“Because I lived through this before, that’s why. I remember how close he came to destroying you.”
“Bella…”
“And don’t you tell me he’s changed because he hasn’t. People never do.”
“Bella, if we’re going to stay friends then the subject of Brandon will have to remain off-limits. Deal?”
“Fine,” she snapped. “But only if you eat a little something. How about a nice, thick brisket sandwich? I’ve got fresh challah.”
“Why don’t you just tell me about this prowler?”
“I’m not sure it’s a prowler. But I do keep finding signs that someone has taken up residence out here.”
“You mean like a homeless person?”
“Come, I’ll show you.”
She led Des outside to the barn. The stray cats that they’d rescued together were parked inside in their cages, waiting not-so-patiently for homes. A lanky, bespectacled girl of about ten was feeding them.
“Hey, Bella,” the girl said, studying Des guardedly.
“Molly, this is Trooper Mitry.”
Molly had curly blond hair and freckles and a pink, busy little nose. “Hullo…”
Des smiled at the girl. “Hello, yourself.”
“Now, do you see the way these tarps and dropcloths are all laid out?” Bella was motioning to the sprung, moth-eaten old sofa. “Every morning, I find them rearranged. One morning, there was a pea coat here. A man’s coat. Next morning, it was gone. Also, someone has been taking food from me. When I came home from the dentist the other day my fruit bowl on the table was empty.”
“Have any of the other residents seen him?”
Bella shook her head. “Bitsy Peck thinks I’m seeing ghosts.”
Which was only natural, Des reflected. The whole damned island felt haunted. “How about you, Molly? Have you seen anyone out here who doesn’t belong?”
“Absolutely not,” the girl answered vehemently, her cheeks mottling.
Des studied her curiously. “You sound pretty sure about that.”
“Because I am.”
Des gestured for Bella to follow her back out into the sunlight. “Talk to me about this Molly,” she said to her softly.
“She helps me with the cats. Lives on Sour Cherry Lane. She’s a bright little thing, but a bit lost. Her parents have split up.”
“Last name Procter?”
“That’s right.”
Des stood there thinking about her conversation of last night with the regal Patricia Beckwith. Putting two and two together. Wondering what it added up to. “If you don’t mind,” she said, her voice raised, “I think I will have that brisket sandwich.”
They went back inside, Bella charging straight into the kitchen. “Do you want mustard or mayo on that?” she called to Des.
“Neither,” Des replied, watching the barn through the bay window in the living room. “And you can hold the sandwich.”
“I don’t get it, tattela. What are you doing?”
“Playing a hunch.”
Sure enough, little Molly soon came scurrying out of the barn. She shot a wide-eyed glance over her shoulder at Mitch’s cottage, then skedaddled down the path to the lighthouse. Des went out the door after her, following from a careful distance as the path wound its way through the wild beach plum and beach roses. Molly dashed past the lighthouse toward the island’s narrow stretch of beach. Her destination was a little sand knoll about thirty feet back from the high tide line. A valiant cluster of little cedars grew there. Molly squeezed in between them and then vanished.
Des followed, her footsteps silent on the soft, dry sand.
There was a protected little burrow there amid the trees where the man was seated on his pea coat. He was thin and unshaven, with receding sandy-colored hair and a long, sharp nose. He wore a torn, bloodstained blue button-down shirt and khaki trousers that were filthy. He’d been in a fight. His eggplant-colored left eye was swollen shut. His lower lip all fat and raw, as was his left ear. In his hand was a plastic bottle of Poland Spring water.
The girl was trying to get him to drink some of it. He wasn’t showing any interest.
“Your dad may need professional help, Molly,” Des spoke up, startling the hell out of her.
Richard Procter didn’t react at all.
“Just leave us alone, will you?” Molly cried out angrily. “He’s okay!“
Des knelt before the professor. He didn’t seem okay. Dazed was more like it, his gaze unfocused and blank. “Richard, do you know where you are?”
“They both threw me out.” His voice was a hollow murmur.
“Can you tell me what day this is, Richard?”
“They both threw me out,” he repeated.
“Richard…?”
“Leave him alone!“
Gently, Des pushed the man over onto his side so she could snatch his wallet from his back pocket. He offered no resistance. His Connecticut driver’s license did indeed identify him as Richard Hearn Procter. As did his credit cards. There was no money in the wallet.
“Molly, how long has he been this way?”
“Why?”
“Honey, I know you’re trying to help him but he needs medical attention. Trust me, it’s for his own good.”
“Oh, what would you know about it?” Molly demanded. “You’re going to wreck everything. Everything!” Then the little girl gave her an angry shove and went sprinting back across the beach in the direction of Mitch’s cottage.
Her father didn’t seem to notice. Just stared out at the water, unblinking, and said it one more time: “They both threw me out.”
Shaking her head, Des reached for her cell and called the Jewett sisters.
CHAPTER 4
“Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I was this happy,” Mitch exclaimed as he wolfed down some more of his chef salad. “The job is fun. Being on TV is fun. And I feel incredible.”
Lacy Nickerson took a bite of her ten-ounce bacon cheeseburger, gazing admiringly at Mitch’s biceps inside his fitted polo shirt. “Well, you certainly look incredible. But just between us, kiddo, what happened to your eyebrows?”
“Why, what’s wrong with them?”
“Not a thing. I simply never realized before that you bear such an eerie resemblance to Joan Crawford.”
Mitch’s former editor speared some fries with her fork and washed them down with a swig of New Amsterdam ale. Lacy ate and drank like a longshoreman, yet remained needle thin. She was a tall, impeccably groomed tuning fork of a woman who, at age fifty-seven, had been the most influential cultural arbiter in New York until the empire pushed her out in favor of the younger Shauna. Not that Lacy seemed at all bitter. She was her same upbeat, A-list self. It was she who had called Mitch to meet her for lunch at Pete’s Tavern, the historic landmark on East 18th and Irving Place that opened its doors when Lincoln was in the White House and had never closed them. She lived right around the corner in a three-bedroom apartment overlooking Gramercy Park with husband number five, a Wall Street titan.
And she still had pull-they were sharing one of Pete’s prized sidewalk tables. Lacy dabbed at her mouth with
