Page 84 of The Summer that Changed Everything
She lifted her head as something else occurred to her, something that made her get up and hurry to her computer to search for information on the Matteo murders. She needed to determine the exact date they’d been killed, which wasn’t hard. It was in almost every article. July 13. A Saturday.
When had her brother come into possession of that baseball card collection he sold for five thousand dollars?
It was about the same time as the murders. In addition to testifying against Mick McBride, he’d had to pay reparation for the fire he’d started; it was part of his deal with the commonwealth attorney. She remembered being surprised that he had most of the money. When she’d asked him where he’d gotten it, he told her he’d given a friend a set of tires in exchange for a baseball card collection which turned out to be averygood trade. The tires had only cost him five hundred dollars at a garage sale, but the cards were worth ten times that much.
But... what friend would give up a baseball card collection like that for a set of tires?
She’d never thought to ask him, had simply been grateful their mother hadn’t been forced to come up with that kind of money.
She was curious now, though. Could it be that the cards had been stolen from the Matteos’ trailer? That they’d gone unnoticed because there were very few people who even knew Tony had them? And, if that was the case, how’d those cards wind up in her brother’s hands if Mick McBride was the one who’d killed Tony and Lucinda?
Houston has decided to join you in North Hampton Beach for a few weeks.
Ford got that message from his mother while Lucy was making dinner and he was catching up on email, but when it came in he shoved his computer away, struggling to tamp down the resulting irritation. Sara must not have liked the way their conversation had gone on the phone this morning, so she was sending his brother to act as a counterbalance, watch out for him or “talk some sense into him.” Or maybe Houston was just meant to report on what was going on or get in the way so Ford and Lucy couldn’t get too close.
Ford almost wrote back to tell his mother that Houston couldvisit in the fall after Ford was back at work. But that would only make his brother angry enough to come anyway. Houston still acted as though he, as the older brother, should be in charge—not that he was ever willing to take responsibility for the things that mattered. It was a patently unfair dynamic, but Ford couldn’t stop him from coming to North Hampton Beach. Coastal Comfort belonged to his father’s estate, not just to him.
Worst case, he and Lucy could move into the Smoot Cottage and relinquish Coastal Comfort to Houston, he decided. The window had been repaired. Ford knew because Lucy had insisted on paying for it rather than relying on Dahlia. It hadn’t been costly enough that the insurance would cover it, and Lucy didn’t want Sharon or Dahlia to bear the brunt of the repair.
As soon as they’d returned to town from the prison, he’d driven Lucy over there to check on the work and pay the contractor. The window looked good. Lucy had cleaned the bathroom mirror and the kitchen while he’d taken care of a few things in the yard. He wouldn’t mind living at the cottage for the next several weeks. It would be hot and uncomfortable at times, but if it got too bad, they could always go out and sleep on the beach. At least, if they weren’t at the Coastal Comfort, neither Houston nor his mother would have anything to complain about.
Sara might think she’d hit upon a way to make sure he and Lucy didn’t get too close this summer, but she’d soon learn that sending Houston would change nothing.
Fine with me, he wrote back but was still frowning when Lucy entered the room.
“Something wrong?” she asked when she saw him.
The scent of the pork roast she’d put in the oven drifted to him from the kitchen, making him realize just how hungry he was getting. “It’s my mother.”
“Is she still trying to get you to stay away from me?” she asked wryly.
“Not overtly. But that may be what she’s intending by sending my brother here.”
Her eyes widened. “Here, as in North Hampton Beach?”
“Here, as in Coastal Comfort.”
“Oh, I see.” She sat next to him. “I guess I’ll be moving back to the cottage, then.”
“We’ll both be moving to the cottage. Good thing you have it for the whole summer.”
She gestured around them. “You’re willing to give up all this luxury for me?”
Her impish smile suggested she was teasing, but he’d be willing to give up a lot more than that for her. The one thing he couldn’t sacrifice was a relationship with his own child, however. Christina held the trump card there, which was why he sometimes wondered if she’d gotten pregnant on purpose. He could easily see her making such a calculated decision to keep him from leaving her again. But that only made him resent her more. “I won’t even miss it,” he said and leaned over to kiss her.
“When will your brother get here?” she asked.
“I didn’t ask. I don’t want to appear even remotely concerned. We’ll just do what we want until he arrives. Then we’ll move to the cottage. No big deal.”
She looked hesitant. “I don’t want to cause any problems between you and your family.”
If only his family felt the same about her. He held her chin as he looked into her eyes. “I know that. It’ll be fine,” he said and pecked her lips again.
“I was thinking...”
He’d gone back to trying to finish his last email for the day, but at this, he paused. “About what?”
“That orange truck I saw the other day.”
