Maybe I should temper people’s expectations, Sunny thought. That would make a good topic for tomorrow’s blog, how totally secure and inaccessible Neal’s Neck really is.

She suggested as much to Ken, who immediately gave his assent. “Let ’em follow all the excitement on our site via your blog.”

Laughing, Sunny glanced at the time and said, “Okay, Ken. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.” She clicked her phone shut and sat on the bed to put her shoes back on. It was shift change on the roadblock—time to talk with Will.

She went down the stairs and out the door, spotting Will’s friend Hank Riker taking over one of the positions at the roadblock. He gave her the barest of nods as he adjusted his Mountie hat. Sunny’s response was equally guarded. They’d both silently decided it was better not to let on about their connection.

Out in the street past the sawhorse, Ben Semple sat in a Kittery Harbor patrol car. He also pretended not to know Sunny as she passed and took a left at the next intersection. A block later, she spotted another patrol car, this time with Will behind the wheel.

Sunny opened the passenger side door and slid in. A moment later, Will started the engine, and they moved quietly through the shaded, shadowy streets.

“So how’s it going?” he greeted her. “Did any of the folks in the fortress up there let slip a crucial clue?”

“Not hardly,” Sunny admitted. “Has any of your professional police work uncovered anything?”