“Generally speaking, your prototypical male wants you out by two. Two-thirty at the latest. Can’t sleep with a living, breathing, twitchy-legged female in his bed.”
“I’m not your prototypical male.”
“Do you mean to say you won’t utterly freak you out if I spend the night?”
“Not at all. I happen to come from a long line of snugglers.”
“This is most… unexpected.”
“Unless you want to leave.”
“Actually, what I want is a long, hot bubble bath.”
“Right now?”
“If you care to join me I’ll feed you strawberries dipped in hot fudge sauce.”
“You make it hard to say no, Naughton.”
“Making it hard is the general idea, Berger.”
It all felt so right between them that when they were lolling in the tub together he impulsively suggested she spend some time with him out in L.A. And she impulsively said yes. He wasn’t the least bit worried that they were moving too fast. They were just going with it. Letting it happen.
Except now, instead of jetting out to the coast in the morning, Mitch was steering a rental Chevy along I-95 through Westport. It was starting to drizzle. Back at Shea, the rain was coming down so hard that play had been halted. Mitch flicked off the radio and turned on the windshield wipers, recalling the first time he’d driven out to Dorset on another dark and stormy night one year ago. He’d never been to the place before. Barely even heard of it. It was Lacy who’d sent him there. Tossed him a Weekend Getaway assignment for the travel section-her way of forcing him to get his fat butt out of his apartment after Maisie died. As he drove along now, Mitch remembered that first time he set eyes on the little piece of paradise called Big Sister Island. The first time he’d seen the moldering wreck of a carriage house he would rent and eventually own. Finding the dead body in his tomato patch. Coming face to face with a tall, cool, supremely elegant homicide investigator named Desiree Mitry. She of the alluring light green eyes and breathtaking figure. A rescuer of feral cats who had a secret gift for drawing the victims whose killers she hunted down. It all seemed like much longer than a year ago. Maybe because it was so over between the two of them. And yet now he was heading right back out there to help her. Why? Because Bella asked him to? Or because he was the putz of the century? Why did he even care what happened to this woman who had stomped on his heart with her size 12 and a half AA lace-up boots?
He didn’t know. But here he was, cruising his way north past New Haven and into the Land of the Quaint. Welcome to Connecticut’s Gold Coast-Sachem Head, the Thimble Islands, Madison, Fenwick, Griswold Point and his very own Dorset.
He moved over to the far right lane as he took the Baldwin Bridge over the Connecticut River. Got off at the exit just on the other side of the river and started his way down Old Shore Road, rolling down his windows so he could inhale the rich aromas of the tidal marshes. By now it was past ten. He could hear helicopters circling low overhead. And when he passed Turkey Neck Road he noticed a police barricade had been set up there. TV news crew vans were nosed in together along the shoulder of the road. Mitch wondered what was up. And whether it had anything to do with Bella’s e-mail. He flicked on his radio in search of local news. Couldn’t find any. Settled for an oldies station that was playing “If 6 Was 9” by Hendrix as he eased the rental Chevy through the darkness of the Peck’s Point Nature Preserve to the gate, where he used his card to raise the safety barrier and started his way bumpety-bump-bump over the narrow wooden causeway.
Home.
Hearing the water lapping against the rocks of his little beach. Smelling the fresh mown meadow grass. Seeing the welcoming lights of his snug little cottage. As he got out of the car, Mitch felt something thunk into his shin. It was Quirt’s head. The cat had come running over to greet him. Now he was rubbing up against Mitch’s leg and making that eerie, screechy noise that was what he did instead of purring.
Mitch picked him up. “Hey, big guy, don’t tell me you’re happy to see me.”
Quirt licked him on the nose, which he never did. Then began to squirm and writhe in his arms, which he always did. Mitch let him in the house and stood there in the doorway looking around. Bella had moved the table over by the bay windows, which he didn’t care for. His beloved sky blue Fender Stratocaster was parked just inside of the door. He’d chosen to leave his axe behind, and shouldn’t have. He reached for it now and held it, loving the feel of it in his hands again.
Bella was in the kitchen. He could hear her charging around in there. Now she came into the living room with a cup of coffee in her hand and a scowl on her bunched fist of a face.
“Okay, I’m here,” he said, setting down his guitar. “What’s so urgent?”
Bella gaped at him in shock. “What are you doing here? Not that I’m not thrilled to see you. I just can’t believe that you’re… My God, so skinny!“ She put down her coffee and threw him in a bear hug, her face colliding with his chest. “How did you get out here so fast? Was it already on the news in New York?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’m here because of your e-mail.”
“What e-mail? I didn’t send you any e-mail.”
“You did so. You e-mailed me to come right away.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Bella, you said it was urgent.”
“Mitch, I said no such thing. I may be crazy, but I’m not nuts.”
“Well, if you didn’t e-mail me then who did?”
“That was me,” answered Molly Procter, who was standing in the kitchen doorway holding a glass of milk and a slab of Bella’s marble cake. The freckle-faced little beanpole still wore that same bent pair of wire-framed glasses. And those dumb floppy socks of hers. And still seemed preternaturally wise and calm for her nine years. The only thing different about her were those angry red finger marks around her neck and arms. “I came out here and e- mailed Mitch while you were at yoga,” she confessed to Bella, her rabbity nose twitching. “I read through some of your old e-mail exchanges so it would sound true.”
Bella looked at the girl in bewilderment. “But, Molly, how were you even able to-?”
“You told me your password once. It’s Morris, your husband’s name. Because that’s the one name you know you won’t ever forget.” To Mitch, Molly said, “Sorry if I scammed you, but a phone call wouldn’t have worked. You’d have said no for sure. I knew this was the only way you’d come. And you just had to come.”
“Why, Molly?” Mitch demanded.
“To save her,” she replied, munching on her cake.
Mitch shook his head. “Okay, will someone please tell me what the hell’s going on?”
And so Molly did. She told him about how Des had hollered at her to make a run for it. How she’d escaped out the kitchen door as Des fought Clay for his gun, which had gone off twice and shattered the glass but missed her. How she dashed around front to the lane, which was teeming with state troopers who’d heard the shots and wanted to know what was going on. How she ran right by them and straight into Jen’s house to tell Jen’s mother. “If I’d told the troopers myself they would have held me there,” she explained. Then she’d dashed out the door of their house and run straight for Big Sister to e-mail him.
Bella picked up the story from there. She’d come home from dinner with her yoga mates to find Molly there. When Molly told her what had happened she phoned Des’s friend Yolie Snipes. Yolie came right out to question Molly, then advised them that Molly may as well stay put on Big Sister for now. Sour Cherry had already been completely evacuated except for Emergency Services personnel.
“Mitch, the situation could not be worse for Des,” Bella informed him, her face etched with concern. “Clay Mundy and Hector Villanueva are holding her hostage in the Procter house. They’re armed, dangerous and desperate. They’ve already killed Molly’s father.”
“Clay kept telling Des that they didn’t,” Molly said. “But she doesn’t believe him, and neither do I. They killed my dad.”
“And now they’re going to kill Des unless the authorities back off,” Bella went on. “They want safe passage out of there. They intend to take Des with them. Once they’re safely across the border in Mexico they say they’ll release her.”
“Like hell they will,” Mitch said grimly. “Molly, where’s your mom right now?”
“She’s safe,” Bella answered. “Des is the only one there with them.”
“Okay, I get the picture…” Mitch said. “But in the immortal words of Harry Longbaugh, better known as the
