“And poison everyone at the cookout? Sounds really weird but then Carl seldom makes anything that isn’t wonderful.”
“He’ll be here tomorrow evening so we can make him eat some first.” His embrace lifted his wife’s feet off the ground but he put her down as Phillip and Stacy ran into the dining room.
“Dad,” Phillip said, “cut it out. You two are supposed to be setting an example for us kids.”
“I’m setting a great example. Family and love are great things, and should be shared. Now go wash up and then help your mother in the kitchen.”
“I don’t need any more help than yours, Joe,” Marie said. “Kids, Daddy’s right. Go wash up because dinner will be on the table in five minutes.”
“What are we having?” Stacy said, reluctant to commit to anything until she understood all the parameters.
“Fried chicken and mac and cheese,” Marie said. “Two of your favorites.”
“And broccoli?” Stacy asked, ever suspicious.
“Yes, broccoli and you have to eat three bites. Now scoot.”
The two children dashed toward the bathroom, each yelling dibs on being last to wash. Marie and Joe walked into the kitchen and busied themselves getting organized. “I met a really nice-looking blond lady today,” Joe said.
“That was Leslie. We talked to her this afternoon on the beach and she told us that she’d met you. She seems really nice, levelheaded and able to deal with Suze pretty well.”
“You’re not jealous? She’s quite a looker. And that sexy-as-hell voice…”
“She really is beautiful, and although she tries to downplay it, it doesn’t work. And no, I’m not jealous. You’re too stuck on me to be interested in anyone else.”
“Right you are, woman,” Joe said, slapping Marie’s bottom as she bent to pull the casserole from the oven. She seldom made anything from packages, preferring to concoct her meals from scratch. “Oh, and I saw Vicki Farrar poking around the old Sherman Gallery property this afternoon. I wonder what that was all about. That place has been empty since last fall.”
Marie looked up, knowing that the old Sherman place was across the street from the market. “What do you mean by poking around?”
“She and some guy in a suit had the key and checked inside and out for over an hour. I can’t help but wonder what’s up.”
“If anything’s up, Suze will know about it before long so I’ll bet we won’t have to wait long to find out.”
“Yeah, she’ll know everything, probably before Vicki does. Did you invite Leslie to the cookout? I did, but I want her to feel like she’s really invited.”
“You just want more of a look at her, but yes, I did invite her and she said she’d be there.”
At the sound of the slamming bathroom door the two parents yelled simultaneously, “Don’t slam the door!” And with that, dinner was served.
Despite the fact that there were two houses between hers and Suze’s, Abby Croft heard the roar of KJ’s motorcycle as she tidied up the living room before dinner. The children were upstairs, playing video games on the two computers that Damian had installed at the beginning of the summer. As if to conjure him up, the phone rang. “Hi, honey, it’s me,” he said, his voice loud and cheerful. “How are things going?”
“We had a pretty ordinary day here,” she said, happy to hear her husband’s voice. “How about you?”
They spent several minutes exchanging details of their days, then Abby said, “I’m really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow evening. It’s been a long and boring week.”
“You sounded busy.”
“That’s kid stuff. I miss having you home each evening.”
“But hon, you know that I need…”
“I know,” she interrupted. They had similar discussions often. Damian thought that having a beach and other children to play with was beneficial for Mark and Tammy while Abby would have been happier staying in their house in a suburb of Hartford and letting the kids play in the neighborhood. She truly missed having Damian home each evening and she couldn’t help being a little suspicious as well. Every time she suggested that she and the kids could return to Hartford for a couple of days so they could play with their friends, Damian argued strenuously against it. She couldn’t help but wonder whether he was spending his evenings with someone else while she was neatly out of the way. “I love you and I miss you. Having only the children to talk to gets boring.”
“You have all those neighbors to hang out with.”
“Right.” She paused, then continued, “There’s a new neighbor, in the Rogers Cottage. Her name’s Leslie and she’s really beautiful. You’ll probably meet her tomorrow evening at the cookout. I think you’ll like her.” He’d certainly like looking at her.
“Sounds great. Listen, I’ve got a business dinner in a few minutes so I’ve got to run. I’ll be there tomorrow, although it might be a little later than usual. Office stuff.”
“Okay. We’ll be waiting. I love you.”
Damian’s “I love you back,” was a bit too perfunctory for Abby’s comfort, but she had no choice but to hang up the phone.
In Hartford, Damian snapped his cell phone shut and dropped it on the carpeted floor beside him, then lay on the bed, naked, while his latest liaison, a twenty-two-year-old brunette who dreamed of being a movie star, lay between his legs, his large cock in her mouth. “You’ve got to be more careful,” he said, only half serious. “You almost made me lose my train of thought.”
The brunette, he thought her name was Diane, licked the length of his erection. “Fuck trains of thought,” she said. “Concentrate on this.” She took most of the length of him into her mouth and he did, indeed, fuck his train of thought.
As the sound of KJ’s motorcycle abated, Brad DeVane watched Leslie slowly rise from the sand, dust off the seat of her baggy shorts, slip her feet into a pair of flip flops, and turn toward her cottage. So, she’d finally arrived. He’d been waiting for her since Monday, knowing she had paid in advance for the entire month. What a stroke of luck it had been when the DA’s office had found out about this vacation. Leslie, or Carolynne with an “e,” her name in the trade, had chatted animatedly about it with another pro in a small restaurant and someone from the DA’s office had accidentally overheard. He was asked to “encounter her” and see what he could find out about Club Fantasy, the infamous brothel in which she worked, and specifically its client list. Someone wanted the information badly enough to pay for the rental cottage he was in for a few weeks.
When he’d been approached to take the assignment, he’d balked. Although he’d been in limited duty because of his leg, he was his precinct’s top computer investigator and he was working on several important cases. He certainly didn’t want to take time sitting around some beachfront hotel waiting to connect with some prostitute. And how the hell was he supposed to find out information that she obviously didn’t want to reveal. Romance her? Not a chance.
He’d wondered whether his boss, Mike Mitcham, had taken advantage of this bullshit assignment to give him some time off, time he’d been trying to convince Brad to take since…“You can take your computer,” Mike had said, “and probably get more work done there, away from the precinct. She’s important of course, but so’s the East Coast Recycling matter and the background work for the Volkov investigation. We can be in touch whenever you want me and that way you can kill several birds with one stone.”
Mike had known all the right buttons to push, so here he was, climbing out of the water, looking conspicuously macho while trying not to limp, in an effort to attract her. She was certainly