Barbara Phinney - Deadly Homecoming

The next house on the bay side, set apart from the rest, was Danny’s. Looking a bit neglected and lifeless, the two-story could have used new siding, windows and some extra-strength weed killer. Odd that Danny should want to stay here. He hadn’t cared for the quiet life when they’d been young. And if he’d changed his mind since, then why not fix the house up?

Bushes rustled to her left and she snapped her head over. A branch shook in one small spot like an accusing finger wagging at her, and a shiver raced up her spine.

Abruptly, a cat jumped from the bush, and dashed away. Peta released a sigh. Coming back here was creeping her out.

Having climbed up the broken step onto the porch, she rapped on the front door. No answer. In typical small-town fashion, she pushed it open and called out Danny’s name.

Still quiet. Peta fought the cold sensation crawling within her as she dumped her knapsack on the chair beside the door, and walked down the familiar hall to the kitchen.

Empty. “Hey! Anyone home?” It had been a decade since she was last here and yet the furniture was the same, the pictures the same, the same layer of dust everywhere, like some kind of unreal time warp.

Hastily, she returned to the front hall and yelled up the stairs. “Wake up, Danny. It’s past noon! Get out of bed.”

Never mind why he might be sleeping the day away, Peta told herself as she grabbed her knapsack and climbed wearily up the stairs. But Danny was never an early riser and she doubted he’d awaken early to greet her. He’d just expect her to be his alarm clock.

At the top of the stairs, she turned, pausing long enough to toss her knapsack onto the spare room’s bed. Danny would have taken over the master bedroom now that his parents were gone. He was probably still sleeping off some prebirthday celebration.

The master bedroom’s door stood ajar.

“Danny? Wake up!”

She peeked in. With a grimace at the empty, unkempt room, she walked to the large window that overlooked the backyard and the bay. Steeling herself against the vast vertigo-inducing view, she spied the motorboat disappearing into the mist. Below, there stood the glass-enclosed gazebo, a battered relic from the sixties, now at the very end of the eroding backyard, and looking as if it might topple over the cliff at any moment.

She didn’t like being this high up, seeing this much wide-openness, but she couldn’t shut her eyes.

Because down below, Danny lay on the floor of the gazebo, his unnatural pose and glazed stare telling her a horrible truth.

Her ex-boyfriend was very dead.

The man in front of Peta handed her a disposable mug of steaming tea. Looking at him, she muttered out a short thank-you. He then sat down on the chipped concrete step beside her, obviously taking her manners as an invitation to join her. The police officer who had answered her 911 call had asked her to leave the house, so she’d deposited her shaking frame on the broken step that began the walkway up to the porch.

“Drink it. You’re frozen.”

She obeyed the man, then sipped the hot liquid before saying, “I live in Toronto. We’re in the middle of a heat wave right now. I’d forgotten that Northwind never gets a decent summer. Honestly, it’s July 1st already. It should be warmer than this.”

The man beside her chuckled and Peta stared at him. Who was he? He’d appeared shortly after the police and yet had, at some time, walked down the street to buy a cup of hot tea from the café. And while the officer and Doc Garvey went into the house, this man had stayed with her. To keep an eye on her?

He was tall, towering over her even as they shared the step. His long, jeans-clad legs stretched out before him. The sun-streaked tips of his walnut hair danced in the wind. The little wave in his hair added a contrary merriness to his somber expression. He was clean-shaven, handsome even. But his gold and green eyes carried something older and sadder. Empathy for her?

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I don’t know who you are.”

“Lawson Mills. I’m a deacon at the church here. The police called me just to help out. But I’m the one who should be offering apologies. I’m sorry your friend is dead.”

Peta acknowledged the condolences with a short nod. And appreciated that the police officer hadn’t decided to keep her in the back of his patrol car. She’d been in police cars enough times as a youth. Enough to last a lifetime.

“The officer told me you said you’d come for your friend’s birthday?” Lawson asked.

“Yes.” Though Peta couldn’t remember what she’d said to the constable. All that lingered in her mind was the image of Danny. She shivered, trying to push that image from her head—with no luck. She took another shaky sip of the hot drink.

The officer emerged from the backyard, talking on his phone. She spied him ringing off as he walked up the gravel driveway toward her. This must be quite an anomaly for the local police force. Surely Northwind had little crime now that she’d moved away. Regardless, hers had been petty kid stuff, nothing like murder.

The police would come from Saint Stephen or Saint John, two bigger urban centers. Though Northwind Island, stuck out in the Gulf of Maine, was closer to the U.S. shore, it was Canadian. The RCMP would come, as would the media.

And the islanders wouldn’t like that. Not one bit.

The wind had no effect on the officer’s short, gray hair as he looked down on them grimly. Lawson frowned, then stood. Peta found herself thankful that he towered over the officer. It was almost like having an ally.

And she needed an ally, especially here.

“Eventually, we’ll have to go to the station so you can give a statement, Miss Donald,” the policeman said. “And you’ll have to stay on the island until we’re done with the investigation. But you can’t stay in the house like you’ve been doing.”

Peta stood, then stepped up on the concrete tread to meet the officer at eye level. “I only just got here, Constable—” she glanced at his name tag “—Long. But sure, I guess I can find a room at the B & B.”

That local inn had a name, the Wild Rose, but everyone just referred to it as the B & B. She was hoping it had a new owner who didn’t know her.

The officer eyed her suspiciously. “My partner is on her way. But it’ll be a while before I can leave this property, so why don’t we start your statement now?”

So there was another police officer here. Given the islanders’ quirky behavior, she was surprised they’d even have two officers. These people discouraged tourists, and, if she remembered correctly, had even opposed a new wharf fifteen years ago because it might bring “troublesome mainlanders.”

Peta started her statement, disjointedly giving the details of where she’d spent last night and when she’d left the mainland, all her words tasting slightly bitter, even with the hot sweet tea on her tongue.

She shut her eyes. The image of Danny still lingered in her mind. He’d aged more than she’d expected. A hard life of partying?

Oh, Lord, take that image away. Why have You imprinted it in my mind?

She’d been living in Toronto, working at an indoor construction company. She’d seen injuries, even fatal ones.

Again, as she rattled off her address in Toronto, Peta wondered why Danny had invited her. Was it really to help him celebrate his big 3-0? Because he had so few friends here? Because he knew he might die?

With another warning not to leave the island, and a receipt for her knapsack, which she’d left in the house, Peta was ordered off the property. And the officer returned to his phone.

“No place to go?” Lawson asked as she found herself dismissed at the end of the short driveway.