Nobody's Hero. Carrie Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ trees and the narrow leaded-glass windows, little light reached the guesthouse even during the day. By evening, it was ill-lit by the few lamps in the house, bulbs shining dully from beneath heavy pleated shades. Lurking under the homey scent of dinner was an odor of mildew, as if the cottage had been closed up for years.

      Sean hadn’t seen the estate house yet, but he’d bet it was about a thousand times more luxurious. He began to wonder if Connie and her daughter were poor relations.

      She must’ve read his face. “I know it’s not much, but it’s got a certain rustic charm, don’t you think?”

      He nodded, considering the paint-by-number pictures framed in Popsicle sticks and the heavily scarred mahogany table as she led him through the dining area that adjoined the kitchen. They stopped at the open doorway of a living room wallpapered in a field of flowers darkened with age and water spots. The room was crowded with too much cast-off furniture, including a threadbare Persian rug and an antique hutch stuffed with mismatched china.

      He looked at Connie. “How come you’re not at the big house?”

      “It’s filled with guests for the party. No room for the employees.”

      “Oh,” he said, getting it at last. “You’re an employee.”

      Pippa, who was curled into a plaid wing chair in the corner, glanced up from her book.

      “I’m the Sheffields’ garden designer.” Connie peered up at him from beneath the fluff of her bangs. She’d scooped her hair high on her head and pinned it into an attempt at a schoolmarm bun type of thing, except that her hair was too curly and had escaped in an auburn froth. She looked like a rooster. “You know about the maze, right? The garden party?”

      He shook his head. “I only arrived two days ago. I haven’t been socializing much.”

      Till now. On the walk over, he’d asked himself why this invitation was the only one he’d been willing to accept. As uncomfortable as it was to admit, Pippa’s loneliness had reached him. But Connie was the real draw.

      “Then you may not realize that Anders and Kay Sheffield are the cream of Osprey Island society. The cream of New England, too, since it seems that they’re planning to ferry over half of the region’s population for the party. It’s this Saturday. We’re unveiling the maze that I’ve been working on for the past few years.” Connie tilted her head at him, waiting for his reply with raised eyebrows.

      He nodded.

      “I redesigned and refurbished the estate’s old maze from the time it was built in the 1920s,” she prompted. “Kind of a big deal. The entire island is talking about it.”

      “I see.”

      One side of her mouth went up. “You’re not impressed.”

      “I’m sure I would be if I saw it.”

      “I can wangle you an invitation to the garden party.”

      “Thanks, but I didn’t come to the island to mingle,” he said, ignoring the fact that he was doing just that.

      “Why did you come?” She moved out of his line of sight to put the beer bottles on the table, returning with the front of her ribbed white cotton tank sporting three damp splotches that revealed the outline of a lace-edged bra. He looked away. Then back again. Her neck and bare shoulders were slender but strong, cinnamon freckled.

      “Just a vacation,” he said with a shrug. “I’m on leave from my job.”

      Connie’s eyes were fixed on him, as bright and inquisitive as her daughter’s. “Which is?”

      “Which is what?”

      Her mouth puckered. She knew he was stalling. “What do you do for a living?” she asked distinctly.

      He gave in, knowing where this would lead. “I’m a Massachusetts state trooper.”

      Pippa’s book dropped to her lap. Connie said, “Oh, boy.”

      “What?”

      “My daughter’s been a crime hound ever since she started reading the Trixie Belden books.”

      “Trixie who?

      “She’s like Nancy Drew.”

      Pippa scoffed. “But better.”

      “Nancy Drew, huh?” Harmless. “Isn’t that sort of…”

      “Old-fashioned?” Connie shrugged. “I suppose so, but my husband and I were always a little retro, not to mention poor. We haunted a lot of yard sales when Pippa was young. One day Phil brought home a set of Trixie Beldens.”

      “It’s not my fault she won’t let me watch CSI,” Pippa said morosely from the corner.

      “That’s much too gruesome for a ten-year-old.” Connie nudged Sean’s arm as she brushed by. “You tell her. I’ll get dinner on the table.”

      He said nothing. He wasn’t thinking about Pippa and her mysteries but about Connie’s missing husband. Phil.

      I miss Daddy, she’d said, and he’d first thought that meant during their island stay. But the vibe was wrong. Probably not a case of divorce, either. Her tone had been mournful, not bitter.

      He looked at Pippa, considering her lonely neediness.

      Was Mr. Bradford dead?

      Oh, shit.

      Pippa pushed her glasses up her nose. She narrowed her eyes. “Do you solve crimes?”

      “Not so much. I patrol. It’s more a situation where I’m arresting suspects in the act, or right after the act.” He refused to let his mind stray to that last, fatal traffic stop. “But once in a while I land in the middle of an interesting case and I get to do some investigating.”

      He’d tried to sound acceptable to a ten-year-old. Still, she sank back into the depths of the chair.

      “I, uh, wear a uniform. The blue shirt and tie, the blue striped pants, the flat trooper hat. You know, the whole deal.”

      Pippa squinted. “Then you must not be a detective. Aren’t they plainclothes?”

      She was a smart one. He was a lieutenant. The next promotion would have been to detective lieutenant, but that was now derailed, perhaps permanently. A hard pill to swallow, given that his father had retired from the MSP with honors and that both of his older brothers and one sister were thriving in their law-enforcement careers, as well. His father wouldn’t express shame, wouldn’t express disappointment, over the way things had turned out for Sean.

      But he’d felt it all the same because, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how necessary the shooting had been, there was no denying that Sean had failed. Yes, he’d gone by the book. The other man had fired first. There’d been no recourse but to defend himself and the mother and child. Still, in the back of his mind would always be the what if.

      What if he’d done something, anything, differently—and СКАЧАТЬ