“Relax, Da. I’ll be there as soon as the one o’clock unloads.”
“Fine. Fine.”
Clancy finished greeting the latest batch of tourists as they disembarked from the ferry, shaking hands and getting hugs from repeat visitors. All the while his mind was on his two houseguests. What were they doing? Were they staying inside out of sight? Had they watched the news on his TV? Was she finding anything there to keep Christina occupied? The Flynns didn’t have any little kids around. He didn’t know much about children—especially little girls—and what they might like to play with.
Were they even still there?
As Clancy headed over to the cook-off stage, he decided he needed to be clear in his own head about what he was doing. Did he regret the situation he’d put himself in? No. In fact, he knew from the second he saw Evie what was ahead for him. Even when he didn’t realize who she was, he felt compelled to help her carry whatever burdened her.
After Clancy had finished roll call and shift change that morning, he managed to catch a few moments in his office with the door shut. An FBI memo said they planned to sweep through Bayberry in the afternoon and would contact Clancy when they were en route via helicopter from the Vineyard. In the meantime, video of the congressman making a spectacle of himself was being replayed everywhere on TV and online. He issued a formal statement in which he took full responsibility for seducing Amanda McGuinness, admitting he had abused his position of authority with a staff member. He went on to claim he would gladly abandon his political career if it brought his daughter back safely. The guy even addressed rumors of his impending divorce, saying that whatever his wife chose to do he couldn’t blame her. “I haven’t been a very good husband. I don’t deserve her.”
Clancy didn’t trust a word that came out of either side of that man’s mouth. Nobody got to serve four terms in Congress by baring his soul. Politics didn’t work that way. Richard Wahlman was doing this for a reason. He had to gain something from his public shaming, either politically, financially, or personally.
It took time for Clancy to wind his way through the Island Day crowds, not only because Main Street was packed but because he was on alert. It was his job. Every time he nodded toward someone, caught someone’s eye, or returned a smile or friendly greeting, he was checking for any sign of illegal or dangerous activity. It’s just what cops did—a lost kid, concealed weapons, shoplifting, narcotics possession, indecent exposure, young men on the verge of fistfights, public intox. The vast majority of visitors to Bayberry Island were there simply to commune with the mermaid while letting their inner oddball out to play. Yet it was his job to find anyone who could potentially pose a threat to public safety.
Clancy caught himself, and laughed out loud. Here he was, worried about someone stealing an origami seagull when the nation’s most-wanted kidnapper was hanging out at his place doing a load of laundry. Sometimes, you just had to believe everything would work out fine. Otherwise, life could make you crazy.
Clancy had been there a few times. There were mornings when he woke up and assumed it would be just another day, only to find himself living a different life by the time the sun set. Some changes were good, some bad, and others would take years before he knew what the hell had happened. The day Frasier told the family that the fishery was bankrupt was a bad day. The day he—and Mr. Katsakis—found Barbie in room forty-seven of the Sand Dollar Motel appeared to be a bad day at first, but Clancy soon saw it was a blessing. But never had his life been tossed up in the air and turned upside down as it was the day Evie returned to Bayberry Island. He chose to have faith—because the alternative was unthinkable.
All that said, Clancy had to be honest with himself. He wanted her. In the middle of this giant shit storm, he wanted to touch her more, kiss her longer, and discover what her life had been like through the years.
He needed to know if that summer had ever meant anything to her.