The Inn(77)

We were back where we had started, and yet so far from there. The people laughing, talking, drinking coffee around me in the morning light were battle-scarred. Some of them didn’t sleep well anymore. Some of them had the evidence of their fight on their skin. What Cline had brought into our town had left its mark, but right now, there were more important things to think about.

Next to Vinny, Effie sat with a black coffee in front of her, tearing strips off a croissant. Now and then as she ate, twitching whiskers would emerge from her shirt pocket and she would take a flake of croissant and present it to the snuffling nose. Crazy the rat had become a kind of household mascot in the time since Effie had rescued him from the drain, and feeding him bread, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and the occasional blueberry was an activity everyone—except Angelica—enjoyed. Effie’s shirt pocket sagged with the weight of the obese rodent, drawing her collar sideways, away from her scarred neck.

As I watched my people enjoying themselves, a movement in the window above us caught my eye. Neddy Ives was watching, his arms folded, his eyes moving over Angelica as she complained to Vinny about the FedEx guy. He wouldn’t join us, I knew, but even a glimpse of him in the window was better than nothing. He was changed, like the rest of us.

“I know this is Angelica’s day,” Susan said. “But I keep thinking about Marni.”

I looked at her and was surprised to see her smiling.

“She’d have been so buzzed about this,” she said. “Waiting for the books to arrive. Opening the box for the first time. She always got in on other people’s excitement.”

Clay was near us, leaning on the table as he listened to Susan’s words.

“I still think about her all the time,” he said. “I know it’s stupid but … I thought just this morning that after what happened, her mother would have found out that the little heart tattoo on her cheek was real.”

“It was real?” I gasped.

Susan laughed. “Of course it was.”

“She told me—”

“That she drew it in every day with lip liner.” Clay laughed. “Yeah. She said she was going to tell you that.”

“So you all knew the tattoo was real? Everybody knew except me?”

“We helped her hide it from you when it was fresh and swollen.” Susan snickered. “When you arrived home, we’d warn her. She kept her right side to you for about a week. You had no idea.”

The two of them giggled together. I sat back in my chair and cradled my coffee.

“My house is full of liars,” I said.

My own words stayed with me as I looked around the table. Though Susan had told me a little more about her ex-husband and her need to hide from him, I still knew nothing more about what Effie Johnson, sitting feeding her pet rat, had seen or heard that meant she had come and hid in my house. I didn’t know who’d tried to kill her, and every day the secret wandered the house as she did. I didn’t know why the man standing in the window above us never left his room, whether it was fear or habit that kept him away from human contact. Nick had not told me any more about what he had done in the Middle East that left him so scarred and broken, but I had a feeling that his memories and hallucinations were tied to something impossibly dark, something beyond the horrors of war.

When Siobhan had assembled the crew before me, she might have known she was taking liars, runaways, and secret keepers into our home. But even that, I would never know for sure.

I drank my coffee and watched them all and felt strangely comforted by their many untruths. This inn by the sea had become a safe place for those who were lost. It was like a harbor from the storm, accepting all, no matter the loads they carried.

“Maybe it’s time,” Susan said. She elbowed me in the ribs, and I stood, getting the attention of everyone at the table. Clay and Nick looked over from where they had been huddled over a newspaper, reading an article about this year’s Sox lineup.

I drew a breath. “I’d just like to—”

“You can’t do this now!” Angelica cried. “He’s not here yet!”

“Let him make his speech.” Nick waved at Angelica. “Then when the guy gets here, you can make yours.”

“I’d just like to congratulate you, Angelica,” I said, “on the publication of your very first novel. I was glad to hear everybody made it into the last draft. Even you, Vinny, although I don’t know how you ended up as a dangerously attractive neurosurgeon.”

“It’s the knives.” The old gangster shrugged.

“I believe from the excerpt I read that the character called Susan is a smart-talking fighter pilot.” I gestured to Susan, who grinned. “Brave and clever. Sounds about right. And then there’s me. The crazed arsonist. Who knows how you got there, Ange.”

“You’ve burned a few steaks in your life, Bill,” Clay mused. “You always burn the potatoes. A few pieces of toast. Some chicken kebabs—”

“Thanks, Clay, thanks for that.” I raised my glass. “Anyway, what I’m saying is that we’re very proud of you. Our very own author in the house. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that we can’t wait to—”

“He’s here!” Angelica yelled.





CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TEN