Mona hoped whoever this girl was, she would make the most of it.
* * *
Clancy had been right. Christina needed a nap. The little girl was so tired that she conked out within five minutes, despite the unfamiliar environment. The lovely ocean breeze moving through the window soothed both of them, and forced Evelyn to admit that the motel had felt more like a prison cell than a rented room. She lay next to Christina on the bed until her niece’s breathing fell into the settled rhythm of deep sleep.
Evelyn then stood and went to the back deck of Clancy’s house, watching the sunshine burn through the clouds. His place was small but comfortable, and it was clear he’d put a lot of effort and time into making it his own. The kitchen and bathroom looked recently modernized, both rooms featuring light gray marble counters and a variety of repurposed antique cabinets and shelves of all kinds of shapes and sizes. They were all painted the same glossy off-white, giving them a harmonious appearance despite their differences. Then he’d added touches of color with backsplash tile in blues and grays. She was impressed. Clancy had an eye for detail, and the colors and textures inside blended seamlessly with the beach house setting.
She was enjoying the view from that beach house now. Sea grass and squat pine trees fringed Clancy’s property, and a crooked walking path wound its way from his yard down to the waterline. But all that was window dressing for the spectacular, front-row seat at seaside. With the sun’s help, she could see that Clancy’s house actually sat on the highest point of a little spit of land jutting into the water. Off to the left, breakers crashed up against an outcropping of sharp and foreboding boulders, but on the other side, waves spilled peacefully on a couple acres’ worth of pretty beach. Funny how such extremes existed side by side on one sliver of land.
Evelyn gazed out over the expanse of blue, green, and gray sea stretching into forever.
Like most Mainers, Evelyn knew and loved the state’s lacy edge of seashore, but because she grew up in the foothills and worked in the state capital, she never felt as if the ocean dominated her surroundings. It was easy to forget that nearly two-thirds of the earth was covered in water when you lived inland. Not here. The view from Clancy’s little backyard gave Evelyn a to-scale view of the world: she was a tiny speck, standing on a small rock, surrounded on all sides by a vast ocean. Wasn’t it interesting that only a few days before she had imagined Bayberry to be the ideal place to hide? Now she realized she might have backed herself into a corner. If it wasn’t for Clancy Flynn, she’d already be in handcuffs.
* * *
“Son, I need your help at the chili cook-off. It’s an emergency.” Clancy could tell by his father’s authoritative tone of voice that Frasier Flynn was in official mayoral mode.
“What’s up?”
“I think one of these smart-asses from the mainland put psychedelic mushrooms in his entry. Dammit! I hate when this happens!”
“Can I send one of my crew over?”
“Are you nuts?” Frasier caught himself in midshout and lowered his voice to as much of a whisper as he could manage, which was none at all. The Flynn kids had always snickered at the “Irish whisper” their father was known for.
“We must keep this quiet, son. Come alone. Act casual. The story they ran in the Bulletin two years ago nearly shut this whole pop stand down and you know it. We . . .” Frasier stopped suddenly to dole out a few hearty greetings to passersby. “I’m back,” he said with a loud sigh. “We simply can’t have the cook-off judges wandering around Island Day tripping on ’shrooms again. I need you to take care of this.”
Clancy rolled his eyes. His father had been known to become slightly paranoid executing his official duties during festival week. Rowan had long ago given it a nickname: “Mayornoia.”