Carla Neggers - The Widow

Ian roared and stretched out his arms, pretending he was The Blob. Sean rolled his eyes. Owen followed them and their father out to the car. Sean said he wanted the front seat, Ian said it was his turn-the fight was on. Doyle settled it by making them both sit in back.

“They don’t fight that much,” he told Owen, then gave a tight smile as he opened the car door. “Katie’s doing. They’re more likely to act up around me.”

In the back seat, his window open, Sean had grown pensive. “Dad, do you believe in ghosts?”

Doyle didn’t hesitate. “No. Why? You boys think you saw a ghost?”

Ian’s eyes widened, and he elbowed his brother. “Sean, Dad’ll know what to do.”

Sean snapped his seat belt. “We didn’t see nothing.”

“Anything,” Doyle said. “You didn’t see anything.”

“That’s what I said.”

Doyle started the car. “Forget it.” He looked exhausted, overwhelmed without Katie at his side. “Wouldn’t surprise me if you saw a ghost out here. It’s been that kind of day.”

But as Doyle backed out of the driveway, Owen noticed Ian in the back seat, pale, his blue eyes unblinking, and felt his stomach twist.

They know about Chris Browning.

Owen knew Doyle avoided mentioning his childhood friend in front of Sean and Ian and never discussed the details of a long-unsolved murder that had deeply affected him. Their father’s silence had created a void that the boys, apparently, had filled on their own.

But what had made them think they’d seen a ghost?

Doyle Alden pulled into the short driveway of the little house he and Katie had bought six weeks before Sean was born and fixed up themselves. It was on a side street near the police station, a few miles from Owen’s place. Bar Harbor, where the Fast Rescue Field Academy would be located, was about twelve miles up and across the island, a picturesque drive that his wife would have to start making every morning once the construction was finished.

An unmarked Maine State Police car eased in behind him. Doyle recognized Lieutenant Lou Beeler behind the wheel, and knew it couldn’t be good news.

“Go on inside, guys,” Doyle told his sons. “I’ll be a couple minutes.”

In the glare of the front-door light, Lou looked thin and tired, his hair grayer. He planned to retire in the fall after thirty years on the job, fifteen of them in the Criminal Investigative Division. He was a decent guy with an extraordinary record, one of the most respected detectives in Maine. But riding off into the sunset with Christopher Browning’s murder unsolved grated on him. An FBI agent married to John March’s daughter, a man beloved on Mt. Desert Island-shot on his honeymoon within shouting distance of his boyhood home, left to bleed to death amid the rocks, seaweed, salt water and gulls.

Who wouldn’t want to find Chris’s killer?

“What can I do for you, Lou?” Doyle asked.

Lou rubbed his lower back. He’d have driven to Bar Harbor from his home hear Bangor. “Fog’s rolling in. I can smell it.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“I don’t like driving in it. My eyes aren’t what they used to be. How’s Katie?”

“Fine. She’s in England.”

“I heard. Working with Owen Garrison’s outfit now?”

“Yeah.” Doyle knew Lou was just being friendly, but he hadn’t had much patience for the past few days and wanted the older man to state his business. “The boys and I are on our own for a few weeks. They’re inside now, waiting for me.”

“Sure, sure. I’ll get to the point. Has Abigail Browning been in touch?”

Hell. Doyle shook his head.

“She got a call last night. I thought you should know,” Lou said in a professional tone that belied his personal interest in the case. He then gave Doyle details on the call. “I doubt it’ll amount to anything, but-I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.”

“Is Abigail on her way here?”

Lou sighed. “I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say. But what do you think?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s here now.”

Lou kept his steady gaze on Doyle. “I don’t know about you, but I never thought I’d still be hunting Chris Browning’s killer after seven years.”

“Didn’t you? Here’s how I see it. A burglar targeted the island seven years ago and stole a lot of jewelry from rich summer residents. He landed at the Browning house, thinking it was a guest cottage for the Garrisons or the Coopers, and Abigail surprised him. She was assaulted, and Chris took matters into his own hands. The burglar killed him and took off, never to return.”

“That’s one scenario.”

“It’s the only one that makes sense and fits the facts. If Abigail thinks she’s going to come up here and find answers, she’s wrong.”

“She’s thought that for seven years-”

“And she’s been wrong for seven years. She just stirs people up for no good reason.”

Lou sank back against the hood of his car. “The caller said things were happening here.”

“It’s a busy island that gets three million tourists every year,” Doyle said. “Of course things are happening here. You can cherry-pick a dozen possibilities without breaking into a sweat or thinking hard.”

“What about things happening among the Garrisons and the Coopers?”

Doyle scoffed. “Something’s always going on with them. Owen’s starting up this field academy. He just got back from digging for earthquake survivors.”

“The Coopers?”

“Grace Cooper’s up for a big State Department appointment. Her father’s doing some complicated business deal. Her uncle’s designed a new garden for one of his rich friends. Her brother’s here this summer. He made it through a whole year of college.” Doyle narrowed his eyes on his fellow, more experienced law enforcement officer. “But you know all that, don’t you, Lou?”

“Yeah. I do. Well…” He smiled. “I hadn’t heard about Linc Cooper not getting kicked out of another college. You’ll call me when Abigail turns up?”

“I’ll call. Thanks for stopping by. By the way, did you stop by the Browning house just now?”

Lou shook his head. “No, why?”

Doyle decided not to tell him about the boys and their ghost. “Just curious. Sure you don’t want to come in?”

“I should get back. Say hi to the boys for me.”

After Lou left, Doyle locked up his car and headed inside. The house wasn’t the same without Katie. He didn’t know how he’d manage for six weeks without her. The place needed vacuuming. He had to take out the trash, clean the bathrooms, mop the kitchen floor. Normally he and Katie and the boys split the housework, but he could see now he hadn’t been doing his fair share.

He didn’t need to deal with Abigail right now. She had a way of getting on his last nerve.

With a little luck, she’d get assigned to a hot case in Boston and forget about the anonymous call. Let the state and local police investigate. Stay out of it.

Doyle snorted, noticing he’d left the coffeepot on that morning.

What was he thinking?

Luck just never seemed to be on his side.

Abigail left Boston early Monday morning, and by the time she took Route 3 over the Trenton Bridge onto Mt. Desert Island, she ran into a wall of fog. Not pretty fog, either. It was slit-your-throat depressing fog. She had her coffee can of journal ashes on the front seat next to her. She’d almost dumped them at a rest stop between Augusta and Bangor, just to be rid of them. It was as if every memory of her life with Chris was in there, condensed, trying to pull her inside with them and draw her into the past, keep her there forever and never, ever let her go.