“Unless you want to end up right back where you left off all stressed out, I’d recommend heading home. Let Blaze sleep.” My voice crept up a few octaves when she didn’t stop. “Don’t go in there.”
“What’s going on?” Suspicion crossed Mary’s face. She opened the bedroom door. I thought about running for my truck and heading for Canada.
“Where is he?” she asked, keeping a level tone to her voice.
“I lost him.”
“How long ago?”
“Not long. Rumor has it he’s pointed toward Gladstone. He’s with Grandma Johnson, so I’m sure he’s all right.”
We both thought about that for a minute. Then we scrambled for my truck. We moved so quickly Fred didn’t know what was happening until we’d already squealed out onto the road leaving him home alone
Gladstone, Michigan is an easy twenty-minute drive from Stonely. It has lots of amenities that are missing from our small town. For one thing, they have a main drag with cute business establishments-cafe, bookstore, coffee shop.
I turned onto Delta Street and angle parked in front of the Dairy Flo, Gladstone’s premium ice cream shop. Ease of parking is another great thing about Gladstone. No parallel parking anywhere.
We jumped out and surrounded Blaze’s car, which was parked right in front of the Dairy Flo. He rolled down the window with his free hand and took a lick from a vanilla cone with the other. Grandma, I noticed, had a strawberry sundae.
“Hey, Sweetie,” Blaze said to Mary. “What are you doing in Gladstone?”
“I just got home, Blaze. You aren’t supposed to be driving yet. Remember what the doctor said?”
Blaze shrugged and took another lick.
“I’ve been watching him,” Grandma said. “He’s doing a good job. Why don’t you two get yourself some ice cream and we’ll have a little party.”
My mother-in-law and my son looked just as normal as everybody else on this early April afternoon. The morning chill had disappeared, replaced by the warmth of the sun and a promise of spring peeking around the corner. They weren’t the only ones at the Dairy Flo lapping treats.
“Okay,” Mary said. “We’ll have a little party together. Then Gertie will drive Grandma back and I’ll drive you home, dear.”
“Gertie doesn’t have a driver’s license,” Grandma said, tattling on me. “I wouldn’t let her drive my lawn mower.”
“Well,” Mary said. “We’ll figure something out.”
While Mary and I waited in line, I kept a watchful eye on Blaze’s car. Our turn came. While we were ordering, right there under our very noses, Blaze backed out of the parking space and tooled away.
Mary and I had to abandon our already ordered ice cream and race to the truck.
“They’re headed for the lake,” Mary yelled, not at all as peaceful as she was on her arrival at my house.
We drove past the Gladstone Motel and sped around the curve onto Lake Shore Drive. “I don’t see them yet,” I said. We sailed past the yacht harbor and the lagoon. “There.” I pointed. “By the Beach House.”
“I don’t know what it takes to ditch you two,” Grandma crabbed when we forced them out of the car. I thought about slapping handcuffs on the old witch. “You sure can’t take a hint. I want to spend time alone with my grandson.”
Which was a blantant lie. Grandma’s idea of quality time tended to highlight the wonders of discipline. Blaze’s ears were lodged forward on his head more than they should be after all the ear twists he had to endure over the years. She’d still get a grip on them when he made her mad.
“I’m going to Kids’ Kingdom,” Blaze said, looking off to the right toward a playground with an enormous wooden fort. To our left, tall grasses waved in the breeze and a walkway led down to the waters of Little Bay de Noc.
“I’ll go with you,” Mary said to her husband.
Blaze took off with Mary in tow. I heard him say, “Grandma said my money’s hidden in the fort.”
“You don’t have any hidden money,” Mary said. “You’re still having delusions from the meningitis.”
“Spoil sport,” Grandma said under her breath. “Let’s go look at the waves.” She headed for a boardwalk.
The wind had picked up. Whitecaps the size of freighters formed in the open water, rolled toward us, then broke and slammed against the fine white sand of the beach. My hair blew this way and that, covering my eyes until I held it away with one hand on my forehead. Grandma shuffled through the sand, then stopped. She cast a complaint my way, but the wind picked it up and carried it off in another direction.
A man and woman sat with their backs to us, wrapped in a blanket. Several other people walked along the beach. A dog loped near the water with no owner in sight.
My eyes latched on two women with rolled-up jeans, wading out in the lake. One of them kicked her bare feet through the waves with angry thrusts.
April’s air temperature, in spite of the wind, was fairly comfortable because of the sun’s warmth. But stepping into Lake Michigan at this time of year had to be as cold as treading over ice cubes.
The great lake’s water never quite warmed up enough for an enjoyable swim. I’ve been in it when the water was so cold my ankles ached from wading for only a few seconds. And that was in July!
I pulled the binoculars out of my fishing vest and focused in. The tall one had hair almost to her waist. The sun caught it just right, giving her head a halo effect. She said something before they turned around and headed for shore. She must have stepped in a little too deep because her jeans were wet. The other turned and I recognized her.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Grandma. “I have to say hello to someone.”
Angie Gates didn’t see me approaching until I was almost beside her. When she did notice me, her eyes opened wide in surprise and she backed up into the waves.
The credit union teller’s face was blotchy, her eyes red from crying. Her hair whirled as the wind picked up, creating an effect which was the exact opposite of the halo I’d imagined moments before – more like something out of a horror flick.
I could see her mind working over the situation.
She took off running down the shoreline, pulling the other woman along, shouting at her to hurry. I knew better than to chase Angie. She was years younger and stronger than me, and whatever was happening to her to make her run away had given her added forward momentum.
The tall woman was beautiful, the kind that made me wish for one more go around in her body instead of mine. I never looked like that, even in my best year.
I glanced down at the waves near my feet.
Anyone who lives near the Great Lakes would know simple physics. Most things tossed into the waves wash back up on shore. Unless the object filled with water and disappeared under the lake’s sand carpet. Angie must have thought they would sink.
One did. I saw a flash of color before it vanished under the weight of water and sand. The other rolled toward me. With each new wave, it tumbled closer.
I kicked off my shoes, braced myself for the shock of cold water, waded in, and picked it up.
I held an orange sneaker in my hand.
Chapter 12
THERE’S A GANG UNDER THE bridge,” Kitty said from the front porch of her dilapidated house. Kitty’s yard still looked like a junkyard, even after official town warning number three. But since she wanted to be a lawyer, I wasn’t about to interfere. “They call themselves the Orange Gang.”
Cora Mae guffawed. She had bobby pins stuck in her mouth while she wrapped Kitty’s wet head in pin curls. One of them flew out when she laughed. “The Orange Gang, what a name,” she said, talking out of the side of her
