Harbor Street (Cedar Cove #5)(100)

“It was arson,” Seth whispered.

This was as unbelievable as the fire itself. “Who…who would do such a thing to us?”

Seth shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“How?”

“The fire chief says it was started near the kitchen. We were supposed to think it was a grease fire.”

This whole situation was becoming more unreal by the minute.

“Whoever did it was stupid,” he said grimly. “Or else they wanted to be caught.”

That, at least, was encouraging. Justine wanted whoever had done this to be caught, too. Wanted that person to face his—or her—day in court, to receive the maximum sentence.

“The fire chief asked if we had any disgruntled employees,” Seth murmured. He, too, seemed to be in shock.

“Do we?” Seth was the one who handled the hiring and firing, plus the scheduling of staff. Justine had enough to do working as a hostess and keeping their financial records straight.

“Anson Butler was pretty angry when I laid him off.” Seth’s voice was hoarse, and he hardly sounded like himself.

Justine remembered now that Seth had laid off two employees recently. “What about the other kid?”

“Tony Philpott,” Seth told her. “He seemed to take it in stride. I hear he’s already got another job.”

“Oh.”

“The police want to question Anson. He’s missing. They’re looking for him now.”

Justine leaned close to her husband. “I hope they find him.”

Seth nodded. He placed his free arm around her shoulders, and pulled her against him. “We’ll get through this.”

“Of course we will,” Justine said. She just didn’t know how.

Fifty

With a heavy heart, Maryellen set down the phone after talking to Kelly. She felt like weeping. Nothing was going right. Bedridden and miserable during this difficult pregnancy, she counted the days until she could get on with her life again.

With Maryellen unable to work and contribute to their finances, their budget was stretched to the breaking point. Jon was working as hard as he could to fill orders and make new photographs available. It was tax season, though, and sales of nonessential items were notoriously bad at this time of year.

When Jon wasn’t developing and printing his photographs, he’d been cooking whatever hours Seth Gunderson could give him at The Lighthouse. Until last weekend, when it burned to the ground in the biggest fire in Cedar Cove’s history. Everyone in town was sick about losing The Lighthouse. The money from Jon’s job at the restaurant was gone now, too. They were back to first base financially.

As it was, Jon was working constantly to support the family, plus taking care of her, Katie and the upkeep on the house. Her husband was worn out, and Maryellen didn’t know how much longer he could continue this killing pace. The baby, the fire and now this problem with her sister.

Kelly was pregnant, too, but unfortunately she’d been experiencing terrible bouts of morning sickness. She spent the first half of every day bent over a toilet. Paul had put his foot down; taking care of Katie was simply too much for her, he’d said. Maryellen understood. Her sister wanted to help and felt dreadful about letting everyone down, but she just couldn’t look after Katie anymore.

Now Maryellen had to tell her husband that, in addition to everything else, he’d have to supervise their two-year-old daughter. At best, he’d have a ninety-minute reprieve when Katie went down for her nap. Most afternoons she only slept an hour.

As Jon walked downstairs from his small office, he entered the living room—and obviously realized that something was wrong.

“What is it?”

Maryellen patted the empty space next to her on the bed.

“That bad?” he said as though this was a joke.

“You’d better sit down,” she said, trying to smile. She suspected the effort was unconvincing. “That was Kelly on the phone.”

“Katie’s all right?”

“Katie’s fine.” It was everything else that wasn’t.

Jon sank down on the foot of her makeshift bed. “The baby?”

Maryellen rested her hand on her stomach. “If all the kicking is any indication, I’d say this baby has more energy than the two of us combined.”

Jon relaxed and reached for her hand. She’d seen little of him while she was pregnant with Katie, and they both wanted him to share as much of this pregnancy as possible. Maryellen wished it could be a more positive experience.

“Things will improve soon,” he reassured her.

“I know,” she whispered, struggling with what she had to tell him.

He took her gently in his arms. “Do I need to remind you how much I love you? Without you and Katie, I’m nothing.”

Maryellen leaned back and took in a deep breath. “Kelly’s pregnant.”

“I know,” Jon said, his voice puzzled. They’d talked about the two cousins being born within a few months of each other. Paul and Kelly were ecstatic about this second pregnancy. She’d had difficulty getting pregnant the first time and there would be almost six years between the two children.

“She’s been suffering from severe morning sickness again.” Kelly had the same problem when she was pregnant with Tyler. “So…”