Evie was so tired of her sister repeating lines from the movie Clueless. It had come out last summer and she and her little friends went to see it five times. Then she bought the video with her babysitting money and watched it on the VCR at least twice a week, memorizing the dialogue. Amanda thought that if she talked like a Valley Girl no one would know she was from Maine.
Well, she was from Maine. They both were. And the only valley they knew was the Moose Lake Valley so she might as well just admit it.
“Hi!” Amanda walked right up to the cute boy who seemed to be in charge. Evie hung back.
“Hey.” The boy spoke to Amanda with a cigarette dangling from his mouth like he thought it made him look cool. It didn’t. Evie already knew that with a boy like that in charge, this little social event was going to be a total disaster.
Suddenly, the boy looked over Amanda’s head and waved. “Well, lookie who decided to show up after all. It’s the Prince of Bayberry Island.”
Evie turned around. This new boy took his time coming down the dune toward the water. He was about her height and really cute. He had dark hair. Although he looked to be about her age, there were already some muscles on his arms and chest. When he smiled, Evie felt hot, like she was going to melt from the inside out.
Ha. He was a boy and she noticed him. So there. And apparently nothing was wrong with her hormones, either, because they were now doing the Macarena inside her bathing suit.
This guy was way more Baldwin than any of the actual Baldwins, and he was looking right at her.
Chapter Three
“This coffee tastes like the bottom of my locker. It may not even be fit for human consumption.”
Clancy glanced up from his laptop and grinned at his old Boston PD friend, Deon Ware, the first of his moonlighters to arrive for the briefing. “Haven’t you had four cups?”
“Five.” Deon eased his considerable heft into a conference room folding chair and sighed dramatically. “You know, Flynn, every year I sacrifice ten days of precious vacation time for this mermaid shit. I even agree to wear these damn Daisy Duke shorts. The least you could do is provide halfway-decent coffee, man.”
Clancy laughed, knowing that was Deon’s way of thanking him. First off, a stint of double shifts on Bayberry Island was a vacation compared to Deon’s usual South Boston patrol, and, since each of the extra officers hired for festival week earned triple overtime, he’d be going home with a boatload of cash for his trouble.
Besides, Clancy had known Deon for a dozen years. They’d gone through the academy together. And he knew that though Deon was six feet four inches of concrete, he loved to bitch and moan like an eighth-grade girl.
“You’re welcome,” Clancy said.
Deon shook his head. “It’s a damn good thing I got such nice legs, that’s all I gotta say.”
Each of the remaining members of the temporarily beefed-up Bayberry Island Police Department wandered in and found a folding chair. Sitting near Deon were four more of Clancy’s BPD buddies and one longtime friend with the Massachusetts State Police. Clancy’s only full-time employee, Assistant Chief Chip Bradford, joined him at the front of the room.
“You know the drill, gentlemen,” Clancy said. “We’ll do two-man teams with eight hours on an assigned patrol, eight hours as a floater and eight hours off. Both Chip and I will be on call twenty-four-seven and be available for backup whenever needed. You each received your schedules via e-mail a few weeks back. Any problems or questions?”
“It’s on like Donkey Kong,” Lowell Pernecky said.
“Good to know.” Clancy clicked his laptop to view the Mermaid Festival event spreadsheet. “The schedule is the same as every year, with just a couple minor additions and changes I need you to be aware of.”