Carrie Alexander - Nobody's Hero

Gulls spiraled above the rocks up ahead, dropping down, then alighting in a flapping cacophony. The laughter of a group of picnickers sent Sean off the lane and onto the dirt paths that wound around the heart of the island, leading in no discernible pattern to various woodland cottages.

The hush was immediate. Towering pines closed ranks overhead, their interlaced branches blocking out all but intermittent patches of the vivid blue sky. Even the crash of the surf subsided until it was only background noise. The rhythmic pulse of the island.

Sean slowed, testing his pulse. He was out of shape. Getting blasted at short range by a crazed ex-con tended to have that effect.

A flash of reddish brown at the edge of a small meadow caught his eye. Too slow for a deer. Too tall for a fox.

He took off his sunglasses and polished them on the hem of his plain white T-shirt, watching out of the corner of his eye as the same redheaded girl from that morning peeked out from behind a tree. Had she been following him the entire way?

He walked on, not glancing back until he reached a fork in the path. “Right or left?” he called.

After a short silence, the girl blew out a disgusted breath. “Whatsa matter? Are you lost?”

He didn’t turn. “I’m taking you home.”

A twig snapped as she stepped out onto the path. “I don’t want to go home.”

“I can’t have you trailing me all over the island.”

“How come?”

“It’s dangerous.”

She edged closer. “What’s dangerous?”

He angled his head, taking a better look at her. She was short. Not abnormally, just kid-size. Genius observation.

The girl had pale, freckled legs and a round body. She wore shorts and an untucked T-shirt with pit stains. The binoculars hung around her neck and a spiral notebook was clamped under one arm. Her hair was fuzzy, drawn into stubby braids that barely reached her shoulders. Behind a pair of wire-frame glasses, her hot, red face was squished into a frown.

“You look like an angry tomato,” he said.

Her mouth opened, then closed into an even tighter pucker. She shook off a few flecks of forest debris before shooting out her chin. “You look like a…a…peg-legged pirate!”

He remembered the bandanna on his head and laughed. “Fair enough.”

Her small, chubby hand clenched a pen. “How come it’s dangerous for me to follow you?”

“Just because.” He moved off a couple of steps, but she kept pace. “Don’t you have parents? Shouldn’t you be at home?”

“My mom’s working,” she blurted, then looked sorry she’d given that away. Still, she added, “I’d just be alone there.”

“You shouldn’t tell that to a stranger.”

She blinked. “I know.”

He started off, taking the path to the left. “Don’t follow me anymore. Go home.”

He listened to her moving behind him, relieved when she turned onto the path that led toward the more populated southern end of the island. He stopped and watched as she progressed slowly, kicking at pinecones, glancing over her shoulder.

Her scowl deepened. “What are you doing?”

“Watching to see that you really go.” He made a shooing motion.

She stomped off, but he wasn’t convinced. He waited until she was out of sight, then followed, coming upon her almost immediately where the path twisted. She was scribbling inside her notebook, and looked up guiltily when he approached.

“I thought you were going home.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t say that. You did.”

Spunky girl. “You can’t keep following me.”

“I wasn’t. I was making—” She cut herself off by slapping shut the tablet.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“I don’t tell strangers my name.”

He nodded. “Do you live on the island?”

“For now.”

“Will you stop bothering me if I tell you my name?” She weighed the question, so he added an extra tidbit to tip the scales. “It’s not Potter.”

Her eyes got big. “Then you’re a renter.”

“More or less. The name’s Sean Rafferty. I’m from Worcester, Massachusetts, originally, but now I live in Holden. It’s a small town.”

The girl smiled. “I was guessing Boston, ’cause of the accent.”

“I’ve lived there, too. I’m on vacation for two weeks. And that’s all you need to know.” He made the shooing motion again, but it worked about as well on little girls as it did on his elder neighbor’s cats. He pointed at the path, doing his best imitation of his first duty sergeant. Or his father, a decorated trooper who’d run a tight outfit at home. “Go. Now.”

She went, reluctantly, looking small and alone.

Sean waited a couple more minutes, debating with himself while pine siskins hopped from branch to branch, nattering in chirps that punctuated his thoughts. A couple of teenagers came barreling down the path on mountain bikes, whooping back and forth harmlessly enough, but that settled it. Sean took the path to the right. He could just as easily walk down-island as up.

The girl soon realized she was being followed. She sped up, not liking it any more than he had.

In a short while, the path emerged from the woods and they were on the hard-packed dirt and gravel of Cliff Road. Beyond an ancient post-and-beam fence, sheer cliffs dropped into the booming surf.

After another quarter mile, the road veered inland again, losing the ocean view to a copse of pines. The girl scurried past gates guarding a couple of the larger island estates before turning between a pair of mossy stone pillars. A heavy iron gate that bore a scrolled initial S stood open. A plaque on one of the pillars read Peregrine House.

A poor little rich girl? Sean hadn’t figured her for that.

The estate’s gravel driveway led into a thick forest. The girl had already disappeared, but he could’ve sworn she’d turned off too quickly, into the woods. Maybe she was fooling with him, planning to double back.

He strode through the pillars, looking off into the woods, trying to pick up the girl’s trail.

“Hey!” a woman shouted.

Sean halted at the start of a woodsy path so narrow it was almost grown in by the crowded foliage. He saw the peak of a red-roofed cottage among the trees.

A woman charged down the main driveway, spewing pebbles in her wake. Corkscrew curls of dark red hair bounced around her face, which was suffused with color.

He lowered his sunglasses, taking a good long look.

“Hey, you, mister,” she accosted him. One fist raised. “What do you think you’re doing, following my daughter home?”

SEAN SURRENDERED WITH his hands up. “Uh, hey. It’s not what you think.”

“Pippa?” the woman called. “Pippa, are you all right?” She aimed a finger at Sean before heading toward the overgrown trail. “Don’t you dare move. I want to talk to you.”

Sean remained frozen. She said talk the way his mother used to, when he and his brothers had been raising hell in the neighborhood and she’d resorted to threatening them with a talk from their father. The talk was usually a scolding, sometimes followed by a licking when the crime had been particularly heinous.

The girl had reappeared. “Jeez, Mom. Why are you yelling?”

So her name’s Pippa, Sean thought, but his gaze was on the mother. With the wild red hair and the fighting attitude, she was the spitting image of her daughter. Except that the chubbiness around Pippa’s middle had migrated in different directions in the mother, giving her an hourglass figure on a petite frame.

The woman gripped her daughter’s shoulders. She bent to stare into the child’s downcast eyes. “Are you okay, Pippa? Did this man try to hurt you?”

Pippa looked up with an owl-eyed blink. Her lower lip stuck out. “No, Mom.”