Blue Moon Bay by Lisa Wingate Page A

voice, the sound shrill, all traces of sugar-and-honey sweetness gone. That was the voice I remembered—the one that sent chills through me, back when there were secrets to hide. Mrs. Underhill loved nothing better than to ferret out people’s secrets and spread them around. In particular, she wanted to find out what was really going on in the little cottage behind the funeral home. She was certain that, in some way or another, the authorities needed to be involved. She would’ve liked nothing better than for child welfare services to swoop in and take us away from my mother. It would have proven her right about everything and proven that my father should have married her years ago, instead of my mother.
    â€œYeah . . . you know . . . you’re right, I think,” Clay concurred, and then added, “Hey, Roger, come’ere. Come’ere, boy. What’s out there, huh? You see somebody out there?” Of all things, Clay still had the goofball mutt-slash-golden retriever that was riding with him on the ill-fated bike trip. Roger traveled in a pull-behind bike trailer, the kind made for babies. He’d been an inconveniently manic houseguest in my no-dogs-allowed apartment building for a week, while Clay recovered from pneumonia. I’d come within a whisker, literally, of getting kicked out of the complex, and my Persian rug has never been the same since.
    â€œIt’s just me. It’s just me.” Squeezing from the bushes with one hand in the air, I surrendered without a fight. “Everybody calm down.” My suitcase wobbled over clumps of grass and loose twigs, threatening to tip over as I started toward the driveway. The casserole ladies squinted, and Mrs. Underhill took a couple of steps my way. Detaching himself from the blonde, Clay trotted down the stairs as his dog sprinted across the lawn, heading in my direction.
    â€œRoger, hey! Roger, wait!” Clay called, and of course Roger didn’t listen. He tackled me with the momentum of a linebacker, and we did a clumsy backward waltz as I tried to avoid falling over the suitcase. Roger swiped his long, lolling tongue across my mouth before I could get my balance and push him away. By the time I did, Clay had caught up.
    â€œHeather’s here,” Clay announced, in case anyone was still confused. One hand caught the dog, and one gave me a shoulder-hug, but I got the distinct impression that my brother wasn’t thrilled to see me. “Hey, Sis,” he said.
    The casserole ladies regarded us with curious, somewhat uncertain expressions, as we walked to the porch. A few uncomfortable greetings passed back and forth, and I was actually relieved when Mrs. Hall shoved a casserole into my hands. It was still warm on the bottom, which felt good. I remembered Mrs. Hall from the pharmacy where, after Dad’s death, I’d picked up the prescriptions that were supposed to fix my mother, but didn’t. Mrs. Hall was always nice about it. In truth, she probably wasn’t supposed to be handing that stuff off to a minor, but she let me take it, always with the kind admonition that they’d be happy to deliver next time.
    I set the casserole on one of the porch tables and wiped my mouth, still contemplating the gross-out factor of having been kissed by Clay’s dog.
    Mrs. Underhill gave me a suspicious look, then stated the obvious, “Well, Heather, my goodness, you’re a wreck. Was that you outside the hardware store earlier? You didn’t walk here all the way from Seattle, surely?” She batted a hand, peppering the artificially sweetened question with a sharp-edged giggle.
    I did. You know, I’m on a new exercise kick, and I thought walking from Seattle would be a great way to start, was on the tip of my tongue. Heaven help me, but Mrs. Underhill obviously still held the strings to the broken, bitter, smart-mouthed teenager I thought I’d buried years ago. Even that was