Family Skeletons (4 page)

He squinted at her as if she were speaking a foreign
language.

“Jonathan, it’s not that bad. Last week I went down
with a blanket over my shoulder and a bag lunch.” She paused. “Well, I used one
of those tie things on the bag to keep it closed and threw it down, but I
managed the blanket okay.”

“And how do you get back up?” He’d lost some color
and his eyes had glazed over.

“That’s not as hard as it looks. You see that last
slope,” she paused and pointed again. “On your way up you have to grab a little
root that’s there and kind of pull yourself up, finding footholds where you
can. Then the rest of it isn’t too bad.”

He continued to watch her, saying nothing. Then he
looked away, rolled his eyes and said something under his breath.

She felt her eyes widen. That had sounded
suspiciously like an oath. Did he know how to swear?

“No way,” he said flatly. “There is no way I am
going to do that. I am not going down there.”

“Well, I am. That’s why I walked down here, and then
I’m going to go play tag with the waves. But you can stay up here and just watch
if you want to. Then I’ll climb back up and we can walk back and I’ll make
lunch. Do you like grilled cheese sandwiches?”

When his level gaze met hers, it told her that this
man made his own decisions and did not accept dares. “I should have brought the
cell phone,” he said. “If you’re serious about going down there, we should
alert the paramedics.”

As soon as Sunny started her descent, she regretted
it. Knowing Doubting Thomas was up there watching her made her nervous,
throwing her off just enough that she might take a bad fall. Then she got to
the slope, took off running and was home free. She looked up and waved, but
then wished even harder she hadn’t come down. If he followed, he might be the
one to fall.

Okay, get back up there. You can go play
in the water another time.

She walked back toward the incline, then stopped.

“Oh, no,” she said without moving her lips.

He was on his way down.

He was slow, cautious, awkward, long and lanky, but
he made it all the way to the final slope without breaking his neck. She took
the first easy breath she’d taken since he’d begun his descent.

After the second sliding part he remained on his
rump for a short moment before carefully getting to his feet. He took one step
and then another, then his eyes opened wide in disbelief as he careened down
the rest of the way, unable to control his speed.

As they each tried to avoid the other, naturally
they both guessed wrong and moved directly into the other’s path.

She heard a loud crack like a gunshot at the same
moment he bowled into her. She felt a burning sensation at her right temple as
they collided and then they both went down.

Chapter Four

“Are you okay?” Jonathan sounded winded and looked
scared.

Sunny was sprawled on her back under him, and the
right side of her head felt like a strip of skin had been seared off. “Wha...what
happened?”

His gaze moved a fraction away from her eyes as he
examined her forehead where it felt burned. “I think you got grazed by a
bullet.” His head jerked up and he scanned the beach.

The stinging sensation was graduating into a dull
throb. “Bullet?” That didn’t make sense. She tried to move. “Uh, Jonathan.”

“What?” Quickly his attention returned to her.

“You’re crushing me.”

“Oh.” Once he became aware of their positions, he
clearly couldn’t get off of her fast enough. Then as he knelt at her side his
gaze again explored the inside of the horseshoe, the sandy floor to the cliff
above, the beach on both sides.

After working herself into a sitting position, she
also looked around but saw nothing. She reached to touch her sore forehead.

“No,” he said sharply, and pushed her hand away.
“Yours fingers are dirty. You may infect it.”

He got to his feet and then gave her his hand to
pull her up. Her knees felt so shaky, she was grateful for his help.

“We need to get you back to the house so we can
clean that up,” he said.

They walked to the base of the cliff. As his gaze
traveled the length of the trail to the top, a worried expression came over his
face, but evidently not for himself. He turned to her. “Can you manage that?”

“I’m fine, Jonathan.”

“Are you dizzy at all?”

“No.” She was more concerned with the shaky knees,
but the unsteady feeling had eased once she’d started walking.

“Lightheaded?”

“I’m fine, I said.” To prove it, she got a good grip
on the root, found her first foothold, and made what might be her best time yet
on her way to the top.

She entered the house from the front porch. He’d
detoured to his SUV in the back, and he was carrying a first aid kit in a black
bag when he stepped through the doorway from the back porch to meet her in the
kitchen. She gave him and the kit a look that probably carried doubt. He washed
his hands and pulled on a pair of gloves.

“Sit down.” He motioned toward a chair without
looking at her. She didn’t move. He soaked a cotton ball in something with a
harsh odor that made her eyes water. When he looked up and found her still
standing, he gave her a slow smile. “It’s okay. I’m a doctor.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. An ophthalmologist, actually. I admit that
gunshot wounds aren’t my specialty, but I think I can handle this.”

She wet her lips, still staring at him, then pulled
the chair out and sat down. She’d give him one try here. One try.

“This is going to sting.” He applied the cotton. She
yelped and jerked away.

He put his hand on her shoulder. “As you can see,
I’m an honest doctor. It really did sting. And I have to do it one more time.”

“No way.” She made a move to rise.

“One more time, Sunny. Trust me. It’s got to be
clean.”

She looked up, knowing he was right but not liking
it. Taking a big breath, she nodded. She sat back, stared straight ahead, set
her mouth in a tight line and clenched her fists in her lap.

He laughed and turned away.

Her head snapped back around and she glared at him.
“You want to trade places here?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Excuse me.” This time, he
positioned his left hand under her chin to hold her head in place. She frowned,
but it didn’t give her a trapped feeling, and the second application wasn’t as
bad as the first.

“Done,” he told her. “You can start breathing
again.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“You’re welcome. You may have a reminding scar, but
the way you wear your hair the bangs will cover it. And in time it will fade.
You were lucky. I don’t want to think about how lucky.”

He discarded the cotton and threw the gloves away
after it. “Your hair is so blond it’s almost white. At first I thought it had
to come out of a bottle, but now I’m thinking it’s natural.”

“It is.”

Exhibiting no self-consciousness, he gave her
another appraising once-over. “A perfect blue-eyed blonde, complete with pixie
face and hairdo. But you’re built kind of small. You look like a good wind
could knock you over.”

“That’s some bedside manner you’ve got there,
Doctor.”

When his face quickly sobered, she wished she hadn’t
chided him. She’d liked the lighter, relaxed side of himself he’d just showed
her.

He closed the first aid kit. “This incident has to
be reported to the police. We can go now. I’ll drive.”

“Ohh.” She dragged the word out. With her elbow on
the table, she leaned the unhurt side of her forehead against her fist and
briefly closed her eyes. “I hadn’t thought about that. Do we have to? I don’t
want to.”

“Another inch and you would’ve been dead, Sunny. And
you don’t want to report it?” She heard his surprise and puzzlement. “Why?”

Wearily, she met his eyes. “Notoriety, Jonathan.
Think about it. The tabloids have left the Corday family alone for a long time
now. But a gunshot at the old homestead where Franklin disappeared all those
years ago is going to put everybody right back in the spotlight again.”

She watched different emotions cross his face:
surprise, concern, disapproval.

“Perhaps,” he said slowly. Lines deepened his
forehead. “But it can’t be all that bad. And, minor or not, it was a gunshot
wound. As a doctor, I have to—”

“It is that bad. Please, Jonathan, I don’t want to
deal with it, or put the family through it again. And this time you’ll be part
of it, too. It must’ve been an errant bullet from some target shooters
somewhere. Let’s leave it at that.”

“An errant bullet that could’ve killed either one of
us.” Resolve tightened his expression. “Though I understand your wish to avoid
unpleasantness, I can’t go along with it. You’re asking me to jeopardize my
medical license, and I won’t do that.” He turned away. “If you won’t report it,
I will.”

* * *

The resident deputy sheriff’s office consisted of
one room with a tiny adjacent bathroom, its door open, and one cell which was
also open and presently unoccupied.

“He was right, Sunny.” Deputy Sheriff Tom Fairly
leaned back in his chair and it creaked in protest. He wasn’t a big man, but
the chair was a relic, possibly older than its occupant, and it groaned every
time he moved.

“Hmm,” she said in a tone that admitted nothing.
Because of the cramped space and limited seating, Jonathan had said his piece
and then left to wait outside.

“And you were wrong,” Tom finished.

Sunny looked up from her contemplation of the sickly
green linoleum, the ugliest color she’d ever seen. “Rubbing it in, are you?”

“’Course I am. We men have got to stick together.
When one of us is right, and our female counterpart is wrong, we got to make
note of it.”

“Mavis been giving you a bad time lately? She won
the last couple rounds?”

“Last couple? She hasn’t lost one in twenty-five
years.” The chair tilted back to an alarming angle, and he put the heel of his
right shoe atop the corner of the desk. A file hit the wastebasket. He brought
his leg down, rescued the file then replaced his foot where he wanted it.
Somehow neither chair nor occupant toppled. “She told me you’d called. I was
well briefed before you showed up. But you got nothin’ to worry about. The
newspaper doesn’t call every day to find out what juicy tidbits I got for ’em.
Unless you’ve actually got a dead body somewhere—”

His easy manner disappeared. “I’m sorry, Sunny. That
was...”

The dead body of the missing Franklin
Corday would be a juicy tidbit, all right.

“Tact.” He shook his head at himself. “No one ever
accused me of hoarding it.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She prepared to rise from the
wooden chair. It was the old-fashioned kind that teachers used to sit in, and
judging by the faded, warped condition of this one, she guessed that a good
number of teachers had sat in it. Then she stopped and gave him a questioning
look. “We are done here, aren’t we?”

He waved her away. “Get outta here. And take your
new doctor friend with you.” With a thoughtful air, he pursed his lips. “Seems
like a pretty good guy, though maybe a bit on the persnickety side. I’ll give
Mavis a good report.”

At the door, she heard her name and looked back.

“Remember now. He was right, and you were wrong.”

“Yes, Tom. I’ll remember.”

Jonathan stood in the sun, leaning against the SUV’s
dented fender, and he looked up when she exited the office. She met his wary
gaze, but said nothing for a long moment. Then she smiled. “Okay. You were
right, and I was wrong. Tom wanted me to be sure and tell you that.”

His face relaxed.

Her forehead itched. She started to scratch it,
thought better about it, and dropped her hand. “We’ve lost almost the whole day
already, and I need something for dinner. For tonight, and for tomorrow when
Ryan’s coming. Remember?” Reluctantly, she looked across the street at
Beverly’s Emporium. “I don’t feel like making the run into Castleton. Maybe we
can pick up something at Bev’s.”

He fell in step with her. “What does Ryan do for a
living?”

“He’s a psychologist. And he has an annoying habit
of analyzing everyone he meets. Don’t encourage him.”

Jonathan’s nose wrinkled when he walked into the
small store.

“Yeah,” she said. “They sell bait, too.”

“Emporium?” he murmured, looking at the three short
aisles of stacked shelves.

“What did you expect? Chester Beach is so small,
it’s more like a wide spot in the road than a town.” She led the way to the
cold storage section in the back. The glass-enclosed counter held a salmon on
ice, prawns and scallops. “One thing about Bev. She only sells fresh fish.”

“Uh, Sunny.”

She looked up questioningly.

“I really don’t care for fish.”

“Oh. Well, there goes that.” She thought for a
minute. “I’ve got a tub of spaghetti sauce in the freezer. Will you settle for
that tonight?”

He looked relieved. “I like spaghetti.”

Wondering if she’d ever met anyone who didn’t like
spaghetti, she left that section and went to the packaged meat display and
discovered there’d been a better variety at the fish counter. Chicken wings
were on special, but she didn’t like chicken wings. Neither did she like the
color of the hamburger, and the fat content was twenty-two percent. Way too
high. She picked up a package of thinly sliced top round that looked okay and
thought about what she could do with it.

She glanced up, caught Jonathan’s bemused,
uncomfortable expression, and resisted the urge to tell him that she’d only led
him into a small town grocery store, not ladies’ lingerie. “How do you feel
about stroganoff?”

“You know how to make stroganoff?” The look he gave
her held reverence.

“Sounds like he likes it,” said a familiar voice.

Sunny turned, and then gave a hug to the tall, gaunt
woman who smelled of tobacco. “Hi, Mavis.”

Mavis returned the embrace, then offered her hand to
Jonathan without giving Sunny a chance to introduce them. “Hello, Jonathan
Corday. I’m Mavis Fairly, and it’s good to meet you.” Her medium-brown hair was
swept to one side on her forehead, fell to her shoulders in a casual pageboy,
and was being allowed to gray naturally. Her eyes were emerald-green, bright
and interested. “If you’re wondering how I fit into the scheme of things, I’m
Roberta’s best friend. Have been for years.”

He shook her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you. You’re
also our real estate agent. And your last name is the same as the sheriff’s.”

“That’s because I’ve been married to him for a while
now.” She looked at Sunny. “Haven’t you filled him in on anything?”

“Golly gee, I just met him this morning, Mavis.”

The woman lifted the bangs at Sunny’s forehead and
examined the raw furrow there. Sunny flinched, but allowed the familiarity. The
older woman’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like that, Sunny. Something like this
should never have happened. Too many outsiders coming through here.”

Her gaze traveled to the checkout counter where a
slightly built teenaged boy stood, waiting for a customer to give him something
to do. “If it was an outsider,” she added under her breath.

“I heard you, Mavis Fairly, and you’re looking at my
son. What do you think he did?”

“Oh, Bev, I didn’t see—”

“Apparently you didn’t. What do you think Matthew
did?”

Sunny scrunched her face up
. Criminy, anyway. Why
don’t one of you write up the headline and the other one can run it over to the
newspaper office?