There was truth in that, and it stung, but she kept her voice even. “I simply wrote what I was told by the police and the coroner. You have no case.”
“Well, your boss will be hearing from my lawyer today.” He hung up.
With a sigh, Harper headed to the kitchen. There was no way she was getting back to sleep now.
Morning light poured softly through the window above the sink, making all the surfaces gleam. Bonnie had insisted on scrubbing everything before going to bed. Even the mark on the ceiling where the spoon hit it was barely visible.
Before she made a pot of coffee, Harper texted a warning to Baxter.
Screaming call from Xavier’s manager. Says he’s going to sue us.
She was pouring her first cup when the editor’s reply came through.
Tell him I said bring it.
Yawning, Harper carried her mug out onto the small porch, brushing the leaves off the seat of the whitewashed chair. It was cool but not cold. The breeze helped clear her head.
She and Bonnie had stayed up until after three, talking. By the time she’d gone to bed, Harper knew just what she was going to say to her father when she called him.
As she took a sip of coffee, it occurred to her that she might as well do it now, and get it over with.
Taking her phone from the arm of the chair, she scrolled slowly to his number. Her thumb hovered over his name for a long time.
Gritting her teeth, she pressed the call button.
His phone rang four times before voice mail kicked in. When she heard his familiar voice say, “Hello, this is Peter McClain…” her heart twisted.
She cleared her throat, waiting for the beep. When the time came, the words came out too fast and too nervous. “Hey … Dad. It’s Harper. I need to talk to you about something important. Could you give me a call back as soon as possible? Thanks.”
Hanging up with a palpable sense of relief, she dropped the phone on the arm of the chair.
There’d never really been a time when she and her father were close. He had been away working a lot when she was young. His absence had made her relationship with her mother more important. And her death even more wrenching.
In the immediate aftermath of the murder, he’d tried to be a parent to her. He’d rented a house in the suburbs and moved her into it from her grandmother’s house outside the city. But it had backfired. The house was miles from Bonnie. Far from her grandmother. At twelve, bereaved and lonely, she’d found herself isolated.
When he tried to introduce her to the paralegal he’d been having an affair with before her mother died, Harper withdrew further. One night when he was working late, she’d called a taxi. She used the money he’d left for a pizza to pay the fare to her grandmother’s house.
“I’m never going back,” she’d announced, when her grandmother opened the door to find her standing on the porch with a suitcase.
She never lived with her father again. Within months, he’d taken a job in Connecticut, married the paralegal, and moved away. Leaving her an orphan of sorts at thirteen.
After that she was raised by her grandmother, Bonnie’s mother, and about half the Savannah police force.
At the time she’d felt sorry for herself that she hadn’t had a “normal” family. But, then, other kids didn’t get picked up from camp in a patrol car, blue lights flashing. They didn’t get to ride on the traffic cops’ motorcycles on the way home from school.
The thought made her smile, and she pulled her feet up onto the chair. Her eyes drifted shut. She must have drifted off, because when she opened her eyes, Bonnie was walking out on the porch barefoot with a cup of coffee.
“Christ,” Bonnie said, hoarsely, “how late did we stay up?”
Neither of them felt much like cooking, so they walked twenty minutes down the beach to a local joint called The Breakfast Club.
For some reason, the churning ocean didn’t feel like Harper’s enemy today. She didn’t mind the hiss of the waves, or the mournful cries of the seabirds overhead. In fact, looking out at the container ships plowing determinedly through the rough seas was oddly comforting.
The restaurant was packed and they had to wait twenty minutes for a table. They didn’t talk much until they were ensconced in a booth and had placed their orders. Even then they avoided serious subjects, focusing instead on Bonnie’s work—she had been painting a new collection, and she was excited about it.
“It’s mostly little kids dressed as royalty, holding stuffed birds and wearing crowns I make myself,” she explained. Seeing Harper’s blank face, she pulled out her phone to show her. In the painting, a rosy-cheeked girl stared into the distance, her face expressionless. On her head was a crown of willow branches painted gold. On her arm, she held a small, hooded hawk.
“Where did you find the kids?” Harper asked, scrolling through several photos of similar paintings.
“Friends.” Bonnie leaned over to see which one she was looking at. “I just take their pictures holding a stuffed animal and make up the rest.”
“These are so striking,” Harper marveled. “I like these even more than the angels you did last year.”
“They’re sure selling better. I’ve only finished four and I’ve already sold them. I’m raising my prices. I should have painted kids before. People are throwing money at me. If this keeps up I can stop bartending.” Bonnie’s eyes were bright with excitement.
Some part of Harper didn’t want her to leave the Library. She loved going there after work for a drink and decompression. But it was Bonnie’s dream to live off her art and the classes she taught at the art college. And yet, ever since Bonnie had left Savannah when they were teenagers to go to Boston to study, Harper had been secretly afraid that her work would take her away someday.
The thought was melancholy, and she was relieved when a waitress appeared at the table, bearing plates of food, and providing a natural end to that conversation.
An hour later they were walking back down the beach, full of food and talking about where Harper could live if she moved back to the city.
“Is your old place rented out right now?” Bonnie asked, bending over to pick up a pale clamshell.
“Must be.” Even as she said it, though, Harper hoped she was wrong. Ever since Myra had reminded her she’d have to move out soon, she’d let herself dream that she could go back to East Jones Street.
She knew it was a fantasy. The place had to be rented out. The comfort she’d taken from the walk faded, replaced by a churning anxiety that made her regret that last cup of coffee.
The two of them were largely alone on the vast expanse of windswept beach. The gloomy day hadn’t enticed many people out. The only other person she could see was a man on a wooden footbridge over the dunes. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t place it. He was tall, his spine as straight and true as a gun barrel. He had short, graying hair.
She squinted at him, trying to make out his features. It bugged her that she couldn’t remember how she knew him. She’d seen him before …
Her breath caught in her throat.
Forgetting about Bonnie, she began to run toward him.
“Harper, what the hell?” Bonnie shouted, but she didn’t look back.
For a brief moment—fleeting but real—the man caught her eye, and then he turned and walked away, his long stride carrying him quickly across the bridge.