awful it might be. My father didn’t want me, and my mother almost got rid of me. My eyes stung with tears that I forced myself to hold back so Gramps would continue the story.
“Then she decided she wanted me?” I asked hopefully.
He glanced up as though to say he was sorry, but there was more. “I’m afraid not, honey. She left to go and find him, to make him change his mind. She was gone when your grandmother suffered a heart attack and passed on. Eleanore died of a broken heart—I don’t care what the doctors said.”
How had they kept all of this from me? I remembered my mother talking about my grandmother so many times yet she never mentioned it. “That’s terrible.”
“Your grandmother was in the ground before your mother came back with you. She’d thought seeing you would change your father. It didn’t. He threw both of you out on the street. Your mother had to beg for bus fare to get back home. When she got back, the two of you were starving—thin as rails and sickly too. You cried all the time. I hated to tell her that her mother was dead, but I had no choice. For a while, I thought it might kill her too. I was scared to death of trying to raise a little girl on my own.”
“Gramps—”
“Never mind, Dae. You didn’t know. But that’s why we never spoke of it. Your mother got better a little at a time, and we went on raising you the best we could. But that’s it in a clamshell. I asked your mother many times when she was going to tell you about your daddy. She always said she was waiting for the right time. Guess it never came.”
Apparently, all the women in my family died abruptly leaving guilt-ridden children behind. Why hadn’t my mother told me? I wasn’t a kid anymore when she’d died. Was she that afraid my father would corrupt me too? Or was it too embarrassing to admit what she’d done?
I scrubbed my eyes with my hands. “I’m sorry, Gramps. You were right. It wasn’t your story to tell. I wish Mom would’ve told me.”
“Me too, honey.” He moved his hand over his face, then looked up to stare out over the Atlantic. “Maybe I should’ve told you sooner. I don’t know. I hate that you had to find out this way. I just didn’t know how to say all that without hurting you. I guess Bunk helped us out with that, huh?”
Things were quiet for a few days after we got back from the island. I organized and reorganized Missing Pieces. I had a few customers too.
I hated to do it, but I sold my African hand mirror to a woman who admired it. Much as I loved it, I knew I would never use it again. Looking at it was a constant reminder of the terrible sorrow I’d felt from it. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy it, and I figured the woman who bought it would never know the mirror’s past. The shop seemed emptier without it, but I knew it was for the best.
After so much excitement, I felt a little disappointed, even bored, getting back to my normal life. There were no late-night visits from Chief Michaels, no puzzles to solve. I even missed the unhappy frowns from Agent Walker. I could only imagine all of them being very busy dissecting the information they’d found on the island.
They were lucky to have that information. When the museum burned, it destroyed the only copies of the old
I went out with Shayla and Trudy for what was supposed to be a girls’ night out. It ended up being a chance for Shayla to show off her new boyfriend. He was a navy SEAL with perfect abs and an attitude to match. I was glad she’d moved on after the thing with Kevin. It made me feel less guilty even though Trudy kept assuring me that there was nothing for me to feel guilty about.
Trudy drove me home after the night out. I really wanted to tell her about my newfound father. But the words wouldn’t come. I’d known her all of my life. I really wanted someone else to talk to about it, but I couldn’t tell her.
So I bottled it up inside and glanced through the Outer Banks’ phone listings starting with Duck and working my way around the island. There was no Danny Evans listed.
Maybe it was just as well. Did I really want to contact him after all these years? What would he say? Would he be sorry he kicked me and my mother out when I was a baby?
Somehow I doubted it. He might not even remember me or my mother. Obviously he’d never come to see what happened to us during the last thirty-plus years. I had to assume it was because he didn’t care. We still lived in the same place where he’d met her. How hard would it be to drive by?
I didn’t want to make a fool of myself over the whole thing anyway. I was curious, of course. Who wouldn’t be? But I wasn’t rushing out to hire a private detective either. If Danny Evans wasn’t interested in who his daughter was, she wasn’t interested in him either. At least that’s what I told myself at night before I went to sleep.
The Duck Historical Society met and accepted the gift of Mrs. Elizabeth Simpson’s house as a new museum. The elegant old house on the ocean side had a historical background of its own besides being a great place for a museum. Max would’ve been so proud.
It was also right next door to the Blue Whale Inn, which would make transporting the hundreds of artifacts that were cluttering Kevin’s lobby even easier. I volunteered to help with the move on that Saturday. It was cold and rainy—the icy, driving rain that comes from the ocean and leaves everyone shivering in their homes.
No one stayed home that day, though. Everyone showed up to help. People from Duck knew how to put on a rain poncho and boots better than most.
Gramps was busy in the morning but planned to come by the museum later in the day. I walked over by myself thinking I might open Missing Pieces later if the sun came out for a while. There wouldn’t be many customers looking for treasures in this weather, but I needed every sale I could get.
I held my head down against the rain and wind. I looked up when I noticed a car moving slowly along beside me. Someone was offering me a ride. I wished it were Kevin, though I knew he was busy preparing a huge luncheon for all the volunteers. But any ride in the rain would be welcome, so I stepped up to the car.
Brad Spitzer pushed open the door for me. “Hey! Can I offer you a ride, Mayor?”
I hesitated. I didn’t know him very well, though I’d accepted rides from other people I knew even less about. What I
On the other hand, it was cold and wet. I felt like icicles were hanging from my poncho. How well did I need to know him to drive the short distance to the Blue Whale? He was a public official, after all.
I climbed in the car and apologized for getting the seat wet. “Thanks for stopping. I’m on my way to the new history museum. Not far.”
“Not a problem.” He started forward, no traffic on either side of Duck Road. “I admit to having an ulterior motive for offering you a lift, Mayor.”
I squeezed closer to the door. He was going pretty slow. I figured I could always jump out. “Oh?”
“I wanted to apologize for the things I said to you about Max Caudle’s death. I’m sorry I insinuated that you might have something to do with it. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He glanced at me and smiled. “I was frustrated, I guess. My first big case since becoming the head arson investigator and I was blowing it.”
“That’s okay.” I smiled back. “People make mistakes.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
“Sure. Thanks for not thinking I killed anyone.”
He laughed a little. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you the other night, but what you did out on the island was really brave. A notorious racketeer like Bunk Whitley had to be hard to face down.”
I didn’t think any of my actions had been particularly courageous. “It wasn’t so bad. And it was almost unbelievable to meet old Bunk Whitley. He’s a legend in Duck.”
“Yeah. I’m not from Duck and I’ve heard of him.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t know what else to say. If he was hoping to hear interesting exploits from the adventure, he was doomed to disappointment.
“I’m curious about what exactly Bunk said to you. You didn’t go into details at the meeting. You had lunch with him. He must’ve talked. Did he give you any clues to his past crimes?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I didn’t want to tell him about my father. “Not really. We mostly talked about general stuff.” I decided lying was my best course. Like I said, I didn’t know him very well. I wasn’t going to
